I Was Triggered…What Now?

On November 21st at approximately 6:58 pm, I was triggered. While in a parking lot, I had a conversation with a person. The conversation started getting tense and emotional over a matter that I believe was a misunderstanding or just taken too seriously. The other individual may view it differently, but I think we both would have agreed that as the tension rose, the conversation became dangerously volatile when it could have gone a different direction. But this is real life, and sometimes, we will have conversations that escalate into emotionally tense situations. It happened to me, and I have to admit, I was triggered and hurt by what this individual said to me. I felt very disrespected and had an immediate need to retaliate physically. After an insulting statement was made, my left arm stiffened and rose slightly. I could feel myself losing control, and to put it in slang terms, “let this dude catch my fade”. There was a rush of expletives that ran through my head, but I uttered none to the individual. I told him that was a bad statement, shook his hand, and got in my car and drove off. I was seething as I drove back to my home. My mind was running wild on all the ways to hurt this individual, calling him everything but a child of God. And the one thought that was really eating at me was this: He succeeded at triggering me. This person is now taking real estate inside my mind. I absolutely hate that feeling, the idea that someone can get to me and prompt me to take actions that would have consequences. My mind stopped racing as I was driving. After taking some deep breaths, God placed a question in my spirit. “What type of man do you want to be?” I thoroughly disliked that question. Because in that particular moment, I want to be the man who throws hands when disrespect is given. How many times have we felt this way? When we didn’t want to take the high road. I used to have a saying that was quite immature, but it was “When they go low, dig a hole and go lower”. That type of response feels good in the moment, but it takes you down a path of hate and destruction. When God placed that question on me, I slowly began to think about my boys, the students I talk to in schools, and the youth at my church. I am a speaker and youth director who consistently teaches about self-control and actions. I remembered the young black boys getting in trouble in class for rash decisions and not thinking about the long game, the consequences of their actions. And here I am, losing the same self-control, contemplating knocking somebody out. I thought about the values of my house, the ones that I teach my sons: “Respect, Love, and Excellence”. I was willing to throw those values out the window, and if that is the case, the values were no good to begin with. What’s losing control worth? Is it worth the values or the example that I am trying to set? I thought about it, if I lost control over being triggered,  I couldn’t go speak to the youth the following Sunday about anything. I have to reevaluate speaking to students because I am not living the message that I am relaying. An old saying comes to mind, “Practice What You Preach”. I remember my mentor telling me that after one of his speaking engagements, he came back to an empty home. He was speaking on resilience and enduring tough times, and all the while, his ex-wife was taking all his furniture and other belongings. Now, how would my mentor respond to this situation? He just spoke on enduring tough times, and now he was in a tough spot. This is when you realize that whatever you are teaching, it has to be more than words on a slide. The message has to be real to you. I realized all the messages I spoke to different students and others had to be real to me. It can’t be something I can easily throw down when situations get tense. Life is going to be tense; you won’t go through it without getting triggered by someone. I don’t care about your mental fortitude or training, because it will all be tested. I assure you that you will get agitated with people, and you will feel a need to retaliate. We aren’t perfect people; we have emotions, and we make choices. But we need to work towards a point where we ask ourselves, “Who do we want to be?” And then align our choices with the person that we are aspiring to become. I will be triggered again, and I don’t like it. I don’t like being hurt or allowing a person to stay rent-free in my head over some foolishness. But what I dislike even more is stepping out of character and making a choice that could negatively impact my world. It's not worth it. It is not worth my son's futures. It is not worth the youth department that I lead. It is not worth destroying the progress I have made as a man. So what should you do when you’re triggered? Take some deep breaths, and think about the great person you are becoming.