Ep. (57) The Art and Science of The Remote Control Exercise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

🔗 Learn more:

https://triggeredandtrue.com

https://lauraduncan.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Hello and welcome everyone to the 57th edition of the Triggered and True podcast with myself, Brian Friese, and Laura Duncan. Laura, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Doing pretty good. I'm glad we're here. I'm glad we're recording. It's always fun to do a podcast with you.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Yeah, Laura had a great triggering event as we were feeding into today. And uh it only she was only 35 minutes late.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

That's it. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. And I wasn't triggered at all because I know I got on and I was like, wow, this really doesn't trigger you. And I was like, that's pretty interesting. It is always interesting to see what does trigger us and what doesn't trigger us.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

Yep. Yep. Yeah. That I told her I was in sales and I'm used to people making me wait.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

And it's funny too, just even in this situation, because it was a technology issue, which I have a my sophisticated adult brain knows, like I'll figure it out, but it'll take time, which I'm okay with normally. But my trigger was more of like having somebody wait for you while you figure it out. And I just wanted to be like, let's just do it another time.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Oh, I would be way more triggered if it was the other way around because I know yes, your schedule is usually really tight, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

It really is, and so is yours.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

I you know we always have these hard stops, you know. She's got the next TV media interview right at the right at the time, but anyway, so yeah, but we're here.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

We are here, happy to be here.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

Yep. So the uh title of today's episode is The Art and Science of the Remote Control Exercise. All the way back on, I believe it was episode six, we talked about the remote control exercise, and we have not had a dedicated episode to it since then. We've no doubt talked about it in other episodes.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

But we're gonna do something kind of exciting. So we're gonna go deep into the remote control exercise, and then we are looking for volunteers for a future podcast to work through the remote control exercise.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Uh, as part of the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yep. And my heart in that is, you know, we can teach you so many concepts, which we are happy to do through this podcast. And then we also give a lot of practical steps of things you can do and resources because we really want the application. But I also think you being able, you the listener, being able to watch us take someone through the process, you learn it in such a deeper way. And sometimes, sometimes we have questions about it that we don't even know we have questions about. And when you actually see it happen, it makes so much more sense. So I just thought it would be such a great way just to do that on the podcast. You can actually hear or see if you're on YouTube, you can hear a person go through the process so that it can help you go through your own process too.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

Absolutely. So some people are probably wondering, but yes, that sounds great, but what the heck is the remote control exercise? So for some, this will be new, for some, it'll be a bit of a review. So why don't you start off, Laura, about describing what the remote control exercise is and also how you came up with the idea.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah. So what the remote control exercise is, it's this process exercise that we do to be able to use the compassion method in a really practical way of going step by step through recognizing that what triggers us, being able to go through the process to be able to come to a place that we're able to see the wound behind the trigger. Because for every trigger, there's actually a wound motivating that reaction. And most of the time we just stay in have a reaction, suppression, or self-control, have a reaction, self-control. And the remote control exercise is the purpose of it is to be able to actually walk through a trigger as close to or in real time, so that you no longer be having the trigger happen to you, but you actually start to be able to work with the reaction, work with the trigger to be able to go through it to come back to yourself, come back to that sophisticated brain that is able to reason and work through things.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

So, kind of going back to when you were first developing the compassion method, the remote control exercise wasn't something you had from the beginning.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

When did you when did you kind of incorporate it?

SPEAKER_01 4:47

So people would come and meet with me, you know, once a week or every two weeks, depending upon, you know, how often they wanted to come meet. And if you think about it, if you're only meeting for one hour once a week, and I'm teaching and helping you process through things, but then you go back to your everyday life and you don't know how to do what we're actually doing together during that time, then you're gonna usually not be able to uh continue that process on your own time. And the remote control exercise is actually rewiring your brain to respond differently in conflict, to respond differently when we're getting going through something. But that takes real life situations, real time, not coming in two weeks later to a session with me and being like, okay, you know, which is okay. I had this trigger, let's walk through it. But I found that if people weren't doing the homework, weren't doing the remote control exercise on a daily basis for themselves, with themselves, they were not being able to move forward because every time they had a trigger come up, they'd have to come back to me. And part of why I call myself a consultant versus a coach is I want to consult you and how you can go through your trigger on your own time and in your real life. So the step-by-step process was literally me like writing out what I do when you're in a one-on-one session with me and you get triggered or you bring up a trigger, and that was the exact process that I walk people through every time. So then I put it into words, you know, step-by-step process that people could actually write down. Because when you're in a trigger, it's very hard to remember this podcast. It's really hard to remember what you've learned because it's all in that sophisticated brain and it turns off in those moments of trigger. And now we're primarily using our amygdala to navigate major conflict. And we all know that that doesn't go very well. So to be able to have it something that you can actually write out and connect to became very helpful for my clients that I was working with.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

Yeah, your goal is very much to work yourself out of a job.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Exactly. Definitely. I want people to be able to do it on their own and and and then eventually be able to teach their children and being able to start to change the way you do it for yourself, with yourself. And I'm more of a support that has like training wheels on it until you can ride the bike on your own.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

And I know this was very intentional on your part, but when I was meeting with you one-on-one, I mean, I didn't realize this was happening, but I felt very empowered from day one that I can do this. Like I this is something I can do. And it's kind of this is really no different than like going to see a personal trainer. Like if you go to see a personal trainer once a week and that's all you do, that's not gonna, you're not gonna see great results.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Nope, exactly. That's such a great illustration.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Yeah, so you we have to go back. So, how soon in the process of somebody kind of just learning about the compassion method and just kind of either working with you one-on-one, working through the podcast, or maybe they're working with one of your other consultants that they they found through your website. Um, how soon do you think it makes sense to start working through the remote control exercise?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, that's a great question. And so what I found is usually I don't open with the remote control exercise when I'm meeting with someone for the first time. There are sometimes occasions that I will do that because I see that they've actually already been doing some of the processing with themselves in maybe a different way. So they're they're aware of some of the components of the remote control exercise. We'll go over it more step by step, but there's five steps to the remote control exercise. And if you've, you know, and I'll just say for example, one of them is being able to identify the more tender, softer emotions behind our big reactions that come with triggers. But if you've never recognized that it's not just that you're angry, but you actually have a tender emotion behind it, sometimes the process of connecting to that emotion needs to be practiced first before we go to the next step. So I'll kind of, you know, see where people are at and the process. And if they're more familiar with different steps and they've been able to do that for themselves, um, I feel like sometimes they'll be ready to do the remote control exercise. But sometimes it can take anywhere between, you know, two to four sessions before people are feeling like they have each of the pieces well enough to be able to put it together.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes sense. I think of the compassion method or I think of the remote control exercise as kind of the uh a secret weapon of the of the compassion method. It's kind of really where for me especially, the compassion method really all came together.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yes, that's such a good way to say it. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 9:31

Now there is danger of looking at this in that way, like it's a weapon or a tool.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Because a lot of us have this fixation of fixing. Like a lot of people walk in your door, they want to fix them.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

They recognize their trigger, they're like, fix the trigger.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

Or they don't even recognize that. They walk in, I have anxiety. I have anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

External, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

I have depression, fix me, you know, fix me. Or that's true, I'm having relational problems. Help me fix this other person.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yes, it's usually wanting to fix something outside of ourselves that's affecting us.

SPEAKER_04 10:05

Right, right, right, right. So, you know, with with a lot of people's obsession around fixing, just explain how this can go awry if you don't have the right um motivation here.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah, yeah. So often people will use, like you say, I like the secret weapon one, though. That's kind of fun because it does feel like a secret power, secret weapon to be able to do things that you were never able to do before because you didn't understand what was happening. It's so empowering to be able to recognize that's happening. I sometimes use an um analogy of like um when triggers happen, they feel like a wave crashing on you, you know. And if you've ever been in the ocean, it doesn't feel very good for waves to crash on you and you get tumbled and you can't breathe and you come up, and it just makes it a miserable experience. But if you either body surf or surf and you learn how to ride the wave, it actually becomes an enjoyable process. And so you're actually working with the wave, working with the trigger versus it happening to you. So I love that empowerment and that, but I'm off, I'm off, I'm going off on a rabbit trail, but coming back to, you know, being able to connect with um the remote control exercise or any part of the compassion method, we want it to come from a place of relationship and connection. You know, it's very popular to hear tool or work or other words that imply that we have to use this tool to fix something that's broken, right? Versus being able to recognize this is actually an opportunity and this tool is not a tool to fix it, but it's a tool to see more of ourselves, more of our pain, more of the ability to see past the reaction to the deeper thing that's actually motivating the reaction in the first place.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

I think it very important to go back to one of the first things you ever told me is that you're not broken. You don't need to be fixed.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

And so many people are even maybe drawn to a podcast like this because they feel like they're broken.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yes. And it and then in a moment of trigger, it does feel like you're broken, you know, like it does feel that way, but you're not broken. You have an amazing sophisticated brain that scientists can still not even figure out how intricate and involved that brain is. And when you are in that sophisticated brain, your brain works perfectly. It's just when we get triggered, we go into our amygdala, and that sophisticated brain shuts down, and then we feel broken.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

Right. Right. And it's very shaming.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Very shaming, especially when you we did our last um episode on, you know, um, what is it when you feel like you're failing, you know, and it feels like so much shame when you've been doing this forever. I even find it sometimes, sometimes I get stuck in the remote control exercise. Five easy steps that I've led thousands of people through that I've you know successfully done for myself in the past. But sometimes when I get into an extra big trigger that I'm not able to see clearly, I even get stuck in it at times. And so that's why we need so much assistance in it to be able to go through it. And that's why the remote control exercise, I also like to consider it like an anchor, kind of anchors us back to our brain actually being able to process through it.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

You know, I was going back through some of my notes from our one-on-one sessions, and one of the things that you said to me was the remote control exercise can be a tool to connect with my heart or simply a tool to help me get out of a trigger.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

And how we want this to be all about connection. You say connection is the key.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

So it's and it's kind of also too like, you know, when you just do it to get out of the trigger, it's like putting a band-aid on it. It's not actually healing it. And guess what? Your trigger will always come back if it hasn't been properly taken care of. So if we approach it just to stop it versus to connect with our heart, it'll come back up in another way again until we properly take care of it.

SPEAKER_04 14:02

Well, and I think the the nice thing about the remote control exercise too is that in order for us to heal, we've talked about this a lot of times, we have to learn to feel what we're feeling. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

And the remote control exercise, in my the way I look at it, is it helps us feel it in doses.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

Like it it becomes having a bit of a recipe, because it is a bit of a recipe, having a bit of a formula helps us to because a lot of us that we're avoiding spending our whole life avoiding feeling, we really don't know where to start. And the remote control exercise kind of gives us some guardrails.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Like we're gonna help you feel to start practicing feeling, to start practicing going through it.

SPEAKER_04 14:48

Yeah.

unknown 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:49

And it's less overwhelming.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Yes, exactly. Because if you weren't in your early childhood development, if you weren't raised in a home that taught you how to process emotions, emotions can feel very unpredictable. They can feel very scary because we just it just happens to us. We're going along, minding our own business, having a great day. All of a sudden, we this person says something, we get a phone call, something happens. And now we went from peaceful, happy to out of control, you know, feeling like you know, huge emotions that we don't know how to navigate because we were never taught. And if, and also usually shame for the big emotions and not taught how to walk through them.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That would be very, very, very similar to how I grew up. So yeah, definitely spent a lot of time not feeling emotions for sure. For sure. So we've talked a little bit about how this pro this process is scientific and you've kind of hit on it from the standpoint of when you're in a trigger, you're stuck in your amygdala, yeah, you're stuck in the primal part of your brain, you don't have access to your more sophisticated aspects. What are some other ways? You know, you started to talk about how um you can kind of rewire. So just talk a little bit about a little bit more of the science behind the remote control exercise, and maybe even why you arranged it the way you did from a scientific standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, that's great to hear. So, some of the neuroscience of it is, you know, when we have a reaction, you know, like when you think about being at the doctor and they have the little hammer and they like hit your knee and it reacts. You know, you're not kicking, it's a reaction that's happening when that little hammer hits your knee. So when we have reactions, we have um we go into protectors, we go into ways to stop the reaction, especially if it's going to lead to disconnection. So react, suppress, or react, explode. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. We all have these reactions that happen. So for our whole lives, when we had conflict, we had something that triggered us, we would go into a certain reaction. So what you're doing as you're rewiring and you're able to recognize what you're feeling and go through the process of getting your needs met, being able to come down from that trigger through taking care of your heart, what ends up happening is you you no longer are being um, you're no longer getting trapped in the reaction. You're starting to say the reaction instead of going fight, fight, free, spawn, the reaction starts being curious.

SPEAKER_04 17:26

Yeah, why is this bugging me so bad? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

It starts to become a curious thing, it starts to become a um self-reflection. It starts to be able to say, Hey, I remember this before. I thought it was them, but really this reminds me of. So we start getting curious with ourselves, we start getting curious with whatever's causing us to trigger, we start going into that. Hold on a second. And that's why I like the remote control exercise the pause.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

Yeah. So instead of reacting, that's step number one, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

By the way, I just gave a little one after that. Step one.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Step one, we'll go through the steps, but step one is pause.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

It's training ourselves every time I do it to pause versus react. And I love the fact that it becomes automatic because we have so many things that try to teach us how to be self-controlled. Anger management, I get angry. Oh, I shouldn't be angry because it's causing problems. So instead of actually getting to the root of why I'm angry in the first place, I suppress the anger by controlling it, but it keeps coming back up. And so when I recognize, hey, I want to fight right now, but I know that's just covering up a wound. Something must be hurting. I'm gonna pause instead of react and explore. And that starts to become our go-to versus our go-to is to react, our brain we rewires for our go-to to pause and connect with ourselves. Nice. And it's so amazing when it happens, especially when like you're not even like trying because you've been practicing, you know, like when people actually do the exercise. I have some clients that'll come in and they'll be like, it doesn't work. And I'm like, Are you are you doing it? And they're like, not really.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

And I'm like, Well, it's probably not gonna work unless you do it. Um so if you're my biceps haven't grown a bit. Have you done it? I keep just walking into the gym and I walk out, I don't know why the gym's not working.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Um but yeah, you actually have to do it. But when I've seen people do it consistently, even for like two weeks, they'll do it like, you know, once a day or you know, every other day for like two weeks. All of a sudden, they're like, I wasn't upset. It was the weirdest thing. Normally I'd be so mad, and I've been mad for 20 years in my marriage because every time he does this thing, I always get mad. And all of a sudden, it wasn't because I was trying not to get mad, I wasn't mad.

SPEAKER_04 19:47

Yeah, because that whole trying not to get mad thing that's only gonna work for so long.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

It only works for so long as eventually it's gonna boil over.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Yeah, it's like you've got this, like there's this pain inside of all of us that it just you know, it wants to come out, and we can mis we can tame it to a bit at times with the protectors and with the ignoring it and going to anything else besides letting ourselves feel it. But eventually it's gonna catch you in a weak moment, which is what we talked about last week with the failure thing, yeah. Like a failure, because it'll catch you in that weak moment, you're tired, you're sleepy, you're whatever, you're hungry, and all of a sudden it just comes out like a lion.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

You know, yes, it sure does when you no longer can control it because it's actually that lion can be tamed. Yes, it can. And the beauty, the beautiful thing about it when we talk about doing the exercise, doing the remote control exercise for heart connection, when we're doing it with that purpose in mind, it starts to become this relationship that we're having versus this behavior management.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

And it's so because the whole reason we're getting triggered in the first place is we have pain or we have a met need that hasn't been taken care of. But the reason why triggers are so persistent, it's actually our brain and our heart trying to get what we need to heal. Yeah, it would be like if I had like a splinter in my skin, it's gonna get all infected and painful. And I'm I remember like one of my kids didn't show me their splinter forever, and it was like the size of like a 50 cent piece. It was like so big, and it was like infected, and it was like pus was in there, and it was horrible. And I was just like looking and going, I can't believe that this little tiny splinter could cause all that, you know, pain and inflammation and infection. But that's kind of how it is. We all have these splinters of pain in our hearts that we've left by trying to control it, suppress it, ignore it, and now it's an infection. And so now it's getting louder and louder and louder. The pain gets louder, trying to get our attention to heal the wound that's causing that infection. We have to actually take the splinter out versus just keep trying to put a band-aid on or put ointment on it without actually getting rid of the pain that's there by taking care of it.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

Well, yeah, we've we've hit we've hit some great ways of how this is scientific. And I think comparing it to some of these medical things is really helpful in working out and all that stuff. There's a lot of science there.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

But we it, you know, the title of the episode is The Art and the Science of the Remote Control Exercise. So, how is it an art?

SPEAKER_01 22:31

To me, it's an art because it's the art ultimately of knowing yourself. But the remote control exercise is that tool, that weapon, that helps us be able to know ourselves. And there's an art to it. The first time you start asking yourself some of the questions that are part of the remote control exercise, you're going to get usually more uh you're not superficial, but you're going to get more surfacey answers because you haven't developed the art of it. So when you ask a question, you're you're usually pretty satisfied with whatever your answer is because you don't know how to go deeper into it. But with anything that you practice, anything that you repeatedly do, that repetition starts to cause us to be able to go into it as an art of I know myself so well. Just like if I knew anything so well, I'm able to actually be it becomes an art to it versus it being a um methodical process that we go through.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

Yeah, you know, and I I look at it as it's not, it's kind of a recipe, it's kind of a formula, but it's it has this structure that really helps. But it's beautiful and messy, and it's like no two way, no two times through it are ever the same.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Nope.

SPEAKER_04 23:53

You know, this isn't like we're working out a math problem that there's one right answer at the end of it.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Yes, that's a really good point.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

There's not like one right answer at the end of this. Because the thing is, is we don't fully even know the answer because really the answer is getting to know ourselves and we don't really even fully know ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

No, exactly. We've never developed that, we've never explored that, and so all of a sudden we're asking these questions. And I like how you said that. There's a structure to the remote control exercise, but what I would say is that it's the essence or substance of compassion, but the substance also of how we feel towards ourselves that actually is the healing power to it. And so if you just go through the structure of it, if you went through the remote control exercise, but you were not connected to yourself, you were not connected to your emotions, and you went through the formula or the recipe, it would not produce the same outcome because you went through it as a structure without actually having life in it. And that's what sometimes, like especially people that are like rule followers, they'll like leave my office the first time with it and they'll say, I I actually really did try. I tried every single day, but I couldn't do it. Because I tried to do the steps, but ultimately what we figured out together is that I tried to do the steps without my heart in it.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, so it's it's not a math book. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

But it gives you guidelines and structure. And sometimes you might, you know, spend only a little bit of time with one area, and so most of the time you walk through it with a different area. It's kind of all just based on what we actually need in that moment.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Yeah. Yeah. So I I look at it too as the you mentioned this a few times, the compassion. So this to me was a gateway. So it opens the door to compassion.

SPEAKER_02 25:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 25:44

And the helps you to remove the barrier from receiving comfort.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

And the barrier to receiving comfort really is our protectors.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

Things we throw up.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yes, that we are protecting ourselves from the very thing that we need. Yes. Because we're more familiar with the pain and the trigger than we are familiar with knowing ourselves and loving ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

And I give this the analogy, the drowning person analogy. Like you can't swim right up to them and help them.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

No, they're gonna thrash, they're gonna push you away, they're gonna drown.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

The very thing, like you could be an you know, a professional swimmer and you you swim up to them, and the very thing they need, they're not receiving.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah, you not see the first response. Oh, I'm just gonna not do anything. That survival instinct causes that fight against the very thing we need.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

Yeah. So let's let's walk through the steps. So the first step you already gave.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Yes. So the first step, which is most important, is the pause. And that pause is being able to do two things. It's being able to create that habit of pausing whatever is going on, but it also is creating the habit of not blaming. When I pause the trigger, I stop blaming the trigger and I turn towards myself to explore why that trigger or why that circumstance is triggering me in the first place. We spend so much of our lives blaming people and circumstance that we never, or ourselves exactly, we blame ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

People, we're people, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

People, yeah. Ourselves, others, God. We blame so many things. We're frantically blaming things to avoid facing the pain within us. It's easier for me to when that pain, like you said, we all have that pain ball, when that pain comes up, it's easier to try to displace it on you than to actually look at that pain and face it. And the remote control exercise helps you pause the person or circumstance to look at the pain.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

And you nailed it exactly. This is this to me is the absolute most important step because if you can't do this, you can't go any further.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

You can't go any further. Yeah. I remember when the first time I was doing it, because I'm a very justifiable blamer. So if it wasn't justifiable, I could pause it and be like, you're right, I shouldn't be blaming you because it's kind of ambiguous about who's at fault here.

SPEAKER_04 28:06

It's ambiguous.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

All right, I'll do the exercise. But it would felt so blatantly justifiable that this person did this thing, my brain couldn't pause. I'd be like, but I was fine before they walked in the room. They are the problem. You know, what is the it's not me as the common denominator, it's them walking into the room and saying that thing that caused me to trigger. It's not my problem. I actually was offended that someone would be able to come up and treat me badly. And then I had to do the remote control exercise when they behave that way. I wanted them to change. I wanted them to acknowledge it. It didn't make sense to me in the beginning to actually face my process when they were blatantly doing something that wasn't right, that wasn't okay. So I literally, for like probably a good week, I'd put my hand on my head and be like, it's not about them.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

And I would literally have like, yes, it is. No, it's not, yes, it is, because it was so hard for me to actually give a hundred percent um pause and say it's not about them right now. And then put a hundred percent attention on me. That was very difficult. I would do like 30 on me, 70 on them, but I couldn't do a hundred percent eyes on me to explore what was going on inside of me.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. The cause that that little mantra, it's not about blank. Yes, you know, it's it's not about the whatever the circumstance, it's not about the deal I just lost, or it's not about you know the fight that I had with my wife. You know, it's not about my wife, you know. Yes, and I would say that to myself to help to help me pause. Yes, and I'd say it over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

It's not about it is an art to see that first one. It is an art to pause. We are wrestling within ourselves to actually be able to surrender and to pause.

SPEAKER_04 29:59

There's a second thing that I would do that you mentioned that really helps me is when I find myself really whatever, you know, you've talked about the bigger the trigger, the littler you are.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

So I would just say to myself, I'm gonna get little with this. I'm gonna give myself permission to be little. Yeah, I don't have to be adult me with all the responsibility and all the pressure that comes with being an adult. I'm not gonna be that person right now. I am just gonna get little and I'm gonna go back to a time when the world was much simpler.

unknown 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

No, I love that. That is so helpful. Yes, and it's also kind of helping you recognize what brain you're in, too.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Because sometimes we think we're this very smart adult in that moment. We're just, you know, justifiably super angry right now because of what they did. And we think we're an adult in that moment. So I love how you say, I'm gonna get little with this, because it's actually helping you get to the part of your brain that's actually the part that we need to pay attention to. Yeah, all that trying to figure it out and justify and get the jury to come in and agree with us that they're wrong. And people always say, like, would you be okay with it? And I'd be like, No, I wouldn't be okay with it. But why it wouldn't be okay with it.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

But I could be okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Exactly. I wouldn't be okay with it.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Wouldn't be my preference ever.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Exactly. But I'd also say, like, but but this is the thing. I agree with you that someone shouldn't treat someone like that. But why it bothers me and why it bothers you are two different things. So just saying it's about degrees, exactly. So just saying it's wrong and bad doesn't actually face why my heart, myself, saw that as a threat, saw that as something that I needed to fight against versus being able to fight for myself.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Well, yeah, there's a there's a part inside of a person that has to fight so hard because they feel like the only way they could ever be okay is if that situation outside of themselves gets fixed.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 32:02

That person stops doing that, the weather stops doing that, the market stops doing that, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Because there is so many things outside of our control. Yeah. That if it's not one, it's gonna be another. So you spend your whole entire life in defense versus offense says, I can be okay even if blank is not okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

Well, and a thousand percent the remote control exercise, there's definitely elements of this that's defensive when you first are learning it. But the whole goal of it is to put you on the offense. Yes, the whole goal here is to put you on the offense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 32:39

So I think one thing that could help people as they're learning these steps here to realize, and I think help prevent some frustration, is that especially at the beginning, this is not gonna get done in the moment.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

No, no, it's this is gonna get done in hindsight. This is gonna be hindsight. I always tell people that I work with come back to it as soon as you're able to, whether that's five minutes, five hours, five days.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

Five years.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Five years. Come back to it when you're able to. In the moment, your brain is not working correctly. You are not going to be able to effectively be able to connect to yourself when your brain, your amygdala is in a tin trigger. That means that your whole sophisticated brain is turned off and you are in full primal mode. That it's like a kid that didn't get something is just throwing this huge fit. You're not going to go up to that child that's throwing this huge fit and be able to calm them down. We're not going to be able to calm our child brain down in that moment. We're going to have to wait a moment until things calm down in order to engage.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

Well, and like when I said five years, my goal wouldn't be is that people wait five years from right now to start doing this. The goal would be that I think, at least I do, maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but I'm sure others the same way. There'll be things that'll just pop up in my brain that happened a long time ago that I'll feel extreme shame about or embarrassment, or be like, or just be a reminder, something will trigger me back to that memory from way back when. So I can go back to that event that happened a long time ago that was really embarrassing, or whatever it was, or I'm ashamed of, and I can work through this process.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Yeah. And it I've worked on, I have certain um pain points, certain things that have happened that it has taken years to fully walk through it to the degree and to the depth that my heart needed for me to walk through it. And so it take, it does take time. I got layers of it, of course. I was able to know more about myself and I was able to understand more of my process, but sometimes it takes time and building that trust and relationship and connection with yourself to actually get to some of the deeper wounds that we are so strongly protecting. And that protection can last for years.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Well, let's move on to the second step.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

So after we've paused, we've turned our affections, our attention to ourselves, we're going to start with the question um, what did I feel? We start with, what did I feel in my reaction? And that's the opportunity to be angry, to be able to say whatever you need to say. The big emotion.

SPEAKER_04 35:20

The big dramatic one.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

The big dramatic one, the ones that we're not supposed to. You know, sometimes when people would process it outside of it, they would say, like, yeah, I think I was a little bit annoyed and just a little bit frustrated. And I'm like, I bet in the moment it was a little bit more than that, but we're not supposed to have those big emotions. So sometimes when we go through this, we're not as honest with how big our emotions felt because we're not supposed to feel those.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

Some people, not like me, whereas me, like when it gets really bad, it comes out, you know, like there may have been a time in my life where a hole or two or three maybe got punched in a wall. I don't know. I think I think that might have happened, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:57

So that's big and dramatic. And for some people though, big and dramatic is happening on the inside, but on the outside, they're they're frozen or they're, you know, just wanting to get out of there.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

They're disassociating, they're disconnecting.

SPEAKER_04 36:11

So whatever the big has to be, you know, external, it could be really big and dramatic going on on the inside.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Yes, exactly. So you want to write all those down. So now we've felt our reaction emotions.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

So some examples you've given are like, you know, angry, I feel out of control. Yeah, I feel frustrated, uh, helpless and hopeless are dead giveaways. So, like one of my great, great, great, great indicators that I'm in a triggered place, and I'll even catch myself is when I feel like there's no hope.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:44

Like when I can't even see a light at the end of the tunnel, I'm like, wait a second. No, no, no, no, no. I know right away, dead giveaway, that and sweat running down my back. That's the other one. My back will sweat, and I'll be like, I don't even know this happening. All of a sudden, my back is really hot. I'm like, oh, I must be triggered.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Triggered something, something got me, you know. Yep. Um, so hopelessness and sweat running down my back. Those are my two, my two big things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

So we have those reactions that we can, as we become more in tune, we can go, it's happening.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

So then from there, we want to funnel down to tender emotions. And that process can start out with like the bigger ones, and then sometimes we kind of have like medium emotions, and then it brings us down to our most tender emotions, which is sad, scared, or lonely, or sometimes a little bit of a combination of them. Usually you'll feel one primarily stronger in that moment.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

So you're like, and this is really important because you boil all of these big reaction emotions.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

All of it. You funnel them down to this little, little sad.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

But that little sad is like a splinter that causes a big reaction. Yeah. And so we're going down to that wound ultimately. And that's the tenderness of sad, scared, or lonely. And once we've identified that, that we were one of those, then we're going to ask ourselves, what do you need?

SPEAKER_04 38:10

Step three.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Step three. What do you need? Commonly, people say, I need that person to stop, or I need that person to say sorry.

SPEAKER_04 38:17

But remember, there's we got to go back to step one then.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

And then we go back and we re-pause them again. They're, they're, they're frozen. They can't give you anything in that moment.

SPEAKER_04 38:25

That's it's remember, it's a remote control exercise, and that's the whole thing here. You can pause them.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

The remote has paused them. So if you do feel like I just need them to say sorry, I just need them to empty the trash, I just need them to do whatever I wanted them to do. Go back and pause again. It's not about them right now.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

I need them to say I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Yep, I know exactly. You actually do not need someone to say they're sorry to be okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

We like when people say sorry for their actions, but they don't have to say sorry for you to be okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:54

Remember, we're empowering you right now.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

So now we've recognized if someone else has to do something for you to be okay. That's not very empowering.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

You're gonna wait your whole life for that person to say sorry and you're gonna be tormented by it because you're not okay within yourself. So being able to come to that third step, which is our the 10 gifts, which is our 10 emotional needs. And you can go back and listen to the 10 gifts, because I don't want to elaborate too much on it, just for time's sake. But there's 10 emotional needs that we needed in childhood that that sad, scared, and lonely is needs. So a lot of times I'll say, What does your sadness need? That helps us get smaller, that's how that helps us stay connected to the sadness. What did that sadness need? Oh, that sadness needed to be held. Oh, that sadness needed to be seen. That sadness need wanted someone to be with. So now I'm recognizing, oh, that's what that sadness needed. Once I recognize, yep, what I need, yeah, play exact.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

That's a big one.

SPEAKER_04 39:55

That was one I had this week.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

And it was so funny how we got there. I mean, you you would look at the thing that triggered me and how that ended up in play.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

I know sometimes it makes a logical sense and sometimes it doesn't because we're irrational.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Well, it makes logical sense now, but like certainly didn't at the beginning. I'm like, I knew I was triggered, I knew I was gonna, but how I ended up there, I was like, wow, you know what? It took someone else, I wasn't taking the time to do this. So then someone asked me that knows a little bit about this process, yeah, not a ton, but they know a little bit about it. And uh she asked me, she said, so what do you think? Where do you think it's coming from? Because we knew it wasn't about the thing, yeah. Like we both knew that, yes, and then she just threw it out. I'm like, Oh, I guess I haven't really spent the time because it was one of those triggers that was easy to kind of live with.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Yes, we do. We live with some until they become too uncomfortable. We live with a lot of triggers that are just tolerable, but then you end up living a tolerable life, right?

SPEAKER_04 41:00

That's great, great way to say it. But anyway, I recognize I needed play, so then we're gonna move from where that was step three. What do you need?

SPEAKER_01 41:08

So now that you recognize I needed that play, you're gonna move to the next step, which is giving yourself compassion. And giving yourself compassion is being with yourself in your emotions, being with yourself in your lack, being able to come back to who you are in the middle of that. So compassion doesn't just compassion does see your pain because you just walk through those steps to recognize what's hurting and what you're feeling and what you're needing. But compassion goes a step further and says, your pain matters, but you matter even more. And that step is so key for what we talked about earlier of keeping your heart connected to the process, keep your heart connected to the remote control exercise versus trying to fix it because we've recognized what's not what's not working. Now, if compassion says, I see you and I want to be with you in this, and at that time would be also the opportunity to be able to help bring gift givers in, like we've talked about, to be able to see ourselves at small in that moment, especially if we were really triggered, because compassion can see where our heart is at in that moment and be with us in that moment.

SPEAKER_04 42:21

Yeah, and the the compassion is that you know, we've talked about how you talk about uh a trigger is an like an emotional allergic reaction. Yes, like you talked about the the hammer and the reflexes, and so we have that, and then the compassion is like that balm that takes the yes, it takes the sting out of the bee stinger, you know. It just takes that out.

SPEAKER_01 42:44

As you say some of the compassion words to yourself after you've gone through each of those four four, when you get to that fourth step, you're able to actually be able to say, I see you trying so hard. I can tell you care so much. It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna stay with you until you feel safe. You start to speak those words to that wound, to those emotions, to that lag. And as we do with genuine connection, it starts to soothe, it starts to heal the inflammation of our triggered brain so it can calm down, and our sophisticated brain can come back on. Now the last step is unpausing that person or circumstance, and when we unpause, we are now able to see it differently because our trigger has gone down. I always tell people you may still be a little bit triggered, it doesn't always go down to zero, and that's not really the goal.

SPEAKER_04 43:53

No, it doesn't ever really go down to zero.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

No, we're not trying to get rid of it to be successful. The success was that I made contact with my heart. Yeah, I was able to recognize there's more to the story. I was able to recognize that there was pain that was making this feel so big and so out of control. And now that pain is soothed. So now when I look back at the situation, it doesn't feel the same anymore.

SPEAKER_04 44:23

Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about it on the scale of one to ten, and I do that a lot. Okay. So Going into it, I felt it was eight, nine, ten, it was high, you know. And then coming out of it, you know, am I at a five or lower? You know, and and and then I start to see where's my hope, where's my because I said, you know, the the two things that the hope, I lose I lose all track of hope, or my back is sweaty. So okay, the big one for me is like, okay, can I see hope in the future now? Maybe it's just a flicker, but I can I see it.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yeah, exactly. Yes, you can see. Can I see hope?

SPEAKER_04 44:59

Can I see hope that exists even if I don't get out of this situation that I don't like that I'm in, or this person keeps doing what they're doing for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

Can I be okay?

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Can I be okay?

SPEAKER_01 45:14

And can I see hope so important? I love that as an indicator of okay, I see hope. Okay, I'm back in my real brain, I'm back into myself again. I can see, even if not completely clear, I can see more clearly.

SPEAKER_04 45:29

Yeah. Yeah. So what are some reasons, kind of in our finishing time here? What are some reasons why this maybe wouldn't work?

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:41

Like this whole process. What are some reasons where it kind of goes off the rails?

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Yeah, some of the top ones that I see people struggle with the most is um number one, the first step, the pause. Can't stop blaming. And so we have to learn how to stop the blame cycle to take care of ourselves. And like I said, that might be that you just stay at one until you can stop blaming.

SPEAKER_04 46:10

I'm I'm not, I don't, you know, you've you've talked about how you've met one-on-one with people, you know, thousands, and I've met, you know, single digits probably. I don't know. It's probably more than that. I probably met one on one with 20, 30 people.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

It's been a little bit more than that.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

So, like this, I remember this one guy, he kept bringing up these other things. I'm like, nope, we ain't talking about that. Yeah, that's off limits. Yeah, like and I remember it's so funny because it kept coming back. I'm like, nope, we ain't talking about that. You know, it is what you got to do to yourself when you're going through a site.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

No, no, definitely. You're wrestling there because everything in us is fighting, but it's not inside of me, it's outside, it's outside itself.

SPEAKER_04 46:48

They are a jerk. Okay, they're gonna be they're a jerk. We'll just set them aside. We'll set the jerk aside and we'll come back to the jerk later.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Yes, you know, and it's okay to come back, but you're gonna have such a more successful conversation if you actually work through the trigger versus reacting the trigger. But for that moment, that pause is everything. Number two, not really feeling what you're feeling. Sometimes we try to intellectualize what we're feeling and look at it more like from a logical perspective without allowing ourselves to actually feel it.

SPEAKER_04 47:16

Too much science, not enough art. Exactly. Too much uh left brain, not enough right brain.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Yes, exactly. So we want to be able to really practice feeling. And sometimes I'll give people the homework of just five minutes a day, set a timer, and just feel anything you're feeling. Uh triggers, but also good things too. Whatever emotions you're feeling, practice feeling. And again, people go like that. Seems like you just automatically feel. If our emotions were suppressed in early childhood development, we disassociate and disconnect from the emotion before we actually feel it. We might feel like a wave of it, and then our brain just shuts down and says, We're not gonna feel that. And so practicing feeling is important. Yeah, um, the third thing is when we're not actually connected to compassion, we're still trying to fix, we still feel sorry for, we're still trying to figure it out versus just be with ourselves in that moment. So practicing compassion is important. It is an art. Each of these steps is an art. When you put them all together, it creates this art of all those pieces actually functioning versus knowing them separately, but not actually knowing how to make them work together. That's the beauty of the remote control exercise, is it takes um being able to stop the blame cycle, connect to your emotions, get tender, get soft, be able to know what you need, be able to apply compassion. And that process of putting those five parts together is the art of self-compassion, of the compassion method of the remote control exercise. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:52

Yeah, you know, one of the things that you talked about too was if you can't, we we won't recognize it in the moment. So I think sometimes I know I had a tendency to be like, oh, I missed my opportunity there. Yeah, you know, I had the thing, I didn't do the remote control exercise, and I would be like, uh it's too late now, but it's just not. We talked about that. Yeah, it'll come.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

I always say, like, when people are like, I'm fine, I'm like, did you get triggered? Yeah. Then you're not fine. You it's gonna keep coming back up and reminding you and reminding you, just like a kid that's hungry. They're not gonna stop until they get fed. Your heart's not gonna stop until it gets bad. So it'll come back up again. You'll have another opportunity. I guarantee it. Don't worry, the opportunity will come again. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

And uh kind of a thing I had in my notes uh that you had told me you said the goal is not to get through it because I think maybe part of me had that moment. Like, this is where like the some of the analogies to exercise break down because sometimes an exercise, the goal is just to get through it.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Yeah, because your heart's not gonna be able to do it. People are training for something, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

It's a physical thing, right? But no, the goal here isn't just to get through it and say, Okay, I did my remote control exercise today, check my box, you know. Yep. The goal is to be with yourself, yeah. And with that as the goal, you you you have it being you said it's always a success.

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Yeah, it always is a fail here.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

It's always a success.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

Even if I was only able to get to step one, that was a success. I was able to be with myself in pausing it.

SPEAKER_04 50:25

You're great on a really good curve. Yes, you got a big curve, Laura.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Well, if you think about it, whatever area that you struggle the most in, that is gonna be your hardest one, and it's also gonna be your biggest success.

SPEAKER_04 50:39

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. So, um, okay, for the future podcasts, someone that wants to do this live, yeah, you know what? It wouldn't be live because we don't record.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

It will be recorded as all of our podcasts are, yeah, but it will be a recorded podcast that you will be part of that you will be able to have me and Brian walk you through that process in real time. Well, maybe not real time because the trigger won't be happening in that moment. It could be. Maybe it might be actually, but maybe being on the podcast will be the trigger.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

But but also I'm maybe you'll have a technical problem trying to get on. Exactly. And that does happen a lot with me.

SPEAKER_01 51:18

Um, but, anyways, I just I'm so excited to actually walk a listener through this process and for you to be able to overcome it. If you've been trying to do this for a while, you've been listening to our podcast, and you really want some um real, you know, that attention to be able to walk through it effectively, would love to help you walk through it. And then it's twofold. You get to walk through it, and then others get to be able to learn from you walking through it, which I think is so valuable.

SPEAKER_04 51:47

So I'm going to share my screen here real quick for the people that are watching on YouTube. And I'm going to show you how to let us know if you're interested in this. So you can go to our website at uh triggeredintrue.com. And right up in the upper right hand corner, there's a little box that says ask. And you just click on that, and you can indicate that what you're actually wanting to do is be a volunteer to walk through the remote control exercise on a future episode of Triggered and True. So Laura is really excited about this, aren't you, Laura?

SPEAKER_00 52:26

I am very excited. Probably a little too excited, but I can't wait for a listener to come be on our podcast with us.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

And then also to be able to really walk through it. I just feel like you're all going to be able to apply it more when you actually see what it looks like or hear what it looks like versus just us talking about it. You know, the hands on is so exciting.

SPEAKER_04 52:45

Absolutely. Well, thank you everyone for joining us for this episode number 57 of Triggered and True. And we look forward to hearing from you very soon.