Meeting Old Triggers With New Capacity

I used to think healing meant I would stop getting triggered. Now I see triggers as invitations...

My son used to get horrendous nose bleeds. From a very early age, and for many years, they would come almost every day and often in the middle of the night. The scream that would pierce my sleep became an alarm that I wouldn’t be able to shake for many years after the nose bleeds stopped. An alarm that would elicit sheer panic, overwhelm, and despair.

The events that followed the screams became predictable but never any easier. Chad and I would jump out of bed, rush to the scene; one of us would sit with our son, mopping up the blood as it gushed out uncontrollably; one of us would strip his bed, spray the sheets and carpet, scrub and clean the spots (we were renting). And then after many long minutes, the bleeding would eventually stop. I would audibly vent my frustration of this process, as it repeated almost every night.

As he got older, my son began to express his intolerance and frustration for these nose bleeds. “My stupid nose, I hate my nose,” was among a few of the lines I heard often. My heart would sink, feeling a deep pang of shame, driving me to try and fix, well all of it, his nose, his attitude… only seemingly making it more concrete.

I am actually feeling some emotion rising as I write this. It is a pretty tender thread in my story.

The mirror that my son was holding up to me was so unbearable at times. I wanted to smash it, run away from it, avoid it at all costs. I also wanted to repair, and figure out how to heal so I could show up with more patience, and unconditional love. This pressure to become better, driven by shame and self-judgment, seemed to fortify the cycle for a long time.

This is one example of a theme in my life that’s been weaving itself in and out of my motherhood, with origins in my past. This idea that mess, mistakes, process, hard seasons, flaws, and imperfections signify that there is something wrong. And supporting that is deep shame because as hard as I tried, I can’t avoid being a messy, imperfect human constantly in process.

The nose bleeds slowly decreased over the years and I began to learn how to tolerate being in process, not having arrived yet, and life being broken at times. But something I have learned is that healing is forever, and triggers are opportunities to integrate healing.

Just recently, my son started getting nose bleeds again. It happens randomly every now and again, but they started becoming more consistent. Every day. With this, came all the familiar sensations. Coiling in the gut, fear and panic, an urgency to fix the situation, or a desire to dissociate, and a feeling of failure. It was all there, ready to motivate me into action.

Thankfully, I know now that this isn’t regression for him or for me. This does not mean there is something wrong or that I haven’t healed. This simply means that my survival patterns were triggered… but this time, I was aware. I could pause and notice all the strategies I once employed. And this time, I also found a new part, a part that felt like she could tolerate the process with my son. A part of me that felt compassion and maternal.

Just this morning, as I was reflecting on all of this I couldn’t help but feel so grateful for this opportunity to meet this thread with new capacity; to be with the parts of me that felt so overwhelmed all those years ago; to be with my son who learned back then that something must have been wrong with him, and that his needs were a burden. This trigger was an absolute gift, and this time I feel like I am resourced to stay in it, and meet the need.

I find this is how healing looks, most of the time. We find ourselves revisiting old places, old triggers, old survival patterns. And it doesn’t have to mean regression. I believe it is a beautiful example of how capacity grows. Not through large, sweeping changes or grand shifts, but through small, repetitive moments of awareness, presence, and practice. Life continues offering opportunities to deepen our healing.

This has been true for all of my “triggers.” There was a time where I went into deep shutdown for many years. I dissociated, fell into depression, and my health took a turn. I was chronically fatigued, finding it hard to get out of bed sometimes for weeks at a time. During that time, I wasn’t triggered by much. My capacity was tiny and I would burn out easily. But it was like all the deeper triggers went dormant. Then as I did this work, and started to heal my nervous system, the triggers seemed to come back online, as though they were thawing out. And through every one, I learned they were an opportunity to meet what lay underneath them, something I couldn’t tolerate before.

I think for a long time I believed healing would eventually mean I stopped getting triggered. That one day, I would arrive at some final version of myself where the old patterns no longer surfaced.

But healing hasn’t looked like leaving my humanity behind. It has looked like owning a relationship with my humanity… learning how to stay with myself inside it. Allowing activation to be there without becoming it. Noticing what unfolds in the part of me that feels afraid or angry, without collapsing into shame. Remaining present with my kids’ messy process and leaning into compassion as I notice the urgency.

Life keeps bringing us back to the places that once overwhelmed us. And sometimes, when we are ready, we find ourselves with enough support, awareness, and capacity to meet those places differently than before.

I think this is why healing can feel so circular. We come back around the mountain again and again. But each time, something in us is a little more resourced to stay.