The Trouble with Triggers

Triggers that happen in response to a circumstance or something someone says or does can generate an emotional storm that can get us into all kinds of trouble. How do these triggers happen? It seems that they happen instantaneously, but do they? Can we slow them down like an instant replay and see what the process is that creates our emotional response? And how can Ghandi and Martin Luther King provide examples of right action from the place of Heart instead of the triggers of mind?