Everyone has emotional triggers—we’ve all experienced the sudden rush of intense feelings set off by something someone says or does. Almost by definition, when we’re triggered, we react without thinking, and afterward, when things have calmed down, we might wonder why we had such an intense reaction—a reaction so intense that we regret what we said or did.

Just know that being triggered is a very common experience and that there’s a lot you can do to keep your triggers from controlling you.

Triggers are often childhood wounds that never fully healed, such that they are now sensitive areas which, when “triggered” by something in the present, return us to the original hurt. At these moments, we are no longer our rational 35-year-old selves. Instead, our not-so-rational childhood feelings take over, and we react to the present as if we were still in the past.

We have triggers for a reason: they helped us deal with bad things in our past. Back then, emotional triggers protected us. Now they get in our way.

For example, when five-year-old Anthony hears his

© Psychology Today