How to Process Emotional Triggers Without Needing Therapy
Learning how to process emotional triggers is crucial for helping to prevent unnecessary breakdowns and blowups down the line. You don’t need a therapist, medical prescription, or even a high level degree to be able to do this.
You can release the sudden rough feelings you experience everyday and enjoy peace immediately afterwards because you have already been born with everything you need to do so.
Why the Need to Process Emotional Triggers
Your body is a world full of places to store energy. Everything you have felt your entire life can either be released or stored somewhere. Unfortunately, the emotions and feelings we try to avoid, suppress, or fight against have to go somewhere.
Think of your body like a pond or body of water. If water is flowing in but does not flow out, what happens? The water stagnates, and everything growing in the pond starts to rot and fester, becoming an infested swamp. If there is water flowing out of the pond somewhere else, the pond generally stays healthy. The water is an ideal environment for life to grow and it supports a healthy ecosystem.
So if your body doesn’t have any energy flowing out (especially the negative), it festers. Then when you’re triggered by life’s events, you can blowup, breakdown, and develop physical ailments and disease. But when you are always consistently releasing energy that doesn’t serve you, you can prevent the undesirable and heal what is long overdue.
When you are always consistently releasing energy that doesn’t serve you, you can prevent the undesirable and heal what is long overdue.
Sarah Sylver
What Happened The Last Time I Did This Emotional Release
One day recently, I was triggered by something at home that I can’t even remember the events around now. And I quickly realized that my body needed to cry. The upset feelings started flooding up and I certainly wanted to suppress them, ’cause I’m a strong single mother that needs to “keep it all together”, and some stereotypical things society has still ingrained me are still present.
I didn’t do that though. I went into the farthest darkest corner of my apartment, away from my kids and boyfriend, where I could be alone. I left the light off, I closed my eyes, and plugged my ears so that I could just zero in on me. I cried, let out what needed to get through me, breathed deep, and I was able to walk out of that room with a smile on my face just a few minutes later.
Instead of still feeling the bitter feelings that could have lingered while talking with my family, I was glad to start talking with my boyfriend right away and not feel bothered anymore by the previous event. Here’s the process that I did.
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How to Process Your Emotional Triggers In Less Than 10 Minutes
Okay, here’s how you do this. As soon as you realize you are triggered, or have some sudden undesired feelings coming to the surface, go through these steps. Don’t expect perfect results. Don’t worry about doing it exactly right from the get-go. This is about allowing and honoring yourself just as much as healing.
1. Setup your environment quickly without over thinking
No matter where you are, get yourself into a place where you can be undisturbed for ten minutes. It doesn’t have to be your meditation room or zen den. Do what you can with where you’re at.
- darker than light, so your eyes aren’t distracted by things possibly moving around you, even with eyes closed
- comfortable, meaning make sure you’re not hungry, needing to pee, or too hot or cold
- sit down if possible, so your body is resting and you can take your mind off of balance (but you can certainly do this standing up)
- quiet, put some ear plugs in or even playing quiet meditation music works
2. Center yourself so you can focus
Close your eyes, focus on your breath, and take in at least five slow deep breaths. Try to slow them down and last longer each time you do them. Put your hands on your chest or stomach if it helps you to focus.
Relax though too, this isn’t stressful to force your thoughts or emotions into the corner so you can focus on them. It’s also allowing whatever is going on inside of you without judging it.
3. Find the emotional energy
Go to the strong emotion you were feeling previously that you want to release. Allow the intensity of it to come back if you had to hold it in for a bit before you could get to this place of releasing it. Where in your body are you feeling it the strongest?
There will be an area or two that will stand out the most. The most common places are:
- stomach or gut
- heart, chest area
- lungs
- throat
- behind the face or eyes
Pinpoint where it is for you and hold your attention there where it is at. Don’t try to shove it away or ignore it. The more you feel, the more you’ll heal.
4. Name the emotion
What would you label this emotion as? You may start with something simple and easy to describe, such as angry or sad. But take it deeper and more specific. What are the feelings causing the anger or sadness? Just go with the first one or two that come to mind.
It may be frustration, rejection, disrespected, grief, loss, or wounded. Once you’ve chosen your label for the feeling, you’ve been able to separate yourself from it. This emotion isn’t YOU or something you must suffer with. This emotion is energy that needs to move, and you are simply experiencing it through the body you have. Separating yourself from it disempowers it.
5. Observe where it goes
Curiously pay attention to where the emotion travels. It’s going to move through your body. It may spend most of the time in one place. You may notice it moving into many other places. No matter where it sits or where it goes, it doesn’t matter.
Don’t judge it. Don’t worry about how long it takes to move. Just allow it and treat it as if you’re watching an animal in it’s natural environment move about and do it’s own thing. Remember, this feeling isn’t YOU. It’s just energy.
Keep breathing deep and slow while you observe it. Keep your eyes closed and your focus centered on the feeling. It’s going to change, or feel different after a little while. This is your body processing the energy and slowly releasing it.
There’s no right or wrong way for the energy to move or feel. It may get lighter, softer, and harder to pay attention to. It make feel like it’s stuck and heavy. Both are just fine. Don’t doubt yourself and your ability to do this process based on what you’re feeling as you go through this.
Continue to observe it until you realize that it’s been released. This takes between 30 seconds and two minutes. It’s gonna feel like nothing’s happening and you won’t know how much time as gone by. You’ll start to think this feeling isn’t going to be released. That’s exactly when you should keep going and trust the process.
Because you will come to a point when the emotion suddenly seems to weaken and disappear or fade away, and your body is immediately happier, lighter, and more joyous. You’ll feel gratitude and the relaxing release you’ve been wanting.
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6. Reconnect to your heart center
Put your hands on your heart and re-center to who and where you are right now. Eyes still closed, but grounding yourself to come back and place the attention on this new state of feeling you’re in.
Ask your higher power what the next best step is for you right now. Maybe that means saying a little prayer, or meditating for a moment. It could be simply asking your source a question. Then stay in tune to receive whatever you’re meant to receive right now.
You’ve just released the crap that didn’t serve you. Now you’re filling it will goodness and possibilities for what to do now or preparation for what comes next.
Sarah Sylver
You’ve just released the crap that didn’t serve you. Now you’re filling it with goodness and possibilities for what to do now or preparation for what comes next. Acknowledge whatever your answer is. If you don’t get an answer, that’s still an answer. Maybe it just a time to be and let be. Maybe a specific person or action came to mind that you need to do something about.
Whatever you receive, act on it. Have the intention to trust and move forward with your next best step right now. If you have to write it down to remember later because it literally cannot be done at this moment, no worries. But take the first step with a heartset of good intentions.
Be grateful for this moment that just happened and move forward with your day with your heart at the center of it all.
How You’re Going To Feel After Doing This
When you follow this process on a regular basis, feel free to work in tidbits that you find help you best. If you have some inspiration on how releasing your emotional triggers could be done a slightly different way, go for it! You are unique. Like I said before, I adapted this from a few different things I’ve learned that resonated with me over the years. And I’m sure that what I continue to do will adapt and change too. Just start somewhere. I know this will help.
When you follow this process and give yourself the grace and time to allow, release, and heal triggers in the moment, you’ll uncover the deeper root causes of your trauma that can be healed more deeply. You’ll be able to quite having bad days and only end up having bad moments that actually turn into good moments.
Your trust in yourself, your abilities, and your body will increase. Your irritation with others, life, and yourself will decrease. You’ll find that you no longer carry crappy feelings as daily baggage that affects others. Your lighter disposition will help others in need. Your natural vibration level will rise over time and those anxious, depressed, and bitter parts of your personality will start losing their affect on you.
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Bring The Flow Back
Releasing your triggers returns the flow of good energy back to you. You are a magnificent creature with the power to do this immediately, so why wait? Just follow these steps:
- Setup your environment
- Center yourself for focus
- Find the energy
- Name the emotion
- Observe where it goes
- Reconnect to your heart
Try this process on at least one thing every day for a week and see what a difference it makes. It doesn’t have to be huge things that could have erupted into a volcano of stress. This works even with minor things that don’t even fully come to the surface.
Tell me how this has worked for you. Do you have any questions about how to implement this? I look forward to hearing your stories of finally feeling emotional releases that come quick and easy. Here’s to you.
More Resources
Now, I don’t have a name for this process yet, and I cannot take credit for inventing all of it myself. I have incorporated things that I have learned from various mentors of mine and resources I have explored supporting these ideas. If you want to dig into them separately, these are where I’ve learned many techniques from in this area:
- Peter Sage’s Elite Mentorship Forum
- STOP technique (I don’t know where this originally came from, but here’s a good article on it)
- the science behind and processes developed by Heartmath
Don’t worry about needing to understand or research everything in these other places. You can do this without all of that background. But when you’re ready to dig deeper and take you understanding to the next level, I highly recommend those resources.