Did you know that every time something or someone upsets you you are being set up? Who or whatever upsets you is showing you what you need to integrate. They are just the messenger, and how many times have we heard: don’t shoot the messenger!! 

Now that sounds pretty easy but it isn’t. We are not taught how to respond, we are taught to react. It sort of feels better if we blame someone else for how we are feeling too. In the last few days I have been triggered several times and I would like to share one of the experiences so maybe it can help you too.

Someone sent me a message sharing that a video I had done was boring! That I needed to change x, y and z to get peoples attention etc. Little Lisa got super angry and wanted to pick the message apart and argue how everything he had said was wrong!. I had heard a story about how a female horse kicks a male horse into place many times before she lets him close and I could feel my hoof wanting to touch his face! I reached out to women who would understand me and support me in how I felt so that I could justify that I was right and he was wrong. I did know that his message was well meaning but I was struggling to get out of the drama triangle, perpetrator-victim-rescuer. 

I replied to his message in a little Lisa way even though I had given myself some time to think it through. I was on my high horse of feeling angry, not accepted and misunderstood. I was pretending that I didn’t want to shoot the messenger, but I did!!!

An amazing friend Kieran offered me a process to go through to acknowledge little Lisa but also help integrate the emotions. You may want to try this process yourself. Grab a pen and paper, it’s important that you write it down rather than just think your way through it. 

Step 1, what do I feel? Feelings will tend to be our younger self triggered.

I feel angry, misunderstood, not valued, disrespected, unloved and unsupported. 

Take some time to acknowledge, thank and respect those feelings, we don’t want to wrong our younger selfs, we want to be able to hold them unconditionally. Maybe some communication between your adult and younger self is useful too.

Step 2 answer the following questions

I think …….

I believe ……

I choose ……

These help detangle and integrate the limiting beliefs that are causing the reaction. The most usual limiting core beliefs are (and maybe a combination of) I am unlovable, I am not enough and I can’t cope with whatever life brings me.

So I answered them

I think he doesn’t understand me, he sexualises women, that I need to do things differently.

I believe I am not enough and I need to change. Boom there it was. The limiting belief that I was not enough had been triggered and it hurt!! 

So I choose to send another message telling him that I realised his message made me feel that I wasn’t enough and, even though there was some truth in my reply, it came from Little Lisa who was wounded.