Are there people in your life who trigger you?
Since you’re human, in all likelihood the answer to that is yes.
You’re especially likely to be triggered when you’re feeling busy, pressured, overwhelmed and stressed. Like around the holidays.
Who’s getting to you now?
A family member who demands attention at the most inconvenient times?
A team member who’s not pulling their weight?
Someone you feel jealous of or hurt by?
In situations like this, it’s normal to get angry and resentful. After all, if they would just stop doing that, then everything would be fine – or at least tons better!
If they would just be more considerate, less demanding, more responsible, less possessive. If they would only be different!
It’s definitely normal to think and feel this way. The problem is, it just isn’t productive.
At the Montessori school my girls grew up in, when a student would complain about someone else, the teachers would say, “I hear that. And who’s the only person you can control?” The answer, of course, is yourself.
Much as you would like to, and maybe try to, you can’t change or control the other person or their actions. Trying is like beating your head against the wall.
At first glance, that might make it seem like you have no power in what’s happening, like you’re just supposed to put up with whatever the other person is doing.
Not at all. In accepting that you have no control over the other person, you regain your power.
If you’re spending your time and energy making demands and trying to force the other person to change – or spinning your wheels in frustration that they’re like they are – that’s when you don’t have any power. [Actually, I’d say you’re disconnected from your power. It’s still there, you just aren’t accessing it.]
When you accept that you can’t change that person, your attention goes from them to you, from who you can’t control to who you can. This reconnects you to your power.
The question is, what can you do differently that could shift the situation?
To go from blaming (0 connection with your power) to expanding (full connection to your power), try asking yourself these questions:
- What do I really want?
- What assumptions am I making about them, the situation and how I’m communicating?
- What do they need? What might they be thinking, feeling and wanting?
- What am I responsible for here? Where’s my power?
- What’s possible in this situation? What have I not considered?
Really go into each question. Play with them. Let them percolate. If you don’t know an answer, just make one up. Ask yourself, “If I did know the answer, what would it be?”
This is what I call the down-and-dirty way to address the problem. You’re dealing with the current situation and what’s going on in the moment. It’s an excellent and empowering approach.
In the work I do with clients, I take them even deeper in.
We look at how the current situation is connected to their experiences from the past. We look at what part of them that other person is reflecting, and we heal that, so that the situation is diffused on a deep, energetic level.
We mine the current upsetting situation for the keys it holds to deep healing, reclaiming their power, and opening up new possibilities for their future that weren’t available to them before.
This is why one client, who had the rug pulled out from under her in a big business deal, now describes it as the best thing that could have happened to her. It’s why another client was able to find peace even in the midst of family and professional upheaval.
Because we were working together, these weren’t shifts that happened over weeks, months or years, but in a matter of days or hours.
This is what it means to reclaim your power from your past. This is what freedom looks like.
Have you heard Vivian Greene’s quote, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain”?
If you spend your life trying to avoid problems and avoiding people who might trigger you, you’re boxing yourself into a smaller and smaller space. The way to live a big life is to learn how to come through challenges with more energy, confidence and inner cohesiveness than you went into them with.
That’s what I can help you do.
If you want to make 2018 the year you shine brighter, show up more and receive with greater ease, I have 2 spots left for one-on-one coaching. Click here to set up a time for us to connect and we’ll make sure this is the right fit.