Overview
Complete this form as soon as reasonably possible after a triggering event — ideally within a few hours while the experience is still accessible. Each scale has defined anchors in the sections below. When uncertain, trust your initial impression; consistency over time matters more than precision in any single entry.
Using the sliders: Each slider (the horizontal track with a circular thumb) represents a scale. Click and drag the circle left or right to set your rating. On a touchscreen, press and slide with your finger. The current value displays to the right of each label.
Note on terminology: EQi stands for Equanimity Index — a composite score of psychological stability and regulatory capacity. It is not Emotional Quotient (EQ).
Trigger Categories — Definitions
Select the category that best characterizes the primary source of activation. When multiple categories apply, choose the one most central to the event.
Relational
Triggered by interpersonal dynamics — conflict, rejection, criticism, abandonment, boundary violations, intimacy stress, or perceived betrayal. Includes family, romantic partners, friends, colleagues, or brief encounters where relational themes are activated.
Occupational
Triggered by work, career, or role-related stressors — performance pressure, feedback, deadlines, authority conflicts, workload, professional identity threats, or uncertainty about vocational direction or standing.
Existential
Triggered by confrontations with mortality, meaninglessness, freedom, identity, or isolation. Includes experiences activating questions about purpose, legacy, aging, loss, or one's place in a larger context. Often diffuse and hard to name in the moment.
Sensory / Environmental
Triggered by physical environment, sensory overload, noise, crowds, temperature, pain, or situational factors (traffic, chaos, disrupted routine). The external world is the primary stressor rather than relational or cognitive meaning assigned to it.
Financial
Triggered by money, economic security, debt, unexpected expenses, or income instability. Includes both acute financial events and chronic low-grade anxiety about financial standing or future security.
Health
Triggered by physical health concerns — symptoms, diagnoses, medical procedures, chronic illness management, or health-related fear. Also includes health anxiety activated by information or vicarious exposure (e.g., illness in someone close).
Internal / Intrapsychic
Triggered from within — intrusive thoughts, mood states, shame, self-criticism, remembered events, or internal conflict without a clear external catalyst. The activation originates inside the psyche rather than in response to a discrete external event.
Reactivity & Stability
Reactivity Intensity
The magnitude of your emotional, cognitive, or physiological activation in response to the trigger. This is about internal charge — not behavior. You can be highly reactive internally while appearing calm externally.
1 — barely noticed; no real activation10 — completely overwhelmed; lost functioning
Perceived Stability
Your sense of remaining grounded during and after the event. Stability and reactivity can both be high simultaneously — you can feel a significant internal charge without losing your psychological ground. These are independent dimensions.
1 — completely destabilized; no ground10 — fully grounded throughout
Recovery Time (minutes)
How long it took to return to a functional baseline after the event resolved. "Functional baseline" means you could re-engage normally — not that you had fully processed the experience emotionally.
0 — immediate; no disruption to functioning240 — four or more hours
Rumination Duration (hours)
How long repetitive or perseverative thinking about the event continued after it was over. Distinguish from productive reflection — rumination is circular, unresolved mental replay that does not generate new understanding.
0 — no rumination whatsoever24 — ruminated most of the day
Cognitive & Meta-awareness
Cognitive Flexibility
Your capacity to consider alternative perspectives or reframe the situation during or shortly after activation. Cognitive rigidity — "there is only one way to interpret this" — scores low, regardless of whether that interpretation is accurate.
1 — locked in one interpretation; unable to shift10 — fluidly reframed; held multiple perspectives
Catastrophizing
The degree to which worst-case scenarios dominated your cognition during or after the event. Rate the presence and intensity of catastrophic ideation — not whether those fears were objectively reasonable.
1 — no catastrophic thinking present10 — consumed by worst-case scenarios
Real-time Self-Awareness
Did you notice what was happening internally while it was happening? A high score means you had an observer perspective — you saw yourself being activated as it unfolded. This is the most developmentally significant variable in the tool.
1 — only noticed in retrospect, hours later10 — observed your own activation in real time
Post-Event Insight
The quality of understanding gained from reflecting on this event — about yourself, your patterns, your triggers, or your responses. This is about integration, not merely intellectual analysis.
1 — no insight; it happened and passed10 — deep self-knowledge gained; meaningfully integrated
Somatic & Behavioral
Physical Arousal
The degree of bodily activation: elevated heart rate, muscle tension, shallow breathing, gut response, heat, trembling, or similar somatic indicators. Rate the peak intensity during the event.
1 — body completely calm throughout10 — intense, prolonged physical activation
Impulse Control
Your ability to maintain behavioral restraint while activated. High scores indicate you chose your response rather than reacted automatically — regardless of the internal charge level. The gap between internal state and behavioral expression is a key equanimity marker.
1 — acted impulsively without choosing10 — full choice and restraint maintained
Contextual Items
Sleep Quality (prior night)
How restorative was your sleep the night before this event? Sleep quality is a significant moderating variable — it directly affects reactivity threshold, recovery speed, and cognitive flexibility under stress.
1 — severely sleep-deprived or no sleep10 — fully rested; highly restorative sleep
Baseline Mood (pre-event)
Your psychological state immediately before the trigger occurred. A depleted or dysregulated baseline lowers your threshold for reactivity — this contextualizes the event's impact and helps distinguish trait from state.
1 — very low; depleted; already dysregulated10 — centered; resourced; stable
Anticipatory Anxiety
If this trigger was foreseeable — a difficult conversation, a medical appointment, a known stressor — rate the anxiety that preceded the event. If the trigger was unexpected, rate this as 1. Scoring direction: this variable is inverted — higher anticipatory anxiety reduces the Stability domain score. It carries equal weight with the other three Stability variables.
1 — no anticipation; event was unexpected10 — significant dread leading up to the event