West is best & how to get rid of your triggers in any situation

Howdy ${contact.name.first} 

First off, let's recap my last week of travel because it's been pretty incredible and it's been the part of the trip that I've been most looking forward to this whole time... in fact, I've been so focussed on getting to Broome and experiencing it, that I have no idea where I'm going next and I'm supposed to be driving out tomorrow morning haha

Let me give you some context here: Broome first entered my radar a bit over a decade ago when my sister and brother-in-law began working up here on a station. They were here a few years, and my younger brother Clay soon followed them up for his own station experience. I have listened to their stories and yarns, watched their videos and the landscapes in beautiful photographs and been envious of them for the better part of the last 10 years. I badly wanted to visit in that second year that my sister was based up here, but I had just come out of a serious relationship, I was renovating a house with my dad, I was distance studying for my teaching degree full-time, and I was also working full-time at a new job at the NAB bank. To say that I was stretched thin would be an understatement.

I had always wanted to travel in my third year of study. I had big dreams of travelling Australia and working my way around with my (then) partner. It didn't work out and I had to put my dream on hold. I never got up there, and I never got to travel anywhere else either. Two short years later, after finishing my degree I was able to move out to a station near Cobar and work as a Governess (teaching school of the air), and I also got to travel with that family over to Europe for a couple of months. Sometimes things have a funny way of working out for the best... I strongly believe that we are never 'rejected', just 'redirected' towards something even better for us.

So this feels especially poignant to be sitting here in Broome, travelling around Australia on my own, a good decade after first planting that dream on my heart. I played 'Good Light in Broome' as I drove into town and I went down to Town Beach and walked along the jetty to take in the view, and it did not disappoint. I packed my first few days pretty full with tourist activities, so after I checked in to the caravan park, I went straight down to Cable Beach and rode a camel into the sunset... it was literally so magic I cried. The next day I went on a full-day tour of Horizontal Falls, complete with scenic flight over the Dampier Peninsula at sunrise, jet-boat ride through the falls, swimming with sharks, and a pearl farm tour at Cygnet Bay.

I'm honestly still not sure if I'll leave tomorrow morning, or if I'll add another couple of nights onto my reservation and stay. Broome is definitely a place I could come back to, time and time again. I'm also keenly missing a 4WD right now thought, as so many of the beautiful places I've heard about are only accessible through the sandy beaches, so I'm adding them to my Google Maps 'saved' list and having good faith that I'll be back to explore them properly... sooner rather than later I hope.

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While I've been enjoying all of these beautiful views, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of books. I'm a self-proclaimed nerd, and an avid learner so it comes with the territory. But when I get stuck, reading about it never helps me. I actually need to sit and work through the problem, identify the cause and the beliefs of my subconscious mind.

Because of course, a podcast or a book can only offer you a perspective that is GENERAL in nature. It's never going to be able to give you tailored, specific advice on how to help you with your situation and as a result, it can sometimes feel overwhelming when you're reading and listening and getting all the information... but still struggling to act on it. This is especially true when you are stuck in a pattern of an unhealthy relationship, be it romantic, family, friends or work colleagues.

It's really tough to be put in a position where you are feeling triggered by somebody close to you and you want to be able to repair the relationship, while avoiding giving in to them and sacrificing yourself every time. Sometimes we can distance ourselves and remove the trigger, but usually it's more complex than that and we need to learn how to manage it, rather than just delete it from our lives.

I know what it feels like when you have an event approaching, and you start to feel that anxiety creeping its way up your chest and into your throat. I know what it's like to worry whether you should walk up and say hello, or stay on your side of the room and wave from a distance. I know what it feels like to have to choose between honouring your own feelings and making yourself feel safe, or ignoring your own feelings to make them feel safe. I know how uncomfortable that decision is; especially when you worry about letting somebody down, somebody that you love.

So here's my free coaching advice... get to the bottom of WHY you are feeling that way. Take full responsibility for the way YOU are feeling. Nobody else can make you feel 'triggered': only you can decide that you are going to feel upset or angry about something or someone.

I have attached a free worksheet below, 'Getting to the Root Cause of a Trigger'.

The results will be dependent on how deeply you allow yourself to sit with these questions. A common misconception is that we think we're going really deep with feeling and exploring something, but really what is happening is that our subconscious has placed a temporary floor in our way to block us from accessing the deeper levels we require for growth. Our subconscious does this because it doesn't want to go there... it feels uncomfortable, scary and unsafe, and our subconscious mind's only job is to keep us comfortable and safe. This is where individual support and subconscious reprogramming comes in.

I don't care how self-aware you think you are: you are only ever going to access the 'level' of awareness that your subconscious feels safe with, which means you can only ever achieve surface level results on your own. It is almost psychologically impossible for you to access the deeply held, emotional root cause beliefs of your existence. They are buried deep down inside of your subconscious mind, and most of them were formed before you were even 7 years old. And those root cause beliefs are going to continue showing you the same thoughts, feelings and 'available' actions over and over again on a repeating loop, which means that you will continue to feel your heart in your chest, and the flush of anger every time you encounter somebody who is 'triggering you'. You don't know how to react any differently, otherwise you would.

It takes a qualified professional to help you identify your 'blindspots'; they're blind because your subconscious is deliberately blocking them from you. The same way that a sprinter needs a qualified coach to help them improve their form to take them from Little Athletics to the Olympics, you will need somebody qualified to help you understand your own unique situation and the unique patterns that your subconscious mind is running, and has been stuck running on repeat, since you were 7 years old.

But this worksheet is a really great place to start, and it's going to create some awareness of your own thoughts, feelings and beliefs that were probably hidden from you and running on auto-pilot without your knowledge. This is the first step towards growth: acknowledging where you are, and taking the first step moving forward.

I have attached the link below, and you'll need to download and print the document, or just use your own journal to answer in. If you need help with this, please reach out ☺️

Getting to the Root Cause of a ‘Trigger’.pdf

Download PDF • 267KB

 Add Broome to your bucket list, download the worksheet, and happy answering!

Haley 🤍