Whenever me and my co-founder Kavya talk about the future of Konvos, I get crazy with my energy. I get all pumped up, start raising my voice, my face becomes more dramatic than a 50’s movie, and I severely react to any “threats” to the startup.
I have a friend who goes crazy whenever we talk about his future financial situation.
We all have met friends, family members who have a topic that’s highly triggering.
The problem here is not that we don’t want better. The problem is that there’s a lot of information we have about these “triggering” topics.
I, for example, have been working on Konvos for 2 years now and have a lot of data gathered - about threats, opportunities. The twist here is this - many of this information is in the form of emotions. So whenever I talk about the future of the startup, all those emotions come descending upon me like the monsoon rains in Goa!
The challenge for other people who interact with us “so-called- emotional people” is that they see this as an emotion they just can’t understand. They see this as a barrier to a "adult" conversation. They dismiss us as “being illogical”, “too much energy”, “over-reacting” etc.
When we have a lot at stake, we gather a lot more information. And a lot of this gets stored in us as emotions. These emotions have both our angels and demons. They exist to help us see the opportunities and the dangers related to things that are important to us.
When we take time to decipher these emotions, we get to see our angels and demons face to face. We get to have a coffee with them. We get to have a conversation that informs us more about us. We get to realize the underpinnings to our actions.
The true cause of an emotional trigger lies within us. It exists for a reason. It exists to help us navigate this world and achieve our goals. It exists to protect us.
So the next time people accuse you of “over-reacting”, ask yourself
What is at stake here for me?
What am I trying to protect here?
What’s my demon here?
How do I make it my friend?
Image Source -
https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Angel-and-Demon/1360069/6681677