Cultivating Emotional Maturity Sýnishorn

How the battle in our mind began

To understand how the internal chatterbox voice has taken up residence in your thinking—controlling your emotional responses—let’s understand how your belief system is created. At birth we come into the world with a clear belief system, like an empty computer disc and from day one we gather and absorb information: what we hear, see, smell, sense, feel, actual and perceive is stored. We take things personally and at a very early age start to make positive and negative decisions about ourselves and the world around us.

By around seven years of age we have sorted and re-filed all the evidence putting labels—known as triggers—on the drawers of our mind and start the comparison game, judging and comparing how we match against other children. Is she prettier? Is he more popular?, etc. We keep adding evidence to prove we are right and reach adulthood wearing our own designer belief system lenses. 

Any negative thoughts about ourselves and the world around us get activated and go on display for everyone around to pick up. Similarly, other people’s belief systems activate and all responses collide with each other creating the ‘mood music’ in the room. As adults, what we sense, feel, hear, and see often has nothing to do with the issue at hand but rather each person’s emotional hurts and setups from the past that have been activated. Those involved often have no understanding of what is actually happening in the room. When a negative trigger is activated it can cause us to hold back, create stress and/or harm our relationships with others and our self. 

A trigger consists of a thought:  I feel disregarded, inadequate, powerless, or unsupported; plus an emotion: anger, joy, sadness, guilt, shame, or fear. The amount of emotion(s) attached to the thought determines the size and potential impact of the trigger. 

Triggers can work like dominoes. Once one is pushed, others follow suit. Allow God to highlight the triggers that have become rooted in your belief system. Be aware when you speak them over yourself. For example I’m so stupid or No one cares. Recognize your triggers and replace them with godly truths.