Following the laws of gravity, water flows into the lowest channel. Our emotions follow a similar pattern. We automatically react to situations based on the emotional ruts we’ve developed over time. Those well-worn grooves may be familiar, but they’re rarely comfortable or productive.

Triggers, for example, are nervous system reactions to old memories. They push us to superimpose a familiar feeling onto a new situation. Although the traumatic event occurred in the past, our grief and unmet needs surface in the present. The trigger and the trauma feel the same because our body doesn’t know the difference between past and present––it only knows the feeling. As long as this difference is not recognized, we will repeatedly end up in the same old groove of reacting. We will drag our past hurts into our current relationships, and we will create and participate in situations that deepen the familiar groove.

Triggers also have the potential to create opportunity. They may point to buried trauma in need of healing. And they invite us to ask: is what we are feeling an actual trauma in the present, or a re-living of the past in the form of a trigger? By recognizing the difference we can avoid re-traumatizing our nervous system. Awareness softens the impact. Even with significant healing, emotional fragments persist. Everyone has them. They may show up as intrusive thoughts, anxious fears, defensive anger, self-loathing, or ego-driven judgment of others.

In the Fall 2025 issue of Tricycle magazine, Bernat Font addresses this looping behavior by pointing out a parallel between our minds and social media. Social media operates on a system of algorithms. The more we click on certain types of information, the more of it we receive in our feed. Marketers know this and try to load their ads with intense emotional content––it’s called clickbait. Don’t want to be exposed to more content about toenail fungus or political porn? Don’t click on it. Want more content about peace and compassion? Click on that.

Our amazing brain is also a content creator. And it also works through algorithms. Whatever thinking and behavior we practice, the deeper the emotional groove becomes, and the more we continue to do it. Clickbait shows up in the form of past hurts, which contain intense emotional content. Those thoughts seem uncontrollable. But as Font points out: “As automatic as it feels, [it] is intentional….We’re doing it. And therefore it is optional.”  

I’ve started a new practice based on this information. When I notice my mind looping in where I don’t want to be I just yell (silently or aloud), “Clickbait!” That one word reminds me what I’m choosing, interrupts the loop, and redirects my thoughts––it makes me laugh! I’ve been practicing this for about a week now and have noticed a marked improvement in my emotional algorithm. I’m trending Joy : )