Triggers Part 3 - Final destination and it’s healing

Remaining only with questions is not enough. A deeper insight is needed so one can look in the right place or better said, in the right time, in the right period of life.

What I have noticed while observing emotional and energetic patterns is that, except in extreme cases of cruelty later in life, most of them are created during early childhood. During the years when we were nurtured, fed, protected, guided, and most of the time showered with love and attention, a gentle, innocent, inexperienced being acted like a sponge, absorbing everything from the environment. Unfiltered. Unable to discern or question what was happening around it.

This period of life becomes fertile ground for planting behavioral seeds and creating patterns that will later guide us through life.

John B. Watson, the American psychologist best known as the founder of behaviorism, elaborated deeply on this idea:

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select … and, yes, even beggarman and thief…” - The point he was making was that environment and conditioning shape human behavior more deeply than innate traits.

In a slightly different manner, only he could frame it, Sigmund Freud emphasized that childhood experiences and unconscious conflicts form adult character:

“The child is father of the man.” - The adult personality grows out of childhood psychological experience.

And of course, the more symbolic and spiritual approach came from Carl Jung:

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - The emotional atmosphere and embodied psychology of parents shape the child more deeply than moral instruction.

And one more quote, one of my personal favorites especially after witnessing this while working with children:

“The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents.” - This connects deeply with emotional invisibility and inherited emotional patterns.

So where does that leave us with our triggers, our reactions, and our healing?

All three thinkers point toward the same truth: we rarely know where or when the patterns that govern us were first created. At the same time, this realization opens a door. It gives us direction, guidance on where to look, and eventually, comfort.

Let us take one of the most common examples of emotional triggers and, through examining it, shed light on aspects that may help each of us.

A guilty conscience.

Some of you immediately recognized yourselves. Some of you have already healed this part within you. Others are still in the process and simply need time to complete the work.

There is a woman, a mother of two, named Christine.

She has a job she truly loves. She is happily married, and her husband is still deeply in love with her. The family is doing well in every aspect of life: health, school, sports, honesty, communication. Christine naturally gravitates toward people in need. She likes listening to them, supporting them, offering comfort. She does it with such care that, at times, she goes beyond her own limits, and this “good trait” slowly becomes an obstacle to her own well-being.

She became so used to giving herself to others and absorbing their struggles that, more and more often, it left her emotionally drained sometimes for the entire day, sometimes longer.

As far back as she could remember, Christine enjoyed helping others, especially older people. She enjoyed being useful within her community, among friends, and inside her family. Until one day, she met an older gentleman at her workplace.

From the very beginning, he felt comfortable with her. He opened up quickly, sharing deeply personal problems, issues with his family, his marriage, his inner struggles. And on the other side, Christine felt invited to help him.

So she invested her time, attention, and emotional energy into his well-being while barely noticing the strange discomfort that appeared every time they spoke. It took her time to realize that after each conversation, an overwhelming exhaustion would flood her body. Sometimes it became so intense that she would find herself crying “without reason” alone in the quiet of her bedroom.

This is where we begin searching for the root.

Where did this behavior begin?
Where was the seed planted?
What exactly was asking for attention and healing?

Through deeper conversations, the pattern, the place, and the time slowly revealed themselves.

It began when Christine was around four or five years old, and this adaptive pattern remained active for more than eight years. Like many children, she was surrounded by love, care, safety, and protection. But there was also an important emotional dynamic present in her relationship with her father.

Whenever something did not align with his expectations, opinions, or comfort zone, he would emotionally withdraw into himself. He became unavailable. And as only a child can adapt so quickly to its environment, Christine adapted too.

Little Christine learned to adjust herself to her father’s emotional state and expectations. It seemed easy because this man provided her with everything a child could wish for. Yet beneath all that love, an unconscious mechanism was silently shaping her. Back then, whenever a situation required little Christine to change herself instantly, she did it unconsciously.

Somewhere within, she learned that if her father’s expectations were not met, then for a certain period of time: his hugs would feel emotionally empty, his loving words would somehow lose warmth, his presence would become distant. And every child needs those things. So she adapted.

Unconsciously.

Throughout Christine’s life, this hidden pattern continued guiding her behavior because this was the way she had learned to receive attention, closeness, and emotional safety.

Her father did not do this intentionally.
Christine did not consciously choose this adaptation.

This is simply the nature of childhood conditioning. We are deeply adaptable beings, especially in our earliest years.

I cannot stress enough that this is nobody’s fault.

But at the same time, this understanding becomes a profound lesson.

Earlier, I mentioned forgiveness. One of the greatest strengths a human being can possess is the ability to forgive oneself.

Christine, as an adult woman and mother, needed to forgive little Christine for adopting this pattern and allowing it to unconsciously shape her life. Eventually, the pattern became too heavy to carry, and her being started sending clear messages: from mild discomfort in her stomach, to emotional exhaustion, and all the way to crying alone in the safety of her bedroom. Perhaps many years passed between these moments.

But the most important step was becoming aware of them.

Changing the perception of one moment in the past can transform an entire chain of perceptions throughout life. The moment we accept that everything happened unconsciously, and place ourselves in the position of an observer looking back from where we stand today, something changes. We begin to see the experience not only as pain, but also as a lesson that was waiting to be understood. A lesson capable of transforming us from within.

And once accepted, it quietly begins changing many relationships in our lives beginning with the relationship we have with ourselves.

The tidal wave created by this new understanding reaches us in the present moment:
in daily communication,
in encounters with people from our past,
in emotions arising during familiar situations,
in thoughts and reactions that once controlled us automatically.

Life itself begins to feel different. Softer. Lighter. More honest. And all of this begins the moment we accept the vulnerability of the child we once were.

Once you accept this personal feat, this overcoming of oneself, every other challenge begins to feel smaller.

Accepting my own weaknesses and embracing them remains one of the greatest challenges I have ever faced. I have been walking this path for almost twenty years, and I still do not know exactly what I have accomplished.

But one thing I can say with certainty: the journey is worth every second devoted to it. And every time I begin believing I have fully understood myself, life places a new lesson in front of me. Every trigger I brought into awareness became a long-awaited lesson. Each one revealed another place within me that needed attention, understanding, and acceptance.

Over time, I realized that life never stops offering opportunities to grow. The lessons never disappear. The triggers never arrive without reason. What changes… is our ability to recognize them.

And perhaps that is the real path: not becoming free from life, but becoming conscious within it.