What is a "Trigger" ?

What starts uncontrollable behaviors from us?
Whatever it is, it signifies the same thing as when someone lights the fuse to a firecracker.
Or, when someone shoots a starter's pistol at the beginning of a race. It is what is known in hypersensitivity health and energy block explanations as a "trigger."

LIKE THE TRIGGER ON A GUN, once that factor is activated it results in a predictable series of events following. In this case, the events are frequently perceived by the consciousness of the person involved as something not wanted. Few people emerge from their shower every day with large red welts covering their body --- but some do.

I doubt that any healthy person wants to get a migraine headache every time they eat something that has chocolate in it. And few mechanical engineers would invite sudden periods of fatigue and depression each time they approached a large metallic object. These are all examples of the influences of specific triggers in producing predictable responses in those individuals who possess that form of environmental hypersensitivity.

THE NEXT TIME YOU NOTICE a person who says they can't be near someone who wears perfume or that wool makes their skin break out in a rash --- don't be too quick to judge them as spoiled, weak, or "odd". They are probably hypersensitive. If you are aware of the information on this site, you may be able to assist them in reaching a state free of their over-reactions.

Simply letting them know that people can recover from hypersensitivities could change their probable hopelessness and their future. The day may come when you react and structure your life in much more awkward ways. You are fortunate. You can learn from the information placed on this site and balance your health so as to avoid developing chronic illness and hypersensitivities.
You WILL influence others by your apathy, ignorance, awareness, confidence.
The world will either continue to worsen, or, improve a little.
That is your choice.

Key to long-term health: Our Brain.
Paul D. MacLean, M.D. wrote
A Triune concept of the brain and behaviour in 1969 ---
as a result of his neurological research into the structure and interactivity of the parts of the brain.
He found that the human brain is structurally and functionally divided into three major parts.

MacLean named these as the Reptilian Unconscious or Paleomammalian (Limbic, or emotional), and the Neomammalian (Neocortex, or rational consciousness).

The Reptilian Structure part is the brain core and the simplest and possibly oldest structure and team member. We usually take our Reptilian structure for granted. It is what looks after all of those routine, boring, repetitious activities that we do not want to be occupied with. Activities such as our

• heartbeat;
• breathrate;
• body temperature;
• metabolism;
• cell production & repair;
• immunological defences;
• organ operations;
• learning.

REPTILES OUTLIVED their more complex brained neighbors, the Dinosaurs because of the dominance of their Reptilian structure and its automatic instincts.

We're talking PATTERNS here.
Remember that: PATTERNS.
Rituals, schedules, periods, habits, obsessions, compulsions, addictions, instincts, social image, tendencies --- are all PATTERNS. The goal of this Reptilian brain is to keep all your body components moderately active (not overstressed) and to keep you safe as a living physical entity. The responsibility of this brain part is the second-by-second survival of us. If it makes a mistake --- it may not get a second chance. It is so fundamental and automatic that we take it for granted and ignore it.

Our Limbic System - emotion, feelings, Ego of personal evaluation enables us to place values and priorities into our thinking and attach them to our memories. Those values of right and wrong, preference and exclusion, attraction and avoidance --- can prove to be irrelevant and destructive as often as they are relevant and constructive.

The fact that we can "feel" so good about something and be proven wrong in that judgement often angers us rather than humbling us. We have a good sense, proudly so, of the potential benefit and contribution which our rational consciousness, our Ego, provides to the direction of our life. The more organized a society is, the less time the average individual is encouraged to use their Limbic System. Cultural traditions and regulations replace much of what could be personal choice.

Neomammalian, Neocortex, SuperEgo or Rational Consciousness, are all terms applied to the outer and most complex brain structure --- believed to be the last major section developed evolutionarily, or, created to provide a difference in capabilities between primates and other mammals. Humans are primates.

Our Neomammalian Structure is responsible for enabling us to work together as a team, community, culture, nation, civilization, species. History has demonstrated that there is power in this potential. It has yet to show if humans can control that power and use it constructively for the longer-term and for all life. This is the structure which is largely the source of our social consciousness.

This SuperEgo is the part which is receptive to accepting the authority of other persons and "rationalizing" as correct the values of the majority, or of the most powerful, or of the richest, or of those perceived to be religious leaders. Without this part, there would be no science, no technology, no war, no institutionalized religion - healthcare - education - policing ... as part of human history.

The Challenge in Balanced Health, is to be aware of the capabilities of all parts of our brains, --- AND discipline the talents of each --- for the most personal and universal constructive outcome. Hypersensitivities and chronic illness demonstrate a breakdown in this personal and social survival necessity of individual brain optimization. Every ONE is trying too hard; a light is on at home and too much ACTIVITY is taking place; every ONE is talking and no ONE is listening; danger is everywhere and every ONE is on full alert.
This is not BALANCED.

Why what we don't know can hurt us.

WHEN WE IGNORE the Reptilian Unconscious --- and our proud conscious rational mind usually does --- we allow it to go on building patterns of responses associated with the presence of specific stimuli that it can perceive. These responses become automated into habits --- reflex-like actions --- and, reactive patterns of feelings --- which control us and increasingly make us more and more behaviorally predictable ... like robots ... especially as we get older. Often, we learn to excuse and justify this behavior as simply one's "character." Can't we have choice over these responses?

WE HAVE CHOICE BUT DO WE WANT IT ?
For most of us, ignorance is bliss --- no awareness, no responsibility, no self-management. Just drifting along, being accepted by our peers, being rewarded for our compulsions, benefiting from the status quo, --- never having to say we're sorry --- Doing it our way. We always have a way out ... "We didn't know any better".

TRAUMA AND NECESSITY create different behavioral patterns than those we choose through self-directed and most institutionalized learning. Trauma-induced learning is usually justified by us with such phrases as: "That's just the way I am", or, "I wouldn't be me if I didn't ...It isn't that I don't want to change, I just want it to be my decision (which will never come)." Now you can understand how easy it is to become a slave. You just give up a little of your freedom at a time --- until you have none left.

Conditions promoting the development of Triggers.

ANY HUMAN-BASED AUTHORITY CULTURE contains the seeds for the development of Energy Blocks and Triggers. The more that the expectations of others and their restrictions are imposed on us --- the more challenges that our child-like Ego desires are frustrated. To maintain some sense of order and justice within a large society, there must be some way of focusing our values, priorities and goals. Since the awareness of and acceptance of the reality of a Universal Intelligence, Supreme God, or other similar entity is abstract ... it is immensely simpler to just appoint a physical man or woman or governing group to make decisions for us.

CULTURAL MYTHS ASSIST IN ENSLAVING US.
We tell ourselves that if we disagree with this leader, we can rebel against, overthrow, abandon, or negotiate for change. This becomes less and less a reality as the sanctioned power of the authority to impose order, judgement or preference becomes absolute in practice rather than in expectation.

By processes of DELAY -- debate, study, assessment, change of officers, introduction of new materials, interviews, apparent opposition, confusion, absence, modification, --- and SANCTION -- executive approval, covert operations, negotiation, bribery, coercion, threat, "accident", permission, test or experiment, recommendation, --- the individual is subtlety eased into a world of gray.

THOSE NOT IN A POSITION OF PRIVILEGE find they are never able to depend upon apparent reality.
That is, are they having an influence, or, just fooling themselves. This encourages passivity, distraction, paranoia, self-obsession and social competitiveness. And that is where disease enters the equation.

REMEMBER THIS:
When you no longer have the time to build constructive communicating and coping skills --- you no longer have time to provide respect for your self and the selves of others. No respect --- is abuse. Abuse develops from inadequate and/or destructive coping methods and contributes to further destruction. Environmental illness is a form of self-destruction by an unwilling and unaware participant who has been promised what he or she will never have ... without fundamental change.

A FEW NORTH AMERICAN MYTHS.
Myths are good intentions without adequate resources or commitment.
These myths are believed to bring security, acceptance, confidence, power:

1. criticism and penalty encourage obedience and order;
2. failures are to be hated and mistakes must never be repeated;
3. powerful persons always know better, best to follow them and win;
4. security is getting what one wants NOW, patience contributed to being ignored;
   Don't plan for what you don't Control ... the future will take care of itself;
5. know what is acceptable to others, and be rewarded by doing it;
6. be yourself and do whatever you want .. it has to turn out for you;
7. if others don't praise you, it is because you don't deserve it;
8. winning is everything --- if it is profitable, do it, and succeed;
9. your weaknesses are what others use to beat you with --- deny them;
10. tell others what you want often enough --- and you will get it.

So-called primitive Band organized societies are very different in lifestyle, attitudes, expectations and interpersonal communication. We are born with such a framework. We then learn to suppress it.

Band organized socieities believe that SURVIVAL DEPENDS UPON:

• always looking for and appreciating the wonders around us;
• taking action to turn fears into knowledge and skills;
• learning what is possible by listening to the experiences of others;
• knowing what one wants and focusing one's efforts towards getting it;
• participating because one can appreciate the Joy of others & wants some of that;
• constantly wanting to do one's best and to improve one's best;
• working with one's limitations and building on one's strengths;
• working together with others for communal benefit and safety;
• recognizing the importance of how others understand you;
• making sure that others know what you mean and that you know what they mean.

PEOPLE WHO BECOME ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE, not those born so, have been educated to forget the above and accept the myths. This sometimes leads us into increasingly challenging environments which demand increasingly wide-ranging and constructive coping skills. Some of these skills are embodied in the attitudes and behaviors we have or have not been taught.

No one wants to become Environmentally Hypersensitive --- nor to remain so.
In fact, the more energy one puts into defending the myths above and trying to make them work in irrelevant situations, the more one turns over one's self-control to one's Reptilian structure.

No matter how hard you fight, you cannot change REALITY.
As you become more desperate, your brain becomes more obsessed in protecting you.
You will find it hard to believe that people can become Hypersensitive and have real physical and emotional extreme reactions to some of the following. I found it hard to believe also ... until I found individuals who collectively did exhibit such sensitivities.

Review our Table of Triggers, then return here.

TRIGGERS

Testing, Testing, Testing !

I hear you.
How does one possibly find out IF and to WHICH factors one is intolerant or hypersensitive?

THE SIMPLEST STARTING POINT to determining what your triggers could be is to keep a record as to when, where and near what, hypersensitivity SYMPTOMS appear or are spontaneously expressed.

In 1988, I found myself to be hypersensitive to 30 of the potential triggers in the Table.
My reactions to four were life threatening. I could not wait years for some mysterious non-existent scientific research program to find the answers. Nor did I choose to believe conventional medical experts who soothed me with statements directing me to ignore the symptoms (how could one) or to accept that nothing could be done.

FIRST, I FOUND OUT EVERYTHING I COULD from various support groups operated by and for hypersensitive persons. Their dominant approach, and it was a good starting point --- was to determine what one was hypersensitive to and avoid it. This strategy was usually to be followed by an idiosyncratic exclusion of so-called poisonous products and substances from one's environment --- as determined by the reactions and rationalizations of the hypersensitive advisor.

WHEN I SURVEYED THIS COMMUNITY of environmentally ill persons, I found very ill, confused, and desperate persons increasingly being imprisoned within sterile environments. I was determined NOT to simply follow this trend because everyone else accepted it or found themselves forced into it. By following the advisories on the SOLUTIONS page, I diminished my intolerance intensity 90% in 8 weeks. Over the next 1-1/2 years I found methods --- which in combination --- led to the complete release of these hypersensitivities. They were linked to Energy Blocks which I no longer have ... so they cannot return. I am not in remission. I am cured!
You can be cured also.

Why not simply AVOID my intolerances ?

You don't just get a few intolerances once you are over the threshold into the hypersensitivity building syndrome. Just avoiding your self-responsibility for your health will only result in your choices of foods and many other factors continually being diminished. Near the end, you will be a prisoner in whatever shelter your system can still cope with. The number of intolerances may continue to build until you either acquire a totally balanced lifestyle or acquire positive and wide-ranging coping skills.

ONCE YOU HAVE BEGUN BUILDING hypersensitivities, neither Solutions nor Support are easy to acquire nor encouraged by ANY social institution. If you had either in the beginning, you would not likely have ever become hypersensitive to anything. AVOIDANCE is a temporary step which can be taken while one focuses on acquiring the skills, knowledge, therapy, environment and behaviors necessary for survival and enhanced health.

I'm already too weak to get better!

WRONG.
Getting better demands persistence and a will to survive.
You have a benefit which was not available for me: RELEVANT information.
Without the information on these pages, the typical Environmentally Hypersensitive person is financially impoverished by job loss or conflict, relationship estrangement, unpaid sick leave, unpaid unemployment and lengthy, costly and remedial-at-best private care therapies. All this happens because one does not know what to believe, who to believe nor what will effectively work for a very personalizing illness.

YOU HAVE CHOICES.
You can give up and become a vegetable.
You can feel sorry for yourself and become anti-social and more sick.
You can spend huge amounts of money following every possible alternative medicine approach with supplements and therapies ... and reduce your symptoms. OR, you can learn what it means to be hypersensitive and utilize therapies and build self-improvement skills which will cure you. I had to recover from my hypersensitivities at a time when I had little money. All the money and all the effort in the world will not cure you. Relevant information can set you free. The cost is cheap. The risk is nil.