'I feel this is a relevant theme for everybody because we all have our trigger points. We all for whatever reason we all have those points if someone says something, or does something, or some circumstances come together in a certain configuration we get triggered in to a reaction. We feel perhaps a very strong emotional response. We might respond in words or actions. It might be a mental story playing out and in that moment we cannot see clearly. It is like we are blinded.

We are blinded by a past situation, as past experience that is apparently replaying itself in that moment, So in that moment we cannot experience life freshly. We cannot meet the reality of life just the way it is. We meet whatever dream state we are in. It is as if we are replaying the old story when at some point in the past perhaps we felt threatened, unsafe, hurt, or for whatever reason we felt we had to protect ourselves, defend ourselves, or we had to respond in a certain way that would ensure our survival or at least what was perceived as a matter of survival. Because in those moments it does feel like a matter of life or death. For some reason it feels as if this is of the highest value and importance. If you do this to me then I’m going to really respond. There seems no other option in those moments.

Of course when we are on the spiritual path we have ideas that one day we will be free from all these trigger points. Because when we wake up after we’ve been triggered or after we have this kind of response and perhaps we’ve done or said something that we know was not coming from some true place, perhaps we feel guilty, we feel we’ve done something wrong, We feel we should have behaved in a more enlightened way. Perhaps it has caused some trouble, some friction, some confrontation with others. It has provoked a situation that you didn’t mean to, it has created the boundary or barrier that you don’t even want. When you wake up out of that dream state you see if more clearly and by then it is too late.

On the spiritual path we can be quite hard on ourselves, believing that we ‘should’ have or ‘could’ have done something different. I feel that these ideas of how we ‘should’ have or ‘could’ have behaved differently are often what causes a lot of the trouble, or it certainly adds to the trouble as we beat ourselves up. Because in the moment when we are responding out of an old reaction there is no other option. In that moment there is the child here. The child that was once in a situation where it needed to respond in that way and here is the child again. It has come up to respond, to protect, to respond in a way that feels there is no other option,’. it feels, she/he’ feels that way. There is an overwhelming emotional and physical response and in that moment there is no clarity. There is not seeing that this is not true. So there is no option that you could do something different.

So this beating yourself up that happens afterwards is in a way the ‘spiritual identity’ that comes in, as if there was some kind of more spiritual option available in that moment. And there was not. If there was you would have acted in that way. So the best that we can do is to embrace that child, to acknowledge that child was needed, even as the adult now you can see that the truth of that particular situation did not need that kind of strong response, you can see it and still that child is here. That child will continue to shout and scream and be triggered as long as it is not being heard and not being embraced and not being fully allowed to be here just the way it is.' - Unmani

Recorded: Open Webinar 3rd October 2021

For information about Unmani's webinars, meetings, retreats and to find out about the Love of Truth Community go to:
http://www.die-to-love.com

Music: 'Let if Fall Apart' - Robert Hanuman
http://www.roberthanuman.bandcamp.com/releases