Emotional reactivity occurs when a present-day stimulus activates a stored emotional memory from the past, causing the rational brain to go offline while the limbic system takes over. To stop being hijacked by these triggers, you must focus on lowering the nervous system's underlying reactivity and updating subconscious networks rather than simply trying to suppress or 'think your way through' the response. You don't think of yourself as reactive. Most days you are measured, considered, the one people call when they need a level head. And then something happens — a tone in a partner's voice, a glance from a colleague, an offhand comment from your mother — and within seconds the calm version of you is gone and someone else, someone you don't quite recognise, is running the show. A trigger is a memory in disguise The word "trigger" has been so overused that it has nearly lost its meaning.