August 5, 2025 • 21 mins
Do you ever catch yourself simmering in frustration—at work, in traffic, or waiting for that text back? In this episode, Justin Wenck, PhD, pulls back the curtain on why we cling to annoyance and how to finally break free.
What You’ll Learn:
- The hidden payoff of frustration and why we stay stuck in it
- How the Drama Triangle (victim, villain, hero) secretly runs your life
- The powerful shift to the Empowerment Triangle (creator, challenger, coach)
- Real-life examples to turn everyday annoyances into growth opportunities
- Why letting go of frustration leads to more joy, ease, and love in your life
Listen in if you’re ready to ditch the drama and start living as the creator of your own experience.
Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!
Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!
Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.
Remember to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode! Connect with me:
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Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, music and pics belong to the rightful owners.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin Wenck (00:00):
Get to be the creator. I'm never the victim.
(00:02):
So nothing's happening to me.
It's happening for me, and I getto choose how I respond. There's
really no need to get frustratedever. Like, I'm not saying it's
not going to happen, because,again, you might probably been
doing this your entire life,right? So you're not going to
just like, Oh, I heard Justin'spodcast, and tomorrow you're
going to have zero frustrations,because it's just like, I'm the
(00:24):
creator, I'm the Challenger, I'mthe coach, and I put the right
person the right role. Because,let's be honest, you do have
other people that are actuallyplaying those roles. They love
playing those roles in yourlife. Are you ready to live a
life with enough time, money andenergy have relationships and
connections that delight you?
(00:46):
Are you ready for theextraordinary life you know
you've been missing? If so, thenthis is the place for you. I'm a
best selling author, coach,consultant and speaker who's
worked in technology for overtwo decades. I'm a leader at
transforming people andorganizations from operating in
fear, obligation and guilt torunning off joy, ease and love.
(01:09):
It's time for engineeringemotions and energy with me.
Justin Wenck, PhD, do you everfeel frustrated? Do you ever get
annoyed with anyone or situationor circumstances? What if I was
to tell you that you might be inthe stuck in the habit of being
(01:33):
frustrated and annoyed now thatmight annoy you or frustrate
you, but before you get too youknow, upset at me, you can
change it, and that's what we'regoing to be talking about today
in this episode. Is how you canbreak from being in the habit of
(01:53):
frustration. And this issomething that I've worked with
in my own life, and it's verycommon, and it's okay when I
first realized, well, that's notwhen I first but when I recently
realized that this is such aprevalent. Thing was I was
recently out out having some teawith a with a good friend who
(02:14):
had recently started at a newjob. And this friend told me,
yeah, I love the opportunity. Ilove what they're doing. I got
all these things going, butwhenever I email the CEO, he
never gets right back to me.
He'll take he'll take dayssometime like, what kind of a
CEO is that? And many of youmight be going like, yeah, what
(02:35):
kind of a What kind of a leaderis this that's not being super
responsive to great employeeswho have great things to grow
the business. And there's a waythat can be true, yet it doesn't
have to be true, but it doescreate frustration if you
believe that a good CEO needs torespond to their employees
(02:57):
immediately when they come withsomething that is a great
opportunity. So if you believethat, I don't care how good you
are, there's probably going tobe some times when even the best
leader or the most, you know,just busy, busy on it going to
work. You know, 20 hours a day,seven days a week type is going
to miss one of the emails. Andwhat does that get to result in
(03:20):
frustration, annoyance, upset,and you're like, Justin, why?
Why would somebody want to beupset or frustrated? Well,
there's there's a payoff.
There's a payoff to any anythingthat happens in your life. There
is a payoff. There's a secretbenefit for anything that
(03:41):
happens in your life, we'll doan example for myself. For much
of my life, my adult life, Ihave had physical, physical
pains in like my neck and myback shoulder, things like this,
where I've I've had to go tovarious doctors over many years,
and I still actually have somesome pains that I'm working
(04:03):
with. So as much as I'velearned, grown and figured out
how to how to treat my bodydifferently and do all sorts of
things myself, why hasn't thepain just gone away? Well,
there's a benefit to the pain.
Because one of the benefits isthat if I'm in pain, I have to
go to somebody to work to helpme with it. And so that helps me
(04:25):
with two very key things thathad been missing for most of my
life. You know, one is contactwith other people, because,
especially starting, you know,in pandemic times when basically
be all on our own. But afterthat, I started working remotely
from home, and so it's like, oh,if I have to go go to get a
(04:49):
massage or go to a chiropractoror go to an acupuncture
therapist, I'm actuallyinteracting with another human
and getting positive. Some touchand, you know, some some chat
and some face time with anotherhuman. And the other thing is,
is I'm getting help fromsomebody, as opposed to some
working with somebody where it'smaybe, you know, competitive or
(05:13):
adversarial, right? So to get toexperience human connection with
somebody that's there just tohelp me that's awesome. Like,
why would I give that up? Whywould I give up my pain? There's
there's a benefit. And so nowthat I know this, I recognize
this, and I can work on theother, on the things of getting
(05:33):
that connection, getting thathelp that don't come via pain,
and that's happening, that's onits way. And so what is the
payoff? What is the benefit tofrustration? And I'm going to
explain this to you, and I'malso going to explain how to get
out of it, because a big part ofit, it comes from something
that's often called the TheDrama Triangle, or I like to
call it the victim triangle. Andthere's a way to switch this. So
(05:56):
the Drama Triangle is basicallyit often involves a victim,
which is why I like to call itthe victim triangle, where
something bad happens to them.
So in this case, the case of myfriend, she didn't get her email
responded to as quickly as shewanted to, when, when, when
(06:17):
something happened. And I'mpowerless. I can't do anything
about it. For there to be avictim, for someone to be
powerless, there needs to besomeone that has power over and
that's the villain, thepersecutor, the I'm going to be,
I'm controlling, I'm criticizingand punishing. And often we put
people in these roles, eventhough they're just doing their
(06:38):
thing, like this CEO is, I doubtthis person is actually wanting
to be a villain, yet he'splaying the role. And then
often, in this case, the, youknow, there's then the third
role in the triangle is thehero, the rescuer that I'm going
to come in, I'm going to fixthis, I'm going to make it
(07:00):
right, because I want to feel, Iwant to feel needed. So, you
know, my friends being, beingthe victim, making the CEO the
villain, and often, you know,the person listening me would
want to kind of be in that heroand just go like, Oh my gosh,
that sucks. You know what youshould do? Here's what you do.
You do this. And that the otherthing, I don't play this
triangle anymore, though, like,I just kind of go, why does he
(07:23):
have to respond so quickly? Whyis that necessary? And she
had a reason, but it really,there is no reason. The reason
is just a belief. And a beliefis something that somebody
believes to be true without anyany fact. And this is going to
be something that maybe you'veheard from me before, or maybe
(07:44):
it's brand new, and maybe you'regonna be okay with it, but maybe
it's gonna really, like, hit anerve everything you believe.
And I'm not talking about, youknow what, what this has to do
with your spirituality, whereyou maybe go on a Sunday, a
Saturday or for holidays, butwhat do you just believe about
your world, like, you know,people that drive teslas. Are
(08:05):
they a certain way? People thathave tattoos? What are they
like? Just, you know, and evenjust Whoa, if somebody doesn't
respond within 10 minutes toyour text message, what does
that mean? All of these thingsare beliefs. And here's the
thing that's really important,none of them are true. None of
(08:25):
them, not a single one of themis absolutely true. Why? You've
probably met people and you caneventually be one of them that
has a different belief about theexact same thing, and they are
having a human experience anddoing just fine. So if you were
to change one of these beliefs,you would also be just fine.
(08:47):
Your life would be different,but you would be fine. So let's
take, for example, the beliefthat somebody has to respond to
me really, really quickly. Iused to have that belief, like,
if I don't respond, get aresponse quickly, then that
means, but the, see, I didn't, Ididn't put it on the other
person. I put it on myself,like, oh, that means that I
messed up. And I didn't saysomething funny enough, smart
(09:08):
enough, good enough to get theresponse. So it's like, I'm my
own villain, all in one and thenusually I would go complain to
somebody and let them be therescuer. But now if somebody
doesn't get back, I just figurethey're living their life, and
that's okay, and that enables meto also live my life and not
(09:30):
necessarily have to get backsuper fast, right? So when we
change our beliefs about others,let's just change our beliefs
about ourselves. And so you'vegot this victim, you've got the
villain, you've got the hero,and it's just they all get a
benefit from playing this gamein this circle. And again, it
doesn't have to be threedifferent people. Some of these
roles can be played by the sameperson, and two people can go
(09:51):
back and forth, like maybeyou've ever, you know, in a
relationship gone, you know,somebody's a victim, and then
they make someone else avillain, and then now the
villain be. Becomes the rescuer,and then the victim wants to
becomes the villain. And youmight be going, like, well,
what's the what's the benefit ofbeing the victim? Like, well,
you get you get attention. Andthat's super apparent in the
(10:13):
culture today, becausebasically, if you are being
perpetrated against in any way,then you get so much attention.
You kind of get to do. You kindof can do whatever you want,
because you're a victim, andeverybody wants to rescue you,
and it's like, Oh, who am I tolike, you know, tell a victim.
No, I because I am not avillain, I'm not a perpetrator,
(10:34):
I'm not the bad person, I'm oneof the good ones. Yet, when we
play into that, we actually aregiving away our power. We're not
a powerful hero, not a powerfulhero or rescuer. We have
actually unknowingly become thevictim, and the victim has
actually become the persecutorin a lot of times. That's why
(10:55):
this victim triangle, DramaTriangle is so insidious, so
destructive, and sometimes it'sso hard to get out of because
once you're in it, and you getgoing, you don't even know which
role you're playing anymore. Youjust know you're in it. And it
seems important, because there'sall these emotions, there's
anger, there's fear, and there'sfrustration on all these things,
and it's and you've been doingit all of your life, so holy
(11:16):
shit. How do you get out of it?
How do you get out of it?
There's an empowered triangle.
So you go from the victimtriangle to the Empowered
triangle, and this is going totake, it's it takes work. It
takes it takes some consciousthought to go, Wait, is this? Is
this really? Is this reallynecessary? Is somebody really a
victim here, or is this? Arethese just beliefs that can
(11:37):
cause frustration, that could beshifted, and there's no need for
frustration, and this really canjust be a way to learn and grow
and connect. So what? What arethese like? More empowered
states? So the more empoweredstates, the empowerment triangle
consists of a creator, achallenger and a coach. So the
(12:00):
victim is the one that goes thatbecomes the Creator. Instead of
life happens to me, it's life ishappening through me. And what
choices, what choices havehappened to get me here? And how
do I how do I want things towork out? And what choices can I
make to shift where I'm at? So Iwas driving home today, and
(12:24):
there's a at the freeway offramp. There's a stop sign that
makes other other cars stop, andif you're getting off the
freeway, you just get to roll onthrough. And some people that
are new, new to this area, theydon't go that. They just assume
that it's going to be a four waystop, like they have to stop.
Why shouldn't everybody have toeverybody have to stop? And so I
come off the freeway, and I justkeep rolling through, and
(12:46):
someone at the stop sign justhonks at me. And there's a
little bit of like, oh, thisasshole honked at me. Like, what
the and wanting to make them thevillain, like, this bad person
did it. And instead, I stoppedmyself and go, Ah, this person,
this person is new. They're nota villain. I'm not a victim.
(13:09):
I've chosen to be here at thistime. What can I take away from
this? And to me, it was like,Oh, I have some I have some
anger and some frustration towork, work with. And once I did
that, I was like, Oh, I'm gonnajust make some sound and do some
movements to let these emotionsmove. And I was like, Oh, this
(13:29):
is this is great. This createdthe perfect circumstance to know
this state about me and what Ineeded to do to pass through it.
And so what did? What did? Whatdid I make this other person who
honked at me that usually Iwould have made them the
villain. I made them achallenger. They're no longer a
villain to me. They're achallenger. They challenged me
(13:50):
to go like, Hey, what's going onwith you? What do you think the
situation is? Because it's sothe challenger. Their Their role
is to provoke growth. They'renot there to harm or to hurt or
to take down. Instead, put amirror up so someone can go,
Ooh, what's, what's the truth ofthe situation? Like you put a
little pressure, but in a waythat, like a little pressure,
(14:12):
turns coal into a diamond, notjust crushes it into a bunch of
little dirty pieces. And sothanks to this challenger, I got
to I got to release sometension, some stress that had
been building up, and I got tobe thankful for them. And part
of what got me here is when weget to the third, third role in
(14:32):
the Empowered triangle, which isthe coach the hero, shifts from
the hero to the coach. Now,effectively, at this time, I was
playing the role of my owncoach, but I've had many, many
times where I'd bring asituation like this to an actual
coach, and they would providetheir their support, their
(14:53):
perspective, tools and tricks,and they leave it to me. They're
not here. To solve my problem,fix it. They're just there to
give perspective, give tools andgive support to, you know, a way
to listen. And so I was playingthe role of my own coach. And so
the more and more I say no tobeing frustrated, I say no to
(15:17):
that victim triangle, and themore I say yes to this
empowerment triangle, the more Ijust get to learn from the
experience. Enjoy it, even ifit's not necessarily enjoyable
in the moment, it's there can bea joy that I'm alive and I'm
learning and I'm growing, andthis is allowing me to have even
(15:38):
better experiences. This is allpart of the process of getting
me to where I ultimately want togo. Because again, I'm I'm get
to be the creator. I'm never thevictim. So nothing's happening
to me, it's happening for me,and I get to choose how I
respond. And so there's reallyno need to get frustrated ever
like, I'm notsaying it's not going to happen,
(16:01):
because, again, it's you mightprobably been doing this your
entire life, right? So you'renot going to just like, Oh, I
heard Justin's podcast, andtomorrow you're going to have
zero frustrations, because it'sjust like, I'm the creator, I'm
the Challenger, I'm the coach,and I put the right person the
right role. Because, let's behonest, you do have other people
that are actually playing thoseroles. They love playing those
(16:24):
roles in your life. And sothey're gonna get, they're gonna
get they are gonna getfrustrated, they're gonna get
angry. They're gonna get pissedoff when they want to play the
victim and you don't play therole you should play. And
because it's like, Wait, we'regoing to play the game. Why are
you not playing the game like alittle child, they're going to
(16:44):
get upset. And so you got to beready for that. And that's okay.
It's just part of the process.
Because, again, this, thisreally is a big shift from, you
know, going from blame toownership, reactivity to
creativity, rescuing toempowering and getting out of
the habit of being frustrated.
So really curious. What are yourthoughts on this? What are areas
(17:07):
of your life where maybe you'reseeing like, holy shit, I've
been unnecessarily frustrated,annoyed, upset, and I could just
be done. I could be done withit. I'm not saying you're going
to get done with it immediately.
But is there the chance, thepossibility? Because my friend,
when I was like, well, couldn'tit just be okay that this guy's
(17:28):
taken a couple, a couple extradays to get back to you, and
it's like, Oh no, that's notokay. It's not okay. It's not
okay. But again, like it's,it's, how badly do you want your
frustration? If you want it,there's plenty to be had. But if
you're sick of it, if you'redone, it's kind of like, it's
kind of like diet. If you'vebeen sick and feeling like
(17:51):
garbage, and you find out that,oh my gosh, you know that you're
basically, you're intolerant tolike dairy, right? It's if you
keep having the dairy, you'regonna keep having the stomach
upset, and you're gonna keepfeeling like shit. But if you're
sick and tired of feeling thatway, and just you're like,
you're done with the dairy, andrecognize there's other things
(18:15):
to eat, you can start feeling awhole lot better. It's just a
choice. It's just a choice. Andwhen you choose to shift, that's
up to you, and you can go in andout. It's not an it's not an all
or done, just like, you know,I've talked on this show about
how I've done some shifts in mydiet, and it's not 100% I go on
vacation, I enjoy some yummy,delicious foods. I know it's
(18:37):
gonna cost me something, and,you know, there's ways that I
mitigate, yet there's going tobe a little bit of a price to
pay. So I make sure that it'sfor something that's, like,
really worth it. It's reallyfun, and then it's just for a
little bit. And it can be likethat with, you know, the
frustration things like that,like, because maybe it is just
kind of fun for you to have alittle argument of discussion
(18:58):
with somebody about politicswhatever, like, it's your blood
running or whatever, and justrecognize you're choosing it and
doing it because it's you're youenjoy it. You enjoy it when you
recognize that you're in thedriver's seat. A lot of these
things that used to just feellike hell on earth become a cute
little fun game, kind of justlike it's, you know, like being
(19:19):
a kid playing house. You'veyou've always been playing
house, just you forgot you wereplaying the game. And you can
choose a different game. You cango from the Drama Triangle of
the victim, the villain and thehero, and you can switch that to
the Creator, to the Challengerand to the coach. So what game
do you want to be playing? Doyou want to be stuck in drama
(19:43):
and frustration, or is it timeto step into being empowered and
enjoying your life, that joyease and love and if you're
ready, but you're like, notexactly sure how, then reach
out. That's what. That's what.
You know, I've got the book.
Work the engineered to love canget that lots of great, great
(20:04):
stories and exercises, and thenalso just working with me. So do
encourage you, make sure you'refollowing me. Get on one of my
lists, so that when I do do anevent, you can, you're you're
there, and you can get thebenefit. Or if you just want to
work one on one, reach out.
We'll figure something out.
Because I do want more and morepeople to come over to the
(20:25):
empowerment triangle and juststart enjoying life no matter
what it throws at us, instead ofthrowing more garbage at each
other. In this Drama Triangle,it's enough. It's enough. It's
time for some new stories.
Because the Drama Triangle, thevictim triangle. To me, it, it's
very similar to the hero'sjourney, which is in so many
movies, so many stories, and I'msick of it. It's time for some
(20:48):
new stories where it's like, oh,things were really interesting,
but oh, how could things geteven cooler and more amazing?
And what could we discover? Andhow could we grow? And what,
what could we bring to thisworld? And I want to know what
you want to bring to this world.
So, so grateful to have youlistening watching. It's been
(21:09):
great. And with that, thank youand good day. Thanks for tuning
in to engineering emotions andenergy with Justin Wenck PhD,
today's episode resonated withyou, please subscribe and leave
a five star review. Yourfeedback not only supports the
show, but also helps others findus and start their journey of
emotional and energetic mastery.
You can also help by sharingthis podcast with someone you
(21:31):
think will love it just as muchas you do together, we're
engineering more amazing livesyou
Get to be the creator. I'm never the victim.
(00:02):
So nothing's happening to me.
It's happening for me, and I getto choose how I respond. There's
really no need to get frustratedever. Like, I'm not saying it's
not going to happen, because,again, you might probably been
doing this your entire life,right? So you're not going to
just like, Oh, I heard Justin'spodcast, and tomorrow you're
going to have zero frustrations,because it's just like, I'm the
(00:24):
creator, I'm the Challenger, I'mthe coach, and I put the right
person the right role. Because,let's be honest, you do have
other people that are actuallyplaying those roles. They love
playing those roles in yourlife. Are you ready to live a
life with enough time, money andenergy have relationships and
connections that delight you?
(00:46):
Are you ready for theextraordinary life you know
you've been missing? If so, thenthis is the place for you. I'm a
best selling author, coach,consultant and speaker who's
worked in technology for overtwo decades. I'm a leader at
transforming people andorganizations from operating in
fear, obligation and guilt torunning off joy, ease and love.
(01:09):
It's time for engineeringemotions and energy with me.
Justin Wenck, PhD, do you everfeel frustrated? Do you ever get
annoyed with anyone or situationor circumstances? What if I was
to tell you that you might be inthe stuck in the habit of being
(01:33):
frustrated and annoyed now thatmight annoy you or frustrate
you, but before you get too youknow, upset at me, you can
change it, and that's what we'regoing to be talking about today
in this episode. Is how you canbreak from being in the habit of
(01:53):
frustration. And this issomething that I've worked with
in my own life, and it's verycommon, and it's okay when I
first realized, well, that's notwhen I first but when I recently
realized that this is such aprevalent. Thing was I was
recently out out having some teawith a with a good friend who
(02:14):
had recently started at a newjob. And this friend told me,
yeah, I love the opportunity. Ilove what they're doing. I got
all these things going, butwhenever I email the CEO, he
never gets right back to me.
He'll take he'll take dayssometime like, what kind of a
CEO is that? And many of youmight be going like, yeah, what
(02:35):
kind of a What kind of a leaderis this that's not being super
responsive to great employeeswho have great things to grow
the business. And there's a waythat can be true, yet it doesn't
have to be true, but it doescreate frustration if you
believe that a good CEO needs torespond to their employees
(02:57):
immediately when they come withsomething that is a great
opportunity. So if you believethat, I don't care how good you
are, there's probably going tobe some times when even the best
leader or the most, you know,just busy, busy on it going to
work. You know, 20 hours a day,seven days a week type is going
to miss one of the emails. Andwhat does that get to result in
(03:20):
frustration, annoyance, upset,and you're like, Justin, why?
Why would somebody want to beupset or frustrated? Well,
there's there's a payoff.
There's a payoff to any anythingthat happens in your life. There
is a payoff. There's a secretbenefit for anything that
(03:41):
happens in your life, we'll doan example for myself. For much
of my life, my adult life, Ihave had physical, physical
pains in like my neck and myback shoulder, things like this,
where I've I've had to go tovarious doctors over many years,
and I still actually have somesome pains that I'm working
(04:03):
with. So as much as I'velearned, grown and figured out
how to how to treat my bodydifferently and do all sorts of
things myself, why hasn't thepain just gone away? Well,
there's a benefit to the pain.
Because one of the benefits isthat if I'm in pain, I have to
go to somebody to work to helpme with it. And so that helps me
(04:25):
with two very key things thathad been missing for most of my
life. You know, one is contactwith other people, because,
especially starting, you know,in pandemic times when basically
be all on our own. But afterthat, I started working remotely
from home, and so it's like, oh,if I have to go go to get a
(04:49):
massage or go to a chiropractoror go to an acupuncture
therapist, I'm actuallyinteracting with another human
and getting positive. Some touchand, you know, some some chat
and some face time with anotherhuman. And the other thing is,
is I'm getting help fromsomebody, as opposed to some
working with somebody where it'smaybe, you know, competitive or
(05:13):
adversarial, right? So to get toexperience human connection with
somebody that's there just tohelp me that's awesome. Like,
why would I give that up? Whywould I give up my pain? There's
there's a benefit. And so nowthat I know this, I recognize
this, and I can work on theother, on the things of getting
(05:33):
that connection, getting thathelp that don't come via pain,
and that's happening, that's onits way. And so what is the
payoff? What is the benefit tofrustration? And I'm going to
explain this to you, and I'malso going to explain how to get
out of it, because a big part ofit, it comes from something
that's often called the TheDrama Triangle, or I like to
call it the victim triangle. Andthere's a way to switch this. So
(05:56):
the Drama Triangle is basicallyit often involves a victim,
which is why I like to call itthe victim triangle, where
something bad happens to them.
So in this case, the case of myfriend, she didn't get her email
responded to as quickly as shewanted to, when, when, when
(06:17):
something happened. And I'mpowerless. I can't do anything
about it. For there to be avictim, for someone to be
powerless, there needs to besomeone that has power over and
that's the villain, thepersecutor, the I'm going to be,
I'm controlling, I'm criticizingand punishing. And often we put
people in these roles, eventhough they're just doing their
(06:38):
thing, like this CEO is, I doubtthis person is actually wanting
to be a villain, yet he'splaying the role. And then
often, in this case, the, youknow, there's then the third
role in the triangle is thehero, the rescuer that I'm going
to come in, I'm going to fixthis, I'm going to make it
(07:00):
right, because I want to feel, Iwant to feel needed. So, you
know, my friends being, beingthe victim, making the CEO the
villain, and often, you know,the person listening me would
want to kind of be in that heroand just go like, Oh my gosh,
that sucks. You know what youshould do? Here's what you do.
You do this. And that the otherthing, I don't play this
triangle anymore, though, like,I just kind of go, why does he
(07:23):
have to respond so quickly? Whyis that necessary? And she
had a reason, but it really,there is no reason. The reason
is just a belief. And a beliefis something that somebody
believes to be true without anyany fact. And this is going to
be something that maybe you'veheard from me before, or maybe
(07:44):
it's brand new, and maybe you'regonna be okay with it, but maybe
it's gonna really, like, hit anerve everything you believe.
And I'm not talking about, youknow what, what this has to do
with your spirituality, whereyou maybe go on a Sunday, a
Saturday or for holidays, butwhat do you just believe about
your world, like, you know,people that drive teslas. Are
(08:05):
they a certain way? People thathave tattoos? What are they
like? Just, you know, and evenjust Whoa, if somebody doesn't
respond within 10 minutes toyour text message, what does
that mean? All of these thingsare beliefs. And here's the
thing that's really important,none of them are true. None of
(08:25):
them, not a single one of themis absolutely true. Why? You've
probably met people and you caneventually be one of them that
has a different belief about theexact same thing, and they are
having a human experience anddoing just fine. So if you were
to change one of these beliefs,you would also be just fine.
(08:47):
Your life would be different,but you would be fine. So let's
take, for example, the beliefthat somebody has to respond to
me really, really quickly. Iused to have that belief, like,
if I don't respond, get aresponse quickly, then that
means, but the, see, I didn't, Ididn't put it on the other
person. I put it on myself,like, oh, that means that I
messed up. And I didn't saysomething funny enough, smart
(09:08):
enough, good enough to get theresponse. So it's like, I'm my
own villain, all in one and thenusually I would go complain to
somebody and let them be therescuer. But now if somebody
doesn't get back, I just figurethey're living their life, and
that's okay, and that enables meto also live my life and not
(09:30):
necessarily have to get backsuper fast, right? So when we
change our beliefs about others,let's just change our beliefs
about ourselves. And so you'vegot this victim, you've got the
villain, you've got the hero,and it's just they all get a
benefit from playing this gamein this circle. And again, it
doesn't have to be threedifferent people. Some of these
roles can be played by the sameperson, and two people can go
(09:51):
back and forth, like maybeyou've ever, you know, in a
relationship gone, you know,somebody's a victim, and then
they make someone else avillain, and then now the
villain be. Becomes the rescuer,and then the victim wants to
becomes the villain. And youmight be going, like, well,
what's the what's the benefit ofbeing the victim? Like, well,
you get you get attention. Andthat's super apparent in the
(10:13):
culture today, becausebasically, if you are being
perpetrated against in any way,then you get so much attention.
You kind of get to do. You kindof can do whatever you want,
because you're a victim, andeverybody wants to rescue you,
and it's like, Oh, who am I tolike, you know, tell a victim.
No, I because I am not avillain, I'm not a perpetrator,
(10:34):
I'm not the bad person, I'm oneof the good ones. Yet, when we
play into that, we actually aregiving away our power. We're not
a powerful hero, not a powerfulhero or rescuer. We have
actually unknowingly become thevictim, and the victim has
actually become the persecutorin a lot of times. That's why
(10:55):
this victim triangle, DramaTriangle is so insidious, so
destructive, and sometimes it'sso hard to get out of because
once you're in it, and you getgoing, you don't even know which
role you're playing anymore. Youjust know you're in it. And it
seems important, because there'sall these emotions, there's
anger, there's fear, and there'sfrustration on all these things,
and it's and you've been doingit all of your life, so holy
(11:16):
shit. How do you get out of it?
How do you get out of it?
There's an empowered triangle.
So you go from the victimtriangle to the Empowered
triangle, and this is going totake, it's it takes work. It
takes it takes some consciousthought to go, Wait, is this? Is
this really? Is this reallynecessary? Is somebody really a
victim here, or is this? Arethese just beliefs that can
(11:37):
cause frustration, that could beshifted, and there's no need for
frustration, and this really canjust be a way to learn and grow
and connect. So what? What arethese like? More empowered
states? So the more empoweredstates, the empowerment triangle
consists of a creator, achallenger and a coach. So the
(12:00):
victim is the one that goes thatbecomes the Creator. Instead of
life happens to me, it's life ishappening through me. And what
choices, what choices havehappened to get me here? And how
do I how do I want things towork out? And what choices can I
make to shift where I'm at? So Iwas driving home today, and
(12:24):
there's a at the freeway offramp. There's a stop sign that
makes other other cars stop, andif you're getting off the
freeway, you just get to roll onthrough. And some people that
are new, new to this area, theydon't go that. They just assume
that it's going to be a four waystop, like they have to stop.
Why shouldn't everybody have toeverybody have to stop? And so I
come off the freeway, and I justkeep rolling through, and
(12:46):
someone at the stop sign justhonks at me. And there's a
little bit of like, oh, thisasshole honked at me. Like, what
the and wanting to make them thevillain, like, this bad person
did it. And instead, I stoppedmyself and go, Ah, this person,
this person is new. They're nota villain. I'm not a victim.
(13:09):
I've chosen to be here at thistime. What can I take away from
this? And to me, it was like,Oh, I have some I have some
anger and some frustration towork, work with. And once I did
that, I was like, Oh, I'm gonnajust make some sound and do some
movements to let these emotionsmove. And I was like, Oh, this
(13:29):
is this is great. This createdthe perfect circumstance to know
this state about me and what Ineeded to do to pass through it.
And so what did? What did? Whatdid I make this other person who
honked at me that usually Iwould have made them the
villain. I made them achallenger. They're no longer a
villain to me. They're achallenger. They challenged me
(13:50):
to go like, Hey, what's going onwith you? What do you think the
situation is? Because it's sothe challenger. Their Their role
is to provoke growth. They'renot there to harm or to hurt or
to take down. Instead, put amirror up so someone can go,
Ooh, what's, what's the truth ofthe situation? Like you put a
little pressure, but in a waythat, like a little pressure,
(14:12):
turns coal into a diamond, notjust crushes it into a bunch of
little dirty pieces. And sothanks to this challenger, I got
to I got to release sometension, some stress that had
been building up, and I got tobe thankful for them. And part
of what got me here is when weget to the third, third role in
(14:32):
the Empowered triangle, which isthe coach the hero, shifts from
the hero to the coach. Now,effectively, at this time, I was
playing the role of my owncoach, but I've had many, many
times where I'd bring asituation like this to an actual
coach, and they would providetheir their support, their
(14:53):
perspective, tools and tricks,and they leave it to me. They're
not here. To solve my problem,fix it. They're just there to
give perspective, give tools andgive support to, you know, a way
to listen. And so I was playingthe role of my own coach. And so
the more and more I say no tobeing frustrated, I say no to
(15:17):
that victim triangle, and themore I say yes to this
empowerment triangle, the more Ijust get to learn from the
experience. Enjoy it, even ifit's not necessarily enjoyable
in the moment, it's there can bea joy that I'm alive and I'm
learning and I'm growing, andthis is allowing me to have even
(15:38):
better experiences. This is allpart of the process of getting
me to where I ultimately want togo. Because again, I'm I'm get
to be the creator. I'm never thevictim. So nothing's happening
to me, it's happening for me,and I get to choose how I
respond. And so there's reallyno need to get frustrated ever
like, I'm notsaying it's not going to happen,
(16:01):
because, again, it's you mightprobably been doing this your
entire life, right? So you'renot going to just like, Oh, I
heard Justin's podcast, andtomorrow you're going to have
zero frustrations, because it'sjust like, I'm the creator, I'm
the Challenger, I'm the coach,and I put the right person the
right role. Because, let's behonest, you do have other people
that are actually playing thoseroles. They love playing those
(16:24):
roles in your life. And sothey're gonna get, they're gonna
get they are gonna getfrustrated, they're gonna get
angry. They're gonna get pissedoff when they want to play the
victim and you don't play therole you should play. And
because it's like, Wait, we'regoing to play the game. Why are
you not playing the game like alittle child, they're going to
(16:44):
get upset. And so you got to beready for that. And that's okay.
It's just part of the process.
Because, again, this, thisreally is a big shift from, you
know, going from blame toownership, reactivity to
creativity, rescuing toempowering and getting out of
the habit of being frustrated.
So really curious. What are yourthoughts on this? What are areas
(17:07):
of your life where maybe you'reseeing like, holy shit, I've
been unnecessarily frustrated,annoyed, upset, and I could just
be done. I could be done withit. I'm not saying you're going
to get done with it immediately.
But is there the chance, thepossibility? Because my friend,
when I was like, well, couldn'tit just be okay that this guy's
(17:28):
taken a couple, a couple extradays to get back to you, and
it's like, Oh no, that's notokay. It's not okay. It's not
okay. But again, like it's,it's, how badly do you want your
frustration? If you want it,there's plenty to be had. But if
you're sick of it, if you'redone, it's kind of like, it's
kind of like diet. If you'vebeen sick and feeling like
(17:51):
garbage, and you find out that,oh my gosh, you know that you're
basically, you're intolerant tolike dairy, right? It's if you
keep having the dairy, you'regonna keep having the stomach
upset, and you're gonna keepfeeling like shit. But if you're
sick and tired of feeling thatway, and just you're like,
you're done with the dairy, andrecognize there's other things
(18:15):
to eat, you can start feeling awhole lot better. It's just a
choice. It's just a choice. Andwhen you choose to shift, that's
up to you, and you can go in andout. It's not an it's not an all
or done, just like, you know,I've talked on this show about
how I've done some shifts in mydiet, and it's not 100% I go on
vacation, I enjoy some yummy,delicious foods. I know it's
(18:37):
gonna cost me something, and,you know, there's ways that I
mitigate, yet there's going tobe a little bit of a price to
pay. So I make sure that it'sfor something that's, like,
really worth it. It's reallyfun, and then it's just for a
little bit. And it can be likethat with, you know, the
frustration things like that,like, because maybe it is just
kind of fun for you to have alittle argument of discussion
(18:58):
with somebody about politicswhatever, like, it's your blood
running or whatever, and justrecognize you're choosing it and
doing it because it's you're youenjoy it. You enjoy it when you
recognize that you're in thedriver's seat. A lot of these
things that used to just feellike hell on earth become a cute
little fun game, kind of justlike it's, you know, like being
(19:19):
a kid playing house. You'veyou've always been playing
house, just you forgot you wereplaying the game. And you can
choose a different game. You cango from the Drama Triangle of
the victim, the villain and thehero, and you can switch that to
the Creator, to the Challengerand to the coach. So what game
do you want to be playing? Doyou want to be stuck in drama
(19:43):
and frustration, or is it timeto step into being empowered and
enjoying your life, that joyease and love and if you're
ready, but you're like, notexactly sure how, then reach
out. That's what. That's what.
You know, I've got the book.
Work the engineered to love canget that lots of great, great
(20:04):
stories and exercises, and thenalso just working with me. So do
encourage you, make sure you'refollowing me. Get on one of my
lists, so that when I do do anevent, you can, you're you're
there, and you can get thebenefit. Or if you just want to
work one on one, reach out.
We'll figure something out.
Because I do want more and morepeople to come over to the
(20:25):
empowerment triangle and juststart enjoying life no matter
what it throws at us, instead ofthrowing more garbage at each
other. In this Drama Triangle,it's enough. It's enough. It's
time for some new stories.
Because the Drama Triangle, thevictim triangle. To me, it, it's
very similar to the hero'sjourney, which is in so many
movies, so many stories, and I'msick of it. It's time for some
(20:48):
new stories where it's like, oh,things were really interesting,
but oh, how could things geteven cooler and more amazing?
And what could we discover? Andhow could we grow? And what,
what could we bring to thisworld? And I want to know what
you want to bring to this world.
So, so grateful to have youlistening watching. It's been
(21:09):
great. And with that, thank youand good day. Thanks for tuning
in to engineering emotions andenergy with Justin Wenck PhD,
today's episode resonated withyou, please subscribe and leave
a five star review. Yourfeedback not only supports the
show, but also helps others findus and start their journey of
emotional and energetic mastery.
You can also help by sharingthis podcast with someone you
(21:31):
think will love it just as muchas you do together, we're
engineering more amazing livesyou
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