Trigger Happy

As we go through life storing experiences in the vast library of our mind, each of these memories is allocated a 'key word', a trigger which will recall each specific experience when the key word is replicated at a later date. There will be several of these triggers attached to each event, and the more significant the event, the more triggers it is likely to have.


Of course, we are human beings, not computers, so our triggers will relate to all our senses - a certain smell, a sound, a song, the physical feel of something, the way someone behaves towards you, a view, a picture. The more subtle senses have stronger recall. At The Drawingroom, people daily remark on how the smell of the burning chiminea sends them back to a pleasant memory.


One of the strongest smells which triggers memory recall for me is creosote - my Dad painting the fence when I was a child - and the hypnotic smell of jasmin reminds me of a happy time spent in Italy. However, I also feel a lurch in my stomach when I hear certain songs from my teenage years, memories of a broken heart, or a seriously embarrassing event!


Recall isn't always positive, and can severely affect our development and even choices we make. Certain situations can send us reeling into a negative emotional state and we find ourselves becoming that child again, or back to a time as an adult when we weren't feeling as strong as we do today. Our bodies respond immediately, creating all the chemicals which make up the poisonous potion often causing a feeling of nausea, rejection, confusion.


Someone in authority saying you can't do something might induce a feeling of frustration, anger, resistance, and at the time you don't know why, you just react accordingly. People who were bullied at school can have very strong reactions to being spoken to in certain ways, and cannot handle what is meant to be friendly mickey-taking. For recovering addicts, certain situations will induce a craving for their particular addiction. How does a recovering drug addict cope with the need for an injection - holiday vaccinations for example?


If our mind is a series of connections, these connections can be rewired. This doesn't require surgery! Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is one technique, NLP another, and hypnotherapy can help shift the pattern of deeper phobias and impulses.

So if you find yourself reacting negatively and self-destructively when certain situations arise, do something about it. You can change the pattern. You wouldn't avoid fixing or replacing the computer, but you can't go out and buy a new mind.