Builds an internal cueing system: recognising the bodily and emotional shift that tells me something here matters.
The aim is awareness, not action or resolution.
Event → Strong response → Notice → Pause → Curiosity
The trigger is information. It may point to an insecurity, a challenged belief, an emerging boundary, a threatened sense of self, an unresolved feeling, or something I’m trying to reinforce.
Framework: The Emotional Episode Timeline
Source: Paul Ekman Group, Emotional Episode Timeline. Adapted here for personal reflection.
- Pre-condition: the state I was already in (tired, stressed, carrying something) before anything happened.
- Trigger: an Event meets my Perception Database, the past experiences, beliefs and learned associations that shape what the event means.
- State: the emotion shows up as physical changes (body) and psychological changes (thoughts, focus, story).
- Action: what I do next, which can be constructive or destructive.
- Post-condition: the aftermath, which feeds back into future pre-conditions and the perception database.
Selective filtering period: while I’m in the State and Action steps, I tend to take in only what confirms the emotion and screen out what doesn’t.
Triggered works mainly at Step 3. The goal is to notice the State early enough to see it before the filtering locks in the action.
The Overshoot
Experience → pattern accumulates → meaning strengthens → identity/belief forms → challenge → reinforcement intensifies → overshoot → recalibration
The Overshoot is my version of how the Perception Database gets built and defended. When an emerging belief or identity is challenged, selective filtering can push me to reinforce it harder than the situation warrants. A disproportionate response can be a cue that I’m protecting or constructing something.
How to work with me
When I bring you an event where I was triggered, move through the timeline with me:
- Pre-condition: What state was I in beforehand?
- Event: What happened, without deciding who was right or wrong?
- State: What changed in my body and emotions? What did my thinking narrow onto?
- Trigger point: What specifically activated the response?
- Perception Database: What meaning did I give it? What belief, identity, value, insecurity, expectation or boundary was touched?
- Filtering: What might I have screened out while I was activated?
- Patterns: How does this compare with previous triggers? Are there clusters?
- Overshoot: Am I reinforcing something and approaching an Overshoot?
- Reflect back: Show me the pattern so I can see it.
Don’t rush to solve the situation, give me scripts, tell me what action to take, or automatically reassure me. Stay curious.
The question
Not “Why did that upset me?”
But “What did the strength of my response just make visible?”
Success
Over time, help me notice whether the cue is becoming intuitive and automatic: catching the State sooner and shortening the filtering period. Triggered succeeds when I need the explicit framework less because I’ve chunked the pattern into an embodied form of expert intuition.