As a runner and weight lifter, I am very familiar with trigger points – painful balls of muscle or fascia caused by acute or repeated trauma. They are hyperirritable, overresponding to even the slightest pressure or pull. They cause intense pain at their source and can often lead to referred pain in a distant area, frequently occurring along predictable pathways.
As a survivor of a traumatic divorce, I am also very familiar with emotional trigger points – painful memories and associated responses caused by repeated or acute trauma. They are areas of hyperirritability where the response far outweighs the preceding factors. They cause intense pain at the time of their trigger and can cause referred pains in seemingly unrelated areas.
I am consistently amazed at the magnitude and quantity of my emotional triggers. A snippet of a song last night brought me to tears as it reminded me of one of the dogs in my other life. Nothing is safe – smells, sights, words, movies, a date on the calendar. Sixteen years is a long time and it doesn’t leave much untouched. Triggers are like a black hole through space-time, pulling me back to a place of fear and pain.
Not surprisingly, most of my triggers have to do with fear of abandonment or betrayal. These are the ones that petrified me in the early months as their intensity would take me back to the moment I learned that my life as I knew what over, curled on the floor in a fetal position around my phone.
As with physical trigger points, emotional ones also improve with time. My trigger points are fewer and further between and the response is somewhat muted.
But time is not enough.
My triggers have the potential to be a source of tension in my current relationship. It’s not unheard of for Brock to commit a level 1 offense on the Relational Transgression Scale (RTS) and for me to respond as though it is a level 10 misdeed. That’s not fair to him or our partnership, nor do I want to respond in that way.
Aware of the potential damaging nature of my triggers, Brock and I agreed early on in our relationship that I would make a concerted effort to neutralize them as much as possible. These are the strategies that I found useful:
Awareness: The first step was for me to become aware of my triggers, especially when the pain and reaction was referred to a different area. I learned that when I reacted strongly to something, it would behoove me to look deeper to see if my response was actually due to something in my past. Often it was.
Avoidance: Avoidance has its place. In the early months, I simply could not handle certain known triggers. I gave them wide berth until I was strong enough to face them.
Preemptive Strike: Now, when I am going to encounter a known trigger, I work to calm myself ahead of time. Some exercise, meditation and a reminder of my gratitude for my current life go a long way to preventing an overreaction.
Plan: I also have backup plans for those times when the triggers do strike. I am better at stepping back. I remind myself to breath. I know that a long run will help to dissipate the pain and allow me to think again.
Trigger points are difficult to treat. If you try to force them to relax, they will grip and the pain will intensify. The mind almost has a fear of letting go of those painful nodules; it seems as though it works to protect them, those memories of our trauma. Be patient and apply gentle, yet persistent pressure at the point of the pain. Breathe into the tightness and give it permission to fade. The past will be there. The pain will never be forgotten. But you do not have to allow it to keep you bound in agony.
Self deception was the cancer that ate my marriage from within. After he was caught, my husband admitted in a text to my mom that he had started to believe his own bullshit. The fabrications he used to keep me and others in the dark were also used to protect him from the painful truths. He was convinced that financial solvency was a bonus check away. He believed that he could change his patterns and begin to make the right decisions.
He was wrong.
He couldn’t do those things, at least not at that point and without help.
His body reacted to the dissonance; his blood pressure soared to extremely dangerous levels, causing him to lose consciousness on several occasions. medications were useless and the doctors were stumped.
It’s because his hypertension didn’t have a physical cause; its roots were buried deep within his fears and his attempt to hide from them.
I also fell prey to self deception. I was aware of an undercurrent of unease the last year or so of my marriage. I had no reason to link the anxiety to my seemingly stable marriage; I assigned blame to a very difficult year at work. My body also must have sensed some discord between my beliefs and reality. I seemed to catch every cold and sinus infection that came through my classroom doors that year.
We are all subject to self-deception. It is the favored tool of the ego. We tell ourselves what we want to hear. We believe we see what we want to see. It is primal, as key to self-preservation as seeking shelter from the cold.
In fact, self-deception can be adaptive. It can help us overcome barriers and convince us to try the seemingly impossible.
The problem arises when we fail to check in with reality, when we believe our stories despite warning signs from the body and mind that we are entering dangerous territory.
So, how do we protect ourselves from ourselves? First, accept that self-deception happens. acknowledge that your perceptions and explanations may not be reality. Don’t ignore or dismiss chronic or repeated bouts with illness, pain, anxiety or irritability. Dig at it until you find its roots. Practice mindfulness; it helps to soften the ego so that you can see the bigger picture. Be honest about your biggest fears – this is where your self-deceptions will live.
It is scary to disassemble the stories we tell ourselves. We weave them so that we feel safe and secure; their absence provokes fear and vulnerability. But it also gives you freedom from the shackles of a lie.
In my other life, I never used to listen to audiobooks. From a practical standpoint, my commute wasn’t much more than a mile each way so I wasn’t in the car long enough to tire of the radio. There was another reason, as well. I am a visual learner. Big time. If I see it, I remember it. However, I have always struggled with auditory input that is passive in nature, such as lectures or, yes, audiobooks. When I tried to listen, even to a familiar story, I would get lost and frustrated with my inability to keep the characters and narrative straight.
But that was my former life. I turned to audiobooks from the library first out of desperation. I know spend about an hour in the car each day and the antennae on my 14-year-old car chooses to rise only occasionally. In my old life, I used to say that I can’t comprehend audiobooks. In my new life, I was willing to learn. My commute is now one of the highlights of my day as I work my way through my library’s selection of books on CD. I use the time to explore genres and non fiction topics that I would usually pass by (inspired by the necessity of a limited collection) and I “reread” favorites from my past.
I am currently on a Stephen King kick. I’ve read everything that man has published, much of many years earlier. The high quality of the narration on his audiobooks makes it a distinct pleasure. I find myself completely pulled into his world as I travel to and from work each day. It’s interesting how his books resonate differently with me now than they did in my other life.
My current selection is Duma Key, a book primarily set on an island in Florida that follows Edgar, a man who took a “geographical” after a tragic accident cost him his health and his marriage. There, he meets Wireman, also drawn to island after catastrophe. I was drawn to a particular line, uttered repeatedly by both men throughout the book:
“In my other life…”
Both men suffered great losses. Edgar, formerly a contractor, lost his arm, his mobility after a hip was crushed and experienced head trauma after being crushed by a crane. While he was recovering, his wife filed for divorce. Wireman, a lawyer, lost both his daughter and his wife and, as a result, attempted suicide, the slug taking his vision as it traveled through his temple. Those losses were stark, a clear delineation between their past lives and their present.
I am drawn to the matter of fact way they accept their new worlds. They don’t spend time bemoaning their losses, although, especially in the case of Wireman’s wife and daughter, the pain is evident when they talk about it. They work within their new limitations to make the most of their new lives without trying to recreate the old.
That is what I have tried to achieve with my own life. I have had to accept that my other life is gone and is beyond reach. Rather than spending time nurturing the loss or trying fruitlessly to recreate what I had, I try to focus on building the best life possible now. I now talk matter of factly about my other life, as distantly as if I was discussing a character in a book.
Some of the changes between my former life and now have been dramatic. I never used to write. I was a private person. And, I always made decisions very conservatively, planning for an imagined future. I have a new name, a new city, a new beau, a new job, a new dog. A new life.
Some of the changes are slight, and strike me as funny.
In my other life, I never rolled the toothpaste tube. This drove my ex crazy, even though we didn’t share toothpaste and it was stored out of sight. Now, I am a dedicated roller.
In my other life, I never used to finish any beverage, always leaving a quarter inch of fluid in the bottom of any glass. I now enjoy every last sip.
In my other life, I hated asparagus. Now it is one of my favorite vegetables.
At a cellular level, our bodies are constantly renewing themselves, shedding the old cells as they die and replacing them with new. Sometimes we need to shed our other lives so that we have room for the new growth.
My other life was lived by an other me. And now I have a new life that fits the new me.
So, I know the whole idea of meditation is to unplug. To turn off the phone and put away the computer. I get it. I’m just not very good at it. Instead of fighting technology, I’ve learned to use it to help tame my monkey mind, especially on those days when it is acting particularly unruly. The following are my favorite ways to plug in and unwind:
I love this site. It has thousands of hours (I’m guessing – I haven’t counted:) ) of high quality yoga instruction that can be selected by difficulty, time and emphasis. They are also growing a database of meditation videos. I find that I gravitate towards these when I’m looking for something longer and more interesting than my standard fare. The meditations are all guided and are quite interesting and varied. (free 2 week trial and $18/month for unlimited use for meditation and yoga)
This is my go-to. There are many different soundtracks to choose from – everything from chants to nature sounds. There is also a mixer so you can customize your own personal blend. I love the quick timer that I can easily set for a variety of times, even if I don’t play any music (this especially happens when I can listen to real rain outside the window!). There are no guided meditations. It’s just simple, easy to use and high quality. ($.99)
I read about this website and app in Lifehacker (which I also love but it doesn’t technically tame my monkey mind!) the other day. This is meditation for dummies. It comes in preslugged durations, starting at 5 minutes. Each one is guided and follows a similar script. As with the app above, you can select your background sounds, although they are not as varied. I have found that this app is excellent for the days when I am struggling to get my monkey mind to sit still long enough to slip on the headphones. (free or $4.99 for the full version)
This nifty little app sounds a gong at predetermined times to remind you to quickly graph your mood and tag it with key words. It is designed to help you identify your triggers both for positive and negative moods. I also use the chime as a reminder to be mindful and present. I have it set to go off at two of the craziest times of my day – in the middle of homeroom where 30 kids and a handful of adults are competing for my attention and at 5:00 pm when I get home. ($1.99)
My monkey mind is tired and is ready to shut down the computer and plug in the headphones. I just hope I can teach him to stop chewing on the cord:)
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 