We often respond to the things that trigger us by trying to avoid them or prevent them. If we get upset by someone criticising us, we respond by either telling them that’s not appropriate or by adjusting our behaviour to make sure we don’t give them grounds for more criticism. The former can be seen as rebelling against their criticism, the latter as succumbing to it. So on the surface, it looks like fighting for ourselves versus abandoning ourselves, but in reality we abandon ourselves in both cases. Both responses are acts of resignation.
The three myths of well-being causality
Whether we criticise someone for criticising us or we take action to prevent further criticism, we’re trying to control their behaviour. Analogously, if we go for a walk alone and we feel bored, we may try to avoid future boredom during walks by either calling a friend, or listening to a podcast, or no going for a walk at all.
We seek to arrange people or situations in order to ensure our well-being. But this is futile and it rests on three misconceptions:
- Other people or situations are causing the pain.
- Our well-being is dependent on forces external to us.
- Our well-being is dependent on preventing the pain from reoccurring.
The triggered is the trigger: the experience is not separate from the experiencer
The experience and the experiencer are not separate
Our feelings are not caused by people or events external to us. The trigger—whether that’s criticism, boredom, annoyance—is not separate from the triggered. The triggered is the trigger. The guilt, pain or disappointment one may experience in a situation are not external from the individual. They are the individual.
Our well-being is dependent on us, not on people or situations
We don’t need to control people, events or circumstances in order to avoid unpleasant experiences or attract more positive ones. Our feelings are not contingent on them, they are contingent on us. Something that triggers one person doesn’t trigger another.
Our well-being is dependent on understanding why the pain occurs not on preventing its reoccurrence
The opportunity in being triggered by something is not in arranging life to prevent the trigger from reoccurring, but in understanding why we’re triggered on the first place. A simple question to help us examine is—why can’t I be with this?
Triggers trigger an unpleasant feeling in us of some kind: pain, shame, guilt, sadness, fear, anger. What must we believe about ourselves or life if we can’t be with that feeling?
There are two ways of harbouring a feeling that is too overwhelming: we can either shrink the feeling or we can bust the illusion that we’re not expansive enough to harbour it.