Trigger Words

I have an opinion I’d like to offer about something we hear a lot these days: “trigger words.”

You know the idea. Someone says a particular word, and suddenly you have a reaction. And the assumption is that the word itself caused the reaction.

I’m not sure that’s quite how it works.

Let me ask you something.

What’s the most powerful part of a gun?

The hammer?

The barrel?

The trigger?

Or the bullet?

I’d say the bullet.

We often hear that words are powerful because they’re the trigger.But a trigger isn’t powerful by itself.

It’s powerful because of what happens when it sets something else in motion.

And that brings me to a story I remember from my hypnosis teacher, Dr. Dave Dobson.

Many years ago, Dave was speaking to a group when he noticed one of the women suddenly break into a big smile.

He stopped and asked her, “Why did you smile when I said the word ‘gumdrop’?”

She told him that when she was a little girl, her father would take her to the candy store and buy her gumdrops.

It was a wonderful memory.

So Dave’s word—gumdrop—had triggered something in her.

The good news was that it triggered a pleasant memory.

But words can trigger unpleasant memories, too.

And that’s where I think we sometimes get ourselves into trouble.

We tell people, “Be careful what you say around me. That word triggers me.”

Well, if you take that suggestion, you may spend the rest of your life trying to identify all the words you’re supposed to avoid.

And there will always be another one.

Advertising uses triggering words.

So do scams.

And neither one is going away anytime soon.

So perhaps there’s a more useful way to look at this.

Instead of focusing on the words that other people shouldn’t say, pay attention to the experience those words trigger in you.

Because that’s where the real action is.

Dr. Dave taught a technique for changing that response. He called it “Subjective Reversal.”

The idea is pretty simple.

You condition yourself to respond differently.

Instead of:

“When I hear this word, I get angry.”

You begin creating a new association:

“When I hear this word, I become calm and collected.”

And when you’re calm and collected, you have something you didn’t have before.

A choice.

You can choose what you do next instead of automatically doing what you’ve always done.

Now, I’m not suggesting that changing a deeply ingrained reaction happens overnight.

It takes practice.

But there’s something pretty liberating about realizing that the word itself doesn’t have to be in charge of you.

Someone can shoot their mouth off . . .

and instead of triggering the old bullet – maybe it triggers gumdrops.

And I kind of like that.

All the best,

John

P.S. If you'd like a little practice with this technique, listen to my "Reaction Reversal" mini meditation. You can find it on my YouTube channel: which is @grasshoppernotes.