How Vengeance Hijacks Your Life (And How to Take It Back) With Cameron Karber
In this hauntingly raw episode of the Let’s Get Naked Podcast, Cameron Karber steps into the spotlight with unflinching honesty to unpack one of humanity’s oldest poisons: vengeance.
Through vivid personal storytelling, Cameron invites listeners into the most shadowed corners of his mind—the rage, the intrusive thoughts, the fantasies of revenge, and the suffocating weight of generational pain. What begins as a confession unfolds into a study of the human condition, exposing how easily vengeance disguises itself as control, justice, or survival… and how, in the end, it destroys the very person clinging to it.
This episode isn’t about violence. It’s about the quiet wars we wage inside ourselves—and the moment we realize that freedom doesn’t come from retribution, but from release.
The Psychology of Vengeance: A Mirror, Not a Weapon
Cameron dismantles the illusion that vengeance is ever about the other person. It’s about us—our wounds, our pride, and our desperate need to rewrite the story where we were powerless.
He describes vengeance as a psychological spiral, fueled by thoughts like “They deserve to suffer” or “If they felt my pain, I’d finally feel peace.” But as he reveals, this mindset only tightens the grip of suffering. Each imagined act of revenge reopens the wound rather than healing it.
“Revenge,” he says, “is like drinking poison and waiting for someone else to die.”
That poison is familiar: bitterness, resentment, righteous anger. It seeps into every thought, shaping how we speak, act, and love. Vengeance stops being an event—it becomes an identity.
The Legacy of a Narcissistic Parent
Cameron opens up about growing up under the shadow of a narcissistic parent—a relationship built on control, manipulation, and emotional chaos. The patterns, he admits, don’t vanish when you leave home. They hide in your reactions, your self-talk, your expectations of others.
The episode captures that generational loop with painful precision: children of broken parents often become adults who unconsciously replicate the same dynamics they swore they’d escape.
Until awareness interrupts the cycle.
Through his own healing journey, Cameron discovered that vengeance often begins where forgiveness feels impossible—in the moments when pride and pain collide.
Triggers, Teachers, and the Alchemy of Anger
At the core of this episode lies a simple but radical idea: anger can become your teacher, if you let it.
Cameron reframes anger not as the enemy, but as a signal—a flare from the subconscious revealing where healing is still needed. The goal isn’t to suppress it, but to understand it.
“Every trigger is an invitation,” he says. “You can repeat it or redeem it. You get to choose.”
Anne joins the conversation to reflect on how anger often masks deeper grief—grief for the love we didn’t receive, the boundaries we didn’t know how to set, and the identity we built just to survive. Together, they illustrate how awareness transforms pain into power and reactivity into emotional maturity.
The Cost of Carrying It
The emotional toll of vengeance is steep. Cameron describes it as a full-time job with no paycheck, draining energy, sleep, and relationships.
When revenge becomes a coping mechanism, the mind stays trapped in hypervigilance—reliving betrayal, rehearsing retaliation, rewriting the narrative endlessly. The brain can’t distinguish between the memory and the imagined act, which means the body keeps producing the same stress chemicals as if the trauma were still happening.
That’s why letting go isn’t weakness—it’s physiological liberation.
Choosing Peace: The Real Revolution
The heart of this episode lies in one quiet, devastating realization: you can’t punish someone into healing yourself.
Forgiveness isn’t about excusing harm—it’s about releasing the invisible leash that keeps you tethered to it. Cameron shares how he finally began to experience peace when he stopped trying to rewrite the past and started focusing on who he wanted to become.
“Forgiveness doesn’t make you soft,” he reflects. “It makes you sovereign.”
It’s the moment anger transforms from an identity into a teacher. The moment survival becomes strength. The moment vengeance loses its appeal because peace finally feels better.
