What Is a Trigger? And Why It’s Not “Just Overreacting”
We can find a sense of grounding even when “triggered.”
What A Trigger Actually Is
A trigger is anything that suddenly wakes up your nervous system. It can be a sound, a smell, an expression on someone’s face, a tone of voice, a memory, or even a physical sensation. What makes something a trigger isn’t the situation itself. It’s the meaning your body attached to something similar in the past.
Triggers feel fast because they bypass your thinking mind. Before you can form a sentence about what’s happening, your body has already reacted. Your heart can quicken, your stomach can drop, or your muscles can tense without your awareness or permission. This is not a character flaw. This is the biology of protection.
Check out this link: Trauma Responses Explained
Why Triggers Aren’t Overreacting
It is incredibly common for adults to judge their triggered reactions. Many people tell themselves they’re being dramatic, too sensitive, or irrational. But the reality is far more compassionate. When you are triggered, your body is trying to protect you from something it believes could hurt you again.
Your nervous system learned certain cues as dangerous. A tone of voice, a facial expression, a sudden change in someone’s mood, or a moment of disappointment can all set off alarm bells that feel out of proportion to the moment. They feel out of proportion because your body is responding to an old threat, not the current situation.
Logical thinking has very little control here. You can’t “mindset” your way out of a triggered state because the body reacts before your mind gets a vote.
Where Triggers Come From
Triggers almost always trace back to experiences that were overwhelming, confusing, or unsafe. When the nervous system didn’t have enough support, time, or safety to process what happened, the experience remains “unfinished.” It doesn’t get sorted into long-term memory. It stays in a more sensitive, reactive state. Later, when something in the present resembles the old moment even slightly, the body responds as if it’s happening again.
A trigger might come from:
• Childhood experiences that felt chaotic or unpredictable
• Moments where you felt criticized, rejected, or unprotected
• Past relationships where you learned to stay small or hyper-aware
• Medical or physical trauma
• Emotional neglect or chronic stress
Two people can witness the same event and have completely different reactions. It’s not about toughness. It’s about what your nervous system had to survive.
Check out this link: What Is Stored Trauma
How Triggers Affect Everyday Life
Triggers weave themselves quietly into daily patterns. You might think you are “overreacting,” “overthinking,” or “shutting down for no reason,” when in reality, your body is trying to prevent the repetition of something that once felt overwhelming.
A trigger can affect how you speak up for yourself, how you interpret someone’s mood, how you react during conflict, and how safe or unsafe you feel in relationships. It can impact your ability to rest, your capacity to make decisions, and the way you navigate stress.
Many adults live for years believing these reactions are personal flaws. In truth, they are nervous system reflexes shaped by past experiences you likely didn’t choose.
Naming these patterns helps you step out of shame and into self-understanding.
What Triggers Feel Like in the Body
Most people describe triggers as sensations rather than thoughts. Triggers are body-first. The mind often plays catch-up.
You may feel:
• A knot in your stomach
• Pressure in your chest
• A rush of heat to your face
• A sense of urgency or panic
• Difficulty breathing or shallow breaths
• A sudden fog or blankness
• Feeling frozen, distant, or disconnected
These sensations are signs that your body is shifting into survival mode. Understanding them gives you language and awareness, which makes them easier to navigate.
Your Window of Tolerance AND How Triggers Can Shift Over Time
When you are triggered, you get pushed outside your window of tolerance. Inside this window, you feel grounded, thoughtful, flexible, and steady. Outside of it, the body believes it must act quickly to protect you.
Falling out of your window of tolerance might look like:
• Speeding up with anxiety, racing thoughts, defensiveness, or overwhelm
• Slowing down with numbness, shutdown, brain fog, or feeling disconnected
• Bouncing between the two, which can feel overwhelming and confusing
But here is the hopeful part: your window of tolerance is not fixed.
As your nervous system feels safer, your window grows. What once activated you intensely may begin to feel manageable. Your reactions may soften. You may feel more choice and less urgency.
This expansion often happens through trauma-informed therapy, EMDR, nervous system regulation work, and understanding your early cues. Over time, your body learns to recognize that the danger it once sensed is not present now.
Healing does not make you immune to triggers. It simply means you return to yourself faster, with more clarity and less panic.
We can develop compassion for the parts of ourselves that work so hard to protect our whole system.
You Are Not Broken. Your System Is Protecting You.
Triggers are not failures. They are evidence of a nervous system that protected you when you needed it most and has not yet realized you are safe now. Understanding your triggers helps you approach yourself with compassion instead of shame. It also opens the door to new patterns, healthier reactions, and deeper emotional freedom.
If you want support understanding your triggers, calming your nervous system, or healing stored trauma, I’m here to help. Trauma-informed therapy and EMDR can help you feel more grounded, more connected, and more in control.