Old Triggers from Childhood

My cousin asked me why I have so much patience with her mom (my aunt) when I was helping them dealing with a situation.

Then something happened that made me realized that many of my triggers (what make me go crazy) were probably formed in childhood.

On Saturdays, my very nice parents would pick up my son and take him to Chinese school so I could sleep in.

Last Saturday when my mom came to pick up my son, I had just taken out some cheesecake for him to eat. I put a fork with the cheesecake in the fridge the night before so when my son picked up the fork he said “It’s cold!”

My mom didn’t know or see what happened so she said “No, I don’t think it’s that cold.” Maybe she was talking about the weather whereas my son was talking about the fork.

But I got triggered and got really mad!

I explained to her that the fork was in the fridge so it was cold but she had no idea what I was talking about. Who would put a fork in the fridge anyway?

After they left, this incident just kept replaying in my mind and I had to tell my husband what unreasonable thing my mom said. It drove me crazy that my mom would say something like that when she had no idea what was going on.

But this time, I remember Michael Singer said to just relax and observe this explosion of emotions and ask WHY.

Why was I so mad at just a passing comment?

Maybe when I was younger, something happened that made me feel misunderstood by her?

Whatever it was the cold fork situation was so trivial that it didn’t make sense that I got so worked up by it.

I have several girlfriends who would complain about their mothers when we get together.

Maybe because they are the closest people in our lives, there are a lot of opportunities since we were born, for them to say or do something that was not to our likings. If we didn’t release these energies of “I don’t like it”, they just kept building up in our body.

Maybe that’s why I was able to deal with my aunt with a cleaner slate than my cousin (by marriage, so even less time together to build up triggers).

Is that why comedians joke about when mom is calling, we dread picking up the phone?

Is mom going to nag at me again? She kept talking about unimportant things but I am working right now…

But sometimes my mom would tell me that she’s happy that I was there listening and chatting with her.

I want to spend more time with her since she’s getting older. Did I mention how nice she is to want to let me sleep in on Saturdays?

I would like my son to continue to chat with me when he’s older.

I also find myself nagging at him just a tiny bit less.