Dear Nicole:

The person who yelled at you should not have yelled at you. Maybe if you physically attacked her, then she should have yelled, that would have been a natural and instinctive reaction on her part. A sensible and understandable reaction.

But what happened, most likely, is that she imagined somehow that you were attacking her. You weren’t, she only imagined it. Here is an example: you sit with that person for dinner and ask him/ her to pass on the salt for you, a favor, a very small favor, and better she passes the salt to you than you reaching out across the table. Makes sense. Here is what happens in her brain, in this example: a past memory is triggered. When she was a child, sitting at a table, she asked an older sibling to pass on the salt and that older sibling took hold of the salt and hit her on the head with it. It hurt and it was humiliating, as other family members were laughing at her, enjoying her surprise and humiliation.

With that experience triggered, years later, as you asked for her to pass the salt, her humiliation and anger is triggered and she reacts by yelling at you.

Are you guilty in this example, of anything at all? No. Is she guilty of anything? Yes, she is guilty of yelling at you. She is not guilty of her older sibling years ago hitting her at the table, or for her family members laughing.

We all get triggered all day long, past experienced triggered, good or bad. We have to pause when triggered negatively, angrily and think: what is it that is being triggered and is this situation here-and-now similar to the old situation, am I being attacked or mistreated here-and-now?

She or he yelled at you. You can’t help but feel badly being yelled at. Everyone feels badly when yelled at. Now this memory is stored in your brain, being yelled at for asking for a favor.

anita