Emotional Buttons from Our Past

We are all products of our childhoods and what has happened to us up until now. Our memories of past events can leave us with “buttons” that are easily pushed. For example, the child whose teacher told him he was stupid might have developed a “hot button” about his intellect. Even though he now realizes that he is an intelligent adult, when someone calls him stupid today, it presses that button that causes emotional feelings and possible defensiveness and self doubt.

So what can be done now that we realize that we are covered in these unwanted buttons? I have created an acronnym that I call the BLT. When something happens that you think shouldn’t bother you as much as it does, it’s probably one of these buttons from your past. If you are ready to work on navigating around these buttons more easily, try my BLT Method.

B is for Button; take a “mindful” step back and say, “Why is this bugging me so much?” It’s not such a big deal!

L is for Lesson; once you get insight into your buttons, you can go from button to lesson pretty fast ie “what have I learned from this, what am I learning from this or is it possible that I am going to learn something from this in the future?” The lesson from the example above may be that he has learned he is smart and that teacher was inappropriate.

T is for Triumph (or Transition); this is the hardest part of the BLT because I am again asking you to transition to thinking something positive during an event that you don’t like and don’t want. I believe that we can triumph over the negativity and train our brains to go more and more quickly to a positive thought ie what you want, like or what you’re grateful for to prevent yourself from going down that slippery slope of negativity.

Some people have very deep seated buttons that may require reprocessing via EMDR. (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) or EFT Tapping. Both of them are great “button erasers!” You can learn more about these techniques from the modalities page of my website or give me a call at (954) 821-7127.

Lisa Tetreault, LMHC