Trigger Warning—Triggers Ahead
A Stoic Approach to Mastery and Freedom
If you can be triggered, you can be controlled. If that’s okay with you, stop reading; there is nothing here for you; however, if that bothers you, read on.
In the mechanical sense, a trigger is a mechanism to initiate a process or action, typically in another mechanism. The concept of a trigger usually means the process or actions to follow are unstoppable, or at least happen automatically unless something interrupts them.
The word “trigger” is also used analogously in an emotional context to indicate an emotional event (word, phrase, sight, sound, etc.) that initiates a series of emotional responses in a “triggered” individual. Similar to the mechanical use of the word, the emotional event “triggers” an emotional process and series of actions that are automatic. Put another way, as an individual capable of being triggered, you are reduced to a mindless process or mechanism. You can be controlled by anyone or anything that can pull your trigger.
“If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation.” —Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18
Through triggers, you can be distracted, manipulated, disarmed, oppressed, and forced to fail. This should be alarming to anyone who understands the concept and who also knows they can be triggered; however, in today’s US culture we are being taught to revere triggers and the triggered. Triggered individuals shamefully wear their triggers like badges of honor. We are taught embracing triggers makes us “authentic” and “emotionally aware.” We are encouraged to expose our triggers publicly and then demand others conform to them to avoid them for us instead of dealing with them ourselves.
For any rational, intelligent human, what I just described should be repulsive. The act of “being triggered” is an act of subjugation and submission. Being triggered, you submit to another and give up your will in favor of theirs. Allowing yourself to be triggered is an admission you are not sovereign over yourself. It is not just an admission of weakness; it is an embrace of weakness as a lifestyle.
For the Stoic, this is not acceptable. The Stoics would meet the modern notion of being triggered and the practice of “trigger warnings” with utter contempt, not because the suffering or the emotions are invalid, but because fragility is cultivated where strength should be forged. To the Stoics, the idea of needing to be protected from words, ideas, images, etc. would signal a civilization declining, one that raises citizens to seek safety instead of strength, validation instead of virtue, and shelter instead of sovereignty.
“When someone provokes you, be sure that it is your own opinion which provokes you.”—Epictetus, Discourses 2.18
“If you wish to be free, do not wish for anything that depends on others.”—Epictetus, Enchiridion 14
The Stoics teach us how to remove ourselves from triggers and being triggered. The first step is to recognize the feelings behind your trigger are valid, and there is nothing wrong with having those feelings. However, you must further recognize they are your feelings and not for broadcast or for you to demand others conform to them. Stoicism does not teach that emotions are valid or invalid or that we should or should not have them. Stoicism teaches it is what you do with the emotions that is virtuous or slavish, courageous or cowardly, strong or weak.
The next step is to see yourself “in training.” You will not be un-triggered immediately, so we need a training tool. That tool is the interrupt mechanism. Imagine the emotional trigger happens—the trigger is pulled. Then realize what follows is a process. While it may feel instantaneous, it is not; it is a process.
Trigger event → emotional perception of event → emotional processing of event → emotional formation of response to event → formulation of response actions → action.
People who prefer wallowing in weakness like to believe this process is instantaneous, and they have “no control” over it. That is just the excuse of a weak mind wishing to remain weak; it is a weak excuse for cowardly behavior. The truth is, there is a process involved, and that process can be interrupted.
“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.8
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.16
The place for interruption lies within the emotional perception of the triggering event. At first, perception will not be easy to control, so we need time to process; we need emotional maneuvering room. This is where the interrupt mechanism comes into play. Analyze your trigger and create an interrupt script.
Micro-physical reset: Immediately upon triggering, initiate a small physical action to distract yourself. Pinch your inner thigh, clench your fist, focus on a neutral external detail like chair, a rock, a painting, a pattern in a table cloth. Pick a simple physical response to distract yourself; teach yourself to do it immediately and out of habit.
Macro-physical reset: Using the distraction moment of the micro-physical reset, breathe deeply 4-5 times while internally telling yourself, “calm,” “reset,” and “stop.”
Mental reset: Mentally recite a simple counterpoint monologue to your trigger. Pre-write this monologue, memorize it, and recite it internally. For example, if your trigger is a racial slur, recite something like, “Other people’s labels of me do not define who I am; they define who they are. I will not conform to their image of me.” If your trigger is an object of obsessive compulsion, tell yourself, “That is not what I need; it is bait. I am being baited, and I do not take bait.” Keep it simple: 1 or 2 short sentences that invoke strength and personal pride in opposition to the trigger.
The interrupt script is a training tool. One you will use to train yourself to understand that emotional response and emotional reaction are part of a process, one that you can control. Ironically, the interrupt script itself is a cultivated triggered response, one that you must also eventually leave behind, and that is the key to your freedom from triggers. Train yourself so that your trigger triggers the interrupt script instead of your usual emotional response. In other words, since you are a triggered individual, the first step is to use that to your advantage; replace your irrational trigger with a rational one.
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.20
Once you have mastered the interrupt script, you will see the emotional response process for what it is, a process that can be interrupted. Then you will no longer need the script. In other words, the purpose of the script is temporary; it is to replace your trigger with another trigger, one designed to train insight and introspection. Once that insight and introspection take root, the interrupt script will no longer be necessary and will go away on its own. Your goal is to learn that within the process of trigger to response, there is a point—emotional perception—where you must stop and assess. The interrupt script will train you to recognize this, at which point you will see it on your own, without the need for the for the script.
Once you have learned to freeze and hold judgment at the emotional perception stage (with or without the script), then you must rationally and calmly analyze your perception of the trigger. Ask yourself key Stoic points.
Is this something in my control?
Is this something I can affect, and if so, will it serve virtue to affect it?
Is this thing actually something that matters, or is it just something I incorrectly perceive to matter? In other words, am I being indifferent to that which makes no difference, as I should be?
Can a change in my perception of the event change my response to the event?
“What is to be done then? Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”—Epictetus, Enchiridion 1
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”—Epictetus, Enchiridion, 5
“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.”—Epictetus, Enchiridion, 5
“If a man gave your body to a passerby, you'd be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who insults you. Is that not shameful?”—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.10
With each question, the goal is to alter your perception of the trigger. If you answer each question honestly, you will find that more often than not, the thing that triggered you was not in your control. It was not something you can impact, not something that matters, and not something for which an uncontrolled emotional response will make better. In fact, you will find more often than not that an uncontrolled emotional response will make things worse.
“It is not things that trouble us, but our judgments about things.”—Epictetus, Enchiridion 5
“If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now.”—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.47
“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.”—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.7
Once rational analysis is complete, then, and only then, should you assess action, and your first assessment is to consider inaction as action. Ask yourself: Should I walk away and give the trigger no further thought? If you cannot affect the trigger, if it is not in your control, if there is no virtuous action you can take, then remove yourself mentally from the trigger—let it go. If there is virtuous action you can and should take, strictly within the bounds of justice, temperance, wisdom, and courage, then formulate your response within those bounds. As you formulate your actions, you must critically assess each of the four virtues and ask yourself:
Are my actions courageous?
Do I act fairly and with justice?
Am I behaving with temperance?
Is my response wise; does it proceed with full knowledge and understanding of the situation?
If you can honestly answer all with “yes” and you have also judged the situation as something that you can positively impact, then, and only then, do you move forward with action. Otherwise, you dismisse the trigger as an indifferent, and you are indifferent to that whcih makes no difference.
Following this Stoic process will free you from triggers and being triggered. You must abandon the idea of triggers, seeing them for what they are: mental weakness and enslavement. Do not broadcast your triggers to the world; keep them internal, own them, contain them, and master them. Never expect or need “trigger warnings.” Realize trigger warnings are apologies for truth, and Stoicism offers no such apologies. The Stoic does not demand gentleness from the world; they demand toughness from themselves. If something triggers them, the Stoic does not ask that it be removed. The Stoic asks, why does it still control me? And then immediately begins the work of taking power back—quietly, internally, as a true sovereign.
“Why do you shrink from hardship? You are born for it. No man is more wretched than one who avoids everything that might make him wretched.” —Seneca, On Providence, 3