Unlocking Agency with Dr. Julie de Azevedo: Let’s Disagree Podcast
What happens when we turn the tools of critical thinking inward and apply them to our own thoughts, feelings, and emotional reactions?
Dr. Julie de Azevedo recently joined Colby Reddish on Let’s Disagree and Other Interesting Conversations to explore how curiosity about our internal experiences can help us better understand ourselves and create more space for personal agency.
The conversation begins with an important distinction: examining an emotion isn’t the same as deciding whether that emotion is rational, suppressing it, or trying to talk yourself out of what you feel.
Feelings are information. But the meaning we assign to those feelings may be shaped by assumptions, past experiences, relationship patterns, and beliefs about ourselves and other people.
Creating Space Between a Feeling and a Reaction
What happens when a partner says something that immediately feels critical? When someone’s behavior triggers feelings of rejection, shame, anger, or fear? How much of our response is about what is happening in the present moment—and how much might be connected to experiences we are bringing with us?
Dr. Julie and Colby explore the value of pausing long enough to notice the difference.
That pause creates space to ask questions like: What am I feeling? What actually happened? What am I making this experience mean? And how do I want to respond?
The goal isn’t to eliminate emotion. It’s to become more aware of what is happening internally so that our next action can be more intentional and aligned with our values.
Curiosity Without Self-Judgment
The conversation also explores the difference between self-reflection and self-criticism.
It’s easy to turn introspection into another opportunity to judge ourselves for feeling angry, hurt, afraid, embarrassed, or overwhelmed. Dr. Julie emphasizes a different approach: noticing thoughts and feelings without automatically turning them into moral judgments about who we are.
From relationship conflict and old emotional triggers to anger, sexuality, religious teachings, and communication, the episode examines what can change when we become curious about our internal experiences instead of immediately reacting to them.
It also explores the limits of this approach, including why examining our own interpretations should never become a reason to excuse abusive or objectively harmful behavior.
Can critical thinking help us understand not only what we believe, but why we respond to the world the way we do? And can that understanding give us more freedom to decide how we want to show up?
Watch the full episode of Let’s Disagree and Other Interesting Conversations to hear Dr. Julie de Azevedo and Colby Reddish explore critical thinking, emotional awareness, triggers, mindfulness, relationships, and personal agency.
