You're Not Bad. You're Carrying the Problem: Shame, Triggers, and Healing

"I was triggered" vs. "I chose"—what if both are true, and neither gets to the real problem?

When a listener sent Tony a viral video challenging people to replace "I was triggered" with "I chose," it sparked a deeper conversation about accountability, nervous system science, and the shame-based frameworks many of us inherited long before we ever heard the word "trigger." This episode holds two truths at once: yes, adults are responsible for their behavior—and the initial nervous system activation that precedes a choice is real, automatic, and not a moral failure.

Episode highlights:

• Why the word "trigger" can feel like a life sentence to trauma survivors—and an identity assignment to the people who hurt them
• Rick Hanson's "first and second dart" framework and the four stages of change from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence
• The critical distinction between activation and action—and why that space is where all growth lives
• How Richard Rohr's reframe of sin as brokenness needing healing (not judgment) connects directly to why shame never produces lasting change
• How shame gets installed in childhood before a four-year-old's brain can separate "I did something bad" from "I am bad"—and how ACT defusion offers a way out

00:00 Welcome and Course Plug

01:08 Listener Email and The Bet

03:33 Nick Pollard Trigger Reframe

04:57 Agreeing With Nuance

08:58 Trigger Word Cultural Weight

13:21 First and Second Darts

15:08 Four Stages of Change

21:21 Agency vs Nervous System

24:00 Pathologically Kind and Shame

26:46 Language Shapes Experience

27:18 Sin Versus Healing

28:36 Rohr Reframes Brokenness

31:08 Shame Keeps Us Stuck

31:57 How Shame Gets Installed

37:03 ACT And Defusion

40:13 Radical Acceptance Lens

41:52 Original Sin Culture Myth

46:43 Kingdom Of God Within

49:18 What We Learned Today

51:37 Closing Reflections

Tony Overbay is a licensed marriage and family therapist, betrayal trauma certified, and host of The Virtual Couch, Waking Up to Narcissism, and Love, ADHD podcasts.

If the idea of change through agency—not shame—resonates with you, explore Tony's Magnetic Marriage course at tonyoverbay.com/magnetic

Please follow Tony on Instagram @virtual.couch on Tiktok @virtualcouch on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/tonyoverbaylmft and on Substack https://thevirtualcouch.substack.com/ You can reach out to Tony through his website tonyoverbay.com or by emailing contact @ tonyoverbay.com