(Ep. 74) Feeling Stuck in Your Healing? You're Not as Stuck as You Think

What if feeling stuck, like you've slipped backward in your healing, isn't a sign the work has failed, but a sign it's finally you've grown more than you think?

In this episode of Triggered & True, Laura Duncan and co-host Brian Friese continue their series on how the Compassion Method brings biblical truths to life, this time turning to perseverance, and what to do when your emotional and spiritual growth feels like it's stalled.

Brian talks openly about the very human urge to give up when the process feels slow, when no clear milestone appears to be reached, and when people find it tempting to think, "This just isn't working for me." It's learning to be: with yourself, with others, and with God.

Together they unpack why we get the order backward, trying to "do to be" instead of "being to do", and why understanding without application only medicates our pain instead of healing it. 

Laura explains why simplicity creates the consistency that actually rewires the heart and brain, and why chasing the next book or the next technique can feel like progress while quietly keeping us stuck.

They dive into the freeing truth for anyone ready to walk away: many of us try to escape our pain by cutting off the marriage, the job, or the church. 

But drawing on James 1 and Brian's own writing, Laura invites a braver path—turning into the storm within, letting it do its work, and discovering we can often be okay in the very relationships we thought we had to leave. 

Like the "wax on, wax off" of the Karate Kid, the unseen work is building the muscle for the "I get it" moment, and the times we most want to give up are usually right before it finally clicks.

In this episode:
 🔹 Why hitting a plateau—or feeling like you've gone backward—is normal, and often a sign that genuine change is happening
 🔹 The myth of "arriving," and the shift from "doing to be" to "being to do"
 🔹 What "being" actually looks like day to day—and why understanding without application only medicates the pain
 🔹 Why simplicity and consistency, not more information, are what truly rewire the heart and brain
 🔹 How to "turn into the storm within you" and persevere—so you rarely have to cut off the relationships, churches, or jobs you thought you had to leave

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

🔗 Learn more:
https://triggeredandtrue.com
https://lauraduncan.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

It's normal. It's normal to feel like it's gonna work. It's normal to feel like we've gone back. It just feels like it. Everything came from our maple, everything came from our trigger brain because we're trying to do the B and Blaze when I give up. Right before we really start thinking.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

That's actually one of my compassion words to myself is that I'm going the distance with you.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

If you feel like you may have gone backwards and you've plateaued, don't give up. You are worth it. You are worth not giving up and going the distance.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Hello and welcome everyone to this episode of Triggered and True. Laura, it's so great to see you again today.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

It's so great to be here. Hi everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

I can tell, Laura, you are enjoying summer because you look very tan.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yes, I've had a lot of summertime, suntime.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah. I I I look less tan, but I've been in the sun a lot too.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

I'm good too. Your lighting's probably just better.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I'm I've been I've been enjoying it. Yeah. We've had some nice warm weather here in the Midwest, and I just love summertime in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I love your guys'. I've been to your house and I love your pool with your like little gazebo and everything. You guys have a really nice backyard.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yep. Yep. I love uh floating on a raft in the pool after work.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yep, relaxing.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Especially after it gets into the shade because it's really, really hot right now, and then I don't got to worry about getting sunburned or anything like that. So it's so it's great. But yeah. But the title of today's or kind of the topic for today we're going to talk about is uh perseverance as it relates to the compassion method. And the impetus for today's podcast is uh several conversations that I've had in the last few weeks with uh students of the process, um even consultants that work with others in the process, um talking about just kind of a feeling of kind of feeling stuck, or perhaps even that they've regressed from where they began. And um so you want to kind of tackle that. And the first thing I kind of thought about as these guys who were telling me these things is that the compassion method process is actually very simple. Okay, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Yep, yep. It is a simple process, and it doesn't mean it's easy. And where I I love the simplicity because I was listening to a uh audiobook here recently, and it's a really good audiobook, and it was it was kind of helping people through some emotional health issues, but man, it got kind of heady and it got in, it it dabbled in a lot of different solutions for that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

I was just um uh going over like someone's website that is emotional health and just like you know curious what they do, and it was really good stuff, but the exact same thing. It was so heady and so much knowledge and so many steps to do that I was like, wow, this is like very complicated. And one of the problems with comp complicated, not only can it become confusing, but it doesn't create consistency. Simplicity creates consistency, and so when you can consist you when you keep it simple enough, even though it is challenging, like you said, and it can be difficult at times, but if we can keep the process as simple as possible, we can create more consistency, and that's what changes our brain patterns.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Well, there's this quote that I've heard in the past that says, I would have written a shorter speech, and I think it was actually more of like a uh uh a summary of a scientific uh journal. And the person said, I would have written it shorter, but I didn't have time. So it is it is really hard work to keep things simple. So, Laura, thank you for creating a very simple process to help us take care of our hearts. Yeah, and uh, so it is simple, but it's not easy. So these feelings of being stuck or regressing. I was trying to, with the people I was talking to, I said, this is actually very normal and it's very good. Yeah, it's not a bad thing, it is a good thing. And I think what ends up happening to people is they keep thinking that there's this place of where they're going to arrive.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

And they feel like, okay, because so much of life is that we have a graduation, yeah. Yes. We earn a credential, we get another certification.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

You get married, that's a distinct moment. You have children, that's a distinct moment. We have these certain things, milestones in our lives that we get the gratification of accomplishment, of measured success.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

We have arrived.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

But the problem in emotional health and in, you know, the goal through compassion method is not to arrive, but our programming, our coding, what we felt from a very young age, is that it's all about arriving. And the compassion method is all about being. Being who we were created to be, being with ourselves, being with others, being with God. It's all about being. And those measured success are all about doing. So there's these two roads that we get on, and many of us on the road to doing. And we see measured success with what we do.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Well, the road to doing is is is easier because you have those benchmarks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Exactly. It's clear, you either reach it or you don't reach it, you're better or you're not better. You have these markers along the way that can give you that pat on the back, that feeling of it's working, I'm successful, I'm moving forward. And that makes us feel, you know, like we've accomplished something.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Let's just dive in. We, you know, we talk a lot about on this podcast being, the power of being.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Just explain to someone that just hears that word and it sounds so ambiguous.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Abstract. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Ambiguous, abstract. Just talk about like what it means to be.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Like one of the ways I describe it, because people, a lot of people have no grid for it. They're like, I know what to do, tell me what to do. And I'm like, but we're not gonna do anything right now. But you know, eventually we may do something. There is action and compassion method, of course, an application as well. But it begins from being to doing. We try to do to be. So being with, being ourself, being who we are, being with others, to me reminds me of like being at the right place at the right time, where you just feel that peace, you feel that contentment, you feel that feeling of like this is enough. You know, like even how you said, like, you know, you're on the raft in your pool and the sun's going down, and it's just like that perfect moment. Maybe your wife's out there, you're one of your kids, and you're just hanging out and you're looking at your property and you're looking at your home, and you're just I I won't say that a lot of times I'm looking at my phone because I'm not sure. That's okay, Terry.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I gotta put the phone aside, but let's let's just picture this imagery. You're going a great place, but my brain's like, but I'm texting and I'm scrolling and I'm gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, exactly. Which I mean, real quick side note being on our phones is the avoidance of being, being present, being with ourselves, being aware of our senses, being aware of our surroundings. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel? Is there a light breeze? Is it warm? When you just sit in that moment and you just feel your senses, you feel your emotions, you feel if you're with someone else, you feel being with them. There's no agenda, there's no have to, there's no suppos to, there's no should. It's just peace, joy, contentment, satisfaction. And in that place, all is well with our soul, with our body, with our mind, with our emotions. And we are happy. And in that space, emotion may come up, sad emotion, happy emotion, um, whatever that feeling might be, you're just with it. You're not trying to fix it, you're not trying to change it, you're not trying to do something, you're just being. And how what I think about when I think about being, I think about how in the Bible it talks about how God walked in the cool of the evening and walked with Adam and talked with Adam and they communed together. That's how I see being and being with God. But if you think about most of our time, even though you said you scrolled, you know, we often I do too, we scroll on our phones, we do chores, we have our list, we have our checklist. We're always trying to do more instead of be more. And that's why people often feel stuck and it's not working and we're not moving forward because we're trying to do to be instead of being to do.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, we got the order backwards.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

We have it so backwards, and we're so programmed and frantic because we're feeling pain, we're feeling discomfort, we're feeling these feelings. We're like, we need to get rid of them, we need to fix these, we need to go to the euphoric vision we have of emotional health where we never get triggered and we never have a problem and nothing ever bothers us, and we walk through life on the clouds and we have no nothing. We're perfect, and that makes me so sad because nobody wants to be there. There's so many shows that when people arrive at perfection, how empty it is, how it lacks color, how it lacks life.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Life is there isn't there is no perfection.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

No, think about think about birth, think about how we come into this world. It's messy. Think about how we leave this world, messy. So from birth to death, that time in between, we've decided a whole lot of mess. That yeah, and it's a whole lot all the way through, but we've decided that our end goal, our vision, is perfect. But it lacks our humanity, it lacks the beauty of our humanity, it lacks the color, the there's something about when we make a mess and you clean it up. That's why we love before and after pictures, you know, like there's something about that that's so fulfilling and satisfying to be in the mess and to clean the mess and to be with us with ourselves in the mess and to be okay with it. One of the homework assignments I give people is to actually sit, get a chair, plop it down in the middle of your kitchen right after dinner, when all the dishes are everywhere, your kitchen's just chaos, and sit in the middle of your kitchen and just look around at all the mess and be able to be okay in the mess. Not get rid of the mess to be okay, but to be okay in the middle of the mess, and that's what we're all avoiding.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

So I'm kind of a slow learner, and I've been at this for uh just a couple years. Let me let me do the math here, eight years now-ish. Not quite eight years, so I'll give myself a little benefit of the doubt here. So the self-attunment exercise is practice in being.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yes. Where you pay attention to your body, you pay attention to your mind, you pay attention to your emotions, you pay attention to who you really are, your true self. And you're just being. You're not trying to fix it or change it or do anything with it. You're just acknowledging.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

A little refresher here for maybe a newer listener, but the self-attunment exercise is a little five-minute exercise that Laura has. Sometimes it's even less. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

You said you can do it in a minute. Yeah, sometimes when you first start, some people go a little longer, and then once you've done it for a while, it's even less, but around five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah. And it's basically just an opportunity to check in with yourself and connect with what you're feeling. Just kind of go through the bit of an inventory of what's going on inside of you. And that is actually a being moment because you're actually taking a moment to pay attention to what's what I'm feeling.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah, exactly. And it can be standalone, which is just as helpful, meaning that you just do the exercise and you don't do anything with it. And then sometimes we'll recognize, whoa, like I didn't even realize I was so triggered. And I didn't realize how out of control I feel. And I don't didn't realize how my energy, I didn't realize what was going on because I wasn't paying attention. I wasn't being with myself, so I had no idea. It's like not being around a friend for a week. That's what we do with ourselves. We never spend time with ourselves so that we don't actually check in, we don't acknowledge ourselves. And so it's the check-in, it's the acknowledgement, it's a point of contact that we have with ourselves. If I do find that, wow, I'm really triggered and I can feel pain, I might do the remote control exercise in addition to the five-minute exercise. But the important part about the five-minute exercise is that you do it just for doing it, just to be with yourself. And then if you do something with that five minutes of acknowledging and connecting and being with, that's great. But you don't have to do anything with what you feel. It's the same thing as like when we ask a question.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

You're just checking in.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

You're just checking in with no agenda, you know. Like so often our kids get home from school and we're like, How was your day? What was going on? Did that hurt you? Are you okay? Are you hungry? Did you get a good grade? You know, and we're not actually saying, like, how are you? What's something that you experience today? We're asking all about the doing.

unknown 15:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

We're not asking about how a person is actually being.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I remember one time uh, well, what in one of our one-on-one sessions, and I wrote this in my notes, you said um if I can get this right, you said, when you are alone with yourself, are you with yourself? Are you very alone with yourself, are you with yourself? Are you checking in? You might be alone, but that means that you could just be still doing whatever Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

I remember when I first started this process of being on my own because I came from a family, a huge family, family of 13, got married at 20 years old, had my first at 21, and then had four kids under five years. I was always with people. And I realized that like I could count on one hand majority of my life up until I started this process of how many times I actually was like, not someone else asking me, How are you? But me asking myself, how are you? I never asked, I never valued it, I never considered it, I never thought it was important, I didn't think it mattered. I believe that God and everyone else mattered, and my place with everyone else and God mattered, but me alone, just me, with no other people, not connecting to God, just me. And that was a foreign concept. I had no value for that.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I doubt that many people would.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

And we weren't we weren't trained.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Without being intentional. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

If you go back to our early childhood development, you know, our parents only knew about doing two. So they asked us, what do you want to do when you grow up? What did you do at school today? You need to do your chores.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

There was never asking, well, how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Or very rarely.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Very rarely. I mean, I can I feel like it was asked a a couple times, you know what I mean? But how many times can I remember what I was doing being a key um conversation?

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Was like every single day. Every single day, usually multiple times a day, my caregivers, my parents, even though they were great in a lot of ways, they were more preoccupied with what I was doing than with being with me. Not because they were evil, malicious parents. They were actually really good. Part of that was they wanted us to grow up to be great people and great, yeah, you know, like they wanted us to learn and do. Exactly. Like they came from a beautiful place, and I'm grateful for it because I can do a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

But I didn't know that there was value in being being with what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Well, like we said, it's so much easier to do.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

It is. Measure it. You did your chores or you didn't do your chores, you got a good grade or you didn't get a good grade. Yeah. But there's so much in between the good grade and the bad grade, doing the chores or not doing the chores. There's a whole world in between good or bad. And we haven't been curious to explore that, and that's part of why we feel stuck. Because we're only preoccupied with the doing. We don't want to take the time or the discomfort.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

The discomfort, right? This is the yeah, this is the hard part. This is the hard part. This is the part where it's not easy.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

People get all like, okay, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do the remote control exercise, I'm gonna do all the processes, all the exercises, I'm gonna do it. Okay, tell me what to do. Especially when people are desperate, tell me what to do. And it is like like going against the current for them. What I say, it's not about what you're gonna do. It's about how you're gonna learn to be with yourself with no agenda, with no expectation, with no forced action.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

I just thought of something, and I'm and I want to get your opinion on it. So I remember in the in the thick of it when we were meeting, like I would ask a lot for like, hey, do you have any books you'd recommend or things like that? And you would like, you never really did. Did you did you were you thinking like he's just gonna go read it, need another book? He's just not gonna stop. He's just gonna do do do.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

So partially, yes, because I think that's a very common thing we do, especially when we're desperate. We want more knowledge and more understanding because it gives us the relief of healing without actually healing. That's what most people read books. Like it's like reading a book about going to the gym, but never going to the gym. We never actually do it, but it gives us the relief of knowing what we could do if we did it. And so, yes, that was part of it. Another book, another knowledge. But one of the reasons why I do that is goes back to what we talked about in the very beginning: simplicity.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

I have intentionally stayed in the compassion method exclusively. Not because I haven't read brain books, because there's a lot of neuroscience in this, not because I haven't heard other people's, you know, take on shame or take on compassion or things. It's not like I'm not willing to learn from others, but for the compassion method, it's keeping it simple. When a lot of people, when they come to me, and I think yours was similar to, they've already like tried a bunch of different things. They've gone to counselor, they've done this, they've done that because they're so hungry and they're so much.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

You weren't my first stop.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

You would have been, but I couldn't get in. So I had to wait.

unknown 21:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Often, you know, not being the first stop, people will say, Well, I did this and I did this and I did this. And I'll say, you know, I totally respect what you've done. I know it was a lot of work. I know that you put a lot into it, and I and I know a lot of it was helpful. But let's just go back as if you didn't know anything. And let's start at the beginning. And I stay specifically in the container of the compassion method without bringing other influences in, because it stays simple and it stays pure. Because when we muddy the waters, because there's so many different opinions out there, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't gain knowledge, we should. You know, I I like reading books, I like doing those things. It's good. But when it comes to like my care for myself, I don't want to pick the 20 top trendiest things that are happening and try all of them on myself to see what works. I want to be able to be connected to myself and be able to know what's going on within me and know what to do with myself, not just add more books and more knowledge and more things. Things to it, even if it's great. The simplicity creates consistency that we can actually build muscle memory in our brains and neural pathways.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Which will make you actually eventually eventually be able to receive the information in those books.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Yes. And that's why I would also say, and that's and again, I think gaining knowledge is so valuable. But don't they say that we're in the most knowledge, our generation is like the most knowledge there's ever been, and we're like the stupidest we've ever been. Or I forget what it was.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

I don't know that I would go so far to say that. I would say that we're I would say we're actually um very smart in so many ways, but the challenge is that it's just overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Exactly. It's the fire hose. It's so much that we're just getting bombarded with information, so nothing actually sticks cement. Every single book's been digitized.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

There's just so much you can learn. You have access, I mean, which is beautiful because anytime I have some little household project, um, YouTube's gonna tell me how to do it. Same.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Buying a house was not as scary because I could YouTube everything. I am really grateful for knowledge. I'm really grateful for other people's stories and other people's revelations and understandings, and I think we should always stay like that. But I did feel a level of responsibility and direction to keep things simple and keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. Yeah. And I think sometimes why things aren't working is because we have, and again, I'm not saying we shouldn't have other sources, but we're trying to apply so many things that nothing's actually sticking.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

A lot of times I'll tell parents when they're like, How do how am I supposed to discipline my kids? What am I supposed to do? I'm like, that's for you to figure out for yourself of how you want to train and discipline your kids. Whatever you decide to do, do it consistently. What will make it effective is not necessarily what you do, it'll be the consistency of what you do. Every single time a child does something, you have a consequence or a connection or however you choose to parent consistently. And that builds brain pathways.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

So one of the questions I had for you today was what is a pattern that you see in people that have had the most benefit from the compassion method? And I think we've you've really hit on one right here where they kind of they picked a lane and they went with it.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Yeah, I would say the consistency, and I would also say actually doing it. So remember how I've said before, and I alluded to it today too. We want more understanding because it feels like it's healing our pain, relieving our pain. But understanding without application is only medicating our pain. It's not actually healing it because we haven't applied anything to it. We just understand it. You know, there's this relief of, oh, I understand now, so I feel so much better.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

But that's a start.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

It is a start. No, understanding it is so valuable. Yes, for start. We need to understand. And it gives, I mean, I love sitting down with a new client and then and sharing like the brain science behind it and why we trigger and what's going on. I mean, so many people's faces, the relief because Shane told them that they were their trigger.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

That's yeah, that they that's who I am.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yeah, this is who I am, and the relief when they're like, oh, this isn't who I am. This is just how I'm triggering, this is just how my brain is reacting. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yes, exactly. So you don't see them as their trigger, you see them as they're just hurting, that's not understanding.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

Yes. And so we can understand ourselves, we can understand others, we can understand the concepts, we can understand the process, we can understand how our brain works. But without application, we can never heal. That's like having a wound and studying wound care extensively, and you know exactly why it's hurting, you know exactly what you should do about it, but you actually never take care of it. It's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

No, I mean the awareness was so powerful for me or understanding, however you want to frame it, because for me, I wouldn't have even had language that I was hurting.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Like, how silly is that? Like, I'm in all this pain, but I wouldn't have called it, I wouldn't have looked at it as like, oh, you're just hurting. No, I'd be like, no, I got this anxiety thing. It's like a disease that just hit me, you know. Like, yeah, cure the disease, please, Laura.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Exactly. It feels like anxiety is like the separate energy that isn't even connected to our heart or our pain. It feels like it's something that's happening to us.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Boy, I was so ignorant.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Wow. But you can't see what you can't see. And that's why I also believe that one of the reasons people get stuck is we're not doing it with others as well. You know, there's something about that's so with with anything you do, when someone's speaking a similar language and having similar experiences and going through it together, often it helps us be able to see what we can't see in it. And the beauty of the compassion method is majority of it you can do on your own, which I love, but there is a part of it that when someone else is with us in our pain, we can see it in ways that we couldn't see it when we were by ourselves because we're avoidant of pain. And so there is something about meeting with someone or talking with someone or being with someone in it that helps us as well.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah. Yep. No, I definitely appreciated our one-on-ones. Obviously, I needed that.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yeah. No, I think they're so important and so valuable.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Well, you know how bad I wanted something to do, so at least I could do that, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

I could go.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

So, you know, you can't yank it away from your right arm pink or cold turkey. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 28:44

That's why I'll keep giving understanding until people so feel safe enough to apply.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah. All right. Well, one of my triggers is when people don't actually do it.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

That's a common trigger. But that's still based on fixing. That's that's what you don't think it's not going to get fixed.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Me not being okay if they're not okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yep. And I think for a lot of people, you know, I've had people be like, this isn't working. I, you know, I don't think this is for me. You know, like um, majority of people find a lot of benefit from the compassion method. But there is a small percentage of people that get kind of frustrated or hurt or upset because it doesn't feel like it's working for them. And I don't feel triggered by that. I have my I have my other triggers, but I don't feel triggered by that because I'm my goal, they didn't disrupt my goal by not doing their work. They didn't upset my goal by getting frustrated because it wasn't working. Because my goal is always for them to be able to reconnect with who God created them to be, God's original design for them, and be able to be restored to that connection. So when I see them triggering, I don't go, oh no, they're triggering again. I don't go, oh no, they're not doing it. Oh no, they're they're not doing their homework. I go, I wonder why you don't want to be with yourself. I wonder why you don't want to do the homework. I wonder why. You don't want to be connected to who you were truly created to be. And that's where I get curious. I want to be curious with people versus reacting to it not working. I want to be curious.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

I want to make them do push-ups if they don't do it.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Yeah, you just do it.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

It's probably a reason why I don't meet with people one-on-one very much. It's like, did you do your work? No, 20 push-ups now.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

I think there's a place where that discipline. There's is sometimes times we're talking about perseverance, we're talking about discipline. And I do think that there is a discipline to this that we lack because when it doesn't work, our instant gratification generation goes, didn't work. You know, it makes it difficult for us to persevere when we don't have those clear measurements of success.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

I don't I've always been so drawn to stories of perseverance. Some of them I just absolutely just love to see because of who you are.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

That's who God created you.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

But I but I like to see them arrive. Like they get to the top of the mountain.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah. No, you love it. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

You don't necessarily ever get to the top of the mountain. Yes. I mean, you have your mountaintop experiences.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

But also, what's our vision for it? That's what I'll work with with clients. What's your vision? You know, okay, you want to get to the top of the mountain. Okay, you get to the top of the mountain. Now what? You know, it's like I think if we could recognize a clear vision, we would recognize a couple different things. One, we're not as stuck as we thought we were. It just feels like it because we're thinking from our amygdala, we're thinking from our triggered brain, and it feels like we're really stuck and we can't move forward and it's not working. And when we have this vision for perfection and arriving, we don't get to achieve that, but there's actually achievable goals, achievable visions with the compassion method.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

But I think our vision is skewed because it's seen through the eyes of the knowledge of good and evil, and it's seen through the knowledge of doing over being.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

And so imperfection.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

So we have this vision, yeah. And so I'll question You're not gonna say anything dumb to your spouse.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah, you know, which is yeah, exactly. I won't say something dumb. People will like me, I'll feel love because I don't do anything wrong, and I'm gonna be a good, good person.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

I'll never get cranky with the support person on that phone trying to fix my computer board.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Never, nope, never gonna happen. We've arrived. But I think what I what I question a lot of times, and and this is what I would say to people that are listening today, is reevaluate your vision of what it means to be healthy, to be whole, to be healed. Reevaluate that. What does that mean to you? It reminds me of when people get to the end of their life and they pick whatever, the top five things that they think were most important. The doing is not usually high on the list. It's being with loved ones, it's being able to stop and smell the roses and look at a beautiful view and be able to soak it in. As we get to the end of our life, we start to recognize that being was what we always wanted. That being was arriving. Picture what I said before when you were in your pool and you were floating around and you could just feel and smell the phone on.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

You know, because sometimes I put it aside. I do.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

You're like, there's not always you know, there was just one time.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

No, it's it's I usually do some of both, but yeah, but in that moment, yeah, totally when I'm just floating and staring at the trees.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah, yep, and doing nothing, just being. Like, what if our life was not necessarily not doing anything? Because what we do, remember that quote, what we do matters. Like we're meant to do great things on this earth. We are. It's not saying don't do, it's just saying if we were connected to who we were created to be and we were being with ourselves, our doing would actually be so much more satisfying and fulfilling and truly successful.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

And less training.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah. So imagine if my vision was that I could be at peace by myself, I could have joy by myself, I could have joy and peace with others, I could absorb beauty and experience. And I was at rest, fulfilled, satisfied, content.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Well, and you're gonna be a lot more efficient.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yes, exactly. Like when people do the Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I see this in the marketplace all the time. I'm like, why are you doing that?

SPEAKER_00 35:18

So much busy work trying to do. Yes, so much busy work.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

You know, we've I shared this before too, but like most jobs now are knowledge jobs or thought jobs or thinking jobs, but people don't take time at work to just sit and think. They gotta be doing something all the time. And managers would be like, Well, you're staring at a wall. Well, actually, no, I'm trying to think strategically about how to make this simpler and what's the next thing we should do instead of just continuing to do the crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Doing everything, and that's what we're doing. We're working twice as hard, doing twice as much, and getting half of the results because we're not connected to ourself, our strategic, extraordinarily creative, imaginative frontal lobe that we get to see the world through versus seeing it through our triggered self. Most of our doing comes from being triggered. Most of being comes from being connected to your true self.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Well, and I think that I'm definitely seeing something here about one of my reservations about meeting with people one-on-one like you do, is connected to that the frustration that comes when they don't do it and when they Yeah. And I like you've said, you've you've perfected the art of it. Like you can be okay. You've perfected being okay when other people aren't okay. Like it doesn't ruin your day when they didn't do their homework.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean I don't want them to do it. It doesn't mean that they're if they don't actually do the homework and apply it, they're not going to be able to get as connected to themselves, which I'm really excited about for them. But at the end of the day, they don't have to do for me to be okay. And I'm still trusting in who God created them to be, even in the middle of them not doing. And I know that if they're not doing, every single human wants this, wants to be loved, wants to feel connected, wants to have their needs met, wants to feel full. Every single human. But we're scared because it feels so big and so overwhelming, and we don't have a grid for it that we avoid it.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

It's uncomfortable. Right. It's so uncomfortable. And that's that's the that's where the perseverance is required to sit through the uncomfort.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Yeah. And what wasn't something that I said to you, I remember saying it to you, just like, I know it's hard, but try to trust, you know, try to trust the process. Yeah. That's a big part of perseverance.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

You said just like you, just the same faith you have in exercise for your physical body, put that same faith into this for your heart, your emotional world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Exactly. And that takes trust. That takes faith.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

Because we're having to take trust that you're not going to stay there if forever stay stuck. Yes. Stay in that hurting place. Like people don't want to let the floodgates of their emotions come in because they feel like I could live there forever, and that's an icky feeling, and I don't want to live there forever.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

But if you do this enough times, you know that there's another side to that.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Like you feel the hurt, it also allows you to feel the joy on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

And joy doesn't all and the other thing about joy is it doesn't mean you're always happy.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

No. But it's the same thing as peace.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

Peace, yes, totally. Yeah. So kind of to wrap up, I wanted to share an excerpt out of um the book I wrote to add to all the knowledge in the book.

SPEAKER_02 38:58

Yay. Brian's. But here's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Here's the cool thing I feel about what I wrote is it is very instructive on how to actually do what you're describing.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

You know what I'm saying? So I'm going to share this one part. So the title of this section is Sit With Your Emotions. James 1, 2 through 4 says, consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. This is a key part right here. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well developed, not deficient in any way. And that is from the message paraphrase. So then I wrote, as I mentioned uh previously, even in my sessions with Laura, I tried to get out of pain and uncertainty prematurely. To win the battle for my heart that needed to change. I had to turn into the storm inside of me. I had to let it do its work, as James urges. On the battlefield of the heart, courage and bravery look like letting yourself feel the signal your heart is sending. I had to embrace the ache, to sit in the pain, to feel it. All of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

That's the beauty of suffering. That's the thing that is so difficult for us to lean into. We don't know that it's doing its work. The tension, the pain is doing the work. It's actually transforming us, it's refining us, it's bringing us to the surface. And there's something so valuable about pain.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

It's very, yeah, very much so. It's very instructive.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah, and staying in it. That's why I often tell people like the common trend is to get rid of your parents because they didn't raise you right. Get rid of your, you know, uh pastors because they're not doing it right. Get rid of everyone because they're not doing it right.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Your spouse.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Your spouse definitely get rid of them for sure.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Find a new one.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Yeah. Wherever our triggers are, let's just get rid of them and then we'll be okay. That's what I mean. I actually think that's a lot of what divorce is, is trying to get out of the pain, blaming it on your spouse instead of facing the storm within. And so I recommend people, but people say, like, well, I just need to leave this marriage, or I just need to leave this job, or I just need to leave this church. And I said, like, you can do whatever you want to do. But I would love to see, and I'm gonna use your words, turn to the storm within you. Become at peace with yourself, become okay, clear-minded, tender-hearted, and at peace. So that you can choose soberly from your own free will, not your trigger, to leave something. And majority of the time when we face a storm within, we can be okay in the very relationships that we thought we had to leave to be okay. And I think that's something so beautiful about that. I was just meeting with a client um right before we came on this um call or this podcast, and they were just saying how everything in them wants to leave a situation because it's a messy situation, and how there she was just like, I'm not gonna leave. I'm gonna stay. I'm gonna stay because this is my opportunity, and I'm not gonna let the triggers and the pain and the things I'm going through blame the situation and not get the opportunity to take care of me in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_01 43:02

That's perseverance. That's powerful revelation and perseverance.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

It's bravery to say it is within me, and I will take care of me before I make any decision externally.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

It's so empowering.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

But as but as a um practitioner of this, that does gotta make you feel good when somebody really gets it.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

It does. It does, it really does. I don't know. It's like a pro it's like a pro parent. Oh, I get so excited, like when I can see them be like, like, especially if it hasn't been like clicking for a while, like they've been doing the process because that happens often with people. They'll like do parts of it. I've even, I think I've maybe told you this, but sometimes I'll tell people, this is like karate kid. We're gonna be doing a lot of things on the back end that you're gonna be like, what does this have to do with my marriage? Why am I going back to my childhood? You know, like why am I, you know, like recognizing areas I feel shame? Why am I why do I have to show show myself compassion?

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Why am I waxing this car?

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Exactly. Why am I waxing this car? When do we get to the real stuff? And I'm like, we have to do I don't want to break bricks. Yes, we have to do the back end of it to strengthen our muscles so that we can actually hold the alignment that happens when we come home to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

And so we are never given me that analogy, but it's a really good one. I've not heard that one.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

But I will tell you, it's like when people have been frustratedly waxing the car and you know, doing the whole thing, and then they start to do the karate naturally, like karate kid did, or all of a sudden he knew the moves because he'd been doing them without even realizing, and even building muscle without even realizing. And all of a sudden he's he's doing it. He's riding the bike, he's doing the karate, and he didn't even realize he was doing it. That's some of my favorite moments when people go, that's why we've been doing everything we've been doing, so I could feel this. And I'm like, Yep. And that's why, for me, as a person working with people, the perseverance that I have is believing and knowing that if they continue to do the process, they're going to get to this place, that it's going to have the aha moment. They're gonna have the moment where they're like, I get it. And if you haven't listening, gotten the I get it moment, don't give up. Don't give up. I promise you, I've worked with thousands of people that this works. And it is so important and so valuable. Don't give up. And often the times that we most want to give up is often right before we really start to get it.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

That's actually one of my compassion words to myself. Is that I'm going the distance with you.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Yes, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

We're in this, we're in this together for the long haul.

SPEAKER_00 45:56

Yeah. Even when it doesn't feel like it's working, I'm in it.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

And the long haul is a really, really long time because this carries with us to eternity.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Yes, it's not even just on this life. We're gonna be with ourselves for all of eternity. We are with ourselves for the long haul. Whether it works, whether we feel it, whether we don't feel it, that is the beauty of the compassion method. We get to be with ourselves, and that is everything.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Mm-hmm. That's great. Well, that's really good. Laura, do you have any other parting words that you'd want to give to someone that might feel in that stuck place?

SPEAKER_00 46:30

It's so normal. I've gone through it myself. Brian's gone through it. It's normal to hit plateaus. It's normal to feel like it's not working. It's normal to feel like we've gone backwards. It's the same with anything we learn. You know, we don't always instantly get it forever. We go forwards and backwards and forwards and backwards, but we're always making forward motion, especially because we're always rewiring our brain.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

And that's always forward motion. So if you haven't been feeling it, if you felt stuck, if you feel like you're, you know, you've gone backwards or you plateaued, don't give up. You are worth it. It's not the compassion method that's worth it. You are worth not giving up and going the distance.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

Let it do its work.

unknown 47:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Turn to the storm within you and let it do its work.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

That's good. Well, thank you, Laura, for your for your wonderful insights.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

And thank you, listeners. Until next time. It's Brian and Laura from Triggered and True. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Hi, everyone.