If I am disturbed then something is wrong with me. When you feel anxious, frustrated, or when you feel like lusting, identify what made you feel that way. Why did I get triggered and how can I process this information?
This one I feel like is just an overall life hack. Especially important in early recovery to start recognizing the things that make you want to act out. Whether it’s someone condemning you, or an image you saw, someone who walked by you at the store. Trying to recognize a trigger when it happens will have some pretty good benefits. Instead of having to go into a shutdown mode or hunt before the acting act, you can look and say, oh shoot in the past seeing her would have made me want to do this.
Find out what triggers you to go act out. Visual stimulation absolutely plays a factor here. By getting control of your eyes and thoughts you will eliminate some of the triggers that used to get you to act out. But also identifying stress, and other emotional triggers like feeling disconnected, things that would lead us to act out even more so than the visual.
When you can see things coming it makes it a heck of a lot easier to overcome. If I know that going to the beach is a trigger because I can’t control my eyes, and what I see there is going to lead me to act out later, then don’t go. Thinking that I can just hang with the guys at a strip club, and it won’t affect me is asking for trouble.
As for looking within-Think about this when you are disturbed, ask yourself why? Why does it bother me that my boss said my work wasn’t good enough. You start to recognize the truth in life. If you know the truth its harder to get frustrated.
Triggers are not just sexual. They can be from Boredom, Stress, Loneliness, Hunger, and being Tired. When you start to kick lust, you can actually recognize these things, like oh I feel lonely, time to make a phone call and connect. Or I think I’m hungry because I’ve been a tyrant and I fell low on energy.
Quicker you can recognize this the sooner that you can get back to some form of reality. Asking yourself why does this person or situation make me feel disturbed? I’m triggered, well why are you triggered? This step takes a lot of practice and a lot of time to get better. As you progress along on this journey it will get easier for you. Because we are all humans some things that I might struggle with as a trigger, have no effect on you whatsoever.
Once you can 1) identify that you are triggered 2) Use the tools to help you overcome the trigger 3) ask yourself why did this trigger you. You will be able to have a fighting chance of letting it go and giving yourself grace. Healing is starting to begin.
An example of triggers includes stress, feelings of inadequacy, not feeling good enough, resentment, images, music that is sexual. Try to avoid these things as best as possible. Lust is toxic.. It’s a drug. If I let it linger, I will get a high and it will consume me, and like all other drugs I am not satisfied with one dose.
But how do we identify triggers? For the lust addict triggers can happen as soon as we open the front door to start our day. (Now you see why the eyes are so important). It can happen as you open up your phone and scroll on a website (even one that has no relation to women). A female coworker or cashier that smiles a little too long. (in reality they are probably just being nice, but my mind would take me to a place of oh they want me). Pretty much just existing can be a trigger.
Negative feelings about ourselves are triggers too. When we are stressed, resentful, feeling inadequate. We look for our drug to make us feel better. These things are all triggers.
The key is identifying them and then looking within to understand why does that disturb me. Why does a girl jogging down the street make me feel uncomfortable? Is it because I have always looked at women as objects and now my inner being is trying to figure out what to do here? Is it because I am scared that women will get me high if I look at her and allow her into my head? Why does an image of a girl in a catalog make me feel uncomfortable? Is it because I know that’s where it starts and then leads to something I used to do, but know is no longer healthy for me? When my boss says you aren’t hitting your numbers why does that bother me? Does that mean I’m not good enough because I am not doing everything they need?
We can take an outside view of ourselves and find the root of our disturbance. We can then apply the truth about ourselves and this situation.
The girl jogging down the street. Truth is she has no idea you exist. She didn’t wake up thinking I just want to get in his head and destroy his marriage. She has nothing to do with you she’s a daughter of god, pray for her, remind yourself that she’s a human being just like you and surrender the uncomfort. For your boss, take a step back and look at you not hitting numbers as an opportunity for improvement. If you weren’t good enough or if they didn’t value you. They would just let you go. The truth is you are valuable and your numbers at this company do not determine who you are.
The pain starts to hurt less when we know the truth about ourselves. Remember you can’t please everybody. But when we know what’s really going on inside, that is when we can return back to a peaceful state.
Now, you have a choice on how long you wish to stay down. You can choose to say yup this hand sucks, but I’m going to play it to the best of my ability and just be thankful for the opportunity to play. If my boss decides to change a report that works and is efficient for a more difficult and time-consuming report. What are you going to do? I can get mad and stay resentful all I want, and that resentment is justified! I mean maybe all bosses do things like that on purpose you to make their employees lives more stressful. Or I can surrender that resentment do what is asked of me, and do the best that I can with what I have. Like with most things in life if something doesn’t work it will get switched back eventually. We just have to suck it up and make due with what we have until that happens.
Identify the trigger. Find the root. Figure out the truth. Change your outlook. The only person you can change is yourself. You decide how long you stay down for. This doesn’t mean its easy. In fact for some it takes years and years of progress to improve here. But it will get easier and your life will get better. Your life might be worse off than it was before, but because of your outlook on life, it will actually be better. I unfortunately can attest to this. Where I am at in recovery is probably the best place I’ve been from an emotional and spiritual view. My attitude and way I look at life each day determines where I will go.
God Bless!