After dating around for a while following my big breakup, in 2020 I began a relationship with someone (let’s call him The Spaniard) who helped me learn further about how to be in a healthy relationship.

In the early stage of our relationship, amidst a raging pandemic, he had to move to another country for work. As he flew to this new chapter of his life, so began an intense week of anxiety on my end.  

I was nauseous and at the brink of crying all the time during that first week. My heart raced and my stomach tightened into a painful knot whenever a trigger was pushed. I had difficulty sleeping; sometimes I would lay awake for a huge chunk of the night with crazy scenarios running through my mind.

I had not had that kind of anxiety for some time, so to experience the very real physical reactions again was deeply surprising to me.

His move had not been an issue in the weeks leading up to his departure. We had talked about how we were going to approach it, set boundaries and expectations, and kept our communications honest and consistent. Why the sudden change?

For a while, I had no answer. I wondered to myself, with shame, whether I was that weak or that insecure. This was a blow to my confidence as I had believed myself to finally be at peace after getting out of my last relationship. 

Then one morning, as I was meditating, it hit me.

Before The Spaniard, I was with someone – Piano Man – who had also been so excited to move to a new country, after which our relationship began to peter out.

The last time I was at that point, I had to endure kept secrets, waning communications to the point of non-existence, and no apology for the following couple of years.

That experience must have been more difficult to me than I had thought because, long after it was over, any situation with a semblance to it triggered such strong emotional, and sometimes very physical, reactions.

This realization took an ounce of my anxiety off and put me on track for recovery.

These are some of the lessons I learnt in dealing with emotional triggers from that case in 2020, which still ring true to this very day:

Awareness and self-compassion over shame

I have a certain idea of how I should feel in a particular situation. I impose on myself a high standard to always be at peace, stoic. So, when the trigger occurred with such intensity, my reflex was to feel shame for not being as strong as I would like, shove my anxiety inward, and feign normalcy in front of The Spaniard.

I later learnt that the shame stemmed from my need to be in full control of my emotions. Ironically, this is unproductive where managing emotions is concerned.

So, instead of giving into shame, I tried with the help of meditation to approach my feelings and physical responses to the triggers as data. I learnt to notice when each surfaced, acknowledge the past context for its present manifestation, and gently let it go.

For example, as my heart started to race and nausea bubbled up in my belly after The Spaniard did not reply for half a day, I would tell myself: “I understand. When this had happened in the past, you didn’t know whether you would not hear from Piano Man for three hours or three weeks. The uncertainty and the loneliness must have been so hard for you then, that you react this strongly now.”

I also tried to cultivate a sense of wonder at what my body did. Even before my conscious mind caught on, my body recognized the present similarity to that past traumatic situation. The physical reactions were my body’s way of warning me of the pains that might follow.

With this realization, I thanked my body for its service and said, “It’s OK now. You can relax.”

Just because the physical reaction is intense and very real, doesn’t mean the threat is

It is hard to discern whether the threat is real when your triggered mind keeps sounding the alarm.

I’ve learnt that it helps to put some distance between me and my thoughts – a skill I hone through meditation. I notice and acknowledge, but do not immediately believe what my mind tries to convince me of. Instead, I look at my situation and assess the facts.

In this case, with time, I saw and learnt to believe that The Spaniard was not my ex, Piano Man. The Spaniard was honest in sharing his new experiences with me and respectful of my feelings in the process. He continued to show up, time and time again, when I was nauseously waiting for him to disappear.

So, despite the surface similarity of the two long distance relationships, I slowly learnt to decouple my current situation from the past ending.

We’re responsible for our own baggage, but it’s lighter when shared

Initially, I didn’t want to tell The Spaniard of my triggers and the resulting anxiety. It made me feel weak, and I was afraid he would no longer want to be with me if I showed any weakness.

Fortunately, I managed to gather enough courage to tell him of my baggage and how I had been trying to manage it. I also asked, a bit timidly, for his support in making my emotional triggers more manageable.  

He did not leave me hanging. He shared his baggage with me, just as I shared mine. He listened to how I needed him to show up. And even though he could not meet them exactly the way I asked him to, he explained why, and he proceeded to show up in a way that both met my needs and was authentic to himself.  Most importantly, he showed me that there was no need to hide my baggage from him.

Everyone has a baggage. It doesn’t make us worth less. It makes us human.

Have you ever experienced an emotional trigger as I did? I would love to hear your stories!

Credits:

Photographs by Xavier Sotomayor, Erwan Hesry, and Stocksnap / Pixabay.