Triggers are stored memories firing in the present. The intensity of your reaction is rarely about the current moment — and you can't think your way out, because the prefrontal cortex goes offline. Lasting change requires lowering the system's underlying reactivity, not better in-the-moment management. 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. But the original idea is precise and worth recovering. A trigger is a present-day stimulus that activates a