Ep. (54) We will treat others how we treat ourselves

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Hello, Laura. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Doing pretty good. Excited to record today.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, today's uh topic is something that uh, as as a lot of our topics tend to be, there are things that have been coming up in my life and kind of revelations I've had as I kind of read through notes and some of our um one-on-one sessions that we had. So this is kind of a little bit of a different twist. So the title of today's podcast says, We will treat others the way we treat ourselves. So I want everybody to just think about that. So we will treat others the way we treat ourselves. So it's a little bit of a different spin on the golden rule, which is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So why don't you just kind of break that down? Like this is just coming at something very similar, a little bit different way.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah. So I mean, again, the golden rule is that we're going to treat others the way, you know, that we ultimately we want to treat others the way that we treat ourselves. And I remember reading that before, and it always was more of like, you know, because you I don't know how I interpret it this way, but um I maybe you did too. But it always was like this like, um, don't be selfish, kind of like if you if you want something or if you you know want something to be a certain way, that's how you need to treat other people. For some reason, that's kind of how I saw it.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

It almost feels a little manipulative. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

It kind of actually does.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I didn't necessarily think of it that word, but like if if I don't want people to treat me selfishly, I'm just gonna be a very unselfish person and then you know yes, and like and that's what you're supposed to do. Hopefully the universe sends, you know, that back to me, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, well, kind of in a way, it's like kind of like you knew you need to treat other people if you want to be treated well. So it is, it is a form of manipulation and a form of lack, too, where you're like, okay, if I want to be loved, if I want to have a relationship, then I have to treat others the way that I'd want to be treated so that they can treat me the same in return.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

And it's but it never really works because it's kind of like if your gas tank isn't full filled with love and filled with all of that already, yeah, you're gonna you're trying to give out of an empty tank.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah. And also another thing it reminded me of is like, you know, like the um the book The Five Love Languages. Do you remember that book?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Gary Chapman. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

So the five love languages. So it also felt very unproductive because I'm like, okay, I don't, I haven't actually done that, you know, read that book in a while. So I forget what mine are. But like it would be like, if I really want like, you know, quality time, then I'm gonna give this person all the quality time because I want to love them the way I want to be loved. So here I am giving all this quality time, and they're like, I don't really, I mean, quality time isn't my love language, so I don't really care. So they're not gonna love me back with quality time, back to the manipulation in a way of like, they're not gonna love me back with quality time. They're just gonna love me however they see themselves. So now they're loving me from whatever way they love, and I'm loving them from whatever way I want to be loved, but we're actually not loving each other because we're so busy trying to love others to be loved.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

We're trying, we're so busy trying to get the lack in our own hearts.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Yes, exactly. Yes. So it always felt like kind of like a formula that didn't quite work.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah. Well, and I think one of the things you talk a lot about is uh, okay, so we can we can try to treat others in all those ways, unselfishly, all those things. But if that isn't living inside of us, it will wear us out eventually.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

And when we get triggered, guess what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yep, all the good intentions go out the window.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, right, right. And one of the things I notice a lot when I'm uh in that place of not connected to my my heart or my true self is, and what's really cool about since I started the compassion method is how much more aware of this I am and how I can I can stop it in its tracks like immediately.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

But the one big one is judgment.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

So so when I hear other people speaking harshly about someone, I remember you said something once you said the judgment we have for others is really how we see ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

It's a mirror image thing. So if you want to expound on that a little bit, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

You know, like I kind of you know, relate it to also like the soapbox we get on, but also like the judgment that we have, the criticism, the you know, hatred. I know we don't usually like to use that word because it's so strong, but it is a form of hatred, it's a form of criticism, judgment, you know, all those feelings that we have ultimately about ourselves is what we're projecting out. And we may put it in like a different package, you know, to be more, you know, to feel like we're loving still, but we're still in that, in those harsh words, in the what we're communicating to others, it's really a reflection of ourselves. If you asked a person in the moment, they would not relate to it at all because they would say, no, it's about that other person, just like how we see blame is about the other person. But it's really the self-judgment that we have within ourselves that causes us to end up judging that person. So pretty much anything that we see in another person that we judge or we don't like is ultimately something about ourselves that we're judging or we don't like.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Absolutely. And that's a hard pill to swallow.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Because people don't want to go there.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

No, it's so much easier to blame and say that they, and then we have our cases, you know, like our, you know, like, well, they did this, this, and this. So therefore, my judgments are valid. But it's not so much. Remember how we've talked about like you can judge what someone does, but there's something different about judging who a person is right by that. And that when we judge who a person is, it's ultimately because we're judging who we are.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah, and we're operating in that world of uh the knowledge of good and evil and the shame cycle. Yes, exactly. Because shame is, you know, ascribing a person's behavior to their identity.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yes, exactly. And so we're actually disqualifying the person because we feel disqualified.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Like I had a situation the other day, someone was calling a person a narcissist, and I was like, okay, no, wait a second. I don't like calling people that name because that's not who people are.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Can someone be acting one other? Are they displaying narcissistic behaviors? Yes. But to put that label on someone is so harsh. And and we're gonna hit this over and over again, but why I really believe the compassion method has broke this down so well for me is because it's I've learned to have that compassion for myself.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Of like, hey, there's more to my story, there's a reason why I did X, Y, or Z.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

And let's go after that reason, apologize, own my behavior, obviously. But then let's go after why why that behavior happened in the first place, what was going on inside of me. And as I do, I recognize okay, there's a reason here, there's a pain, there's an unmet need. Yeah, let's get to the root of it. And as I get to the root of it, I recognize that everybody has a pain or an unmet need. Yeah, and everyone's just acting out of it. And my ability to have empathy for other people is like if I if someone said, like, what's one of the biggest takeaways of the compassion method? It's that. Because I I feel like I have so much more freedom in the area of judgment. Yeah, you know, and I'll catch myself maybe starting to do it, and I'll just back up the bus and be like, okay, wait a second, what's going on inside of me? Because I'll recognize that you know it really starts with me. Yeah, that's that's where this is coming from. Yeah, and we had a really interesting listener question come in a little while ago, and um I just want to read it. Um, this person says they found our podcast and they're working through the episodes, they just got through episode nine. And this question about made me cry. Um, this person asked, What if your true self is a bad person? Yeah, what if we won't like what we find? So if someone's judging themselves that harshly, yeah, odds are that's coming out somewhere else. Yeah, or they're trying really hard to be good, you know. And um yeah, yeah, it was it was a really hard question to read because it was hurt, you know, it's hurtful to think that somebody thinks that of themselves, but it's an easy question to answer.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Exactly. Yeah, I was gonna say that. I was gonna say, like, yeah, it's so hard to read, but then being able to know exactly where to go with it, connected to true self and connected with how that viewer that listener was uh feeling about themselves.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

So my reply was as to your question, I can tell you are in a lot of pain and you are covering this pain with shame. When we are hurting, we tend to revert to blame to unload the pain elsewhere. Some blame others, some blame themselves, which is ultimately what shame is. And then I said, it is an absolute impossibility for your true self to be a bad person. Your true self is amazing, wonderful, and one of a kind. I encourage you to continue this journey so you can learn how truly special you are. And then I suggested the following podcast episodes 40, 41, and 37 in that order. And um, and then of course, episode 44 to learn about some of the other or uh resources that are available. So, and then I just encouraged uh them to continue on this uh compassion journey, you know, continue on through the discovery. But I mean, it is like when I said it's an absolute impossibility. It is like we weren't created by accident, like there's nothing about us that was a mistake. You know, we make a lot of mistakes, of course. No, that is definitely we make a lot of mistakes, but no human being we're not a mistake, no human being on the planet, even if it was an unplanned pregnancy, and people say, Well, it was an act or a mistake or whatever, is no, you are not a mistake, no, never, right? No, you are not a good one.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

And you just think about how you're seeing yourself from that lens. If we take it back to the golden rule of love your neighbors you love yourself, and if you believe there's nothing, there could be nothing good about you, or not even good, but nothing of value, nothing of worth that maybe you're gonna find something evil or wrong or bad, we're going to love others in that same suspicious way, that same way of wondering if if there's something that I'm not gonna find about myself that's you know, I'm if I'm not gonna see something evil about myself, then I'm ultimately gonna be wondering if I'm gonna see that about others too.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Mm-hmm. Well, and a quote that you share a lot, and it it's a quote that's been around a long time. I don't know where it ever originated, but um uh and I you say it a lot, to know yourself is to love yourself.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

And it's again, it's an absolute impossibility that if you can get to know yourself, yeah, you will allow yourself. Your love for yourself will grow. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

It's just a miss, you know, we're not able to see ourselves clearly because of the shame, like you talked about, that's covering us up. So it creates a lens that we see ourselves by what we do. And when we see ourselves by what we do, then we do believe that at the root of who we are, there's something wrong or bad.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

So as I closed out with her, the to know yourself is to love yourself. I said, This is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow, probably even more so. Oh well, I like that because that is the truth, and I think, and I know you know what why how you start this off is you know, with the going after your child self, reconnecting to your child self. And you know, that was definitely my icebreaker of it's so much easier to have love and compassion on a child, yeah, than it is our adult self. You know what I'm saying? Like, how can you judge a one-year-old? You can't like you, you fit you can't, no matter what they're doing. So last night, my uh my daughter was over with my my grandbaby, and uh they went to the store, and she's like, Oh, are you gonna be okay with her? And you know, and I'm like, Oh, absolutely, you know, no problem. I said, You act like I've never done this before, you know. She left the house, and I 90 seconds after she left, she wakes up and she's crying, and she was quite unconsolable for a while, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm eating my words, eating my words, but like, and she was just fussing so bad. I walked with her and we walked and paced and all the things, right? You know, all the things finally, it's like it's like wrestling an alligator sometimes to like find the right hold, find the right key bounce, the right little song to sing, the whatever, all the things, you know, all the things, all the tricks, you know. Yeah, fly on that wall, looking out at the Christmas lights, and that worked for a little bit, and then that didn't work, you know, everything, everything that you can do. And I was just thinking, like, oh, she's being really unruly, but like, how could you ever be like mad at her? Like, you can't, it's impossible. Like, it's just like they're just a baby, you know. And um, so that's why you start there, and obviously all of the pain and the unmet need originated from there, too. So it's just such a great um opportunity to come home. So um, so I was also looking through some of my notes that I had with you as I was going through this journey of, you know, really learning to love myself for no other reason than that. But a wonderful byproduct is I'm gonna treat other people a lot better.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

You know, a wonderful byproduct. And kind of going back to what we're talking about at the beginning, it's like it's a little bit having the cart in front of the horse to be like, hey, treat other people the way you want to be treated. If you're like all focusing on the external, yeah. Like it's like the cart in front of the horse. Like before the external can really be dealt with, you have to deal with the internal. I think there's a there's a verse somewhere in the Bible that talks about out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like what we have in here is Yeah, that's a really good scripture that connects to the whole, like, you know, what we have inside of us is what we're going to project on others.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So, like one of the things I recognized in my notes, kind of going back through the journey, was um, at the beginning, especially, I didn't have a high value for myself because I was allowing the external world to set my value. It's kind of like it's kind of like I was in the the marketplace of the world and I was letting all of the people around me, you know, determine how much I was worth.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

You know, how much I was what was worthy. So it was all connected to performance. You know, how well was I performing?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

All subjective and conditional.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Well, some of it's not subjective because, like, if I help a client make a lot of money or avoid a thing, I can actually put a dollar sign to it.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yeah, but it's dollar sign exactly. But that's subjective to their success, they're making money.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. And and then how much money you made? Did you make enough money? Did you protect me enough?

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Because where does it stop? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Like exactly right. There's no um, yeah. Sometimes I think subjective, like, oh, it can't be measured.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Well, no, no, no, no, I mean more it's measured by that standard.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Yeah, yeah. So one of the things that you know you drove home a lot is that I am the gatekeeper. Yeah. I determine my value.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

So why don't you just talk a little more about that?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

And that goes, you know, like we've talked about in the past, like shame high is shame lows, you know, where like you just a real brief summary, um, is you know, we do something wrong, we have a shame low. We're all pretty familiar with that. We feel like we are bad because we did this wrong and we feel that pain or that hurt with that. But then a lot of people don't talk about a shame high, that if we do something good, then we're gonna feel really good about ourselves. But it's the same conditional um, you know, love for ourselves. Well, it's really similar to um getting our value from external circumstances as well. So, like, for example, with what you just used, you make a client a lot of money, you're gonna feel really valuable, you're gonna feel very, you know, worthy. You're gonna feel yeah, exactly. You're gonna have a shame high with that because you're connected to doing really well. And then when you make a mistake or you don't make someone a lot of money, then they're gonna feel like you know, you're gonna feel that low. But that's also connected with how we see ourselves. If our external world determines who we are, when we feel good about who we are, it's the same thing. We're not actually feeling good about who we are, we're feeling good about what we did. And it's so temporary and so fleeting because, like you said, it's all performance.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Then you gotta do it again.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yep. And then what if you've done for me lately? Yep. And what if your judges are skewed? What if they're loving you the way they love themselves through judgment, through it's not enough, through performance, called it performance. Then now we have this corrupt love system, this exchange that's happening based on my lack meets their lack. And now we're not in we're not in connection anymore. We're actually against one another because we're against ourselves in that. So no matter how well we communicate through it, we we're already, you know, sabotaging that connection before we even start. Because how we see ourselves is how we're going to communicate and connect with that person and as they are to ourselves. So I've talked about before how like we're always trying to find the better way to communicate it. Where you can't communicate well enough if the root thought is I judge myself, I hate myself, I don't like who I am. Doesn't matter how you communicate, that's what will be communicated.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

And as part of the process, we're bringing in the gift givers that are giving us the things that we missed out in our early childhood development.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

But one of the things I had in my notes is that you know, we we want to bring in, we want to find those mom and dad types that gave us the gift of being enough if our parents weren't able to do it. We want to go back and tangibly feel that gift coming from this person. Yeah, one of the things you talked about is you also have to make sure that you are in agreement with the moms and dads, yeah, and not in agreement with self-hatred. So talk a little bit about that. How the 10 gifts process could get kind of warded. Yeah. If we don't have agreement, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

No, that is very, very valid because it can all be being given to you. That's why a lot of times people have a hard time finding gift givers because of their own personal rejection and personal self-hatred. They're already processing whatever that person did through that lens. So they either can't see it or they can't receive it because their brain's telling them things like they don't really mean it, if they really knew. And when you have those thoughts going through your head, it repels. It's like oil and water. They could be giving you all the things your heart really needs. But because of how you're seeing yourself, you create a protector, a defense system. Because how scary would it be to actually think that they really see you and they really love you for who you are? That's actually scarier than the defenses that we have of they don't really know, they wouldn't really love me. They they don't really mean it. That feels safer to us because we're we feel safe in our self-dislike or self-hatred versus actually receiving from a gift giver what we really mean.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Yeah, it's that puppy with a hurt paw analogy.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yes, exactly. And so we're pushing away and pushing away. And actually, we are offended many times and even hurt by love. You know, it always seems our logical brain goes, Why would you be hurt by love? Unconditional love given to you by someone that cares about you and wants to give you that feeling. But if we have severe self-hatred, we have severe lack, it's actually going to be more offensive to receive that than it is to actually keep believing the familiarity of the self-hatred.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

So if you how do you identify that's happening? Because a lot of times people are pushing people away, they don't know it.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yes, exactly. So when being able to be aware of your pain, like your true need or your true wound, helps you receive. So the defenses, if like, say for example, if I don't have the gift of enough and someone is giving me that gift, but I don't believe it, and I don't see myself that way, then I'm gonna say, oh no, they don't really know. They're just saying that doesn't mean anything. When I'm saying that, that defensive measure is not allowing me to see it. The only way to really see what we need is to. Feel how we um feel our pain, feel how we are in our pain. What does that pain look like? You know, when we do the remote control exercise and we go through and we get to that more tender place, that's where we're able to start to receive. But because we all stay in reaction so much, right? It creates the defense of being able to receive. So the more tender you're able to feel your pain, the more able you are to be able to receive the gifts or receive compassion.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah. And that's where that compassion statement list comes in so powerfully.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yes, because it kind of thaws you. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Oh, that's a good word. Yeah. You're very hard and resistant, and it's like a meat tenderizer.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

And then in connection to going back to our child self, you know, you were saying how we see others through if we saw them as a child, we'd think of it differently. But it's also connected to going back to how we see ourselves as a child. When you see yourself as a child, it also helps some of that resistance thaw, you know, not be as strong so that we can receive.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Well, and I think uh, you know, a lot of like maybe a goal of you know, someone listening to this podcast is your first step in this whole process is awareness.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

And just kind of recognizing that you're doing it. And one of the one of your areas of awareness is if you find yourself being harsh towards other people.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Not not like what you talked about, like, you know, I have an employee and I have to give them a review and just talk about how their performance is. We're not talking about that. We're talking about that harsh judgment, yes, or you are just, you know, blaming somebody harshly, you know, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Well, it's that employee, like just say they're being late. It's saying that you have, you know, like it's it's making strong conclusions about that. Is it okay to be late? No. But it's when you say you are whatever you're implying that they are, that that's what creates the judgment.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Um, another one that could probably help with awareness that I had written in my notes. You you kind of challenged me. You said, you said, if you asked me to say 10 things that I love about myself, I would probably struggle. So, like she said, the goal is to rattle, you said, I said she said, you said.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Laura said the goal is to rattle off positive things just like I would about my kids.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yep. And that is such a, like you said, how can we work against that resistance to receiving what we need? That's a huge one. It's like you can't have both happening at the same time. We can't judge ourselves and love ourselves at the same time. And so when you start to say those 10 things that are characteristics of who you are, and you can say it with the same pride and the same pleasure and the same, you know, acceptance of who that person is, you can't judge yourself because you're seeing yourself for who you are, which goes back to if we really knew ourselves, we would love ourselves and there would be no room for self-hatred.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and and you know, comparing the compassion method process to some other things that I've learned, you know, one of the things I'd written in my notes that um this is not just simply speaking affirmations over my life or a way to work or ways to encourage myself.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Well, it might work like temporarily, but as soon as you get triggered, you're right back into that self-hatred again. So you can't rally and pep yourself up enough to actually see yourself.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah, and and like the only solution here is knowing and discovering, yes, knowing yourself, exactly. Because otherwise, if you know yourself, you will love yourself. Like another, like one of those things that's as sure as a sun coming up tomorrow, and probably even more so is knowing yourself is loving yourself.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

You know, another one because obviously spirituality is a part of it for me. You know, we talked about that, and I have some of that in my notes. You said it was okay to ask God how he sees me, but I also have to know it for myself, otherwise I won't believe him anyway. Just like the just like the gift givers. You know, yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I mean, because God is from the time we were conceived and born, God's been speaking to us and loving us and you know, being with us because he knows us. So he's like how you felt about that uh listener's question, how you felt sad that she would see herself that way. I know that's how God sees us too, that he's like he made this extraordinary creation that's like his prized creation, you know, and he looks at it as a masterpiece. And then we say, you know, what if what if it's not beautiful? What if it's not a masterpiece? What if there it's corrupt? What if it's broken?

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Or I've tainted it. I've done it.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Oh yeah, what if I've ruined it? Exactly. And I feel like he has the same compassion for us and empathy for us that he's like, you know, I see you for who you are. So when we can't see ourselves, it's so so hard for him, and then it's also so hard for us to receive it. Yeah, we might be old in our intellect, but again, when we go back to our emotions and our child brain, we're not receiving it.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Right. Yeah. So, you know, if someone's thinking, like, okay, I'm kind of like kind of getting this. What do what do I kind of do? What do I kind of do next? And it's what you do next is it's about the knowing and discovering, and it's about comforting pain. So identifying that pain, the remote control exercise, the compassion words, yeah. To you know, start to thaw yourself out a little bit, do the meat tenderizing. And then as I work through that, the next thing you had me do was an exercise called How Am I Seen?

SPEAKER_03 28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

And uh, let's just talk a little bit about that exercise and kind of just describe how it works and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

So it's an exercise that includes about 20-something words that are identity words, not just um uh actions or behaviors. They're words that are not necessarily related to what we do, they're related to who we are. So when you get that list, you're sending it out to like 10 people, and you're having those people send back a word that they see you for who you are versus what you do. And the reason why it's so valuable is yes, we need to explore and be aware of ourselves, but we all know, myself included, that when it's you, sometimes it's harder to see things, sometimes it's harder to agree with even what you might see. But when you have others that know you to some capacity or care about you, um, giving you back words of how they see you, it helps be a mirror in front of us, sometimes to see parts of ourselves that we can't see ourselves. So we're pulling from the resource of other people's perspective about us, kind of along the same lines of like if you've judgment inside, you'll project that. If someone has love inside, if someone knows you, they're gonna project that back to you. So they're projecting back to you how they see you as if a mirror. And when we look in that mirror and we see that uh characteristic or attribute of who we are, we're able to then be able to see it more clearly. And then the goal is to be able to receive it more um strongly.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

Yeah, it's easier for them to see that because they don't have that intern, they don't have our internal pain, exactly, which is skewing our view of ourselves. Yes, because our own internal pain skews our view.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Yep. And so it's hard to see, so we're reaching out to others to help give us a mirror to be able to see ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

That that adage that you can't see the forest through the trees is so yeah. Oh, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

When you're in it, it's so much harder to see.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah, yeah. I know.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

I've even had people be like, You do this for a living, like you know this, you you created the compassion method. Why can't you see it? And I'll be like, It's so hard to see when you're the one in it. You know, can I do it? I do have awareness, like we're talking about, but there's still times where I can know it inside and out and still be in an emotional place that I'm not able to fully maybe I can kind of like see it like vaguely, but I'm not able to see it enough to actually until I do the same exact process that we're talking about for the listeners that are listening right now. I have to do that process to be able to see it for myself too.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so I think that uh that exercise is really great. And um, we'll include a link to that on our uh landing page. Um editing guys, you'll have to I think it's already there.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

So I think it might already be there too, but we'll I think it's there.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

We're gonna double check that. And um so uh, but yeah, if you want to find that exercise, just go to triggeredandrue.com and there's a link to download free resource, and that's one of the free resources.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

So I have one more activity if it's okay to add to it.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Um for sure, a new one, one I haven't done yet.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah, probably. I mean, I think I've kind of shared it a little bit, but not like an official activity, but now it's official.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Is if you're still struggling with the whole fact of like you don't know exactly how you feel about yourself, because some people they feel like, nope, I love myself. Um, I would I would love to go back to one of the first things we talked about on this episode was the fact that we are going to whatever we have within ourselves, if we have self-hatred, um, judgment, we are going to project that on someone else, is to go through and for like maybe like a week or a couple days, um, pay attention to how other people are affecting you, as far as where are you judging people? Where are you seeing people as, you know, you know, messed up, not doing well, where are you venting? Wherever you're venting, wherever you're seeing judgment, or whoever's really annoying you, whoever's really frustrating you, write down why they're frustrating you and then take that and turn it back to yourself. What part of me has self-judgment that I was judging this person for their actions? Sometimes it's easier to sometimes it's hard to see what's within us because it's so easy to see it within someone else. So however you're judging someone else, you are judging yourself. So pay attention for a week of all your judgments, and you'll see that that's actually within you.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

There's a little mantra to go with this too.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Oh, what's that?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

But this mantra is very triggering. And this is something you've said.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Uh-oh. No, just checking.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

And it's actually the this is actually kind of it was it's kind of interesting this came up because it was kind of my idea for our next podcast. But here's the mantra that'll help people with this. I'm just gonna warn everybody this is triggering. Okay, trigger alert, trigger alert. But the blamer, you know where I'm going with this? The blamer is always responsible. Always blaming someone, no matter how justifiable it is, yeah, no matter how right you are, the blamer is always responsible.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Yeah, it's always within you. Whatever you blame anyone else for, it's always within you. Yeah, and that's and it's actually, even though that can be very triggering, especially when we have all of our justifiable reasons for that, right? It's it is in the end, at first it's very triggering, but in the end, it's actually more uh empowering because if you can take care of why you're blaming within you, the other person's actions and behaviors don't have as much power over you. But it's hard to go through that, especially when people have done things, things have happened that are justifiably wrong.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah, I found that. I found that when someone's triggered, it is not a good time to share with them that the blamers always respond to the thing. When do we share this? Because it's kind of like it is very freeing. You know, I'm talking like, how can I say this in a way that's not so offensive?

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Because no, when you're right in the trigger of it, it feels so justified and so valid. And and you're right, it is justified and it is valid, but it's still sometimes hurting me. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes it's not, sometimes it is irrational, but anytime it can be very rational justifiable, very rational, but it's still they did this, this, this, and this to hurt me, you know, and exactly like five other this is, you know. Oh, and I'll add and I'll add one more thing to it. What however you're blaming someone else or judging someone else can be both how you blame and judge yourself, but it can also be a lack that you have within you. So sometimes we're blaming, like I'll use an example from me. Like one of my sisters who come from a big family, and we were trained not to have as many needs, not to ask for very much, because there's so many of us financially, practically, emotionally. So you really take your needs down because there's not enough to go around. Well, I have one of my sisters, she just is she was born this way. She just is like, we always call her a princess because we're judging. Um, and we call her a princess because she asks for her needs. She picks the most expensive thing on the menu. She and and sounds like, you know, like I thought when we were growing up, oh, she's so selfish. Like she just, you know, says what she wants and she, you know, doesn't even think, but there's so many of us, she needs to think about us. But I realized that was actually a judgment that I had because I had need and I had lack. And it made me upset for her to get her needs met and for me not to be able to get my needs met.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

But who's responsible for getting your needs met?

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Me. And so and I actually realized it was okay that she was asking.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

A mom or a dad could say, No, I'm sorry, we can't get that. But she was actually healthier asking, and I could ask too. So the same judgment that I was judging her, I actually turned it around to take care of myself in the same way. And I would say, like, what would that sister do? She'd ask for it. So I started learning how to ask for it. So instead of judging her, I connected it to my lack, and then I actually started to learn from her.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

That's a good example.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Because it was within me, it wasn't about her. She wasn't wrong for asking. Or even if she was wrong for asking, why did it bother me? Because I didn't have what I needed, and it hurt me to see her getting what she needed. And I wanted to shut her down and judge her and criticize her because I was actually in lack and I was hurting.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Right. Well, this was great stuff, Laura. So, two powerful pieces of homework for everyone as you're going through going through this. Uh, one is uh, you know, engage the how am I scene if you haven't already done that exercise. And if you have, maybe pick some new people and send that list of words to some new people. So it was great for me. Uh, it was definitely great. The how am I scene exercise was great to see some of the uh some the similarities, but then also the differences and some of the differences. Like one was an employee, a former employee that uh um I sent it to, and he came up with something that kind of blew my mind, and he connected it to one particular experience he had with me that I I remember vividly, and I'm like, wow, that was really cool because it was just another perspective. Like he saw me in a different setting than maybe some of the other people saw me in for that thing to come out.

SPEAKER_01 38:18

So yes, and that is definitely what you want to do, send it to a variety of people.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

So don't just send it like all your classmates or all your family. Yes. Um, you know, uh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

So even just like people that are, you know, that you know will give back to you what you want to get back to you.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

I've even chosen people that I'm like, I want to see and I chose I I chose a former employee instead of a current employee because I was like, That's good.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

I like that.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Yeah, the former employee is like, I don't give them a paycheck anymore.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

They can be honest, yeah, they can be very honest with me and uh it's not gonna come back and bite them. So uh yeah, so that homework, and uh, if you don't have that, you can find that free resource on the triggeredandtrue.com website. And then the other thing uh that Laura just introduced was kind of being aware of where you're finding yourself in judgment or blame, blaming others, yeah, and turning that back around to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 39:17

Yeah. How am I judging myself? How am I in lack? You know, and that will be sometimes a clearer signpost than what we try to figure out on our own because we're in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Yeah, and hopefully you're not triggered right now when you're listening, so that when I say the blamer is always responsible, you don't want to like reach through the you know, electronic universe and strangle me.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

As much as I say it and and I 100% believe it, and I've seen some people get free from it, it's still hard, you know, like it's still hard sometimes to really like it's like kind of a hard pill to swallow sometimes, especially when you're in a trigger.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you, Laura, and uh we wish everybody the very best as they continue on their own personal journeys, as you all continue on your own personal journeys of discovery and learning to discover who you are, who you were created to be, and comforting the pain that has you skewed and the lack. Yeah, yeah, pain and the lack that is skewing your vision of who you are. So thank you again, everyone, for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 40:21

Until next time.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

Thanks, everyone. Bye. Bye bye.