(Ep. 69) Why Your Pain Is a Terrible Fuel Source (And What to Use Instead)

What if the questions you keep asking are actually pointing you toward the healing you've been looking for?

In this special Q&A episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Friese answer listener questions about emotional healing, the Compassion Method, trauma, learning, and what it really looks like to grow when life feels overwhelming.

From navigating new challenges and emotional triggers to understanding how the brain learns, Laura offers practical, compassionate guidance for questions many listeners wrestle with every day. 

Along the way, the conversation reminds us that healing isn't about getting everything right the first time—it's about becoming curious, staying present with yourself, and allowing each challenge to become an opportunity for growth.

Whether you're wondering why certain situations keep triggering you, how to apply the Compassion Method in real life, or simply need encouragement to keep going, this episode offers honest answers and hope-filled perspectives rooted in both neuroscience and compassion.

In this episode:

🔹 Why learning something new often feels emotionally triggering—and what your brain is doing in those moments

🔹 Listener questions about trauma, emotional healing, and applying the Compassion Method in everyday life

🔹 The difference between reacting from old survival patterns and responding from your true self

🔹 Why curiosity and self-compassion create lasting growth far better than self-criticism or perfectionism

🔹 Practical encouragement for anyone who feels stuck, discouraged, or unsure whether healing is really happening

📩 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 0:29

Laura, it feels like it has been a marathon to get to this point where we are recording our uh episode number 69.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

It definitely does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

We had lots of trigger opportunities as we were working through technological challenges. And the technological challenges were largely self-inflicted because we've upgraded some of our technology and there's a learning curve. So Yep.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

So we're learning, but also actually, it's probably true that most things we're learning for the first time are triggering.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, yeah, to some degree, right. Because you just want it to work. And actually, speaking of that, right before we started this, I was trying to create an AI agent to do a workflow in our business. And it was my first time doing that. So it's interesting. I had to, I started it a few days ago, got frustrated, and just set it aside for 24 hours, didn't do anything with it. And then last night I was thinking, yeah, I was about ready to give up. And then last night I was thinking, you know, I think I can try that again. So I came at it using a different language model, which really helped. And um, I'm about, I have the prototype about done. So I'm excited. And now I gotta figure out how to scale it and to do the next thing and the next thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

But our real brain, our true uh brain, adult brain is so amazing. You know, that's one thing that's really stood out to me this month for myself personally, just our capability, and especially when we think like I've met my end, I can't do it anymore, you know, like you know, that someone else is gonna have to do this, which is completely okay to ask for help and bring in professionals. But I am amazed with what our brain is.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Professionals cost a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Yeah. And also, too, sometimes when I find it hard to have professionals come in for your vision because they're not gonna do it exactly like you. Even if you tell them what you want, I think there's something about you designing something, whatever it might be, you designing it, you putting yourself into it. There's nothing like that. So I do feel like there's something really powerful about pushing our brain past what we think we can do, because then our true self gets to come out in it so much stronger.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah. Well, and I think there's also a huge art of learning how to talk to the LLM, how to talk to the, which actually is the same way that we need to talk to people with that level of specificity and detail.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yeah. I've always thought that, you know, like I think I might have shared it one time, but my kids did this essay one time and the English teacher acted it out based on what they wrote to show them how we're missing parts of it. And it was about just making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

But she just literally did what they said, you know, how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And she would just put the whole jar of jelly on the piece of bread because that's how it was read.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

You know, like, you know, there wouldn't be no take a knife, put the peanut butter on. It would just say put the peanut butter on the bread. You know, so there were just different things that you don't realize that you're not communicating because in your brain, you know the context, you know the backstory, you know the information, but what you're actually writing or saying can be two different things.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah. And in the past, you know, anybody that does coding knows that you have to be very, very specific with every detail of code. Well, now the big advantage is I don't have to learn coding. I just have to learn how to communicate better.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

And also using words instead of code.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yep. And this is going to tie into something we're going to be speaking about in a moment, but I just had kind of a little revelation of that's also connected to how we receive, how we connect with our pain and how we receive comfort. You know, we're we're putting into our system what we're needing. You know, when we recognize we have this pain, that's when we bring in gift givers. That's when we bring in people or ourselves to comfort. And I think there's an art to that where it's not just, I'm sorry you went through that, or I see you, but there's actually particular words that you put into the system for I see you that makes I see you come to life. And I think that it's very important that we're not just saying the words, but we're actually saying them to such a degree that it creates the experience that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, well, that that is a great launching point to get into what we want to talk about. So we're gonna start off just with a little bit of review of our our last episode because um today's episode really kind of takes that to another another place type thing. So in the last episode, we talked about the the science behind the need to learn the ancient art of being still. And being still, letting ourselves start to feel what's going on. But even before we get to the feeling, just allowing us to do a good pause. You know, we talk about the pause in the remote control exercise. Like one of the things, you first things you say when the remote control exercise comes off the rails, you're like, well, you didn't fully pause. You instead of pausing, you consistent you kept going in blame or you kept going in your shame. And instead of that, you just needed to slow down. And then there was some great brain science, you know, connected to why our brain actually needs that time to process and and build memories, and there's like construction going on during those stillness times, which is really neat. So I love connecting the science to it because it helps give me that little extra boost of like, oh, I'm actually doing exercise by being still.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Yeah. I feel like the science behind it gives it a little bit more like uh clarity and purpose because all of a sudden you realize you're not just um shooting in the dark. You actually there is a specific plan and process that we can hold on to when we know the science of it.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, so I have this reading app. I've mentioned it before. It's called ReadWise, and um, it connects to my Kindle and it brings in all my highlights, and then it it shares like 10 of 10 highlights a day with me just from all the books I've read and sometimes organizes them in themes, sometimes it's random. But then at the very last, the 11th one is a highlight from a book that I haven't read.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

That that the little app, the AI app, you know, thinks kind of ties to something you read.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Other things I've read. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

So one one of these came up, and it's a quote that came up from a book, and I think it's a really good reflection on what we discussed um in our last episode, and uh is specifically on maybe what not to do.

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

We talk a lot about what to do, but we don't always say what not to do. So that's true, actually, which I like that. This quote starts off really strong. Okay. So um so here's the quote. It says, You are not supposed to be happy all the time. That's fair. Because we've talked about how happy is really based on externals and uh joy isn't necessarily happy. You know, and you know, so uh so I get that. You're uh that's fair. Life hurts and it's hard. Absolutely. You know, we we live in a world that is not the way that it should be. It's a world that you know mine and I think yours, Laura, believes our our beliefs are that the world is getting put on the right trajectory and one day will be made perfect, but we are not at that day yet.

SPEAKER_05 8:22

Yeah, we've got we have not arrived yet.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

We are living in the in-between, and uh the beautiful thing is is that we believe that we're also here to make this world a better place. So okay, so life hurts and it's hard, not because you're doing it wrong, but because it hurts for everybody. Very good, very good. Don't avoid the pain. Spot on. Wonderful. Like we're going so strong. Don't avoid the pain. You need it. Well, I don't know that I would say that we need it, but fair enough. Don't avoid the pain, you need it. It's meant for you. We're starting to go off the rails. Be still with it. That's really good. We talked a lot about that. Yeah. Learning to be still with our pain.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Because most of our lives we are running from our pain.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

You know, I was I was talking to uh a young person the other day that was going through a really hard time, and we were talking about um the situation they were in. And the reality is that, you know, he's in a marital situation. Him and his wife are going through the same thing where they've got pain coming up from early childhood development.

SPEAKER_05 9:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

One of them is taking avoiding that pain by doing something that's very self-destructive and, you know, societally looked at as wrong. And the other one's doing something that society is societally is looking at as being good. So we have a good one and a bad thing. We have a good one and a bad way. Well, I was talking to the guy that had the bad way, you know, and he was dealing with a lot of shame and all that. And I've said, hey, here's the deal. You're both going through the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Yeah. It's just how you're expressing different.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

You're going one way with the pain, she's going with the other. But the problem is nobody's taking the time to be still with the pain.

SPEAKER_05 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

To even recognize there's pain there.

SPEAKER_05 10:20

Exactly. We're still not going to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

They don't even know why they're doing what they're doing.

SPEAKER_05 10:23

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah. So, yeah. So be still with it. That's spot on, perfect. This is great. Let it come. Yeah. We've talked about that. Sometimes even inviting the pain up.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

And taking time and inviting anxiety to come or anxiety to come.

SPEAKER_06 10:41

Can it be a messenger? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yep. Let yourself sit in it. And um, you know, you and I have talked about how oftentimes for me, that hits me in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Mm-hmm. And I'll have clients sometimes figure out where does that pain hit you?

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yep. And we've talked about this where the homework you gave me, because sleeping in is really hard because I want to get up and do. So in the mornings I'm anxious because I should be doing something. I should get up and do. And you've talked about the homework you gave me of uh when we went through our one-on-one sessions all those years ago. You gave me homework of sleeping in. And I wrote about this in the book that'll be coming out here in a few months, but um I wrote about this extensively of you know how hard that was. That homework is so hard. And it just it just hit me again this morning, and that's why I thought about it. The inviting it up is I woke up earlier than I needed to, and I was like, oh, I started thinking about some other things, and I'm like, okay, here I go. I guess I'm up. And I'm like, no, wait a second. No, I don't need to get up yet. I'm gonna sit here and I invited it up, and I just got little with it. I let myself go to a really young, vulnerable place, and and what's been happening more and more is I don't even really feel like I get time to take comfort because I fall asleep.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Okay, yeah. So sleep is your comfort.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah, I just fall back asleep. So I guess I got somewhere, you know, and then I woke up when my alarm went off, and I was like, to me, that's like huge, huge.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

No, that is huge, yeah. You didn't let your mind take over, you didn't take your let your anxiety take over, you were able to connect with it and calm it and sleep.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

All right, but so the quote's got a lot of promise, okay? But this is where we go off the rails. So let it come, be still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you with the fuel you'll burn to get your work done on this earth. Let it leave you with the fuel you'll burn to get your work done on this earth. My goodness, that sounds so noble.

SPEAKER_05 13:08

It sure does. Let that pain be a catalyst to go do great things.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yes, let that pain be your fuel. So don't comfort it because you need it as your fuel to go get your work done on the earth. So a guy like me in my old life would have read this and bet, amen. Like this is spot on. Yeah, I'm just gonna work harder.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

Yeah, and that'll be one of your primary reasons to feel your pain is to have more feel.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

I I guess, but I honestly don't think anybody's doing that and feeling it. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

And I don't recommend it, but I think sometimes people kind of like, you know, like that whole like suffering thing, like if I can, you know, get in there and I can suffer, then I can get stronger. I've actually had clients argue with me, even get frustrated when they felt like their fuel was affected by compassion and connection to themselves. They used to be able to work 12 hour days. They had fuel. Their pain was motivating them. They were constantly frantic and anxious, driven. And then all of a sudden, we're meeting together and they're connecting to their pain and they're getting comfort.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

And their boss is like, hey, you're actually only working 10 hours a day and not 14.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

This is a literally came to me the next time and they're complaining and they're like, you know, this has been amazing. I'm getting, you know, so much understanding. I'm so connected to myself, I'm connecting to my wife, I'm, you know, my kids, you know, life is really turning into a beautiful thing, except I don't have the fuel to go 12 hours. But if you think about it, how many things are we doing with that fuel that we don't need to be doing? That we do not need to be doing, and that could be hurting us and hurting others. That could be a danger to ourselves and others to constantly live off of the fuel of pain to accomplish, to succeed.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

I got a great example of that that just happened in business this uh this our big sales season that we're just winding down. So um, a couple of my uh employees landed at a uh meeting with this huge prospect in uh in another state, and I'm like, oh, I want to be there for that. I'm like, I gotta be there. I you know, I want to do that presentation, I want to be there. So um, but you know, it sounds right, right? So I drive all the way over there and spend the night and do all this and that, and we had the meeting, and I was about halfway into the meeting, and I was looking at my other two team members, and I just had this strong impression that man, I don't need to be here. Like I think the presentation was great, I think it was all whatever. But I was like, these two could have easily done this without me. But I felt I needed to be there because I just gotta get in there. I gotta show that I'm working really hard, you know. And it's like it's the whole working harder, you know, not smarter. And I think one of the hard things is is for an entrepreneur is that when you start off, you're everything. You're think of every job function a business does, and when you're an entrepreneur and you first launched a company, you are every one of those. And the reality I've came to is I'm not really good at most of them. Um I'm marginal at some. Um I'm, you know, above average or maybe even exceptional at just a very few. Okay. But as you scale the company, you know, it was easy to let go of some of the stuff that I really could recognize I sucked at or had no passion for, like, you know, entering numbers into QuickBooks or something like that. So that stuff was easy to let go of, but it's so hard to, but it to scale a company effectively, you eventually have to let go of the things you're actually good at.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

You cannot even do all the things that you're good at.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Nope. You've got to learn to let go of those, and that is the hardest one to let go of because so much of your identity and purpose is wrapped up into that.

unknown 17:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

And you just think that nobody else can do it the way you do it, which they can't.

SPEAKER_05 17:29

Not exactly the same way, but they can still do it.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

It doesn't mean it isn't better or as good or whatever. It's just going to be, you know, you have your base that you work off of, but it's gonna be a little bit different. So, but you know, that's just a great example of you know, let it leave you with the fuel to burn to get your work done. Like just work, just work your way through it.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

You know, yeah, exactly. And that can be work, work, but it could be in any aspect of our life. To the fuel to be a parent, the fuel to be, because that that's what doesn't that sound inspiring?

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Be a better parent. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yeah, exactly. But really, at the end of the day, you're not showing up in your true self when you're allowing your fuel to be your pain and not who you are.

SPEAKER_06 18:14

Yeah. Yeah, it's still your triggered self, not your true self. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

So, and and what hopefully your client realizes is that their triggered self energy is limited.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Exactly. It's exhausting. But it's that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

That'll eventually burn out.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah. In the beginning, it's like, you know, you're getting your feet underneath you because you've been doing it one way your whole entire life. You don't know how to tap in to your true self-fuel. Because you've been so used to and and wired to use your pain, even probably from a very young age as well. You know, you're so wired to use your pain as your fuel that when we say, okay, pain is not the fuel that's going to actually sustain you and serve you and help you and take care of you. It's going to be your true self. It's going to be who you are versus what you do. Because what we do is limited. But who we are is on the list.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Yeah. But I think, yeah, you've you've said it before, like this, like your doing energy is limited. It is, and that's energy is limitless.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Yep. And that fuel from pain is the same as doing. You know, it but when we are connected to who we are, that energy is creative. That energy is has a vision. That inner energy sees strategy, that energy can see perspective. All of a sudden, that fuel starts to help us do it with peace. You know, I whenever I'm in my true self doing things, when I'm fueled by my true self, I'm so energized. When I'm fueled by pain, I am energized, but it's like a frantic energized versus a peaceful energized.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Well, it's very draining. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Draining on the system and it's it's not gonna allow it. And as you age, you're not gonna have the stamina for it.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Which is why, like so many people burn out, yeah. Mid mid to early 40s, like me, landing in your office, you know, that were high achievers and sailing, and then it's like it's not working. My testosterone levels are dropping every day because I age. Those things were the things that could help keep me have that stamina. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, but so the to heal the pain, the obviously the first step is what we talked about last last episode on learning to be still with it and just stopping and stop letting it be your fuel. You know, stop with it, be still with it, and how that takes practice. And we talked about some practical ways to practice that and disconnect and even just for short, short periods of time, you know, a minute to start with, maybe extend it to three. And we gave some directions around around a self-attunment exercise so you can go back and catch that episode, learn, learn more about that. But one of the things that came up in your practice you mentioned to me offline um after that episode was um you had a person in your practice that was having such a hard time with the concept of gift givers.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

And and just feeling comfort. And you talked about how yeah, it takes practice to learn to be still, but yeah, this part of learning to feel comfort when you've gone without comfort for so long, yeah, it also takes practice.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah, exactly. And even to take it add one more step to it, it's like feeling the pain takes practice. Becoming still with it takes practice, and receiving comfort takes practice. And I think that people just think that comfort's gonna be automatic. But it's no more automatic than being aware of our pain. And just as much as being aware of your pain isn't just I have pain, it feels like something. That's why the remote control exercise is so helpful. Because when you put those emotions to it, it comes to life. Pain isn't just a Four letter word, it's all the words connected to it, all the emotions connected to it that brings it to life. And it has to be alive and breathing for us to be able to comfort it. So, in a way, like you were saying, we're inviting pain and we want the pain to get to such a level that it's true to what our pain feels like to us. But a lot of times we feel pain in a small increment and then we exercise it to be able to feel it to the degree we're actually feeling it in our mind, our body, and our heart.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Well, and I think what blocks a lot of people from wanting to go there is that their comfort is so foreign to them, they don't think it exists.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Yes. And often when people go to, you know, someone to help them feel their pain, it stops there. So in fact, sometimes if you're just feeling your pain, but your pain isn't being connected to comfort, you can actually be worse off than when you were oblivious to it. Some people will say that. They'll say, Well, before I felt pain, I felt ignorantly blissful. And now I feel all this pain and I'm paralyzed by it.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Well, you went off, you went off your medic, your pain medication.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Exactly. And so now we feel it in this.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Using medication, you know, it could be legit pain medication or it could be just figuratively, whatever we were doing to medication.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah, exactly. So now we we're feeling you brought it all to the surface and we're feeling the raw pain. But guess what? We don't know what to do with it besides talk about it. And I'm not, I'm not uh minimizing that talking about your pain is valuable. But if I just keep reliving and talking about my pain and feeling my pain, I'm never going to be able to get to a place of being able to let it go, to be able to, as we say, go play. So we're actually trapped in our pain until we can experience comfort to the same degree that we've exercised and practiced feeling our pain.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Well, and I think what what blocks that in a performance-driven mindset is definitely that the comfort should be just working your way through it. Like they're you know, so like what we talked about, it becomes your fuel or whatever. But another thing that I think really blocks people from wanting to comfort is shame because they feel they're not worthy of comfort.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah. So and I think that also ties to a lot of bad religious theology.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Yeah. That need to stay in pain fueling us.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

We're sinners religion as well. We need to stay beat down.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

And we need to keep thinking about how bad we are to motivate us to do better.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Which doesn't work and isn't actually the gospel.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Right, right. I mean, our general theological belief is that we're made in the image of God. So to minimize who we are as a creation is to minimize his work. And he actually says we're the like we're like the crown jewel of creation. So to tear ourselves to shreds and just rip humanity down to the studs, basically, and say it's worthless, you're kind of what's that say about the dude that made it?

SPEAKER_02 26:00

I know exactly. And also, what does it say about the sacrifice Jesus made? Because what does Jesus say? He said, It's finished. I took care of it. So you don't have to live stuck in your pain and your sin. I took care of it. Now go and live from it being taken care of. Don't live from the shame and the punishment of the knowledge of good and evil.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Yeah. And I think the the concern is that humanity will, if humanity receives that message, they will think less of the cross.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Mm-hmm. And they'll think more of themselves because we're so scared that we're going to be thinking that humans are better than God. But if we are actually made in the image of God and we're connected to who we are, it's not um above God, it's with God.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah. Well, and then I think the connected to your true self comes also a profound humility.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Yeah, it does.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Because those those haughty things are still that's all triggered self-stuff.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Exactly. Pride is I don't have what I need. So I need to do it.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

It's trying to compensate for unmet needs. It's trying to make yourself feel better. And it's like none of that is triggered. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Suffering is a better. I mean, if you think about it, you know, like as a parent, I don't get pleasure to see my kids suffer. I I I mean, they may, they may go through pain, they will go through pain, but it doesn't give me pleasure. And I don't look at them and go, wow, like they're doing really well in this. But we almost want God to look at us and say, wow, look how much he or she is suffering. Wow. They're doing really good. It doesn't actually make a lot of sense when you think about it when it comes to relationship. That's kind of like the fuel, you know, like look at them using their fuel, their pain, and sacrificing and minimizing themselves. And there's they're just an empty vessel with nothing, you know, that does not serve a parent or a creator well.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Absolutely. I mean, uh, that's obviously could be a whole nother episode, and we probably potentially we potentially opened up a little bit of a can of worms there. And uh, but it's all right. It'll trigger some people, but that's okay. So, you know, the other thing that is really hard for people, I would say comfort is, you know, like in the religious circles, we talk about you know, some bad theology or maybe being stuck in shame, thinking you're unworthy. Um, but another big one is is that I think going through early childhood development and not having caregivers that could comfort. So it goes back to the 10 gifts, but it's even a little bit more. Yeah. You know, for someone that it was in a really, really bad environment that just didn't get comfort.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Yeah. Yeah, there's some people that feel like they didn't get one of the 10, or maybe they got one, but they are very little neat emotional needs being met.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

So how would you work with that other than you know following the same process? Because we know that God sent that comfort somehow.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

Yeah, exactly. So when you haven't felt comfort, you don't have a grid for it. You don't, you don't know what that actually means. Like we can think of it logically, like comfort means that a caregiver gives you a hug, it makes you feel loved, it makes you feel better. But what does that actually feel like? We take it for granted when we felt it, when we were given certain gifts, we take it for granted because it's just part of our coding. It's part of how we see the world, it's part of how we live our lives because we received that gift being given. But without that gift and without the understanding of what it feels like, it's very difficult to see it and it's very difficult to receive it. So a lot of times I'll start more abstract, meaning it'll be a movie or a song or you know, a person in their life that they can receive from or see it modeled, even if it hasn't been directly given to them. So, for example, if I watch a movie, that's not a real person giving me a real gift, but it teaches me how to feel what it would feel like because I'm now watching this movie where the mom and the dad are loving and giving to the children these gifts.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

So as I still it's still in the so what you're saying, it's still in the imagination.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

It's still in our fantasy imagination. Remember, we have two imaginations. We have a fantasy imagination. So when I watch that TV or movie mom and dad, that's a fantasy. I've never met them, I've never experienced them. So they can't be an official gift giver, but they can teach me what to look for, and they can teach me what it's meant to feel like because I feel something. For example, if I'd never been seen before and I watched a movie, and this actually does get me when I see it too, because I think that was a lack that I had, just being raised in a big family, being seen sometimes didn't happen as often as it was needed. But like, have you ever seen those movies where like the mom or the dad like cups the child's face and they get down on their level and they cup their face and they're right there and they're like, I see you. You know, and you can just feel like the intimacy and the connection and the child's being able to receive it and the parent giving it to them. And you can feel almost like a crackling, like, you know, like it feels like it's alive, it's electric because you can feel it and see it. And then often, if you're crying about something, it's because it's your lack. You're not crying for that child in the movie and that parent in the movie, you're crying for your child self because your child self would just went, oh, that's what it is. Because that you've had this deep capital L lonely for so long. And when you saw it modeled to you in the movie, your heart, your child self goes, that's it. That's what I've been looking for for the great lonely. And you're able to take that moment, even if we're still in the fantasy imagination, you're able to take that moment and go, okay, now I know what I'm looking for. How could I even find being seen if I didn't even know what it looked like or felt like? But now I know. So now I can take, like if it was like a flashcard of what it was, but a felt experience, now I can take it and be like, okay, where have I felt this feeling? Not just who saw me. That's like um like a 2D experience. But that movie now made it a 4D experience. You know, like all of a sudden you're experiencing it as if it's happening. Now I can go and look for it in other people. So I can find a real person to activate my vivid imagination and have that experience from that person. Because God has known since we were born what we were gonna receive and what we weren't gonna receive, and He's been sending comfort our whole entire lives, but we didn't know what it felt like. Not just we didn't know what the name of it was, we didn't know what the experience of it was. And that is such an important distinction. If you've looked at the 10 gifts and you're like, Yeah, I don't feel like I was seen, that's 2D. That's just flat. I wasn't seen. Now let's make it come to life. And when it comes to life, that is when we begin to do the exercising of receiving and feeling, well, feeling to receive comfort. But it's an exercise. It doesn't just poof happen because we've never done it before. We've never seen it before, it's never been given to us before.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Yeah. And where where what you just said would kind of uh not go where it needs to go is if someone just, you know, reads the romance novels but never actually takes the time to have the experience. And that can be analogy, yes. Yep, to the vivid. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

To the vivid, the real and that's why a lot of people are addicted to movies and TV, because it's giving us the experience, but it doesn't last. Because it's only a it's it's not the real experience. You could watch movies of traveling, but if you never travel, watching a movie about traveling and traveling are two different things. You don't have the smells, you don't have the tastes, you don't have the wind, you don't have the the when you're in the moment, you know how we always say pictures never capture it. You don't see the colors the same, you don't see, um, you don't feel the feelings the same because you're an observer, not a participant.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah, that's a good point. An observer versus being a participant, and you're teaching people how to be a participant.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yes, to learn from those things, but then to go and do it, to feel it, to have it, to go and to watch the movie about travel and then to go travel. Watch the movie about being seen and then go feel it. Go experience it. Often what I'll say for people that are also learning, besides the movie aspect, is go through in the next two weeks, because often people meet with me every two weeks, I'll say in the next two weeks, every time you feel loved or cared about or thought about, whenever your heart gets moved, even if it's just a touch, when it gets moved, write it down. Gather these experiences to give to your child self. So one of the things I say, it's like that's like food. You know, receiving these emotional gifts is like food. So I say, take that bread, take that nutrients from that moment yesterday when someone gave me a hug, feel the weight of it, feel the warmth of it, feel the experience of it, feel your heart relaxing into it, feel that smile, you feel the experience, and now I'm gonna break bread and experience it as an adult because that felt good when my friend gave me that hug. But I'm gonna break bread and I'm gonna give it to my child self because she lacks the gift of affection. And I'm gonna gather those hugs and I'm gonna go hug a little longer, not just for my adult self, but that my child self could receive the real experience so it could be vivid, so my child self can receive comfort. Not just receive the idea and the logic of comfort, but the actual experience of it.

SPEAKER_06 36:49

Engage your senses in every comfort moment our senses should be participating. What do you hear? What do you see? What do you feel? What do you smell? What do you taste?

SPEAKER_02 37:12

When we connect to those senses, all of a sudden it's come alive. Just like our pain came to life, our comfort's coming to life, and when we feel our pain to the degree that we're feeling it, and we match it with the same level of felt experience for comfort, it heals. It connects, and we can let go.

SPEAKER_06 37:39

Go play. Go be. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

So that is one really great practical step, and we can review that towards the end for homework, because I think that would be really great homework for people. Um you just had an experience yourself where you went through something very traumatic. And um why don't you just talk a little bit about the practical ways you tapped into comfort and and the timing of it, you know? Um like you can't always take the time to do that in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Nor should you take the time to do it in the moment in some situations. Because when we talk about we talk about triggers like they're a bad thing or they're like they're bad when you're br when you're triggering when there isn't a you know, lion chasing you, when there isn't like a life or death reason. But like there are times when you trigger where you want to stay in that trigger because that trigger is going to keep you out of harm's way.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Yes. And so two things I'd say about that is number one, I've been investing. I still am learning, I'm still needing to receive, I still get triggered, and I hope I do the rest of my life. But I have invested in my heart, in my gift givers, in my felt experience to such a degree that the bank is full. And I think two things happened in that moment. One, being triggered in that moment, I had whether it was, I wasn't conscious of it in the moment, but I do believe because I did feel peace through a very difficult time for a majority of the time. So I was able to stay in that peace because of that kind of investment that I already had in my, I was more full. So when you go into traumatic situations when you're full, it's going to be a lot more peaceful and a lot easier to do.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

You had more money in the bank.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Yeah, exactly. I had more money in the bank.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

So it felt so banks have stress tests, you know? Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

They model like all these things that could go wrong in the economy. And, you know, what's your stress test? You know, you, you know. Your arteries are clear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

So I do believe for the most part, the majority of what I went through, because what I went through was like a week-long process. So it wasn't just like I had this one moment, one trigger, bank's full. I walked through it, did the remote control exercise, I'm good. It was actually like a week marathon of just constantly having things come up that were actually very serious and had to be addressed because it could potentially have life and death consequences. So it's a week-long process. I am feeling majority peaceful. But yesterday we talked, you know, and I could feel kind of some um parts of myself that I have, you know, pushed down in the pursuit of survival, which, like you're saying, is necessary in the moment. Thankfully the bank was full, so I could go through it. But no matter how full your bank is, at a certain point, you have to come back to yourself and bring comfort for what you're going through. And I think yesterday when I felt some emotion come up because something was technology was triggering kind of in the same way as the irrational version of it. Yeah. Exactly. Um was triggering it. It was reminding me of how big the thing is that I went through and how difficult it was, and how at points I felt alone in it. And at points it felt too much. And at points I felt little. So we subconsciously or consciously suppress our emotions when we're going through a traumatic event so that we survive. But the beauty of the compassion method, as we continue to exercise it, we can meet ourselves in the middle of it. Because this vulnerability can actually be fuel in the midst of what I'm going through if I can remember and allow that to come into the moment. And I think even more than anything, one of the things I got, yes, there were some pain points that didn't get comforted because I wasn't being with myself as much as I would have liked to be with myself in the triggered moments or the painful moments. But even more so, I want to be able to be with myself on an emotional level in the middle of my logic. I want my logic and my emotions to be best friends. That we're actually a team.

SPEAKER_06 43:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

That we're working together, not against each other.

SPEAKER_06 43:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

But for so much of our lives, because we didn't know how to feel our emotions, they were a detriment to our safety. But really, they are the fuel to help us get through the logical, difficult situation.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Laura, you know, I think if you're comfortable, it would be really great to give our listeners just a little context about the traumatic event so that they can get their head kind of wrapped around what you were going through kind of real time.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

And yeah. So I'm I'll keep it brief, but um I my daughters were traveling and they were in Lebanon. And um recently there was a bunch of bombings in Beirut. So it wasn't even just ruminating thinking or worried thinking. Not that those can, those can be just as detrimental as what I went through too, but it was actually like real time, like on the phone, online, calling the government, figuring things out, you know, talking to them, figuring out options. All the airlines are down. We're in a big city. It's being bombed countless times. Where do we go? What do we do? So, I mean, I think I spent a total of probably eight full hours, you know, on the phone, connecting. Figuring out options, figuring out resources. And at the same time, your heart rate, you know, it is a real trigger. You know, it's a trigger that's your heart rates up. You're thinking of all the different things. I am by nature not a very uh worried person or a fearful person. My I raised my kids to be independent. I raised them to be able to go out into the world. So for the most part, I'm not like, oh my goodness, but I have a real intel that's telling me this is a real danger that we need to take care of. So now you're on this, you know, zoned in. And and I, you know, as I'm thinking about right now, I did feel like the being with as I was going through it. But what I would like for next time for myself is to have equal, um, equally feel the strategy and the logic and the figuring it out and making the calls and feeling that energy and simultaneously being able to feel I'm with you. We're doing this together.

SPEAKER_06 45:36

Right. It's okay to be scared.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

We can be scared and stay focused. It's okay. And to feel that energy of the relationship and connection that I have with myself in the moment of it. And it feels it's very difficult when you haven't exercised how to do that in real time. That's why it's great to take everyday triggers that may not be tens, may not be tens logically, may not be tens um in the consequence of it, and take those small triggers and start exercising. How can I bring my emotions, bring myself into road rage? How can I bring myself into somebody cutting the line?

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Well, before we get into those really irrational ones, let's stick with the rational one. Okay. So because what you described, and it was there was much more going on than what you described. There's a lot more detail. Here's the reality of the thing.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Here's a week longer than that.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

But what I what I shared with you like afterwards is that you actually went through war.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

You literally as a uh war.

SPEAKER_05 46:54

Your loved ones were what it is? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Yeah. Yeah. So you went through like a very traumatic like war thing. So here, you said something a few minutes ago that absolutely blew my mind. Because what I would have thought was the right approach when you're in a war situation, rational, life, death, and yeah. So you're your life-death situation going on. I would have thought that yes, you need to suppress emotion completely. Like get it out of the way, because you have to be locked into adult brain logic, like locked in completely. And then, and that's what military training is, that's what first responders training is, that's what all that training is. But the problem is why so many of them end up having, you know, problems later on in life is because they got trained too well in that, and they never learned how to process the emotional side of it. So when you were just talking before, what I always thought is okay, we need to, yes, teach people to just ignore all emotion, stay locked in because you know, you can't let any of that creep in.

SPEAKER_02 48:03

And then come back to it later. And then come back to it later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

Like when you're not in combat. But what you said was really powerful because you said that, yeah, you can actually do both at the same time. You can actually let yourself be in the moment of the emotion and with logic.

SPEAKER_06 48:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

Like, and actually that's gonna be better.

SPEAKER_06 48:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Because that logic will eventually fail you because you will it'll get to be too much.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

And you see that, you know, like not everybody goes through combat like John Wayne. You know, I'm sure there's a lot of absolutely where they can't get back to that training. They can't do that. But imagine if they could be taught how to be with themselves to comfort their heart in the middle of the bombs dropping on them, the bullets flying. And that's actually going to help them stay with logic and stay with their training. They don't have to wait and do this later, like I was thinking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Yes. And I actually, now that we're talking about it, because this is a week-long process, I actually can remember some points where I would just put my hand on my heart and just be like, it's okay. Just breathe.

SPEAKER_06 49:15

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

Because I would hit some roadblocks where I was like, I don't know what to do next. You know, like I'm talking to the government and their ideas are not working. You know, they were helpful, but they weren't working.

SPEAKER_00 49:27

But because you could stay with your true self, you came up with the idea. You came up with the idea to get your children out of a war zone.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Exactly. Because my brain was clear.

unknown 49:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Because I was with myself. And then I think yesterday when I felt kind of extra emotion connected to it, I think that is the pause and come back and be with myself in a concentrated, focused way, just as much as I focus my logic to get them out. Now I can focus my love to be with myself to the degree that I needed it. So I think you can simultaneously bring your logic and your emotion, even in very serious life and death situations, you can go through it together. But I do think we have to go and tend to our hearts in just as much of a focused way when the moment's over or throughout the moment. But I was able to like invite compassion in and comfort in periodically throughout the process. And like it's funny when you're like looking back on it. Um, I remember the couple times I did it, all of a sudden I have another idea. Where I had thought I I'm at my end, like I don't know what else to do. I don't know where else to look. I don't know what else, I don't know. Then all of a sudden it would be like, I got an idea. Let's go by boat. Everyone's trying to figure out how to fly out, and that's not working. Let's get out of the city to safety, and let's choose a different route to get out. And all of a sudden, I have the idea. But it did directly come from being able to breathe, being able to comfort, to allow my true brain, my intelligent frontal, sophisticated brain to stay on the whole time. Which I'm so grateful for. I don't think I could have kept my logic in such a precise way without having my bank full and being able to periodically, even if it wasn't concentrated comfort, it was periodically comforting myself to stay online versus getting offline in a trigger because I hadn't been taking care of myself.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Well, and you've built so much muscle memory in this area of learning to connect.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

Almost like just happening naturally. There's a couple distinct moments, but overall, it was like I'm at the end, comfort comes, it opens back up again.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

New ideas, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

Yeah. And all of a sudden, it's like a video game or something like that. All of a sudden, you're like, oh, go through this way, take this path. And it continues. I mean, it literally was like a treasure hunt because you're like, you're like, piece of knowledge, piece of knowledge, piece of knowledge, piece of knowledge to get to where you need to go. But I can't imagine, I wouldn't, it would not have had the same outcome if my brain had shut down because of my pain. I would not have been able to see. I was seeing the way out because my brain was on. So I think that it's such a powerful thing to bring that comfort simultaneously as you're in that logic, in that survival. But then I realized going back and giving a concentrated hug and being able to acknowledge, wow, you did a lot.

SPEAKER_06 52:53

And being able to be with yourself in that. You did do a lot.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

You outsmarted the US government.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

I know. They were helpful, but my I but my idea was that it was safer.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Yes. Yep. Yep, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I mean, that was definitely a huge revelation for me. But obviously, to get to the point where you're able to do that in the moment, bring comfort in in the moment in such a traumatic situation, takes practice.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Practice with the little things so you're ready for the big things.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

So let's leave people with that homework. So let's go back to what you talked about when you you know you meet with your clients, they got a two-week window in there.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Just revisit that and let's get people to wrap their head around that.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Your homework, if you want to be able to go through hard things.

SPEAKER_00 53:51

This is your mission if you choose to accept. If not, this whatever you're holding this podcast on is gonna blow up in 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Exactly. Um, you know what is kind of funny though, it's like um I thought multiple times throughout how grateful I was for the compassion method. I know I'm the creator of it, but I've also lived it. And I'm like so grateful for it because I don't think I could have done what I needed to do. And in this life, things are gonna come up for all of us that we didn't think we could do. But the preparation of building those comfort muscles, building that um partnership with logic and emotion is gonna prepare us for anything that we can go through literal war and still be okay real time as we use the muscles we've developed in the small things to be able to have the muscle to go through the big things because we are all gonna go through the big things, whatever context that is. So homework is find your moments of trigger and practice feeling comfort in the middle of it. Practice redirecting from your triggered brain back to your true brain in the middle of it. It's gonna be difficult at first. Don't expect it to be easy. When you walk into a gym and you first start working out, it hurts. It's hard.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

I miss some of that.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

You missed that too. Um, but like we go into that and we're like, you know, this is hard. You know, and our brain says, you should stop working out because you're gonna die because you can't breathe.

SPEAKER_06 55:37

I'm over that.

unknown 55:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:39

The average human, you just have uh workout superpowers. But the average human, when they first go work out, they're like, This hurts.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

I can't breathe. This isn't good. But our brains know that if we keep working at it, we'll create muscle, we'll create endurance. We'll be able to become strong. So if we want to become strong, we have to get into the gym of feeling our pain. Exercise that muscle. Pretend like it's your left hand. You're exercising, feeling your pain. And then we're gonna practice exercising feeling comfort until it's so strong that we can do it in the middle of the trigger, the middle of the moment.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

What's the what's the easiest way to tap into the first if you're listening to this and you're like, wow, that sounds great, but how in the world do I feel comfort? Like, what's the first thing you can do? Practical, easy.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

The first thing to do is to start taking inventory with real-time situations because comfort looks different for every person. How I receive comfort, how Brian receives comfort can be different. So in real time, when someone gives you a hug, engage your senses, engage feeling that moment. Write it down. What did it feel like? What did it look like? How'd you feel about it? Connect with those comfort moments and then take those comfort moments, even if they're they're not happening in that moment. Like let's just say in the morning I had a comfort moment, then at night I'm trying to go to sleep, but I'm feeling anxious. Bring that comfort moment in. Ultimately, when we're triggered, we're activating our amygdala, our child brain. So it's very important to always be giving it back to our child self. So I would take that moment that I felt, I would be present in it and pay attention to it, write it down, experience it, and then I would give that to my child self.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

So a hug is a good example for some.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

It's a bad example for me, because that that don't land because the physical touch is difficult for me. So let's move into uh well, it I would say it was. Okay. So like pre-compassion method, that was really hard. Like post-compassion method, I can definitely hug and feel a substance to it.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

Yes. But not everyone may be able, that may not be the only one. That's the obvious one.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Before it was, it was actually a trigger. Like I just get triggered. So anyway, so another one was you talk about the movies or books or somewhere where you've seen it.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Yes, somewhere you where you've seen it.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

Or even just it doesn't, it could be real. You could saw it in the grocery store.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

Yeah, you could be watching an event happening, and what you're doing is you're collecting those experiences so that it can be real in the moment of trigger.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

You know, it's interesting. My my wife had this. I remember because obviously you've said this before. Um, but it takes me a while to sometimes, you know, really connect all the dots. But I remember one time when she was learning this process, she was having problems with this, and she actually saw an interaction between a friend of ours and his daughter.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:03

And she just was like at a birthday party, and she just saw like this connection there, and that was like that was kind of her model. You know, like it was still fantasy, but still it was it was, but also like you're experiencing it firsthand.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

It's indirect comfort, but you're still experiencing it firsthand. You see the dad's face as he's with the daughter, you see the daughter's face as she's with her dad. You're you're seeing a felt experience that you can receive because it's real. It wasn't something you just watched, it's that real friend with his real daughter that you're experiencing, even if it's not directed towards you. So you can take that real moment and direct it towards you.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

So that's actually more vivid.

SPEAKER_02 59:52

Yes, that's more of a vivid imagination because it's actually happening. She she knows that friend.

SPEAKER_06 59:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

Even if he didn't turn to her and give it to her, he's a real person in her life and she's she's seeing him with her his real daughter, and that's a real experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

Yeah. That's really good. But there are a lot of people. I mean, it's a little it's it's a little challenging because the whole thing's like a little bit artistic. It's a little bit, you know, right brain.

unknown 1:00:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

You gotta practice. You have to tap into your right brain here because this is not black and white.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

And that can be difficult for people. It was difficult for me. I was way more logic than emotional.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:31

Yeah, I'd say most people are, probably.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

But that's why it takes practice.

unknown 1:00:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

I practice feeling it until it's so real and so tangible that when I put my hand on my heart, I am I'm pulling from that collection.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

What about even just going people watching? Could that be like a home?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:50

No, I've totally done that. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

And just looking for those, you know, not the people, you know, maybe don't go to the airport where people argue with each other, but maybe go to I don't know, an amusement park or something. I don't know. Somewhere where people have a little more fun than the airport or the DMP or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Exactly.

unknown 1:01:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:05

I've seen a lot, you know, when I remember taking my kids to the park, I would see it a lot with different parents with their kids. But whatever way, whatever avenue that you connect to, put your immerse yourself in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:18

That's really cool you mentioned park. There's this park in Chicago that I like to go to that has this like water fountain and like little flower garden in the middle of it. And there's just so many people coming and going, you know, and that is a great place to people watch.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

And you just see experiences and you collect them and it teaches you and helps you so that when comes time for comfort, your brain goes and this is the cool thing. When you've exercised and gathered it, it's like muscle memory. I don't actually always think official memory, official gift giver, official thing, because I've already been exercising it and feeling it and experiencing it so often that it's natural. So that's why it's so important to fill up your bank, to receive every gift, to practice the art of feeling comfort until it's so natural that it happens on a subconscious level, not just on a conscious level.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:24

Yeah, I I do kind of remember one other homework you gave me, which was to look for smiling people.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:29

Yeah. Because when we have parents that are because look, some people get yelled at, but um, psychology shows us that facial expressions with caregivers, even deadpan, can traumatize a child. Disapproval, disappointment is so powerful and so painful.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

I think of all the trauma I created. Anyway, moving on.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

But but anyways, being able to, but you just mimicked your mommy and daddy.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

I did the best I could with what I knew. I know. I can tell myself that. I'm gonna have to go comfort myself afterwards. Yeah, we just brought up that shame. Shame's creeping in. All right. So but shame doesn't have a home in me, so I'm gonna have to go kick it out again a little later, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:10

Yeah, exactly. Or comfort it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

I'm not gonna kick it out, I'm just gonna comfort it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

Yeah, and you comfort so much it leaves. Shame can't be in the presence of compassion.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

There's no room at the end for shame.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

Nope. Exactly. It's like perfect love casts out fear.

unknown 1:03:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

Perfect compassion, perfect comfort casts out fear, casts out shame. So that we no longer have need for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:33

Yeah. Well, and the comfort you're talking about ultimately is compassion.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:40

And I always think about compassion as love and action.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:43

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

Or what love feels like.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

I think you say it like that. You say that compassion is what love feels like. It's compassion is compassion and love are like the same.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:53

Two sides of the same coin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

Yeah. Compassion is the felt experience of being with ourselves in our pain.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, that's powerful stuff, Laura. Thank you for the homework. Um I took notes. I hope our I hope our listeners did too.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:10

Yeah. Practice. It's one thing to practice it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:16

Well, thank you also, though, for being vulnerable and sharing the your traumatic event. And uh, we're very thankful that I don't know if we shared the end of the story, but they did get out.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:27

My daughters made it out. They're safe and sound.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

Yeah, they did make it out. We're grateful for that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you again. And thank you to all of the listeners. And a reminder, also, if you have any questions, you can hop on our uh website, triggeredandtrue.com, and there's uh place to answer questions there. So ask. There's a place to ask questions. I thought about building an AI tool to give answers to those questions, but I'm a little skittish of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:54

Yeah, exactly. We would want to make sure that they lined up.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

We can train the AI tool on all of Laura's material, all the podcasts, and all of that, but I'm still a little skittish of just turning over those answers to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:06

Yeah, I think it would need to be double-checked. But sometimes just back to a different way of processing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

I do uh make an effort to reply to all the questions. So if you've ever asked a question, and I didn't reply, it was probably a technology problem where it never got to me. But I think we've got all those worked out.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

So yeah. Keep asking questions, keep practicing, keep applying.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

All right. Until next time. Thank you, everyone. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:30

Bye, everyone.