“I’m Triggered” — What It Really Means (and the Healing Opportunity inside it)
We hear the phrase “I’m triggered” everywhere these days — but the true meaning is far deeper than simply feeling upset or offended.
When you're triggered, you’re not reacting to the current moment — you’re reacting to the past. More specifically, to an emotional imprint that was never fully seen, processed, or supported when it first happened.
To borrow language from trauma expert Dr Gabor Maté:
“Trauma is not what happens to you — it's what happens inside you as a result of what happened.”
A trigger, then, is the activation of unfinished emotional experience stored in your body and nervous system.
It’s a sign that your system is still trying to protect you.
What Is a Trigger?
A trigger is a sensory or emotional cue — a look, tone of voice, smell, situation, or even a thought — that the nervous system perceives as similar to a past threat or hurt.
This cue activates:
Stored emotional memory
A subconscious survival response
Protective behaviours or reactions
This is an involuntary physiological reaction, not a conscious choice.
So you may suddenly feel:
Flooded with emotion
Anxious or panicked
Angry or defensive
Shut down or withdrawn
Hyper-alert or unsafe
The reaction may feel disproportionate to the moment — because your body isn’t responding to what’s happening now but to what happened then.
As Dr Bessel van der Kolk explains in The Body Keeps the Score, trauma is stored physically. Even when the mind forgets, the body remembers.
How Triggers Form
Triggers develop in moments where:
You didn't feel safe
You didn’t have emotional support
You had to shut down or cope alone
Your nervous system couldn’t complete the stress cycle
Because the experience wasn’t processed, the body holds onto it as unfinished business — and stays prepared to protect you if anything similar happens again.
The Nervous System & Polyvagal Response
According to Polyvagal Theory (Dr Stephen Porges), your nervous system constantly scans for cues of safety or danger — a process called neuroception.
If it senses something familiar from a past threat, it activates old defence pathways, even if you are currently safe.
That’s why you may react to:
A certain tone
Feeling dismissed
Raised voices
Someone turning away
Feeling misunderstood
It’s not about the moment — it’s about the memory.
Triggered vs. Uncomfortable
It’s important to distinguish between:
Uncomfortable
Growth, stretching, confronting beliefs, sitting with new emotions.
This is discomfort that expands you.
Triggered
A nervous system hijack.
Overwhelm, shutdown, reactivity.
A sense of emotional or physical unsafety.
Uncomfortable = growth edge.
Triggered = trauma echo.
Both are human.
But they require different care.
The Invitation Inside a Trigger
When you’re triggered, instead of saying:
❌ “What’s wrong with me?”
❌ “I should be over this by now.”
❌ “I need to control this better.”
Try asking:
💬 What part of me is trying to feel safe?
💬 What past experience is still holding emotion?
💬 What does my body need right now — support, breath, grounding, reassurance?
Gabor Maté teaches that healing begins with compassionate curiosity.
Triggers are messages.
How Kinesiology Can Help
Kinesiology works with the mind-body system to gently access and release stress patterns held in the body and subconscious mind.
Through muscle feedback and nervous system balancing, we can:
Identify emotional memories still influencing reactions
Release stored stress and trauma responses
Create new feelings of safety and stability in the body
Calm survival responses
Support emotional integration
Build long-term nervous system resilience
As the body feels safer, reactions soften.
Old triggers lose their charge.
You return to presence, clarity, and choice.
Over time, you move from reactive survival to regulated response.
Final Thoughts
Triggers can feel messy or frustrating, especially if you thought you’d already “done the work.”
A trigger is not who you are — it is something you learned in response to what you lived through.
You are not your past.
You are not your reactions.
You are the awareness rising beneath them.
When met with compassion, not judgment, it becomes a doorway to growth. It is the bodies way of saying that the nervous system is asking for help to heal.
Every trigger is a chance to return to yourself more gently, more fully, and more powerfully than before.
Ready to move from reaction to regulation?
At Evolved Mind Body, kinesiology sessions support you to:
✨ Understand emotional reactions
✨ Release stress held in the body
✨ Feel safe and grounded in yourself
✨ Build emotional resilience and nervous system balance
Your triggers pave the way to deeper healing and self-awareness.
🌿 Book a session and begin the shift toward nervous system safety and emotional freedom.