Triggers and reactions
From automatic pleasing to conscious choice
Why your system isn’t “too sensitive” but trained for survival
Sometimes it’s something small
A certain look in their eyes.
A tone of voice.
A subtle shift in someone’s posture.
And suddenly you feel it, panic, anger, sadness, numbness.
You withdraw. You go quiet. Or you snap into defence.
Not because you chose to but because your system did it for you.
That’s a trigger.
And triggers are not flaws in your system. They are messengers.
Signals from the parts of you that are still seeking safety.
They show you where your body is still living in an old story.
A story where you weren’t safe.
Where you had to disappear in order to survive.
For codependents, triggers aren’t occasional. They are part of daily life.
Because they touch exactly the places where you once lost yourself to hold onto love.
What is a trigger, really?
A trigger isn’t oversensitivity.
It’s a physical memory of a moment when you didn’t feel safe.
Your system recognises something that feels like back then — and switches on.
Not to bother you, but to protect you.
For example
Your partner shuts down and suddenly that old fear of abandonment floods in
Someone criticises you and you drop into shame or the urge to prove yourself
A conflict arises and you freeze or rush to smooth everything over
What’s happening now is just the spark, not the cause.
The real cause is stored in your nervous system, in your cellular memory,
in experiences that were never seen, heard or held.
Why triggers can feel so intense for codependents
If you grew up in an environment where your emotions weren’t welcome
where love had to be earned
where safety depended on adapting rather than attuning
then your entire system became trained to stay on high alert.
Maybe you were the helper.
The pleaser.
The child who always had to be strong.
So you swallowed your sadness.
Numbed your anger.
Laughed through your tears.
But the body doesn’t forget.
Those emotions are still there, waiting.
And now, all these years later, a trigger brings them back.
Not to punish you, but to let you feel what had no space back then.
Triggers touch the parts of you still waiting to be seen.
They’re saying this was once pushed down and now it’s allowed to breathe.
How do you recognise a trigger?
You feel it in your body.
Tightness in your chest or throat.
Freezing or shutting down.
Butterflies, nausea, restlessness in your belly.
Shaky hands or rapid breathing.
You notice it in your emotions.
Feeling overwhelmed or suddenly in tears.
Irrational bursts of anger.
Deep shame, fear or loneliness.
And in your behaviour.
Pleasing, adapting or avoiding conflict.
Withdrawing or shutting off.
Over explaining or becoming defensive.
For codependents, there’s often something else
The urge to correct yourself.
That inner critic telling you you’re overreacting.
That you’re being dramatic.
That you should be stronger by now.
But the truth is your body doesn’t lie.
What you feel has a root
And what you feel deserves space, not judgment.
Healing begins with awareness
The shift from automatic reactions to conscious choice.
Recognise the trigger
Tell yourself
Something in me has been touched.
You name it.
You acknowledge it. And with that, you create space.
Feel your body
Where do you feel something
- What is your body doing
- Can you stay with it, without trying to fix it
- Your body is pointing you toward what wants to be seen.
Connect to the origin
Ask yourself
- When have I felt this before
- Who used to look at me this way
- What did I believe about myself back then
Choose from the present
Remind yourself
- I’m no longer that child
- I don’t have to hide or please anymore
- Breathe. Ground. Ask
- What do I need right now
Triggers are gateways. Gateways to what was once too much to feel.
And when you meet them with gentleness and clarity they stop being threats and start becoming guides.
Each trigger is an invitation
- To come back to yourself
- To rewrite old patterns
- To finally feel what was once too overwhelming
Recovery isn’t about control
It’s about safety.
It’s about learning to stay with what you feel.
Without running.
Without losing yourself.
This is exactly what we work on in my 16-week recovery programme
You’ll learn how to
- Understand and calm your nervous system
- Recognise and regulate your triggers
- Let go of old survival strategies
- Restore your boundaries, your feelings and your truth
Not by pushing yourself harder
But by softening toward what lives inside you
Because you are not too much
You were once just too alone
And that’s where your healing begins
Want to explore how deep this goes?
Take the first step
Am I codependent?