Managing Your Triggers

After identifying the feeling and grounding yourself, empower yourself to work through your feelings by making a plan for what you will do if you encounter that trigger again. Your plan might include:

• Grounding activities
• Stopping negative thoughts
• Deep breathing exercises
• Writing in a journal
• Calling a friend
• Exercising
• Saying a prayer or meditating

As you observe your reactions and feelings about various situations you may recognize a pattern. You may find certain situations consistently cause big reactions, if these situations are within your control to avoid, consider if this would be a healthy option for you.

You may not always be able to prevent being triggered because the situations can be unpredictable. Sometimes the big emotions resulting from triggers may surprise you and be unmanageable, which could result in you reacting in ways you don't want to act. If you are worried about your ability to control your reactions, please talk to a trusted adult.

Understanding your triggers, observing your reactions, and planning for times when you might experience big emotions will help allow you to maintain self-control so you can be the person you want to be.