Ideas for relationship triggers

Have you ever felt it? That sudden rush where your stomach drops, your chest tightens, and before you know it, you’re reacting instead of responding? In RLT, we call this the “whoosh.” It’s visceral and somatic, and it’s often the moment our adaptive child takes the wheel. When that happens, we reach for familiar coping strategies, not because we’re broken, but because those strategies once helped us survive.

This is a great place to pause: compassionately remove yourself from the situation, and take some time to regulate your nervous system before returning to it. Stepping away with a clear agreement to return gives both people time to get grounded, and reflect. During that pause, it can be helpful to ask yourself: What story am I making up right now? Many of our triggers are rooted in old family-of-origin experiences, and when we’re triggered, we often react to the past rather than the present.

If you can stay curious about your body, your story, and your patterns rather than judging them, you give yourself a real chance to choose differently. Triggers don’t disappear overnight, but awareness allows us to meet them with compassion, responsibility, and skill. This is the heart of relational growth: not never getting triggered, but learning how to recognize it in real time and come back to connection.