Matt's Audio Letter of the Week

Alright, hey there, and welcome to this edition of the Feel Better Letter.

This is Matt, and today I want to talk about triggers.

So, this past week I spent some time in Chicago for work, and we got to talking about triggers one day. I wanted to share this central message because I think this recontextualization can really change your entire experience with what you’re going through.

One of the things that happens is we carry this underlying belief that triggers are bad — that we’re not supposed to be triggered and that we should avoid anything that might trigger us. We see triggers as these external things that create discomfort within us.

For example:

• If you’ve had a panic attack on a plane, you may suddenly see planes as triggers.

• If you deal with social anxiety, you might see large gatherings as triggers.

• With certain themes, it might be a movie, a cooking utensil, or even church.

But here’s the question: Is the trigger really causing the anxiety?

If the external truly caused the internal, then it would do so for everyone. For instance, doorknobs don’t cause anxiety. If they did, everyone would feel anxious around them. The reality is it’s the underlying belief that activates the nervous system — the fear is being projected onto the external.

So when a trigger happens, it’s not something happening to you. It’s actually something happening for you. It’s an event that allows stored emotion in your body to surface so it can be released — if you navigate the process correctly.

The problem is, most people resist it. Like a cork rising to the surface of the water, the emotion comes up and we push it back down. We resist, suppress, repress, avoid, escape, or run away from the trigger. We see it as an attack, something happening to us. That mindset locks us into victim mode: “This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t feel this way. I need to fight this.”

And that’s really what OCD and anxiety are — battling an experience that’s already there because you believe it shouldn’t be there. This creates the perpetual spinning loop that confines your life and experience.

But if you even begin to consider the possibility that triggers don’t happen to you but for you, everything shifts. You can start to experience this in a completely different way. And that doorway is not only the path to recovery, but also to an entirely new way of life.

That’s the thought for today. I’ll keep it short.

If you know someone this could help, please share it with them. And if this resonates with you, and you’d like to go deeper inside our community at TBC — where we explore these kinds of ideas in much more depth — please fill out an application. I’d love to chat with you.

Have a great day. Talk soon.