Emotional Triggers

When someone's actions or words trigger unpleasant emotions within us, the overwhelming waves of emotions drown us inside its strong current. We temporarily lose our ability to see the reality for what it is. Our mind has been programmed to believe that our emotions are our absolute truth.

Rewinding 2 years of my life experiences, when I look back at the time when pandemic began, it was fireworks of emotions from all ends of the spectrum and even beyond. How much ever I read about detachment and emotional intelligence, I really couldn't grasp how to practice it in my life. My emotional sensitivity felt like a curse at that point.

Then came this moment. My org admin had announced that people with medical issues can request for ergonomic chair from office to be delivered to our home. Since Bangalore City was under full lockdown during initial days of pandemic, logistics arrangement was uncertain and our org admin had to settle down with this silly medical reason as a criteria for approving the request.

Touchwood, I had never had back ache until then and I didn't want to wait until I get a severe back ache of working from my bed all day. So I had placed a request and when my manager asked me if I have any medical issues, I told him that I get occasional back ache. He didn't bother to dig deeper and my request got processed.

A few days later...

I was in a call with one of my team mates. He seemed very pissed off. He said, "How many features I had worked day and night. And these people are asking for medical reasons to request for this chair. I got so angry and applied for 2 weeks leave". I was so surprised to know that this tiny question had triggered him this badly. Since he was already sharing his screen, I asked him to navigate to the request app and type in what I said. He seemed reluctant but he couldn't deny. He typed in the medical reason that I narrated over the call "occasional back ache". 

His request got approved and the chair was to be delivered in a few days. Guess what he did? Despite the lockdown, he managed to find a local furniture vendor who made ergonomic chairs and placed an order from that person, spending his own money. This chair got delivered a day before office chair was about to be delivered at his address. He spoke to the admin and cancelled his request for office chair.

To him, that silly question turned out to be such a huge trigger where I didn't care to give a second thought about that question. And no one asked for any proof or doctor certificate or anything. That question was just there for the sake of it. No one else really bothered about it. Except for my team mate.

That was a Eureka moment for me. When something makes us feel offended, is it really because of the event that's rolling out at that moment? Or is it our past emotional baggage that's clouding our rational judgement? I felt this question echoing deeper within myself.....