Those emotional triggers which go off when someone seems to provoke you could have their roots many years in the past. Of course, the comments that spark your reaction could be deliberate but the chances are that they're accidental. The sensitivity of your emotional triggers may hark back even as far as your childhood, when they were useful learning tools in the playground of early life. In that sense, they're a bit like landmines whose particular cruelty is in the fact that the person who buried them has no idea who is going to land on them in the future. It may prove easier to come to terms with your own emotional triggers before they accidentally harm your relationships of today.

Published: Sat 20 September 2025