What are fear triggers?
Fear triggers are what are buried in the subconscious or unconscious portion of our mind & signal when we feel threatened. Fear Triggers can actually ignite the "fight or flight" response and many times we will not even realize they have come into play. We meet someone, or walk into a certain set of circumstances & the feeling of being threatened comes over us. Often we are not even aware of it, however, we are having very strong reactions in the moment.
How do they work?
An example of this would be a child who might have had a teacher in grade school. Let's say this teacher was very rigid & strict with the children. Day after day the child sat in the classroom feeling helpless. This was authority, so to cope, the child buried the feelings that were happening. The feelings of anger, resentment, helplessness & possibly even hate. The child is caught between the feelings they should be having - the feelings they were taught to have & the feelings they actually are having. The child may have been told you have to respect authority, pay attention to the teacher, therefore, the feelings of being helpless are never totally expressed.
Now, let's say everyday the teacher wore a red sweater & the child sat watching the red sweater. The red sweater has now developed into the fear trigger of everything that was buried at the time. This can even develop to the colour red. The child may at that point develop such a dislike for the colour "red" that as an adult the person can't stand to have the colour red around them. The colour red is now signalling the feelings of anger, resentment, hurt & pain & ultimately the feeling of being helpless. As an adult, these triggers are usually not recognized. Someone wearing a "red sweater" can ignite the trigger, the feelings of threat. The fight or flight response.
Usually, on immediate meeting, the person will then create an instant dislike of the person wearing the red sweater. As an adult, they will look for places to understand the feelings of resentment & dislike. What they will then notice about the person is the "reason" for having the feeling of dislike. They may not like the way the person speaks, acts, stands, treats their friends. They may dislike the way the person wears their hair, the clothes they wear, however, they will probably not identify that what they dislike is the feelings they are having and will probably not connect the "red sweater" as the trigger.
There are many triggers buried in our subconscious & unconscious minds. Many of these triggers are what keeps us held in the past as we are still seeking ways to resolve the feelings that were buried, and yet having these feelings were somehow wrong so we fear them. What we actually end up doing is creating more ways to keep these feelings buried.
When we bring these buried fear triggers back to the conscious mind, then we can truly move towards resolving them.
Picture with this example the person now going to a job interview & the person interviewing them just happens to be wearing a red sweater that day. The person will feel threatened even before the interview has started & may pass it off as just nervousness at the interview. There is a very good chance that the interview will not go well, and even if this is a dream job - the chance of a lifetime, there is a very good chance in play that the person will turn the job down if offered & it will never be identified that the red sweater was the culprit.
Fear triggers can be developed around almost anything. Certain foods we eat, words, phrases. Something as simple as a certain word can put us into the threatened position & fight or flight takes over.
As we become aware of our triggers, we can then recognize the patterns associated with them. The coping mechanisms, the feelings in the moment & eventually one day we notice the same triggers no longer have the power to signal the threat. The mind has then been reprogrammed & taught differently.
Who knows - this person one day may actually like red sweaters. The possibility always exists. The key lies in becoming consciously aware of the trigger.
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