Emotional fitness is the ability to consistently confront reality and respond to it positively – in the most constructive, optimistic, and empowered way that one possibly could. 

Emotional distress – whether fear, anger, sadness, shame, or guilt – undermines our ability to handle situations in the most effective way possible.

As we develop our capacity to deal with reality consistently and positively, we can then face the challenges of our lives with more vitality, positivity, adaptability, resiliency, and serenity.

A triggered response is a collection of feelings activated by a stimulus – such as a person, place, comment, or tone of voice.

Triggered responses develop due to traumatic experiences. It's a protective mechanism formed automatically in an attempt to avoid being retraumatized.

We come with a built-in ability to develop triggered responses, and we do so unconsciously. A triggered response is basically the best protective strategy the unconscious mind could come up with at the time of a traumatic event.

When we’re triggered, we're transported out of present reality and back into the emotional state of the original traumatic event. This involves the limbic system — the emotion center of the brain. During a triggered response the prefrontal cortex, the reason and logic part of our brain, is offline.

Our triggered emotional responses were formed for who we were in that traumatic situation, at that time. And when we’re triggered, we react as if nothing has changed from that original event.

But apart from the trigger itself, the situation may be radically different and we typically possess knowledge, wisdom, perspective, understanding, and power that we did not have then. Reacting to a present-day trigger as if we’re still that person, in that situation, with those limited resources is, by definition, out of date.

Unfortunately, out-of-date triggered responses don't fade with time. They typically intensify. Fortunately, they can be changed.

Because triggered emotional responses are created and operate unconsciously, we need an unconscious method to untrigger ourselves. Emotional Updating is the unconscious mental technique we teach to do just that.

If we have lots of out-of-date responses being triggered, maintaining emotional stability is very difficult because people in pain make fundamentally different decisions than people who aren't in pain.

When we avoid what triggers us, we don't actually manage our discomfort — we shrink our world. And the longer we avoid, the more intimidating the avoided thing becomes, and the harder it is to face.

When we can’t avoid our triggers, we suffer due to the emotional distress they cause, and we lose control of our emotional system to whomever or whatever it is that triggers us.

Finally, the coping mechanisms we employ to manage our emotional distress limit our personal autonomy. A coping mechanism is essentially a pain pill.

So if we rely on options like substances or distractions to handle our distress, we are essentially a hostage to that pain management solution. And whatever the underlying issue is, it's typically getting worse in the meantime.

What's required is actual healing — not management strategies applied over a broken foundation, but genuine reconstruction of the foundation itself.

Our basic objective is that we want people to be able to experience life’s challenges like failure, rejection, loss, and injustice and still feel emotionally stable and okay within and about themselves.

When something triggers us, it is poking a wound we've been carrying around since long before that moment. The intensity of our reaction has less to do with what just happened than with how deep the wound already is.

Becoming triggerproof is about healing the wounds so there's nothing left to poke.