How do I find peace when life keeps triggering me?

The Christian life is to find peace in the midst of the temptations: taking hold of our thoughts, directing our hearts to Christ, relying on him, trusting him even in the uncertainty of life. Life is so complex that if we try to watch every little thing going on, it will drive us crazy. The main thing is to turn to Christ, say the Jesus Prayer, and examine our thoughts, especially when we become emotionally unbalanced.

Ask yourself, if I was a saint, would I be responding like this? That litmus test shows us that 99.9 percent of what we struggle with is simply because our souls are not purified. Things trigger us on a deep existential level because sins are rooted deep in our souls, and sometimes we haven't even asked Christ to do the surgery and dig out this pride, egotism, self-love, and self-will.

The peace of Christ, which transcends all understanding, is directly correlated with abandonment to Christ and living for his will. When we reject our cross, we are rejecting Christ himself. The only way to live as a Christian is to live martyred. We want Christ to die for us, but the apostles all understood that Christ dying for them was the first step: they then had to die for Christ in return.

We have to die for Christ in our marriages, with our children, at our jobs, even in traffic with people who cut us off. We either choose to be united to Christ or united to ourselves, and when we're united to ourselves and our passions, we are in misery. The only way forward is repentance, the self-emptying, that kenosis St Paul talks about, and union with Christ.