Understand Your Unique Triggers — What They Are and What to Do With Them

You're standing in your kitchen. Your husband says something — maybe in a tone, maybe with a look — and suddenly you're not in your kitchen anymore. You're somewhere else. Your chest is tight. Your face is hot. You're thinking thoughts that feel bigger than the moment, and you don't quite know why.

That's a trigger.

I want to take that word out of the realm of pop psychology and put it back where it belongs — into something useful. Because the way most of us were taught to understand triggers is wrong, and the wrongness keeps us stuck.

A trigger is not weakness. It's not "being too sensitive." It's not something to apologize for, push through, or talk yourself out of.

A trigger is a memory. Held in the body. Activated by something in the present that resembles something in the past.

That's it.

When your nervous system reacts to something, it's not making things up. It's responding the way it learned to respond, in a moment when it was learning. And the part of you that's reacting isn't your adult self — it's a younger part of you who needed something they didn't get, and is letting you know.

The question isn't how do I stop being triggered?

The question is what is this trigger trying to tell me?

What a Trigger Actually Is

In Story Work, we treat the body as a record-keeper. Every experience you've ever had — especially the ones that came with strong emotion — is held somewhere in the body's memory. When something in your present moment resembles a past experience, even faintly, your body remembers before your mind does.

A tone of voice. A facial expression. A word. A smell. A posture. A silence.

Your body says: I've been here before.

And depending on what happened the last time you were "here," your body either freezes, fights, runs, or shuts down — all before your conscious mind has caught up.

That's why triggers feel so disorienting. By the time your brain registers what just happened, your body has already responded. You're explaining yourself to yourself in real time, and most of the time, the explanation falls short. You think you're overreacting. You're not. You're remembering.

The Three Layers of a Trigger

When I sit with clients in their triggers, I help them notice three layers:

The surface layer is what just happened. A look, a comment, a moment.

The middle layer is what you felt — usually some combination of fear, shame, anger, or grief. Sometimes all four at once.

The deepest layer is the original moment. The first time you felt those exact feelings, in those exact proportions, in a body that was much younger than the one you have now.

Most people only notice the surface and the middle layer. They get stuck in the loop of "why did I react that way?" and never quite reach the third layer — the original story underneath.

Story Work is the practice of going down to the third layer. Slowly. With care. Because that's where the healing actually lives.

How to Begin Listening to Your Triggers

You don't need to do this perfectly. You don't need to do it alone. You don't even need to know what you're doing the first time you try. Here's where to start:

Notice without judgment. When you're triggered, the first move isn't to fix it. It's to notice it. Place a hand on your chest if it helps. Breathe. Say to yourself, Something is happening in me right now.

Get curious about what came up. Once the wave begins to settle — and it will — ask yourself, gently: What did I feel? What was familiar about that feeling?

Look for the echo. This is the most important step. Triggers feel disproportionate because they are. The size of the reaction matches the size of an old wound, not the size of the present moment. Ask: When was the first time I felt this way?

You may not get an answer right away. That's fine. Sometimes the body offers the original moment in the middle of folding laundry, three days later. Sometimes you need a witness — a coach, a therapist, a trusted friend — to help you reach it.

Be tender with what surfaces. The part of you who remembers is younger than you are. They don't need to be argued with or fixed. They need to be heard.

The Permission Inside the Trigger

Here's the reframe I want to leave you with: every trigger is an invitation.

Not an invitation to suffer. An invitation to listen.

Your body is keeping the score, as Bessel van der Kolk wrote — and it's not doing so to punish you. It's doing so because some part of you knows the work isn't finished. Some part of you is still asking to be heard.

You don't have to be afraid of your triggers anymore. You can let them lead you back to the parts of you that need your attention most. And you can do that work in the company of someone who knows how to walk with you — gently, without rushing, without judgment.

That's the work I do with my clients. That's the work I wrote my memoir about. That's the work that changed my own life.

Your triggers are not the problem. They are the messenger.

What would it look like to start listening?