I had an exhausting weekend working with triggers.
Do you ever respond to something that, on the surface, seems relatively minor, yet your response is immediate and intense? Further, your response is not how you would like to respond, given a choice? That is how you know you have met a trigger.
I just spent my entire weekend training in Lifespan Integration with Peggy Pace. It was intense. The basic concept is that when we have experiences that are traumatizing to us in some way, our self at that age becomes a part of us that is not integrated. That part continues to vigilantly watch out for similar situations, a.k.a. triggers, so we can protect ourselves. The problem is we protect ourselves from the perspective of our age during the original incident, rather than the mature adult we have become.
Lifespan Integration is about letting go of those triggers. I can’t explain how it works in this blog–I just spent two whole days learning it–but suffice to say it is powerful.
I can tell you one thing that was reinforced this weekend. The presence and confidence of a therapist is central. The therapist’s role is to convey “there is a new way–and I am here to shine the light to help you find that new way.” My work is to not only inspire hope in my clients that change is possible, but to truly know that change can, and will, come.
That, is powerful work.