As a healer and spiritual mentor, I regularly witness people feeling triggered. This is a normal part of any healing or transformational process, and even though it can feel yucky, it’s actually something worth celebrating because it opens a portal of opportunity.
Instead of trying to avoid them, I teach my clients to approach triggers from a place of understanding them, feeling prepared and ready to work with them as part of the healing process. Triggers are an inevitable and predictable part of shadow work or underworld initiation, and it’s important to remember that when they come up.
Here is my working definition of a “trigger” or when someone “feels triggered:”
A trigger is a sensation of nervous system arousal that results from a person or situation resonating at a similar frequency to an unhealed wound or unresolved trauma.
For example, if someone grew up in a household with abusive, alcoholic parents, and they have not worked to regulate themselves and resolve their developmental trauma, they may be triggered by seeing another person drink a cocktail, even if that person is behaving peacefully.
Triggers, while they may feel super crunchy and we may wish to avoid them at all costs, are actually beautiful and powerful opportunities for some of the deepest, most powerful transformational healing work.
In some practices, such as Alchemy, there are even meditation and healing techniques that deliberately elicit trigger responses so that the practitioner may work with the energy of the trigger to transmute it from a wound or base state into peace, love and fully actualized radiance (the internal gold).
Here are three important things to know about healing through trigger portals:
Triggers are opportunities to heal. In order to work with a trigger for the purpose of healing, the person must understand that their nervous system is being aroused to a stress response due to energetic resonance with a past trauma, not directly because of the current circumstances. If they understand that, they can employ nervous system regulation tools, consciousness practices and repatterning techniques to create a feeling of safety and peace within their body, heart/mind and spirit. From this place of feeling regulated and embodied, they may use Shamanic journeying, soul retrieval, extraction or liberation healing work and Alchemical ritual to transmute the underlying wound.
If people mistake the trigger for a trauma, or try to bypass the trigger, they reinforce the original wound. This is very typical if people don’t yet have the tools and awareness to understand and intentionally work with their triggers. This is also true for people who may have awareness of some healing practices, but perhaps the trigger is particularly strong or charged. Regardless, every time someone’s nervous system runs unchecked in a trauma pattern, it digs that neurological groove a little deeper. It is never too late to heal, but it requires effort, attention, repetition and consistent reinforcement of a new pathway.
Working with triggers requires simple practices. When the nervous system is activated into a stress response, cortisol in the body spikes, the logical mind shuts down and people may experience memories of trauma, physical sensation or pain. Since the intellectual brain shuts down in a stress response, it is impossible for someone to “logic” themself out of a trigger response. For healing through trigger portals, we must rely on very simple practices that we have ingrained in our muscle memory from practicing them thousands of times while not in a triggered state. When we use these regulation practices to bring our cognition back online, then we can shift into consciousness practices and more advanced Shamanic and Alchemical healing techniques.
Are you working with nervous system healing and regulation, and healing through trigger portals?
Do you want some help with that?
I am opening spaces for new clients to come into 1:1 work with me!
***There are no prerequisites for working 1:1 with me. I work with advanced practitioners who have years of training and study and want personal support for themselves and their work. I work with new and aspiring healers and practitioners who want support in foundational skill development and processing their awakening. I work with spiritual seekers who are not practitioners and want powerful tools for their own healing and transformation.***
This work is for you if:
You are committed to your personal growth and development. You want practical spiritual tools in your personal tool kit that are more than guided meditations.
You are going through a big life transformation and you want practical support to help you process, stay grounded and feel present/connected to your inner wisdom through the transition.
You are going through a deep personal healing journey. You want support with trauma healing and nervous system regulation, relationship challenges, childhood wounds, energetic blocks, beliefs and conditioning, or physical symptoms that “don’t make sense.”
You want to reconcile ancestral and karmic wounds in order to heal and clear karma and rewrite soul contracts and patterns.
You want support with soul retrieval, integrating the wisdom and lessons of past lives and coming into full expression of your Higher Self knowing.
You feel stuck or blocked in your continued development, or like you’ve reached a plateau, and you’re looking for some fresh energy and perspective to help you renew your transformation and growth.
You are recovering from abuse or harm by a practitioner or medicine community. You don’t want to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” but you need help coming back into healthy alignment and relationship with your authentic spiritual practice in a safe and supportive spiritual container.
You want support from a grounded spiritual mentor who has been on this path for a long time, who can help you see what you might be missing and give you specific tools, teachings and guidance that is aligned for you as you grow and transform.
If any of this sounds like you, I invite you to step into 1:1 work with me.
Our sessions together may include some combination of the following:
Shamanic and energy healing work.
Teaching and instruction about specific principles and tools of spiritual practice from Shamanism, Alchemy, and other lineages.
Shamanic journeying, intuitive and mediumship practice to connect with the spirits for guidance and healing.
Personal ritual or ceremony.
Learning and practicing embodiment and movement work, consciousness practices, energetic techniques.
Personal guidance, processing, support and reflection.
Working with your spiritual business or soul-aligned practice (designing your new program, making a retreat budget, updating your website and your intake forms).
With Transformational Mentorship, you get me in your corner for 6 months of personal support. Check out all the details here, and when you’re ready, book a call with me to discuss if this work is the right fit for you!
You can also book an in-person 1:1 retreat with me at my temple home on sacred forested land just outside of Portland, OR! Book a call with me to discuss your personal retreat.
If you’re ready to take inspired action on your healing and transformation journey…
If you’re reading this email and thinking “Yes, that’s me”…
If you want me in your corner for personal support and guidance…
Use this link to put yourself on my calendar.
I look forward to speaking with you soon!
