Break Emotional Unavailability, Embrace Loving Relationships, Grow Self-Esteem

Advice Wednesday: Should I warn other newcomers about his behaviour?

By Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Many many moons ago, my seventeen-year-old self had a guy that she thought was a friend do a very bad thing to her. I wondered if it was because my friend and I had affectionately or so I’d thought, made a joke about him, and for the next year, I slid into pain and further loss of self. Then one night as we were, as we call it back home in Dublin, ‘knacker drinking’ (when teens go drinking on the beach, in the woods etc), it all came out that this person had done this to the bulk of the group–there were almost twenty of us–and my blame turned to fury and I gradually started to reclaim a little of myself although it impacted me for several years. And I made damn sure that others knew about it so that he could no longer benefit from the silence that had prevailed.

Put aside my own experience and think of abuse in general, and you can see how self-blame which leads to a code of silence stemming from shame, can keep a person in a bad situation long past its sell-by-date while also letting the perpetrator have free reign to keep up this persona.

One of the things that baffles people who experience mistreatment is the fact that this person is “liked by everyone”, but all that these people know is the persona plus ‘everyone’ doesn’t actually like this person. Once you stop making their behaviour about you and you stop thinking that you were specially selected for their dark side as if you must have provoked it, you will find others who know about them too.

In today’s Advice Wednesday, Michelle wants to know whether she should let other “newbies” know about the predator in their midst so that they don’t have to go through what she and others have. Now that she knows that she’s not alone, she wants to share her experiences but she fears coming across as a “gossip”.

Wrong behaviour is wrong behaviour even if that person is liked by ‘everyone’ (they’re not, no one is). Don’t judge a person on their reputation; judge your situation including their actions and pattern. Judging crappy treatment you’re getting on the superficial knowledge others have or the assumptions you might be making based on their status, is the fastest way of ensuring that you delay doing right by you while sheltering this person from the consequences of their actions.

And particularly for women, we must stop treating romantic partners, male or female, as if they’re the centre of the universe and ‘competing’ with other women as if there’s a shallow pool and there’s not enough of anything–jobs, money, friends, relationships, luck etc–to go round. We need to have our backs but also, when we do, we will not inadvertently collude with people who don’t have good intentions towards women and who are in fact opportunistic and using charm to divide and conquer.

Have you been part of a ‘harem’? Have you blamed yourself for someone’s predatory behaviour? What would you do in this situation?

Each Wednesday, I help a reader to solve a dilemma. To submit a question, please email advicewednesdayAT baggagereclaim.com. If you would prefer your question to be featured on the podcast, drop a line to podcast AT baggagereclaim.com. Keep questions below 200 words. For in-depth support, book at a clarity session or coaching. 

We Need To Talk About Narcissists: 20 Mindset Shifts To Help You Stop Crazy-Making Yourself

By Reading Time: 10 Minutes

20 TIPS ABOUT NARCISSISTS

One of the reasons why I haven’t written directly about narcissists for some time (although I’ve covered the subject many times from different angles) is because there’s an overuse of the term: it can become a catch-all for anyone who behaves badly in a relationship. It’s also because there are so many dedicated resources out there, that I prefer to write about it in the context of BR’s ethos: living and loving with self-esteem and ultimately understanding ourselves and our choices better so that we break unhealthy patterns.

After numerous requests, here are twenty thoughts on narcissists (and the narcissistically inclined). My hope is that you experience a mindset shift that helps you to stop crazy-making yourself.

#1 All narcissists are emotionally unavailable but not all emotionally unavailable people are narcissists.

Don’t conflate the two. Unavailable relationships take two unavailable people to keep them going.

#2 Narcissists enjoy collecting supply from people who exaggerate their own negative qualities and characteristics.

When you’re prone to excessive self-blame (‘inverted’ narcissism) you make yourself “special”, albeit negatively. Narcissists exaggerate in the opposite direction with their delusions of grandeur. As a result, when a narcissist comes along and turns their mega-watt attention and charm on you, it feels flattering and valuable. This habit of self-criticism, however, becomes the rod for your back though because narcissists exploit it. Your default is to fault-find within when the charm is withdrawn. It’s also guaranteed that you will feel 100% responsible for the success of the relationship. This means that you overcompensate and then feel 100% responsible for the failure and their narcissistic behaviour.

#3 Narcissists build you up so that they have the power and the ego to break you down.

Ever felt guarded only for a narcissist to come along and “break down your walls”? They build you up with their charm and with fast-forwarding and future faking so that you mistake intensity for intimacy and trust them. Building you up ensures that you reciprocate and that when they inevitably discard you, your pain will be a reflection of their power.

Narcissists are highly insecure, so their seemingly positive behaviour always disguises a hidden agenda. Sometimes they’re aware of their hidden agenda at the time. In other instances, your response makes them aware of something to exploit. Narcissists love to leverage power and control.

#4 It’s never about you with a narcissist.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t possess very attractive qualities and characteristics, but the overarching aim of a narcissist’s compliments and general activities is to boost his or herself. A narcissist liking something about you is really like saying, “Look at how well I’ve done!” This is something you will be familiar with if you have a narcissistically inclined parent. If you seemingly flourish under a narcissist’s charm and influence, they’ll see no problem in taking credit for your greatness and then discarding you to snatch it back. When they’re complimenting you, they expect you to reciprocate. And, yes, that’s even if you don’t mean it or you don’t know what you’re saying to be true. Who is the most likely to do that? Yep, a people pleaser. This is why Fast-Forwarding and the narcissist’s version, love bombing, are so successful.

Equally, if you put a foot wrong and basically are human, narcissists take that super personal too. They interpret your flaws and humanness as, wait for it, feedback that they’re human and flawed.

#5 Narcissists know that their persona and what you use to put them on a pedestal isn’t true.

On the one hand, they enjoy the adulation. On the other, however, they punish you for ‘mocking’ them even though it’s not what you’re doing. Or, because of their [hidden] low self-worth, you’re punished for being one of the “fools” who doesn’t see through them. Yeah, you can’t win.

#6 Engaging with a narcissist equals trying to make sense out of nonsense.

Unless you are a narcissist yourself, don’t expect to get in their head. Don’t base your expectations of them on how you or other folk act either. You don’t speak the same language, so they don’t think, act or empathise in the way that you do. Accept what you know wholly and fully right now. Stop burning brain cells and bandwidth trying to figure them out or change them.

#7 Narcissists are masters at building arguments on grains of truth.

They defend the grains with a ferocity that makes it all too easy to forget logic, never mind reality and the actual truth.

#8 Narcissistically inclined is a good enough reason to go.

One of the criteria for ‘qualifying’ as a narcissist is bad enough so why hang about?

Or, why split hairs over them having four instead of the five?

Or why wait to see if five becomes more?

Most narcissists are undiagnosed because, yeah, um, they’re narcissists! They’re not exactly rushing to sit in a therapist’s office. Even if they did, they’d lie. They’d claim that the therapist said there’s nothing wrong with them and that it’s everyone else.

Yes, therapists can be charmed by narcissists, too! 

Narcissists often function well professionally and socially where persona, charm, surface knowledge, status and even aggression are valued. But boy oh boy do they come unstuck in close interpersonal relationships. Why? Because the more time you spend with a narcissist, the more you see and the more they see. You pose a threat to their carefully crafted persona. That, and they get high on the power and control.

Just because they’re undiagnosed, it doesn’t mean that they’re not a narcissist or problematic. Don’t make the mistake of using lack of diagnosis or denial masquerading as doubt, to opt back in. You don’t need to prove that someone is 100% narcissist or 100% toxic in order to get out! Why would you wait until your broken leg was falling off to go to hospital?

#9 Stop pumping the empty empathy well and putting your bucket down there!

The things that keep you awake at night, that baffle you, are a sign. They indicate not just how much you’ve overcompensated and normalised toxic behaviour and situations, but that you are looking to be the exception to the rule.

You expect to receive empathy from someone who doesn’t have it to give.

This sets you up to be in a disappointment cycle of trying to make an ‘authority’ give you the love you’ve been searching for but unable to get. A key person in your early life may have taught you that this is what love is, so you then seek romantic partners that keep you feeling the way that you did as a child. This cycle makes you feel “special” but for the wrong (and dangerous) reasons.

You cannot make romantic partners into parental replacements.

Time and again I talk to people who are so trapped in their feelings that they haven’t stepped back and connected the dots with their past. They’re trying to right the wrongs of the past. One reader shared her story of torment with me last year, and within a few minutes, I uncovered that this narcissistic neighbour represented old pain from her abusive uncle. The light bulb finally went on.

#10 Pursuing the love of a narcissist is like looking for the 50th Wonder of the World.

Yeah, it doesn’t exist. And to get to love, there would need to have been quite a few other “wonders” including empathy, compassion, integrity, a conscience, to name but a few. Narcissists don’t love; they admire and compete. They charm.

Pursuing a narcissist says that you’re looking for love with an outside chance of happening.

Pain and love have become intertwined and you’re setting you up to fail. On some level, you believe that you can only be loved under highly exceptionable circumstances. Yep, making you “special” again. Trying to be the exception to the rule is a way of trying to right the wrongs of the past. It’s like “If I can make them love me; if I can earn their love, it will cancel out the old hurt and loss. I will finally be worthy.” You are and always have been worthy of love though. You don’t need the narcissist.

#11 Narcissists cannot keep up the act that they presented in the beginning.

They’re highly insecure, but also, how can they discard you after building you up if they don’t change?

There isn’t a solution or magic bullet to “fixing” their narcissism. All the people pleasing in the world won’t make them become who they presented as at the beginning or during the ‘good times’. You might get it temporarily, but not permanently or for any significant length of time. It will also never be what it was in the beginning because, well, it’s not the beginning. That would require you living in total delusion (don’t do it). Trying to fix a narcissist just delays and blocks your exit from the cycle of disappointment and abuse. Even when you’re unaware of who they really are or what they’ve been up to, they are communicating their true selves.

Narcissists are very insecure and prone to paranoia, so they project their innermost feelings and thoughts onto you and call it your deeds, thoughts and problems.

They act out and punish you (it might be more subtle passive aggression or betrayals behind your back initially) as if you have done something. In reality, they know based on their pattern, that they’ve done something wrong. They inadvertently and directly sabotage out of fear. Narcissists have an “eat or be eaten” mentality, so they attack you first so that you don’t have the strength left to query it or fight back.

#12 A narcissist knowing that you desire them or are in pain is as good as having you.

The narcissist doesn’t need to come back to somebody who is 1) still chasing him/her or competing with the harem despite being discarded or 2) consumed by what [the narcissist] did to such a degree that it’s obvious that they haven’t moved on. The more practised they are at their bullshit, is the more secure a narcissist is in these assumptions. Why? Knowing that they can have you is as good as having you.

It’s twisted, but it’s like you being affected by them legitimises why they think it’s OK to act as they do.

That’s not because it’s true: it’s warped logic. Narcissists can’t account for their own actions (no empathy, don’t take responsibility), so they blame the victim for being the victim or for not seeing through them. It’s as if being loved or wanted is that person’s ‘weakness’.

#13 Narcissists bail so that they can control the narrative and protect their ego.

They will make a sudden exit or bail (possibly after telling you all about yourself complete with lies or distortions, or after having been caught out). Why? Because you can’t argue back. The ego (and story) they tell themselves remains intact.

If they spread lies, it’s to trash you to get ahead of your story (to discredit you). The ‘clever’ thing is that when they think you still really want them or are reliant on them, the possibility of them returning becomes a way of silencing you from speaking up (because you don’t want to endanger it). Of course, when they don’t come back or do but wreak even more destruction than last time, it feels incredibly wounding to have played nice.

#14 Anyone can be attracted to a narcissist; we’ve all felt attraction to someone who we did not know yet.

Narcissists are also very good blenders, charmers, and performers. That said, if you stick around or this is part of a pattern, rather than blame you for their shady behaviour, take a closer look at any unresolved issues that you may or may not be aware of. When you do, you can and will break the cycle.

#15 Recognising a narcissist for what they are will reveal the truth about someone else.

Our experiences invite us to see what we couldn’t see before. It will hurt to recognise a narcissist’s behaviour because it explains a significant person from your past’s behaviour. You might feel disloyal, not to them (the narcissist) but to the parent or significant person who originally inspired this disproportionate need for validation.

It also dismantles a lies that you may have built your whole life around: that this is love. That this is how you earn love. That your “pleasing” will make someone be and do as you want or change your feelings about you.

You might also find it hard to admit because it reveals that you are in a child role or that you were deeply attracted to how things look (the fantasy). It may be that there’s shame around having liked someone who’s proven to be slim on character. It’s admitting all of these concerns that’s the beginning of ceasing the crazy-making, though.

#16 If someone has bombed your existence or hijacked your reality, they’re an assclown.

Call them a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath, or whatever you want to call them. Non-disordered people don’t decimate your life and then feign ignorance at why you’re upset or show no remorse. If you’re going to invest time, energy, effort, emotion and *money* into understanding them, do so to understand how to get away and to heal, not to try and diagnose and justify your way back into a toxic relationship.

#17 Narcissists reflect the need to love yourself.

“If you like the way I look that much, oh baby you should go and love yourself”. The narcissist’s version of Justin Bieber’s ‘Love Yourself’, haha.

The job of a narcissist is to hold a mirror up to your dire need for genuine self-love. Stop looking for a share of someone’s exaggeration.

A narcissist cannot truly love or empathise. You might think that their crumbs and “good times” are amazing, but when you look at what you’re actually getting (or not getting), you realise that the emperor has no clothes on. What you experience is very surface and going through the motions.

Narcissists come unstuck because they’re the equivalent of actors who play the role by acting what they think the character is like.

The best actors are the ones who live and breathe the character, thinking about what that character would think, say and do — and then doing these to become the character. In the real world, people who have strong character and learn to embody their values are able to due to consistently be-ing and do-ing, not just rolling it out for an agenda.

Narcissists fall short because they can play at the charming stuff but they are unable to do the actions of character, intimacy, commitment etc.

They lie, cheat, gaslight and charm their way into relationships. This is easier to do with someone who wants love via the equivalent of a Get Rich Quick scheme, who turns a blind eye because they enjoy the high and are delaying the inevitable, or who has walls up and so presents an extra challenge.

#18 A narcissist forces you to heal old pain, fear and guilt.

Similar to what affairs do, relationships with narcissists are like exorcisms that force every ugly feeling, thought and hidden issue out of you. These experiences awaken you to the truth of your struggle and how you’ve been too hard on you. They force you to see the truth about a person from your past. They force you to stop acting like a kid and acting from a place of fear.

If you’re unaware of or ignoring a blind spot or pattern(s), a narcissist will force you to finally recognise it with no equivocations.

This is, though, as long as you see the pain of what is going on for what it is rather than hankering for more of it and trying to get him/her to go back to when you didn’t know who they were. Going back to a narcissist or, in fact, any toxic or shady relationship is like say that was wrong for you is right. It invites more pain into your life until you’re ready to learn from the experience. When you stop trying to right the wrongs of the past and see your connection to the narcissist for what it is, this person rapidly loses their power.

20 mindset shifts about narcissists. #1

#19 It will become difficult, if not impossible for you to return to the relationship.

Eventually, the pattern of a toxic relationship breaks down in such a way that it’s made too difficult for you to return to something that is going to hurt you. This is when you start over.

If you see the relationship as the sign to know, like and trust yourself more, you will rebuild your life without the opening for a narcissist.

#20 A narcissist will force you to learn true empathy and compassion.

You have the capacity to love, to empathise, to recognise right from wrong and truly connect with other humans. Yes, you do! The spiritual task of the narcissist is to force you to become responsible for you. To own, understand and love you. It is only by doing so that they (and the pain) go away and you finally become open to experiencing real, sustainable love from within and outside of you.

If you’ve been (or you suspect you have been) involved with a narcissist, please ensure that you not only get professional support if you’re finding it difficult to exit the relationship or figure out how to move on, but that you also share your struggle with a trusted loved one so that you stop being isolated in the chaos of your involvement.

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Take The Hint of Someone’s Disrespectful Behaviour & Stop Being So ‘Nice’ About It

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Holding on Some people don’t know how to just come correct and be straight up about what they want, so for example, when they want to end your relationship, they choose to opt for behaving badly in the hopes that you will do their dirty work and call time on it. What’s even funnier is that while some people who act this way do so because they actually want to opt out but have a fear of confrontation, plenty of people do it because they lack self-awareness and are afraid of committing so they act out to manage down your expectations but to also ease the discomfort that they’re afraid of being vulnerable enough to examine. What this means with the latter camp is that they will hint, you will [hopefully] end things but then they will suddenly feel out of control now that they’ve gotten the exact outcome that they wanted (not being committed, not having expectations, end of relationship) and start chasing you all over again and giving off mixed messages. You take the bait and boom, the cycle continues.

What you’re experiencing here is hinting and aside from it being indirect communication where the person ends up going around the houses and won’t take ownership of what they feel, think, want and need, it’s also a form of passive aggression and what is very often the case, especially with someone who is habitually passive aggressive, is that after you effectively being baited into exactly the reaction or outcome they wanted, not only will they not admit this but they will cling to their passive aggressive stance, claiming that your reaction is exactly why they were not honest. “See, this is why I don’t tell people how I feel or what I think. Look at the way he/she is reacting! They can’t handle the truth.” What the what now?

But here’s where things get extra confusing and problematic: when you won’t take the hint.

Sometimes, we’re too nice for our own good.

When a person keeps acting out and doing the equivalent of pulling down their pants and mooning at your relationship or slinking about as if they’re the teenager who has been grounded and is sulking at you in the hopes you will let them go out, yet you’re still right there trying to be all ‘super nice’ about it, not only will you lose respect for you but so will they.

You will inadvertently underline exactly why they feel that they ‘have’ to behave in this way.

They will then feel guilty about thinking bad things about you or acting out when you’re being so ‘nice’ and forgiving etc, so they’ll reach out or make promises that they cannot keep, so that they can relieve these uncomfortable feelings. Then they will feel resentful because when a person feels as if their conscience has been activated in order for them to comply with another person’s wishes or where they now feel as if they have to oblige themselves, it’s an automatic precursor to resentment.

“No one will love you better” – what the what now?

By Reading Time: 1

I knew it was going to be one of those crazy busy weeks – I have a Baggage Reclaim stall at the Blogtacular conference tomorrow and am currently waiting for my youngest to finish her first ballet exam (she had a meltdown ten minutes beforehand – give me strength!) – and so I made another video, and this time, it’s on the subject of when somebody tells you that, “No one will love you better [than me]”, and the equally as bad, “I’m the one who loves you the most”. Talk about having a big ego! I mean – how exactly do they know what the potential is for you to be loved and how exactly did they come to the conclusion that they love you the most? And that’s where you get a really big clue about how that person is perceiving you and how they basically have an overinflated sense of their own importance. Check out the video below. You can also listen to the audio version.

The key message that I really want people to take away from this video is, don’t allow anybody to devalue you and to keep inflating their crumb contribution into a loaf while trying to make out as if you couldn’t do any better. That’s not love; it’s control. It’s also very bloody patronising. Once you stop caring that much, they stop having that much control and you’ll stop being weighed down by the mind effery of being involved with them.

Take care of you.

Your thoughts?

Are you comfortable with your status quo?

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Expand your comfort zone so that you can expand your experiences

If you’ve ever been involved with a Mr/Miss Unavailable, you will be familiar with being managed right down into their status quo. If you imagine that on a scale of 1-10, their status quo is that they like things to be around a 5, whatever they do whether it’s blowing smoke up your bum and promising you the world or insisting that things will be different “this time” (going into 7,8 + territory), or whether it’s at the opposite end and frustrating you to the point where things become mighty tense or you give them the heave ho, if they have their way (they love doing things on their terms), they’ll eventually manage you and things back to 5.

One of the things that I’ve noticed about us humans though is that we are very loyal to our habits, even the ones that bring us pain and keep us in our uncomfortable comfort zone and this got me thinking:

When we end up in a cycle of doing and thinking variations of the same thing and expecting different results (think Relationship Insanity + the disappointment cycle), we are guilty of managing ourselves into our own status quo. We turn down the heat on ourselves as if we’re afraid we’ll overcook it.

Sound familiar?

You accomplish something really good. Maybe you get that job or promotion that you’ve been vying for. Maybe you win that client. Maybe you buy your dream property or start that business you’ve been talking about for ages. Instead of soaking up your success and giving you a pat on the back, you enjoy the good feelings for a nanosecond and then you get into a big fight with someone that on reflection, you wonder what the hell you were truly kicking off about. Or you get in touch with your ambivalent ex to share in your good tidings (Are you on feckin’ crack?) or you go on the hunt for problems and end up whipping you into a state of anxiety.

‘I Can Change Him/Her’ syndrome: Don’t tie your worth to trying to control the uncontrollable

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Who peopl are

When people share their stories with me and a recurring theme emerges, I ask: If we look at this story a different way, why are you consistently attracted to and involved with partners who pretty much need to spontaneously combust into another person with a different set of values and habits in order to make you happy?

Many people believe that if a person loves you, they’ll change and make you the exception to their rule of behaviour and when this doesn’t happen, they personalise it and blame their worth. Why is our happiness and sense of purpose tied up in whether we can get somebody to make us the exception to their rule of behaviour?

‘I Can Change Him/Her’ syndrome is a habit of engaging in relationships that are fixer uppers. Like property, it’s where you take on a partner due to what you regard as their potential due to the return on investment you’ll make from renovating, redesigning, or even stripping them right back and raising them from the ground up.

Someone with an I Can Change Him/Her habit of thinking and behaviour believes that the love and relationship is valuable if they have to work hard for or even fight for it and ultimately be made the exception. This is a key reason why people get involved with unavailable partners especially the heavy duty commitment dodger and assclown versions. When the person blows hot or throws crumbs, it feels like more than the loaf that could be gotten from an available partner.

Happy Birthday To Me: 37 Thoughts On Relationships, Self-Esteem & Life

By Reading Time: 8 Minutes

Nat Baggage Reclaim

It’s that time of year again – I turned 37 on Monday and we also got the keys to our new home (you can see a pic on Instagram). Exhaustion doesn’t even cover it but I’m very happy, looking forward to getting back to a bit of work, but not before escaping and spending the weekend at Camp Bestival. Hopefully our tent will be up by the time you read this. Have a great weekend and without further ado, here are this year’s birthday thoughts inspired by some of my own experiences this year as well as those of readers.

What and who would you be if you weren't living your life according to rules that aren't rules? Be that.

  1. Mistakes are growing pains but ultimately growing gains.
  2. Why do we have this expectation or desire to be liked by everyone, when so many struggle with liking themselves? No one is liked by everyone so rest assured that you’re not alone. There is no need to collect likers. Vibe with people who chime with your values and appreciate those who you don’t have to jump through hoops for them to appreciate you for who you are. Being ignored or disliked by another person doesn’t make them more valuable or more powerful.
  3. People unfold and keep unfolding.
  4. You are your salvation and you hold a wealth of knowledge and insight…when you’re willing to listen to instead of judging you. Learning to listen to and treat you well, beats fannying away your time trying to get a PhD in other people’s behaviour.
  5. We’ve got to stop exaggerating busy. Aside from the fact that busy doesn’t equate to purposeful, we all choose what we want to be busy at. Busy people can love, have relationships and include others in their lives. Some people hide behind busyness to avoid their feelings, thoughts, or responsibilities.
  6. We experience envy when someone who we perceive to be in a similar position to us, has what we want. The answer isn’t to hate on us or the other person; it’s to have an honest conversation about where we need to be stepping up for ourselves and/or to be more appreciative and supportive of our own efforts and stop comparing our chapter X to their chapter Y.
  7. Patterns happen when we are living unconsciously, so transcending the past so that it stops being on repeat requires us to wake up and consciously consider whether this is how we want to respond and whether doing the same thing and expecting a different result is truly the most productive, loving use of our time.
  8. Attempting to right the wrongs of a past that you weren’t wholly and solely responsible for, leaves your present and future unattended.
  9. Don’t give away your choices. The words, ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’ as well as, ‘let me get back to you’, exist for a reason. Use them.
  10. Don’t write online what you wouldn’t be prepared to say to someone’s face.
  11. The more readers and friends I talk to, the more I recognise that many people have parents who engage in Show Pony Parenting. Happy to post pics on Facebook and tell people how great they are but not willing to actually be there. Often want the glory without the effort. It’s like, What will the neighbours/other family/the community think? Erm, what about us? Some are masters of entitlement and guilt tripping. Even though I physically/verbally/mentally abused you or neglected you, I am entitled to a relationship and devotion from you that’s equivalent to one that’s absent of these issues. Use your magic eraser and forget the past right now and be a good son/daughter! Of course when we’re treated this way, it only serves to rub on old wounds.
  12. Expecting to have a mutually fulfilling relationship or to be happy without being willing to be vulnerable, is to expect the trappings of vulnerability without putting forth the effort.
  13. Problems, challenges, disappointments and losses, don’t vanish due to being in a relationship. Granted, you will often be able to weather these together but tasks that will never go away are 1) self soothing, 2) self-managing, and 3)  listening to and supporting you. In and out of a relationship, if you’re not doing these things, start working on them now.
  14. As soon as I hear, ‘I’m a very honest person’ or similar being emphasised, I hear ‘o-oh’ in the back of my mind. Honesty is the truth with respect. If you’re being rude, some of that honesty gets lost because you deceive you in some way to legitimise your position.
  15. Grief isn’t linear; it’s a work in progress. If you experience a loss – that could be a bereavement, redundancy, breakup, divorce and other trauma – you will experience a myriad of emotions as well as periods where you seem to be making headway and then, BAM, it hits you. It doesn’t mean that all is lost and that you’re doomed. The BAMs occur less plus each time, they challenge you to clear more and as well as to strengthen. You don’t see it at the time but what you experience helps you to navigate next time around and to also engage in self-care in between.
  16. Loneliness is greatly misunderstood. It has nothing to do with how many friends or family you have or even whether you’ve been in a romantic relationship; it’s about whether you are expressing your innermost thoughts and feelings. When you wear a mask – people pleasing – and when you fear expressing your true self, you end up feeling adrift. Feeling lonely doesn’t make you a loser. When you experience loneliness it’s because you’re feeling emotionally disconnected.
  17. Would I treat a child in a similar manner? Would I judge a child or another person for the same thing? The next time you beat you up for not being ‘enough’ now or in the past, temper your self-criticism with these questions, especially if berating you is a habit that runs back to childhood. To continue stops those younger aspects of you from being healed and ultimately stops you from moving forward and growing.
  18. All narcissists are emotionally unavailable but not all emotionally unavailable people are narcissists, otherwise Fallback Girls/Guys would also be narcissists… Likewise, all assclowns are emotionally unavailable but not all unavailables are assclowns.
  19. If you don’t like somebody, use that knowledge well and move on. We live in a time when people make it their vocation to let the person in question know. It’s not only deriving satisfaction from going out of their way to communicate their dislike so they can give themselves a boost and feel powerful, but it can also be a form of seeking validation. ‘Give me another reason to legitimise my dislike of you.’ When a person actively goes out of their way to communicate that dislike, they’re also carrying on as if their opinion is super important.
  20. It’s impossible to be ‘up’ all of the time. It’s not sustainable and the desire to never be ‘down’ stems from a highly unrealistic expectation that life should be perfect and that you shouldn’t experience disappointment. Success, happiness, growth, and courage evolve out of disappointments and hardships, often bringing a deep sense of gratitude further down the line due to appreciating a blessing in disguise.
  21. What and who would you be if you weren’t living your life according to rules that aren’t rules and essentially censoring your true self? Be that. That’s what ‘being yourself ‘ means.
  22. Be careful of the forever hungry mindset where you never appreciate what you have because your mind is always on the next proverbial meal. How will you know and appreciate what more is, when you never appreciated what you had?
  23. Entitlement has been the strongest and consistent theme so far this year in a lot of the stories people have been sharing with me. If you want to understand why and where you are stuck on something, look at where you feel that because you are or have something, that you feel that you should have _________.
  24. If you agree to do something, don’t amend the T&Cs that you agreed to, based on some hokey judgement of the other party. If you borrowed money and agreed to pay it back (erm, that’s why it’s called borrowing), you can’t decide that you’re not going to pay it back because you don’t feel that they ‘need’ it. That’s jacking someone! If you agree to volunteer, you don’t get to decide to do it shittily just because you’re volunteering. That’s not the kind of help that people need.
  25. If you haven’t met a person and yet they keep making sexual innuendos or are even requesting sexy photos and making clear that they want to hook up when you meet, they’re not looking for a relationship; they’re trying to screw you. If that’s all you want, great, but if you’re wanting to meet because you’re looking for a relationship, flush.
  26. When shady folk do a major breach of your boundaries, it’s best not to let it go unchecked because it will be perceived as an opening plus in knowing what they’ve done and forecasting blowback at some point, they will often seek to manipulate the situation by ‘getting in there first’ and accusing you of something (likely made up or exaggerated) to distract from it. This how they cover their arses.
  27. If you neglect you and feed you with crumbs, anything others do will go through the low self-esteem exaggeration oven and come out looking like a loaf by comparison to your own efforts. Set the standard of how you want to feel and be treated and no one will be able to come along and showboat with less than what you can already do for yourself. That, and when you treat you with love, care, trust, and respect, it kills off that raging hunger to latch onto anything and anyone who gives you the time of day or who activates your need to please.
  28. Ups and downs are relative and personal hence why comparison and envy aren’t the most productive or illuminating uses of your energy and time.
  29. When we routinely see ourselves at the centre of other people’s behaviour and are essentially blame absorbers, it’s ‘inverted narcissism’. None of us are that powerful. To think we are is delusions of grandeur in itself.
  30. When you stop giving to receive and only do so because it’s what you would do anyway, not only do you stop over-giving but you also see where the land lies with certain people. And that can only be a good thing.
  31. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a relationship and desiring to love and be loved, but be careful of crossing into that zone where it’s become a need that you’ve decided will be the solution to any internal issues including dissatisfaction with the self. Not wanting to be single due to negative connotations and even self-hatred, isn’t the same as wanting to be in a mutually fulfilling relationship, which brings me neatly to….
  32. Don’t ‘force ripen’ your relationships. You meet someone. You’re not sure about them. Maybe you don’t even know them yet. Then something happens to activate hope and fantasy. You decide now that you’re in, and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, you’re thinking, When are we moving in? When will they say they love me? This will not only affect your attitude and actions, potentially blinding you to good or not so good things that are happening in the present as well as dulling your self-awareness, but you may end up alienating yourself. That and you may end up being over committed to something that you have not spent enough time assimilating whether it is actually something that reflects your needs, expectations, wishes, feelings, and opinions and ultimately your values.
  33. Don’t let people Dump and Charge Up on you. Ever known somebody who circles back to you whenever they’re going through a crisis (possibly the same one on repeat) who effectively offloads on you, gets charged up, and then bowls off and does the same thing again? There’s a difference between being there for your friends (or family) and being their waste can or battery charger. If you feel drained, you’ll feel pained.
  34. When you’re conscious, aware and present, you don’t have to fear waking up in a relationship where your wondering why you feel so hungry despite having ‘so much in common’. You don’t have to try to retrace your steps to identify what you’ve missed and you go into relationships with a greater sense of awareness of who you are including your needs, desires, and expectations.
  35. Everything is easier said than done. Everything. That’s why there’s no point in using it as on objection and a barrier to taking action.
  36. There are always going to be people who will eff with you. It’s the nature of life. It won’t happen all of the time (unless you’re hanging with shady folk) but when it does happen, don’t mistake it as a sign that something is wrong with you. It will happen regardless of how nice and ‘perfect’ you are so it’s best to get on with the business of being you.
  37. There’s no magic bullet. It’s too much to expect that you will do something for you and all of your problems or the pain over a particular thing will vanish. That won’t even happen if you soothe on something or someone else – it will just be alleviated temporarily. Consistently and repeatedly treat you with love, care, trust and respect and you will experience the cumulative benefits.

 

Your thoughts?

When someone’s imposing something upon you, they’re trying to remove your choice (and overstepping your boundaries)

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

TypicOver the past few weeks, I’ve frequently used the terms ‘imposing’ and ‘imposed’ and it clicked that you always know that there is a major breach of boundaries and that you’re dealing with somebody who just doesn’t gel on the core values front, when they introduce something in a fashion that directly or indirectly communicates that you must do it ‘or else’, or where they try to force you to accept their inappropriate or downright shady behaviour, and when they combine these efforts to attempt to take advantage of you.

I don’t like being imposed upon and I know that I’m not alone in this.

Many of the stories that BR readers share where they often feel powerless, intimidated, blindsided, anxious, or struggling to understand why they feel so compressed by someone who is smiling to their face and telling them that they care or that what they’re doing is for ‘the best’, are about dealing with person who in their quest to meet their needs, expectations, and wishes, will see little wrong with trying to force people to do what they want.

I’m often asked, Natalie, how do I know if I’m dealing with a boundary buster? Sure, I can give you lots of signs but when it comes to discerning whether you are dealing with a person who has problem respecting your line, especially when you’ve said/shown no, just look for where they’re trying to force something through, possibly with a smile on their face that doesn’t meet their eyes.

Any situation where your self-esteem and boundaries cannot co-exist with their position is a flush and go situation.

‘Imposers’ dress up their boundary busting behaviour and demands as ‘requests’. Strangely enough, when you decline, it becomes apparent that they took it as a foregone conclusion that you would comply but also had the backup plan of laying on the emotional blackmail and guilt trip with a trowel. It makes you wonder, Why make out as if you’re offering me a choice when you’re going to attempt to do what the frick you want anyway?

Of course you do have a choice, it’s just that the Imposer has decided that you ‘should’ only take up their preferred option. When you decline, suddenly they’re overriding your no, rebuffing any concerns, or in fact belittling anything you’ve brought up.

Imposers also have a very annoying habit of crossing the line while claiming that they’re not doing it. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’, they claim while they have their proverbial foot in your back. ‘I’m helping/supporting you’, they claim even though it’s actually the opposite of helpful or supportive. You can quickly flush out an Imposer who claims to be helping you by telling them that you appreciate that they’re trying to do X but it’s actually Y that you need. You’ll see how quickly you’re met with the resistance that comes with passive aggression, or you may even get straight up aggression.

They don’t take you at your no and will just attempt to find another way to proceed with their original intention so it ends up feeling as if you’re playing Whack-A-Mole or more like Whack-An-Assclown.

When you’re dealing with an Imposer, you end up gradually getting drained out by them. Some of them actually get off on the challenge and almost ‘charge up’ on you right before they try again and others, will sulk, strop, and even malice in an attempt to get their own way. Think stonewalling, silent treatment, blanking you and general hostility that they may actually deny when you call them out on it. ‘I don’t have a problem with you! I like you!’ and you’re thinking, ‘Erm, you just blanked me however many times and gave me the side eye and you only started pulling this BS when I wouldn’t capitulate to your demands’ or, if they’re the very deluded, they’ll actually admit to having a problem with you but use the funkiest reason. It will never be for an actual misdemeanor and instead it will be a variation of, ‘You didn’t do as I wanted’ followed by their crazy making justifications for why you ‘should’ have or they’ll go down the petty route and accuse you of something untrue or blow up something minor or completely innocent.

Some people will come out straight and tell you that they don't like or respect you, or that they don't want to do something, and others will show you. Pay attention.

Imposers love to combine their efforts to push through what they want with a put-down or few,which is where they slip in covert, critical remarks delivered with a smile, humour, or even deadpan. There are a lot of Imposers online – just read the comments on newspaper websites or on Facebook pages. Or think of that person who seems to want to make disliking you and letting you know about it, their vocation. Some people can’t just have an opinion; they want to force-feed it to you as well and ‘make’ you agree with it!

Some Imposers love a grand ‘ole discussion and even an apology but then – yep, you guessed it – soon revert to attempting to impose the very thing that you’ve made patently clear is a no-go. If they’re quick with an apology, it soon proves to be a hollow one because just cross them again by not submitting to their demands and soon they will come out with stuff that completely contradicts the apology and/or promises.

And when it comes to people imposing themselves upon you, this is where you can learn a great deal about inferred meaning: A person doesn’t have to come out and say, ‘I am disrespecting you’ or ‘I am resisting handling this in a mutually respectful fashion’, for them to communicate that they don’t respect you. Sure, there are some people who will come out straight and tell you that they don’t like or respect you (or even that they want to break up with you…), or that they don’t want to do something, but some people will show you (while denying that it’s what they’re showing you because they’re so skilled at wearing a mask that hides their resentment and anger), and you should ignore the signposting at your peril.

If you don’t recognise when you’re being imposed upon or you do but you think, What did I do to make this person react this way?, you will start trying to make sense out of nonsense and so end up normalising shady behaviour and/or you’ll make an incorrect correlation between this so-called transgression of yours and the fact that they are imposing themselves upon.

Do no harm (but take no shit)

Newsflash: Only people who have respect issues impose themselves upon you. It is never a good sign and you’re not the only person that they do this with. They may not even recognise their behaviour (although you won’t be the first to have objected), but they have so little empathy and concern for people who are in their way – because that’s what it boils down to – that they’ve either never truly considered things from your position or they have, but they don’t care or they feel that the end justifies the means. On some level they’ll argue that they take care of themselves and ‘handle their business’ so you should too. And that’s where you flush.

  • If you’re dealing with an Imposer, start keeping track of what they say and do because it’s like daylight and garlic to vampires.
  • Be factual in any dealings and they will soon back off because often, people try to appeal to their emotions with emotional descriptions which can be a waste when you’re dealing with someone who has little or no empathy in their tank. Imposers will use your emotions against you and claim you’re ‘dramatic’, ‘needy, or ‘too sensitive’.
  • Do use a hard no – a soft no will be taken as a green light to do whatever the hell that they want and you’ll be marked as ‘weak’ for actually being halfway decent about things.
  • Don’t personalise their bullsh*t. It’s not because you’re a ‘soft touch’ – they do this stuff in any situation where they want to get their own way.

Some people mistake your unwillingness to climb into the gutter with them or your ability to pick and choose your battles, for weakness. Don’t let people take liberties. No one has the right to impose themselves and their wishes upon you. You’re not going to harm these people by standing up for yourself but you will harm you by remaining silent. Don’t green light code red behaviour.

Your thoughts?

Why do we want to be liked by people who we dislike?

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Girl thinking, I don't like her but what reason does she have to dislike me?

One of the things that fascinates me about human nature, is our irrational desire and sometimes need to be liked by people who we ourselves do not like. We can be mad at a person and decide that we don’t like him/her but then feel wounded and even rejected when they don’t respond to our dislike in the way that we would prefer. It’s as if we need the validation of knowing that they’re negatively impacted by our opinion. We want them to chase after us for our ‘like’ and when they don’t or it even becomes apparent that the feeling is mutual, we feel compelled to engage them in some way that may generate the response we want or that will let us gain clarification about their position, or we quite simply feel rejected.

Why do we need people who we don’t like or who we’ve even called out on something, to like us? Why do we need them to be ‘visibly’ affected in some way? And actually, while we’re on the subject, why do we feel that we should be able to tell a person all about themselves and that they should take it ‘graciously’ and still want our approval?

And that’s really what’s at the heart of this; our relationship with disapproval.

When we want someone whom we don’t like, to like us and to even chase us down for our approval and prove us ‘wrong’ even if actually, our mind is made up, it’s because in some respects, it’s what we would do, but it’s also because when we feel disapproving of somebody, there is an illusion of power and control. When we focus on our dislike of a person, that’s about our perspective and of course, we’re making a judgement. We feel that we have very good grounds to dislike them – and this may well be true – but when we feel disliked or rejected (even though that may not actually be the case) by that very person, it feels unfair.

We don’t feel that they have a good reason to dislike us, or we may even perceive their response as a reflection of us being in the same or even worse light than them. We may even feel that they’re being petty and retaliating and that our feelings and opinions are being ‘invalidated’, when in fact, we are the ones who are doing that due to how we’re responding.

The thing is though, while in an ideal world, it would be great if people only had entirely rational and ‘justified’ reasons for not liking a person, in reality, we don’t always dislike / like people for entirely rational, reasonable, or even existing reasons. Let’s be real – wanting to be liked by someone whom we ourselves don’t like isn’t exactly rational or reasonable either.

Drip-Feeding: When you get the truth (or lies) in installments

By Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Drip-feeding - when someone feeds you the truth in installments

When someone feeds us the truth about something one bit at a time, possibly because we keep catching them out, what they’re doing is drip-feeding information on a ‘need to know’ or more like, ‘I just got caught out’ basis. I’d say that they’re drip-feeding the truth, and in some instances that may be the case, but sometimes a person can end up drip-feeding more lies, and it ends up being like a lies version of the film Inception – a lie within another lie within another lie.

If you’re being drip-fed the truth, consider it a code red alert that something is seriously wrong and you most definitely shouldn’t proceed until you’re absolutely certain of the facts and the trust issue has been addressed and resolved. Obviously this can pose an issue because while people make mistakes and do lie (and regret it and seek to make amends), drip-feeding is just a continuation of a lie, only this time, you’re being led to believe that you’re both on a truth level when you’re not.  That person is unwilling to be upfront and is feeding you information on a need-to-know-basis and re-deceiving you time and again. It’s very difficult to feel comfortable in an atmosphere of lies and half-truths. It’s destabilising, especially when you keep taking each ‘installment’ at face value, only to discover that there’s more to come.

You start out believing that you’ve been told the truth. Let’s call it 100%. Then you receive a ‘drip’, possibly because you’ve caught them out in something. This automatically means that your 100% or whatever percentage of truth that you believed that you had at the start, was not that amount – it was less.

Sometimes we forgive prematurely and then feel bad that we’re not able to let go of the situation

By Reading Time: 5 Minutes

You're only human and feelings aren't facts. You may have felt compelled to forgive but it doesn't mean that the knowledge and reasoning existed to do so.

Sometimes we overestimate our readiness and willingness to forgive. We essentially forgive prematurely and then once we’ve had some time, or we start listening to our own feelings and thoughts, or we start observing the person, or grasp the full situation, we realise that actually, we’re still angry, sad and hurting. We realise that we haven’t forgiven, and this in itself may cause us to feel really bad depending on the associations that we have with forgiveness.

When you’re in this situation, you may have prided yourself on being able to forgive because it’s what ‘good people’ do and so you may feel quite ‘bad’ now. It will feel all the more worse because you may have pushed down your own needs, feelings, expectations, opinions etc., aka People Pleasing, and so not only are you contending with how you feel about the ‘event’ or even series of experiences that have led to this, but then you’ll also be battling with your guilt or anger about not having moved past it.

You’re caught between a rock and a hard place and the more you push down your true feelings and thoughts, is actually the worse you’ll feel.

In these circumstances, sometimes the forgiveness comes about due to having believed that if you forgave, that the situation would change in your favour. It hasn’t. It’s almost like wanting a refund or a credit note for the forgiveness expenditure.

Claiming forgiveness may have been about shaming you, or even blaming you. Their transgression may have been blamed on your ‘inadequacies’. Hopefully you’ve come to the realisation that blaming you for their behaviour was wrong in itself. Granted this may have been a decision based on your own interpretation but they, if they have integrity and a sense of responsibility and accountability, shouldn’t have been willing to let you take the fall while they benefited.

You may have forgiven under the misapprehension that you are both victims of a third party. Your anger gets deflected to the latter and it may consume you. Circumstances may have influenced your desire to ‘restore order’, whether it was outwardly (for instance with your social circle or family) or inwardly. This may work for some time but will become problematic if the original reasons (which are aside from the third party) aren’t addressed or continue to impact. You’re also going to struggle with your decision to forgive if new facts come to light due to drip-feeding:

This is when a person tells you that they’ve given you the whole truth and so you think you have the facts and then they keep drip, drip, dripping more truth so that you end up becoming confused and distrusting.