Emotional Triggers: Feelings From Memories

Imagine that you are driving down the road, and a song comes on the radio. Suddenly, something about that song brings tears to your eyes. It may be the lyrics, or it may be the melody. But something strikes you emotionally. Emotional triggers can come from any source and can hit us unexpectedly at times.

Sources Of Emotional Triggers

Emotional triggers can come from anywhere. They can be from a song, a scene in a TV show or movie, or a chapter in a book. Sometimes the words, the scenes can evoke an emotion. Sometimes, they drag a memory out to back of our minds to the forefront. Whatever the source is, it resonates with something that is within us that stirs our souls.

The Sound Of Silence

There have been so many times in my life that a song has triggered an emotional response from me. For proof, just see my top ten list of songs that make me cry. For most songs, it is something in the lyrics that triggers a memory for me. Over the years, songs that didn’t used to have that effect on me do now because of life.

It isn’t just lyrics that affect me that way. Sometimes melody or even just tone can. And sometimes these things come together in a perfect cacophony that completely breaks me down. I remember the first song that pulled an emotional response out of me. Looking back, I’m not entirely sure what it was. I was too young to have it trigger a memory, though now it does. It was the summer of 1993, I was 12 years old, and the song was “I’ll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me” by Exposé.

Visually Moved

Sometimes, scenes from movies and TV shows are emotional triggers. They may remind us of something we experienced in childhood or a past relationship.

Over the years, there’s been several movies and episodes of TV shows that consistently emotionally trigger me. I don’t really remember a movie touching me that way until I saw Serendipity, specifically the scene where Jonathan receives the book from his fiancé on the night of their rehearsal dinner. Now, when I go back and watch movies from my childhood, there are some that touch me that didn’t back then. One that instantly comes to mind is the scene in Back to the Future when George McFly decks Biff Tannen. There are so many levels on that one, from George seeing the woman he loves in distress to finally standing up to his bully and Biff getting his comeuppance.

Required Reading

Even books can trigger emotional responses in us. Arguably, a well written story could even generate a stronger emotional response in someone with a vivid imagination, as there is so much more that can be expressed in the written word that would bog down any visual or audio media with needless exposition.

Thinking back to my childhood, there were books that I remembering affecting my classmates that didn’t have the same impact on me. I don’t really remember a book having that affect on me until reading Call of the Wild in my English class in my freshman year of high school. I believe that had more to do with my teacher’s passion than the story itself at that time. For me, in books it is more about connecting with the characters. One of the most memorable instances of this for me was in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Harry uses The Pensieve to view Snape’s memories, seeing the heartbreak that Snape felt over Harry’s mother.

Feeling Triggered

Many different things can trigger us emotionally. Anything that brings to mind memories or evokes feelings can cause a reaction that may be unexpected. It is a natural human response, and we need to embrace our feeling.

Housekeeping: There’s an annoyance in the code for the theme on this site where, because of how I write my posts and schedule them to publish at a later date, newer posts that I’ve not gone back and edited later would show an updated date that is earlier than the published date. I modified the code to not display the updated date if it occurred before the published date, and I sent the change I made to the developer in hopes of them integrating it into their standard code.

Teaser: Next time we’ll take a listen to music that puts you in the mood.