So many triggers
It is different for each person. But, if you suffer from migraines, you probably have a list of your triggers. The list probably started pretty small, but has been steadily growing over the years. First it was red wine. Then it was all wine. Then all alcohol. Just as you rearrange your life to avoid all the triggers, you get new ones. Why is this happening?
The real trigger
The truth is that you probably have one thing that triggers a migraine. That trigger may well be repressed anger, and if you feel that you are the type of person who doesn’t harbor any anger, that is the point – it is repressed.
At some point in your life, that first time you got a migraine, you were put into a seemingly impossible position. You could not escape from this position. Maybe you were assaulted, humiliated, unfairly accused, or simply overstressed, trying to do something that you simply could not do. Any of these situations would naturally make you angry, but as a child or even often as an adult, we are often not able to express our anger. We have to bury it down, ashamed of it. Maybe that anger was directed at a person that you love, or that anger wasn’t allowed in your house. “Good children” don’t get angry. Or maybe it was dangerous to show that you were angry. You may not even have been aware of that emotion. But the stress hormones that were released caused the body to signal with pain, that something was terribly wrong.
The first migraine
That first migraine pulled you out of danger, distracted you from the stressful emotions, protected you in some way from the things or people that were stressing you. At that moment new neural pathway was formed. A part of your unconscious learned that when this situation occurs, the best thing to do is to give you a migraine. This part of your unconscious mind stays on high alert for anything that looks like this original danger, or anything that reminds you of that danger. It’s always ready to sweep into action with a “protective” migraine.
Here’s how it works
Imagine that you broke up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and that you are deeply sad about it. When you see the bowl that you bought together, you think of that person and you get sad again. When you eat cereal in that bowl, you think of the person and get sad again. Next time you see that cereal, you think of that person and get sad again. When you see an advertisement for that cereal on TV you get sad again. Next the sight of the TV alone makes you sad. You see how triggers can multiply out of control? At some point in the future, you will see the TV and get sad, and have no idea why.
So food (or whatever is on your list) is probably not the trigger for the migraine. It is the trigger that reminds a part of your unconscious about a feeling you once had that is the real trigger. If you can think back to that original feeling in that impossible situation – really feel that anger and acknowledge it, and give your younger self some real love and understanding, you can reverse all the triggers.