Mindfulness teaches us to create and cultivate a distinction between our ‘self’ who lives our lives and our ‘observer self’.
The more we spend time as our observer selves, the easier it is for us to choose the experience we want to have of life and the less time we spend mindlessly reacting to our environment as prisoners of the subconscious programming we received and accepted as children—our biases, our ego, our judgment of self and others... In some conscious circles they refer to this aspect of our psyche as our ‘inner wounded child’.
Usually, and particularly in relationship with the people closest to us, if we feel triggered, it’s likely a good indicator that we’re operating from the standpoint of the ‘wounded child’ and not from the more objective ‘observer self’. It means we’re missing the bigger picture and therefore needlessly suffering.
This is good news. Why? The awareness alone can help us shift our perception and the interaction almost immediately. You see, when a ‘wounded child’ is met by the ‘observer self’ it will never be met through the lens of conflict... quite the contrary. It will be met with compassion, love, and understanding because it has identified the true root of the conflict as being a projection of things past.
The implications of this are huge in any relationship... be that the one you have with yourself or with those around you... So pick wisely my friends! Life’s too short to be a prisoner of ideas and belief systems you acquired when you were too young to know what was even going on