Hi guys, welcome once again to how to heal your relationship, my series of podcasts on tips, tools, strategies and techniques on how you can meet the challenges that relationship can often bring and how you navigate that.

If you haven’t caught me before on some of my previous podcasts, my name is Ayesha Jane Walker and I am a relationship coach. I work with couples and individuals really helping them navigate relationships, how to deal with the challenges that they bring up for us.

So if you were listening into last week’s podcast, I hope you had a think about my challenge to you all.

Be The Change You Wish To See

And really think about how willing you would be to be the one to go first in your relationship, to be the one to become skilled at relationships, to be the one who is willing to be the change you wish to see even when your partner is not reciprocating in an equal manner.

Now to some of you listening, that might sound like I’m suggesting that you just be a doormat, that basically you do all the work, you do all the running, you make all the changes, you accommodate them, you be the one who’s constantly understanding while they pretty much get to do whatever they want, scot free.

That is not what I am saying. I’m actually suggesting something that is very much the opposite of that.

Because when you’re waiting for someone else to change before you are able to change, when you are waiting for something external to shift before you are able to shift how you feel or how you be, then you are actually giving away your power.

That is not being powerful, that is being powerless. But when you decide to make that internal choice, that you are going to behave differently, whatever is going on externally, however anybody else is behaving around you, they’re not going to trigger you, that is taking back your power, it is the opposite of being a doormat.

But here’s the big question for today’s podcast, how do you do that? How do you not get triggered when the person that you love is just being horrible, right? You’re a human being with feelings, emotions? How does that not send you from zero to a hundred?

Ways To Not Get Triggered

So that’s what we’re going to be talking about in today’s podcast, ways to not get triggered.

So what are the ways to not get triggered?

Well of course there are many, and if I was going to speak generally, I would say what we’re looking at here is self-mastery, so the ability to have some power and control over your emotions and how you respond and react to other people.

But let’s get a little bit more specific, that’s kind of a general term and it may seem like something just a little bit too high to aim for at this stage. So let’s come back down to earth and begin with something very simple.

You’ve had a conflict with your partner, emotions are high, tempers are afraid, feelings are hurt, what can you actually do, what does self-mastery look like here?

Start With Awareness

Well the very first thing that you can do is just have awareness of where you are, the emotional state that you are in, just to be able to acknowledge it, to name it even, to be able to say I am angry, frustrated, in despair, hopeless, in judgement, furious, powerless, to actually describe where you are if you like on an emotional spectrum, okay?

Now this is really important when I’m talking about the emotional spectrum. So imagine that this spectrum runs from utter despair, hopeless and shame, all the way up to mildly irritated, don’t really care either way. Feeling okay, feeling positive, feeling good, feeling joyful, feeling happy.

The Emotional Spectrum

You can imagine this whole spectrum of emotions that you could be at any point on.

Now I want you to imagine in your mind that somewhere on this emotional spectrum is a sort of halfway line, right? Somewhere where you move from what I would call disempowering emotions to empowering emotions.

No emotions are bad or wrong, they’re just some that are disempowering and some that are empowering. If you are below this 50% line, if you are in, let’s say, anger, despair, judgement, resentment, shame.

All of those emotions that have you feeling in a place of discomfort or unhappiness, you are not going to be able to powerfully respond to your partner in a way that will have you find a way through your conflict.

You cannot find a way through conflict when you are below this 50% line when you are in this place of disempowering emotional state. It is a pointless exercise.

I don’t care how masterful you might think you are until you have shifted from disempowering to empowering until you have moved yourself above that 50% emotional line.

You are not going to be able to find a solution to the conflict because you will get triggered.

Call A Time Out

The first thing is acknowledgement, awareness, where you are and when you’ve been able to identify that, whether that’s verbally or just in your head, then that’s a time to back away until you can get yourself to a more empowered emotional state where you are ready to come at that conflict from a powerful place.

It’s time to call a time out.

One of the wonderful things that happens quite naturally when you acknowledge where you are along that emotional spectrum, when you take that tiny little time out to stand back from yourself and name what it is that you are feeling.

You are already starting to gain a little bit of self mastery, a little bit of awareness around your emotions and therefore a little bit of power over how to control those emotions.

Now this still doesn’t mean you’re in a good place to try and fix a conflict between you and your partner.

I say again, if you are below that 50% line until you have shifted yourself completely from those disempowering emotions, guilt, shame, fear, protection, frustration, compromise, pleasing, judgement, all of those emotional states that you can be in when you’re in a conflict.

Until you shifted from those to things that are more empowering, such as empathy, rapport, understanding, compassion, appreciation, connection, until you can get yourself from that end of the emotional spectrum to the other end, you’re still not going to be in a useful place to really make any inroads into a conflict.

Make A Shift

I would suggest that you let go of trying to fix conflict until you have found a way to shift yourself from one end of that emotional spectrum to the other.

So you’re probably wondering how to do that. Well, as always, I like to leave you with these big questions.

We can’t cover everything in one single podcast and quite frankly, sometimes a little bit too much information can actually be detrimental.

So I’m going to leave it there and say that we will pick up that thread in next week’s podcast on the how of how to shift yourself from one emotional side of the spectrum to the other.

What are some simple things that you can do to get you from one side of that emotional spectrum to that more empowering side of the emotional spectrum?

So you start to walk that path of self mastery.

So I hope that’s enough to be going on for this week.

Have an amazing seven days until we have an opportunity to speak again, take care and catch you again in seven days time.