Triggered and True

Latest Episodes:

(Ep. 62) Judging Yourself: The Hidden Root of Judging Others Aug 15, 2025

Show notes

What if the harsh way you judge other people is really a mirror of the way you quietly judge yourself?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise take on judgment — and the surprising place it comes from.

Starting with Matthew 7 ("judge not, that you be not judged") and reading it with the word "condemn" in place of "judge," they draw a crucial distinction most of us blur: the difference between the everyday wise judgments we're meant to make and the shaming, condemning judgment that quietly eats at us. And they trace that condemning judgment back to its hidden root: how we see ourselves.

Laura and Brian unpack why harsh judgment comes from the triggered child brain — the amygdala, which can only see what's right in front of it — rather than the sophisticated adult brain that can hold perspective and compassion.

They land on a line that reframes the whole thing: "Heal the pain, and the shaming judgment ends, and true wisdom judgment begins."

Along the way they navigate the cultural over-correction (from a harsh past that judged everything to a present that says you're not allowed to judge anything), why "what you do matters, but who you are matters more" holds both grace and real consequences, and how genuine justice actually flows from being okay — clear-minded, tenderhearted, at peace — not from being so triggered that all we can do is condemn.

In this episode:

🔹 Matthew 7 revisited: the difference between "judge" and "condemn," and why it matters

🔹 Why condemning judgment comes from the triggered child brain, not the wise adult brain

🔹 "Heal the pain, and the judgment ceases" — how self-judgment fuels the way we judge others

🔹 The cultural "both ditches": from judging everything to being told to judge nothing

🔹 Why real justice flows from being okay — not from a triggered, condemning place

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 61) How These Couples and Individuals Found Healing with The Compassion Method™ Jul 18, 2025

Show notes

What if hearing real people tell you exactly how healing changed their lives is the encouragement you needed to believe it could change yours?

In this very special episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise hand the microphone to the people who've lived it: brave graduates and students of the Compassion Method who share honest testimony from their own journeys.

Each of them once had a "great awakening" moment — and each shares how discovering the method helped them see and finally tend the pain underneath. It's a moving, hope-filled episode that shows what this work actually looks like in real lives, actual marriages, and real callings.

First, Libby shares how Laura's 10 Gifts and the brain science behind them opened her eyes as a wife and mom of three — and awakened her own passion to help others.

Then married couple Gary and Kristie Van Kley open up with striking honesty about over two decades of a hard marriage, and how making their own healing the priority — rather than trying to fix each other — brought change individually and together.

Next, Kristy, a recently retired teacher turned coach, describes discovering the method through a practitioner and finding, for the first time, permission to feel her own anger — and how she now approaches even dating from a true-self place.

Finally, Jeff and Marissa Prentice share Marissa's harrowing story of a sudden panic attack and losing her faith while in ministry school. How Laura's "you're not broken, you're just covered up" was like a lifeline. And how the two of them studied the method themselves and built a lifelong calling around it.

In this episode:

🔹 Libby: How the 10 Gifts and brain science became her great awakening as a wife and mom

🔹 Gary & Kristie Van Kley: healing a 20-plus-year hard marriage by each tending their own heart first

🔹 Kristy: a retired teacher finding permission to feel her anger — and dating from her true self

🔹 Jeff & Marissa Prentice: a panic attack, a lost-and-rebuilt faith, and a calling born from healing

🔹 A recurring thread: "you're not broken, you're just covered up" — and why feeling pain can be a privilege

Connect with our guests:

🔹 Libby Mathews — www.JoywithLibby.com

🔹 Kristy Allen — www.dramaworkswellness.com

🔹 Jeff & Marissa Prentice — www.prenticeconsulting.co

🔹 Kristie Van Kley — vkhamfamily@gmail.com

🔹 Gary Van Kley — apaulebilly@gmail.com

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

Ep. (60) The Connection Between Physical and Emotional Health Jun 20, 2025

Show notes

What if physical pain isn't just physical — what if it's quietly pressing on an emotional wound and making the whole thing feel a hundred times worse?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise explore a connection they'd only ever hinted at before: the deep link between physical and emotional health.

The timing wasn't planned — within a single week of each other, both hosts had their first-ever surgeries, giving them fresh, firsthand material to work with.

What they discovered is that physical pain and emotional pain are constantly "ping-ponging" back and forth, and that a physical health crisis is often a powerful emotional trigger hiding in plain sight, precisely because it feels so logical to just say "of course I hurt."

Laura and Brian get honest and personal about what their surgeries surfaced.

For Brian, being physically unable to "do" shut down the background program he didn't even realize was running — the little boy still working hard to keep everyone happy — and revealed how much of his life is driven by that fawning "doing" protector.

For Laura, it exposed her deep programming toward independence and self-sufficiency, and how hard it is to let herself need help, rest, or even take pain medication.

Together they talk about numbing physical pain the same way we numb emotional pain, why staying connected to yourself through pain matters, and how preparing your heart ahead of a hard season lets you meet it with more peace and even find the precious parts in it.

In this episode:

🔹 Why physical pain and emotional pain constantly feed each other — and why a health crisis is a hidden trigger

🔹 How surgery interrupted Brian's "doing" protector and revealed the boy still trying to keep everyone happy

🔹 Laura on independence, needing help, and how hard it is to let yourself rest and be cared for

🔹 Why we numb physical pain with the same protectors we use on emotional pain

🔹 Finding peace and even a gift in the middle of pain — and preparing your heart before a hard season

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

Ep. (59) The Remote-Control Exercise – Live Walkthrough with Myles and Lorilyn May 16, 2025

Show notes

What if the anxiety — or the shutdown — that's followed you for years isn't chasing you, but is a scared, lonely child trying to get your attention?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise continue their live walkthroughs of the remote control exercise with two brave volunteers, and the pairing is illuminating — because Laura takes two very different people down two very different paths to the same place.

First, Miles from Sweden brings a trigger that's shaped much of his life:

Intense nighttime anxiety and panic attacks that have surfaced in months-long waves at ages 10, 18, and now 35, each time carrying the fear that "this is going to be my whole life."

Rather than hunt for the cause, Laura treats the anxiety as a messenger, explaining why all his knowledge and formulas couldn't reach it — when anxiety hits, you're not in your adult brain, you're back in the amygdala, where "anxiety is a wild animal chasing you."

She walks him back to his 10-year-old self, not to fix him but to know and be with him, and they find a boy who felt alone and unprotected.

The comfort is simple but difficult: "adopt little Miles as a third child" and be with him the way Miles already is with his own two kids.

Then Lori Lynn, joining from Hawaii, shares a trigger many will recognize:

Her body shutting down around people of authority, or whenever she can't be heard.

Laura maps it to freeze and fawn, and helps her actually feel the pain rather than manage it — then uses what Brian calls a "ninja skill," gently shifting which caregiver Lori Lynn brings in when the first one can't hold the moment, until compassion breaks it open.

Her session lands on hope, and on one of the episode's most powerful truths: we can't change what happened to us, but we can infuse it with love — and while a wound may always hurt, it doesn't have to hurt the same, because who you are is bigger than anything that's happened to you.

In this episode:

🔹 Two live walkthroughs, two unique paths to healing — Miles from Sweden and Lori Lynn from Hawaii

🔹 Miles: lifelong nighttime anxiety traced to a lonely, unprotected 10-year-old — and the "adopt him as a third child" comfort

🔹 Why knowledge and formulas can't reach a trigger: the adult "website" vs. the child "coding"

🔹 Lori Lynn: freezing and fawning around authority, and learning to feel the pain instead of managing it

🔹 "We can't change what happened, but we can infuse it with love" — why a wound can still hurt, but not the same

A gentle note: in one of these walkthroughs, a guest bravely touches on painful childhood experiences, including harm by someone who was meant to care for them. It's handled with real tenderness and hope, but if that's close to your own story, be gentle with yourself as you listen — and if you're struggling, please reach out to someone you trust.

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more: https://triggeredandtrue.com https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

Ep. (58) The Remote Control Exercise – Live Walkthrough with Mel and Brien Apr 18, 2025

Show notes

What if watching someone else navigate their emotional pain in real time could show you the way through your own?

In this special episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise do something they've never done on the podcast before: walk real listeners through the remote control exercise live.

Two brave volunteers each agreed to be a "guinea pig" — bringing a genuine, tender trigger and letting Laura guide them through it in real time, so you can hear the entire process instead of just learning about it.

First, Mel from Australia shares a trigger many will recognize:

Her husband works long hours and is often called out, leaving her feeling alone with the home and personal responsibilities.

Laura gently walks her from the surface reaction down to what's underneath — pausing the situation instead of blaming or justifying, moving past the "big" emotions to the tender ones (loneliness, feeling like she doesn't get his best), and tracing it back to a little girl who learned it wasn't safe to have a voice or big emotions, so she became "patient until she wasn't."

Along the way: how over-patience and fawning are their own kind of trigger, and why secure attachment means being free to say "I need."

Then a second volunteer — Brian, from Pennsylvania — shares a trigger lots of people can relate to:

He brings a pervasive, ebbing sadness and the anger that rose at work that day.

Laura helps him move past the anger "cloaking" it, through feeling out of control, and down to the loneliness underneath (the kind you can feel even around people).

His session opens into one of the episode's most beautiful moments: reconnecting with his child self through a real childhood photo — the little boy who loved to play and laugh with his dad — and Laura's "magic-eye" image for why it takes patient, repeated looking before that younger self suddenly "pops" into focus.

Two different people, two different wounds, one hopeful demonstration of the whole method in action.

In this episode:

🔹 Real listeners, real triggers — the remote control exercise walked through live, twice

🔹 Mel's trigger: loneliness when a spouse works long hours, traced to a childhood without a voice

🔹 How "patient until you're not," over-patience, and fawning are triggers in disguise

🔹 Brian's trigger: anger at work "cloaking" a deeper, pervasive loneliness

🔹 Reconnecting with your child self through a photo — and the "magic-eye" patience it takes to see him

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

Ep. (57) The Art and Science of The Remote Control Exercise Mar 21, 2025

Show notes

What if the emotional reaction you've been fighting to control for twenty years could simply stop being a reaction at all?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise devote a full episode to the tool at the practical heart of the Compassion Method: the remote control exercise.

They first introduced it back in Episode 6, but here they go deeper — into both the science of why it works and the art of doing it well — and issue an exciting invitation for a listener to walk through it live on a future episode.

Laura explains why the exercise exists: understanding your triggers in a weekly session isn't enough because healing happens in real time, in real life.

The remote control exercise actually rewires your brain so that your default shifts from "react" to "pause and connect" — and she's watched clients who practiced it for even two weeks discover they simply weren't angry anymore, not because they were white-knuckling it, but because the wound underneath got tended.

She uses the image of a splinter left to fester: our triggers get louder and louder not to torment us, but because our heart is trying to get our attention to heal the infection underneath.

And she unpacks the "art" of it — why your first answers stay surface-level, and how, with practice, you learn to go deeper and truly know yourself.

In this episode:

🔹 What the remote control exercise is — and why understanding a trigger later isn't enough

🔹 The science: how practicing it rewires your default from "react" to "pause and connect"

🔹 Why trying not to get angry only works for so long before it boils over

🔹 The splinter metaphor: why your pain gets louder until you finally tend the wound

🔹 The "art" of going deeper — why your first answers are surface-level, and how practice changes that

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

Ep. (56) I Feel Like I Am Failing at This Feb 21, 2025

Show notes

What if the meltdown that made you feel like a failure is actually proof that the healing is working?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise get honest about a feeling every listener knows: "I feel like I'm failing at this."

Whether you're brand new to the Compassion Method or 56 episodes deep, there will be moments — often right after some progress — when a huge triggered reaction leaves you embarrassed, ashamed, and certain you're doing it wrong.

This entire conversation is here to tell you: you're not.

Brian opens up about a recent big reaction of his own and the shame spiral that followed ("I do a podcast on this stuff, I should know better"), and Laura admits she still gets triggered too — and is genuinely grateful when she does, because a trigger is the doorway to the pain that's finally ready to be comforted.

They dig into why this can't be mastered like a business process or a math equation: emotional healing isn't a skill you perfect, it's a lifelong practice, and the only thing you really become an "expert" in is vulnerability and humility.

Most freeing of all, they redefine success: it's not doing the steps perfectly or never melting down. Success is being able to say "I still accept you, I still love you" to yourself in the exact moment you feel you have failed.

In this episode:

🔹 Why a big triggered reaction isn't a setback — and is often a sign you're going deeper

🔹 Even the hosts still get triggered — and why Laura is grateful when she does

🔹 Why this can't be "mastered" like a business or math skill — healing isn't a formula

🔹 "You should know better": how a childhood shame message keeps running in adulthood

🔹 Redefining success as self-acceptance in the moment of perceived failure

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

Ep. (55) The Knowledge of Good and Evil: The Root of All Pain Jan 20, 2025

Show notes

What if the exhausting question running under everything — Am I good enough? — is the very thing keeping you from freedom?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise return to an idea they first explored back in Episode 9, prompted by a listener question: the knowledge of good and evil as the ultimate root of all pain, anxiety, and depression.

It's a conversation that weaves Laura's Christian faith through the Compassion Method — and, as always, one that offers just as much to listeners of any faith or none, because the pattern it describes is simply human.

Laura shares how her faith shaped the method — including the loneliness she carried even with a strong relationship with God, a happy marriage, and four kids, and how she discovered she was missing the tangible human love the Compassion Method helped her finally receive.

From there she and Brian unpack the "two trees": why you can't eat from both, how living from the knowledge of good and evil traps you in a frantic, energy-draining loop of "am I good enough?" (Brian likens it to malware quietly running in the background), and how the tree of life — living from fullness, from the fruit of the Spirit — produces a genuinely good life as a byproduct rather than a performance.

The freeing turn: when you're no longer led by good-and-evil, you're not living good to earn love or living in fear of being bad — you're simply free.

In this episode:

🔹 Why "am I good enough?" is a frantic loop that drains you — like malware running in the background

🔹 The knowledge of good and evil as the root of anxiety and depression (building on Episode 9)

🔹 Laura's faith journey — and the loneliness that persisted even when everything looked right

🔹 The "two trees": why you can't eat from both, and what it means to live from the tree of life

🔹 Why a good life flows as a byproduct of fullness — not as a performance to earn love

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

Ep. (54) We will treat others how we treat ourselves Dec 20, 2024

Show notes

What if the way you treat everyone around you is just leaking out from the way you quietly treat yourself?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise put a revealing spin on the golden rule. We know "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" — but this conversation flips it: we will treat others the way we treat ourselves, whether or not we mean to.

And once you see that, the pressure to be a better friend, partner, or parent shifts to something far more freeing.

Laura and Brian start by exposing the quiet manipulation hiding in the usual reading of the golden rule — loving others the way you want to be loved, hoping it boomerangs back, which fails the moment someone's needs differ from yours (they nod to the Five Love Languages here). Then they get to the heart of it: the harsh judgment we aim at others is a mirror of the judgment we aim at ourselves, even when we'd never admit it.

They unpack "shame highs" and "shame lows" — how feeling good about yourself for doing well is just as conditional as feeling bad for doing poorly — and why you simply cannot out-communicate a root of self-hatred: if underneath it all you don't like who you are, that's what gets transmitted, no matter how carefully you word things.

The freeing turn: you are the gatekeeper of your own value, and loving others well begins with tending your own heart.

In this episode:

🔹 The golden rule, flipped: we treat others the way we treat ourselves — intended or not

🔹 The hidden manipulation of loving others "to be loved" — and why it wears you out

🔹 Judgment as a mirror: how criticism of others reflects how we see ourselves

🔹 "Shame highs" and "shame lows" — why feeling good for doing well is just as conditional

🔹 Why you can't out-communicate self-hatred — and why you're the gatekeeper of your own worth

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

(Ep. 53) Healing the Parent/Child Relationship Nov 15, 2024

Show notes

What if you could heal the wound between you and your parent — or your child — even if they never change, and even if they're no longer here?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise turn to a relationship almost everyone carries some pain around: parent and child.

Laura shares her heart for this one — she's watched so many people, parent and grown child alike, decide the relationship is simply too painful and cut each other off, often for valid reasons, only to pass the same disconnection down another generation.

Her hope isn't necessarily reconciliation, but healing: tending the childhood-level wound underneath, whether the other person ever takes part.

Laura and Brian are clear that this pain isn't only about the dramatic or illegal — far more often it's emotional neglect: a parent who couldn't fully accept, see, or hear their child. And it connects all of us, because everyone has been someone's child.

They explore why superficial apologies don't hold (the pain resurfaces every holiday because the wound was never comforted), why we meet best at our child selves ("two five-year-olds arguing in the kitchen"), how healing gives us new eyes to finally see the good our parents could give, and a gentle counter to cut-everyone-off culture — every parent is a little unhealthy, and distance isn't the only path.

The freeing anchor throughout: your healing is never contingent on the other person's. It's not about them changing. It starts and can be completed with you.

In this episode:

🔹 Why you can heal this relationship even if your parent won't change — or is no longer alive

🔹 Emotional neglect, not just abuse: the quiet wound of not being accepted, seen, or heard

🔹 Why superficial apologies fail — and why the pain floods back every holiday

🔹 Meeting at the child self: how "two five-year-olds in the kitchen" reframes the fight

🔹 A gentler alternative to cutting family off — and why your healing doesn't depend on theirs

📩 Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion — two short notes in your inbox every week. One to speak over yourself. One from Laura: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Get your copy of Above All Else: Winning the War for Your Heart by clicking here.

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