On Being Triggered

One of the most challenging things that a lot of people have to deal with is learning how to remain conscious and deal with “issues” that come up when we’re engaging with people as we go through our day.

We’re so conditioned to living at the level of the mind that even after a deep awakening it can be easy to fall back into the old patterns when we’re “triggered:”.. unless we’re paying close attention.

I had an experience when I went out to play tennis with my brother once that brought this up again for me. Ram Dass said one time that “If you want to know how Awake you are, go spend time with your family”. I know exactly how true that statement is because I’ve been living with him for a while now, and I believe in that expanse of time that just about every old remaining dysfunctional pattern from my childhood that I hadn’t dealt with has come up for me to bring Awareness to it. But back to tennis.

We got to the court and he fired commands at me like a drill sergeant about how the session was going to happen. He was obviously in an old story of his own and didn’t realize it. I’d been very present most of the day and I knew by his energy that he wasn’t anywhere close to being present, but I still wasn’t conscious enough not to be triggered by his demands. It was my father all over again.. shouting at me.. telling me how things were going to be.

So for a while I had to sit with being pretty well triggered. For a time I wasn’t conscious enough to recognize what exactly was going on, but I did know that I was triggered and I was sitting with it. That’s sometimes a rather odd place to be.. you’re triggered and into some old long ago childhood pattern, yet you’re watching yourself being in it.

Anyway there it was.. some old childhood pattern trying it’s best to run the show and rain on my parade, and for a while it was fairly successful. As I said, even though I knew right away that something had shifted in me, it took a while to bring it fully to consciousness because it was so old and so deep. But when I finally did.. I had a profound realization that I wouldn’t have to visit that one again. Moral of the story? Relationships, whether family or otherwise, are rich ground for Becoming. The provide us with wonderful opportunities to rooting out old patterns and resolve them just by becoming conscous that they’re there. In this way, we become who we ARE.

The beauty of it is that all that’s necessary IS to “bring it to consciousness:” God.. Awareness.. or whatever you want to call it.. does the rest. Every time we see an old unconscious pattern running it weakens it. We don’t have to do a thing.. just observe it. It’s like.. “Oh wow.. there it is again.” The same applies for those deep, suppressed emotions we hold in our pain-body that cause us to judge, or rage, or whatever our particular means is of it’s manifestation.

As a footnote to the first paragraph: The more deeply we go into Presence and stay grounded in the Now, the more conscious we become. By that I mean we clear up old pain body issues and mental constructs, and the more do that, the more we can actually be deeply present and at the same time interact with the world. This is the highest form of Consciousness in action in daily life, because when that state is reached, the mind is the slave and not the master. Consciousness is controlling and running the show.. so whatever the interaction is that’s happening is absolutely perfect. When that happens, it is sheer bliss, because you KNOW that you are the highest expression of your Soul and of God.

Namaste’

John