Do you struggle with anxiety or frustration? In today’s world, anxiety is at an all time high and there seems to be a commonality that’s found in most cases: 

“triggers”

The word trigger has been thrown around a lot in the past few years. People these days seem to be triggered by just about anything

• Sounds
• Symbols
• Words
• Places

Whatever the trigger is, they seem to have this powerful hold over us, rendering us at its mercy. 

I used to be a victim of triggers. And after years of self study, research and the sheer curiosity for my own behaviour, I was able to identify what my triggers were, and how to disarm them. 

My triggers and how i disarmed them 

First, we should begin with the basics: what is a trigger? 

By definition, it is the cause of an event or situation to happen or exist. 

So, if a trigger is simply the cause of an event or situation, why are some people triggered by certain events, while others are not? 

A while back I had taken on a corporate client that didn’t fit well with me (nor I with them). We didn’t see eye to eye and the partnership felt like I was constantly walking onto a battlefield; I dreaded going into work and I was always in survival mode; It got so bad that when my phone or computer would make the all familiar sound of an email notification, I would start to have a panic attack. 

Now, most people in this situation would just fire the client and move on. Could I have done that? Absolutely. But to me, that wasn’t solving the problem – It was running away from it

And so, I decided to strategize. 

Have you ever heard of Pavlov’s Dog’s? Ian Pavlov was a Russian Physiologist that founded the basic principles of conditioning. In one of his studies, he noticed that dogs would start to salivate not when their food had been served, but at the site of the technician that served it. Later, Pavlov would create a sound before meal time, which would also activate the salivation response. Pavlov found that all he needed to do was ring the bell – and the dogs would salivate. 

That’s how I felt. But instead of a delicious meal that would follow the sound of a bell, it was a barrage of blame, anger and accusations. Enter panic mode. 

BELL → THOUGHT → REACTION

I had to make a decision; Let the bell control me – or take control of the bell.

I realized I was having a psychological response to the email sound, I started to understand that it wasn’t the sound that was causing me to hit the panic button, it was the meaning that I was attaching to it. 

So, I decided to turn that bell into something positive. 

INTRODUCING: THE SQUAT METHOD

I was starting to work out and I’ve always wanted a nice butt. #Goals

And so, I decided to use the bell to my advantage. Each time that bell went off, I would get up out of my chair and do 20 squats. I shit you not – I was squatting 60 – 200 times a day. The best part is that by the time I got to squat 10, I wasn’t anxious, mad or scared anymore. I was laughing, almost every single time. 

After a while, the email sound no longer haunted me – and though I’m still working on it, I have a pretty nice butt. 

The point is this: The meaning we attach to the things in our lives affects how we perceive the world. To be honest, those emails probably were not as bad as I made them out to be in my head. But I dreaded them so much that my body would go into a panic response. 

And when I found the power to change the meaning of that bell, when I realized I could control the meaning I attached to my thoughts – my whole life changed.