The Trigger Inside You
El detonante dentro de ti
A question about how to discern when to process emotional difficulty on your own versus bringing it to your partner, and the pattern of depending on another person to resolve what is ultimately an internal trigger.
The Trigger Inside You
A question about how to discern when to process emotional difficulty on your own versus bringing it to your partner, and the pattern of depending on another person to resolve what is ultimately an internal trigger.
I was contemplating something you said about staying with your own material through the night. How do you discern when you need to stay with something by yourself versus when you should share it? I wonder sometimes if I overshare. I think what you were describing was a pattern where you noticed it was more of a reaction, like demanding a certain kind of attention or validation from the other person.
It's more like this: say, for example, I wanted attention from my partner and I went to him and said, "Hey, I want some attention," and he said, "Okay, sure." Then there's no problem. So I'm not saying I should never bring something to him. But there were times when I'd be reacting and he wouldn't be available, or he'd have a boundary, or he wouldn't be in a grounded, untriggered space himself. In those moments, it was important to be able to sit with it on my own.
But also, because of the work of growing up and consciousness work that we're engaged in, I wanted to understand: if I'm all triggered about something, what is that in me? Even when he was there for me, grounded and calm and helping me process (which he did many, many times), I would still want to ask, "What is this in me?"
The way I came to think of it was: there's a trigger, and it feels as if the trigger is external to me. But if I'm reacting, the trigger is not external. It's internal. When I could look at what happened in me and what it was causing in me, it felt like who I am expanded to include that trigger.
I have one small thing to add to that. Notice if there is an interpretation or narrative around the difficulty, something like: "This is really unbearable, and the solution depends on the other person." It depends on the other person to behave a certain way, to do something or not do something. Something is in the power of the other person for this to be resolved, for this to be okay.
In certain contexts, that may be appropriate. There might be situations where it is. But when you notice it as a pattern, when you see that you can't be with something and it always has to be resolved by somebody else or by your partner doing something different, that's different.
Noticing the pattern
That said, I still take my partner's preferences into account. There are certain things that, in my understanding, are really important to him. Things from his past that were very difficult. It's completely understandable that he has a preference around them, and I choose to take that on to some extent.
What I'm trying to say is: sometimes there are things from somebody's childhood that are so understandable. It makes sense that they would have difficulty around those things in a relationship. That doesn't mean they can't be responsible for their own inner child and all of that. They are. But if you had a partner who had been through major traumas, I think there has to be room for that in the relationship to some extent.
To me, it really comes back to looking at yourself. What is this in me?
Yes, it's much clearer now. The thing about noticing a pattern is important to me, because the tricky part is this: if you don't notice it as a pattern, you might think, "Well, the other person is being really non-empathic, and he's also on a growing spiritual path, so I should let him know." That seems reasonable in isolation.
But if you notice it's a pattern and you do it all the time, it looks different. Sharing something once is just sharing. But if the conflict is about something and the habit, the pattern, is always that the other person needs to be different, or change, or do something they're not doing, or stop doing something they're doing, and only then will you be okay: that is evidence of a trigger, and you should stay with what's coming up.
The mutual commitment
Right. And in the example of your partner not being as empathic as you'd want them to be, you let them know, obviously. But then, while they're working on that, you can make some really great ground dealing with your own stuff. Maybe in that time you're in a slightly deeper place than your partner, and you're able to offer them a little more grounding. Why not?
But there was always a really strong trust that we were both working on our stuff. That was a primary commitment: that we would both look at ourselves and work on things.
That helps so much, trusting that the other person has that same commitment.
The wave and the ocean
We're trying to preserve something that isn't a thing. It's a process, a function. It's like a wave on the surface of an ocean. If I am that wave, the ocean can never calm down, because if it settles, the wave stops, and I disappear. If I'm attached to that, I have to keep the wave going: not too big, not too small. Only in this shape, no, that shape. Go this way, no, that way.
That is the torment that is the consequence of the illusion of identification. But once you see that you are not that wave (the wave is useful, good for surfing), everything changes.