Triggered?

The world seemed to have caught on fire as soon as my sabbatical started. I considered even breaking radio silence. However, a line of thinking kept going through my head.

I’m not the person. Now isn’t the time. No one will really listen.

Which is good because there is enough half-baked commentary online. I watched and journaled my thoughts about George Floyd, the issue, the protests, and the evidence. I did what a good type 5 does and observed and listened.

Then I reflected on it, forming my opinion carefully.

This post won’t be about that. It’s going to be about triggers.

While I observed, I was triggered multiple times. The media, social and mainstream, masterfully did its job and pulled me into my emotional brain. The more emotional you are, the less reasonable you are. 

I have done a lot of reading, and one book is on training your intuition by Rory Miller. One section is on how to deal with detraining toxic intuition. I particularly liked “Not Being Played.”

It goes like this from my notes:

“When I get emotionally engaged by an event I see on TV, online, in a book, or hear on the radio, stop-think-look for what was used to engage my emotion. When I recognize the trigger (cool), that’s the conscious and subconscious working together. If I can’t spot it, assume that the manipulators are smarter than me, and any reaction I have is untrustworthy.”

Default position: you’re getting played. Look for how you were emotionally manipulated. 

This is something I was getting a lot of practice doing, but I’m probably not better at it. Judging from my social media, most people don’t do well at not being manipulated. 

The Righteousness one is pretty good, too. 

“Watch for my flashes of anger and my flashes of quick approval. A healthy intuition knows what isn’t important.”

The hard part is figuring out if my intuition is healthy or not. I’m good at flashes of anger; it’s figuring out if the why is important. 

Examine your biases and media consumption; see if you’re being played.