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Recently I felt rejected and abandoned by a close friend. After reaching out a couple of times and receiving a no, I don’t have time for you now, I felt hurt that rapidly transformed into frustration and anger.
To be honest I was fuming and a voice in my mind was screaming, how can she do this, surely she doesn’t care about me, she doesn’t love me anymore.
I wanted to lash out, attack her and reject her back! But I didn’t. I know from experience that I was over reacting and I was deeply triggered. I didn’t want to reach and and react from my pain and my emotions. I didn’t want to say or do something that I later regret. So I sat with myself and my emotions and asked myself what is really my problem? Where is this pain, this intensity coming from?
Triggers are our friends
It took me a while to see the real answer. But then I remembered, it’s not the first time that I am feeling like that. In fact this pain is very familiar. This is how I felt often as a child. You see many times when I was a child when I did something wrong my parents would withdraw their love and presence as a punishment.
So this became a huge trigger for me, when people who I love are stepping away from me temporarily for any reason I think that it’s because of me, because I did something wrong.
The root of the issues
Seeing the root of my feelings helped me to understand how I project my pain on others and release me from the anger and sadness I felt toward my friend. I started to calm down, understand deeper and process my experience.
Some weeks later when I didn’t feel triggered anymore, after I gave myself some time and space before I react, I met my friend to reconnect and clear things up with a chat.
Now that was an amazing experience. I told her how I felt and why I was so triggered and she shared her side of what happened.
She said she was also super triggered because she knew that I am hurt and mad and that triggered her childhood wound of doing something wrong because when she was a child her parents would be angry at her when she was doing something that was wrong.
Clarity
In the end we both laughed at what happened and how we both were triggered by the same thing and took the whole thing all too personally. I told her that I love her no matter what and I am not mad at her and she told me that she loves me so much and she assured me that her withdrawal was not at all personal.
We agreed that we will remember in the future to communicate better and know that our love is unconditional no matter what. It was a real breakthrough and a healing experience for both of us. We both felt gratitude and more connection, more love.
Often times we react we lash out when our pain is touched in some way. It is intense when you feel triggered and it is hard to contain. But I learnt that when I am feeling this way I better stop, breathe and reflect until I calm down and see more clearly what is going on before I speak out and act out.
Turning challenges into gifts
Your mind cannot comprehend that you are triggered because of the past. When you feel an intense emotion your mind is looking for a reason in the present to explain that. Like I am mad because my friend rejected me or hurt me. Your mind cannot comprehend that you can be mad because of something that happened in the past and gets triggered in the present. That’s why we so often lash out at others when in fact we just have to look inside and deal with our personal issues coming from the past. Then we can be grateful for friends or foes who triggered us in the present because we can see it as a gift to heal our past.
When I can do that, I always experience a breakthrough, a healing and a deeper understanding of what happened. In the end I always feel grateful I think this is what it means turning your challenges into a gift.
