Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.
—Tao Te Ching - Verse 33
Not to get all sci-fi on you, but I’ve been reflecting on triggering moments as if they’re part of a simulation I signed up for—one designed to mirror childhood traumas. For example, I was in an improv class where the instructor frequently interrupted my scene with his “side coaching.” I found myself becoming irritated because I felt he wasn’t letting me be myself, and his constant interruptions were sucking the fun out of the scene.
After class, I reflected on why this might have triggered me, and the first memory that popped into my head was of learning to play ping pong with my father as a child. He was serving me a bucket of balls, and I was having a grand old time smacking them back over the net as hard as I could. That is, until he scolded me, saying, “Why don’t you try and take this a little more seriously.” Apparently, there was some minor resentment buried toward the authority figure raining on my parade, and a situation in which I felt I couldn’t push back because of the power dynamic at play.
Apparently, this student/teacher dynamic here, where someone else was imposing their ideals onto my experience, resurrected those emotions to the point of feeling anger over something minor. But as soon as I was able to shine conscious awareness on the root of the unconscious reaction, those feelings pretty much disappeared.
Trying to examine situations like this as if they’re a simulation playing out for you, as a means to mirror your past and trigger your emotions, allows you to take a step back from viewing them through an ego-protective lens and from seeing the other person as trying to offend you on purpose. This technique allows you to detach from the situation and evaluate it from an objective and less emotional perspective, so that you can dissolve the trigger at play.