Triggered and True

Latest Episodes:

(Ep. 52) If you have never had anyone be with you in the problem, you will medicate with the solution. Oct 18, 2024

Show notes

What if everything you reach for to feel better — even the "good" things — is really you trying not to be alone in your pain?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise build an entire conversation around a single line from Brian's old notes: "If you have never had anyone be with you in the problem, you will medicate with the solution."

It's a quietly profound idea, and unpacking it reframes how you see every coping habit you have.

Laura widens the definition of "medication" far beyond the obvious. Yes, it can be substances — but it's just as often spirituality (in fact, God telling her to "stop medicating with Me" is part of how the whole method began), food, exercise, education, or knowledge.

Understanding your pain, she explains, is not the same as healing it; it just gives a false, temporary comfort. She and Brian are careful and non-shaming — medication isn't "wrong," and prescribed medication can be a real bridge to healing, not something to yank away — but they show why it can't be the end of the road.

Most movingly, they explain what "being with" someone actually does: a caregiver lends a hurting child their calm and their very brain, because a child's mind believes the pain will last forever.

The hopeful takeaway: there's more to your story, and you are not defined by whatever you've used to cope.

In this episode:

🔹 "Medicate with the solution" — why we reach for relief when no one was with us in the pain

🔹 Medication is bigger than substances: spirituality, food, education, and knowledge count too

🔹 Why understanding your pain isn't the same as healing it

🔹 "Lending a brain": what a caregiver's presence actually gives a hurting child

🔹 Why we often medicate from our child brain — and why that explains out-of-character choices

📩 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. 51) Addressing TCM misconceptions Sep 20, 2024

Show notes

What if the very reasons you've decided this "won't work for you" are the misconceptions keeping you from the help you need?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise clear up the most common misconceptions about the Compassion Method — the sticking points and misunderstandings that quietly keep people stuck, or convince them not to try at all.

It's a myth-busting conversation that's especially useful if something you've heard on the podcast made you bristle, doubt, or think "that can't be right."

Laura and Brian work through the big myths:

You're too far gone or too unique to heal, that healing should be fast
"There are no villains" means letting people off the hook or ignoring accountability;
"The blamer is responsible" means the harm was your fault
that the method turns you into an emotionless pacifist who never cares about anything
that once you've done the work, you should never get triggered again
that focusing on yourself is selfish

In this episode:

🔹 "I'm too far gone" — why what you've done or suffered only covers up who you are

🔹 Why healing takes the time it takes — and why a clock on it backfires

🔹 "No villains" doesn't mean no accountability — and being "responsible" means for your own heart

🔹 Why the method doesn't make you an emotionless pacifist who ignores the world

🔹 Why still getting triggered isn't failure — and why self-focus isn't selfishness

📩 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. 50) The Keys Aug 17, 2024

Show notes

What if one conversation, one workshop, one moment of desperation could quietly change the entire direction of your life?

For their milestone 50th episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise take a step back to look at how far the journey has come — and to bring the whole Compassion Method full circle for longtime listeners and newcomers alike.

If this is your first episode, it's a warm and complete place to start; if you've been here a while, it's a chance to see how the pieces fit together.

They begin where it began: the January 2019 workshop where Laura and Brian first met, in the middle of what Brian calls his "great awakening" — and Laura's read on him then, that beneath the desperation she saw hunger and genuineness.

From there they re-walk the heart of the Compassion Method: why shame is so debilitating because it says what you do is who you are, why chasing "good" traps us on the same hamster wheel as being "bad," and how the little daily judgments — a grade, a mistake at work, a snappy text — feed the knowledge of good and evil just as surely as the big ones.

They revisit the three steps (awareness / comfort / discovery — or "feel your pain, get comfort, go play"), why "logic-ing" your way around a feeling is really suppression in disguise, and why healing is less a finish line than a lifelong practice of coming home to yourself.

In this episode:

🔹 How Laura and Brian first met — and what she saw beneath his desperation

🔹 Why shame is so debilitating: it says what you do is who you are

🔹 The good/evil hamster wheel — why chasing "good" traps us the same way "bad" does

🔹 Why the small daily judgments undermine us as much as the big ones

🔹 The three steps revisited — and why "logic-ing" past a feeling is suppression in disguise

New here? This full-circle episode is a great place to begin. Other great resources below! 👇

📩 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. 49) Learning To Feel Your Emotions Jul 19, 2024

Show notes

What if you were never actually bad at feeling your emotions — you just were never taught how, and never got to practice?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise get practical about the skill underneath all the others: learning to feel your emotions.

It's personal for Brian, who spent 43 years not feeling — until, as he puts it, the volcano erupted and landed him in Laura's office. If you've ever said, "I'm just not good at feeling my feelings," this episode reframes that as something you can practice, because it's not a fixed trait.

Laura and Brian start with why we stopped feeling in the first place — most of us, as small children, learned that big emotions made the adults uncomfortable, so we were quietly taught to shut them down (no shame in it; we all came by it honestly).

Then they make the case for why feeling matters: suppressed emotion eventually erupts, but more importantly, if you don't feel, you can't heal — and you can't connect to who you are, because who you are is tied to your emotions.

They get concrete with tools: why joy and pain travel the same circuit (so numbing one dims the other), the wavelike rhythm of moving between sadness and joy that Laura witnessed grieving alongside her kids, Brian's "practice sleeping in" homework to interrupt his doing-protector, and a five-minute daily self-attunement practice you can use as an on-ramp before the remote control exercise.

In this episode:

🔹 Why "I'm not good at feeling emotions" is about practice, not a fixed trait

🔹 How most of us were taught young to shut big feelings down — and why there's no shame in it

🔹 "If you don't feel, you can't heal" — and why your true self is tied to your emotions

🔹 The wavelike rhythm between joy and pain — and why numbing one dims the other

🔹 Practical tools: interrupting your "doing" protector, and a five-minute daily self-attunement practice

📩 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. 48) Understanding the Connection Between Shame and Blame Jun 21, 2024

Show notes

What if that constant feeling of being misunderstood — or unable to trust anyone — isn't about the people around you at all?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise revisit shame and blame with fresh revelations Laura has recently uncovered.

It starts with a refresher — shame is so debilitating because it whispers that what you do is who you are, which feels unchangeable — and then goes somewhere new, into how shame quietly wires the way we attach, trust, and feel understood for the rest of our lives.

Laura uses the image of two hoses connecting — a child and a caregiver — to show what healthy attachment looks like, and what happens when shame keeps disconnecting the hose every time a child does something "wrong."

The child concludes not "I did a bad thing" but "there's something wrong with me," and goes looking for connection elsewhere — sometimes in behaviors or addictions that lock in the shame cycle.

From there she and Brian unpack two "secondary triggers" that trace straight back to childhood: feeling chronically misunderstood (a shield that protects us from being vulnerable with our own pain, usually rooted in loneliness), and struggling to trust (capital-T trust is built in early childhood, not with the spouse or friend we're blaming today).

The freeing turn, as always: even if you never got these gifts, you can go back and give them to your younger self now. Listen to this episode to learn how.

In this episode:

🔹 Why shame is so debilitating: it says what you do is who you are

🔹 The "two hoses" of attachment — and how shame disconnects a child from connection

🔹 How disconnection sends us searching for connection in behaviors and addictions

🔹 Feeling misunderstood as a shield — and the loneliness usually underneath it

🔹 Why "capital-T Trust" is built in childhood, not with the person you're blaming now

📩 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. 47) Connecting the Compassion Method™ to Your Faith (Part 3) May 31, 2024

Show notes

What if the truest thing about you — underneath every reaction, every failure, every good deed — is simply that you are, love?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise bring their three-part faith series to a close.

If your true self was created in the image of God, and God is love, then your true self is love — so why don't we act like it?

This finale answers that question and, from there, turns to the harder, holier work of actually returning to who you were made to be.

After recapping the trilogy — true self as the image of God, the 10 gifts as God's design delivered through earthly parents, and "there are no villains" — Laura and Brian go deeper into being versus doing.

They unpack "be still and know that I am God" through the Hebrew word Rafa (to cease, to let go, to show yourself slack), and connect stillness to being okay: clear-minded, tenderhearted, and at peace.

Most movingly, they reframe the Garden of Gethsemane as the true climax of the crucifixion story — Jesus modeling how to face emotional pain rather than numb it, asking his friends to simply be with him even though they didn't know how.

The finale lands on something both scary and freeing: comforting your own heart is within your control. You get to do this — and you don't have to wait for anyone else to show up and do it for you.

In this episode:

🔹 "You are love" — why your true self, made in God's image, is love beneath the pain

🔹 Being vs. doing: why "doing energy" runs out but "being energy" is unlimited

🔹 "Be still and know" — the Hebrew Rafa, and how stillness connects to being okay

🔹 Gethsemane reframed: Jesus facing emotional pain as the real climax of the story

🔹 The scary, freeing truth: comforting your own heart is within your control — you get to do this

This is the last episode of the three-part faith series — start with the two previous episodes (45 and 46) for the full arc.

📩 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. 46) Connecting the Compassion Method™ to Your Faith (Part 2) Apr 12, 2024

Show notes

What if the "mom and dad" work you were afraid was unspiritual is actually God's own design — the same pattern He chose for His own Son?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise continue their series connecting the Compassion Method to the Christian faith. Picking up where part one left off, they take on a question that trips up a lot of believers: if God is the answer, why does the method have you bring in a mother or father to comfort your child self instead of going straight to Him? Laura's answer may surprise you.

Laura shares the conviction she felt early on — "Don't bring Me in until I've been properly represented" — and she and Brian build the biblical case around it: God designed our parents to be the tangible expression of Himself, delivering the 10 gifts in early childhood, and He followed that very pattern with Jesus, who needed Mary and Joseph's care and protection from birth to age twelve.

From there they go deeper into shame and religion — why the harshest words Jesus spoke were to the "good people," the Pharisees, not the sinners; why both "good shame" and "bad shame" separate us from love; why the knowledge of good can be as spiritually deceptive as the knowledge of evil; and why the encounters with God we keep waiting for often come, quietly and supernaturally, through His people.

In this episode:

🔹 Why bringing in "mom and dad" is God's design — not a detour around Him

🔹 God's own pattern with Jesus: needing earthly parents from birth to twelve

🔹 "There are no villains": honoring that our parents gave what they had to give

🔹 Why Jesus was hardest on the "good people" — and how good-shame separates us as much as bad-shame

🔹 Why God's encounters often come tangibly through His people, and why that's no less supernatural

This is part two of a three-part faith series — the trilogy concludes in episode 47.

📩 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. 45) Connecting the Compassion Method™ to your Faith Mar 22, 2024

Show notes

What if doing all the right things for God has quietly left your heart untended — and there's a way to have faith without the shame?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise go deep on something listeners have been asking for: the Compassion Method in the context of the Christian faith — how it helps you actually live your faith, and where the whole method began.

It's a candid, scripture-grounded conversation for Christians wrestling with shame, and an illuminating look for anyone curious about the roots of the work.

Laura shares her own journey: raised in the church, recommitting at 18, reading the Bible as a to-do list of good behavior — and being "good at being good" until she wasn't, which left her feeling hopeless.

The turning point came when she felt God say, "Stop medicating with Me." She'd gone through her husband's death still praying, still worshiping, still believing — but she was bringing God her pain to make it disappear rather than letting Him be with her in it.

From there she and Brian unpack faith without shame: Proverbs 4:23 ("above all else, guard your heart") as the practical heart of the method, why spirituality alone doesn't tend the heart (and how that sets even anointed leaders up for moral failure), why your triggered self can't grow spiritually, and the prodigal-son homecoming — coming back to your true self and finding God was there, waiting, the whole time.

In this episode:

🔹 Laura's faith journey — reading the Bible as a behavior checklist, and the hopelessness that followed

🔹 "Stop medicating with Me": how going to God to erase pain can suppress it instead of healing it

🔹 Proverbs 4:23 and guarding your heart — the Compassion Method as a practical way to live it

🔹 Why spirituality alone doesn't tend the heart — and how that sets even faithful leaders up to fall

🔹 The prodigal-son homecoming: why your triggered self can't grow, and how God waits as you return to yourself

This is part one of a two-part faith conversation — part two continues in episode forty-six.

📩 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. 44) How you can go deeper with the Compassion Method™ today Jan 15, 2024

Show notes

You've been listening for a while, feeling the shift — and you're ready to ask, "Okay, so what's my next step?"

In this episode of Triggered & True, the focus turns to Laura Duncan herself — her story, and the body of work that's grown up around the Compassion Method.

After 43 episodes and a steady stream of listeners asking how to go deeper, Laura and co-host Brian Freise pull back the curtain on where the method came from and the different ways people can carry it beyond the podcast.

Laura retraces the origin (first told in Episode 7): how the Compassion Method was born from her own grief after losing her husband in 2009, and her determination to change the hard statistical trajectory for her four young children — a search for real answers that turned her into the "guinea pig" of a process she couldn't find anywhere else.

Brian and Laura talk about why so much existing grief and shame work stops at managing pain rather than healing it, how the work scaled from a years-long one-on-one waitlist into workshops, an online course, a companion workbook, and a multi-year school — and why the podcast will always remain a free front door.

Their honest guidance for a natural next step: understanding the concepts isn't the same as applying them to your own heart, and there are deeper, more hands-on ways to actually do the work when you're ready.

In this episode:

🔹 Where the Compassion Method came from — grief, four young kids, and a search for actual answers

🔹 Why most grief and shame resources stop at managing pain instead of healing it

🔹 How the work grew from a years-long one-on-one waitlist to reaching people worldwide

🔹 Understanding the concepts versus applying them — why the free podcast is a front door, not the entire house

🔹 Laura's heart behind making the work accessible, and how to think about your own next step

📩 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. 43) What relationships look like on the other side of The Compassion Method Dec 15, 2023

Show notes

What if getting healthier quietly changes every friendship you have — including the ones you thought were solid?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise turn from the intimate relationships they've covered before — spouse, kids — to the ones just a step removed: friends and extended family.

As students in Laura's school kept noticing, life looks different "post-Compassion Method," and this conversation explores why and how to navigate it without falling into the trendy trap of simply labeling everyone else toxic.

Laura and Brian dig into what happens when you stop relating from your triggered self: if you used to keep friends by fawning — constantly making everyone else okay — and you stop, the people used to that version of you can get triggered by the change.

They look honestly at how many "friendships" were really codependence, why healing lets you set boundaries without cutting people off, and a genuinely challenging reframe: a person behaving badly isn't a towering villain but someone small in that moment, reacting from their child brain.

The freeing turn is being okay in any relationship — whether that means going to the holiday gathering in peace, or being okay not going — because you no longer need anyone to change for you to be yourself.

The goal in every relationship: their behavior matters, but they matter more.

In this episode:

🔹 Why your healing can trigger people used to the "old you" — especially if you used to fawn

🔹 When a "friendship" was really codependence — and how to tell the difference

🔹 Boundaries without cutting people off — a nuanced take on the "toxic people" trend

🔹 Seeing a difficult person as small, not as a villain — reacting from their child brain

🔹 Being okay with going to the gathering — and being okay with not going

📩 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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