Triggered and True
If you feel emotionally overwhelmed, stuck in cycles of shame, blame, and judgment, or just exhausted from trying to fix yourself, this is a place to breathe.
Triggered & True® is a podcast about emotional healing, grief, and self-compassion with Laura Duncan, creator of the Compassion Method™, and co-host Brian Freise. Each episode Laura and Brian get honest about shame, anger, anxiety, and the triggers that run our lives — and walk through healing that begins with compassion instead of self-improvement.
For over 14 years, Laura has helped people through trauma, loss, and grief. The grief that doesn't follow a timeline and comes in waves. Brian is living proof it works: after years of debilitating panic attacks, he found actual relief through the Compassion Method.
The method is three words: Awareness, Comfort, Discovery. Or put simply: Feel your pain. Get comfort. Go play. Because healing isn't becoming someone new — it's returning to who you've always been. New episodes monthly on the third Saturday.
Get your free Weekly Dose of Compassion: https://www.lauraduncan.com/pl/2148814868
Triggered and True
(Ep. 52) If you have never had anyone be with you in the problem, you will medicate with the solution.
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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:
Good morning, Laura. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_01I'm doing good, Brian. How about yourself?
SPEAKER_00Very good. Yeah. Welcome to all of our listeners. Thank you for being here. Yeah. For another episode of Triggered and True, number 52. And today we're going to expound on a quote that uh Laura shared with me some time ago that I had written down in my notes. And I realized that we can make an entire podcast around this quote. So we're going to have fun with that today. So here's the quote that came out of my notes. If you have never had anyone be with you in the problem, you will medicate with the solution. So I'll read that again. If you have never had anyone be with you in the problem, you will medicate with the solution. So we're going to kind of work backwards on this quote a little bit. And where I kind of want to start is what exactly are you getting at uh with medicate? What are you talking about there? It's more than just the obvious, I think. So can you expound on that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I mean, this is actually a big part of how the compassion method started. And it was in more in reference to spirituality being a medication, but definitely recognizing that medication is covering up our lack. And it's covering up, and in this quote, covering up the lack of being with and being within the problem to be able to receive our emotional needs, to be able to receive nurture, connection, comfort. And when we've never had anyone be in the problem, we're frantically trying to find the solution, whatever that might be, to be able to um fe not feel the problem anymore and not ultimately not feel alone in the problem anymore.
SPEAKER_00So one of the things you know, you talk about covering up, medication is something covering up. So obviously, you know, when people think of medication, you're thinking probably the first thing I think about is pharmaceuticals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that definitely is like, you know, if we were playing a game, we said medication, you know. I mean, I think that would be one of the top. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Uh that blurt game. Yeah. So to just talk to us. I mean, obviously that it could be that, but just talk to us about what else it could be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So there's so many different types of medication, you know, obviously pills, drugs, alcohol, those types of things are kind of common for people to associate with medication, of course. But, you know, like I said, um, when I first started this process, it was actually God saying, I want you to stop medicating with me, because I was trying to just bring God in to feel better. Which, if you study neuroscience with faith and um uh religion, a lot of times when we are connected to God, whatever that looks like for each one of us, it actually releases endorphin, serotonin, um, good feelings into our system. And so it makes us feel better. But the problem with it was that I wasn't actually feeling my pain. I was avoiding my pain throughout by trying to pray and worship and connect to God to get those good hormones to medicate my pain, but I actually feel it and face it and get the comfort and nurture that I needed for my pain. So God was one of them, spirituality. Um, it can also be um food, it can be exercise, it can be um knowledge, it can be um yeah, education. Yeah, education's a big one. Like we don't feel okay within ourselves, but if we I can learn more and I can, you know, have more knowledge, then I will be able to feel safer. And that's actually what holds people back from healing a lot of times, is because they feel like understanding is healing versus but understanding is not healing.
SPEAKER_00You know, that is a really good point because I know a lot of people that have pursued psychology and those types of, and I think a lot of people get into college, they take a psychology class and there's something they connect with, but it's probably what you're talking, you know, in some cases it's what you're talking about right here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, you understand it, but that doesn't mean you actually took care of the pain and brought comfort to it. It it gives like it, but it's like medication because it gives a form of comfort. All these medications I'm talking about, they give a form of comfort, but it's a false form of comfort.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And we I think uh those things are always such a struggle because we always want to delineate everything into right, wrong. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00So, like you and I have talked about a lot, medication is not wrong. No, it's just maybe not where we want to end. Like we don't want it to be the end all be all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Especially with medications that people take for emotional, you know, anxiety, depression. Like that's definitely something that I think some people need to take until they can get enough comfort, they can have their needs met to be able to be full. And when you're full, many times the anxiety and depression we've struggled with, we no longer need to have medication to help us through it. So it's not putting medication down. I believe medication is like a temporary solution until we can receive the true solution.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And when I was first learning your process and you were walking me through it, you know, I remember how gentle you were with me not to just jerk all of those things away that you saw were probably maybe not exactly helpful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because like those were the kind of protectors we talked about them as. And they were for me, I grew to see them as kind of a stand-in for one of the 10 gifts. Like instead of having the full totality of one of the 10 emotional needs, whether that be affection or provision or value or know that you're enough, I leaned on one of those medication tools or protectors, which for me, you know, you kind of hit them all already, but doing, doing, just doing something. Yeah, anything?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, exercise, performing, you know, they really they really were mine. And um, yeah. So as you mentioned, the nature of medication is to not feel your pain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So what we're trying to do is not feel our pain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, which is when when we numb our pain through medication, we're no longer able to feel our pain, which means we're no longer able to receive comfort. As hard as it is to feel pain, and as adverse as we all are towards feeling pain, we have to feel pain to get comfort. If you can't feel your pain because you're numb, you can't actually get the comfort that you need.
SPEAKER_00Uh, quote from you something that Ansa had written down. You said, we can't get to the connecting and discovering until we are not blinded by the pain and unmet need. Which means unless you've you have to feel that pain to get to the connecting.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00And the discovering.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And just even the thought of feeling pain is so scary for most of us that even sometimes when we haven't even felt it yet, we'll already be planning our medications to avoid feeling it. So sometimes we actually are in it and we're feeling it. We want to cover it up and we want to numb it out and we want to not feel it anymore. So we so we medicate with whatever our choice of medication is. Um, but then sometimes it's the fear of feeling the pain. So it's not even actually we're feeling it in that moment. And I'd actually say that happens as often or maybe even more often than actually feeling the pain. I think it's like that perception of, oh, I see that pain in the horizon. I know it's there. I know I had adverse childhood experiences, I know that I didn't get what I needed, I know that it's there. And the thought of feeling it pushes me towards medication as much as the actual feeling the pain.
SPEAKER_00You know, when you describe that, you make it sound as though like it's always happening on a conscious level. For me, I was so ignorant. This was all happening at a subconscious level.
SPEAKER_01I had absolutely no that is such a good thing to differentiate. And I think it is happening for all of us on the subconscious as well.
SPEAKER_00So I think for some people maybe are more aware of it, but me, I was so ignorant. Yeah, I mean, dumb. I was like, dumb, I was emotionally dumb. I knew, man, I feel like I was in preschool, you know, I was so ignorant.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean, from your experience, you're sharing your experience of not being taught about right emotions and not having it, you probably were on a preschool level, you know, not in a a negative way, but just you didn't weren't educated in it.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah, yeah. And yeah, I quickly you quickly brought me through elementary school, junior high, got me, got me into high school, you know, uh very quickly. So but I did want to hit on, I think a lot of people have I I didn't well, I did, and then as I transitioned, my medication tools, you know, we've talked about this where my medication tools prior to probably like somewhere in my mid to upper 20s were were not where they're like R-rated, you know, they were not very you know, wholesome, they were the bad ones, they were the bad ones, and then in my mid-20s, I kind of had a epiphany and awakening, so to speak, but I just exchanged those R-rated ones for PG ones, yeah, exactly. Now they're the good ones, like exercise, religion, you know, faith, like you talked about, um, performing and doing good at work and being busy all the time. But those things look so good, and in many ways, that's almost more of a struggle when you're working with people that probably have that type of medication, yeah, definitely, because people don't consider it medication.
SPEAKER_01They're like exercise, exactly. And you you are you saying that I shouldn't be connected to God? Isn't God the ultimate, you know, to be connected to? So there's all these little like I worship eight hours a day.
SPEAKER_00You're telling me that's bad.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I know, exactly.
SPEAKER_00No, we're not saying that's bad. It's bad if you're using it to cover your pain.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00That's when it's bad, yeah. Um, because you're not really, you know, worship when I think of worship, it's it's it's um it's supposed to be God focused, but if we're using it to cover our pain, it's really self-focused.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Even though we're saying we're connecting to God, we're actually just frantically trying to get God to make us feel better. And it goes back to what he's doing, not who he is. So our relationship is not connected in relationship, it's connection connected in action. Our actions are his actions.
SPEAKER_00So if you're listening and you're recognizing that perhaps some of your medication, some of the things you're doing to cover your pain are ones that aren't PG. That are there's more shame connected to.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. That's the difference I'd say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You have to recognize, and part of the having self-compassion is recognizing in a lot of ways, that's you doing the best you can with what you know to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And when it's connected to shame, it's so hard for us to see that because all we can see is that we're a failure because of the medications that we're using.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you've shared this before where you say some of the medications are us instinctively just trying to care for ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Definitely.
SPEAKER_00I mean the best way we know to do.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And that goes for like we're talking about shameful medications too, you know, because the shame, we're like, those are bad and those are wrong, and you should never do that. But it's it's just us saying, I, yes, they're wrong, but it's our instinct saying, I need comfort and I don't know how to get it. And this feels like comfort to me. And so I'm going to connect with this, you know, you know, unhealthy sexual experience because I want to be able to get that need met.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think it's important to recognize too that the medications, and we've hit this a few times, they aren't necessarily bad, they're a bridge. They can be a bridge to helping us get the real thing, the real, the real true comfort.
SPEAKER_01Because whatever we chose, for whatever reason that we chose the medication, there's usually something that's represented in the medication we chose. So it's it's not necessarily always what what it is in its actuality, it's more of what it represents to us that we're trying to get a need met from.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Like for me, um, I would say, well, exercise definitely where it started in lifting weights and stuff was I didn't feel like a man. I didn't feel like I was enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So every time you you pushed maybe past a goal, or you're able to like, you know, get strong. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Add another plate, add another plate on the bar, you feel more like a man.
SPEAKER_02Yep. You feel like you're more enough. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then you realize that you know, you make some gains really quick, but then the gains come really slow, and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't add any more plates.
SPEAKER_02You can't get your fix. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it just isn't working anymore, you know, or you get injured.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's true, too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know. Um, so let's talk about if the medication is highlighting something, if it's pointing us towards something, let's talk about getting that true comfort. And then after we do that, we're actually gonna break down like uh a 10 gift, we're gonna pick a 10 gift and we're gonna do a deep dive into you know, maybe a very common way, people that didn't get that gift medicate. Yeah, and then we'll talk about how to get that the real need met.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, that's great.
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about the comfort, and it really comes back to the beginning of that quote. If you've never had anybody, if you've never had anyone be with you in the problem, yeah, the comfort comes through the being with.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And so that is being with ourselves in the pain to begin with, and then being able to invite other love sources to come in and be with us in the pain. And when we aren't willing to face it ourselves, obviously, because we're medicating, then we aren't able to see ourselves, see our pain, be with ourselves. And it's always our need for medication, is always gonna come from pain or unmet need. And so we're gonna talk about the 10 gifts, but also I want to highlight that it's also pain, um, not pain, pain that hasn't been comforted. That's what's gonna draw us towards medication because we're trying to get that comfort, and then I think even more importantly, the 10 gifts like you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00So it's we've kind of looked, I I've always looked at this a little bit of a chicken and egg thing because okay, why is the pain there?
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Pain's there because of the absence of a 10 gift. And one thing I'll never forget, we were in a uh workshop. Uh, someone got up and shared an example about uh their parents were abusive, and and you just looked this person in the eye, and it's like while that was going on, as hard as it was to watch that, like one of the greatest tragedies too is that they weren't with you. Yeah, you know, the whole being with, like they weren't there to provide the 10 gifts, to provide you protection, to provide you provision, to provide to see you, to know you, to hear you. They weren't there, yeah. So you're like, are we think logically it's the trauma. Oh, this person witnessed this violent act, that's why they're hurting. Yes, but it's actually much deeper than that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. I think it would originate with the lack, yeah, more than the pain, because if we had that need met, the pain would feel different too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it'd be more survivable.
SPEAKER_01It would be, we would know we would be okay, it would hurt, but we knew um help was coming. There was hope was coming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there was hope. It wasn't completely hopeless, all wasn't lost. Yeah. So just talk a little bit more about the being with and the being with ourselves. What's that look like? How do we be with others?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the presence of someone, whether it be ourself or another person, being with us in the pain gives us the hope and the connection that we're gonna be okay. Especially in early childhood development, when our brains are not developed enough to be able to have the understanding that things are gonna be okay, that we're safe, that someone bigger than us is with us. And so when someone's with us, especially in early childhood development and this and specifically a caregiver, that caregiver is lending us their presence. And I also like to say lending us their brain. Because a child brain doesn't know that this pain is temporary. A child's brain says this pain is gonna last forever. It's never gonna go away, it's never gonna be okay. So when a caregiver comes in to be with us in our early childhood development, they lend us their brain and they lend us the presence of comfort to be with us in it. Because when we're in that developmental stage, our brain, our child brain doesn't know it's gonna be okay. And if you take that a step further, the same way we process pain as a child, if we didn't have someone be with us, and our brain said this is gonna last forever and I'm never gonna be okay, is the same mindset, brain process that we're having now as adults. And that's why it's so important to have a caregiver be with us because they give you that sense of the being with that someone's there. I'm not alone. I don't have to figure this out by myself. It's not gonna last forever. Yeah, I'm seeing. And it's the characteristics of it. Yes. Yep. And so it's not just like someone comes and sits with you, and you're like, okay, we're being with, you know, it's actually the presence of the emotional needs being met in that moment of pain, in that moment of disconnection. There's a reconnection happening.
SPEAKER_00And I think it's important. So what you're saying as a child, let's say we're five years old, whatever, something chaotic's going on in our environment. We need that adult caregiver to give us that feeling of it's gonna be okay. Yeah, we'll be okay, like we will get through this. Yeah, we'll I see you, I hear you. Um whether whatever we need in that moment.
SPEAKER_01Whatever the need is, we need that. And one thing I just thought of too is um that often when we as adults, when we're in pain, we are actually using our child brain to find the medication. And that's why a lot of times we make poor choices with medication, especially the more shameful ones and the more the bad ways of getting our um medications that get our needs met. It's because a child brain is picking the medication.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so I think that's really important to recognize that that's why many times we're not picking what's best for us because a child brain is trying to medicate the pain.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's good because I think that might give people understanding. Like you'll see someone that has a doctorate degree and they're so educated and so smart, and then they get tripped up doing something. You're like, they did what?
SPEAKER_01No, exactly.
SPEAKER_00When you see things so out of character, so not sophisticated brain was not working, they were not, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, their child brain, because if they had that doctorate and they were educated, they should should make this educated medication decision. But people very rarely are making adult decisions in the medications they choose.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. Yeah. Well, I think for me, when I think about the being okay, what it really means in being with myself in those moments that are scary, where they're scared, scat, sad, lonely moments, is that knowing that I know that nothing has to change in my external world for me to be able to have peace.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00For there to be hope again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and I think so much of the anxiety I think that I have had throughout my life is the pressure of the external world has to change.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And there's like so little you can do about it. Most of it. Very little of the external world.
SPEAKER_01So much, because it's it's can you most of our external world is humans, and you can't control another human. Well, it's humans, it's nature, it's weather, it's oh, yeah. There's so many things that are outside of our control. Yeah, that is gonna be where we're gonna get our needs met, then we're gonna be constantly disappointed and constantly lacking.
SPEAKER_00Whatever level of control we think we have of the external world is largely an illusion, anyway. Yeah, I mean, it can be you know, you look at the, you know, we just had a major natural disaster here in the United States, and it's like people were sitting in their home one day and everything was whatever, and 24 hours later their home's gone. Yeah, and it's like, how did that happen? You know, I mean exactly.
SPEAKER_01And that I mean, that's an extreme one because that was such a that was a horrible experience, but I think that happens to all of us in other ways, it may be a little bit smaller than that event. But you know, that's happening all the time, no matter how you much you save money and you do all the right things and you check all the boxes to make yourself feel safe at any moment.
SPEAKER_00Your car breaks down.
SPEAKER_01You're exactly yep. There's always gonna be something that's why it has to be internal.
SPEAKER_00Your kids back into a pile of bricks stacked at the end of the drive. That some moron contractor set there.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like you have to do that. That's never happened, you know.
SPEAKER_00But yeah. Yeah. But it's true. But being okay means that nothing has to change. I don't have to change my external world.
SPEAKER_01Nope. You can be okay even if your external world doesn't change.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I feel like that is that is the superpower that we've talked about. It really is. No, definitely.
SPEAKER_01That's one of my favorite things about the compassion method is just the fact that you like and and when you actually feel it, like we're telling you, you know, all the listeners right now and ourselves, like, you know, you can be okay, even if your external world is not. But when you actually have the moment where before you would have been freaking out, you would have been super anxious, you would have had a horrible time, it would have been the end of the world. And then something bad happens, and you're like, I'm okay.
SPEAKER_00Like it's such an I can be okay, even if.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I remember that one of the first times I felt that. And I was like kind of like looking around, like, is this really happening? Just because it felt so surreal to like genuinely not because I was trying to be okay. And it was like knee-jerk reaction, just like my triggers before were knee-jerk reactions of maybe hopelessness, of like, you know, I don't know how this is gonna work. It's you know, the end of the world. It was my knee-jerk reaction to be like, it's okay. I'm okay. I can be okay even if it's not. And it really does feel so powerful to be in that place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So let's do what I mentioned a moment ago. Let's let's let's grab a 10 gift, one of the 10 gifts. Um if you're kind of a new listener and you have no idea what we're talking about, the 10 gifts, uh, podcasts five and 25. We definitely hit on them. But why don't you just give a quick summary, Laura? 10 gifts. What are we talking about?
SPEAKER_01So the 10 gifts are the 10 emotional needs that every single human needed during their early childhood development between the ages of zero to 12 years old. They're the emotional needs that when we receive them, we are able to, you know, not be triggered in those ways because we have them abiding in us, because we experience them from real caregivers and real experiences, being able to give us those gifts of love. And the reason why I use the word gifts is because they're unconditionally given in early childhood development. And when they're given in that context, we're able to receive and have those abiding in us. And so, like we were just talking about, you no longer need your external circumstances. So, for example, one of them is to be seen. I no longer, if I have the gift of being seen, either I already received an early childhood development or I brought in other gift givers, like we like to call them, other sources of love to be able to give us those gifts. Then once it's abiding in me, I don't need anyone to see me externally. If people see me, it's a bonus. If people see me, it's fun, but I don't need them to see me to be okay. And that's kind of how each of those emotional needs work.
SPEAKER_00I'm not frantically trying to get people to see me. My world's not wrecked when people don't.
SPEAKER_01Nope, exactly. I I don't feel, you know, and and I do have the gift of being seen. I don't feel I never feel invisible. I never feel like I need to do something to get people's attention. I don't have that urge because I'm not trying to get that need met.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, that's one of the 10. Want to just list off the other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the 10 gifts are to be seen, to be heard, to be accepted, to have play, to be taught, to be protected, to be provided for, to be valuable, to have affection, and lastly to know that you're enough.
SPEAKER_00And these are the things we were talking about earlier that in early childhood development, you need another human being to bring into your life. You're not just born with these.
SPEAKER_01Nope, you're not born with them. That's it's um, you know, nurtured and brought, you know, as we have those consistent, repetitious moments of these gifts being given, they actually become um abiding in us. But yeah, you're right. They were not born with them.
SPEAKER_00Yep. And there's a male and female expression of them.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So that's a mom and a dad, not just, you know, a lot of people have like a really strong mom or a really strong dad. So I'm good, but they'll find that there's a lot of lack because it didn't come from both male and female, mom and dad.
SPEAKER_00And the pain we were talking about earlier ultimately is coming from what that being lacking, yeah, the lack of that happening. And guess what? Every single human being on the planet has pain in this area because no one's mom and dad did this perfectly.
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly. Some of us have more, some of us have less, but we all have need.
SPEAKER_00We all have need in these areas. All right, so let's break what let's kind of pick one out. So I'm going to we're gonna talk about the gift of affection, and I'm gonna read back uh something else that you've shared. You said um, when affection does not come until adulthood. So we didn't get it as a zero to 12. Yeah, we didn't really start getting affection um until adulthood. Our brain misinterprets sexuality as the same thing as affection. Yeah, can you break down that uh concept a little bit more?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So when we are young, you know, you don't have when you're in zero to 12 years old, um, you don't have, you're not connecting to affection in a sexual way. You're connecting to affection in a tender, connected, emotional way. But when you get older and you're going through, you know, puberty and you're going through those times where your sexual sexuality is increasing, you're gonna start to see affection as sexual. Even watching movies, um, you know, when you when you have the first kiss, you know, like when you have those things happening, your brain goes, This is affection. So many times we're constantly looking for sexuality to meet our need in the same way that affection was meant to meet our need before we started to misunderstand the difference between affection and sexuality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And you kind of, when you first started the compassion method, you really started off working with a men's group where a lot of men struggled with this particular issue.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00And this affects men and women, but be being a man, I can I can really relate because definitely affection was not something that was was not an emotion freely shared, was not a gift shared, you know, a lot in in my home from my mom or my dad. So um I can totally understand how men, you know, and I even talking about my own life. The best way to say it was I had an R-rated version of getting my medication. Then I then in my mid-20s, I shifted to a PG version, but during the R-rated, definitely sexuality was yeah, definitely getting needs met.
SPEAKER_01We need connection, we need affection, like we need food and water, especially if we didn't receive it. So it's really a lot of people's sexual experiences. When people say sexual addiction or things like that, it's actually coming from that hunger, that that lack of having that need met is so strong that we're frantically trying to get that need met. And that's why it leads to such strong um sexual addiction, because we so, you know, we need that gift of affection, you know, so we're trying to get it met. And so that's where it gets twisted. And, you know, so there's so much shame connected to sexuality. You know, I can't tell you how many um people that I've worked with that had, you know, addictions to pornography or other sexual addictions, that when they finally realized that what they were doing, what they were looking at, what they were um participating in wasn't who they are, that what they did was mattered, but they mattered more. The people's, I mean, like, like the freedom that people experience was so profound because they had been trying to get their need met so frantically because they didn't have their need met, and then they felt so much shame that this was who they are, especially because most people start their sexual addictions in puberty when they first have sexual experiences, whether that be looking at something or participating in something, it's in their early childhood development programming. So it's all it feels like it's always been there. So it feels like it's who they are. When you can tell someone this isn't who you are, this is something you're doing, but it's not your identity, and then be able to say, Hey, what does it represent to you? That's what I ask people when they come to me having sexual addiction, I'll say, What does it represent to you? What do you feel like you're getting from it? We start to kind of unpack what it actually means to them. And we have to get past the shame of it that it's so bad and evil and wrong, and say, What pure intention is connected to this? And it's so hard for people to say because they're like, There's no pure intention. This is, you know, this is pornography, this is evil, this is wrong, this is disgusting. There's like there's nothing pure here, but there is because there's a child within each of us, you know, our child self that's frantically wanting to get that need met and doesn't know the difference between um sexuality and affection.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think it's also important to say it's not always affection that's connected to pornography. There could be other things. We're using this very common, very common. It is very common. Yeah, affection. Yeah, yeah. So let's say you're counseling with someone, you're consulting with someone, and you're working them through this, and light bulbs are clicking. Yeah, they're recognizing that, hey, this is something I'm doing, it's not something I am.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'm doing this because I have this unmet need. Yeah, I've got this gaping hole where I don't have the gift of affection living in me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Then what?
SPEAKER_01So then we're gonna want to go back to early childhood development to a time that we longed for true affection.
SPEAKER_00And how do you go back to early childhood development? What's one of your tricks to help with that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So one of the things that I do is actually using the present day circumstance. So what I'll do is I'll say, okay, you know, when's the last time you looked at porn? You know, and they'll say, whatever the time was. And I'll say, okay, let's sit in that. You know, what was going on before? You know, I got in a fight with my spouse. Okay. You know, what were you feeling? I was feeling really out of control. I was feeling like this isn't gonna change, and I was feeling so empty and I was feeling so alone. Okay, you know, we're connecting to the emotions that they're feeling in the moment of pornography. So they're able to actually recognize the emotions that were behind it, what was driving it, what was what they were looking for, what had happened before. So by identifying the trigger that they experienced, it helps us lead back to being little. So when they were little, like let's say we go back to five years old. I mean, I know some people do see pornography at very, very young ages, but usually at five years old, you haven't been exposed to pornography yet. But you're feeling the exact same feelings. So we're taking the same feelings that they feel in connection to pornography, and we're bringing them back to being little. They felt the same hopelessness then, they felt the same out of control then, they felt the same emptiness, they felt the same loneliness. So when they feel that feeling at five years old, now we're able to shift it from the sexuality to actually a five-year-old needing affection. But they're they're mimicking each other because they have the same substance or feeling to it. One's a distortion, one's the truth.
SPEAKER_00One's medication. Yep, one's medication, one's a stand-in, one's a fill-in, not a very good stand-in. No, it's not, and an R-rated stand-in or an X-rated stand-in. It's even so there's tons of and it's causing so much shame.
SPEAKER_01But now we've gone back to being five years old, and now we see the purity of the need for affection. So it's like unmasking pornography, it's being able to take the mask off of pornography that looks gross and disgusting and addicted and ruining relationships and causing distortions, literally distorting how our brain processes and wires. We're taking that mask off, and behind it is a five-year-old that needs affection from a caregiver.
SPEAKER_00I like how you would when we're working through stuff like this together, you'd always ask me, like, how old do you feel in that moment? Like, what age do you feel?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that would help kind of get down to the core of the city.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it's a really good one.
SPEAKER_00Because the more out of control you feel, the littler you are.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And that's why um, for people that do struggle with pornography or sexual addiction, one of the things they don't realize, remember how I said before, your child brain is is choosing your medication. So your sophisticated brain says, I'm never gonna look at pornography again. It's I'm done. It's not good, it's not right, I don't want to do it, it doesn't serve me. So your adult brain makes this decision, I'm never gonna do it again. And then when the same wave of emotion comes up and you feel like you're five years old again and you're all alone and you're empty, your five-year-old triggered wound is making that decision. So that's why people keep going back to the same addiction over and over and over again, because there's two different parts of their brain making those decisions. The adult brain says, No more, the child brain says, I'm desperate, I need to get this need met. Like air and water.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01You have to have it, and so you're gonna do whatever it takes to get it, and that's why people go right back into it again. So hopefully that's helpful for people listening. And it doesn't even have to be pornography, it can be any medication or any of this. Any of it, yeah. But addiction directly motivated by our childhood pain and our childhood brain.
SPEAKER_00So I'm there, I'm five years old, I'm feeling the um, yeah, I'm connecting with that five-year-old feeling of that lack of affection. Now, where do I go from there?
SPEAKER_01So now, first we're gonna build connection between you as an adult and your child self. And so that can take on varying, you know, uh processes and exercises. But let's just say that we want to make sure that we're looking at that five-year-old with affection, if we're gonna be able to give affection to that five-year-old.
SPEAKER_00And compassion. Yeah, yes, and compassion, which affection is a form of compassion, obviously.
SPEAKER_01But if we don't know our child self or we don't like our child self, we won't be with our child self. And if we're not with our child self, we can't invite anyone else to be with them either or her either. So let's just say that you do feel some type of affection or compassion for your child self. Then from that place, we're gonna look through our whole entire lives and we're gonna find people, real people, real experiences that gave us the gift of affection.
SPEAKER_00This is the treasure hunt part.
SPEAKER_01Yes, this is the treasure hunt. It can be, it can be in our early childhood development, but it can be all the way up to present day. But we're going to reapply it to that five-year-old, to our childhood. So now we're looking for affectionate people. We're looking, like you said before, male and female. Many times, if we've had sexual abuses, which also sometimes leads to sexual addiction as well, we may be not as uh, we may not feel as safe with a male or a female if abuse has happened. For example, if if a male influ, if a male abused us, then the thought of trying to find true affection from a man is going to be a little bit more difficult.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_01But so sometimes I'll just have people start with uh a mom coming in, a female coming in to bring the nurture, compassion, and connection first. And then sometimes we can bring in when we feel safer, we can bring in um a healthy man to bring affection as well.
SPEAKER_00When you say bring in, I think it's important to distinguish what you're bringing in.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_00You're bringing in a feeling.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we're bringing in a feeling.
SPEAKER_00Feeling in that you felt, yeah, you felt with them. Like yes.
SPEAKER_01Like think of like the last hug you had. Like there's something about like a real hug, you know, you feel the weight of it, you feel the connection, you feel the warmth, you feel the comfort. You know, there's a real tangible feeling to it.
SPEAKER_00Well, when I when I did this in the area of affection, um, I actually did find someone back when I was very little. And I think part of the design of that, and what was very good about that is because I didn't have that affection in early childhood development. So, yes, affection and sexuality were one and the same for me. Yep, yeah, you know, but I went back to a time period of my life and found someone that was pre-sexual. Yeah, like I wasn't, yeah, I was young enough that I was like, yeah, that stuff wasn't activated yet.
SPEAKER_01Wasn't activated, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right, right. And um this particular person I found, I remember was a uh swimming lessons instructor, and I was so scared of the water of getting in. And she took me, held me, and we bobbed up and down, and we did all the stuff that some you know a swimming instructor would do to try to get you comfortable with the water. Yeah, and like that was affection, like feel how affectionate.
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly. You were scared and you were feeling that feeling of safety and being held right and being cared for.
SPEAKER_00And it was someone of the opposite sex, and I love the feeling and I love the memory because it is completely devoid of any of that other garbage.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I know it makes it so much easier because the distortion of sexuality really perverts the purity of it. So when you can experience it without it, that's why a lot of times a family member feels safer or you know, different things like that.
SPEAKER_00Well, and thankfully on the male side, I I never experienced you know sexual abuse or that stuff. So thankfully, you know, yeah, so it makes it a lot easier to receive. So when I found the gift of affection from a man, it was when I was much older. Yeah, like it happened in my probably my 30s.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I'll never forget this one particular hug I got from this man in my 30s, and it was it was otherworldly, like it was like yeah, so different than any hug I'd ever received. There was such a substance there of the affection, and I was able to go back to that feeling from that. Yeah, you know, and but I totally could understand how if someone had had pain in that area from a man, and I and I suppose from a woman too, that um that would be very, very difficult.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it makes it harder, but there's still possible pure affection out there that we can connect to. It just sometimes takes a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00Well, I look at it as God is like always sending love. Always, always.
SPEAKER_01He's like, Oh, you don't have any pure affection. I'm sending it to you. We just don't always have eyes to see it or know how to receive it because it's not familiar to us, but it's always there, we will always find it, which is the hope of being able to receive what we didn't receive.
SPEAKER_00And that's what I love about this process is it gives us those eyes to see because we have to bring some level of comfort to the pain.
SPEAKER_01Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Some amount of compassion. I love the compassion statements that we have that we speak over our heart, that you've got a whole list of them. I love those compassion statements because they will help like set the playing field, yeah, so to speak, to give me those eyes to see.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00It calms you down, it brings some comfort, it helps you know that hope is possible, yeah, and that you know, God.
SPEAKER_01That's one thing that I always have people do is when they're like there's no gift givers, there's no no one ever gave me affection. Right.
SPEAKER_00They just can't find it, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so it will that in those moments, instead instead of trying to force and you know, like you have to find someone, what we do is we bring compassion, like you're talking about. So that helps tenderize the heart, it helps the heart become more open to be able to receive.
SPEAKER_00Totally, like a meat tenderizer. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. No, that is good stuff. And I like what we just did because it gives people a really good idea of what a one-on-one session with a compassion method consultant looks like.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. That's being able to do that. Is what we're application of.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. This is very practical, very, very much application.
SPEAKER_01So and then if we kind of wrapped, you know, this example we're using up, once you've received, you know, like you gave those good examples of that female, that male affection, and your heart starts to feel full and you feel like you've received the substance and the essence of affection. Now, when we come back to being an adult and we're looking at pornography or we're looking at a medication that we were using before, it doesn't have the same need. The need's not there for the medication in the same way. It doesn't mean that you won't struggle with anything. It doesn't mean that you won't, you know, but to me, I look at it more as like a lowercase S struggle versus a capital S struggle that feels like you have to get your medication or else we're no longer addicted to it because we've got our true need met. So our brain is still, if we've say we've Had a pornography issue our whole entire life. Your brain is still thinking in that way. So you're gonna have you're going to want to bring more affection repeatedly to that area. Sometimes it's a one-stop, you get it, and you feel it, and you're done, and you're like, and everyone will look at it again.
SPEAKER_00Might have never been a one-stop.
SPEAKER_01No, but for most people, you're gonna need to go back and then also to add to it, it may not have just been the gift of affection that you needed. You might have needed multiple gifts to satisfy that need. So you no longer need to look at pornography. So it does take some time. It takes curiosity of asking your heart what you really need. What are you really looking for? Um, sometimes I'll tell my when I'm in a triggered state, I'll say it's not what you think it is. If I'm gravitating towards a medication, I'll say it's not what you think it is. And that's like a key word for me to be able to say, okay, what is it? That helps me go deeper because my triggered brain saying, No, that's my solution. But when I say it's not what you think it is, it helps me go, okay, what am I really needing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So whatever your kind of key words to help you kind of recognize snap out of it a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Um, is really key to have. And once you do that, you're able to start being more curious with it. And curiosity is a sign that you're showing yourself compassion and you're no longer in shame as well.
SPEAKER_00One of the things I used to worry about when I would find that experience, that feeling from a from a gift giver. Yeah, is I would be almost scared to go back to it again because I was scared I'd wear it out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what I found is it doesn't wear out.
SPEAKER_01No, it's a it's a living substance, you know what I mean? Because it was a real person, real experience. So it's alive, it's not a fantasy.
SPEAKER_00That's how you know it doesn't we have to do it. It's actually real. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Because medication, because it because what we're talking about, medication wears out.
SPEAKER_01It does. That's why you have to keep going back to it because it's not sustainable.
SPEAKER_00Right. It wears out.
SPEAKER_01Love is a sustainable, your needs to be met is sustainable.
SPEAKER_00So that that feeling I had with the uh swimming lessons instructor, that gift, it's never wore out.
SPEAKER_01No, and it won't because it's alive.
SPEAKER_00The man never wore out.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah, it's a real experience and it's real love, and it never goes away. Sometimes we don't have need of it as much. But that's the only thing I would say. It doesn't go, it's not that it goes away. So sometimes when I've gone back to a gift giver, it's not that the substance isn't there anymore, but I don't need it in the same way. Yeah, that would be the closest thing I would say to it not being as strong. It's still there and I still feel it, but I don't feel the need as strong because the need's been met.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a good distinction. So next steps. So somebody listening to us from a next steps, I think uh we're hoping that one of the next steps that you realize is not we're not saying necessarily you have to eliminate your medication. That's not the next step we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00However, if that medication is destructive and something like that, you may have to eliminate that. And you may have to go cold turkey and go into this. But in a lot of cases, the medications can be kind of a bridge. So I think of that of like a legal pharmaceutical is a great bridge to for most people. There's some people that might need to be on it forever, but for most people, they don't need to be on it forever. It's a great bridge to getting the real comfort because maybe it can bring a little bit of uh edge off of that trigger and edge off of that pain to allow you to go forward. So I think a really good next step uh would be for uh those of you listening to pursue your own compassion journey, your own TCM, the compassion method journey. Yeah. And a a great way to do that if you're like, where do I start? Um, if we go to episode 44, it's titled How You Can Go Deeper with the Compassion Method Today.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And there's some great uh advice in there as to how to engage really all, you know, your body of work, Laura. How do you engage it? And that that episode will do a great job uh directing you in the right path.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that sounds great. And yeah, definitely being able to love yourself enough to face the pain versus just continuing to medicate.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So, Keith, take home from today. There's more to your story. There's more to your story. You are not defined by your R-rated or X rated medications.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00There's more, there's more going on than you ever probably realized. There's more to your story, and we uh hope that you begin that journey today of discovery and getting those needs met and that pain comforted. So thank you everyone for listening.