Hey, welcome to The Young Faithful Mama Blog. My name is Justice Rodriguez and helping young mamas like you stop feeling unqualified, overwhelmed, and chaotic so you can start raising your babies with more peace and joy. By sharing some of my experiences and things that I learned through my journey so you can become a Young Faithful Mama too as you navigate through your life as a wife and mother.
The aim of this week’s blog is to share 3 keys to remember when triggered.
There are might be some affiliate links and other resources within this blog because I use them and believe they can help you make your #mamalife more fun and resources that will help you grow closer to the Lord.
Learning how to respond when triggered is very important. It’s not only for the people around you but it’s really important for yourself because not only don’t the people you come in contact with either daily or a few times a week want to be around a person that can fly off the handle without notice, it’s draining to always be at the edges of your seat all the time.
Learning how to identify your triggers is one thing but learning how to respond when you are triggered is equally as valuable.
We are human but I’m a firm believer that if you know better you, do better. Learning from our mistakes is a part of life anyway and when it comes to acting out of our emotions I’m sure we have all been there that’s why I want to give you 3 keys that I have used to help myself.
There have been many times someone has triggered me and I went into a spiral of unfortunate events. It could have been as small as blocking someone on social media or my phone because they said something I didn’t like to something as big as having a full-blown temper tantrum and everyone else around me had to be just as miserable as I was.
I lacked self-control, patience, and a sound mind.
Now I wish I could tell you that when I gave my life to Jesus that everything immediately changed and I never acted in my flesh again I was just this brand new person on day 1 after being baptized but that is simply untrue. It took me years of renewing my mind and behaviors to even be here writing this blog but I knew I did want to stay the way I was and I knew God didn’t create me to be as immature, chaotic, and mean as I was
Key #1
Your response to your triggers are your responsibility
No one can make you do anything. Once you learn that your response to how you handle things and treat people when you’re having a bad day the sooner you can start learning how to control your reactions to things.
Walk away / give yourself a timeout
It is okay to walk away from the situation if it’s not serving you. Learning that not every situation deserves your response is more powerful than you know.
Take every thought captive
In 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, it reads
“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ,”
Take your thoughts captive before your reaction. Imagine someone that’s walking around with negative thoughts and emotions. People like this either don’t realize what they are giving off or they know that their negative behavior affects people and use it to their advantage to have power. Which one will you be?
Get clarity at the moment
Getting clarity at the moment has been one of my favorite ways to help when I get triggered. You can do this simply by asking questions. When you are in a triggered mindset you need to replace the lie with the truth.
You can either ask the person that has triggered you “ hey, what did you mean by ____? ” or “ when you said ____ it made me feel ___ were you serious ?”
And there are many other questions you can ask to get the clarity you need so you can have a clear understanding.
Key #2
Pretending that you are not triggered when you are can lead to more significant issues
Faking it to you make it, doesn’t always work let’s be honest! When you learn to respect your feelings and make peace with what’s going on that’s how you heal.
Lying to yourself and telling yourself I’m okay I’m just going to stuff this down and keep moving will come back to get you later because once that closet door you’re stuffing all your feelings into doesn’t close anymore the only place for it all to come is out.
They come out in your behavior, your mouth, and your body language, and my pet peeve is our faces.
Step away and identify what’s triggering you
Ask yourself why is this triggering you.
Feel your feelings but don’t become them
Take a moment to feel them. If you need to cry for a moment cry. If you need to get mad, get a stress ball, or for myself I’ll focus on a chore that will take a minute.
I’ll pray that God gives me the strength to go through my feelings and that He helps me have a sound mind and self-control ( 2 Timothy 1:7) and help me to speak life and love instead of what my flesh wants.
Learn more healthy coping skills
Learning that the way you handle things sometimes isn’t healthy is the beginning of learning to be a healthier person. Throwing tantrums, saying things you know you will regret later, and knowing you shouldn’t do something but still doing it because it makes you feel better are some examples of unhealthy coping skills.
Learning to self-regulate is a new coping skill I’ve learned that’s been helping me.
Key #3
Learning how to respond to traumatic situations is the major key to being less reactive and more self-controlled.
Set a boundary
Set boundaries with yourself and others are really important. I’ve talked about this before and I will always talk about how learning to set healthy boundaries helped me.
Setting a boundary is just setting a limit or a line that you aren’t going to cross or allow someone else to cross.
Learn that your words have power
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.”
Proverbs 18:21 ESV
They will know you by your fruit
In this section of Matthew 7 Jesus begins by talking about false prophets but I think these verses are just as valid for all of us to learn from
“You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”
Matthew 7:16-20 ESV
When we take the time to renew our minds and become more healthy mentally and emotionally we are becoming healthy trees that will bear good fruit.
If you’re unfamiliar with Galatians 5 I encourage you to go and learn the fruit of the spirit and how important they are to our lives and our walk with Christ.
I pray that this blog encourages you and has brought you value. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to reach out to me, until the next blog I pray that God moves in your heart and mind and blesses you.
The Young Faithful Mama 