Triggered and True

Latest Episodes:

(Ep. 22) True Self and Faith Aug 12, 2022

Show notes

What if loving yourself, the way so many Christians are afraid to, is exactly what frees you to love God and others more?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise speak directly to people of faith — and especially the Christian listeners who've wondered how the Compassion Method squares with what they believe.

It's an honest, scripture-engaged conversation about true self and faith: where they meet, where Christians get triggered, and why self-compassion isn't the humanism or selfishness, it's sometimes feared to be.

Laura and Brian gently unpack the fears that come up — that emotional health means loving yourself too much, that focusing inward is selfish, that a concept must be suspect if you can't pin it to a verse.

They explore why the deep need to be a "son or daughter of God" can itself come from an unmet childhood need, why so many people leave their families or lean on the church to replace what home didn't give, and how an intangible God is made tangible through his people.

At the center is a freeing reframe rooted in Genesis and 1 John 4:16: you are made in God's image, and who you are — underneath everything you do — is love. And staying stuck in your pain, far from humble, may be the very thing keeping your heart's door closed to God and everyone else.

In this episode:

🔹 Why Christians' questions about emotional health often come from a triggered, fearful place

🔹 Is self-compassion "humanism"? Why loving yourself begins with letting God love you

🔹 "Son or daughter of God" as an expression of identity — not the whole of it — and the wound underneath the need

🔹 Why we try to make church our family, and what happens when we realize they're hurting people too

🔹 "You are love": made in God's image (Genesis; 1 John 4:16) — and why tending your pain is the least selfish thing you can do

📩 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. 21) The Trigger of Faith and Religion Jul 22, 2022

Show notes

What if you could walk into any room, any church, any argument, any group you can't stand, and still be at peace?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise take on one of the most charged topics there is: religion, and the triggers it stirs up in believers and non-believers alike.

It's a careful, disarming conversation, explicitly not about changing anyone's beliefs, but about understanding what happens inside us when religion (or anything big) provokes a strong reaction, and why even a completely justified reaction is still worth tending to at the root.

Laura and Brian walk through the common triggers people feel around religion — judgment, hypocrisy, and control — and, in each case, turn the lens gently back inward.

Why the drive for justice can be old, un-comforted pain looking for somewhere to go.
Why "they didn't do what they said they'd do" cuts so deep — it echoes the first time a caregiver couldn't deliver on a promise.
Why a pastor's public failure makes more sense as a sign of hidden pain than as a moral verdict.

Throughout, they return to the Compassion Method's steadying core: what people do matters, but who they are matters more — and being okay regardless of your external world is a kind of superpower anyone, religious or not, can develop.

In this episode:

🔹 Why even a justified reaction to something big is still a trigger worth tending — not suppressing

🔹 Judgment, hypocrisy, and control: the three religious triggers, and the wound under each

🔹 Why "you didn't do what you said" hurts so much — the echo of a caregiver's broken promise

🔹 Seeing a public moral failure as hidden pain rather than a verdict — without excusing the harm

🔹 The "superpower" of staying at peace in any room — a church, a mosque, even the other party's convention

📩 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. 20) The Compassion Method in the Marketplace Jul 01, 2022

Show notes

What if your boss has quietly become your parent — and every performance review is really a child asking, "Am I enough?"

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise take the Compassion Method into the place many of us spend half our waking hours: the workplace.

Because your heart goes with you wherever you go, the same triggers, unmet needs, and childhood wiring that shape your relationships show up at your desk too. Often disguised as ambition, performance, or a healthy-looking drive to succeed.

Laura and Brian explore why the marketplace is such fertile ground for our deepest triggers around worth and enough-ness: your boss becomes the closest stand-in for a parent, and a bad quarter can drop you straight back into a little kid trying to prove they matter.

They talk about the difference between being enough for who you are versus what you produce, how entrepreneurs can chase a false sense of safety through the balance sheet, why "blame-free business" and personal responsibility are so freeing, and how showing up as your true self — your "purple cow" — is what you uniquely bring that no one can replicate.

The takeaway reframes the whole workday: instead of "what can I do more?", ask "How can I be more of who I am?"

In this episode:

🔹 Why your boss can trigger you like a parent — and why a poor quarter can feel like life or death

🔹 Being enough for who you are versus what you produce — and why the number is never the last number

🔹 How entrepreneurs chase false safety through the balance sheet — and the opportunity when it's threatened

🔹 "Blame-free business": why you can be okay whether your boss or employee ever changes

🔹 Bringing your "purple cow" to work — how leading with your true self is your real competitive edge

📩 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. 19) The Compassion Method in the Context of Marriage & Relationships Plus Some Thoughts on Being Single Jun 10, 2022

Show notes

What if the person you married was never supposed to fill the hole your childhood left?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise turn the Compassion Method toward marriage — and land somewhere most marriage advice never goes.

Laura explains why her work with couples isn't really about the marriage at all: your spouse is the closest thing to your early childhood caregivers, so we quietly walk into marriage expecting our partner to give us everything we didn't get from mom and dad.

The marriage isn't the root of the fight; it's the place the old wound gets pressed.

From there, Laura and Brian unpack why so much traditional marriage counseling stays stuck at the symptom level — teaching couples to communicate "perfectly" so no one gets triggered, while both people leave still scared and unseen.

They explore how flawless communication can actually become manipulation, why real intimacy lives in the vulnerable, fumbling admission of "I'm scared," how we cast our spouse as the villain to avoid our own pain, and the counterintuitive heart of it all: when you no longer capital-N need your partner to make you okay, you're finally free to actually love them.

Needing someone isn't love — wanting them is.

In this episode:

🔹 Why Laura's couples work is individual-focused: your spouse mirrors your earliest caregiver relationship

🔹 Why traditional marriage counseling often stalls at the symptoms — and leaves you still scared

🔹 How "perfect communication" can become manipulation — and why "I'm scared" is where intimacy begins

🔹 The villain in your story: how blame displaces pain onto the person closest to you

🔹 "When you need someone, that's not love; when you want someone, that's 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. 18) Brian’s Healing Journey May 20, 2022

Show notes

What if the breakdown that terrifies you is actually the beginning of waking up?

In this deeply personal episode of Triggered & True, co-host Brian Freise finally tells his own story in full — the one he's only shared in pieces until now.

After 43 years of numbing his emotions without even the vocabulary for emotional pain, Brian experienced what he calls his "great awakening" — what others might name a nervous breakdown — a season of anxiety and panic so consuming he couldn't explain what was happening inside him.

Laura Duncan walks through it alongside him, adding the science and compassion that reframes the entire experience.

Brian is honest about the hardest parts: the panic that felt like death was stalking him, the shame of standing in a hospital parking lot wondering if he could really walk through the doors, the relief of being met with compassion instead of the judgment he expected, and learning that medicine could be a helper on the road to a deeper healing rather than a mark of failure.

He and Laura connect it all back to the Compassion Method — how you can't selectively numb pain without numbing joy too, why understanding your own brain calms the wave, and how learning to comfort your inner world lets love finally flow in. As Brian puts it: to know yourself is to love yourself.

In this episode:

🔹 Brian's "great awakening" — why he reframes a breakdown as the start of waking up

🔹 Why you can't selectively numb emotions: numb the pain and you numb the joy

🔹 The shame of asking for help — and being met with compassion instead of judgment

🔹 Medicine as a helper, not a failure — and why there's no purely medical fix for a wounded inner world

🔹 Pairing logic with emotion: how understanding the brain makes feelings walkable

A note on this episode: Brian's story touches on anxiety, panic attacks, hospitalization, and a moment involving suicide. It's told with hope and care, but if any of it feels close to home, be gentle with yourself as you listen — and if you're struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or a local support line.

📩 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. 17) Social Media & Emotional Health Apr 29, 2022

Show notes

What if the app designed to know you better than you know yourself is actually handing you a map to your own unhealed pain?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise take on a topic that feels like a departure but lands right at the heart of emotional health: social media, AI, and what your feed is doing to your inner world.

Brian, who's been studying this closely, breaks down what artificial intelligence actually is — a machine trained to get to know you the way a spouse of eighteen years does — and why that's not mystical, but is worth understanding.

Together they trace how platforms built to connect us quietly push everyone toward extremes (because moderation doesn't keep you scrolling), how algorithms exploit our pain and unmet needs, and why cutting social media out entirely is only a temporary boundary, not a healing.

Then Brian does something genuinely brave: he lets Laura walk him through the remote control exercise live, on-air, using his own real trigger around a hot-button issue — and discovers the anger isn't about the issue at all, but about an old feeling of being unheard and alone.

It's a vivid, honest demonstration of turning your most charged reactions into an opportunity to know yourself.

In this episode:

🔹 What AI actually is — demystified through the simple idea of getting to know someone over time

🔹 Why platforms drive us to extremes — and how algorithms exploit pain and unmet needs

🔹 Why your reaction to a hot-button topic is rarely about the topic itself

🔹 A live remote control exercise: Brian works a real trigger down to sadness and feeling unheard

🔹 Why cutting social media out is a temporary boundary — and what facing it looks like instead

📩 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. 16) Answering Your Questions Apr 08, 2022

Show notes

What if the questions you've been afraid to ask about healing are the same ones other listeners are quietly wrestling with too?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise open the mailbag and answer real questions submitted by listeners around the world.

It's a wide-ranging, honest conversation that meets people exactly where they are — from those trying to square the Compassion Method with their faith to those who feel nothing when they look at their own childhood photos.

Laura tackles the faith questions head-on: why the method has you bring in a mom or dad rather than Jesus when comforting your child self (and why an unmet need quietly gets projected onto how you see God), and how "there's nothing wrong with you" fits alongside a belief in sin and a need for grace.

From there she and Brian move through marriage and attachment styles, why couples heal better when each person tends to their own child self first, what to do when childhood feels numb or blank — or when there are no childhood photos at all — how to find words of compassion when you didn't grow up hearing them, and a hopeful, grounded take on whether even conditions as heavy as schizophrenia trace back to pain that was never comforted.

In this episode:

🔹 Why the Compassion Method brings in mom and dad instead of God — and how unmet needs get projected onto faith

🔹 "There's nothing wrong with you" vs. a belief in sin — Laura answers a thoughtful faith question directly

🔹 Marriage and attachment styles: why couples heal best when each person tends their own wound first

🔹 When childhood feels numb, blank, or undocumented — how healing still happens without the memories

🔹 Finding words of compassion you never learned — for your child self and for your own kids

📩 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. 15) Deep Dive Into Famous Quotes from Laura Duncan (Part 2) Mar 04, 2022

Show notes

What if the person you think is hurting you is mostly pressing on a wound that was already there?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise continue through the sayings Laura's clients carry with them — the one-liners that stay accessible even in a triggered moment, when your adult brain has gone offline and big ideas are out of reach.

They open with the coding metaphor: your adult self is the website, your child self is the coding — which is why self-help books so often fail, because you're editing the site without touching what's underneath.

From there: why "the bigger the trigger, the younger you are" is a fast way to locate yourself mid-reaction, and how capital-letter emotions (capital-A Angry, capital-L Lonely) signal you're in your child brain, while lowercase feelings mean you're still in your adult one.

Laura explains why trying harder to be good only deepens shame, and closes with her most provocative line — you can't hurt people or help people — unpacking capital-H hurt as an old wound being pressed, why helpers burn out believing others' okayness is their responsibility, and why safety, ultimately, is an inside job.

In this episode:

🔹 "Change the coding and you change the website" — why adult-level fixes have to be maintained manually

🔹 "The bigger the trigger, the younger you are" — a quick way to gauge how far you've gone into your child brain

🔹 Capital-letter vs. lowercase emotions: the difference between a wound reacting and a human feeling

🔹 Why trying to be "good" feeds shame — and why connection to who you are is the only way out

🔹 "You can't hurt people or help people" — capital-H hurt, helper burnout, and why safety is an inside job

This is part two of the Laura Duncan quotes conversation — the first half is in the previous episode.

📩 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. 14) Deep Dive Into Famous Quotes From Laura Duncan (Part 1) Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

What if a single sentence could tell you whether you're living from shame or from your true self?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise do something a little different: they take the sayings Laura repeats most, the ones her clients carry around for years, and unpack what's actually underneath them.

It's part review, part deep-dive, and a great entry point if you're new to the Compassion Method.

They start with the one Laura calls a one-sentence diagnostic: what you do matters, but you matter more.

From there they explore why we're all so fixated on behavior, why the traditional timeout may do the opposite of what a hurting child needs, and what it means for a parent to handle their own trigger first so they can stay close instead of sending a kid away.

Then: why your voice belongs to your own heart before it belongs to anyone else, why self-compassion "begins with you and ends in a party," why "go play" can feel as terrifying as jumping off a cliff for someone who learned to play meant rejection, and Laura's reframe of emotional neglect as malnutrition — because in early childhood, we need connection like we need food and water.

In this episode:

🔹 "What you do matters, but you matter more" — the one-sentence test for shame vs. true self

🔹 Why timeouts can backfire — and the untraditional version Laura suggests instead

🔹 "Your voice is first for yourself, then for others" — and how most of us unintentionally manipulate with our voice

🔹 Why love can hurt: the foster-child example, and why pain pushes away the very thing it needs

🔹 "We need connection like we need food and water" — emotional malnutrition, even in good homes

This is part one of two — more quotes to come in the next episode.

📩 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. 13) The Compassion Method™ for Students: An Interview With Students Laura Taught Jan 07, 2022

Show notes

What if you'd learned how to understand your own emotions at nine years old instead of forty-nine?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Freise sit down with three teenagers — Mari, Johan, and Lexi — who learned the Compassion Method as children.

Years ago, their Montessori teacher invited Laura into the classroom once a week, and from fourth grade through eighth she taught them the same concepts she teaches adults one-on-one: triggers, shame, compassion, and the emotional needs we all carry. Now sophomores, they talk about what stuck.

What follows is remarkable. These teens describe their own triggers with startling clarity — shutting down and going sleepy, getting "big and angry" or "small," feeling everything go fuzzy — and explain the relief of finally being able to name what's happening instead of feeling like it's happening to them.

They're honest about shame with their siblings, share which lines from the compassion list actually reach them ("I see you trying so hard," "I completely accept you"), and describe how understanding their own pain lets them see other people's behavior differently: not as people being jerks, but as people who are hurting.

As Brian puts it, he didn't recognize this stuff until his forties.

In this episode:

🔹 How Laura brought the Compassion Method into a public school classroom — and why she never dumbed it down

🔹 Teens describing their own triggers: shutting down, agitation, and the fuzzy-minded fight-or-flight

🔹 Why naming a trigger brings relief — treating the problem instead of the behavior

🔹 Sibling shame: "I'm the worst sister" — and learning to see yourself apart from your reaction

🔹 How the 10 Gifts can come from unexpected people — and why no parent gives all ten

📩 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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