Welcome to Whispers of the Heart,
Guided Meditations.
I'm your host and guide,
Noriko Tanigawa.
Even when we are doing the work,
There are moments in life that still catch us off guard.
A word.
A tone.
A memory.
And suddenly,
Something inside tightens,
Reacts,
Or feels overwhelmed.
If you've ever found yourself thinking,
Why is this affecting me so much?
You're not alone.
This meditation is a gentle rescue space for those triggered moments.
A place to pause,
To soften the nervous system,
And to begin listening to what the reaction may be trying to protect.
This is not about fixing yourself or forcing the feeling to disappear.
It is about creating enough safety to stay present long enough for understanding and healing to begin.
So as we start,
Allow your body to settle in whatever the position that feels supportive.
Let the breath come in and out on its own.
And if something has been stirred within you recently,
Know that you're welcome to bring it here,
Held with care and without judgment.
This is Trigger Rescue,
A meditation for emotional overwhelm.
Whenever you're ready,
Let's begin.
Find a comfortable seat or lie down.
And let's try our best to feel settled.
You may be a little bit upset,
Feeling overwhelmed,
Stressed.
And all that is okay.
And if you're restless,
And you need to move around a bit,
That's okay too.
Give yourself permission to let the energy out in whatever the form it chooses to leave your body.
And for now,
We'll help ground ourself a bit by taking a deep breath in and out three times together.
Let's take a deep breath in and breath out.
Let's take another deep breath in and breath out.
And one more time,
Let's take a deep breath in and breath out.
Let's take this moment to allow our breath to get back to normal for a bit.
And whatever the emotion that is coming up right in this moment,
Just allow it to be there.
Feel whatever it is that you're feeling.
Don't label,
Don't judge.
Just accept it.
Just take a note of what it feels.
You may feel some tension.
You may feel intense sadness,
Anger,
Frustration,
Helplessness,
Or just overwhelmed.
They're all okay.
They're all welcome here in this moment.
Anger,
It's okay.
You can stay here.
Anger,
Frustration,
Sadness,
Confusion,
Overwhelmed.
Allow yourself to feel whatever you're feeling right now.
So when you do that,
I want you to focus only on your feelings,
Not the circumstances that led to your emotions.
Don't point finger at others or yourself.
I want you to just focus on the feelings.
It's nothing you need to do to justify what you're feeling or how you're feeling.
It's okay.
And if you want to use this moment to just cry,
It's okay too.
Always remember that emotions are just an energy moving through your body.
Just let it out if you're feeling that it's ready to come out,
It wants to come out.
Let it all out.
It's okay.
And if you are angry or frustrated,
I want you to take this moment to just say everything you want to say.
Not out loud,
But just silently,
Just to yourself.
And that's one of the fastest way I know how to move the anger very quickly because most of the time when we are angry or frustrated,
Most of the time that's because we feel we don't know or couldn't express ourselves enough or somehow we feel misunderstood or whatever we intended to do or happen didn't happen.
So that's okay.
I am going to give you some moments and just allow yourself to express fully whatever it is that you're feeling.
How do you feel?
How about we take a deep breath in and out three times.
We're going to do this quick relaxation method where when we take a deep breath in,
I want you to tighten your body and hold your breath for five seconds and we let it all out.
I'm going to walk you through this,
So we're going to do this together.
Let's take a deep breath in.
I want you to tighten your body,
Just tighten your fists,
Tense your body for five,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One and release,
Breath out.
One more time,
Take a deep breath in.
Tighten your body,
Hold your fists for five seconds,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One and release.
One last time,
Make it a good one,
Take a deep breath in.
Tense your body,
Hold your fists for five seconds,
Four,
Three,
Two,
One and release.
Allow your breath to return to normal.
Just allow your breath to come in and out on its own and feel the sensation you feel in your body.
You might feel light buzzing and you might feel a little lightness.
And now today we are going to hold space for those moments when you get triggered and sometimes we may not even know when we get triggered.
We just know we're all of a sudden really angry or stressed,
Anxious,
Frustrated,
Or sad or just having this intense emotional reaction where you just really can't describe why or how.
And you know whatever it is that triggered your reaction,
We all have a tendency to point a finger to it like if this thing doesn't exist I would not feel that way.
These emotional triggers are not anything unique,
We all have this.
But how we deal with our triggers can really bring much healing and freedom into our everyday life.
So I want you to take a moment to think of this moment when you get triggered last time.
If you're still triggered in this moment right now,
Just think of this trigger that you're feeling right now.
I want you to just hold space for this for now,
So I don't want you to get too fixated on what got you triggered.
I want you to take a step back and imagine you're having this container that is not part of you,
Just outside of you that is holding the space for this incident that made you triggered.
So then because of this distance away from the actual event that made you triggered,
You're safe.
And you're just being the witness.
You can imagine the event unfolding right in front of you on the TV screen.
And as it unfolds,
You might be feeling the same feelings that you may have felt,
But in a much less intense version of it.
And you might be thinking,
Oh,
That's wrong.
Or that's not nice.
And that's okay.
Can you hold the space for that reaction,
Your opinion of this?
Everything's okay.
Don't judge.
Allow it to be there.
Because your feelings and your reaction,
They all lead to the trauma that needs to be healed.
And now I want you to look at the situation that caused you to feel triggered.
And I want you to go back to your childhood.
And see if you can remember any incident that made you feel very,
Very similar to what you're feeling right now.
You might remember on the incident how you were misunderstood by your parents or your siblings,
Your friends.
And how that made you feel very sad.
Or that the way you are being treated without any respect reminded you of how you were bullied when you were little.
I want you to go a little bit back deeper with some of these childhood experiences.
The feelings of not seen,
Not loved,
Not being enough,
Misunderstood.
And you might realize that your trigger is not so much about what just had happened.
It has more to do with what happened in the past.
How this current experience you just had reminds you of the pain from your childhood.
Let's continue holding the space.
Everything is okay.
You are safe.
And you're just being a little more brave today than most of the other times because you're daring to look deeper within to investigate your triggers.
Let's investigate a little bit more.
And you'll probably land this one incident that was either very traumatic or hurtful and left you with the feeling that you are not loved.
Can you visualize your inner child in that moment?
And can you imagine yourself just standing right next to your inner child and giving your inner child a gentle,
Loving hug?
Let's reassure your inner child that they're okay.
You're okay.
And let your inner child know that no matter how horrible your inner child might be feeling in this moment,
You love your inner child unconditionally so whatever happened is not going to change the way you love your inner child.
Let's reassure that your inner child is always loved no matter what happens,
No matter what anybody outside would say or treat your inner child.
I want you to have some conversation with your inner child.
Reassure it by reassuring your inner child that they're okay and they're being loved.
I'm going to give you some moment.
I want you to look back to this recent event that made you triggered.
I want you to understand this event that how it made you,
Remind you of your childhood and whether that incident itself was justifiable or not.
You can see how this incident allowed you to pinpoint to this past trauma that needed to be healed.
So when you are triggered that just means that whatever whatever your childhood traumas that is being activated is ready to be healed and it wants to be healed.
It is your past.
Your inner child asking for you now your current you to have a look at your past and give it some love so that it can be healed.
So triggers are not a bad thing.
I know it doesn't feel great and I know I get triggers too.
It is very uncomfortable to be triggered and I know we all want other people to not trigger us but if we keep asking other people to not trigger us then we'll never heal the source of what is triggering us which is our inner child that is being left out stuck in the past and not able to heal.
This is your beautiful opportunity to heal so that next time something like this happens you will be able to look at your trigger with compassion and if you continue living your life with awareness of what those triggers really mean in terms of healing and keep working on healing your past one day your trigger will no longer be triggers you will be able to free yourself from your emotional reaction from all those triggers you will be able to live your life more freely knowing that you have healed so let's hold this space for healing and keep giving your inner child a gentle hug and let your inner child know that when your inner child gets triggered next time you will be there standing right next to your inner child and you will be there to comfort your inner child and I want you to imagine yourself standing by this beautiful stream imagine you're holding your trigger in your hand I want you to just visualize it as vividly as possible what does it look like?
Is it big?
Is it small?
Look at the color texture how does it smell?
Does it make any sound?
And I want you to feel the weight of this trigger on your hands is it light?
Is it heavy?
And I want you to gently kneel down to that stream and release it into the stream and watch the stream take that trigger away moving it down the stream far,
Far away from you and you can gently wash your hands in this cleansing fresh water of the stream and allow yourself to lie down next to the stream onto a soft grass and feel the gentle sunshine warming you and healing you from the tip of your head all the way down to the tip of your toes gently shining with this healing light allow your body to feel this loving warm light cleansing you and invigorating each cell of your body with love you're completely dipped in love let's take it all in let's take a deep breath in and breath out let's take it in one more time let's take a breath in and release do you feel the love buzzing throughout your body you are loved in more ways than you'll ever know and even when you feel you're all alone you are loved you are seen you are held and you are being understood your presence matters and your presence is always being loved and appreciated let's bring back this feeling of self-love and unconditional love that you feel throughout your body slowly wiggle your toes and fingers rotate your wrists and ankles shake your head yes and no and whenever you're ready slowly open your eyes welcome back how do you feel?
I hope you feel a little bit lighter your emotions ease a bit I'm ready to move through the rest of your day and beyond with love for yourself and others and acceptance for yourself and others thank you for allowing me to hold this space with you today I am so honored to be part of this healing journey with you trigger healing is one of those things that takes a while to master but it will all heal with practice and patience and it will always start with awareness so the fact that you chose to press pray button on this meditation today tells me that you're way ahead in this healing journey because the awareness of you having a trigger is already the first major step in healing your triggers and in time your triggers will heal trust me on this and this healing journey as you know it is never-ending journey you free yourself a little by little from your past each and every day with each and every meditation mindful moments and self-awareness so thank you again for joining me on this journey and I'm sending you all my love and support as always I love you all thank you for listening and I will see you next time
