Why You’re Struggling to Feel Empathy for Yourself — Tammy Triolo

Lost empathy for yourself? You've already lost the fight. 

This week, Tammy Triolo reveals the shocking connection between self-empathy loss and narcissistic abuse. 

PODCAST EXTRA EXCLUSIVE SEGMENT 

Find the exclusive second segment and weekly newsletter here. 

MORE ABOUT THE PODCAST EXTRA INTERVIEW 

🔹 Tammy walks you through recognizing when thoughts are just thoughts—not truth—and how to stop surrendering to negative beliefs. 

👉 Get immediate access to this extended interview

TAMMY'S BOOKS 

• The Empathy Gap: It Is Black and White 

• Workbook

MORE ABOUT TAMMY TRIOLO 

Tammy Triolo is a cultural strategist, author, and creator of the Empathy Scorecard. As founder of PCQ Consulting, she works with companies to improve culture and develop sustainable DEI initiatives. 

• Website: tammytriolo.com 

• Social: @tammytriolo on TikTok and Instagram 

• Podcast: The Empathy Lab (Substack)

Resources

• ReclaimYou: Dr. Kerry's AI-powered coaching app
• The Complete Recovery Collection: Narcissistic abuse resources
• First Steps to Leaving: Online self-paced digital course
• Toxic-Free Relationship Club: Live coaching & community support

Follow Dr. Kerry!

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Kerry Kerr McAvoy, Ph.D, a retired psychologist & author, is an expert on cultivating healthy relationships and deconstructing narcissism. 

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This podcast/video is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute therapy, counseling, or professional mental health advice. If you are in crisis, please call 911 or your local emergency number.

Transcript

Why Youve Abandoned Yourself Why You Cant Feel Empathy for Yourself 2026-02-09 Spotify Video

Tammy Triolo: [00:00:00] When I talk about empathy, I say empathy is the great equalizer, and it's why pastors are telling you it's a sin. It's why Elon Musk said it's the greatest threat to the Western civilization because empathy erases the hierarchy. If I don't have to be above you, if I don't have to have more than you, if I don't have to live better than you, if I don't have to be better than you in any way.

Whether that's race, body size, ability, gender, sexuality. If you and I don't have a need for any of that, the system collapsed. I have not had a white woman that I have coached or mentored who did not have molestation or some sexual abuse in her history, not a single woman. 

Dr. Kerry: So how do you think somebody has a lock?

Of empathy for themselves, because that's where you're starting the root. How does that happen? Originally, 

Tammy Triolo: you go back to your childhood, right? I, I think you go back to the first time you felt unseen. As parents, we [00:01:00] are our first guide to our children. We either make them feel seen, or we make them feel invisible.

Dr. Kerry: We often think of empathy in the terms of what happens in a healthy or dysfunctional relationship, but empathy also impacts people group Today, Tammy Tlo, the author of The Empathy Gap, joins me to talk about the gaps of empathy that happens between oppressive people, groups, as well as oppressed people.

I am so excited to have you with me, Tammy tla. I came across your book The Empathy Gap from another creator, actually, I'm trying to remember her name. Mel, maybe you know who I'm talking about. Mel 

Tammy Triolo: Hamlet. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, Mel. And she was, uh, just raving about it. And so I had to get a copy and when I picked it up and started reading, I.

I literally was in tears. It, it just really moved me because here's the thing, and I, I really wanna get into this on kind of multiple levels mm-hmm. Is that we hear a lot about systemic oppression. And I think especially as a white woman, it's very hard to understand exactly what's being [00:02:00] discussed. And yet we're told we should do our own work.

Mm-hmm. But what is the work, you know, if we don't even know what the work is, it kind. Passes by most of us. But a lot of us have been abused and we're certainly traumatized. And what I really connected around the empathy gap was you just, we were describing my abusive experience. Mm-hmm. And, and the loss of empathy for me in that, for myself, but also what I was experiencing in that relationship.

And I had this massive flash of, oh my goodness. What happens between people is what's happening between groups of people. 

Tammy Triolo: Yeah. 

Dr. Kerry: So I'm so excited to have you here. So first of all, how did you decide to write the empathy gap? 

Tammy Triolo: Oh my goodness. Okay. So I decided to write the empathy gap 'cause you and I are both on TikTok and, um, I don't know if you saw that thing that was going down with the Unfuck America tour, where you had all of these young white kids that were supposed to be going around following Charlie Kirk, and then they had this big explosion of racism within the group.

And the black content creators that were going with the white content creators didn't make sense. And so there [00:03:00] was all this conversation around, um, the tenets of white supremacy, right? And so people were making all these videos. Pointing out the tenets of white supremacy and obviously the tenets of white supremacy was present.

But as I was watching these videos and these young white people and these, uh, particularly this young white woman talk about what happened and kind of dismissing it, I started to notice that there were 15 characteristics around how empathy is erod. Through the, the, the culture of white supremacy. And so I just kind of wrote down these 15 points, what then became the 15 chapters of the book.

Wow. And, and so I started to write down how, like, how is empathy, how does it show up? Right? So emotional and validation, right? All, all of these, these different ways, institutionalized, gaslighting, all these different ways that the erosion of empathy shows up emotionally for white people. Because we can talk about how that shows up systemically.

Of course, we know how it shows up systemically, but I wonder why people to understand [00:04:00] how it robs them of empathy emotionally. And so I started writing these 15 things and then I just started writing each chapter almost like an essay. And so if you read the book, the the chapters don't in itself connect to the next chapter.

It's almost like a standalone chapter of itself, because I'm talking about that one thing. And so that's really how the book came about. I was just watching all of this online and people were having these broad conversations, but I was like, you're not talking about what makes this possible. What sustains racism, what sustains prejudice, what sustains homophobia is this inherent lack of empathy, because when I cannot see myself in you.

I will not see myself fighting for you. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's what happens in these toxic relationships too. 

Tammy Triolo: Yes. 

Dr. Kerry: The same disconnection happens. 

Tammy Triolo: The same disconnection happens, right? Because in, in all abuse, at the baseline of all abuse is an an inherent lack of empathy. That inability to see your [00:05:00] humanity is intrinsically linked to mine.

When we see each other's humanity as intrinsically linked, I want for you what I want for myself, but if I don't have empathy for myself, I'm okay with not having empathy for you or the world not having empathy for you because I have accepted. That I'm not deserving of it. I'm, I've accepted that I'm not deserving of kindness.

I've, I'm accepted. I'm not deserving of the help I have accepted that I'm not deserving of the time and the effort that it takes to get to know me, to love me. So if I have accepted that from myself, when I see that happening to you, I can be utterly disconnected from it. 

Dr. Kerry: So how do you think somebody has a loss of empathy for themselves?

Because that's where you're starting the root. The root is, I don't connect with me. I don't see, so follow that out. How does that happen originally? 

Tammy Triolo: So I think depending, I think you go back to your childhood, right? I, I think you go back to the first time you felt unseen and you [00:06:00] know, as parents, we are our first guide to our children.

We either make them. Feel seen, or we make them feel invisible. And so a lot of times, particularly with the clients that I work with, every time we do a session, we go back to that kid. Hmm. Tell me about that child. Tell me about what your life was like. Tell me about the first time you felt utterly invisible.

And one or two things happen the first time we feel utterly invisible in the world, right? Where we don't feel like we're worth the effort. We either have the courage or the environment that allows us to say, Hey mom. Hey dad. I know yesterday was busy, yesterday was hard, but I was trying to have this conversation with you and I did not feel seen or heard by you.

I didn't feel, um, that you were listening to me. And if you have the space to do that, then you continue to build empathy. You begin to build confidence in yourself. You begin to believe in yourself that if something happens, you can advocate for yourself. Now, if you're in an environment where that is not safe to do, [00:07:00] and even trying to do that will.

Invoke violence in some way. Physical violence from your parents, emotional violence, and that emotional violence could be, um, shutting off from your kids. You don't talk to them. You're punishing them through silence. And so if you grow up with that, you, your parents don't know it and you don't even know it at the time.

But that's the beginning of where you start to not have empathy for yourself. Because once you believe that you're not worthy of the things, you're not worthy of anybody's time, you're not worthy of anybody's attention, and you become an adult, you carry that on. So the, the place where we start to lose, that starts very early for us.

It starts in childhood. One of the things that my mom was really good at, um, and my dad, well my dad would get, um, drunk 'cause I was raised in a, in a home with alcoholism. He would, um, be violent with my mom somehow. This man always had the presence of mind when it was done and when it was over, he would sit in the living room and he would put his head in his hand and he would call each of us as kids and he would make us sit [00:08:00] on his lap and he would apologize and he would say, I am so sorry.

I am trying. But he was always apologizing. We could say, you need to stop drinking. You need to do something. You need to be better. But even, even in that altered state of mind. My dad had enough to say, I think I just hurt my children here. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm mm I, 

Tammy Triolo: I, I think I just did something damaging to my children, right?

And he would apologize all the time. And my mom for her part would, would assure us that what was happening with them had nothing to do with us. And so I, I think we lose empathy for ourselves. And that starts early. That starts in our childhood. Let's just say you had it in your childhood, but you get married to somebody.

Oh my God. Like the emotional abuse that sometimes women suffer from men and sometimes men suffer from women. If you have somebody that you love, you've given your heart, your time, your body, and as women, you're womb to, and that person has spent months, years. Telling you how, I don't know why you think you're pretty, you're not pretty.

I don't know why [00:09:00] you think you're smart. You're not smart. I don't know why you think you're so special. You're not special. You get told that time and time and time again. Even if you started off having empathy for yourself, you can find yourself not having empathy for yourself. And again, I I, I inherently believe that when we have empathy for ourselves, we see other people experience differently.

When we don't have empathy for ourselves, we can't, we can't connect to it. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. That's really a powerful thing that you're saying because I think it happens on both sides. I think the victim also doesn't have empathy for themselves either. Of course. Of course. Course. Which is why they've ended up end up with this person who's very abusive.

Tammy Triolo: Correct. 

Dr. Kerry: And they don't even, I mean, I, when I look back at those relationships, I didn't recognize at the time that this was a callous behavior. 

Tammy Triolo: Yeah. 

Dr. Kerry: And that it showed a lack of regard for me as a person. You know, it's interesting 'cause you're, you're, you're so connected with this. You want, it's almost like you want them to choose you so that you're special so that you're the one person they don't abuse.

Tammy Triolo: Yes. 

Dr. Kerry: Not realizing that you're just gonna repeat the same pattern that they had with every [00:10:00] other person. 

Tammy Triolo: Every other person. And I, and I, I, I think, but that's a human. Condition, right? Like we, we wanna be chosen. Like that's a human condition to be chosen. Whether that's chosen in a romantic relationship, chosen in a professional re relationship.

This is, this is a human need to want to be chosen. And I think when we choose ourselves, when we choose ourselves and we look out into the world, we can identify people who are not choosing themselves. And that's what empathy builds, right? Like right. Ev every client I've worked with, when they come into session with me and I could see that they haven't chosen themselves, my job isn't to browbeat them and say, well, why?

Why do you keep doing that? You know, the things that you know, um, what is, um, insanity? Doing the same thing and getting the same result because I understand that there's a brokenness there. Why, why don't you wanna choose yourself? So let's talk about that. Let, let's have that conversation. But why don't you wanna choose yourself?

And it's always linked to both [00:11:00] childhood trauma, sometimes earlier adolescence. And again, if you're in a, and if you're in relationships that are abusive with narcissistic people, you know, and I think it's just a woman thing. We think we can change people. I think women make men their projects. Men make women the victims.

Dr. Kerry: You said something powerful off camera before we started, and that had to do with the way that you see white women sort of submerging their identity under the white men. 

Tammy Triolo: Yeah. 

Dr. Kerry: And that, that causes sort of a, a shift in us as a person. Can you talk more about how you see that happen? 

Tammy Triolo: I, I see white women becoming enmeshed with white men in a way that erases their own identity and it erases their instincts to be mothering.

Like I, I think women are, have this natural instinct to mother to take care of people. Children, animals. I think that's kind of like an innate thing in a lot of women. Not all, obviously, but a lot of women have that innate thing, [00:12:00] but that's not innate in white men because white men would not have been able to control and amass both wealth and power if that characteristic existed in them.

Just not what we would not end up with the country that we end up with. And because white women are second in line to white men, in order to secure their position in the hierarchy of power, they enmeshed themselves with white men almost erasing themselves, almost erasing this innate ability to care for other people.

And I see this with white women, and I talk about this in the book, like in order to keep your position in the hierarchal structure of white supremacy, you have to kill your empathy in you. You can care for the child, just not the black one. 

Dr. Kerry: Hmm. 

Tammy Triolo: You can care for the adolescents, just not the gay ones, right?

Yeah. Uh, you, you, you can do all those things and so you're almost going against that natural instinct that sits inside of you. You have to shut that down. You have to kill that because you have to become some version of the white men you have a meshed yourself with. 

Dr. Kerry: You know, as I'm sitting here, it just hit me that basically we [00:13:00] live in a system, an entire global system that's competitive and narcissistic.

Tammy Triolo: Yes. Yes. 

Dr. Kerry: And that there's always someone trying to be at the top 

Tammy Triolo: always, 

Dr. Kerry: always. And in order to do that, you've got to then disenfranchise or oppress other groups to get to the top. 

Tammy Triolo: And that's why I, when I talk about empathy, I say empathy is the great equalizer, and it's why pastor are telling you it's a sin.

It's why Elon Musk said it's the greatest threat to the Western civilization because empathy erases the hierarchy. If I don't have to be above you, if I don't have to have more than you, if I don't have to live better than you, if I don't have to be better than you in any way, whether that's race, body size, ability, gender, sexuality.

If I don't, if I, if you and I don't have a need for any of that, the system collapse. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, because it, it kills, it kills capitalism, 

Tammy Triolo: it kills it. The system collapse. WW Wood then becomes the hierarchy. There is [00:14:00] none. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. 

Tammy Triolo: Yeah. And, and the way that the system maintains itself is through hierarchy. And in order for hierarchy to maintain itself, you have to erase empathy because empathy gets rid of the hierarchy.

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, I was thinking as you were saying that, that that basically people are trying to create a sense of self 

Tammy Triolo: Correct. 

Dr. Kerry: By, on, on the backs of somebody else, 

Tammy Triolo: on the backs of somebody else. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. On the back of someone. Yeah. In instead of seeing that sense of self is derived by one's worth internal worth.

Tammy Triolo: Correct. 

Dr. Kerry: They derive it by who they're stepping on. 

Tammy Triolo: Correct. And another place that we get a sense of self is inside community. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm. Say more about that. 

Tammy Triolo: Inside community, when we're in community, community recognizes the thing that we have that's more powerful, that's needed for the whole. So if I'm in community, if we're all in community and I say, well, Carrie is really good at the organizing.

Then I don't have to worry about being bad at it. I don't have to worry [00:15:00] about beating myself up about why can't I get this right? 'cause that part of community's taking care of the organizing. If they say, well, Tammy's great at cooking. Oh great. I hate cooking. I don't have to worry about that. Tammy takes care of the cooking.

This person is good at cleaning. Right. Community recognizes you. It helps you settle into self. It helps you take off the lens by which you criticize yourself because you don't have to do it all. You're in community with other people who can do it with you. But when you're not in community and you're watching other people's lives.

Then you beat yourself up, that you don't pick up your blouse like everybody else picks up their blouse. You beat yourself up that you're not as clean as everybody else. You beat yourself up that you're not as thin as the other women. Right? Yeah. You beat yourself up about all these things, right? If, if you have.

I, you know, I, in a fluffier body, kids like my fluffier body, they like, they like coming next to me. They like leaning on me. They like being around me. And when you, when you, when you're in community and all the kids love [00:16:00] Dr. Carey because she's soft, she's cuddly. We love her. Then when you think about your body, you don't think about your body about what it looks like or feels like to anybody else.

You think about the kids that just love being on your body. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah. That's how I think of my grandmother. I never thought of her as thin or not thin, and she changed shapes over time based upon her health and other reasons. But to me it was just like, I just love squishing on her. I just love being here.

Tammy Triolo: She was soft. 

Dr. Kerry: I know. I know. She was just, 

Tammy Triolo: she was soft and, and we children. Men, even like soft bodies, they like warm bodies. My friends who are, um, bigger body than me, oh my God. Every time I go over, I plop right on 'em. I plop right on them. And I remember one friend saying to me, every time you visit, you make me love my body.

Dr. Kerry: Mm. 

Tammy Triolo: And I had no idea I was doing that. I was just like, I just love putting my foot on your thighs. I love snuggling up to you. And she was like having somebody see my body as a place that is home for them. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm. 

Tammy Triolo: She goes, I don't, you don't even know what you do [00:17:00] when you do that to me. And I was just. Being my friend, just enjoying my friend.

But that's what community does. When you're in community with people, you get a, a better sense of self. You get grounded in the thing that makes you happy, the things that you are good at. You don't have to be good at everybody, at everything. You don't have to be the thinnest, you don't have to be the best cook.

You don't have to be any of that because you're in community. 

Dr. Kerry: I was listening to, uh, another podcast interview. It was with Dr. Nadine Macaluso, who is the ex-wife of the Wolf of Wall Street, and she was describing how, uh, love bombing and, or actually how narcissistic relationships to this massive damage's that's called self perceptual distortions, and how we actually begin to adopt all these 

Tammy Triolo: yes, 

Dr. Kerry: internalized beliefs about ourselves by being connected to this person who is so.

So dangerous, so psychologically dysfunctional. And it really causes a, I mean, I think it ties into what you're saying is in order for us to stay safe in these toxic relationships, we lose empathy, right? And lose empathy for theirselves. But there's also [00:18:00] this incredible distortion of self that starts to happen.

Tammy Triolo: Correct. 

Dr. Kerry: And can you, you talk about that in the book. You talk about what happens emotionally to us. When what? Regardless of what position we're in, if we're in the position of being oppressed or in the position of being in power, there's something that happens psychologically, emotionally to us that's very dangerous.

Can you speak more to that? 

Tammy Triolo: What happens to a lot of white people is you become emotionally stunted. Whiteness emotionally stunts white people, right? Mm. Because whenever you are confronted with truth, your immediate response is to react. It's never to reflect on what is being said to you about how your behaviors are showing up in that moment or showing up over time.

It goes to immediate reaction, and when you don't have the emotional maturity to sit in truth. You're constantly reactive and you see this with white people, right? I, I, I did a TikTok and I said, you know, what's interesting is that I love watching white people dance. I literally will go and, and [00:19:00] search out videos to see white people dance, right?

Some of it is hilarious, but the reason why I love it is because. When I'm watching white people dance, right? Like they know they have no rhythm. They're not even trying, they're just doing their thing. But there's a level of freedom and happiness in the, in, in, in watching it, right? But when I say that to white people, or if white people see me on my phone and I'm like giggling about the dancing, they attribute negative.

Negative things to why I am doing that. And it, and what I realize is that because when white people engage with me or engage with black people and they think about us, it's usually negative. So anytime we say something that's objective, like it's just objective, white people don't have a lot of rhythm.

That's an objective truth. That's neither a bad or, or a good, that's just a neutral statement. 

Dr. Kerry: Right? Right. 

Tammy Triolo: But when you see black people constantly through the lens of negative, you assume, we're constantly seeing you through the lens of negative, and that's what it does to white people [00:20:00] emotionally stunt them.

Dr. Kerry: It's interesting. One of the big emotional things that were really sort of, um, enforced in my home was Stoicism 

Tammy Triolo: Stoicism. And I read about that in the book. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Tammy Triolo: To be very, 'cause you see that as maturity. Yes. White, white people are trained to see stoicism as maturity. You are mature. Right. And if you are too emotional.

You're doing something wrong. If you care about what's happening in the world around you, you need to grow up. Socialism is a big thing in white families, and as a person who married into one, it was such an odd thing to engage with. Like even at like family dinners, my, my, um, 15 year old's like. Oh my god, mom, when I go, when we go to family functions on my side, he goes, it's so exhausting.

He goes, everybody wants to hug you. Everybody wants to talk to you. Everybody wants to see you. Everybody's Jo, because my family gets in. We get in with you, right? Like there's no sitting at the table and being polite. Like, we're laughing and we're joking. We're making a noise. Compare that [00:21:00] to when we would go to dinners with my husband's family.

Nobody's talking at the dinner table. All you really hear is the plates and the forks and the conversations are so surface level. There's no room for play. There's no room for fun. Everybody has to maintain stoicism. And so I think when you, when you train white people to do that, there's no emotional range that they have.

Dr. Kerry: Well, it's because it's dangerous. 

Tammy Triolo: It's dangerous. 

Dr. Kerry: Exposure is dangerous. 

Tammy Triolo: Vulnerability. I write about that, right? 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. 

Tammy Triolo: Like, um, vulnerability is not seen as a virtue inside of white families and white homes. It's actually dangerous. And so white people train themselves not to be vulnerable, right? So to say to me as a black person that.

I, I struggled with racist ideas. I struggle with racist thoughts immediately. The white person thinks, oh, she's gonna think I'm a bad person now. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, exactly. That's, that's where my mind goes to. It's like, in fact, I, I made a video and I thought, you, when, when you and I had a little difficulty setting up this [00:22:00] interview, this is where I went.

You're gonna, you, you're not gonna be surprised actually. Yeah. It makes just perfect sense of what you just said. Then I came, I made a video about how hard your book was hitting me and that I just was being broken up about it at so many levels and, and, and like my, the awakening I was happening. And I thought, oh, she saw this.

This is why she's not contacted me. She's, she's decided she doesn't want it. She doesn't wanna be on the show. 

Tammy Triolo: Uh, you know, it's so funny 'cause I was like, she said she sent it. I'm like, well, let me message her because I never, I, it just, I never got it. Yeah. It, it, it's this fear that you are going to see me as a bad person.

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah. 

Tammy Triolo: And right, and so whiteness is about the being seen as good. Right. Even if, even if not being good is, is the virtue. I just want you to think that I'm a good person. I want you to see me as a good person, and I'm okay with seeing people as, as human. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm-hmm. 

Tammy Triolo: Right? Because 

Dr. Kerry: that's not, yeah. 'cause when you're in an abusive relationship, being imperfect is not allowed.

Tammy Triolo: It's exactly. And, and whiteness. Is, is is an imperfect relationship that white [00:23:00] bodied people are having with whiteness. It's a, it's, you are expected to be perfect. And so when people say, I don't need you to be perfect, a lot of white people don't even know what to do with that. They don't know how, and I think this is why a lot of times black women and white women struggle in friendship.

Dr. Kerry: Mm-hmm. 

Tammy Triolo: I think that this is why black women and white women struggle in friendship because black women, right? Because we already know the way this country is set up. We, we start off from imperfect and we understand that there's nothing we can do to be perfect. So we never strive for that. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. So you sort of like, well, why bother then?

Right? Is that where so the mentality you 

Tammy Triolo: have? Yeah. Like what are we striving for? Listen, a, a black person can be an Ivy League graduated person, never have taken, done a drug, never drinks, drives on the right side of the road, never have a speeding ticket, never do anything, and we'll walk into a room with other white people and we'll still be reduced to his race.

Dr. Kerry: Mm. 

Tammy Triolo: Right? So we understand that as black people. So the idea [00:24:00] of perfectionism doesn't even enter our brain. We just show up who as who we are, and you're either gonna like us or you're not gonna like us. Whereas white women come into the relationship saying, I need to be perfect. I need you to see me as good.

I need to see, I need you to see me as perfect. So when they say something, do something, and their black friend and I talk about this in the book too, and their black friend points it out, they fall apart. 

Dr. Kerry: Because I don't know whether how many white women will admit this or not, but when we walk into, so let's say a church gathering Yeah.

Like a women's ministry gathering. They're automatically your, your role, you're, you're putting everybody in a hierarchy. Yes. There's, there's a pecking order. 

Tammy Triolo: Yes. 

Dr. Kerry: That's happening in that room. 

Tammy Triolo: Yes. 

Dr. Kerry: The, the ones closest to the pastor. Yes. The one who's the thinnest, who's the one who's married with the most money.

I mean, literally, you're, you're putting the all of us in order and we know where we fall in that room and we generally will sit at the table at whatever level that we think that we're supposed to be at. 

Tammy Triolo: Exactly. Exactly. And black people walk through a room going, Hey girl. Hey. We we're trying to learn who people are just, and when we, when I [00:25:00] used to learn who people are, who you are right now.

Now we may learn some secondary cursory information about you. Like, oh, you are the pastor's wife. Oh, you are what? When we walk into spaces, we don't walk in thinking, where does this person fit? Where should this person go? And, and white women are constantly doing that because that's the way that your community is set up.

Your communities are set up through hierarchy, through class, right? Like there's a class distinction that happens with whiteness and white people, and so white people don't know how to be in. Imperfect relationships because everything has to be perfect. And it's like, no, it, it, it, it doesn't, it doesn't have to be perfect.

I need you to show up at as exactly yourself. So if, if I come over and you're having a bad night and you're on the couch crying, I just sit down and let you cry. Like it, it's not like one of these things where I go, oh my God, why do I have to do that? I, I have a white girlfriend. She said to me, she said, I love when you visit.

And I said, why? And she goes, I [00:26:00] don't have to perform for you. 

Dr. Kerry: Mm-hmm. 

Tammy Triolo: I said, what do you mean? She goes, like, if you were a white person, I'd have to have a charcuterie board. I'd have to make sure that you're okay. I'd have to and be entertaining. I'd have to be talking all the time. She goes, you come over and you'll walk over the shoe.

It, it's not a big deal. If you want something, you'll get up and go to the fridge and get it yourself. You'll sit on the couch and if I'm not talking, you just play on your phone like I don't feel like I have to perform for you in my own home. I said, you perform. And she goes, yes, A lot of us have to perform, because then they would leave your house and be like, oh my gosh, she was so rude.

She didn't offer me anything to drink. She never did this. Her house was a, she goes, it's, it's this constant. She goes, and I never feel like when when you leave my house that there's gonna be some conversation about how I didn't do something. When you leave my house, you know, and you know, I've done a TikTok.

I said, white people have rules. And then you have the unspoken rules. The unspoken rules are many. Like, you [00:27:00] have no idea what the unspoken rules are until somebody tells you, well, you actually wasn't supposed to do that. And, and I noticed that white women only do that with other white women. They don't do that with, with the black women that they're friends with or, uh, the Hispanic, but they don't, they only do this with each other.

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah, it's so sad and it really, I mean, there, there's a part of me that just listens to all of this and goes back to why, why do we need to do this? And, and I think it circles back to where you started today, which is really accepting ourselves if when we, when we come into a world that's dangerous and we're in our own, mothers are competing with us.

Yeah. 

Tammy Triolo: Yeah. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, because it's back to how well do you stack up and get the men's attention correct. And keep the men's piece in the, their, your world. 

Tammy Triolo: Correct. 

Dr. Kerry: You, you're in trouble. 

Tammy Triolo: This is why I think it's, it's funny because I no longer get this anymore, but when I first started talking on TikTok about empathy for white women, my God.

The pushback I was getting from black women. Hmm. And I understand why I [00:28:00] was getting that pushback, right? Because when you are being oppressed by them, when they're bullying you at work, when they're bullying you at the HOA, you have no room to have any conversations about having empathy for white women.

But I was having that conversation because I was working with them. 

Dr. Kerry: Who was bullying you though, 

Tammy Triolo: in the workplace? So, 

Dr. Kerry: no. Well, you, when you said you got the pushback, so who was giving you the pushback? 

Tammy Triolo: Uh, black women. Black women were, were pushing back against 

Dr. Kerry: Okay. 

Tammy Triolo: This idea of having empathy for white women because Oh, if you are the black woman 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah.

Tammy Triolo: At work currently being bullied by the white woman, yeah. You've got no space for that conversation. 

Dr. Kerry: No. 

Tammy Triolo: Right. If, if you are the black woman who's fighting with the white women on the HOA, you have no space for that conversation. Right. And so. It was different because I was no longer in a workplace. I, it was, I, I have my own business, so they're coming to me.

Yeah. So I'm not dealing with the white women in corporate, the way my sisters were dealing with them, I'm no. You know? Right. I live in an HOA and it's an old white guy that I don't know what, what's [00:29:00] happening half, half of the time. Right. So I'm not fighting with. The white lady on my HOA board, so I'm not having these into conflicts with white women.

I'm having these coaching and mentoring sessions. We're trying to help them heal. So I'm seeing them from a different perspective than the black woman who's having to engage with them every day, right? Mm-hmm. My, my neighborhood is, um, I live in a city. It's really small. Everybody kind of knows everybody, right?

And so I don't have a lot of encounters with white women. White women. I don't have a lot of those encounters. But if you hear me come on the internet, and I'm saying white women, from the time that they were little girls, they'd been bullied by their mothers, a lot of them sexually molested by their fathers, bullied by their brothers.

Then they go into these friend groups and it is competition from the time they say hello to each other. 

Dr. Kerry: Yep. Exactly. 

Tammy Triolo: Like they, they can't go out into the world and be good human. Yeah, the foundation for them is so fractured. They are going to show up in the workplace that way. They are going [00:30:00] to show up at the HOA, that way.

They're going to every woman, every white woman, and I've said this on my platform, I have not had a white woman that I have coached or mentored who did not have molestation or some sexual abuse in her history. Not a single one. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, well, those, my audience knows that I, yeah, that I fit that category, 

Tammy Triolo: right?

Not a single one. And I'm like, when you think about that, I want you to think about that number. If I have not encountered a white woman who's come to me for coaching and mentoring, right? And they first start off, and I always say, I have one white woman. She found me on TikTok. And she said, well, I, I just wanna figure out how to be like a better white person.

And I'm like, well, I don't do that. 

Dr. Kerry: A better white person. 

Tammy Triolo: I, I, yeah, I, I said, that's not the work I do. I, I don't know how to, I don't know how to tell you to, I'm not white, so I can't tell you how to be a better white person. I said, I, I don't know how to do that. Right. I said, what I help people figure out is, or teach them to be good to themselves, and if you can [00:31:00] figure out how to be good to yourself.

By extension, you are good to other people. If you think I'm good to you, it's because I've learned to be good to myself. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. 

Tammy Triolo: I said, and when you come into a coaching or mentoring with me and you say, teach me how to be a better white person because you have power. I said you were still looking for a vertical relationship, which means you still need to be over somebody.

What I help you do is figure out who you are so that you have horizontal relationships, 

Dr. Kerry: right? 

Tammy Triolo: So you are good to everybody. So, yeah, I think white women have a lot of healing to do. And I think, so when you, one of the things you said when they say, oh, you have to do the work, and you go, we don't even know what the work is.

What is the work? Right? Like, what does that mean? And I think the foundational work for white women is. Getting back to self. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking when you were saying all that is that you don't need to be over anybody if you can come to [00:32:00] terms with who you are. 

Tammy Triolo: Correct. 

Dr. Kerry: If you can accept your imperfections and love yourself as you are, then there's no need to step on anybody else in that.

Tammy Triolo: You don't that that is, I think that is the most urgent work for white women. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. 

Tammy Triolo: Is to get back to self, not the self created under the hierarchy of white men. That's not truly who you are, either. That self that you have been telling yourself is not valuable. It's not worthy. Don't do that. Don't say that.

Don't be that. Don't believe that. And I'm talking about those beliefs that go against the racism you were raised to have. That goes against the homophobic because I, I, I, I believe, right? Like innately, most humans, not all, but I believe innately most humans. Come with this sense of understanding that that's not a right way to live and be, and that includes white women.

I, I think white women go along with it because it's protection in the system. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I agree. I think there's this dichotomy that's happening [00:33:00] inside the mind is, I don't wanna be that way, but you're also then battling your own internalized shame. 

Tammy Triolo: You ex, and you know, I talk about this in the book, that shame and guilt are dead ends.

They're useless. Yeah. Yeah. And I tell this to my clients all the time, shame and guilt is useless. It takes you nowhere. Yeah. It takes you nowhere and it leaves you empty. Right. So who benefits from that? Not you and not the black people. You're trying to be better to, or the Hispanic people. Nobody benefits when you go down the road of shame and guilt.

Right, right. Exactly. You, exactly. You have to forgive yourself for some of the things that you've done. You have to forgive yourself for some of the things you said, and when you have thoughts that are racist, just catch it. No need to feel shame about that. Listen, our brain is this big computer, right? And our parents and life and society has programmed it.

That programming is there. It's hardwired in. That's why I try to experience to my clients, it's there. It's hard wired in, but just because that hard wire exists, we can, we can introduce different programming, we can introduce different systems, right? And because the hard wire is there, [00:34:00] sometimes when we're trying to introduce something new that hard I, but like it will reject it.

Like no virus, find a virus, can't do it, can't do it. And you gotta keep doing it and saying this is not a virus. I'm trying to reprogram something here. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah, exactly. This has been a powerful conversation. Thank you so much for it, Tammy. Um, I wanna jump over to the podcast extra and focus on when you recognize that you do have internalized shame and there is a lot of blame.

Yeah. How do you begin to heal? So let's do that conversation, um, in a moment. But how can people find out more about you, but also more about the empathy gap? 

Tammy Triolo: So you can find me on my website. It's tammy trello.com. Um, my book is on Amazon, the Empathy Gap. It is black and white. I also, before I launched the book, I launched um, two products.

One is called the Empathy Scorecard and the Self Empathy Scorecard, and the Empathy Scorecard gauges whether or not you actually have empathy. And so that scorecard has like eight sections with eight questions in that section. And the self empathy gap [00:35:00] gauges whether or not you had that for yourself.

Dr. Kerry: Alright. This is fantastic. Thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate this conversation. Thank you. 

Tammy Triolo: Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode. Are you following me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? You can find me at Carrie McAvoy 

Dr. Kerry: PhD or you can learn more about me and my resources such as a toxic free relationship club@carriemcavoyphd.com and I'll see you back here next week.