If you’re regularly going up and down the emotional rollercoaster and reacting to every single thing others do or say, take a breath, take a break, have a Kit Kat. Then try some of these seven habits of people who never get triggered.
I sure hope I didn’t trigger you into getting a candy. Getting triggered is so easy these days, there sure are many reasons. Still, I do know many people who stay super calm, even in tough situations. It always amazes me.
And I always ask them – how? How do they not get triggered by that guy who cut in line? Or by the offensive comment someone made?
Why don’t you yell and put them in their place like a normal human being? Or put salt in their coffee? Something!!!! What is wrong with you? You psychopaths.
As you can see, I’m one of those calm, non-triggerable angels.
But honestly, in most cases, the response is just – they let it go and focus on more important things. (besides taking many pills) (just kidding). But, there’s a bit more, so here are some other habits of people who never get triggered.
1. Cover the basics
Often, we get triggered because we haven’t even made time for our basic needs as humans. You should see how untrigger-able I am when I haven’t slept more than 6 hours. Or when I think I have a million things to do, so I won’t go out for a walk this morning. I know in my case, this is a huge reason for being triggered by everything.
We have daily physical needs that influence the way we behave and are important for both our physcal and mental health. So make time and take care of those needs on a daily basis.
Exercise, get enough sleep, eat a vegetable or seven, go outside for a walk, take care of your hygiene – these are all small, but important habits that can help us stay resilient. Preventing us from being hijacked by our emotions.
Other daily habits that can help are gratitude and journaling. Expressing yourself in those ways can be very powerful and can help you build optimism.
2. Focus on What’s Right In Front
When you keep looking back or to the left and the right, you cannot move forward. When you keep digging in the same place, you’re so focused on what’s bothering you, what’s out of your control, that you forget to take care of the things right in front of you that you can control.
I imagine this as each one of us being on our own paths and all we need to do is walk them. Now, what if I constantly keep looking backwards or to my neighbor? Being jealous or trying to fix what they’re doing wrong (in my opinion) or thinking about what has been done to me/ I’ve done wrong in the past. Would I move forward? No. Will I fix it? No.
Do the things you can control right now and trust that good things will happen.
3. Assume the Best
The guy who cut in line was probably in a hurry. You did him a favor by letting him go in front. Good for you.
Your friend didn’t text you right away because they’re probably busy. They will text you later, it’s all good.
Assuming the best isn’t easy, but it works and can shift your mindset. It just needs some practice. So instead of going to the worst imaginary outcome possible, go for the more optimistic version, it might be the most realistic one too.
4. Stop Training To Be Triggerable
Most of us get triggered by what we see online. I know that’s a big thing for me. Watching mind-numbing, anger- or fear-instilling “content” is training us. Training us to be reactive and triggerable. Whatever you practice, you become an expert in. If you keep seeing people criticizing, fighting, gossiping or judging (even if it’s for a good thing) – you learn to be that way.
I feel like at this point everyone on the news and on social media is trying to scare or disgust us. Make us afraid to peek outside or to even breathe (without buying a certain product).
Random people on social media are trying to rage-bait us into commenting on objectively useless videos just for views. It’s a dirty business.
I now avoid or limit my time on social media and the news. My take is: only consume content that teaches you something useful. Like how to can tomatoes or how to build a meal planner in Google Sheets. Things like that.
5. Have their Own Lives
My grandma used to say – whatever is for you, worry about that; what’s for all, you don’t need to worry about. Well, she might have lived through 2-3 wars, but she didn’t have social media.
Our problems are real.
Today, we are constantly stressing about things that are not related to us. The other day my dad came and told me about something he watched and how it’s going to affect the future of all of us.
And usually, I’d start giving my opinion and we’d have a discussion that honestly, leads nowhere. But I was so busy, I thought: “Exactly how’s that going to help me can 10 pounds of tomatoes today?”
The world has always been full of bad and good. We just didn’t know about everything. Everyone had their own struggles to deal with. When you have your own immediate problems to solve, you don’t have time to worry about the imaginary “future”. And you save so much time and energy. And it doesn’t mean that you’re careless, it just means that you choose to live your life.
6. Resist The Urge To Get Triggered.
Yes, it’s a choice. You don’t always have a choice about what happens, but you always have a choice about how and whether or not you react to it. Believe it or not, some people actually want you to get triggered. They live for that reaction, and when you resist it, they’re left with nothing.
See, it’s tempting to give in to your emotions, but it doesn’t mean you have to do it. Let it be.
Some emotions are like sugar cravings. If this article was about people who don’t eat sugar, guess why they don’t do it? In most cases, they’ve resisted the urge to eat sugar long enough not to get tempted by it anymore. It’s the same with getting triggered. You have to practice resisting the urge to get triggered. You can’t trigger me – say that and mean it. And when you do it a few times, you’ll actually see it’s working.
Note that it’s not about bottling things up; it’s about letting them go. Realizing that giving in to the temptation won’t lead you anywhere. Not to justice, not to resolution, nowhere. Ask yourself, how would me being triggered and being reactive help anyone?
7. Accept and Forgive
Accept that people have opinions and thoughts that are not necessarily about you. In fact, some of the things I wrote here might have “triggered” you. Well, it was not my intention to do so, I wouldn’t want that. I’m just expressing my point of view and we can disagree, I’m not perfect. I know that. In reality, we’ve probably never met and I know nothing about your story to be considerate of it.
A few years ago, someone wrote me an email about being offended by my comments about tofu and how I wrote that I don’t like it and nobody should eat it. Obviously, I was joking and I had changed my mind, because I wrote this in a recipe for tofu wraps. It was just my opinion and it had nothing to do with the person who wrote to me. It didn’t say anything about them. I have never met them. So my opinion, shouldn’t be that important.
Also, realize that you’ve probably said things that trigger or offend others too, it’s natural. We live, we learn, we make mistakes, we gain empathy. But we can’t walk around on eggshells. Understand that we humans have flaws and learn to forgive and let go, accepting that it’s not always about you.
Identify What’s Training You
So, I needed to write this out, because during the past few years I noticed a change in myself. I kept becoming more and more reactive and less and less proactive in my own life.
Things constantly annoyed, stressed me or made me sad. Out of nowhere. That person driving, the man waiting in line behind me and pushing me with his cart, my sister having the AC on…all of these things triggered me.
I didn’t notice it very fast, but I found the biggest reason to be things I saw on social media.
A “He said what?” video on YouTube – I must watch it, somebody did something crazy.
Someone buying a ton of plastic things and bragging about them, while everyone else is yelling: “Microplastics are killing you!!!” That’s insane.
And what I didn’t realize was that by watching this, very much, useless content, I was basically training myself to be outraged, scared, and/or grumpy all the time. I wasn’t training myself to be proactive, to see the good in the world, to be happy and healthy. I was practicing being a helpless barking dog on a leash.
Now, it’s not easy to shake this off after you realize it, but thanks to long daily walks, spending more time outside, focusing on creating more and avoiding useless videos – I’ve been doing SO much better and I’m much calmer. Like I almost never scream when someone cuts in line now. Seriously, I’m actually doing great.
So avoiding news and social media was my biggest trainer to be triggered – what is yours?