GNT #177: Trigger

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read time: 3 minutes

My grandpa Lawrence had a pony named Trigger. The name was a warning label.

A feed bag on the wrong fence, a squeaky gate, somebody walking up on his blind side, and that pony was gone. All four feet and a lot of opinion.

Grandpa never tried to "fix" him. You can't steamroll a pony, so he did the sensible thing and learned the animal instead. Hang the bag over here. Come up on his good side. He knew every trigger that pony had and worked around all of them. He was crazy about Trigger, and I think that pony truly loved my grandpa too.

I've handled my own triggers about the same way. Something gets me fired up, I file it away, and I learn to step wide of it next time. Meaning I've spent a good part of my adult life managing my own feelings with the toolkit my grandpa used on a pony. All four feet and a lot of opinion.

But a pony can't help it. I can. And the things that get under your skin are usually the most honest feedback you'll ever get, once you stop defending yourself long enough to read them.

Let's dig in. 

The reflex is to argue

When a trigger hits, our first reflex is to prove it wrong. Take the stranger who watched one of our YouTube airplane build videos and commented that I "wasn't really doing much of the work."

I wanted to bark it all out with a pointed, shaking finger. My rivet hours. The clecos I moved. The tight spaces I folded into for hours of fabrication. And our newborn I was holding so Ed could even be out in that garage.

But arguing back never touches what's actually underneath it, the real reason you're feeling triggered. It's just a fancier way of steering around the thing, the way Grandpa steered around the pony. After that YouTube comment set me off, I started trying to do the opposite, especially with the deep triggers I'm a little afraid are true. Instead of arguing with it, I follow it.
 

Where it leads

Follow a trigger far enough, and it stops being about whoever poked it. It walks you straight to the thing you're really measuring yourself against.

Mine all led to the same place, the same old insecurity: doing enough, being smart enough, being far enough along. That's a LOT of enoughs. Enoughs that I never agreed to, couldn't tell you who set them. But I failed them every time something got under my skin.

And following a trigger hands you something arguing never could. Sometimes it shows you that the very thing you keep "failing" was a strength all along, just held up against the wrong measure.

Take my "being smart enough" trigger. For as long as I can remember, I've felt like the slow one. I'm the youngest of three, raised behind two quick, brilliant sisters, and now I live with a fast-witted husband and two fast-thinking kids. I'm the slowest in my house. I lose at trivia and every fast game we own.

For many years I thought this added up to one verdict: don't let anyone know you're not smart. But when I gave myself room to follow my trigger, I realized I'm not slow. I'm deep. I love thinking slowly. It's almost delectable, turning a thing over until I understand it all the way down. The thing I'd spent years apologizing for was actually my sharpest tool.

Takeaway

So that's what I try to do now (although it's not perfect). When something gets me, I stop arguing and ask why.

I know how that sounds. Very deep breath, very namaste. But following a trigger is the opposite of woo, because the answer is almost always unflattering. It's rarely about the person who poked it. It's about you, and some standard you never agreed to, or a hurt you never asked for.

So the next time something gets you, don't grab your rivet hours and start shaking a finger. Go see what's underneath.

My grandpa spent years steering that pony around whatever set him off. Trigger never got to see the other side of it. We do.

That's the whole difference between a pony and a person.

I'm always rooting for you. See you next week.

-Colleen

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