The key to success and happiness in every relationship you’re going to have —

Whether it’s man-woman —

Woman-man —

Mother-daughter —

Father-son —

Son-grandparent —

It doesn’t matter what it is. Friend to friend, no matter what it is, business to business, associate —

For every relationship you’re in, you’re going to get triggered.

And, understanding your triggers and not lashing out at somebody is the key to having successful relationships. From friendships, to family, to love.

Whenever you feel a trigger come on, and they do come on —

You could be in a conversation at work, somebody is starting to piss you off. They’re saying things that are bugging you. Instead of lashing out at that moment, you need to take a time out.

The same time outs that you give your kids, you need to literally give yourself that time out.

Think of yourself in a huddle.

Or think of yourself in a line of scrimmage.

You look over at the defense.

They’re moving around really fast, all of a sudden you notice the quarterback is inching his way in.

The safety is moving its way out.

But your brain is not firing fast enough that you think to yourself, is that safety going to go back where I was going to throw the ball and is that quarterback going to blitz, and all of a sudden you get really confused and you start to trigger and you remember the last time you saw this, you threw an interception. You get in your head, and all of a sudden, you pass.

And, you throw an interception. Because you actually manifested it to happen.

Because you were so paranoid about being in that same moment, because you got triggered back into a moment that caused you stress and anxiety.

So, what do you do in that moment?

Like any good quarterback in that moment, you call a time out. You walk to the side line. You talk to your coach. You calm the fuck down.

You gain your composure, and then you go back and you play the play that is designed, that is the perfect play against the defense you saw.

Whenever anybody triggers me now, I try to take a really big step backwards because the person that is triggering me is not doing so on purpose at all. As a matter of fact, the person doesn’t even know they’re triggering me, they’re just doing their thing. So, instead of getting into an argument with someone…

Instead of getting all angry at somebody and saying things that you’re going to regret, which usually causes three months of having to talk about it over and over again, and making up, and bringing back to that moment again and again…

You need to do what every Tom Bradey, Ben Rothlessberger, and, any other great Quarterback like Erin Rogers does.

You call a time out. You call a time out and you figure out what the hell is going on.

Recently my six year old has been telling me she hates me.

She doesn’t love me anymore.

I know in my rational mind that’s not true. She loves me, I’m her dad, she’s just going through some things right now that are being caused by myself and my ex-wife.

But yet, it’s triggered me a couple of times. So, I’ve said some things that weren’t exactly nice. You’re a parent, you understand. You’ll say things to your kids that you just want to take back, but the beauty of kids is that they actually forget these things. Not my kid. She remembers everything I’ve ever said to her in her own interpretive way. In her own words, twists and turns it.

The other night when my daughter came over, things were not great. I didn’t allow her to trigger me. I just stayed present, held space for her.

And, then when she left, I sat around and took a deep breath and called a time out and realized, well this is exactly what it was like when I was growing up.

My brother died when I was three and a half.

My mom got us into a car wreck at five and a half when she tried to commit suicide with me in the car. And then we adopted my sister a few months later.

And then they showered my sister with love and attention because they didn’t want another baby to die in their arms. My brother Mark died at almost 10 months old.

So, basically from the age of three to the age of my sister coming there, I felt neglected.

And, especially my sister came there I felt neglected. So what happened?

I never fully accepted my sister, it was never explained to me because nothing was ever talked about, so I was basically mean to my sister my entire life because of what happened to me as a child. What happened to me about feeling not safe, being abandoned.

Having to beg for love, and then finally when my parents were ready for love, another kid got all the love.

So that was my childhood. My brother was born a year and a half later, and he got all of the love because he happened to be a boy and my mother didn’t want to lose him again. So she became overprotective. She hired a maid to help her so she didn’t lose another kid. It was hard for her to show me the love because she was so scared and nervous. I understand all of this now, but still, there are moments when you get triggered back to it:

My daughter telling me she doesn’t love me, my daughter telling me she doesn’t want to be with me, that my home is not her home, her home is only with mommy. Trigger, trigger, trigger.

It’s exactly how I felt as a kid.

I never felt safe in my home.

I had to beg my parents to love me.

And now here I am, face to face with having to beg a child to love me too.

It triggered me, it made me go back in time to a place where I was not happy.

But it also answered a lot of questions. I never realized why I was an asshole to my sister on a deep, karmic, energetic level.

I never realized how I really, truly felt as a kid and how it’s affected me as an adult and made me compensate in my relationships.

And because of my daughter doing this to me and me not allowing a trigger, I was able to go back into trigger time.

Well, let’s call it triggerville.

And I was able to do what?

I was able to heal some more. You see, self-healing comes when we recognize the triggers, when we recognize exactly why we’re being triggered, how we’re being triggered, and what we need to do with that trigger.

So instead of responding to somebody or arguing with somebody, take a timeout and figure it out.

The answers truly lie within. And when you do figure it out, it’s very satisfying and beautiful because it means you’re shedding another layer, you’re pealing your onion even deeper. You’re getting deeper into the core of who you are and who you need to be.

It’s a very powerful experience. You can share it with a friend, you can share it with a lover.

Or you can just share it with yourself. You don’t need to go back in time and talk to your parents about it, but if you want, you can. But really, understanding your own triggers is part of your own journey.

It’s part of being truly intuitive and awake to who you are as a human soul.

It’s part of fully embracing who you are and understanding it. And in a very powerful way, it’s allowing you to get ready for your next love relationship because the less things that trigger and the more things you figure out.

And understanding the power of the Aaron Rogers, Tom Brady timeout.

You’ll be so much more prepared to literally have that next relationship. But most importantly, you’ll most likely attract somebody who is done the work on themselves as well, and so understands — or who understands the journey that you were on and will listen with open ears, an open heart, and open mind with no judgement.

Triggers are powerful, but they’re even more powerful when you figure out why you went back to triggerville one more time.