One of the links between the body and the emotions, between emotions and health and illness is the nervous system and ‘triggers.’
Most people these days have heard the term ‘triggered.’ It’s a term used to describe a largely unconscious response mechanism activated by some event, or thought or experience. Something ‘triggers’ you and in a flash you have gone to a different place within yourself and might suddenly feel emotional rage, stress, anxiety, or any negative sensation. It is rather like, and can be associated with PTSD. There is an element of PTSD in it.
Something triggers you and bam! You are jettisoned into a different reality and you lose perspective and balance and might become irrational and emotional, or feel like a trapped child, or anything. Triggers are individual because they come from our individual experience. In most people they have their roots in childhood trauma and stress, situations of powerlessness and lost innocence, experiences that have never been processed but been ‘lived with’ or even denied. They are extremely powerful and should never be underestimated.
But here is the point. The triggers are not just in emotions but in the body, held within the nervous system. These triggers activate the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism and have the power to instantly release cortisol and adrenalin, necessary for survival in the face of great danger but destructive in times of peace.
So the more you get triggered, the more the nervous system is activated, until, left unchecked and unacknowledged, it starts to create chronic patterns that easily run down the adrenal gland, and contribute to thyroid degradation and immune system overload. The nervous system is fundamental to health, and a huge contributor to illness. Thus emotional life is hard wired to body health.
For true health to be realized these triggers have to be fully met and understood, and at some point they must be released from their stranglehold over the organism. This process of moving beyond the triggers is one of the great liberators I have seen in many people, and in itself can cause a cascade of transformation that is profound.
I have also seen the damage triggers create when left un investigated. They can run rampant and cause chaos. And the worst thing is they will almost definitely cause illness.
