Triggers: A Fertile Ground to Cultivate Intimacy
Triggers: A Fertile Ground to Cultivate Intimacy
Transforming past pain into present freedom
Published on 25 April, 2024
“Hey, why not we just have the night banquet in your home? After all, there’s enough space, and we can cut cost on renting an event’s space”.
“You didn’t even ask me what I want for the banquet! Yes, you have your own idea of what that day will look like, but I have mine too, you know?! If we were to have it in my home, I will feel the need to host people. It’s my wedding, and I don’t want to be hosting people!”
What was supposed to be a pleasant afternoon of planning for our night banquet quickly turned into a tense, sour moment for my fiancée and I.
Triggers.
Every couple is familiar with them. As intimacy deepens, so does the potential for triggers to arise when unspoken expectations or needs aren’t fulfilled. These triggers can surface when certain aspects of the past or deeply held beliefs come into play within the relationship.
Definition of emotional triggers:
- An event, experience, object, or people that spark an intense emotional reaction.
- The cause for emotional triggers is often rooted in early childhood experiences, where an unpleasant event or difficult experience left core needs unmet, and the resulting pain was left unprocessed by our caregivers.
As an adult, we experience certain situations that remind us of some of these painful early experiences. Our bodies re-live these painful moments, and it triggers these negative reactions.
Triggers with your partner are opportunities for either deep disconnection and pain, or deep healing and growth. The outcome depends primarily on how these moments are processed with our partner.
How can we reframe triggers as not something to be avoided, but something to be anticipated, perhaps even embraced? How can triggers be a fertile ground for intimacy to blossom with your partner? Here are two simple steps: curiosity, and compassion.
While you can’t go back to rewrite your past and all the unpleasant experiences you’ve had, you can revisit your past and make peace with it.
Practise curiosity
Triggers are moments for your partner and you to extend curiosity on your past. While you can’t go back to rewrite your past and all the unpleasant experiences you’ve had, you can revisit your past and make peace with it. Making peace looks like courageously revisiting those memories, and releasing the hurts, pain, and anger associated with those memories. It’s releasing the people whom we want to hold responsible for what happened to us.
Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk wrote in his book, The Body Keeps the Score, “When we cannot find a way to make our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations part of a consistent narrative, we become overwhelmed by our inner experiences and react as though we are facing an outside threat.”
- In moments of triggers, allow yourself to practise curiosity and awareness of your thoughts, memories, emotions, and physical sensations.
- Then, share vulnerably what’s happening internally with your partner, by narrating what you are feeling inside.
- Allow yourself to sit with the mix of emotions, whether it’s pain, hurt, anger, sadness, fear, or shame. Write them down on paper.
- Release these painful memories and emotions in your heart, and allow your partner to witness you.
- Once you have shared your inner experience with your partner, allow him to extend compassion on what you’ve just shared.
- This can look like being silently present with you, giving you a reassuring hug or squeeze of your hands, or simply nodding his head with care and empathy.
Continuing the example from above, this was what my partner responded to me after she calmed down:
“Sorry for losing my cool with you earlier. I understand and see your heart for cost-savings, but could you give me the space to share what was happening to me internally earlier?”
“When you suggested to have the wedding banquet at my home, my body started to become flooded with a rising hot feeling in my belly. I started to feel so angry, because I had the expectation that you would consider my opinion on the matter. I felt so unseen and uncared for, and suddenly it felt as if I was a little girl again.
When I was younger, I grew up with three highly opinionated siblings. My parents always had a hard time, even for something as simple as choosing a dine-out place, my three siblings always insisted on their choice. I didn’t want to add to their stress, so I didn’t voice my opinion, even though deep down I always wondered, ‘How about me? When is it my turn to choose?’. I became quieter and quieter. I learned that to be accepted in my family, I would have to be invisible. To not voice my needs and desires. I hated it, but I chose to do it because it was what I needed to not make life harder for my parents.”
Sharing our internal process with someone trustworthy allows us to heal. Brené Brown wrote in her bestselling book, Daring Greatly, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”
True healing takes place when we are able to gather new evidence in our present that overwrites our beliefs learned from the past.
Allow your partner to extend compassion on your story
True healing takes place when we are able to gather new evidence in our present that overwrites our beliefs learned from the past. It’s to see the pain we have experienced mirrored in the eyes of our partner—and to unlearn the lie from our childhood that we are uncared for.
From my response of compassion, my fiancée learns that she is not invisible; she is seen and loved and her needs matter to me. She can voice her opinion of how she envisions the night banquet to be, and not be dismissed for her desires. Her vulnerability also gives me the opportunity to empathise and feel with her. Mother Theresa aptly said, “The eyes of the compassionate bring healing and restoration to the broken.”
We may have suffered unpleasant and painful experiences in our past, but we don’t have to relive them in our present.
When we are able to courageously acknowledge what happened to us, and allow another to enter into our story and empathise with our pain, a deep bond of trust is built that is unparalleled.
This is how triggers become a fertile ground for intimacy to blossom, not a landmine to be tip-toed around.
We may have suffered unpleasant and painful experiences in our past, but we don’t have to relive them in our present. Our intimate, safe relationships in adulthood is an opportunity to heal and find closure for these painful experiences, and to build new beliefs. As you practise curiosity in moments of triggers, and allow your partner to extend compassion on your story, may you experience deeper healing, intimacy, and freedom in your life.
*Some details have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the parties involved.
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