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Tony shares and responds to the article “The 10 Best Predictors of a Bad Romantic Relationship” by Seth Gillihan, PhD https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-act-be/202301/the-10-best-predictors-of-a-bad-romantic-relationship Tony also references the article “Attachment Woes Between Anxious and Avoidant Partners,” by Darlene Lancer, JD, LMFT https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/toxic-relationships/202008/attachment-woes-between-anxious-and-avoidant-partners And follow Tony on the Virtual Couch YouTube channel to see a sneak preview of his upcoming podcast “Murder on the Couch,” where True Crime meets therapy, co-hosted with his daughter Sydney. You can watch a pre-release clip here https://youtu.be/-RkRq8SrQy0

Go to http://tonyoverbay.com/workshop to sign up for Tony's "Magnetize Your Marriage" virtual workshop. The cost is only $19, and you'll learn the top 3 things you can do NOW to create a Magnetic Marriage.

You can learn more about Tony's pornography recovery program, The Path Back, by visiting http://pathbackrecovery.com And visit http://tonyoverbay.com and sign up to receive updates on upcoming programs and podcasts.

Tony mentioned a product that he used to take out all of the "uh's" and "um's" that, in his words, "must be created by wizards and magic!" because it's that good! To learn more about Descript, click here https://descript.com?lmref=bSWcEQ

Transcript

Tony: Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 357 of the Virtual Couch. I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified Mindful habit coach, writer, speaker, husband, father of four, and creator of the Path Back, an online pornography recovery program that is helping people become the very best versions of themselves. And please reach out to me through my website if you are interested in a coupon code, which is going on through the month of January to get a discount on the Path Back course. And the Path Back course is amazing and the Path Back group call that happens weekly is even better. Maybe not even better, but it goes along perfectly with the Path Back.

Just do me a favor, go sign up for my newsletter at tonyoverbay.com. Just plain and simple. You're gonna hear more about The Magnetic Marriage Course. The Magnetic Marriage Podcast. Two, actually three new podcasts getting ready to drop. A Waking Up to Narcissism q and a. And actually my goodness, if you don't listen to the Waking Up to Narcissism podcast in general, again, do me a favor and listen to last week's episode with Ashley Boyson. It was the most downloaded episode that I've done on Waking Up to Narcissism within a 48 hour period because Ashley is incredible and inspiring, her story is unbelievable. There are literally several true crime podcasts and TV shows about her case. The title of the Waking Up to Narcissism episode is “Ashley Boyson on Surviving Betrayal, Narcissism, and Murder.” And she also has courses, online courses, for infidelity survivors, for parents navigating parenting a hurting child through trauma and grief. And she is about to release an eating disorder course for parents and kids that are struggling with eating disorders along with her daughter. And if you use the coupon code, “virtualcouch”, all one word, you get 40% off of her courses. But the other podcasts, here we go, Murder on the Couch, a true crime meets therapy and psychology. I'm doing that one with one of my daughters, Sydney, and if you go to the Virtual Couch YouTube channel right now, and while you're there, if you can hit subscribe, that would be awesome. There's a 90 second clip from the recording of that podcast I think will give you the vibe, the energy of that podcast. I mean, we talk about really difficult subjects, so I'm already giving a heads up to Virtual Couch listeners that it is a True Crime podcast. I still try to be myself and Sydney is amazing and funny and just that's something that she's very interested in and fascinated by. And I just love the banter. I love the relationship that she and I have. We've recorded a half a dozen episodes already and we're recording more, but if you go to the YouTube channel, find that 90 second clip on the Virtual Couch YouTube channel, and please subscribe and get ready. It's coming out very, very soon. We've got all the artwork and the music and those sort of things that are being put together right now.

But let's get to today's episode. So I love when listeners send me articles and ask for my opinion, and I won't, I won't use what I like to refer to as narcissistic math and say, this happens hundreds of times a day. No, it doesn't happen all the time, but it happens more and more, and I really do enjoy when I can almost give a cold read or look at an article that somebody sends me more like a reaction podcast. So that is the goal today. I was sent an article by somebody that I really appreciate, and I don't know why I assumed it was an older one, but I'm looking at the date now. It's only a week old. So this first came out on January 10th, 2023, so it's perfect. But it is titled “The 10 Best Predictors of a Bad Romantic Relationship”. And this is by Seth Godden. Seth is a licensed psychologist. He has his PhD. So Dr. Seth or Dr. Godden wrote this for psychologytoday.com. So I am gonna read these 10 predictors and I want to give my honest opinion. And I'm gonna put my marriage therapist hat on, step into my healthy ego, all those wonderful things. Admit that I am confident in many things when it comes to couple's therapy and couple's relationships. And with that admission also comes the understanding that of course, that means that I don't know what I don't know, and this will be my opinion. So if you hear these things and think, okay, this must be the way of relationships, then again, this is just my opinion. This will be as if I was, I guess, asked about these 10 things, let's say in a live interview. So I think you get the point. So let's go. Here we go. The 10 best predictors of a bad romantic relationship.

So Dr. Seth said, “Few things affect your long-term happiness like the quality of your romantic relationship. It can affect your mental health, your physical health, and even how long you live. It's fair to say that your relationship's quality can be a matter of life or death.” And then he has a link, he says, “A review of 43 studies found that 10 variables consistently predict relationship quality. The first set of predictors were about the relationship itself.” And what I thought was really interesting is I did follow the link to the review of 43 studies and it is a really cool article, that is, I think it says, “Machine Learning” is what it says. Here we go. “Machine learning uncovers the most robust self-report predictors of relationship quality across 43 longitudinal couple studies.”

So these studies, there are 43 of them, and I couldn't even begin to tell you all the names of the people that put these studies together because it literally is 43 relationship studies. And then machine learning then uncovered the main points or concepts of what the predictors of the relationship quality was. And so it's really neat to see. I'll include the link to that article that does the machine learning of the 43 longitudinal couple studies in there as well. But number one, the first set of predictors, again about the relationship itself. Number one, a partner who seems uncommitted. So this is a predictor about a bad romantic relationship. So a partner who seems uncommitted. “Knowing your partner is in it for the long haul provides a sense of safety and stability. Your relationship suffers when you worry that they have one foot out the door.” So, man, let me jump right in here. So here's why I'm excited to talk about these concepts today because that sounds amazing, that if we could turn to our partner, especially if we're having trouble and just say, hey, I just need to know that you are all in. Then that would calm our anxiety and then we feel like, hey, I'm willing to do the work. So again, so while I agree with this wholeheartedly remembering that these are the 10 variables that consistently show up in this review of 43 different studies, but I believe that what this speaks to is our brain's desire for certainty and I think that so often if we do not have certainty, then we feel like whatever that task is, well, it might not be worth undertaking.

So we may feel anxious, we may feel like, I don't know if I want to commit to this relationship, if my spouse is not willing to commit as well, which sounds fair. But people are in different places in the relationship. When people even come into therapy, I remember early in my therapy career, I would think, okay, I got two people, two willing people here, and they're ready to go. But often when things get to the point where people want to go into therapy, unfortunately I wish people would go in much sooner. One person is very frustrated. The other person may not even feel like there's anything wrong, or the other person may feel like this thing is already past this expiration date and I don't even know what to do. So when we are wanting this certainty, that would be perfect. But in reality, we don't always have that certainty and we have to have the courage to move forward regardless. What I see in my office, I think often, is that a spouse, again, wants to know that their partner's all in and willing to work on their relationship before they commit to that relationship. And I almost find this to be somewhat of a game of, I'll call it relationship chicken. Where the couple can then start to even argue, well, what does it mean to be committed? Does that mean that we will live under the same roof? Does that mean that we'll go to counseling? Does that mean that we will go on date nights? Does that mean that we will be honest or that we'll hold back on some of the things that may be difficult to talk about? Does that just simply mean, hey, I'm not leaving. So even the concepts around certainty or to know that our partner is all, can then start to be a discussion in itself that will cause the relationship to feel unsafe.

So this is where I feel like unfortunately life is full of uncertainty and not to go dark or grim, but how often do we learn about somebody who maybe passed away suddenly? As a matter of fact, I was thinking about this. My wife and I were driving somewhere this weekend and we saw, oh, we were driving home from a basketball game and we saw a billboard that was paying tribute to Lisa Marie Presley. So then immediately we started Googling and found that she had passed away. And if I'm correct, I believe she passed away from a cardiac event. And so then we even looked at what the difference was between that and a heart attack, but she was my wife and I's age. And so that stuff starts to feel just real. And so life is uncertain. And unfortunately we can't always get the certainty that we so desire. So I think what is difficult is in reality, you only have control over the things that you have control over. As a matter of fact, let's add that to the mix. So we've got uncertainty and we've got a lack of control. And so often when we feel anxious, this is the way we want somebody else to manage our anxiety. We want them to tell us, no, I'm in it and I'm willing to work on it. And that will make us feel, whew, okay, I'm feeling better, so now I can work on it, but in reality, I would love for you to work on it because you deserve a healthy relationship.

Now in reality, if you work on the relationship, it is gonna change the dynamic of the relationship and that's the part where it will even feel scarier to look over across the room and see if your partner is not working equally as hard. Because all of a sudden we might have some really difficult conversations or things that we're gonna be confronted with of am I willing to go back into this unhealthy relationship or this pattern of just living? Or are we both going to try to dig deep and then create an even better relationship? And unfortunately, there isn't any certainty that comes along with that, and that does feel scary, and that's part of being a human. And so do you have the ability to do the work that you know is necessary in your relationship or on yourself, even if your partner equally isn’t yoked or in the same place because I would highly encourage you to do that. And so what that can look like in my office is let's say that somebody looks over and says, hey, I need to know that you're in before I commit to this. Then I might try to help the other person frame that I understand and I can understand that would be hard if you feel like I'm not. And right now, I really want to look at what it looks like to just be here, and be in this room and what are the tools that we don't know, that we don't even know that we have?

And so let's just start to slow things down and then just see where do we even go from here? What does the rest of the day look like? I can't give you the certainty that I'm in it for the next five years, and that does feel scary. So that one's hard. So again, that number one factor of a set of predictors about a bad romantic relationship is a partner who seems uncommitted. So if you can provide your partner with a little bit of certainty, that certainly would not be a bad thing. But maybe that certainty is gonna be, hey, I'm willing to continue to come to counseling, or I'm willing to look at some articles and we can talk about these things. But right now, that might be all that somebody can offer in the relationship and yeah, that's scary. And you as the person who maybe wants more certainty, you absolutely have the right to say, well, I need more than that. And so then I'm not sure if I'm willing to put myself out there right now with a lack of certainty. So, that's where I would really recommend that you go see a couple's therapist, a couple's coach, somebody that can really help you work through that.

So number two is a lack of appreciation for one's partner. Dr. Seth says, “In healthy relationships, the partners feel lucky to be with each other. So when appreciation is low, the relationship suffers.” Man, okay, so let me go on a train of thought. I feel like this is something I've just been thinking about a lot lately, and that is this concept of what are you looking for in your relationship because it's the expectation effect. What seek ye, you will find what you're looking for. Now, I'm gonna throw an asterisk here because it's difficult for me not to go off on tangents about emotional immaturity, narcissistic relationships, emotional abuse, these sort of things. So, that is probably over on the Waking Up to Narcissism podcast, or I can even touch on it a little bit on a podcast like this one today. But we're kind of gonna put a little rule out and say that we're not talking about an extreme personality disorder or incredible emotional immaturity. We're not talking about that right now. So we're talking about when somebody starts to just feel a disconnect in the relationship, what are they looking for?

I'll have clients often have a list put together where they'll say, okay, but let me just pull out this list, and let me help you understand Mr. Therapist some of the ways that she is not showing up in the relationship. And so then they have these things and it might be, once a day, it might be every few days. And so then the expectation effect or what seek ye, or what are you looking for? The person is finding those areas where somebody is coming up short because we're human beings and we are gonna come up short because we're imperfect. And do we have those tools to be able to communicate, not to communicate, to say, hey, I want you to change this. But the tools to be able to communicate and say, hey, when you do that, it's hard for me because here's how I feel. So again, it's not about trying to tell the other person, here's what I don't like about you, here's what I don't like about your behavior. To me as a marriage therapist, nails on a chalkboard, because people are allowed to have their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. But then what we wanna do is be able to have mature adult conversations around, tell me more about, or, take me on your train of thought or help me understand when you do a certain thing. Because when you do that, here's what that maybe triggers in me. And so this is where we're designed to deal with a motion in concert with another human being.

So if somebody continually just gets angry and frustrated and then they come in and they are yelling about work. Then if you just become in sheer terror when your spouse starts yelling about work, then that's something that is absolutely okay for you to not be okay with. But if you're just saying, hey, I need you to not do that anymore because that makes me really, really frustrated, then that is a form of control. Which sounds crazy, right? Because it feels like one should be able to say, hey, don't yell about your work. You know, it makes me not feel safe. I still want us to be able to have that conversation. But it would start with, hey, sounds like you're frustrated with work. Help me understand. Take me on your train of thought.

Here's where I'm gonna drop into my four pillars. Here we go. So pillar one, let's say that this scenario is the husband comes home and he is just angry and frustrated from work. And every day that he comes home, he slams that door. And so all of a sudden the wife is starting to feel like I don't even like him to come home because I don't know if he's gonna come in and be happy. I don't know if he's gonna come in, but primarily he's gonna come in and be really angry about his day at work, and he's gonna be frustrated and he's gonna feel like he wants to quit, which is gonna make me feel unsafe because I don't feel like he's taking into consideration our finances. So you can see how there can be so many of these variables, these unknowns, this lack of certainty. But if he comes home and he's angry and frustrated about work, and if she drops into the four pillar framework, pillar one. I'm gonna assume good intentions, or there's a reason why he's doing what he's doing. That he, again, doesn't wake up in the morning, thinks I'm gonna spend the whole day at work. I'm probably not gonna reach out to my wife much. And then when I come home, oh, I'm gonna slam that door and I'm gonna tell her I can't do this anymore and I don't care about her feelings. No, that's not what's happening. So that assuming of good intentions, and again, we're not talking about that if there's legitimate abuse here, emotional abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, or financial abuse.

But if he comes in and she's saying, okay, man, that would be hard if he feels like he does not want to continue in his job, pillar one. And then if he's saying I can't do it anymore and then pillar two, my pillar two is I would love to help her not put out the fixing your judgment vibe. I would love for her not to say, I don't believe you. That's ridiculous. Or you can't do that. So pillar two, and why I like this example I'm giving is pillar two, she could even say, hey, look, you can do really hard things. You're an ultramarathon runner. You know, or you deal with a lot of pain, or, I see you lift weights and you can, you're so strong and you can pull through very difficult things. What she is telling him is, you're wrong. So let me kind of step back there. If he says, I can't do this anymore, her saying, yeah, you can, you do hard things. Sounds motivational, sounds amazing. But in reality it's saying, no, you're wrong. I don't believe you. And that doesn't make us feel heard or understood.

So that's where I drop into my pillar three, questions. Questions before comments. So the questions would be, man, tell me what that feels like. Why do you feel like you can't do this anymore? Take me on your train of thought. Help me understand, because we wanna be heard. We wanna be understood. And then that pillar four is her then leaning in, being present, not going into a victim mentality. And after she has assumed good intentions or understands there's a reason why he's expressing himself the way he is, pillar two, she's not gonna say, are you kidding me? Do you know what that's gonna do for me? How are we supposed to live? How are we supposed to pay our mortgage? But instead, just that pillar two is more of a mindset where she's just gonna note that maybe she doesn't agree, and then pillar three, she's gonna drop in and ask questions before making comments. Help me understand. I really want to know because that would be really difficult if this person I care about goes to work every day, can't stand it, comes home, feels so frustrated, feels like the day was a waste, feels like they just want to go to bed and just get the day done with, man, that would be hard. And here comes empathy. But then pillar four is that then I don't want her also to go into a victim mindset and say, okay, well I guess I can't say. You know, I guess, I'm just supposed to smile and give him a hug and, you know, probably he wants to be intimate. Is that what I'm supposed to do?

No, we're gonna get to her being heard and understood as well. So that pillar four is almost just maintaining presence. Just being, just being there. And then at that point, this is where I would love for everybody to be on the same page with the four pillars, honestly, is at that point, he feels heard and understood, and now she knows that she is gonna now be able to express herself. And he's gonna drop into that same framework, assuming good intentions, can't tell her she's wrong, and he's gonna ask her questions and he's gonna stay present. So in that scenario, she might say, that is hard, and I appreciate you sharing that. And, I can't imagine how hard that is and I see you, I'm here for you, but man, that's hard for me because I worry, you know, I worry about our finances. I worry about that feeling of financial safety. I worry about you. I worry about if you, you know, maybe he turns to unhealthy coping mechanisms. She worries about his eating. She worries about his drinking. She worries about him just tuning out in front of the tv or on his phone. So she worries. I worry, I feel, I hope. And those are, those are absolutely okay statements. I was going on this tangent of lack of appreciation for one's partner. You know, what are you looking for in the relationship because you'll find it. So if you are finding a disgruntled partner over and over, then you can easily say, yeah, and then again, here's where he did the thing where he was really upset. So are we looking for the positive aspects in our relationship or are we looking for those negative aspects in the relationship?

I'll blast through this so fast. I actually brought this up in a Sunday school class of all places over the weekend, but that is the expectation effect and the concept around maze bright and maze dull rats. If you have heard me say this, then hang in, I'll make it quick. But the study in essence was, let's just say there were a group of rats. Let's just for the simplicity's sake of numbers, let's say they were 20 and one group of people were given 10 rats and they were told these are these maze bright rats. They've been genetically engineered from before they were even born to go through mazes just incredibly fast. And then the other group were given these 10 other rats and they were told they're just rats. That's all that they are. And then they were given, I don't know, a few days to train these rats to go through mazes. And now cue the music montage, the Rocky scene, and you've got the group that has the maze bright rats. These genetically engineered amazing rats and they are sitting there at the end of the maze and they're cheering the rats on and they're petting the rats and they're giving the rats little rat massages. And they probably got them little tracksuits. And these rats, they are just, they are eating it up and the people are just saying, we feel so lucky. We got these maze bright rats. Over on the other side of the room, you've got the people with the maze dull rats thinking, why'd I get these dud rats? Look at them just sitting there. Just fighting and not moving along the maze and, when's the big race and we can just get this over with. I feel so humiliated.

And then the day of the big race comes and the maze bright rats, sure enough, go through the maze, I think it was 2.1 times faster than the maze dull rats. And that's when the researcher said, surprise, that was just 20 random, they're just rats. There is no such thing as a genetically engineered maze bright rat. So what is the moral of that story? The expectation effect. What was the expectation that the groups put into their test subjects? Their rats. So I often like to then say, do you view your spouse as a maze bright? Or do you view them as maze dull or do you view your kid as a maze bright kid or a maze dull kid? Or better yet, how do you view yourself? Do you view yourself as maze bright or maze dull because you're going to find those things that you look for.

Number three, again, the number three indicator of a predictor of a bad romantic relationship. Low sexual satisfaction. So what Dr. Seth says, “When your sex life suffers, your relationship quality is likely to suffer as well. Apparently, the quality of sex may be more important than the quantity as the frequency of sex was less consistently linked to relationship quality.” And boy, I could do a whole podcast on this, but let me just refer quickly to the information I've shared a couple of times on podcast and it was from a training that I had gone to with a Dr. Kevin Skinner, who I know he's one of the founders, or fathers of the betrayal trauma and has written books, has done a tremendous amount of research. And I did about 18 months of betrayal trauma training with Dr. Skinner. And during that time, he gave this almost throwaway data that then I'd followed up with him about later. And I just thought it was phenomenal. And in essence, he talks about these levels of intimacy. And so when we meet, and this is my interpretation of that data, that information. That when we meet, in essence, we just get together because we find each other physically attractive and sure that is a wonderful thing and that helps. But then underneath that physical intimacy or physical attraction, there are these levels of intimacy. And down on the bottom we've got psychological intimacy. We've got honesty, loyalty, and trust. We've got commitment, up from that, we've got verbal intimacy. Can we just talk? We talk for days. We just feel so connected. And then when we have that psychological intimacy, that verbal intimacy, up from that is emotional intimacy. So when we have a connection to these two base layers or levels, then we can step into this emotional intimacy and we feel safe enough to start to really open up about our emotions and we really start to feel more connected with each other. And above that, I believe it was cognitive and intellectual intimacy where we can be in two different ballparks with regard to one, I sometimes say one person can have their PhD, the other, their GED, but because we're connected psychologically and verbally and emotionally, then it doesn't matter, cognitive or intellectually because we are connected and of that is spiritual intimacy.

We can have two completely different belief systems, but at the top of that intimacy ladder, so to speak, is physical intimacy. And when that is the byproduct of all those other layers of intimacy, then you really feel connected. And I feel like going back to this low sexual satisfaction, that is what I believe leads to more of that quality of sex. And it's not about the frequency. Now when you feel connected in all those levels, then they're sure there'll be time for the quickies, those sort of things. But you'll also have this opportunity to connect and have the quality of sex that it will be something that people just haven't really known. And if you've had one of those days where you really do feel connected with your spouse, you've spent a lot of time together, you've talked about a lot of things that aren't just about scheduling or the kids or finance. And you just start to really appreciate your spouse and you spend time with your spouse and you feel like we're connected verbally. We've opened up emotionally. That is where sometimes you just feel like you just want to just wanna hold their hand. You just wanna hug them. You just wanna touch them and cuddle with them. And that is where somebody starts to just feel this absolute deep connection. Now, there are some gender stereotypes here that come out and they are pretty common. And I will say that in my office, typically I do find the male is the higher desire partner. The female is the lower desire partner and that can result in an unhealthy relationship pattern. Where oftentimes in those scenarios, I find that the guy will say, well, if we had more sex, I'd be happy, then I'd be willing to talk. And the wife, in essence is saying, if we talk more, then I'd feel more connected and I'd be willing to have sex.

And so again, I could do another podcast on that, might be one for another day, but I feel like that's one that might need help. Sorting those things out with a licensed professional because I can't say enough about as a marriage therapist and now worked with, I don't know, 12, 1300 couples that you've worked with these situations and had these conversations enough that you really can help people talk about things that are uncomfortable to talk about. So that low sexual satisfaction really is something that is so common in relationships because I feel like there will be times where people are more sexually equally yoked than others. And when there is an imbalance, the ability to talk about that is gonna be just very, very important. I turn to a book called Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships by David Schnarch. And boy, he has a lot of really difficult but great, kind of self confronting quotes and comments in this book, Passionate Marriage. And I went on Good Reads, to find a few of them, and I can't really even find one to do justice the way that if you can take care of things, if you can learn to self confront and so many of the podcasts I've talked about over the years, if you can learn that, we go into relationships as codependent and enmeshed, but we're trying to become more interdependent and it's okay to have our own thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and that we don't need our partner to continually validate us. So we need to learn how to self validate, self-sooth, to be able to stand in this healthy ego and to know that there are various things that are important to me, that matter to me because they do and at some point, as I become more emotionally mature, I don't need my partner. To validate every experience I have, because if I'm doing that, I like to say that my partner, there's probably an overwhelming chance that they're not gonna say the things exactly that I want them to, to make me feel better about myself. And now I get to say they must not care about me and what's wrong with me. When in reality, as you start to learn the things that really matter to you, step in alignment with your core values and your sense of purpose, and not continually look for others to tell you that they agree or that's the right way to go, then that is a whole new level of feeling confident.

And that confidence is what can lead to this concept around differentiation or again, differentiation is where one partner ends and the other begins. And in between there's this gap of just invalidation. And so learning to be differentiated is an incredibly emotionally mature process where you can still maintain a relationship with somebody that you care about even while having different opinions and not feeling like they are there to only validate you or to knock you down. And when we start looking in the world of emotional immaturity, there's those concepts around whole object relations. And where, you know, we need to be able to see both good and bad in someone. We need to be able to hold that whole frame together so somebody can absolutely say something that can cause us to feel frustrated, but we still love. It's not an all or nothing, it's not a black or white thing. So that comes into play here as well because when we feel anxious or we feel like the relationship is not in a good place, and it can be because we're unwilling to take a look at how we are showing up in the relationship, how we self confront, then oftentimes that's where we want our partner to just have sex with us, calm my anxiety, help me understand.

And then once my anxiety's calm, now I'm willing to talk. But we just put our anxiety over onto our partner and said, hey, can you manage my anxiety. And then I'm willing to show up. But what that often looks like for the other partner is, hey, when I'm feeling happy, I would really like to celebrate with sex. And if I'm sad or down, then if we could have sex, that would help me feel better and nothing helps get me out of a funk or even if I'm feeling physically under the weather, a cold, like sex. And so then in these situations, I will look over at the spouse hearing this and I'll say, what are you hearing? And they'll say, well, that ultimately I'm in charge of his happiness. And that if I am not there whenever he needs me to be there in this way with intimacy then now it's my fault. And that's a lot of pressure to put on your spouse. So that needs to be something that you need to learn to confront in yourself.

Here is a quote that I wasn't gonna read from Passionate Marriage but he says, “When we stand up and confront ourselves in ways our parents have not, a desire for justice makes it harder to forgive them in some ways. However, the increased differentiation this endeavor provides allows one to better self-soothe to validate one's own experience, thereby unhooking the need for confession from one's parent. And at this point, forgiveness becomes an act of self-caring and a deliberate decision to get on with one's life.” So why do I mention that in this scenario we weren't talking about parents, but too often the reason I feel unsafe or the reason I feel unseen or unloved or unheard is because I didn't necessarily feel that connection from a parent. And so now all of a sudden I need somebody to validate me and to tell me it's okay, and I'm looking right across the room and that's my spouse. And if I'm really just going into a place where I just need to feel better in that moment, oftentimes, and I will assume that then well, sex, that'll do it. And then that will calm my anxiety and then I'm willing to show up and be better. But that's still putting that on your partner. It's okay if you've done your own work and self confronted and recognize that it's okay to ask for things in a relationship in a marriage when it's done in a healthy way, not when it’s done in a manipulative way or in a way that’s asking somebody else to manage your emotions or manage your anxiety. But the quote that I was gonna read in this scenario was, Shnarch has a great quote where he said, “When we think of people giving up on their marriage, divorce usually comes to mind. But many people who give up on their marriage or themselves or their partner, don't leave. They stay in the comfort cycle until their marriage presents the inevitable dilemma, venture into the growth cycle, or face divorce, loss of integrity or living death. Validating and soothing each other has its place in a marriage, but not when you're dependent upon it, you get stuck in the comfort cycle because neither of you has the strength or motivation to break out. That's when the other side of the process comes in holding onto. Self confrontation and self soothing.”

So in this scenario, again, where we're talking about lower sexual satisfaction and when your sex life suffers and your relationship quality is likely to suffer, at that point, that is where I think people often start to feel like, okay, my relationship is completely out of whack and I don't know if it will get back into alignment or it won't be healthy again. And so it's easier to start with the intimacy or the sexual component, and I'm saying easier for people to start to blame. But I feel like often that's the byproduct of people that don't feel connected and they aren't able to communicate effectively, and talk about their hopes and dreams and feel safe. And so then they will often just go to, well, here's a physical act that signifies that we're okay. We need to be okay to have a better relationship with that physical act.

Number four, he says, “A partner who seems dissatisfied. It's a great feeling to know that your partner is happy in the relationship. When they seem unhappy, it can introduce all kinds of questions,” And here we go again, “uncertainty about the health and future of your connection.” So remembering this is one of the best predictors of a bad romantic relationship. So that one is, if one of the partners seems dissatisfied. So it goes back to that concept around certainty. So I feel like this is where we just need the tools to communicate and we all do want to feel heard and understood and seen in a relationship. And I know that that's not the end all be all. As a matter of fact, I monitor a couple of different groups where people are talking about the concepts around differentiation and self confrontation, interdependence, cleaning up their lives, and the way that they are showing up in a relationship. And I am all for that. But oftentimes, even people when they are talking about what solution works best to save a relationship, they may say, look, you can only take care of what you can take care of, which is absolutely true. But I feel like we also need a vehicle to communicate more effectively. And that is my four pillars of a connected conversation based off of the work of Sue Johnson, and emotionally focused therapy. So when people just say, okay, you know what? I just need to show up and be the best version of me. Absolutely. That is a wonderful, amazing thing. And that is the goal. And I feel like having a way to communicate with your partner is essential. It is something that we do not learn from the factory. And so if you are over there being the best version of yourself and then just saying, okay, I'm showing up as my best self. If they are not, then I don't know what to do with this relationship. Then I feel like we're missing a huge component of communication. So if your partner, you know, a partner who seems dissatisfied, then I feel like that is an opportunity to start to understand why.

And that's hard because we gotta step out of our own ego and it's gonna make us feel uncomfortable. We may feel attacked and judged. The number five predictor that is of a bad relationship, a bad romantic relationship is high conflict. Dr. Seth says, “I don't know anybody who enjoys getting into fights with their partner and a lot of conflict can quickly sap the joy from a relationship.” So if you are in a relationship where there is often high conflict, I do believe, and this was last week's episode, “The Body Keeps the Score”. That over time your body just falls into a pattern and it says, this is what we do. So even if somebody says, how was your day? You may say, well, where are you going with that? What do you mean? When in reality the person is maybe trying to show up differently and saying, I really want to know about your day. And if the spouse says, why, so you can tell me that I'm lazy or that I don't do enough, or that you do more than me. And you can see where we fall into these relationship patterns over time. And then when we don't have the tools to be able to break the cycle of that relationship pattern, well we start to feel hopeless or we start to feel stuck. And that can be really, really difficult. So in that scenario, if there is a problem where we continually go to high conflict, go seek help because what can be really difficult is if one in the relationship is starting to change the dynamic and saying, I don't want this high conflict anymore. What they're also doing is stepping out of the role that they have found themselves in, in the relationship. And so oftentimes, even when one person is trying to work on the relationship by making themselves show up differently, the other partner will feel in an odd way, almost unsafe because they don't know what the angle is of their partner. So they may push even more buttons and try to pull that partner back down into the muck because that's all they know at this point. So that can absolutely take the help of a third party. Number six, an unresponsive partner. “A responsive partner seems to get you and respect your thoughts and feelings even when they don't agree with you. It feels bad when your partner doesn't seem to understand or respect you.” An unresponsive partner, and it is hard. I really love being able to go through this article because every one of these, I wanna say there's a reason why, you know, there's a reason why there's high conflict because we didn't have the tools to communicate well. There's a reason why a partner seems dissatisfied because they didn't feel safe or have the tools to communicate their needs. There's a reason why there's low sexual satisfaction in a relationship, and it goes back to not being able to communicate effectively what your relationship with sex was like growing up, what your expectations were in the relationship, where things possibly went off track.

There's a reason why this one, an unresponsive partner. There's a reason why no one wakes up and just decides to be unresponsive. It's something that happens gradually over time, and if a partner feels very unresponsive in the relationship, it's because eventually their body keeps the score, their body is telling them, what's the point? If I express myself, then I'm probably just gonna be told I'm wrong, or I'm gonna be talked out of what my opinion or my feeling is. So I'm gonna slowly but surely grow to be somewhat unresponsive. So when I read this, and Dr. Seth pulls this data from these 43 different studies, a responsive partner seems to get you and respect your thoughts and feelings even when they don't agree with you. Boy, that is the goal because it is absolutely okay to have your own thoughts and your own feelings, and we do not have to agree on everything. And if you are sitting in your relationship thinking, well, no she agrees with me all the time, and we're on the same page with everything. Then I would love for you to do a little self confrontation and step back and say, okay, but are you, are you hearing her? And are you willing to tolerate that discomfort that may come with disagreement? And this would be an amazing way to check in, although unfortunately when I work out, I go back to the world of emotional immaturity and I have had people in my office where if I'm starting to have this conversation, if somebody mentions something that they're unhappy with and the other spouse says, no, we've talked about that. You and I are in agreement that we're gonna do this for the rest of our lives, then I just want that person to hear themselves say that. If this person is in my office now saying, but I don't agree with that. That's where I'll have the partner say, well, why haven't you ever said that? Well, it's because they don't feel like they can say that.

So if you're hearing this and you feel like your partner's somewhat unresponsive, now's the wonderful opportunity to do some self confrontation and say, do I create a safe enough environment for my spouse to be able to express their opinion? And it doesn't matter if you're at year 50 or year two, now is an opportunity to unhook from those unhealthy patterns and learn that it is absolutely okay to have two different opinions.

As a matter of fact, that's even better because if the two of you are in alignment all the time, you're basically just asking for this person to go along with you and just validate everything that you're feeling, you're thinking, and there's no polarity there, there's no excitement or joy, but we're so afraid that if our partner has another opinion, that for some reason that's gonna equate them leaving the relationship. No, we are two different people that came together with completely different experiences and yeah, we were emotionally immature at the beginning, so we probably did say, I agree with everything. Because that feels good. We feel wanted, we feel loved, but then life happens and we graduate school and we have kids, and we move and we get jobs and we go through financial difficulties and we have to make decisions and people in our lives, they leave and they die, and then the springs up more things. And so we are of course gonna have completely different experiences than our spouse. And so in a healthy relationship, we're able to talk about our experiences. And our partner is gonna stay present with us and say, tell me more about that. What's that like? And then we may say, well, what are you feeling right now? And that's where the real growth occurs. That we happen to be two people that are going through this life. And what a joy, what an amazing opportunity to be going through life together. Because now we can have two different perspectives. And that's the real goal of differentiation is where I can have this relationship with somebody that is completely different than me and they can have their opinion and I can even listen to it because I like this person and I care about this person.

And what can I gain from this person? I might be able to take in some of that data that is part of their life experience and that might help me through difficult times and we're there and we're in it together. Okay, there are three more. Dr. Seth said the remaining predictors of relationship quality were what each partner brought to the relationship. So those first seven were ones that were predictors were about the relationship itself, so I'll buzz through these three quickly. Number seven, individual factors. Dissatisfaction with life. If you are somebody who is unhappy, feeling unhappy, down, depressed in life right now, then it makes sense that you're gonna see your romantic relationship in more of a negative light as well. So do individual work. If you are overwhelmed with anxiety or depression, or uncertainty or fear the future. Then that might be something that you can work on to get your emotional baseline high so that you can bring that into the relationship. Because if your emotional baseline is low and you are unhappy in general, then it is hard to show up and be in a relationship. And we may want our partner to carry the load more, which, you know, there are gonna be times where, again, we aren't equally yoked, but we have to be able to communicate that. And if that isn't something that you've been able to communicate throughout your relationship and now you find yourself just so flat and down and apathetic that you don't even want to participate, then go get help. Please, because you deserve to be happy, period. And then a happy you is able to show up more in a relationship. And then get even more. It's that one plus one equals three concept. So again, that was number seven, dissatisfaction with life. Number eight, Dr. Seth says, depression, so, and he says on a related note, people who are depressed tend to report a lower quality relationship, and part of this association can be that bad relationships contribute to depression. So it is a little bit a chicken and the egg. So if you feel, again, dissatisfaction with life, if you feel depressed, and actually let me jump down to number nine. He talks about negative affect, other negative emotions like a lot of anger or irritability are linked to worse relationship quality. So as with depression, as with dissatisfaction, a bad relationship in turn can contribute to negative emotions so they can feed upon each other. So if you feel like you can't even show up for your relationship, then get help. Get individual help. I know I'm pro therapy, but it's because I'm a therapist and because at this point, I still remember being a new therapist in my early thirties after doing a decade in the computer software industry. And I was one of those people that wondered, ehh therapy, you know, isn't necessary. And I remember being about five years into the profession and going to a Christmas party and somebody saying, yeah, I don't know about therapy, and I remember the years before I would've defended it. Well, studies say, and I've found, and at that point it's like, oh, bless your heart. Therapy is amazing and it changes lives and amazing people go to therapy and the stigma behind therapy has changed. Thank goodness. I love when people talk about when they see their therapist or they talk about their therapist. And as a therapist, that relationship, that dynamic, I mean, what an honor to be able to share these intimate details with people and to go in the minds of people where they've never let somebody in before. And to watch how validating that can be when somebody that is a captain of industry or a well-respected member of a community and they come into your office and they open up about things and you're able to say, man, tell me more. What's that like? And to watch almost the relief just wash over somebody's face as they realize that it's okay to just have thoughts and feelings and emotions because we all do and they are all over the map and they're because of the way that we were brought up or the things that we've been exposed to or see.

And so when we just let those things rattle around in our head, they don't work out to the, and we live happily ever after story. Oh no. They end up with the what's wrong with me story. And sometimes when we're able to just communicate that to somebody else, it's liberating. It just is absolutely liberating to get these things off of your chest and to have somebody who knows what to do with that. And instead of saying, well, you should do this, or, why didn't you do this? Or do you realize how that would affect somebody else? No. Thank you for sharing. You're a human being, man, I can't imagine how hard that must be. And so now tell me more. Tell me what your, what's the next step? Where do you want to go? I'm right here with you. And how powerful that is. Number 10 is, and I love it and I'm getting close to doing a little bit of a deep dive on the different attachment styles, but he said that attachment styles both anxious and avoidant attachment styles are highly predictive of poor relationship quality.

A person with an anxious attachment often worries that their partner will leave them and those with avoidant attachment are careful not to let their partners get too close. And just one quick note too is he says, “It's interesting to note that demographic variables like race and gender and religious affiliation tended not to matter for relationship quality, and the same was true for objective characteristics of the relationship, such as having children versus being child free. Interestingly, living together or apart and dating or being married. So those are different things that turn out to not be as big of a factor as one thought. I will end and wrap up just a little bit on attachment. I dug up an article that I referred to, I think I did an episode a while back called something like “The Dance of the Anxious and Attached”, anxious and avoidant attachment, and this is from Darlene Lancer and it's from Psychology Today as well. And I just think this is fascinating. I'm gonna read for a little bit and then we'll wrap this thing up, but she says, “The relationship duet is the dance of intimacy that all couples do. One partner moves and the other backs up. Partners may reverse roles, but always maintain a certain space between them. So the unspoken agreement is that the pursuer chases the distancer forever, but they never catch up. And that the distancer keeps running but never really gets away and they're negotiating the emotional space between them.” And so she talks about how we all have needs for both autonomy and intimacy, independence and dependence, but we also simultaneously fear both being abandoned, which is acted out by the pursuer and being too close, which is acted out by the distancer. So we have this dilemma when it comes to intimacy. So how can we be close enough to feel secure and safe? Like the person's not gonna leave without feeling threatened by too much closeness where we're gonna feel overwhelmed.”

She said, “The less room there is to navigate this distance, the more difficult the relationship.” There may be less anxiety and therefore less demand on the relationship to accommodate this narrow comfort zone. But here's the part I really wanted to read. I got two paragraphs, origins. I love a good origin story. So Darlene says, “Attachment theory has determined that the pursuer has an anxious attachment style and that the emotionally unavailable partner has an avoidance style. Research suggests that these styles and intimacy problems originate in the relationship between the mother and the infant. Babies and toddlers are dependent on their mother's empathy in regard for their needs and emotions in order to sense their selves or to feel whole. So to an infant or a toddler, physical or emotional abandonment, whether through neglect or illness or divorce or death,” and I would add in there, or just life. We don't know what we don't know, “threatens its existence because of its dependency on the mother for validation and development of wholeness. So later as an adult, feeling this separation and intimate relationships, its experience as a painful reminder of this earlier loss. But we don't even know that that's where it's coming from.” And then Darlene says, “If the mother is ill or depressed, or lacks wholeness and self esteem, then there are no boundaries between her and her child. Rather than responding to her child, she projects and she sees her child as only an extension of herself as an object to meet her own needs and feelings. She can't value her child as a separate self. The child's boundaries are violated and its autonomy, feelings, thoughts, and her body are disrespected. So consequently, the child does not develop a healthy sense of self, and instead he or she discovers that love and approval come with meeting the mother's needs and tunes into the mother's responses and expectations. So this also leads to shame and codependency. So the child will learn to please and perform or rebel, but in any case, gradually tunes out its own thoughts and needs and feelings.” And I should have jumped in earlier and we're talking about attachment theory and we're talking about the relationship with mother and infant, but absolutely, dad plays a huge role as well. Daddy issues, anybody? So, I don't want a mother to be hearing this and think this is all on me. Because, no, it's both. It's the relationship with the parent, the parent child relationship. But in this scenario, so again, where she's saying, when somebody then feels a shame and codependency that they learn to please, perform, or rebel, but basically gradually tune out their own thoughts and needs and feelings. So then later intimacy may threaten the adult sense of autonomy or identity, or he or she may feel invaded or engulfed or controlled or shamed or rejected. And here's what's fascinating is a person may feel both abandoned if his or her feelings and needs are not being responded to, but at the same time now all of a sudden engulfed by the needs of his or her partner. So in codependent relationships where there aren't two separate whole people coming, true intimacy is impossible because the fear of non-existence and dissolution are so strong. So we learn these defenses as kids in order to feel safe. So she goes on to say that as adults, these behaviors create problems and result in miscommunication.

For instance, if you repress your anger to ensure that there's closeness there because you worry that if I get angry, then I'm gonna push my partner away. Then you stand a good chance of alienating your partner because you're unaware that you may be expressing your anger indirectly. By withdrawal, by silent treatment. You know, if you ignore your partner in order to create distance, then you inadvertently devalue him. And that creates a whole other problem. So, I'm gonna wrap it up, but that is my reaction to this article of “The 10 best Predictors of a Bad Romantic Relationship”. Seth does go on in the article, and again, I'll link to it. He does say how to improve your relationship. And I'm not just saying, you know, the same old things, but he does say, cultivating and appreciation for your partner, paying more attention, look at them as if you were looking at them for the first time. Look at opportunities to express gratitude. He says, work on bedroom techniques. Do research on how you both wanna show up sexually, be willing to tell your partner your needs. But I would add, not from a manipulative standpoint, but from a, hey, check this out. You know, make the relationship better for your partner. Look for small ways to make their life easier. Do a chore for them. Offer a listening ear. Set your phone down. Knowing that they're happy will increase your own satisfaction with the relationship , and for yourself. Find joy in life. Look for ways to find more rewards everyday. People that keep gratitude journals, there's some good data studies that say that that is a really helpful process and try to look for unique things each and every day. Because what will end up happening is you're looking throughout the day for the things that you can be grateful for. And I love that he says, treat your depression. Follow a self-guided book. Use an evidence-based app. Go to therapy, talk with your doctor about medication. Your relationship will likely improve when you find ways to boost your mood. And go to therapy. Invest time and money in working with a professional, either alone or as a couple. Both approaches are eventually gonna lead to, they can lead to a happier relationship.

So thank you so much for spending the time here today. If you have questions, comments, anything that you feel would be helpful to add, comment on the post will go up on Facebook or Instagram and you can also contact me through my website. If you have questions or anything else that I can address, I love a good question and answer episode, and I'm gonna do more of those over on my Instagram account. I'm gonna do some live question and answers, so please get those questions in. You can submit those through the website. And I just, I appreciate all the support and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Virtual Couch.

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Tony reads two emails from men in relationships with more emotionally immature and/or narcissistic women, and he talks about the challenges a man faces in these types of relationships. Tony references the articles: "Why Men Are More Narcissistic Than Women" by Jeffrey Kluger https://time.com/3734329/narcissism-men-women/ and the often referenced study out of the University of Buffalo, "Study: Men tend to be more narcissistic than women," https://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2015/03/009.html

And follow Tony on the Virtual Couch YouTube channel to see a sneak preview of his upcoming podcast "Murder on the Couch," where True Crime meets therapy, co-hosted with his daughter Sydney. You can watch a pre-release clip here https://youtu.be/-RkRq8SrQy0

Subscribe to Tony's latest podcast, "Waking Up to Narcissism Q&A - Premium Podcast," on the Apple Podcast App. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/waking-up-to-narcissism-q-a/id1667287384

WUTN Episode 60 Transcript

Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 60 of Waking Up to Narcissism. I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and host of the Virtual Couch podcast, as well as the Waking Up to Narcissism Premium Question and Answer podcast. And the soon to be released, Murder on the Couch, cue the ominous music, podcast with my daughter, Sydney, which is true crime meets therapy. And if you go to the show notes, you will find a link to a trailer on my YouTube channel. And I would highly recommend that. And just to go to tonyoverbay.com and if you can sign up for the newsletter, that will fill you in on all of the things that I'm very excited about, that I could talk for minutes about at the beginning of an episode and also, this one's kind of fun. I've been doing the things that a narcissist will not say. And that series, I guess you would call it, is some reels on Instagram. So you can go find those at Tony Overbay underscore LMFT on Instagram or if you happen to be on Tik Tok, find at virtual couch. I feel like I am about a decade late to the party, but better late than never. That is a really easy forum to just start to record nice therapeutic thoughts or stories or things the narcissist will never say and any of those kinds of videos and I've been posting those pretty regularly on Tik Tok, so go find at virtual couch there.

So let's get to today's topic. I honestly, at the time of this recording, I'm not sure what title I went to. There was a chance, and I don't think I went with this one, but where the title may be, this one goes out to all the fella’s and that is a, I believe a rap song. Bust a move by young MC where that is the way it starts. And I almost even looked up the words because I'm sure that I probably confabulated the artists, the story, the words, the lyrics. But I want to talk today, I'm going to reference a couple of letters that men have sent me. And I've wanted to do an episode that speaks to a lot of the guys' experiences that are in the relationships with the narcissistic or the more emotionally immature women for quite some time. And to the point where if you are a man who feels like you are in an emotionally abusive or narcissistic or emotionally immature relationship, And I know I've been saying this for a while, but please reach out to me because I am putting a group together. And I think we'll talk about this probably throughout the day, this episode. It's difficult. It's difficult for men to reach out because there is a pride factor. There's a believability factor. And as you'll hear in a couple of the letters I'm going to read today that a lot of the guys that are in these situations really do feel isolated and alone.

And if you are a woman listening, maybe who has felt that way, am I the narcissist? Again, if you are asking yourself that, you have far too much self-awareness to be considered narcissistic, there might be some emotional immaturity. Like we all have. But I hope that this episode will resonate, that it will know no gender, that I'm going to speak about a man's experience, two men's experiences. Give a little bit of data, the research of why we typically talk about men as more narcissistic. But I feel like you'll see that the traits are the same. That's where I feel like that they truly know no gender and that might resonate with somebody who is a female that's in this relationship with a narcissistic man.

So I think setting this up with a little, a short story might be funny. At least it will be for me. I can think of a person right now, a guy who emailed me and when Waking Up to Narcissism really started to take off. And I started to get a lot of emails that I got a guy that came back to me and said, hey, I've got plenty of data that says that you're wrong. That women are more narcissistic than men. And I was very familiar with the data that I'm about to share. And so I really responded nicely, I feel like, kindly to the person. I said, man, I appreciate that. Here's the data that I'm referencing that often gets quoted, but I would absolutely love to see the data that you have. And I have never heard back from him. So I just think that's one of those things where I look back on that and I almost feel like that's somebody that they don't know what they don't know. So they feel like if they say, hey, you're wrong, I've got this data. I don't know if in their world, they assume that then I would say, oh my gosh, well, this guy has data. I'm going to jump on my podcast and say, hey everybody, somebody emailed me and told me that he actually says that there are more women narcissists. So, my bad. Let me take back the last, however many episodes because I've been working off of this data from the University of Buffalo over three decades and hundreds of thousands of people, but I got a guy on the line that says that he's got some, something new. So I know I may sound facetious right now, but I just feel like that it also kind of encapsulates, I think, the way that sometimes the emotionally immature work where they will say, well, I disagree.

And I say, man, I'm, I will take that disagreement. And that is absolutely fine because I'm coming from what I would consider a bit of a healthy ego or here's the information that I know, but I will put it out there that I know that I don't know what I don't know. So let's have a nice healthy conversation and send me that data and then I will have an amazing opportunity to share with my listeners that, hey, there's some new data out there and let's talk about it. But I didn't hear back. I'll first talk about a Time magazine article that says why men are more narcissistic than women. I like this one just because the author Jeffrey Kluger just started it pretty clever where he said, “If there's one thing you can say for craziness,” so already, or in my world of therapy, we try to stay away from that word, but he says, if there's one thing you can say for craziness, “it's that it is not sexist. Across entire populations, males and females face a pretty equal lifetime risk of coming unhinged within conditions. However, there may be differences. Women are twice as likely as men, for example, to develop depression, anxiety disorders, such as OCD and phobias also tend to hit women harder. Narcissism albeit goes the other way. Research has long suggested that if you're looking for someone who's preening, strutting, self-absorbed, arrogant, exhibitionist, conceited, and sensitive and entitled, you'll find more of them in the boys' camp than you will in the girls.” So it comes as well, he says, almost no news at all than a new study.

He said, hold your applause till the end, found exactly that the research and fairness, he said, was sweeping a meta analysis of 355 journal articles and other studies going back 31 years. He said in the behavioral sciences, which lack the tidy one plus one equal to certainty of fields like chemistry and physics and math, meta analysis are often the best way to lock down a hypothesis. He said the paper did that, but it did more to not just establishing the gender disparity. But explaining why it exists. And so if you go over and look at that study, which I'll link to these in the show notes, the study men tend to be more narcissistic than women. With three decades of data and more than 475,000 participants. A new study on narcissism from the University at Buffalo school of management reveals that men on average are more narcissistic than women. It says forthcoming in the journal. Psychological bulletin, the study compiled 31 years of narcissism research and found that men consistently scored higher in narcissism across multiple generations, regardless of age. Narcissism is associated with various interpersonal dysfunctions, including an inability to maintain healthy, long-term relationships, unethical behavior and aggression says lead author, Emily. I'm not familiar with how to pronounce her last name. Um, Girllava, PhD assistant professor of organization and human resources at the UBI school of management. She said at the same time, narcissism is shown to boost self-esteem, emotional stability, and the tendency to emerge as a leader, she says, so by examining gender differences in narcissism, we may be able to explain gender disparities in these important outcomes as well.

And I'll just read there's one more comment that I think is interesting. That it says, research has shown that personality differences, like narcissism, can arise from gender stereotypes and expectations that have been ingrained over time. The authors speculate that the persistent lack of women in senior leadership roles may partially stem from the disparity between stereotypes of femininity and leadership and there's a lot more that I'll include in the link to that article. But I think if you look back at narcissism more than again, as this series of, of coping strategies that began as Eleanor Greenberg calls it an adaptation to a childhood family situation that left the person with unstable, self-esteem the inability to regulate their self-esteem without external validation and low empathy, then I feel like there's more underneath even than just the, hey, it's more about this gender stereotype, but we could go into a little bit more depth about maybe the way that the male is treated as a kid, but you also have to take in mind there's where that nurture kicks in. Where if kids did not see somebody taking ownership or accountability, or if they basically were just, you know, that gaslighting is a childhood defense mechanism where if they felt like they were going to get in an incredible amount of trouble, if they did something wrong, then you can start to see that, I do feel like there's more underneath the surface there, but the data shows that 31 years and a half a million people studied that males are far more narcissistic. I would then hypothesize emotionally mature than females, but we're all emotionally immature in essence until we're not.

So let's talk about the male today. I'm going to read two letters and I'm gonna go on some, I'm sure, some tangents I've made a couple of notes throughout the letters, but these are both from men and some things have been changed just to protect the identity, but you will see that the story that is underlying, it will resonate I think with a lot of both men and women. And these emotionally abusive or emotionally immature narcissistic relationships. So the first person says, “Hi, Tony, thank you for continuing to invest in this type of education about narcissism and how to navigate relationships with these traits,” and he goes on to point out that he'd emailed me a while ago and that led to one of the episodes that I did, and one of his questions was the question that was featured on a particular episode. And I'm holding that one back because I don't know if that would be too easy to put pieces together, but he said, “since then I listened back on that email about when I thought it was the best time to leave my relationship, when would I know, how would I know,” and he said, “I'll tell you how now, looking back and having met a great therapist, tried marriage counseling, reading a lot, podcasting journaling, writing music and doing all kinds of self care.” He said, “I now see what was, I also see what can be, and to me, understanding of how my body kept the score,” he said, “that was such a revelation for me, that I would get signs from the universe around me.” He said, “After ruling out confirmation bias and accepting synchronicity,” he said, “I then learned, I would then be on an upward spiral and could safely invest in my own wellbeing.” Wow. “And once I realized I could participate from a place of observation, that I was not my body or my thoughts, I could also start to see the truth.” And what I love again about this paragraph is where he talks about how it takes a while, and you're doing some of the self care routines, almost just because I don't know what else to do. That's why I say that number one rule is raising your emotional baseline because you have to be in a better position in order to start to navigate this relationship that you're in with whomever it is that you feel is the narcissist or the emotionally immature.

So I don't know if I can stress that enough, but when I put the number one rule is raise your emotional baseline, self-care is not selfish, it doesn't mean you have to start training for a marathon. Although that is absolutely something that people do, it can even be to start to just think and believe, and dream and read and listen and journal and draw. And these are things that are going to start to lift your spirits, raise your baseline, and start to put you in a place where you're going to be able to access almost these higher level tools that seem completely out of reach when you are just starting to wake up to the emotional immaturity or narcissism and in your relationships. So he lays out that in essence, it's a process. It's a series of things that led him to finally be able to then safely invest in his own wellbeing. And that takes time. And then again, he says, once he realized he could participate from a place of observation, and that is where, when you start to realize I am a good person, but when these situations happen, I notice that I shut down. I notice that I get angry. I notice that I am lashing out and yelling at people, then you can start to look at, okay, what is it about those situations? What are the triggers that lead me to start to feel or do the things that I do? Because you can also have some amazing experiences because you are a good person, but you are also trying to navigate a difficult situation and you're trying to survive.

He said, “Here was my moment.” He said, “After so much reflection and therapy and seeing what I couldn't unsee, choosing to live through the learning process.” And again, right there, that line, I bolded it in my notes “choosing to live through the learning process” because you are just going to start being and doing, and that sounds cliched, but it is just, it. Another cliche. It is what it is because you are going to go through this process as quickly as you're going to go through this process. Where you should be at any given moment is where you are, and then the more that you just start to focus on self and self care, maybe the faster that process is going to come unraveled and be right in front of you. And that's going to be scary. So there are going to be times where you're going to think, you know, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go back to the way things were because it may not be good, but I know it is, and this new place that I'm going feels really scary, but he says that “seeing what he couldn't unsee choosing to live through the learning process and stay until I felt the time was right, I also had time to practice new skills and techniques so I could learn to trust my body again. And my intuition that something was just not right.” And maybe he said, right, is not the best word to use because no marriage is perfect, but my body and my nervous system was on fire. And I kept sinking to the bottom. I was suffocating. And I just, I typed in these big, bold letters in my notes, no relationship should zap you of your sense of self and so it's a process. And when he even talks about practicing new skills and techniques, this is where I talk about getting your PhD in gaslighting, getting out of unproductive conversations setting boundaries, and that is going to cause the more emotionally immature partner to push new buttons and scarier buttons and more harmful buttons because they want to get you back into that in measurement.

So that's part of this process are testing these new skills because you can, you can practice them. You can run drills, and try to bring yourself into the present moment. But then when it's game day and you're out there on the field, and then now you're emotionally immature and narcissistic person pulls out a new button about you know, I'm gonna call the police and tell him you're a horrible mom or in this scenario, the wife's gonna say, if she's the more emotionally immature, I'm gonna hurt myself and I'm gonna tell everybody that you did it cause they'll believe me not, you. I mean, those are new buttons that are designed to put you back into this enmeshment. So you have to learn how to practice the techniques like the gray rocking, the just being present, the popcorn moments, the watching, and not responding and watching them go through all the buttons, all the triggers to see if they can get you to respond. Because if you don't respond, they are left, just sitting out there, emotionally naked and vulnerable. And that is not, you know, the narcissist or emotionally immature cannot stand discomfort. That is why they have to take control some way or the other, whether it's to go one up and put you down or to go completely victim and have you come rescue them. So he said, “It came down to a lack of empathy. This person, whom I was living with, just could not see or feel me in any situation. When I was sick, it was an inconvenience to her when I wanted to go to the gym or spend more time at work, that meant that she had to do more around the house. And I would be told I could go, I guess, that she would take care of everything. Don't worry about her, but man, she's just so tired and exhausted, but no, you go. I'm glad that at least one of us can be happy or can go to the gym. But when I wanted to talk and discuss us, it regularly and routinely blew up over and over again. Contempt criticism and conflict here came all the gaslighting.” He said, “Yikes. But I see it now. My nervous system is much better regulated and her dark energy doesn't affect me anymore.”

And he said, “Don't get me wrong. I was half of the marriage and it took me a long time not to feel like it was more me.” He said, “I enabled much of what I experienced, but somehow deep down, something just fell off and uneasy all the time.” He said, I think I walked on more eggshells than all the eggs I ever ate throughout the decades of our relationship. One day, one of my kids asked me if we could go to lunch and he doesn't normally ask. So I jumped on that opportunity. But here's the setup,” he said, “that week, I had been particularly leaning into my instincts more when I was away from my wife. When I was around her, I felt like I could almost, I would just almost go flat and I felt like I was continually trying to read the room. Is she happy? Is she good? Oh, she's good. Oh, wait, wait. I think she's mad. Here comes one of the little kids walking into the room. Let me go distract my daughter. I don't want mom to see her. Or else, if my wife's feeling sad or mad or angry, now she's going to pick apart something that my daughter is doing or wearing. Did you clean your room? You're not going out wearing that. Are you, did you do your homework? Why is it that your kids never seem to want to do their homework? One of our favorite lines, they were my kids when they didn't clean their room or do their homework. And they were her kids when they got straight A's or performed well in dance or soccer, even though she couldn't be bothered to take them to dance or soccer. I had to work my schedule around all of their activities because as in, and this was in quotes because as you know, my anxiety might flare up. Yeah. Shockingly said if it did flare up, it would lift later when one of her friends texted and said that they needed to talk,” he says, “oh, Tony, those times were even funnier in hindsight. I would be in the middle of managing my kids, trying to help with homework, get dinner ready, and she would be on the couch with her eyes closed, hoping that another one of her migraines wouldn't kick in, but I almost feel like she would sit on the couch because she wanted us to be too loud or do something rude to her and sensitive so that then she could snap and then eventually storm off and leave.” And he said, “I even feel bad when I'm typing this. Although I now know that those migraines came and went oddly enough, when there were responsibilities for her, when they were sensibilities for her, they came, but when somebody wanted to go do something fun, then all of a sudden the migraines lifted or the anxiety lessened.” And then I will get the, you know, me, he said that you've always talked about, because I love mentioning where I'm the narcissist or the emotionally immature will say things like, you know me, I don't really care about how you clean this bathroom, but then if you start cleaning the bathroom, they say, is, is that how you're going to do it though?

You know what I do, I do this, I do this. Yeah, that one really doesn't look very clean, but you know me, whatever you're going to do, you do. So he talked about her having the, you know me, he said, “Where if we were around friends and we would start talking about health, for example, then she'd say, well, you know me, I never get sick and she would point at me. You know, basically saying, well, he seems to constantly be complaining about this or that. I swear, he's going to talk himself into a casket.” He said, “I learned a few years later that when I was supposedly complaining about what I was supposedly complaining about was adrenal fatigue that my body was literally shutting down. Since I've been out of my marriage. I have had so much more energy. But as you say, I digress, where were we?” He said, “So my son had asked me to go to lunch. We go and we take it to a park. We sat down at one of the picnic tables and wham, I look up there on a post, somebody had written in chalk and nice, neat writing, ‘trust your gut, but realize that others will do the same’. This message was right in front of me.” He said I could have sat anywhere. I couldn't get a clear message. Was this message there for me? Who wrote it? Why? What was their experience in life and where did it come from? I needed to start trusting my gut.” And let me just tell you, I thought about where this post was going. I thought about where this letter was going at that moment. When it says, and I thought that second line was going to really come into play where it says, trust your gut, but realize others will do the same. It's interesting because I already had my own confirmation bias going, and I don't know how old the son is, who went to lunch, but we've talked about this on some older episodes. There's still not a lot of good information. I don't feel like it is out there for, how do you talk to your kids about in this scenario they're emotionally immature mom, because we don't want to quote, “throw mom under the bus”, but I really feel that if a kid though is having their experience, that if we're just saying, hey, don't worry about it, mom's just having a bad day, mom's just off, she doesn't really mean it, then we are telling that kid, stuff your emotions. Don't worry about it, it's not a big deal. She doesn't mean it. You know, you're wrong. And this is when I talk about my four pillars and my, you know, assuming good intentions or there's a reason why somebody is doing or saying what they're doing, it's easy to assume the good intentions of your son, if let's say in this scenario, then he was then saying, hey dad, I wanted to go to lunch because I'm really struggling. I feel like mom will promise me things and then she's not there for me. And then I'm the one that ends up getting in trouble. And if I tried to bring it up with her, then she makes me feel bad because that is a real one that I dealt with with a teenager recently.

But in that scenario if that had happened, then I would have hoped that the dad would have, instead of saying, “Hey, mom's going through a lot. And I'm sure she doesn't mean it.” Because now I just violated my pillar to where I said my pillar two is don't ever tell someone that they're wrong or I don't believe them, but here's the key, even if I think they're wrong or I don't believe them. My pillar three, questions before comments. My pillar four, stay present. Don't go into a victim mentality, but the reason I bring up that pillar two is because there's a way that we violate my pillar two and it sounds great and it's the one where if he, if this kid would have said, “hey, mom is promising me things and has not been showing up for delivery.” And then I'm the one that gets in trouble. Then, if I'm saying it's not a big deal or I'm sure she doesn't mean it, I'm saying your wrong, you know, I violated my own pillar two there, so that's where I want him to say, had this fictional situation occurred with, let's say a teenage son for him to say, man, tell me more. What's that like? That's my pillar three, questions before comments. That sounds hard. And then once he feels heard and understood, then I feel like in that scenario, it's not unfair for you to say, I hear you. And there are times where I experienced that too. And it is really frustrating. And so maybe we can, when that happens, if that happens again in the future, I would love for you to come and let me know. And, if there's anything I can do, then I'm going to, I'm going to do that for you. And even if there, if it doesn't feel like there's anything that we can do about it, then I see you. And that's the part where I feel like we can really start to help our kids understand that they're not crazy and you aren't either. And that we're all experiencing something in the relationship that is unhealthy. And that is okay to validate your kids in that way. And that's not throwing the partner under the bus because you're both having a shared experience about the reality of what you are experiencing. So back to this scenario then when he's saying I could have sat anywhere. I couldn't have gotten a clearer message. Was this message there for me? Who wrote it? Why? What was their experience in life that it's more about I believe that I'm reading this trust your gut. When this had been on his mind and his son asked him to lunch, which he normally doesn't do. So he said fast forward one week later. Last spring while driving by a cemetery, I decided to stop by the side of the road and walk through the graves. “I looked at all the names on the tombstones. And that's when I asked myself this question. Is this how you want to live your life? Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life in a relationship? Giving? Choosing chores to avoid conflict and questioning and a transactional relationship? Do you see yourself lying down beside this person in the grave for eternity?”

He said this struck me because if I was feeling uneasy, most of the time down beside her, in my bed. How could I integrate despite being dead? And I love the fact that that rhymed. “It is my soul, which is alive, which would always know where and who I was with.” So he said the answer for him was a clear no, if I didn't feel comfortable or feel I could trust my relationship with who I truly was and be seen for me and how I wanted to live my life from my heart. After being told that I had to live only with logic and not from emotion. He said that, no, I couldn't go on like that any longer. I could go on and on about all the phrases and techniques used to keep me in an inferior position to satisfy the optics of our marriage, to our friends, our family, or church or Facebook. But what was more important was the revelation that it was time for this chapter to end.

Fast forward two months later, he said, “I no longer bleed from these cuts, my ex-wife and I don't speak to each other. There is no contact other than what's involved for our kids, our marriage crumbled and nothing in a matter of a few weeks, once I,” and he put in quotes, “I called the ‘time of death’ in a marriage that I now realize was already broken and dying. Strangely sometimes I feel like she was happy that I made the call for something that she was also secretly unhappy with,” but he said, “I guess I'll never really know that.” And I just wanted to take a quick note there. And I think a lot of times in relationships, and this is what I see. I mean, again, 13, 14, 1500 couples later, people come into therapy and even when they realize even in a healthy situation where they realize we don't communicate well and hey, let's do what's best for the kids. And I want you to have a better life. And I'm talking about when the couple comes to an emotionally mature resolution, there's this vibe in the air where no one, it feels like wants to be the one that is saying, “I want a divorce” because I feel like there's almost this subconscious understanding that then the other person now gets to have that narrative. It's almost like you get to call the divorce, which I want the person to feel that whatever they need to do to really feel like they are in control of their life or the situation, because they probably haven't felt like they've had much control in their life at all up to that point. Because even the fact that they're in this emotionally unavailable or immature relationship most likely comes from not necessarily growing up, seeing those healthy boundaries modeled or being able to tell somebody, hey, I'm not going to put up with that. But so it's almost as if the person that has to then say, “I am choosing the divorce” is handing the other person a weaponized narrative where they get to say, hey, I didn't want it. It was all up to them. I told them that we could've made it work, and that can be really difficult, especially for the pathologically kind person if they're the one, like in the scenario with this guy who has to, who has to call it.

So I do. I feel like sometimes in relationships, both people are almost waiting for the other person to make the final call, even if they wanted it so that then they can say, oh, you know, then he, he did it. Or she said it. He said, and I am okay now with that, I am who I am because of my relationship. And I'm thankful for the experience now that I had to learn from and grow into the person who I am today. We'll talk about this in a future episode, but if you really start to look at all the situations in our life, especially as we become adults, become an opportunity for introspection and self-confrontation. Then it can be amazing when you truly are at this place of differentiation, then I can take in data and I can take in experiences from all around me. And then I can, I can just gobble those up and I can then sit with them and I can see, are these these experiences or are these stories I'm being told or is there truth in them? And again, it's not an all or nothing, black or white thing.

But if you are being told that you are showing up consistently in a relationship, then I would love to know that. Tell me more about that. And I need to create a safe enough environment in my relationship that then I can take that information and I can look introspectively. I can self confront. So oftentimes I do believe that in life, there is a, all these things will be for your good vibe where it's not something that feels good in the moment. It's more of a hindsight principle, but then when you get through situations, get out of these situations. And realize, okay, this made me a better person because now I understand that self care is tied to self worth. That I am lovable, that I am enough that if I find myself in a position where I don't have to continue to explain myself or beg others to love me, that lo and behold, I'll find myself around people that we have this mutual, reciprocated love in a sense. And it's easy. The relationships are far more easy and not so much hard work. So he said, “Sometimes I hear the phrase, ‘a marriage is worth fighting for’.” He said, “So is your life, if there is abuse or a lack of empathy, and if the space between partners isn't safe and grounded or supported by the will to truly and openly listen from both people, no matter how the words are said, no matter how many counseling sessions you attend, there is no marriage. People are living separate lives.” He said, that's just the truth. He said, “We are healing from a million hearts together.” He said “Your listeners and the stories they share and your education serves us all for the better. Thank you.”

Thank you, my online friend, because that story alone, I know will resonate. Let me get to the second one really quick, and then we'll wrap things up. But if you are a guy that is really feeling heard and understood, which I think could be the case, then I would like to hear from you. Please do send me an email. I think that would be wonderful because I would like to have a group of guys that are the ones that are the pathological kind, the ones that have been the nice guys, trying to figure this out. And where are my emotionally immature or recovering narcissistic men? Where are you? Because I've got a few people that have reached out and I've been very intentional. That's the reason why I called this, waking up to narcism. It wasn’t just waking up to the narcissism in your relationship, but it could be in your own and yourself. And that's where I like to be completely open and authentic and vulnerable about my own emotional immaturity and not knowing what I didn't know and what a journey that it has been. But what a place that you can get yourself to. But I digress. Let's get to the second letter.

This person said, “Dear Tony,” I left the first paragraph of this in because I love it. And I want you to know that I appreciate this so much. He said, “after going through all sorts of channels and giving all sorts of coaches a chance,” he said, “I ended up at your channel and I have to say, something about your approach/perspective/narrative really works for me.” And he said, “Although I have to admit, I do relate to the others who have commented.” He said, “In fact, that's the first thing I told my friend who was the first to try it, to try to wake me up and help me see the gravity of the abuse. I said, ‘this dude is all over the place, but he does really seem to get it.’” So did this guy. I say, oh, he gets me. Because this is the way that I work. I am all over the place. And I do feel like now that I have found this career in this field and these things that I just feel so passionate about. That I do feel like just continually trying to put these puzzle pieces together, but still knowing that I don't know what I don't know, which is an amazing feeling when he really embraced that. But I am absolutely all over the place. And boy, if you could just see in my head you would know that what actually makes its way out onto the podcast is quite organized. And the reason I love that he mentioned that is because here's that world of differentiation. Is that I know, I know a few years ago, if I would have heard a comment like that, I would've, I would've probably been hurt and I would've wanted to probably lash out, but I really appreciate the fact that, that he can, this person can, what he's doing is he's having an incredibly, emotionally mature relationship with me. And he doesn't even know that. Because this is where I love going back to the concepts of narcissism. And if you look at this again, article one of my favorites, “the truth about narcissistic personality disorder”. And I've been thinking about this so much, “whole object relations”. This is the capacity to see one self and others in a stable and integrated way and acknowledge both the person's good and bad qualities.

So in this writer, his whole object relation is acknowledging that he may not find my tangents as fun as I do. But then he also sees that the knowledge that I provide is something that he feels like resonates with him. And what goes with whole object relations is object constancy. This is the ability to maintain a positive, emotional connection to somebody that you like while you are even angry, hurt, frustrated, or disappointed by his or her behavior. And those are the two things that people with narcissism and emotional immaturity, they really lack cause without the whole object relations and object constancy, that's when people only see themselves and other people in one of two ways, either they are amazing, unique, special omnipotent and entitled, or they're defective and worthless and garbage. So this means a person's struggling with these narcissistic issues can't hold onto his or her good opinion and good feelings about somebody once he or she notices that the other person may have a flaw, like going off on tangents, the other person goes from being special and put on a pedestal to being devalued as nothing special. And I'll go one more paragraph from this article and we'll get back to this person's letter. But Eleanor Greenberg had said narcissists often Seesaw back and forth between these two. When they feel good about you or more accurately, you make them feel good about themselves, they see you as special, but then you do something they don't like such as say no to a request, and suddenly you are now all bad and worthless. Now later, you may do something that makes them feel good. Again, they're back to seeing you as special and that's when they want to go ride bikes.

So then this guy says though, that this dude's all over the place, but he does really seem to get it. He said with regards to all the thousands of obscure cuts that have killed me over my 20 plus year marriage. And I appreciate, he shared that he has spent quite a bit of time looking up information to try and help men that are in these emotionally mature narcissistic relationships. And he said, “I've located many organizations and websites that acknowledge and address men who feel that they are in this situation.” But he said, “Now that I've actually been interacting and my experience in dealing with these organizations for over a year now,” he said, “I can honestly say they couldn't care less about me. The guy.” He said, “So here I am finally waking up to the face of full spectrum of the abuse.” I'll try to sort out co-parenting arrangements for, and they have several kids. And he said in the organizations that are trying to quote, “help” and get just as easily manipulated. He said, “My hopefully soon to be ex-wife, I always felt manipulated,” he said, “she has a better education, she has more of a secure career and makes more, is a higher income earner,” which can be really, it can play into this emotional piece for, I think the men as well. But he said that he has been helping out with the kids for a long time. He contributes more with, on a freelance basis, but he said the situation that he was really trying to sort out, but unfortunately he said there are some escalations that started to occur because he started waking up to this emotional immaturity or narcissism and the relationship.

So he said that as he started to separate from this enmeshment or start to what I would say, become differentiated, and when you become differentiated, get ready for the invalidation and that's where the growth can occur in a healthy relationship. Again, we're so afraid that things will go to contention that we avoid tension altogether, but in mature relationships, tension is where growth occurs, because tension is where you start to realize, oh, we have different opinions. Isn't that amazing? Not, are you kidding me? And so that's where I think things get really interesting. That's why I really appreciate what he shared. He said her behavior then got more hostile than ever, and she started getting more violent and threatening. He said that we would wake up and I felt like we would go to sleep constantly arguing and screaming, which I feel like it just kept his amygdala on constant fight or flight, which over time, again, the neurons, the wiring that fires together, wires together. And so he said there was no escaping. He said, “I was terrified to leave her alone with the kids. She had successfully isolated me from my friends and family throughout the years.” And he said, “Where would I go anyway?” He would try to leave the home. He would try to find himself in situations for work projects. But then he also didn't want to leave the kids alone with her. And he said the organizations that he was reaching out to were telling him that, hey, you know, you are as much to blame for the abuse of the children. That the abuse that they have to go through because you're choosing to stay there and not leave. And he said, but I can't leave the kids alone with her. And he said, I just, I felt like I was just stuck. He said she would ambush me whenever she got the chance. And he said the organizations that started getting involved finally because he started reporting, he started calling the police after various incidents. One in particular where he felt like he was trapped. And then he said in just trying to get around her, then she threw herself onto the ground and sustained an injury. And then he was immediately blamed. And he said that just started to make him feel so desperate because he felt like I don't know what she could do at this point. So, he said that she would shout often as he was trying to learn the new techniques, like gray rocking and she would just push and push and it would go on for hours until finally he would lose his patience. And he said in those moments, then he would, he said, “Yes, I would yell at her. I would call her insane,” and he said, “and there we go, now I am the name caller, and therefore I am the abuser.” And he said, “It's clear to me that even the organizations regard me as the abuser and not her. Or maybe, at far, most the equal.” Even though he says that's really not what it was in the relationship.

And let me just take a break in the story right now, not for a commercial break, but to say that I really in the, I know what I know or, the things that he's sharing and there's some things I've left out that I really do, I do believe that this is exactly where this person's at. The reason why I'm mentioning that is I worry that there could be some of the pathologically kind women listening to this. Then saying, okay, wait, am I that woman to my husband? Am I putting him in that spot? And you're not, again, if you are listening to this, you are in a you're the one, if you were trying to put yourself in that position, AKA empathy, then that is not the case, but I would love to see, if you can feel what this, this guy is feeling because he's in a similar situation, he is the pathologically kind in this situation and the more that he is starting to become differentiated or get out of that enmeshment and that codependency, the more his wife is trying to push the buttons to get him back into that enmeshment or that relationship.

I like the line he used. He said, the organizations, the people they were reaching out to, he said, they seem to shy away from the word “abuse” completely. He said they were just telling me no, it's just an unhealthy relationship. And since she's the emotional one, she gets the sympathy and he said, me, trying to remain calm and rational, emotionally balanced, verbally sophisticated person. He said, “I apparently gave the impression that I had the upper hand, that I was more manipulative in that perspective.” He said while at the same time, “I actually am the one who is deeply miserable and she is having the time of her life because she's been able to recruit the organizations now as her flying monkeys and now even use the very organizations that I turned to for help are now being used against me.” He said they were essentially forcing me to dance her dance and to do so at all costs to avoid any and all of her triggers. And if I do something that she doesn't like, like talking to our family members about the challenges that he has been going through, then she, all of a sudden will make more accusations or deny him from the finances. And when he addresses this to the people that are trying to help, “I am not allowed,” he says, “to call this an abuse of finance or power because this will trigger her, instead I just have to refer to it as influencing.” So, he goes on and talks about the situation that they are currently in. And that he is, he is really going through the really tough part of this and even to the point now where she's beginning to confabulate stories about various situations and he says, “I just feel trapped. I feel just so almost checkmated.”

And he said, “Sorry, my insight didn't turn out as brief as I wanted.” He said, “I guess I started writing you because I was just longing to be heard and understood.” And to this guy, I do, I hear you. And I do understand you, and I know that on this episode in particular, if there are more men listening, that there are those men that are going to absolutely resonate. And that's why I appreciate you sharing this story. He said, “I just wanted to say that I would be really interested in a community of men suffering from the abuse, as you've mentioned a few times that you're getting together,” he said, “I would even sign up for a Facebook account if that's what it takes.” So I do. I see you and I appreciate your writing. I appreciate the men who have written in, and I do understand that while that data might show that whatever the percentage is that some believe it's 70% or 75% that more men that are narcissistic than women, I just look at the fact that even that study alone was for almost half a million people. And if that's the case and I will not be doing math, that is I feel like I have to do my classic math joke. So if 75% of these half a million people are men, then that means that there's well over a hundred women that are narcissists. I hope you can see my joke there. But, there's a large percentage, which means that there are those guys that are dealing with this and suffering with this as well. And I know for a fact that I even know that there will be a couple of people listening. Some guys that will check in with me regularly. And I see you as well, almost wanting to say your names, because I know that you identify with all of these same tools in your relationships with the emotionally abusive or emotionally immature or narcissistic traded women.

And even in that personality disorder cluster where narcissism lies are two others, one called borderline personality disorder and one called histrionic personality disorder. They're all in this cluster B personality disorder group. And at some point I realize now that I need to cover those. I love being able to get the stories out because I feel like that's what resonates so much with people, but there, it would be nice to probably do a deep dive on the different personality disorders within that cluster, because while men may be primarily more narcissistic, part of that cluster borderline tends to typically be more female and borderline. There's an amazing book called “I hate you. Don't leave me.” That's a quick read, a little paperback. I used to keep it on my shelf and hand it out almost as if in a brown paper bag, when somebody was going to leave the office. And I've had a lot of guys that have really identified with that. And then that's one where I, one of my first ever personality disorder clients, was a guy who had borderline personality disorder. So again, the personality disorders, they know no gender.

And if you did resonate with today's episode and you are a guy that's looking for some community or group, I think we're ready. I think we're ready, gentlemen. And if you are a woman who listened to this and you kept trying to put yourself in the shoes of this guy or his wife, bless your heart. You are not a narcissist. You're still trying desperately to figure out what you can do to help save a relationship. When I want you to first put your oxygen mask on first, save yourself. And then that is going to be where you need to operate from, in order to do all that you feel like you really can do in your relationship. So thank you so much for taking the time, continue to send me your emails and contact through my website, find me on Instagram, on Tik Tok, you name it, and we'll see you next week on Waking Up to Narcissism.

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"If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment," says Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score (https://amzn.to/3QtMBPG). In today's episode, Tony explores what unresolved trauma can look like in adult relationships and what steps can be taken to overcome trauma and rewire the brain for connection. Tony completes the long-awaited part 2 of his review of "The Body Keeps the Score." You can find part 1 at https://www.tonyoverbay.com/how-trauma-impacts-us-all-the-body-keeps-the-score-review-pt1/

Transcript

Tony: So let me take you back to the summer of 1988. Yes. The year that I graduated high school. The top movies, and I had to look these up, “Who framed Roger Rabbit?”, “Coming to America”, “Crocodile Dundee”. Not part one, no, we're talking part two. “Big”, “Willow”, “Diehard”. And music, George Michael topped the charts with “Faith”, INXS with “Need You Tonight” and Rick Astley was never gonna give you up.

So I was a high school senior. I was growing up in Sandy, Utah, and we had a very late winter and the high school baseball season was gonna consist of probably about a dozen games. So much different than where I live now in California where the baseball season can last all year long. So I was actually looking forward to summer leagues and I had been talking to a couple of college scouts and I was really hoping to be able to play somewhere in college.

And then we head out on a senior trip to St. George where I ended up getting run over by a 20 foot dual prop ski boat and cut up both of my legs and that in essence put a little bit of an end to my baseball hopes and dreams. And then on July 31st, 1988, one of my very best friends, Trent Curl, along with his brother Toby, and Trent's girlfriend, Lisa Warren, who actually had been my eighth grade crush and Toby's best friend Jeremy were killed tragically when their car drifted into oncoming traffic on the way back home from a trip to Jackson Hole. Then a couple of years later, I remember vividly receiving a call from my dad that my brother had passed away. I had just turned 21, so that would've made him 24. And now fast forward to just two or three years ago, my daughter, McKinley, my wife, Wendy, and I were preparing to run a half marathon and we were listening to music and I was playing some Jackson Five. Now don't judge, but this is when little Michael is going all in on who's loving you, which reminded me of another version of that song by Terrence Trent D'arby. Now, Trent, my aforementioned best friend who unfortunately had passed away and my best friend Grant and I wore out this CD of Terrence Trent D'arby, I think it was called, “Introducing the Hard Line” and Terrence's version of “Who's Loving You” came on, and I just started bawling. I couldn't stop and it was out of nowhere. And here we are preparing to run this race and I feel like I'm gonna get dehydrated from the amount of tears that are flowing from my eyes. And it was visceral. It was this gut reaction, and again, it just hit me so hard and out of nowhere. And I pictured my friend Trent, the only one of us with rhythm, singing and dancing to that song.

And then just a few weeks ago, my son, his girlfriend, my wife and I were driving back from Vallejo, California. Where my son's college basketball team had played a game and we passed a sign for Mayor Island. Now it's a naval base and it's where my brother died over 30 years ago. And at the time of his passing, I didn't even know where Mayor Island was. But in 1993 when we moved to California, I didn't even realize that I would be an hour and change from where he died. And so each and every time that we drive to the Bay Area, to San Francisco, to the beach, every time we drive through that area and I pass that sign that says Mayor Island, I'm just hit with these memories of my brother. Or even more recently, just a week ago with my family in town for Christmas, we drove up to the scene of an accident. And I immediately just panic and terror just overcame me. And I had my daughter McKinley with me, and I immediately just asked her if she could pull up find my phone and make sure where all the kids were, because that just brought such a horrific feeling and thought of my daughter Alex, and the ordeal that she went through almost a year ago, and the accident that she is going to be recovering from for the rest of her life.

So today we're gonna talk about trauma. And we're gonna be using Bessel van der Kolk's book, The Body Keeps the Score as our guide because as you can see in each one of these situations, the body really does keep the score and it holds on to certain feelings, thoughts, memories, and emotions, and they can come up out of nowhere. So today in keeping The Body Keeps the Score as our guide, I wanna share some information that I think will help you start to recognize how trauma shows up in your life, and maybe more importantly, as well as what to do. So we're gonna talk about that and so much more coming up on today's episode of the Virtual Couch.

Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 356 of the Virtual Couch. I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and host of the Waking Up to Narcissism podcast as well, which I would encourage you to go listen to this week. You're probably gonna get this Virtual Couch episode on a Wednesday, and my plan on Friday is to release an episode with an amazing woman named Ashley Boyson and she has a very popular Instagram account called The Moments We Stand and I feel like for some reason, I want to say spoiler alert, but I feel like in this day and age, a quick search, a Google search on anybody can find out what the story would be, but she tells a pretty harrowing story of feeling like everything in her life was going perfectly. Five kids, a dream home, her husband's an attorney, and just things had seemed off, but she had been overlooking a lot of red flags. And in the episode we talk about turning red flags yellow. But eventually she learns to find out that he was murdered. And I will leave it there, but it's just not even what you would probably think there and it's one of the first guests, I think when I was doing a little bit of digging before the episode where I could have watched the Dateline NBC of her, or I think maybe the true crime report or the forensic files. But she's an amazing woman with an amazing story and is really doing some great work and helping others go through tragedy and go through trauma.

And that leads a little bit into what we're talking about today. We are talking about trauma and before we jump to the episode, then please just sign up for my newsletter. I think I'm just going down that path. Just go to tonyoverbay.com and sign up for the newsletter and you will not get inundated with information. As a matter of fact, I just haven't put one out for a little while. There's a goal to be more consistent with that, but there's just a lot coming here in 2023. There are a few new podcasts. There's still the magnetic marriage subscription based podcast where you're gonna hear real coaching. There's a revamp, an upgrade to the magnetic marriage course that is coming. And now the course is different from the workshop. If you go to tonyoverbay.com/workshop, there's a $19, everything you didn't know, you didn't know about your marriage and how we show up in marriages and relationships. And that is still available. Again, that's $19 money back guarantee. And that's at tonyoverbay.com/workshop. And I still have the Path Back Pornography Recovery Program and there's actually a discount going for the month of January on that, but act fast. And my social media team, the Amazing Yeah Yeah agency has put some things together there and you can find that on my Instagram account, which is Tonyoverbay, underscore LMFT. And you can also go to Tony Overbay Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist on Facebook. And I'm there on LinkedIn and other places like that as well. So just go find those things and you'll see a lot more content and information about the things that are coming. The most exciting thing though, is a True Crime podcast that I've done with one of my daughters, and it's one of my daughters that has not been on the show. And she's amazing. She's hilarious, and she is a true crime fan. And so she has brought in a very big case from the past. There's a Netflix documentary made of it, and we're gonna talk about that for a few episodes. We've already got those filmed where she's gonna bring the facts of the crime, and I'm gonna talk as much therapy and psychology as I can, and we plan on doing this on a regular basis. So if you go to tonyoverbay.com and sign up for the newsletter, you're gonna find out a lot more about that when those things come out.

So today I want to get to trauma and I'm going to refer to a document and now I look back on this and I did an episode a part one episode on The Body Keeps the Score and it was back in episode, oh, I had the notes, but it was in the 200 and twenties I think. So we're at 356 now. So we're talking a couple of years ago is when I did this and I did something that I do on occasion where I finished that episode, I got through a little bit of the notes that I had on The Body Keeps the Score, and then I looked back at the transcript and I said, okay, we're gonna do a part two, probably a part three, maybe even a part four. Stay tuned. So here we are two years later. Let's get to part two.

But, I also want to share that the notes that I'm referring to, and I believe I shared this back two years ago. I found an amazing, just an amazing book review of The Body Keeps the Score. So I listened to the audio book and it really is, it's a game changer. I know that gets used an awful lot, but the book, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is, I feel like a little bit of the bible of trauma in a sense. And this is someone's notes, 10 pages worth of single space notes. And they have just made this available on the internet, but I could not find who created this 10 page document of notes and so I'm gonna refer to that and all credit goes to this unnamed person, but I wanna read the summary that they did and then we're gonna jump down into more of where we left off in that part one.

So I'm gonna jump down into just really getting into more of the, what do we do about trauma? But here's what the person said about their book club notes on The Body Keeps the Score. They said, “My top takeaways from The Body Keeps the Score is that there are many different types of trauma that a person can and most likely will experience during their life, from childhood abuse and or emotional neglect, to an auto accident, war, a terrorist attack, or sudden death of a loved one. Much of trauma is a normal, albeit, uncomfortable neurological response to a dangerous situation, and so once a person experiences a trauma on a subconscious level, their brain, again, on a subconscious level, begins to not only organize their worldview, but also create actions around their response to those traumas in an attempt to keep them safe. So this can lead to a lot of problematic behaviors if the person is trying to numb out or escape from remembering what happened. Or it can lead them to feeling crazy because we are unable to numb out and feel stuck in a state of being hyper aroused, such as feeling chronically anxious or on edge or chronically hyper-vigilant about people and places and things.”

And that might not even seem like it's related to our trauma. So if you are someone that just runs more anxious in general, or somebody that is more depressed than normal or usual. These are things that I feel like, especially as a therapist, that it can be really good to go in and talk through, because a lot of times these things can just be responses to trauma. And trauma, and I love how this person lays that out, that it can be everything from the things that we often think of, childhood abuse, but it can also be emotional neglect. It can also be accidents, car accidents. But that part about emotional neglect, and this is something that I talk so much about on this podcast, is I really feel like we can bless all of our parents' hearts, but I just feel like it's almost impossible to get that right, meaning parenting, because, and I overuse this very simplistic example, but if a seven year old kid asked for a pony for their birthday and they don't get the pony, they don't say, yeah, that was a pretty big stretch because we live in an apartment and there's no room for a pony. The seven year old said, I would like a pony, please. And so in their mind, they have concocted some version of a reality where who knows, maybe they're gonna keep the pony in the bathroom, or maybe they'll just take it out for walks. I mean, people have dogs. Why not a pony? But they've created some sort of narrative that is gonna make sense. So then when they're not given that pony, then they don't just say, yeah, I understand that didn't make a lot of sense. Maybe we don't have the financial means for a pony. And where will we put a pony? In their mind they think, oh, my parents don't like me because I asked for a pony and I didn't get it. Now that's again, oversimplified, but when we really look at the concepts around what abandonment feels like as a kid, it's that we come out of the womb and we utter a small whimper and everyone jumps to attention and takes care of us. And so that's our factory setting. And that's the way that we survive, is that we express our needs and then when we're young, people meet our needs. And as we get older and we start to just go through life, everybody isn't jumping up and down to meet our needs. So then we make these pretty big demands or requests and people don't respond.

Then we can start to feel like what's wrong with me? And we have this default programming of shame because it must be because people don't love me, that I didn't get the pony for my seventh birthday, or that I don't get to eat candy corn for every meal. I mean, it is corn. The word corn is there, so what's the big deal? And so trying to make sense of things when we're a kid, when we don't even know what is going on, in essence, can lead to those deeper feelings of abandonment, which then leads on into that world of attachment. And attachment is what do I have to do to get my needs met? Do I have to be incredibly hilarious and funny? Do I have to be the athlete that gets everyone to notice me? Do I need to be the one who just keeps the peace in the home, or do I need to be the one that always gets bad grades and so everybody puts their attention on me? So there's so many different roles that we almost slide into in order to get our needs met, and we wanna get those needs met because we feel like if we don't get those needs met, we're gonna die.

And so emotional neglect can also feel like trauma. So now all of a sudden we come into our adult years, and if we were that person that was in charge of managing everybody else's emotions, and that was the way that we got our needs met, or that's the way we were noticed or seen, or the way that we felt validated, then we can bring that into our adult relationships. And all of a sudden when everybody is just doing their own thing comes the feeling of trauma or what it can feel like to be, you can be, nobody cares about me, or I'm unlovable. And I feel like if you go back through these Virtual Couch archives in a sense, there's so much that I feel like we've discussed over the last year or two about different things from everything from attachment styles, I mean, look at that concept around an anxious attachment. Here's somebody that, as a kid said, oh, I want love. I really desperately want love. But if their parent, and again, this is a, bless their parent's heart. If their parent is saying, hey, not right now, champ, I got a lot going on. Or, you know, this TV show's about to start, or, I'll get to you later tomorrow. Or, hey, actually you're fine. Don't worry about it. If things aren't really as big of a deal as you think they are, then when the kid is saying, hey, I need connection. I need to know that I matter. And then, again, even when they're doing their best is saying, hey, not right now. But then if the parent all of a sudden is feeling down, sad, and says, man, I really want to feel like I'm a good parent, and they go to their kid and say, hey, come give mom or dad a hug, or, you know, I love you. Right? Or do you see all these things that we're doing for you? So then when the kid maybe isn't necessarily looking for somebody to be there for them, but the parents saying, I'm ready. Come over here, gimme a hug. So we almost have this mixed view of attachment. So now all of a sudden we get into our adult relationships and we say, the only thing I want in life is to be loved. And then someone focuses that bright spotlight of love or attention onto us, and all of a sudden, we feel like, I don't really know how to do this. I mean, this is what I want. And so now we're looking for that external validation and we're telling the person that we've desperately wanted to love us. Well, not that way, maybe do it a different way.

So we bring all of these traumas, and that may sound like a big word, but for today we're gonna use trauma a lot. But we bring those traumas into our adult relationship. And that's why I feel like this book, The Body Keeps the Score, just hits on so many different levels because then, again, we're talking about everything from childhood abuse, and we can have sexual abuse, physical abuse, but we're also getting into that emotional neglect. And I feel like that is more probably common of a form of trauma that I see in my office than the physical or the sexual abuse. So the author of this paper again says, “We begin to organize on a subconscious level, things into our worldview, and we create actions around our responses to these traumas and in an attempt to keep us safe, but it can lead to a lot of problematic behaviors if we're trying to numb out or not remember what happened. We can feel crazy because we're unable to numb out and we feel stuck in the state of being hyper aroused, feeling chronically anxious, on edge, hyper-vigilant. And we may not even recognize that these are things that are related to trauma,” and they say, “while there is a lot of emotional and physical pain associated with trauma, we can overcome it.”

There's the big takeaway that we're gonna get to today, and this is why this book is so incredible because it gives solutions on how to overcome it. And I feel like as so many things with mental health, the exact opposite of what we're probably doing the most of right now, such as running away from our feelings, thoughts, and, emotions and dealing with them later are feeling like they aren't as big of a deal as we think they are, not the greatest idea for dealing with or processing trauma. So I'm gonna give you some tips on how to deal with that today. So they go on to say that, yeah, “So while there's a lot of emotional and physical pain associated with trauma, we can overcome it. This is done by understanding that what we are experiencing is largely neurological and that we aren't crazy or somehow beyond help. That once we bring awareness to our feelings and our actions and we see them as more of a defense mechanism than something that makes logical sense, then we can start to regain control of our brain, our body, and our life.” So when you start to just look at this, and I love it, it's an acceptance and commitment therapy model of check this out, look at how I'm behaving, that's interesting. So based on these situations, these circumstances that I'm going through at this very moment in time, here's how I react. Because when you can take yourself out of that moment, see yourself in the context of that moment, then we can start to look at, what is the trauma maybe that has led to that response in that moment?

So, the person said, “The big gift in trauma is self-awareness, but it's a gift that we have to work hard at unwrapping,” but then they say, “but boy, is it worth it.” So they go on to say that they hope you enjoy this book as much as I did, and my notes are below. So thank you person who created all of these notes, and if you want a quick recap on the first part of the book, then I do, I highly recommend that you go check out episode 220 something or 200 and something. I'll put a note, I'll put a link to the episode in the show notes. But that's the first part of this episode on trauma.

So where I'm gonna jump in is we left off on the other episode talking about trauma being misdiagnosed and mistreated and talking about the diagnostic criteria for trauma, so I'm gonna jump into this person's notes right after that trauma is largely neurological, so that's what we talked about a little bit in the opening. So when people are really upset, they often feel like they are losing their mind. Now in technical terms, they're experiencing the loss of their executive functioning. You might hear this from time to time, this loss of executive functioning, because that's a big part of other things such as Asperger's or some of these disorders. And the loss of executive functioning is, in essence the loss of being able to, that executive functioning area is the area where we make sense of things. It's often called our rational brain, our logical brain. So, the brain on trauma. The limbic brain and the visual cortex show increased activation and the speech center shows markedly decreased activation. So the more intense that our emotions are, it activates that amygdala, our fight or flight part of our brain. And so then our rational, our cognitive brain, and I love how Bessel van der Kolk says that our rational cognitive part of the brain is the youngest part of our brain, and it only occupies about 30% of your skull. And its primary concerns with the world outside of us are understanding how things and people work and figuring out how to accomplish goals, manage our time, and then sequence our actions. And I love how he says that's the youngest part of our brain, so intense emotion and this, hyperactivated amygdala, the fight or flight response, now that's the old guard, the OG, that's been there forever, that's there to protect us. So it's this newer part of the brain is the one that says, okay, I think we're safe now, what do you wanna do? And so Bessel van der Kolk says, “The brain is built from the bottom up. So the most primitive part, also known as the reptilian brain, is located in the brainstem just above the place where our spinal cord enters the skull.” And that reptilian part of the brain is responsible for hunger and thirst, pain, breathing, pretty important, ridding the body of toxins, meaning urinating, defecating, poo poo, pee pee jokes. Uh, anybody as a dad that's getting older. The brainstem, the hypothalamus, which sits directly above it, controls the energy levels of the body.

So again, we've got this very base version of the brain that is eat, drink, pain, react, emote, breathe, poop, pee. And from there we get right above that, the hypothalamus that controls the energy level of the body and it coordinates the endocrine and immune systems and keeps the internal balance that we know as homeostasis. So we go right up from the reptilian brain and we've got the limbic system, or they call it the mammal brain. This is the seed of emotions. This is the monitor of danger, the judge of what is pleasurable or scary, the arbiter of what is or is not important for survival purposes. So the limbic system is shaped in response to experience. So the more that you do, the more that you think and feel, that shapes the limbic system. Again, this mammal brain, so that in partnership with the, you know, as an infant, your own genetic makeup and your inborn temperament, those are what starts to shape what it feels like to be you. So, this limbic system, so that's when I talk about nature and nurture, birth order, DNA abandonment, rejection. Now we're talking limbic system. And so whatever happens to a baby contributes to the emotional and perceptual map of the world that it's developing and that its brain creates. This is where he says, “Neurons that fire together, wire together.” Also known as neuroplasticity. And that's not something that's just set in concrete at birth or at age three, or five, or 12, or 19 or 25.

We've got more and more data that say that the neurons that fire together, wire together, throughout your life. So now if you feel safe, you feel loved, then your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, cooperation. But if you're frightened, if you feel unwanted, then it specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment. So in the book, The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk says, “The emotional brain equals the reptilian brain and limbic system.” So the emotional brain is at the heart of the central nervous system, and its key task is the lookout for your welfare. If it detects danger or there's any special opportunity that you need to be aware of, it alerts you by releasing a little dose of hormones, and the result is a visceral gut sensation, ranging from feeling a little bit queasy to the grip of panic in your chest, and it will interfere with whatever your mind is currently focused on, and it'll get you moving physically and mentally in a different direction. So now, well-functioning frontal lobes are crucial for a harmonious relationship with our fellow human beings. So without flexible, active frontal lobes, people become creatures of habit and their relationships start to become superficial and routine. And then he talks about invention, innovation, discovery, and wonder. They're all lacking when you are just trying to survive. And I see this so often. If I go into the people that are in emotionally abusive relationships and I talk about it, I like to call it, it's a waste of emotional calories and emotional energy when somebody is continually just trying to manage their feelings and emotions and regulate their safety when they're in a relationship with a significant other. Where when people feel safe, then they are free to explore, to play, to be cooperative, and when that is the what it feels like to be you on the inside, then you're more open to invention, innovation, discovery, and wonder. But when you are in this, I have to protect myself, then we never get to those things and it never becomes a, you are the best version of you. So, those frontal lobes, let me go over that quickly. Bessel van der Kolk says, “Our frontal lobes can also, but not always, stop us from doing things that will embarrass us or hurt others. We don't have to eat every time we're hungry or blow up every time we're angry or kiss anybody who arouses our desires,” but he says that, “it is exactly on that edge between impulse and acceptable behavior where most of our troubles begin.” So the more intense that visceral or sensory input from the emotional brain, the less capacity that the rational brain has to put a damper on it. So if you think about that, if you are one who falls prey to impulse on a regular basis, if you can start to see where I'm going here, you can start to relate that to trauma.

And I'm not saying, okay, now, you know, oh my gosh, we gotta dig in there and rewire your entire brain. But sometimes just being aware that, oh, I am a bit impulsive and I get right between that edge of impulse and acceptable behavior. And that is where my trouble begins. And so that visceral or emotional brain, if it is very impulsive, that most likely that's there to protect me for some reason. All of a sudden I feel like I have to impulsively act on something, or maybe I'll never get another chance to do that again, or that's the only time that I feel this sense of adrenaline or rush. So just being aware of that often is part of this road to recovery. So he says, “Past trauma and the ongoing threat perception system of the brain, it affects people's current reactions.”

So this amygdala, the fight or flight part of the brain makes no distinction between past and present, once it's triggered, even if the trigger isn't the same as the original trauma, then your brain is still gonna say, oh, I'm triggered. And it's not trying to say, yeah, but this one doesn't seem as real. So in the book he talks about the challenges, not so much learning to accept the terrible things that have happened, but learning how to gain mastery over one's internal sensations and emotions. Sensing the feelings and the emotions, naming the feelings and the emotions, and identifying what's going on inside of you is really the first step to recovery. And let me talk a little bit about the amygdala and then I'll get away from the brain here and we'll talk more about, I wanna hit a little bit on this concept of mirror neurons, but the amygdala's really important. It's important that our amygdala is working correctly. Bessel van der Kolk says “It's like a smoke detector for danger, we don't want to get caught unaware by a raging fire, but we also don't want to get into a frenzy every time we smell smoke.” So we need to be able to detect whether somebody is getting upset with us. But if the amygdala goes into overdrive, then we may become chronically scared that people hate us or that we feel like they are out to get us.

So our amygdala means well, but if that panic button is stuck on, then that can be something that we're gonna need to work through. And so therapy, and I love that Bessel van der Kolk talks about this, “Therapy only works if a person is grounded in the present moment,” you know he says, can feel their butt on the chair, see the light coming through the window and feel calm and safe. So, “being anchored in the present while revisiting the trauma, that's what opens up the possibility of deeply knowing that the terrible events belong to the past.” And this is one of the most powerful things about talk therapy. And I know that this is so powerful. I see it on a daily basis that when somebody can sit there and they are grounded and they are able to talk and express these feelings and emotions and tell these stories from the past or even things that are going on in the present, or their fears of the future and they can talk about those and express those in a way that is safe and have somebody there that is not trying to tell them, well, why didn't you do this? Or you should do this instead. But when somebody is really there and saying, and then what happened? And tell me what that was like, and how did you feel? That all of a sudden we're grounded, we're anchored in that moment, and we're able to express something scary and we feel safe. And that's starting to rewire or change the neuropathways of the brain. So again, therapy works when somebody's grounded, they're in that present moment. So being anchored while revisiting trauma opens that possibility of deeply knowing that the terrible events belong to the past. If a person's in a flashback or they don't feel calm or safe, if they start to feel defensive or aggressive, and feel unsafe or not believed, then therapy doesn't work and at best it can make a person almost re-traumatized. And that's the part where if, and I'm not trying to say that as a knock on therapist, but I'm trying to say that as a bless the heart of your friends, that if we start to open up about trauma to those and you do not feel believed and you do not feel safe, then again, not only does it not work as a way to help heal, but it can make you almost feel re-traumatized because there's somebody that doesn't believe you.

So I said I would move away from the brain after the amygdala, but Bessel van der Kolk has a great way to talk about the thalamus. “So our thalamus is like a cook. It takes information from all the senses, and then it blends it with our autobiographical memory. So breakdown of the thalamus explains why traumas are primarily remembered not as a story with a beginning, middle, or end, but as isolated sensory imprints, images, sounds, physical sensations that are accompanied by intense emotion, usually terror and helplessness.” And so in the book, the Buddha Brain, the author talks about the mechanisms of memory. And the way that memory works is such an interesting thing where we conjure up an image and then we fill in all the gaps. And it's a more productive use of neural real estate, I believe, the author Rick Hansen said. But that's where we start getting into this concept of confabulated memory, where every time that we recall a memory, then we're gonna fill in the gaps with different details. And then when we put that memory away, now that's the new confabulated memory. So in normal circumstances, Bessel van der Kolk says the thalamus also acts as a filter or a gatekeeper. So he says, “This makes it the central component of attention, concentration, and new learning, all of which are compromised by trauma.” So people that have PTSD have their floodgates wide open, they lack a filter, and they're on constant sensory overload. So in order to cope, they try to shut themselves down and they develop tunnel vision and hyperfocus. And if they can't shut down naturally, they may enlist drugs or alcohol to block out the world. And the tragedy is that the price of closing down includes filtering out sources of pleasure and joy as well. It's as if the brain has to do all or nothing thing, because it's so fearful or afraid of trauma. And Bessel van der Kolk talks about mirror neurons. This is a really interesting concept that there's a belief that these mirror neurons could be the key to all kinds of things in the future. Mirror neurons explain empathy, imitation synchrony in the development of language. “Mirror neurons,” he says, “are like neural wifi. We pick up not only another person's movement, but their emotional state and intentions as well.” So when people are in sync with each other, they tend to stand or sit in similar ways. Their voices take on the same rhythms, but mirror neurons also make us more vulnerable to others' negativity, so that we respond to their anger with fury or we're dragged down by their depression. And because trauma almost invariably involves not being seen or not being mirrored and not being taken into account, then treatment for trauma needs to reactivate the capacity to safely mirror and be mirrored by others, but also to resist being hijacked by others' negative emotions. And he talks about two ways to implement change.

So now we're talking top down or bottom up. “So structures in the emotional brain decide what we perceive as dangerous or safe. There are two ways of changing the threat detection system from the top down,” which he says, “is through modulating messages from the medial prefrontal cortex.” What does that mean? Mindfulness, meditation, yoga. So from the top down, being able to just have that pause and bring in information in a much more calm way. Or he says, “From the bottom up through the reptilian brain, through breathing, through movement, and through touch, which helps recalibrate your autonomic nervous system.” And he goes into a lot of detail about the autonomic nervous system as well as the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic, I'll talk about those two because people have really clever things that they remember with the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

So the sympathetic nervous system acts as the body's accelerator. It includes the fight or flight or what Darwin referred to as the escape or avoidant behavior. Functions with the use of emotions. The parasympathetic or PNS works against emotions and it promotes self-preservation. So functions like digestion, wound healing, exhaling, that helps to calm us down. So, you know, inhaling helps to activate adrenaline. Exhaling helps us to calm down. So you can access your whole, you know, the sympathetic and parasympathetic are part of this autonomic nervous system, and you can access those through breathing, movement, touch. I mean, breathing is one of the few body functions under, it's underneath both conscious and autonomic control. There's a neuroscientist named Paul McClain. He compares the relationship between the rational brain and the emotional brain to that between more or less of a competent rider and his unruly horse. “So as long as the weather is calm and the path is smooth, the rider can feel like they are in excellent control. But then unexpected sounds or threats from other animals can make the horse bolt. So then forcing the writer to hold on for dear life.” So likewise, when people feel like their survival is at stake, or they're seized by rages, longings, fear, sexual desires, they stop listening to the voice of reason. And it makes little sense to argue with them.

Sometimes this is that, I think I did an episode long ago on the passenger and the rider, and so it's that same thing. So the rider can be in excellent control. You know, the rider is that rational brain. And then the emotional brain is the animal that is being ridden. And then if that animal is spooked, so to speak, that emotional brain, then it can just take off. And that rational brain is literally hanging on there for dear life. So a person who has been in anger management classes, for example, maybe seven or eight times, might extol the virtue of the technique by saying they are great, they work terrific, but then they find out, as long as you're not really angry.

When our emotional and rational brains are in conflict, for example, when we're enraged with somebody that we love or frightened by somebody that we depend on, or we lust after somebody who is off limits, then a tug of war ensues and it gives us a visceral experience. Our gut, our heart, our lungs, they will lead to both physical discomfort and psychological misery. And then the next component that he talks about is adrenaline. So insults and injuries are remembered, the best because the adrenaline that we secrete to defend against potential threats helps us to engrave those incidents into our minds. So how crazy is that? So even if the content of the remark fades, our dislike for the person who made it usually persists. So that adrenaline is a pretty neat thing except for when it's not. So when, when that adrenaline is flowing, you know, and it's there to defend us against potential threats, it's saying, hey, don't forget this guy. And so now you all of a sudden almost have this anchored memory that I don't know if I'd like that person very much. So then when something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain isn't really working well at that moment, they may not be aware that they are re-experiencing and reenacting the past.

Because to them, they're furious, they're terrified, they're enraged, they're ashamed, they're frozen. And after that emotional storm passes, then they might look for something or somebody to blame it on. Well, look at what you made me do, and if we're honest, I think most of us have blamed others for our behavior from time to time. But hopefully once we cool down, hopefully we can admit mistakes. But trauma absolutely interferes with this kind of awareness, and that's what I talk often about over in the world of emotional immaturity or narcissism, that it really is, it's a response to childhood trauma where somebody is left without a real sense of self needing external validation and lowered empathy because that trauma interferes with our awareness, people don't experience trauma in the same way. So not everybody experiences trauma in the same way. Some are on hyper alert, some go numb and have decreased activation, blank stares, absent minds. Those are the outward manifestation of the freeze function and so much of how we react to trauma, which survival mode we go into as adults, is how we learn to react to trauma as children. If we numb out as kids, we might numb out as adults, and if we went into fix it mode as kids, or if we had to get our needs met, we had to go juggle or clean the house, we might do that stuff when we're older as well. But after trauma, then many people are either hypervigilant or they're numb. So if they're hypervigilant, then they can't enjoy the ordinary pleasures that life has to offer. And if they're numb, then they have trouble absorbing new experiences, or they may not be alert to signs of real danger. And what Bessel van der Kolk talks about is when that amygdala, what he calls malfunctions, “People no longer run when they should be trying to escape, or they no longer fight back when they should be defending themselves.”

So it can be really challenging to help people deactivate these defense mechanisms that once ensured their survival. So the key about working with trauma is it's not about stopping a behavior like yelling, it's about deactivating a defense mechanism that leads to that yelling. So, to sum this up really quick, it says four main points to know about trauma. “People are patients, but their participants and their healing, and they need to restore their autonomy. Victims of trauma continue to be there instead of here.” So when somebody is in their trauma response, they're there, not here and we need to get them back to here. And you can only be fully in charge of your life if you acknowledge the reality of your body and you're aware of all of its visceral dimensions. And then he also says that “People who suffer from flashbacks,” and I think the vast majority of us do in some form or fashion, maybe that sounds like a dramatic concept, but it's not, “often consciously or unconsciously organize their lives around trying to protect against them.” And this is where I feel like the concepts around we're trying to manage our own anxiety and we do that often through the control of others or trying to control our own environment where in reality when all we're trying to do is control ourselves or others, the truth is there's a lot of disorder or there's a lack of control in the world, and that's where acceptance can come in.

And acceptance can be scary, especially when our body is trying to protect itself by gaining control. So again, they organize their lives, trying to protect themselves. They might work out trying to be strong enough to fend off an attacker or numb themselves with drugs to try to cultivate an illusionary sense of control in highly dangerous situations like bungee jumping and skydiving. Fighting unseen dangers is exhausting and it leaves people fatigued and depressed and weary. And so if the elements of trauma are replayed over and over, then the accompanying stress hormones engrave those memories even more deeply. Again, the neurons that fire together wire together, and all of a sudden then ordinary day-to-day events become less and less compelling. Not being able to deeply take in what's going on around you, it can make it impossible to feel alive. And it becomes really difficult to feel the joy as well as the aggravation of ordinary life. It can be harder to concentrate on the tasks that are in front of you if you're not feeling fully alive in the present. You know? And when you're not, Vessel van der Kolk says, “Not being fully alive in the present, it keeps you more firmly imprisoned in your past.” So there's a lot of different responses to trauma. It can be everything from frantic to collapse. It can be focused, it can depend on your level of danger, but he says that angry people live in angry bodies. That the body of trauma victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. And one of the best ways to do that really is to begin by describing physical sensations that are beneath those emotions. The pressure, the heat, the muscular tension, the tingling, the caving in, the feeling hollow. And then work on identifying sensations that are associated with relaxing or pleasure. You know, part of the job as a therapist is to help people become more aware of literally their breathing, their gestures, their movements, paying attention to subtle shifts in your body, such as tightness in your chest or gnawing in your belly, or especially when you talk about negative events that sometimes people claim, well, no, that those things aren't a big deal. The most natural way for human beings to calm themselves when they're upset is by clinging to another person. But this is hard if the person was physically or sexually violated, because they often then are terrified of bodily conduct.

He talks about the power of hitting rock bottom. I think about this often that rock bottom truly is this principle of hindsight. But he says, “Therapy often starts due to some inexplicable or problematic behavior. Not sleeping or eating, fear of others, partner cheating, jumping into the fix of the problem is not the solution. It takes time and patience to allow the reality behind these symptoms to reveal themselves.” So you can't just jump in there and fix something in a session or two, but starting to be aware and knowing that I think I want to get some help is a huge step. And he says, “Many traumatized people find themselves chronically out of sync with the people around them and many find comfort in groups where they can talk about what happened to them with others who have gone through things that are similar.” This often helps alleviate this sense of isolation, but usually at the price of having to deny their individual difference or isolating oneself into a narrowly defined victim group can promote a view of others as irrelevant or at best dangerous.

Which eventually only leads to further alienation. So a lot of times people then stay away from these groups or people that have had similar experiences because their brain tells them stories like, well, I just don't wanna get in there and just complain all the time. And I feel like that's an adorable story that your brain is telling you to keep you away from the unknown, when in reality that unknown is what can heal you. If relationships with people don't help, relationships with other mammals can, animal therapy, it's very real. But talking through things is really important. Sigmund Freud saw or thought that the lack of verbal memory is central and trauma, and that if a person does not remember that he is likely to act it out. I thought that was such a deep thought. Freud said he reproduces it, not as a memory, but as an action. He repeats it without knowing, of course, that he's repeating it. And in the end we understand that this is his way of remembering. As early as 1893, there was a study called The Talking Cure, Freud's and Brewer, the individual hysterical symptoms immediately and permanently disappeared when we had succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was provoked. So when the patient had described what that event was in the greatest possible detail and had put that affect into words. So there needs to be, this was a quote from that study. “There needs to be an energetic reaction to traumatic events. And if there isn't, the affect remains attached to the memory and cannot be discharged.” Tears and acts of revenge are how most people discharge their trauma. So if people don't consciously remember, they react. So if you've been hurt, you need to acknowledge and learn how to name what happened to you.

I'm gonna wrap this up with a couple more things real quick here. In 2002, Dr. Spencer Eth interviewed 225 people who had escaped the Twin Towers. And when asked what had helped them recover the most, the survivors credited acupuncture, massage, yoga, and EMDR, in that order. And massage was particularly helpful among rescue workers. So the survey suggested that most helpful interventions focused on relieving the physical burdens generated by trauma. So trauma makes people feel like either somebody else or like nobody. And people often lose their ability to speak. And in order to overcome trauma, you need to help get back in touch with your body and with yourself because our sense of ourselves is anchored in a vital connection with our bodies. We do not truly know ourselves until we can feel and interpret our physical sensations. And we need to be able to register and act on these sensations to navigate safely throughout life. So if you are unaware of what your body needs, you can't take care of it. If you don't feel hunger, you can't nourish yourself. If you mistake anxiety for hunger, you may eat too much. And if you can't feel when you are full, you'll keep eating. So this is why cultivating this sensory awareness is such a critical aspect of trauma recovery. Traumatized people need to learn that they can tolerate their sensations, that they can befriend these inner experiences and they can cultivate new action patterns. And that's done through everything from talk therapy to yoga, to, as you mentioned, everything from massage and emdr.

But moving forward into healing, no one can treat away abuse or rape, molestation, or any other horrendous event and what has happened can't be undone, and that's not said in a negative way, but what can be dealt with are the imprints of the trauma on the body, the mind, and the soul, so that crushing sensation in your chest that you may label as anxiety or depression, the fear of losing control, always being on alert for danger or rejection, the self-loathing, the nightmares, the flashbacks, maybe the fog that keeps you from staying on task or fully engaging in what you’re doing. Or being unable to fully open your heart to another human being. Trauma robs you of the feeling that you are in charge of yourself. So the challenge of recovery is to reestablish ownership of your body and your mind, and to feel what you feel without becoming overwhelmed or enraged or ashamed or collapsed. So for most people, there's four things. Finding a way to become calm and focused. Learning to maintain that calm in response to images or thoughts, sounds or physical sensations that remind you of your past, or finding a way to be fully alive in the present and engage with the people around you and not having to keep secrets from yourself, including secrets about the ways that you've managed to survive.

And one of the key things of doing this is finding yourself around safe people and also finding out things that matter to you. It goes back to are you acting in accordance, in alignment with your values or are you living a life full of socially compliant goals or doing things that you feel like you're supposed to do or you'll let other people down? Because that feeling that I may let someone else down can absolutely be tied back to some childhood trauma because you're responsible for you and the best way to find out who you are is to start to take action on things that matter to you and see where that takes you. So, welcome to the world of trauma recovery.

If you have questions, thoughts, or any other things that maybe we can address in future episodes, then send me a note contact@tonyoverbay.com or through my website or comment on the post that will go up about this on my social media feeds on Instagram. I would love to get your opinions because trauma can absolutely be overcome, but the exact thing that we often are afraid of, of talking about it and I hope you heard that part where needing to be able to talk about it with people that do feel safe, can absolutely help you move through and pass trauma, and be able to invite it to come along with you while you start to take action on things that matter. And then you really start to find yourself and live this more purposeful, intentional, value-based life. And that's an amazing place to be, rather than wasting all of your time in emotional calories and energy trying to manage your emotions, manage your anxiety, or control your environment. All right, send me your questions and we'll see you next time and taking us out per usual, the wonderful, the talented Aurora Florence with her song, “It's Wonderful”. We'll see you next week and have an amazing time. See you next week on the virtual Couch.

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Tony shares the 4th installment in the "Death By a Thousand Cuts" series. He gives examples of how being in a relationship with a narcissist or extremely emotionally immature person can feel like "death by a thousand cuts." All of the examples used in this episode come directly from his private women’s Facebook group for women in relationships with narcissistic or emotionally immature people in their lives, whether it is their spouse, parent, adult child, friend, boss, or religious institution. If you are interested in joining one of Tony’s groups for people in relationships with narcissists, please reach out to him through his website http://tonyoverbay.com

Subscribe to Tony's latest podcast, "Waking Up to Narcissism Q&A - Premium Podcast," on the Apple Podcast App. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/waking-up-to-narcissism-q-a/id1667287384

59 Transcript

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Waking Up to Narcissism episode 59. I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and host of the Virtual Couch podcast. And soon, many other podcasts, Murder On the Couch, cue ominous music, is a podcast that I'm doing with my daughter Sydney, and she is a huge, true crime fan. And I am going to throw my therapist's spin on some cases. We've already got a few episodes recorded, and I just, I cannot wait for you to see this. My daughter Sydney is hilarious and adorable and the energy that I think we have back and forth is so much fun. And if you look in the show notes of today's episode, there's going to be a link to a YouTube clip of the podcast. So stay tuned. One is coming soon and Waking Up to Narcissism, I always feel like I want to say the musical, but that is not a thing. But Waking Up to Narcissism the premium question and answer trailer is up on apple podcast. And the subscription, the ability to subscribe is, I want to say, it's there now because these podcasts are evergreen.

And hopefully that will be figured out by the time this one even makes it to the air. But I know that there've been people that have heard the trailer and then have contacted me and said, there's no way to subscribe. And bless your heart for wanting to subscribe. It will be a small monthly fee and the proceeds will go to a non-profit that is designed to help people with the things that they need that are in emotionally unhealthy relationships, whether it's therapy or legal costs. So there's a lot of fun and exciting, fun, the wrong word when I'm talking about people that are in these emotionally unhealthy relationships, I'm grateful to be able to do the work that I do and that podcast is only there because I think that my assistant Naomi and I have a hundred or so questions already that have come in about narcissism and emotional maturity. And so I really want to start answering those and then the ability to help fund this nonprofit is going to be incredible. Really just go to tonyoverbay.com and sign up for my newsletter. And that will, that will get you where you need to go, because we're going to have a lot of information there.

And I can't help but say this, if you are somebody who is on TikToK, find Virtual Couch on TikToK. One of my daughters is putting out a lot of the content that I've created, and that has been fun to watch the reaction there. So, that is where I definitely feel like an old man but it is fun to see the feedback. So find Virtual Couch on TikToK or at Tony Overbay underscore LMFT on Instagram. So let's get to today's episode. We're going to talk about, this is the fourth installment of the death by a thousand cuts concept. And these are the episodes that I feel like resonate the most, where people start to realize that they are not crazy or all of these small things that happen in their relationships. And again, it can be the male or the female. I want to acknowledge that, and it can be in a relationship with the spouse or an adult, parent, or child or entity or boss, friends, you name it. If that is an emotionally unhealthy relationship, sometimes when you want to express why you don't want to continue in a relationship, people will say, well, why? And when you tell them things that just don't seem as significant as you feel that they should be in order for you to have space or set boundaries or leave a relationship, it can feel pretty maddening. So it is this concept of as if you were dying by a thousand cuts. And just for fun, I did go and look up where the death by a thousand cuts comes from and it was a, it appears, and here I say this, and I am going to tell you that I Googled it.

So, I'm not really exactly sure how correct or accurate this is, but, it's on Wikipedia. And so that means it's correct. Right? Death by a thousand cuts is a form of torture and execution originating from Imperial China. And where people literally would be given tiny little cuts, and there's a belief that it could take hours and hours. You have to lose, I think 40% of your blood to eventually die. So that took a turn, but the concept is that these little hurts in our relationship, or little wounds that eventually become too much, the way these, these little events, these negative events slowly, but surely, in these unnoticed increments, then grow into these big gaping wounds that then you do feel like you have lost yourself. There has been a death of the relationship or a death of self. And so I reached out to my private women's Facebook group and said, hey, it's time for a fourth episode of death by a thousand cuts. And so the group has grown significantly. And so there were enough responses within about a 12 hour period that we could do episodes four, five, and six right now. And so I'm sure that this will be a continuing series.

So let me just, I'm going to read a lot of the examples, everybody that is sharing the examples has given me permission, and then I'm sure that I will go off on some tangents and riffs about my thoughts on the reading between the lines of some of these examples. So one person just in essence started off best by saying, “This is the hard part of paper cuts or the one-offs don't seem so bad”. And she said, “I mentioned to somebody at her church that her daughter isn't living with or speaking to her dad, and then that person at church said, ‘well, has the dad done something egregious?’” And she said, “‘No, he hasn't.’ But that's the thing. Nobody gets that there can still be abuse that isn't physical or sexual.” She said, “Even sometimes I forget why she's mad at him because there really isn't one big thing.” All that being said, she did share some examples. So her teenage daughter, this is a talking in regard to her teenage daughter, her ex or the teenage daughter's father, he told her that he took down pictures of her in his house because he doesn't like being reminded of her. So right out of the gate, talk about emotional immaturity. And these narcissistic traits or tendencies all the way up to the narcissistic personality disorder. But that an adult human being can tell their teenage daughter that they are taking down all the pictures in the home, because he doesn't want to be reminded of her because she is not doing what he wants her to do and then assuming that father thinks that for some reason that is going to then cause the daughter, the teenage daughter, oh, I could just go on with this to then go, oh my gosh. I am not showing up the way that my dad would like for me to show up. It is on the father in that situation to recognize that my daughter does not feel safe or comfortable with me. So that is a me thing. So I need to go in with curiosity and empathy and patience and long suffering and kindness and charity and on and on and on, and then nurture and develop that relationship with that daughter. Here's the problem. If we are in that situation where that is happening, then I realized that train left that station a long time ago.

So I want you to know the reason I like starting with this as an example is that this episode really is more for the person that is trying to make sense of the nonsense or who is trying to say, okay, but what was I not nice enough to, did I not tell my daughter that she needs to go and be with him more because that's no, that's not your job as the buffer. Because if anything, that is you being, you know, and I get it. Wanting to be protective because you don't want to see your daughter hurt, but then all that is setting up is that the narcissistic ex-husband in this scenario gets to continue to say, well, I don't have a relationship because you didn't tell her to come talk to me. And sometimes the pathologically kind person will think I haven't been, you know, so he's got a point and I want her to say, wait a minute. He just did it again. Now he can blame it on me. He takes no accountability. So other things that this particular person shared, she said, that her narcissistic ex told his brother. So the narcissistic ex's brother, not to support his daughter's tennis fundraiser because she's not living with him. So let's now get the entire family now to go against the teenage daughter. And what emotional immaturity that is. He also told her that he wasn't going to take her to a family party because she, the teenage daughter had set a boundary of meeting him and he wanted to meet alone to talk. And she said that she would go if a friend could come. So she did not feel safe. And so he said, okay, well then if you don't feel safe, then I will not let you bring a friend. And now you can't, in essence, you can't have the pony, you can't go to Disneyland. You can't go to the family party, so I will punish you. And then you will see, and then you'll come around and the, you will do things my way, which is going to be a theme of some of the things that we're talking about today.

Okay for this next one, we're going to be talking about the body keeps the score or the complex post-traumatic stress disorder. And I'm so grateful this was someone that is new in the group. And so I think it took a lot for her to share. She said, “I would say my death by a thousand cuts would be how he has traumatized my nervous system. Not only does this come into play when I'm around him, but it is now also bled into my entire life. At home I'm so jumpy, even when there isn't an altercation. He has to know what I'm doing at all times.” She said, “Not only that I have to have an explanation ready to go when he questions, even the smallest of things, I feel that there are things that people in a normal relationship take for granted. When they really just don't even think twice about it.” And well, I'll read her entire and then I'll go back and make some comments. She said, “I get nervous when I get in the shower. When I pick up my phone, if I have a smile on my face that doesn't pertain to him. If I'm doing anything out of what he perceives is my normal routine. If I walk outside to take the trash out. If I take our baby on a walk around the block, if I have my headphones on, if I'm writing in my journal, there are so many things that I have to second guess before doing them. Anticipating his accusation based questions I find even away from home or when he's working, I still get jumpy about these things, partly because it has happened over and over and over, but also because even when I'm away from him, he's checking up on me. I could answer the phone as soon as he calls and be doing something as simple as watching TV, but it still warrants the questioning. ‘Are you sure that's what you're doing? Well, what else have you been doing? What have you been doing the last hour? Who'd you talk to today? And what were you talking about? What are your plans? What are you about to do? Why did you take a shower that early?’” She said, “It's amazing how this has become my life. And I didn't realize how draining it's been. His actions have transformed me into this person that he sees as acceptable doing as much as I can to avoid questioning. This usually involves keeping myself busy with chores and cleaning up, for example, because then I usually don't get all the other questions. I even feel the need to go into detail about exactly what I've cleaned or the errands I ran, because if not, then he doesn't believe that that's taken the time that it has.” She said, “I feel as if I'm doing something wrong. If my daily routine isn't circled around things that need to be done. The moment I take time for myself,” she said, “heaven forbid do nothing and relax, it's absolutely questioned.” She said, “It's just a very stressful state to be in.” And she said she doesn't mind me sharing. So the reason I appreciate this is I think that this is an extreme example of just feeling like she is walking on eggshells.

But I feel like this covers most, most of the people that I work with to some point. And it's even just those, oh, who were you talking to? Now in a healthy relationship, that's an opportunity for connection. Who are you talking to? But you have to feel like it. I mean, I just, I just say here's who I was talking to. And here's the crazy story we talked about, or I just say I was talking to this person and then the emotionally healthy partner says, I don't know, anything fun to talk about there? And if you say no, not really. Okay. But the control is who are you talking to? Well, why, what were you talking about really? That you said that. I mean, I, I don't know why you would've said that. I don't say those things or I kind of feel like that's the wrong thing to tell that person and you start realizing, love or control? And in those scenarios, love is, well, you're going to do whatever you're going to do. And I love you and you are the person who you are, and I love you. Not, well why did you do that? And I I don't really like when you do that. Or I don't think you should have done that. That is control. And when that just starts to bleed into everything that this person feels that they feel so controlled. And if you were listening to that, and particularly looking at the thing where she says, I'm nervous when I get in the shower, I'm nervous, you know, or even at what time did I shower? I mean, I have people that if they, if they even take care of themselves for the day, then the narcissistic spouse says, oh, why are you, why'd you get dressed up? Who are you going to see? You know, and then if you say, no, nobody, I just thought I would do this. Then that's not being believed. It goes back to that nonviolent communication concept, where the person makes an observation and a judgment.

So observation and judgment. If your spouse looks nice today, if your observation is well, they must be going to see somebody or they must be cheating on me, and now you have to defend yourself. Then that is a really difficult place to come from. Because at that point, that is what leads to somebody just not even wanting to take care of themselves because they don't want to have to deal with the potential questioning. Or they just feel like if they take care of themselves and now they're questioned about it, they just go flat. And then they feel as if they are now handing that narcissist the confirmation that they were looking for. Okay. Well, I guess if you're not, if you're not telling me where you're going, I'm sure you're doing something bad. So those, all of these, just, she said anticipating his accusation based questions. So anything, you know, what have you been up to? What have you been up to? It can be an amazing question when it is a bid for connection, but what have you been up to is a horrible question when it is one that is fishing for, well if you start talking, then I'm sure I can find something that I don't like that you've done. Then I can now take the one up position. I can put you in the one down position. And I can maintain my narcissistic supply. So that one really does break my heart. And when she talks about the end, she said, if I feel like I'm doing something wrong, if my daily routine isn't circled around things that have to be done, the moment I take time for myself or do nothing and relax, it's questioned. Because my number one rule in interacting with the emotionally mature narcissist in your life is raise your emotional baseline. And that is self care and self care is not selfish, and boy, she nails it though, because you need to relax, you need to be able to have downtime. You need to be able to meditate. You need to be able to do things that bring you peace and joy that are things that matter to you to be able to calm the central nervous system. And then to allow you to have that confidence so that you can show up in a way that you can deal with all of the things that are happening around you in life. Because if you are constantly just in this state of, I got to just keep doing, I got to keep doing, I'm going to be questioned, you can feel your own heart rate elevate and your anxiety spike, and your cortisol starts flooding through your brain you are in fight or flight mode. And it's quoted in The Body Keeps the Score, “the neurons that fire together, wire together”. So over time, what it feels like to be you is somebody that is just on high alert, ready to go into fight or flight at any moment.

So it takes time to get out of that situation to be able to start to slowly but surely lower your heart rate. So you can raise your emotional baseline so you can show up in a way that will be the very best version of you. This one's short and sweet, but very fascinating. Someone said “He got so mad at me when I told him I was flying to visit my mom, he was upset that I spent the money on the flight. Then I told them that my mom bought the tickets. They flew off the handle because he said that he was the provider of the family. And now the mother's going to think that he can't provide. Then in the next breath, he said that well, as a matter of fact, you should have got a job to pay for the flight yourself if you want to do things like this, then you need to get a job.” She said, “Meanwhile, he literally made me go on a work trip with him that will cost us at least double, if not triple the cost of the flight to my mom's house, which by the way, my mom was willing to pay for.” She said he's a walking contradiction. This one, every one of these breaks my heart. That's why we have these. That's why we're having this episode today. Another person said, “How about this under death by a thousand cuts, but also in the world of betrayal trauma. She said, “When we were married, I was suspecting that he was having an affair, but could never prove it. He denied always anytime I brought it up. One day I found a poem written by him on his phone about a beautiful brunette. I asked him about this. And he quickly told me that I was the brunette. It's just that I dye my hair blonde and I had been for a long time.” So she said, “I believed him like every wife is supposed to do with their husbands. But after time, he continued to ask me, ‘Why don't you ever leave your hair its natural color?’” And I can say right now you can see that now he's trying to build that case that no, no, he really was her. So she said, “I can remember him calling me a brunette in front of our friends while winking at me. And that was something that he never did before.” And that's one of those concepts that I just, I cannot describe enough of when, when someone is not doing something naturally organically. That it's more obvious than they think. So if he has never called you, why aren't you a brunette? Oh, my little brunette over there, wink, wink in front of friends. And that has never happened until he was caught with the poem about the brunette. Even he doesn't realize, oh, that's, that's not the way this normally works. And this is where I talk about if you want to watch this stuff in action, just go on YouTube and find a channel that has interrogation videos. I watched another one this morning. I'm just mesmerized by them because you watch a person who thinks that they have created a narrative of how a quote normal person would have behaved in a situation. But now they're being interrogated by people that know exactly what to look for. And I feel like at times as a marriage therapist, you're almost like a marriage interrogator. And why I love my four pillars of a connected conversation as you are giving this framework in essence, so that you can see who doesn't know how to use a framework, who doesn't play in the sandbox, who weaponizes the tool. And who takes this lifeline, this evidence-based lifeline. And finally feels like they learned how to communicate. And now the couple is excited and they grow closer together versus the, when you are, you know, when somebody, all of a sudden tells you, they know exactly where they were seven months ago on a Tuesday night, because that's when they did the in the Terry Haitian videos, that's when they murdered someone.

So then they say, if somebody says, hey, where were you on January 15th, you know, six months ago? And they say, I don't know, how about January 13th? Oh, the 13th. Oh yeah. I remember it was a Monday night. I was watching Monday night football, the Cards playing the Packers. A matter of fact, I remember having a thing of Fritos and bean dip somewhere around the third quarter, but at that point I remember I left the bean dip open cause I had to go to the bathroom and I worried, oh my gosh, will the bean dip get hard? And that would be bad, wait I can just stir it up. And so, and which no one does that has that, why, why did he remember that night? Oh, because he had murdered someone and so he'd rehearsed the narrative over and over. So I know that I went on a tangent there a little bit, but that is the, oh no, I always call you my little brunette and wink at you around our friends every single time since being caught, writing a poem about the affair partner, that's a brunette that I've lied about. So, of course she says it turns out the girl that he was cheating on with me was a brunette. And she said, I still react whenever I see a beautiful brunette or even the word, “brunette”.

She said one day while we were married, she said I had a painting done of his hometown and a place in particular, in the hometown. She said we'd moved down to her hometown. And she said, I just thought I wanted to bring a piece of his hometown down to us. I was grateful that we were in my hometown. And I assume that that was maybe hard for him and he missed his hometown. So she said I had a giant painting completed. And I commissioned an artist and I was so excited to give it to him for his birthday. I gave it to him, the kids were there. And he looked and he said, “What is this? You actually think this looks nice? I hope you didn't pay much for this. It looks like a little kid painted it. Like where do you even find this artist?” She said, “I was devastated. I was so proud of this painting and this gift idea.” She said I still have the painting and I can't decide what to do with it. These comments he made on them went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. And this woman said in particular, feel free to share. She said I'll probably post more because I have so many of these examples now that I'm aware. I feel like this is one where, if you desire love and a connection with your spouse, this is where I really do feel like it is absolutely a good thing to take any gift and say, thank you. It really is. Because when somebody throws out really, you think this is good, this is crap. And I know people could argue, well, he's just being honest. No, he's being a jerk. I mean, that, that one. Again, what is the point of that? Even if you don't like it, then that's something that, that other person that you care about. That's their emotional bid. That, with that painting, is their heart.

And so what a gift for somebody to hand me their heart and say, hey, I thought about you this much. Because then at that point, if I'm struggling with, I don't like it. Honestly, it's a me issue. And as you can see in this example, yeah, it's a big old him issue. Now, if he was emotionally mature, and he did say I so appreciate that. And if she, you know, she's catching the vibe and saying, I feel like there's a little something off. Oh, I mean, and I know I'm, I'm painting this amazing version of this story where there will be a pot of gold at the end. But, an emotionally healthy version would be okay. He still is so grateful and so much. And if she says, boy, you seem a little off and then they have an emotionally mature conversation, it might be because, he says, my hometown is not a place of happy memories. And that's why we moved to your hometown, but I'm so grateful that you thought of it that way. And because now, we have some good old self confrontation. We're having a shared experience, and now we can process emotion together with another human being. And how beautiful is that? So none of that is happening with the interaction that I just shared. Next, one woman just shared a lot of just the little bullet points, but I so appreciated this because these are some of the ones that came up in earlier episodes as well, that I continue to get emails about driving very very slow when I was late. Or even just if I made sure and said, we got to get somewhere on time. And she didn't write this, but I could add because I get this one on a regular basis, or of course, when he needs to get there, now here comes control. There's going to be anger and rudeness and loud voices. Because we will go or I will leave you. But if you want to go and you want to get there on time, then all of a sudden, now he is suddenly captivated by getting a toothpick and cleaning things out of the grout on a kitchen counter, which is a very real story that I heard a few years ago.

This one. They all again, they break my heart, taunting me with grocery money, holding it out and pulling it back. Hiding my bank card if I left it out to teach me a lesson, that one hiding my “fill in the blank”, hiding my shoes, hiding my purse, hiding my coat, hiding my keys. And that one, I hear over and over again to teach me a lesson. So if anyone is more on the emotionally immature side and listening at this point, if somebody leaves something out, try this one, hey, you forgot your keys, and I am putting a dramatic pause in here. Because that is an opportunity for the other person to say, thank you. I really appreciate that. And then, or sometimes you might say, I think you forgot your keys and they may say, oh, I have another set. And then you say, oh, okay. And you leave together. It's an amazing experience. I sound like I'm being facetious and there's a little bit of that, but, if I have to teach my spouse a lesson, I am a jerk. This is plain and simple. If I see an opportunity where I can be of service and help to my spouse so that she will not feel less than, or feel dumb, what an opportunity, what a joy. She also shared refusing to be a boy scout dad until it was time for the Pinewood Derby when then he showed up looking like an involved dad. I can do episodes completely on, I don't know how many times I've had this conversation with people, and what's funny is I didn't grow up a scout. My son gave it a shot. And when it was Pinewood Derby time, I actually had post-traumatic stress disorder as a kid doing my own Pinewood Derby car and taking dead last.

So at that moment, it was funny because I just thought how many of these things are happening at Pinewood Derby day? Are there the insecure dads like myself that don't know how to build things or are there the kids that all they want to do is win because their dad is going to get mad at them if they don't win, because I've processed plenty of those sessions as well. Or in walks dad of the year who, especially lately I've had a couple of examples of people that go and buy their Pinewood Derby car kit off of eBay or online, which, oh, if I would've had that opportunity when I was younger, but I digress. But those times, none of those are somebody showing up organically. Another woman said, how about the inability to resist interrupting with what he would have said or done when somebody is trying to concentrate or somebody is trying to study, or him coming in with stupid jokes or making noise, anything for attention. Now here is where I can go back to my waking up to narcissism, my own narcissism, my own emotional immaturity. That one resonates because if I can make a funny face or a goofy noise, or if I can tell somebody a funny joke when they are busy, I realized that is something that the emotionally immature does often, and that is something I have noticed myself still at times, wanting to all of a sudden remember. So I remember something from earlier in the day and I want to show someone a video or picture while they're doing something completely different. And so while I absolutely believe in spontaneity, there's a, I feel like there is now a difference between being spontaneous and then just saying, hey, we haven't had any attention on me and a little bit, so can we do that? Can I show you something or can I make a funny face? And then you'll like it. I'm watching, I’m really obsessed a little bit with the show Sister Wives. And there are multiple occasions where the husband, Cody, will just all of a sudden take center stage. And there's been, I think, one or two weddings where, you know, he makes sure and does that and at the last minute, and it's just one of those things where it's like, hey, nobody's looking at me. Look, I just did a thing. I know it's their wedding, but look at me. She said also a time that we met downtown, my car got towed because I misunderstood a parking sign and he just drove off and he left me just walking along the city that I was unfamiliar with that we had just moved to and eventually came back to me. And I would add in here and with the hopes that I had learned my lesson. Or chronically getting terse and grumpy on the kids' birthdays and sucking the oxygen out of the celebrations. This one becomes one of those that just becomes so consistent of the emotional immature or narcissist. And I appreciate that “sucking the oxygen out of celebrations”. And I think in one of the earlier episodes I talked about a woman who, even in every one of their births and then she'd had a few kids, there was an event and one of the times the guy missed the actual birth because Carl's Jr. I think had two sausage and egg biscuits for $5. So what are you going to do right? Or times where then just things were made about him. And it was almost as if subconsciously if there was something that was going to absolutely be about somebody else, she said you could count on that sabotage is going to occur. And it would, it would happen in all kinds of things, not having things ready to go for a party showing up late, leaving late, just, there were so many different things that were just so consistent on celebrations.

Or she said we're giving the dead or indifferent effect on conversations to get me to be quiet or get to the point more quickly. And I feel like that's one that is so difficult for the narcissist or the emotionally immature, if it doesn't pertain to them or they don't feel like it matters, then it's hard for them to not show that on their face and they shut down. I remember having a conversation with someone at one point that I was fairly certain was narcissistic and I couldn't help myself, but I just mentioned, hey, you know, I feel like you're not really very interested and that's okay. I think I'll just, I'm going to take off. And then all of a sudden they said, no, no, I am. I am. And then they just looked directly at me. And then as I'm talking, they nodded their head about three times more than is normal. And then started saying. Oh, well, wow. Oh boy. Okay. And I thought, oh, that's actually not the way a real conversation occurs. So while I could appreciate the effort, it was just really interesting at that moment where they went from, I could tell that they had a flat affect, but then they wanted to pretend that they were very interested. Let's get through a couple more. Okay. This one. I think this one's really, really difficult. And I actually have had multiple conversations around this. So this, and thank you to this woman for expressing this. She said, “I had a breast augmentation surgery after my last baby turned one. My husband was fully supportive of it. But wanted me to go quite big.” She, and again, I feel like I just wanted to tell this woman, so far, I've had several of these conversations. She said, “I had saved money for it myself while working,” at her job while pregnant. She said, “I wanted to go a natural looking normal size just to feel like me again, my husband insisted on coming to the two pre op appointments and he was pushing for the much bigger sizes on me. The nurse practitioner kept reiterating that those sizes were way too big for my body size. So we finally agreed on a size, the day of surgery. I ended up telling the surgeon to go 15 CC smaller than what I told my husband prior.” And she said the 15 CCS is like, if you are somewhat a religious person, the sacrament cup that you drink water or the grape juice out of, she said, “I texted my husband just to let them know that the surgery went well. And the size that I ended up going with. His response was so cruel and hurtful saying that I was a deceitful liar. He can't believe that I would do that. And it's going to look awful and disgusting on me.” She said, “I then stayed at my mom's house that weekend to recover and he didn't text or call once. When I came back home after two days, he moved out of our bedroom and continued to call me a liar and tell me I had a botched boob job. And I wasted my money because they looked terrible and he continued to say that narrative for the next six months. He never once in the days or weeks following ever asked how I was feeling. The surgeon told me that there is literally no noticeable difference in 15 cc's bigger. So those are the things that just break my heart, any opportunity that the person has for control, because first of all, the answer is whatever size you would like. Period. So then for him going in to try to talk her into what she needed to do with her body, it just becomes beyond frustrating. And so then even if she decides, okay, I'm not going to go with that size, then nothing more for a husband than, okay. Thanks for letting me know.

So I think that people hearing this, it won't necessarily just be about the breast augmentation surgery. It will be about coming home from the hospital after birth, you know, it can be, I've had an example of a guy who got an ACL surgery and his wife not showing up for him post-op. But it will be that concept of where, if that person, if the narcissist in the relationship has a medical procedure, the pathological kind person will do anything and everything they can to take care of that person. But then if the pathologically kind person is taken care of or has something go on, then that really is an inconvenience for the narcissist and they still have work to do they still have things to do and so what were you expecting and just that inconsistency or the consistency of the invalidation speaks volumes. Let's get to a couple more and then we'll wrap things up today. Another interesting antidote that someone shared to me, she said that on her wedding day, so given a little bit of context, she was talking about the wedding day being a difficult moment or being a difficult day as it would come up each year as the relationship continued to get worse. And then at one point when they had separated, now, this brings us up to where she's telling the story. She says another interesting anecdote is that on our wedding day, a year later, this was just this past year. She said, I tried to forget all about the day. She said I was also gray rocking and not giving him much attention at all those days. And for those who are unfamiliar with gray, rocking and gray rocking is one of the many techniques that people use to protect themselves from abuse, I'm reading from medicalnewstoday.com. It involves becoming as uninteresting as possible to the abusive person. This may require a person to hide their feelings, avoid revealing personal information and minimizing contact. And sometimes people use the gray rock method when interacting with people they believe have narcissistic personality disorder or traits and tendencies.

And according to medicalnewstoday, however, a relationship can be harmful regardless of whether a person has a personality disorder and whether the abuse is intentional. And they've been going to say it's unclear whether the gray rock method reliably works, that may have risks as long as the person is in contact with the perpetrator. And I would say that the gray rock method is similar to my popcorn moments. You're just sitting back and watching the show. But she said that she had been gray rocking him and not giving me much attention. She said he knew I was feeling bad about some other things. I believe they might've had some co-parenting challenges or issues. So she said, “At one point he called me,” and again, this was on the day, the wedding day, but while they've been separated, she said, “I didn't respond.” And then he texted me an emoji flower and she said, I didn't respond. A few days later, we were talking and he blamed me for being distant and neglectful. And she said it turned out the flower emoji was sent to me on our wedding day. And I hadn't even registered because I wouldn't even have imagined that he cared. So he had sent this wedding, this flower emoji back when they were actually married. He then said I wanted to come over on our wedding day. I thought it would have been nice to bring you some flowers, just to have a glass of wine. And she says I was shocked and I told him I wouldn't have been able to do that, I don't think. And because of what has happened in our past, on wedding days, she said, I couldn't have done that. But then here's the part that I really appreciate about this story. She said later I processed and I thought if he actually had wanted to do that, then why didn't he text me exactly what he wanted to do? Why didn't even mention our wedding day and his message, it was a flower emoji. And I told him I was having a bad time over some other stuff. So I thought it was about that. And I love that she went on to say, she's having many revelations like that. When you realize how a normal human being operates. And if they want to share a thought or a story, then they share a thought or a story. So they don't just send some coded message out and then see if the person takes the bait. Because now he can say, oh, I had perfectly good intentions if you want to reach back out to me, we would have had an amazing experience. I would have been incredibly, emotionally mature. We could have talked about the kids and co-parenting. And you would have seen that I have changed. But instead he, I believe, and I don't know him, but confabulated a good narrative that well, how can I, how can I make her feel bad? Oh, I'll tell, I'll tell you what. Oh, yeah, that, that's what I meant with that flower emoji. And she said, as I write this, I have so many revelations and she said she's going to talk to her therapist about it. And I love that. She said that with her therapist, they're having amazing conversations where she said, I talked to my narcissistic ex as if he's in the other chair. And then I take his perspective and I change chairs and talk as if I was him. She said, it's really helping her process and seeing the craziness of the conversations and the dynamics. And I love that, I have not done, they call that a little bit of an empty chair technique, and I have not done that myself in my practice, but I know that that is a, it can be a very powerful technique. I think often, even in the way that I do this, I love having somebody talk through. And then what did he say or what did she say? And so when the person, the pathologically kind person in my office the same, but maybe I took things wrong. And, but then when they start talking through, they know what that conversation would sound like. So I love what she's saying. And then when they say it out loud, which is the key, then you can typically get to the point where, okay. This is where again, I have overlooked a lot of these. I turned some red flags, yellow, I guess, as a better way to put that.

Another person shared. And she said, one thing that I noticed the other day is how my emotionally immature husband seems to see everything as a slight against them and can play the victim in such odd ways. This is a fabulous story. I'm going to change a little bit of the details. But she said she went with their son to a music class. And he usually isn't able to go and the son is under the age of three. And when the son's at music class, he mostly just runs around because it's encouraged because he's under three and he comes up every once in a while and he will hug his mom. So with both of the people being there, he just went over and would hug one of them and then run off again. But she said it was split pretty evenly. However, almost every single time that he would hug the wife, then the husband would comment something like, oh, okay. Mom's your favorite? I'm just second fiddle, but I'm okay with that. All while smiling, looking around at everybody else for approval. She said it took me a while to figure out why it bothered me so much because if he really didn't care, he wouldn't feel the need to comment every time that that happened. And how will that make the son feel when he's old enough to understand that showing affection toward the wife, his mom, is going to hurt dad's feelings? And the way that he's expressing his hurt while pretending that he's not hurt at all can be crazy-making. And that point alone. Is showing how that's going to be modeled. So you better choose dad or dad is going to be upset. And so the kid is going to freeze and they're going to start now in their own caretaking role and having to try to manage the emotions of let's just say that even sees that mom's hurt later, emotionally down or withdrawn and he wants to go rescue because now he's programmed to rescue. And then, but then he sees dad walk in the room and all of a sudden he's got a decision to make. I know dad will get mad. And mom, I don't know, she's the one that usually buffers. And you can just see that now we're teaching our kids to caretake and to put their needs aside and to try to manage the room. And then to try to calm everyone's anxiety. So we're creating, in essence, a highly sensitive person who will then look for someone that they may need to caretake and that can be really difficult to watch as that child grows up.

Another person that simply said when she's crying or frustrated and she said, “I need you. I would just love for you just to be nice.” And then her husband shouting, “I was nice to you all morning. Doesn't that count for anything?” We'll wrap this up with another person who shared, “When my sister passed away, who was my best friend, we were at the grave side and it was a very sudden death and I was barely able to function and he was just hugging and talking to everybody.” And she said, “I was standing there basically by myself and finally had to say, ‘Can I get a hug from you?’” And she said that was one of her aha moments because of his, even his reaction to her request or ask where she realized he doesn't really care about me. Now again, here's what I want to share. That one, as we wrap things up, as somebody simply hearing this example, especially maybe someone that we've referred to in the past as a Switzerland friend, meaning that they are one who just immediately, and I understand this goes to, well, there's two sides to every story. Maybe he was going through a lot himself, maybe that he was close to her as well. And he knew that the two of you would be able to reconnect later. So they may say that this person that is sharing this example is being a bit more dramatic. But here's where I want to say that with that person who left the last comment, I know far more to that story, and I know that this person was often told by their husband that she was the problem. There was one time that I think this is just such a phenomenal example that I would see over and over again in my practice when working with the narcissistic or emotionally immature.

One time he had mentioned that even his doctor agreed that his wife at that time needed to be on medication and needed professional help. So let's just pause. Let's break this one down for a second and go back to that example that I gave about watching the interrogation videos. And the person who is being interrogated thinks that they are saying things that make absolute perfect sense. Saying things that will prove their point, their manipulative point. That all of these people agree with them, that their wife is crazy. And therefore she is the problem. She needs to do something, not him, but her. He has to have that external validation because he's making things up. But he's unwilling to self confront. And so he's literally creating that narrative on the fly and believing it in real time, which makes the gaslighting just flow out of them like water. Because in that scenario, I did, I specifically said, well we should probably get on a call with that doctor, because if the doctor was able to make a diagnosis off of the husband's description of his wife during his appointment, I might add, because how many times have you been to the doctor and they just had some time to kill, and you go through all the things that you were there to talk to the doctor about, and then you say, hey doc, let me tell you a couple of things about my wife, who you don't know by the way. And then can you give me your professional opinion, one that ends with, I might add any medical diagnosis that you are so sure of that she needs medical intervention. I mean, it's insanity.

And in that situation, admittedly that was one of the times where I suggested that we just get on a phone call with the doctor again. And shockingly, he said that he knew that doctor was busy. And he didn't want to bother her, but apparently she wasn't too busy to take the extra time out of his appointment to make a formal diagnosis, including psychopharmacological intervention on the day of his employment. So this person had other examples that were similar of it's triangulation one. He said he had been telling his sister about all of his then wife's problems. And he also brought that out in therapy. And at that point, and again, look at what that person is saying. They're looking over at me thinking, oh man. No, that this is so normal. When people come in and then tell me and even though we're here to talk about the way to communicate as a couple, but yeah, let's put the evidence-based models that I've worked with over a thousand couples on that route out emotional immaturity or personality disorders. I'm going to put those on hold because apparently you've talked to your sister and she also agrees that your wife is crazy. So a great time to bring that up and then I will agree with you. We can all tell her that she's crazy. She'll say I did not even know I was crazy. And then that will make perfect sense. Because that's the way therapy works. I mean, just if you look at it that way, it just, it's so insane. The wife at the time, at that point, she was onto it and she just said, oh, I would love to hear her opinion. Why don't we just shoot her a text right now? And shockingly, he had, again, he did not think that that was a good idea. So a death by a thousand cuts is filled with these just tiny cuts, these tiny interactions. I admitted, I mentioned Sister Wives earlier. I'm recording part of this episode, on a second day as evidenced by if you're watching this on YouTube, my change of attire. But in the episode that we were watching last night, the husband was talking about divorce with one of his wives. And as I was watching, I believe I was viewing a classic narcissistic move. I'm not diagnosing anyone mind you. That is not my place since I'm not working with anyone on the show. Not that I wouldn't love to, but I believe that I was witnessing some extreme emotional immaturity when Cody shared that if he and his wife, Christine were going to divorce, that they needed to present this co-parenting agreement or else the state would immediately take the kids. They would become wards of the state. And I bring this example simply because when I've worked with people going through divorce, for example, typically the more emotionally immature person has all kinds of thoughts, facts, ideas on what that divorce process entails despite the fact that they may have never met with an attorney or been divorced before. But they absolutely know what is going to happen. And that once again, represents a bigger picture of the person simply spouting out words in one moment, confabulating a story that fits their narrative. Even in that moment that he knew more than she did that he was smarter and she was not as smart. And she didn't even know what she was getting into, but he did. One day I would love to do a complete deep dive on a reaction to that entire series of that show.

But I do have enough material now for additional thousand cuts episodes. But I would love to hear more. And I feel like every time that I have shared one of these episodes, the three previous ones, this is where I get a number of emails of people saying, okay, this, this is my life. And so many people feel like, well, isn't everybody going through that kind of insanity? And they're not. Relationships aren't perfect by any means, but when this is the air that you breathe in your relationship of just feeling like there's this complete insanity and these small things happen over and over again, and the gaslighting and when you cannot even have your own thoughts or feelings or opinions, and you hold back because you aren't even sure if you should even bring something up because it usually doesn't go well. And you're trying to figure out when is the best time to finally bring up something that I just have to say, because it's affecting the kids, it's affecting my mental health or it's something that we need to talk about. But when we do, then things just go bad. That is not normal. And that's what I would love for you to start to just even think about looking for help, whether it's a professional help or turning to people that are non Switzerland friends, just to start to feel like you you are not crazy because you're not you're being, there's a good chance you're being emotionally manipulated or abused. And this is just part of the process, the process of awakening. And waking up to that narcissism or if you are listening to this and I, again, I'm so open about that this was all created initially, because of understanding my own emotional immaturity, narcissistic traits and tendencies. And it can be really difficult to sit with that and to self confront. But that is the beginning of healing of your own as well. So I just appreciate you taking the time. I would love to hear more stories. I would love to hear your examples of death by a thousand cuts.

And, and I want to say, men who were in relationships with emotionally immature women. I see you too. I do. I work with you. I am working with a few in my practice right now, and I know that you are experiencing a similar, but completely different level of your own feelings of internal guilt and shame. And it is hard to open up about your situation. But please send me your examples as well. I know the traits and tendencies know no gender, but the majority of emotionally mature narcissistic people that I see. And according to the data I've shared in previous episodes are men, but I have worked with truly hundreds of men over my career who are in similar situations. So I want your stories to, I do want to hear from you. So thanks for taking the time and feel free to share these episodes, especially these death by a thousand cuts episodes because I think these are the ones that really, really hit and people really understand these and they start to resonate and people start to wake up to their own narcissism or the emotional immaturity in their relationships. Thanks again. And we'll see you next time on Waking Up to Narcissism.

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Tony shares 8 mental health lessons learned from a Christmas spent at Disneyland. 1) You’ll never really know something until you experience it. 2) Churros provide an immediate but temporary dopamine dump. 3) How to come back to the present moment, over and over again. 4) How easy it can be to find yourself turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms when triggered suddenly. 5) What it looks like to turn to a value-based activity or goal when feeling down, flat, off, or all of the above. 6) Radical acceptance, or the ability to accept situations outside of your control without judgment, reduces suffering. (from “What is Radical Acceptance https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-radical-acceptance-5120614) 7) Psychological flexibility, or “holding our thoughts and emotions a bit more lightly, and acting on longer-term values and goals rather than short term impulses, thoughts, and feelings” can lead to a greater sense of purpose and a stronger connection with the present moment (from “What is Psychological Flexibility https://workingwithact.com/what-is-act/what-is-psychological-flexibility/) and 8) From Virtual Couch guest Mike Rucker, author of “The Fun Habit,” https://amzn.to/3ClRTXG doing things, or “encoding richer experiences,” starts to light you up because you are creating an internal “tapestry of really cool stuff,” in your brain rather than simply passing time.

If you are interested in being coached in Tony's upcoming "Magnetic Marriage Podcast," please email him for more information. You will receive free marriage coaching and remain anonymous when the episode airs.

Transcript:

Tony: Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 355 of the Virtual Couch. I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. Mindful habit coach, writer, speaker, husband, father of four, and creator of the Path back, an online pornography recovery program that is helping people turn into the amazing people that they were meant to be. But let's get to today's episode. First up, just sign up for my newsletter. Go to tonyoverbay.com. Plain and simple because so many things are coming now in 2023. New version of the Magnetic Marriage course is coming soon. If you're still interested in a discount on my Path Back Pornography Recovery Course, new year, new you, then email me through my website and The Magnetic Marriage Podcast is imminent, a true crime meets the Virtual Couch Podcast with one of my daughters is launching soon. The magnetic marriage workshop, which is different from the full fledged course, 90 minutes of what you didn't know that you didn't even know is still available for $19 at tonyoverbay.com/workshop. So, so many things, but let's get to today's episode.

So I am not sure what title I eventually went with, but the working title was, “It's the psychology of the churro, eight mental health lessons learned over Christmas break at Disneyland”. So, surprise. We went to Disneyland for Christmas as in literally on Christmas Day, and this is something that we have never done, and my wife essentially sold it as a bit of a bucket list item. Let's try it. Maybe it will be insanely crowded. Maybe nobody goes on Christmas. It might rain, it might be too cold. But let's jump right in. Psychology rule number one, you'll never really know until you, till you go. So spread that out in a broader sense. And how often in our lives do we just wonder and wonder and ruminate and ask other people what they think, what their opinion is? All the while that the answer lies in the doing. So curious what Disneyland would be like at Christmas. Well, there's really only one good way to know, let's go. And while we're talking about Disneyland, let's talk about churros, the psychology of the churro. Now, in episode 276, I had to go look that one up on the Virtual Couch, which was recorded about a year and a half ago. I talked about what I learned on my summer vacation on a trip no less than to Disneyland. And at that time I went with my daughter McKinley, my niece, Taylor, and my wife Wendy, and we traveled to the Magic Kingdom to celebrate. At that time it was Taylor's graduation from college. And McKinley's graduation from cosmetology school.

And in that episode I spent quite a bit of time talking about dopamine, the wonderful feel good, hyper-focused chemical in our brain, and how the true dopamine bump in our brain occurs in the anticipation of an event, which is so beautifully laid out in James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. And we had our dopamine neurotransmitters transmitting and anticipating that trip as well as throughout the trip as we moved from one ride to another. And I highly recommend you go back and listen to that if you're curious to learn everything you wanted to know about dopamine, because we talk about a lot of things. One fascinating thing there was the concept of the Coolidge effect, which is something where the more that you do this repetitive task, the more that you need to amp up that repetitive task in order to still have those dopamine neurotransmitters transmitting. And so that's especially true in the world of people who turn to pornography as an unhealthy coping mechanism. And why the more that they do that, the more and more they need to turn to, I don’t know, crazier or more extreme things to get that dopamine bump. But I digress. We were talking about so much, as I lamented, in episode 276 that I never attended Disneyland as a child. My first trip was after I was married and my wife couldn't believe that I had never been. So we went a few times before we had kids, but I had also never had a churro until, I don't even think I ate them at Disneyland, but I didn't have a churro until probably in my thirties. So, fast forward 20 years later now in my early fifties, and I've eaten my weight in churros many, many times. And one of the real treats of Disneyland are the churros. And just in case you're like most Americans, the Disneyland churro experience is not the game of chance that is the Costco churro or the churro from the random Mexican restaurant that you may stumble upon, where you're literally gambling on whether or not the churro is good, period.

And then even if it tastes good, is it fresh and is it hot? Oh no. The Disneyland churro cart will no doubt be lining, I think, the gold paved streets of heaven with never too long of a weight and the perfect freshness and heat, and we're not talking just cinnamon, over the holidays, the Disney churro carts feature, and I'm sure I'm missing a few of the following flavors of a churro. And yeah, I did have to google this. Berries and cream, blueberry, green apple. Now, I personally tried one called the Caliente churro that was covered in cinnamon red hot candy sprinkles, but there was also the cinnamon sugar galaxy churro where you're essentially, I think, eating cinnamon and sugar glitter. And I actually meant to follow up and ask about a couple of people in our party that had them if you noticed that glitter a day or so later, if you know what I mean. But anyway, there was a mango churro and a s'mores churro, and one called the bride churro, which was my personal favorite, other than just your original churro, but the bride churro was covered heavily in a bouquet of vanilla and sugar, according to the internet pires, where psychology lesson number two enters the story. So back to that dopamine, the I don’t know, the doggone but wonderful dopamine. So I was very aware during this. Of how, when I found myself with any of the following triggers, tired, feeling like a flat affect, bored, frustrated, angry, lonely, and I'm sure several others, my brain literally did think churro or a time or two a thought, beignet. But churro, yes, a churro would make me feel good. Or walking past a churro cart that was a layup. My brain would say, well, we have to get a churro. And I noticed in particular one, or I don’t know, seven or eight times where I was already incredibly full. But the trigger of the churro card alone signaled to my brain that we need churro almost in that Neanderthal speak, “must have churro”. And then I could remind myself that I had already eaten a meal or I'd already had a churro or two earlier in the day. And my brain thought, oh, okay. How cute. You know, two can play this game, so let's go. So then it would come up with all the “yeah, buts”.

Well, yeah. You're only at Disneyland every couple of years. Or what if a zombie apocalypse occurs in Disneyland and their churro carts are destroyed? And so you better have all the churros now, or it's the end of the year and you might want to dough up a little bit. So when you start the new diet and exercise regime come January one, then those transformation pictures and videos will be even greater if you put down an even two dozen churros over the next three days, so not to mention all the aforementioned flavors of churro, my brain telling me that, well, you don't want to miss out on the blueberry churro or the green apple churro. Or the fact that my watch showed that we walked well over 10 miles on day one, and so therefore, I deserve these churros, and on and on and on. So, my point being that our brains are really, really clever, especially when it comes to wanting their fix, or their high, and after a churro or two, I really didn't notice how my brain thought often about wanting one, especially whenever I was feeling flat or down or any of those other triggers that I mentioned earlier, which led to psychology lesson number three, which I'll just call being present or being in the moment. And this was a really important one that I was so aware of when I was aware of it during the trip. I once attended a mindfulness training and I remember the instructor challenged us all to go home and mindfully eat a piece of fruit. And what does that look like? Well, he said spend at least 15 minutes appreciating, savoring, taking in every sight and bite and sound and taste of whatever that fruit was. And I did try it with an apple and I lasted a few minutes, and it was a pretty good experience before I think I probably became distracted, but I've thought about that exercise often and I understand the point to being in that moment and appreciating every bite.

So I did try that a couple of times with the churro. And I would take in the smell and I would feel the heat radiating through the piece of wax paper used as a holder. And I would notice the granules of cinnamon and sugar. And then I would thank the universe for them, and I would bite down and I would hear this crunch through the perfect mix of solid and soft, maybe savoring the flavor and then I feel like at times, and I'm sure I'm probably going to humor here, I would enter almost some sort of sugar themed dissociative fugue state, where I would then almost in essence come to with noticing, I don't know, I'm gnawing on my finger or cinnamon and sugars all over my face like a child, and my family probably phones out filming my coming to from this, I don't know, sugar coma, wondering where I was, you know, until I could realize, okay, I'm in line. I can smell the rubber of the poncho draped over me as we're waiting in line for Splash Mountain. But my true point there is that it is fascinating that you can even bring yourself into the moment, the present moment, being mindful, all those wonderful therapeutic things that we talk about with mindfulness, and appreciating and doing. But then you can do that until you don't. And what I simply mean by that is one of these things that I love talking about the most from the book Buddha Brain, and I'll own that I have now completely butchered the author Rick Hansen's concept. But he's in essence talking about these four steps to enlightenment or four paths of awakening or something to that effect where I've boiled it down in my own brain to, you basically didn't know what you didn't know.

So before I even knew about mindfulness, I'm just, I'm just there. I'm just inhaling churros and I'm just trying to chase happiness or whatever that looks like. Then you start becoming aware, so you kind of know the things that you didn't know before. But that's a really difficult place to be at times, because I know, but then I don't always do. So I might have been in that moment recognizing, man, this is a moment, and I was noticing that I was feeling down or flat, and I come back to the present moment and let's say that I'm savoring that churro until all of a sudden I realize I'm not. So I went from not being aware of what I wasn't even aware of to now I'm aware I'm going to be in that moment until all of a sudden, I'm not.

And that isn't me doing anything wrong or bad. It just kind of is. And that's a tough place to be because there's a lot of things in our lives that we start to become aware of. But then we're not good at doing, you know, we might not be good at bringing ourself back into the present moment. We might want to stop yelling at our kids, and then we may be able to do that often, but we're not perfect at it. So then we beat ourselves up about, well, now that I know, and why did I still yell and what's wrong with me? But nothing, you're a human being and now you're aware. So that second phase or path of enlightenment or awakening is that we went from not knowing what we didn't know to now I know, and I do, sometimes, whatever this new thing is, and then that moves slowly but surely into the third step or path of awakening or enlightenment, where now you do whatever it is more than you don't. So now maybe you're not yelling at your kids very often at all, or maybe I'm almost finishing that churro and being so present and in the moment and eventually you just become. That is what it feels like to be you. You just do, now all of a sudden you are this calmer person around your kids, or you are a person that really is in that moment and savors and appreciates the entire churro. So that just being present and being in the moment is something that does need practice and to give yourself a tremendous amount of grace as you start to work on this path of awareness or enlightenment or as you start to make your way further down the churro.

But I really do recommend the exercise of trying to be incredibly present while you eat or drink, because that's just a good way to practice being present, being in the moment, or mindfulness in just your everyday life. But while we're on the churro, I would say that that would also lead to psychology lesson four, which is turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms to again, get that dopamine bump. Now if I go back to just part of the work that I do, I love couples therapy. I love helping people working through a faith deconstruction or journey. And I also work with a lot of people that struggle with turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as pornography, hence the Path Back Pornography Recovery Program. But I know when I was promoting my book, He's a Porn Addict, Now What? An Expert and a Former Addict to Answer Your Questions with Josh Shea, that at that time I had counted up and I had worked with well over 1500 individuals who have come to me wanting to be more present in their lives, wanting to be better marriage partners, better parents, improve their health, wanting to understand their relationship with the divine and their desires of a more fulfilling career. Now, they don't come to me expressing those things. They come to me because they want to stop turning to things like pornography, that it is absolutely zapping their motivation, their drive. They find themselves wasting a tremendous amount of time, which only causes them to beat themselves up even more.

And when it comes to things like pornography, it also probably can warp or dull their sex drive or make them have a more difficult time being present with their spouse, their mate, but, so that's what people come to me for, but you can replace, again, pornography with turning to their phones or gambling or food or work or even things like exercise or YouTube or TikTok. But when it comes to turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms, that's where, I learned a long time ago, what I call these five voids. So I go back to when I said, people are coming to me wanting to be better marriage partners, better parents, improve their health, understand their relationship with the divine, desires of a more fulfilling career. Those five voids that I like to help people with when they turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms are becoming a better marriage partner or just a better partner in their relationships or becoming a better parent, or that could even be a better friend or finding something that really motivates or matters to them with regard to a career or if they feel, you know, for lack of a better word, stuck in a career. How can you work your values into your current career? Or working on your relationship with God or the divine or your faith. If you feel like that is not a place that brings you strength or joy, then, these are all things that will lead or cause someone to turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms. And that fifth void is your health as well. So, there's an acronym in the world of unhealthy coping mechanisms or addiction called halt, where if you are hungry, if you're angry, if you're lonely, if you're tired, that those are times when you have to watch out cause your guard's down, and you may then turn to these unhealthy coping mechanisms. So if you can shore up parenting or marriage or faith or health or your career, then that siren song of the coping mechanism is not gonna scream at you as loud, which is a pretty nice transition into psychology lesson five, which I just call turning toward value-based activities. So, long lines at Disneyland. That was no surprise. Now, they weren't horrible. I think part of it was going in, and anticipating and accepting the fact that yeah, there were going to be some long lines. And so that was okay. That part was all right because there was already an expectation or an anticipation that would be the case.

Now, that does not cause everyone to just be happy and motivated and hyper presents for the two hours in the wait for this new Star Wars ride, which is pretty darn amazing. And I was a Star Wars guy however many years ago that the first three came out, which makes me sound so old. And over time have probably not kept up on all the different Star Wars vehicles and then the entire franchise in Star Wars Canon. But in that Star Wars line, there were nine of us. And it was over two hours, the wait. And I felt like that was probably the test, the verbal exam, the experiential exam on mindfulness and being present at Disneyland. I think it was day two. And so we were already getting pretty tired and this is where I go back to that when you are aware of what matters to you, let's just go with the, it's easier to state it as when you're in touch or in alignment with your values. So I have absolutely a certainty that my values are a couple of them. Authenticity. I need to be authentic. I can't just do something to try to make somebody else happy. And I have a strong value of curiosity, adventure, fitness, and knowledge. And so the curiosity and the knowledge are things that I return to.

So, I could tell the mood everybody was starting to just get a little bit flat. People are getting on their phones. We're not communicating as much when we've been in this line for a while. And at that moment when you notice, you know, I notice that I'm starting to feel flat. I notice I'm starting to feel a little bit of anxiety around wanting to make sure that everybody's having a wonderful time, and so here's where I go big on there's three things I think that we typically do that are probably not the best when we find ourselves in those situations. The first one is to say, what's wrong with me? Again, nothing. You are a human being. You're the only version of you and check it out. That's how you think and feel at that very moment. First time I had ever been in that line on the second day of Disneyland on that day with nine people at hour number whatever of the day. And also experiencing temporary closures of the ride and trying to figure out if we should leave the line or not leave the line and managing a lot of people, helping people manage their expectations. So that is how I felt. And those were my feelings, and that was how I was showing up. So check that out. The second thing that I think we do along those lines, that is not the best is then when we, okay, so we don't do the, what's wrong with me, and then I feel like the next one's a layup where we also can't tell ourselves, well, don't think that. Because again, don't think of a pineapple right now. Don't think of a green polar bear holding a yellow umbrella, riding a unicycle because most likely your brain is following along with me because of that good old psychological reactance or that instant negative reaction being told what to do. Our brain is just hardwired. It's a defense mechanism at that point. It's a survival skill. And so I can't say, “what's wrong with me?”, because nothing, I'm a human. I have emotions and feelings and I can't say “don't think that” because I will think about it even more. And then the third thing I think is kind of tricky as well, is we will tell ourselves, okay, instead of that, just think something else is think, man, I'm so grateful to be here. And that can work for a minute, until it doesn't. Until then, all of a sudden I feel the pain in my feet and I feel the, I was going to say the lightness of my wallet and all these things where I can start to then notice that I am starting to feel flat or down or fill in the blank. So that's where I feel like the best thing that one can do is recognize and acknowledge that I am starting to feel flat. Check that out. I'm noticing that I'm starting to withdraw, to retreat, to feel flat. And then what is the story? My brain's telling me that people aren't having a good time or that I need to do something to make sure that everybody's happy, or these sorts of things. So those are stories my brain's telling me. Those are fascinating. I can make room for those. But then the key is then in that moment turning to a value-based activity. So a value-based activity of curiosity or of knowledge, I still have this in the cache of my browser. 15 random facts about Disneyland. And so at that point, now I'm turning to this value of curiosity and knowledge and then just sharing some facts.

And it led to some fun conversations. If I scroll through this, Mickey Mouse's name, did you know that Mickey Mouse was not the original choice of his name originally? He was to be named Mortimer. But later, it was turned into Mickey Mouse. California Adventure, which I love, I love that place, was a parking lot formerly. That one doesn't really make me think, oh my goodness, that sort of thing. There's a statue of Walt Disney on Main Street and it's seven inches taller than Walt himself was. Now it doesn't tell why, but as a person that is not towering over others. As I am not, I can see myself bumping that statue up a little bit. I might have gone a solid foot taller. And then, this website, which is actually called Everythingmom.com, but it also says the original design was supposed to have him with an ice cream in his hand, but that was rejected. And rumor has it that his hand is in the air and a celebratory “look, Mickey, at what we created.” You know what was almost Mortimer. Main Street. I thought this was interesting. The buildings along Main Street USA are built to create the effect of a longer street when entering the park and a shorter street when going back to your car. And then there were just a few others, the millionth guest of Disneyland was actually achieved within a month of the park opening, and there's a light in the window above the fire station and the apartment on Main Street. That's the apartment that Walt Disney would stay in. And that light and the apartment represented him working hard. He said he always wanted his employees to know that he was working just as hard as them. So since Walt Disney's death, it's been kept on 24/7 as a reminder of Walt Disney's dedication and hard work. And mustaches, Walt Disney did not allow his male employees to have mustaches. And then one more, one more of these fun facts, because we would see a lot of these different wishing wells, and they had money in them. They had dollar bills in them, they had coins, and we were continually playing the game of how much? And so in everythingmom.com, she says, did you know this random Disney fact with all the money that is thrown into the ponds and wishing wells, Walt decided very early on to always donate it to charity. And she says, could you imagine how much money is donated? Rumor is that every time It’s a Small World shuts down for refurbishment, they clean it out and it totals over a hundred thousand dollars each time. That's a lot of money, so turning to this value of curiosity, this value of knowledge, and then that will bring you more into the present moment.

Now, the reason why I want to share this is because what I thought was really fascinating, and I think this is such a valuable lesson, is that as soon as we would almost go through a list like that, and then you would notice that people were kind of done maybe talking. It wasn't like then I was locked in and the rest of the day everything was amazing and great and wonderful. No, our brain will default back to the “yeah, buts”, or I'm noticing my feet again are hurting or my wallet is light, or whatever that is. And I want to just normalize that because a lot of times I feel like people will bring themselves into that moment, be mindful, turn to a value-based activity, and then they will do that, be more engaged in the moment. And then when they stop doing that, then they will say, see, that didn't work. And quite frankly, it's the opposite. That did work because for that entire period of time we had a shared. And now we had some fun facts and we will probably remember some of those things at a later date and be able to share those with others but we had a moment there instead of just feeling down or feeling flat.

And I'll get to this in a little bit, I've got a quote from a former guest of mine that was on a few weeks ago, Mike Rucker, that I think will speak to this. So, that turning toward value-based activities. Another one that I thought was really fascinating was we played this game “Heads Up” and if you're familiar with that, you download this app on your phone and it's basically like charades. And we did that one, two or three times, and that was one where I can turn to my value of curiosity and look up fun facts at any point on any day. And that is just very fun. That is one of the things I really enjoy. But I don't always enjoy playing charades in a line where there are a million people around because my, “yeah, buts” in my brain will say, yeah, but it's going to be embarrassing. Or, yeah, but what if we hold up the line, and so on. But anytime I felt like anybody started to play this game, this heads up, then all of us were engaged and it was as if we all played a round of it and then it just felt like, okay, we're good. And then another 30 minutes would go by and then we would do that again. So I felt like by alternating between just some fun facts, some random things we were talking about, and then playing this game, that we made it through that line. And now I want to say we live to tell about it. But when I think about that experience in the line, I now think about playing heads up. I think about these fun facts with Disney, and I think about just having that experience rather than just sitting there and feeling bad and worrying and ruminating and getting angry. Which is almost what our brain will do by default. So it does take intentional effort to bring yourself into that present moment, turn toward those value-based activities. But I promise you that by doing that, whenever you can, I was going to make it sound pretty negative, do that over and over and over again, but eventually that becomes part of your implicit memory or what it feels like to be you, because that is based on this residue of lived experience, and it takes time. But the more that you are bringing yourself back into that moment, and taking action on things that matter, that it really does start to move this needle of what it feels like to be you as somebody who does, who does the things that they do, because you're aware and because you bring yourself back into this present moment over and over again, and that starts to feel like more confident, and more of a sense of connection and a sense of purpose, and just being connected with others and in the moment. So let me blast through a couple of others here. Psychology lesson six, and this is one that I want to spend more time on in the not too distant future, and this is the concept of radical acceptance.

So I noticed a lot of this opportunity to practice radical acceptance while we were at the park. And the reason is that the definition of radical acceptance is, I'm going to pull up a Verywellmind.com article, but radical acceptance is based on the notion that suffering comes not directly from pain, but from one's attachment to the pain. And it has its roots in Buddhism and the psychological paradigm by a gentleman named Carl Rogers that acceptance is the first step toward change. Radical acceptance. We often feel like if we accept the fact that maybe we are a bit powerless when we are walking through these large crowds that we feel like if we accept it, then that means that it is going to be horrible and I might as well just shut down and sit on the side of the road and wait for everybody to go by. And I'll engage again later that night. But I will say over and over again, acceptance does not mean apathy. So radical acceptance can be defined really as the ability to accept situations that are outside of your control without judging them, which in turn reduces the suffering that's caused by those situations.

So rather than being attached to the fact that, okay, there is a huge crowd here and everybody's going to bump into me, which I feel like was a theme often for a lot of people at Disneyland, and then letting them get frustrated or angry because people were going to stop in front of you. People were going to shift directions. People are going to talk loud, people are going to do a lot of different things there. I felt like it was an ultimate practice of radical acceptance. Again, that accepting situations that are completely outside of my control, it's outside of my control, whether or not somebody stops short in front of me and then decides that they are going to sneeze or cough or talk loudly to somebody beside them. Now I can get frustrated or angry, but to me that doesn't really feel very productive. It's a normal human emotion. I can notice that. But I need to accept those situations that are outside of my control without judgment, and that reduces the suffering that's caused by them. So at that point then, if I go back to this article from verywellmind.com, again, rather than being attached to a painful past, radical acceptance suggests that non-attachment is the key to overcoming suffering. So, non-attachment does not mean not feeling emotion. But it refers to the intention of not allowing pain to turn into suffering. So there was pain and frustration there by the crowds, by people stopping constantly, by people changing direction, by people bumping into each other, bumping into me. I mean, that can be frustrating, but it also means radical acceptance means watching your thoughts and feelings, and then just identifying when you're allowing yourself to feel worse than is necessary.

So instead I could be in that moment and notice and actually, bless the hearts of those people that were stopping short because I know that's something that I've done as well. Or I know that there are times where I have spoken up or yelled to get someone's attention in my party, and I'm sure someone was annoyed or I scared someone or surprised someone. So that lack of judgment is that important part of radical acceptance. And that doesn't even mean that I approve of this situation or that I love the fact that everybody stops in front of me and bumps into me. But instead it involves accepting reality for what it is and not getting caught up in an emotional reaction to that reality. So noticing that I have these thoughts, I have these feelings and noticing that I can have an emotional reaction but not getting caught up in it and not letting that consume me. So that's that concept of radical acceptance. And I feel like radical acceptance has a best friend and that best friend is psychological flexibility. And this is one that I've done an episode or two on because this is a real key part of acceptance and commitment therapy. And this is from a website called Workingwithact.com. Psychological flexibility means contacting the present moment fully as a conscious human based on what that situation affords changing or persisting in behavior and the service of chosen values. So psychological flexibility is more along the lines of what I'm talking about happening in that Star Wars line of contacting that present moment as a conscious human being based on what the situation affords, and then changing the behavior in service of chosen values. So, the author of this article says, so that means in everyday language, this means holding our own thoughts and emotions a bit more and acting on longer term values and goals rather than short-term impulses and thoughts and feelings. And then they say, why? Well, it's because thoughts and emotions tend to be unreliable indicators of long-term value because we have little control. And this is what I think is so key. Again, I think and feel the way I do because I'm a human being and I'm in that situation, and that's how I think and feel.

So we actually have little control over those immediate thoughts and emotions and they will tend to ebb and flow sometimes dramatically in just a moment's notice. And if we trust our thoughts and emotions and act based on them, we can often overlook more important sustained patterns of action, which bring true meaning and vitality and richness to our lives. So if we just say, man, I'm frustrated and angry, and now I take action on being frustrated and angry, then I can get caught up in being frustrated and being angry. But if I notice that I'm frustrated and I notice that I'm angry, those are emotions, of course, I'm going to feel that way. I'm part of the human condition, part of the human experience. But now I'm going to notice them, and now I'm going to take action on things that matter. There are these researchers, Cashtin and Roterberg. They define psychological flexibility as the measure of how a person, number one, adapts to fluctuating situational demands. And number two, reconfigures mental resources. Number three, shifts perspective. And then number four, balances, competing desires, needs, life domains. So then instead of focusing on specific content with a person, the definition of psychological flexibility has to incorporate repeated transactions between people and their environmental contexts. What that means is that it's continuing to adapt to the situations in front of you when what they mean by reconfiguring mental resources is just taking action on something that matters, shifting your perspective, and then starting to put into place your values. You're these competing desires, needs, life domains. I have a value of connection with others. I have a value of curiosity. I'm going to have feelings and thoughts. It's part of being a human. That's okay. But I'm going to take action based on the things that really matter to me, and that is being psychologically flexible at any given moment. So when you can really start to do more of that, and that starts to become the air that you breathe or what it feels like to be you, then when you find yourself in a moment of frustration, then you have this radical acceptance and you have this psychological flexibility, and those things just happen.

The event that you might be caught up in is happening. Check that out. It is, but now I'm going to feel like I have a little more control over that situation because I can now be aware of how I'm thinking and feeling, and that's perfectly okay. And I'm actually going to be able to take action on things that matter, even if it's just within my own brain. That's better than me just sitting in this reactionary state and then feeling like I am absolutely overwhelmed and that I have no control over the situation. Psychology Lesson eight, and we'll wrap this up. This is where I mentioned earlier I had a guest, Mike Rucker. He was on, he's the author of The Fun Habit, and I pulled the transcript because I want to read a quote that he said. He said, “Time is this really rubbery thing.” He said, “It becomes interesting where you don't realize you're wasting time,” he said, “because when you're in those moments that aren't really encoding new memories, they just fly.” He said, “It's not flow by any sense, but when we reminisce back on them, they kind of get condensed as one memory.”

So when we're just, and this is me now interjecting, when we're just thinking and just being, and not taking action on things that matter, it's almost like that just becomes part of this just gray area of our memory. We just remember Christmas, period. But then if we are doing things, he says, “So when we actualize them in a really strange manner where he said, where you think we're kind of led to through cognitive error that, oh, I'm just passing time.” But he said, well, when you start to encode richer experiences, those are the things that start to light you up because now you have a whole tapestry of really cool stuff. He says, “The fact that we now know that the brain is a predictive engine. It's a predictive machine more than a cause and effect machine.” He said that allows us to make better predictions. “Like, I know I'm going to have fun, so I want to do the thing, whatever that thing is , that will allow me this chance to have fun.” And he says, rather, we want that prediction. I think that as I form these memories and encode these richer experiences, that more than likely I'm going to have a good time. I'm going to have fun. But he said, “Rather than the prediction machine of our brain predicting that, well, it probably won't be that great, so I'm just not going to do it.” Because then that becomes condensed into just this one memory, this just gray area and so we just feel like we just passed time instead of just creating this whole tapestry of really cool things that we do in our lives, because over time that's what it's going to feel like to be you.

Okay. Taking us out per usual is the wonderful, the talented, the also on TikTok, Aurora Florence with her song, “It's Wonderful”. Have an amazing week and we'll see you next time on the Virtual Couch.

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Tony shares questions and answers from his forum for women in relationships with narcissistic or emotionally immature people. The questions deal with narcissistic family systems, whether or not to "confront" or air out the narcissist's drama to the entire family. Two forum members share their "aha" moments, one bringing more clarity (their narcissist having to continually explain that they were a good person vs. simply being a good person). Another brings frustration (having to do with narcissistic projection and control).

Listen to the trailer for Tony's new "Waking Up to Narcissism Q&A Premium Podcast" here https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/waking-up-to-narcissism-q-a/id1667287384

WUTN 58 Transcript

Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 58 of Waking Up to Narcissism. I am your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And host of the Virtual Couch podcast. And please sign up for the newsletter, go to tonyoverbay.com. Sign up for that. I have a lot of things I want to share and I feel like it's going to be best done via the newsletter, but I will say one of those things is the Waking Up to Narcissism Question and Answer premium edition. That is a subscription-based podcast and the trailer is up. So please go find out, I'll put the link to that in the show notes, and that will be a weekly Q and A, and then the proceeds will go to help people who are in emotionally abusive relationships and help them get the help that they need.

So for today's episode, we are going to go to the Facebook group that I have for women that are in relationships with emotionally immature or narcissistic fill in the blanks, which always sounds like I'm saying that dirty rotten fill in the blank, but it's fill in the blank is it could be a spouse. It could be a parent, it could be a boss. It could be an adult child. It could be a neighbor, a friend, a company, a religious institution. You name it. So one person said that they had their big popcorn moment about a year ago, but sometimes they said, “I still get that late pop,” which I just love that concept. “The other day, my ex and I were texting regarding logistics of kids scheduling. And he states in the conversation, ‘The only reason I was asking that is because I was being nice to you.’”

And then she said, “It all the sudden dawned to me that no one else had ever said that type of phrase to me. No one else has to tell me that their actions were intended to be nice. They just let their actions speak for themselves. Then it dawned on me even more,” she said, “that I have heard him use this type of phrase to me so much more over the course of the last 15 years and to the kids and to other people. And it was just not a normal thing to do. How did I not see that until just now?” And she said it just blew my mind. And I keep a tab in my notes of talking to people when, and this is just from a curious standpoint, as a therapist, when people say things that they say them, and they assume that this is, this is a normal way that all humans communicate.

I'll give you another example. This one was pretty recent. Somebody was talking about there, there was a couple session and the person was saying, “He never got back to me.” And then the guy who initially said, “Well, I didn't get your text.” And then she said, “Well, but you then did talk about some of the things that I'd put in the text.” And then you watch him say, well, yeah. No, I may, I got your text, but, you didn't really, I didn't know that you wanted me to get back to you. And then she'd kind of brought some more awareness to something else that was in the text or the literally something that he had gotten back to her on. And then he said, “You know, I just actually had a whole lot going on right then. And it just really wasn't a good time.” And so then I felt like it was as if he looked over at me and said, how did I do? Did that work? And the reality is that isn't the way that we normally communicate as human beings that, “hey, I'm going to throw a bunch of stuff and see if any of these work, how about that?”

And I hope that both the person who would be speaking and looking at me saying, “Hey, did that work?” And the person that is listening to that conversation will see the significance of why I bring up this example. Because to the person that is listening, and if you are this kind, pathologically kind person that is just saying, “okay, well, I guess he didn't get my texts.” Except for he did. And, maybe, it was not a good time for him. Test your spidey sense? That doesn't really seem like a healthy way to communicate. Because to the other person, I want that person in this scenario, this guy to really sit with that concept, that it isn't a normal way to communicate when your first response is, “Well, I didn't get the text.” And then if she digs in and there's proof that you did get the text, then it just doesn't even dawn on you to stop in that moment and say, why, why didn't I feel that I couldn't say I just didn't respond. Or, I didn't know what to say or I feel like my response was going to sound like an excuse or any of these moments to self confront versus okay, next up, okay, I didn't get the text. It wasn't a good time for me.

Almost to say that if that one didn't work, he had plenty more coming. Probably had chambered up there, “Well, you don't always respond to my texts,” or, “Okay. What am I supposed to do to sit on my phone all day and wait for you to text?” Because I've heard all of those in my sessions as well, but that isn't a mature adult way to communicate. Because if we go back to that concept of these popcorn moments, I know I talk about them in more dramatic terms. So that concept of the popcorn moment is that the emotionally immature or narcissistic person is going to say things to try to get you to take the bait or they're pushing the buttons. So if you just sit back, and eat your popcorn and watch the show, then you'll see them start to cycle through all the different buttons that normally work. They may start with the, “Man. I am just a big piece of garbage.” and then they can almost subconsciously look over and see if you go. “No, you're not, you're a good person,” but if you just grab a bite of popcorn, watch then the next act might be, “but apparently you think that you have everything figured out.” Because that button's probably worked in the past. And then I say, I don't, I just have another bite. And then the next one might be the sad version of , “oh my gosh, what am I doing? I'm just, I'm going to lose my whole family.” Or, and it can get to be the really scary ones too that have to do with, “I don't even want to live. I hope that a boulder hits me” or these sorts of things. And then if you don't take any of those, the bait or let those buttons work, then you'll typically have the narcissistic exit where it's just the “Fine, you know what? This is a ridiculous conversation anyway, I'm leaving.” And I have more people when they learn to just stay and be present. But it's hard because those buttons are, they usually work. That's why people push those buttons.

But then they start to recognize, wow. It really is. It doesn't really matter what I say or do, because they are just looking for me to engage so that then they can get out of accountability. So I feel like the mini version of the popcorn moment, and if we call it a hot tamale moment or something, but in those moments, it would be, “I didn't get your text. Oh, that text. No. Yeah, I did. But I don't remember. You didn't really ask me anything. Okay, well, I guess that's fair. I mean, you did ask those things, but it really, it just wasn't a good time for me or, well, you don't always get back to me with your texts. I mean, if we're being honest,” so it's more of this junior version of, we called it junior mint version of the popcorn moments, but I just loved that she had shared that, once she was aware of that, she said that that just helped so much more. And a couple of the comments that I liked from people commenting about that post, someone said, you know, “Seriously, the things that we see when our minds are more clear and not being controlled anymore.” And I think that is such a good way to put it.

Someone else said, “When we were at the worst in our relationship, he would say, ‘You know, I'm not a bad person’ or sometimes, ‘You know, neither one of us is a bad person.’” And she said, “I was so baffled because I hadn't ever thought I was a bad person. And later realized he was just validating himself. But it really is telling because why would somebody really need to say that if they were showing up being authentic and emotionally mature and knowing, oh, I I'm not even, I'm not a bad person. We're just trying to learn how to communicate more effectively.” And, and so that can really, it can be an eye opener.

I want to get to a question that someone had posed, and I really feel like this is where we'll spend the time today. And I got the permission of everybody in the group or the people that had posted about this. So I'm gonna change some of the details just to preserve some of the confidentiality, but this is going to be talking about the narcissistic father. So this person said they need some perspective. And they said, “I'm so emotional that I can't even think straight,” which right out of the gate, I appreciate the vulnerability of this person, because when we are so emotional, we're, our amygdalas are hijacked. Our heart rates are elevated, our cortisol is flowing, and we can't access that prefrontal cortex frontal lobes of the brain. We can't get to our logic because we're just in this anger fight or flight mode. So she said, okay, “So my dad is the narcissist” and she said, “I've been no contact now for a few years. Until my mom's funeral, that was very recent.” And I'm so sorry to hear that. I really am. She said, “My issue is that I get a phone call from one of my siblings because my sibling is freaked out by my dad's girlfriend. And my sibling finally couldn't handle my dad's silence. So my sibling called to rant to me. She said, my dad doesn't want anybody to know that he's been dating someone since just shortly after my mom had passed away. But he is serious enough that he's introduced this person to some of his siblings and word is he's preparing to propose.” So she said, “When I say he doesn't want anybody to know, he doesn't want me or my other siblings to know. He doesn't want the members of his church to know, and he doesn't want my mom's family to know.

“So he's avoiding calls from all of these people. So she said, now I'm sitting here and I'm just really fed up with the lies and the deceit. And I just feel like I want to let everybody know. Like publish it to the world. I want everybody to know, especially my mom's family, who he really is.” And she said, “I'm guessing that's because I'm so mad because it feels like a betrayal of my mother,” but she said really doesn't her family deserve to know? And she said, “I think I would want to know if it was me, but am I just letting anger lead me to some toxic place?” She said, “I did just find out tonight, so I know that I'm super raw,” and then she just posed to the group, “is this legitimately something that needs to be shared.” So, let's break this thing down. One of the things I think is pretty fascinating, and these are the situations that I would not be aware of unless I was sitting in the chair that I'm sitting, working with, the population that I'm working with. But I can honestly say that within the last year I've had three different situations where the emotionally mature or narcissistic person got married within a month, two months, a very short period of time of the divorce or in this scenario, the passing of a spouse, and I'm, and again, who am I to be that judgemental? The point that I'm going to, well, I'm a therapist that has dealt with this, I remember one time working with somebody that had come to meet with me and they did feel guilty about moving on to a new relationship shortly after their wife had passed, but their wife, the more we broke things down, had been dealing with a terminal illness and had not really been herself for almost four years. And so this person had been reaching out and having a connection with someone for the last six months or a year of her life. And the irony here is that the wife had said, “Hey, I know you can't be alone. So I give you my blessing.”

But then he felt like if he shared that with anybody, then it was gonna make him just sound like a horrible person. So I, again, I know that the situations, every situation is different and this person had just such empathy and they were actually coming into counseling to deal with this. But the situations I'm thinking of just within the last year are, I'm just going to say the narcissistic person, who didn't even tell their children, their adult children, their teenage children, that they were even getting married. In one scenario, the person found out, the person that I, that I'm aware of, found out that their father had gotten married through a social media post of someone else. And so they just said that they just found out that this had happened. And, or another scenario where someone got married and didn't tell, they had several kids and didn't tell them. Which that's the part where that isn't and I'm going to pull the I'm the normal police card, but that isn't a normal way that people act or communicate. And I feel like that's where the emotionally mature narcissistic person does not want to deal with any discomfort or any invalidation and so they have most likely confabulated a narrative or a story that makes their version of that, the right version. That whether, well, I want to spare all of my kids, that could be painful or, well, um, nobody asked me if I was getting married, even though I haven't even introduced them to the person that I'm thinking about marrying.

So I think it's one of those just interesting things where I only see that admittedly in the emotionally immature narcissistic person, where they can quickly move on and then not tell certain parts of the family because they're still trying to control the narrative, because in my opinion, they don't want to deal with any invalidation or discomfort. So, let me start to work through what I thought were really powerful were the comments that people shared to this person that asked the question. You know, the first person and I just, I love it, just said, “I'm so sorry,” I mean, that's empathy right there. She said, “you have every right to feel the way you do.

And take a few days or weeks to think on this.” So I love the concept where the first thought is some validation, some empathy, and then saying, yeah, maybe calm that amygdala down a little bit. The next person responded and said, “I was surprised that my ex's family turned a blind eye to all his indiscretions and then decided to cut me off instead.”

And she said, you know, “Narcissists are very good at telling their victim story and oftentimes have their own set of enablers.” She said, “Just because you share the truth to them or about them doesn't mean that others will see or validate it.” And she says, I'm so sorry for what you're going through. So if we dig into that answer alone, which is so good, is that is where we start talking about the concepts around a narcissistic family system. So if the family system is more emotionally mature or narcissistic, then what ends up happening is let's just say in this scenario, the family doesn't want to think that someone in our family could do something like not tell their adult children or get married to someone so soon. So they're doing a whole family confabulated narrative of, well, what was he supposed to do?

Or, I'm sure his kids would not have approved. And he doesn't need to go to his kids and get validation. So they're creating a narrative, which is an unhealthy relationship because now we're triangulating, we're isolating. We're not being honest with our family because most likely there's been a pattern of that that has led up to this situation. And I appreciate her saying just because you share the truth of them doesn't mean others will see or validate it. And I think that is one of the most difficult things that people are dealing with, especially. When they are getting ready to end a relationship with an emotionally immature person. I have a couple of men right now that are in situations where they are looking at divorcing. And one of the things that comes up so often is the narrative that is going to be put out there that if in this scenario where the female is the narcissist or the emotionally mature person, that they are going to now spread the word that the husband was such a bad person. And he left me and I didn't want this. And so the husband at times will just be so just frozen by the narrative that's going to get out there.

That then it can cause him to start to feel like, “okay man, maybe I am the jerk.” You know, “what, what is wrong with me?” One of, I think a difficult thing is just knowing that as you come to realize what is best for you or what's best for you and your children, and need to do the thing that it might be a difficult thing to know that unfortunately, you still can't control the narrative and what someone else is going to say about why things happen the way that they did, the next comment I think is a, is a insightful one as well. The person said, “We've learned that narcissists can't be alone.” And I think, in this scenario, we're talking about the narcissist that we really go back to that whole childhood wounding and trauma, so they have no sense of self. And require external validation for their sense of self, which then also comes with a dose of no empathy or low empathy. Then they have to have someone in essence around them at all times for them to either take that one up position on or to go victim on and in order to understand how or who they are. And so they don't really have, again, that, that internal sense of self.

So she said, “We've all learned that narcissists can't be alone.” She said, “I think your mom's family will see his true colors over time. And you can be there to verify,” but she said, “I think your emotions are just super raw right now and you're hurt and you're angry.” She said, “Remind yourself, he isn't doing this to hurt anyone. He just doesn't care. He's doing this for his own selfish wellbeing. Don't give them the gift of your anger about the situation, or it will only make him happier. And you more hurt.” And I just, I think there's so much wisdom in that answer. That it can't be you, you, aren't going to be able to say, hey, everybody look at this, look what he's doing. Because it's going to make it sound like you are the one that's trying to be mean or make this person look bad. But if you just start to live more of a life of integrity and honesty, and not feeling like you have to convince others that you are in the right. If you know that you are in the right. Then you just do and you be, and you become, and people start to recognize that and those true colors do come out over time.

It's interesting if we look at that line, which I think people, if they have not been in this situation, they may think that, how does that make sense? But it's the, when she says, “Remind yourself, he isn't doing this to hurt anyone. He just doesn't care.” And that can sound really difficult, but it's not about hurting the other person. It's about needing that narcissistic supply. He is doing that for his own selfish wellbeing. And I love her phrase where she says, don't give him the gift of your anger about the situation because it will only make him happier and you hurt more.

And that will, that's where people then burn a lot of emotional calories and spend a lot of energy, trying to figure out the best way to navigate a situation with an emotionally mature narcissistic person. And that is giving them far too much of your time. It really is. Another person said, “Most men, whether they are a narcissist or not, struggle being alone.” She said, “Outside of the fact that he's a narcissist and he's been hiding this,” she said, “I might take some time to think about why it is affecting you so much.” And then she shared a story of her own mother being single for over three decades after her dad passed away. She said, “When I was younger, I didn't want her to get remarried because I didn't want a new dad.” And she said, “Now that she's in her seventies, I really do wish that she had a companion.” And this really is one of the things that I love about this group is that they are offering a variety of insights based on people's own experiences.

So in that scenario, I love that she's saying that. Okay. Yeah, it does stink and it doesn't seem healthy or the right thing to do. But every opportunity is an opportunity now for self confrontation. So is it something that just makes me mad? Is it something I have any control of, or is it just something that I need to let go? And then someone else said this and I love, I love her passion, this answer. She said, “I want you to hear me when I say this, this situation is so hard,” She said, “so many of us know. And when the information comes unsolicited from you,” she's talking about, I just want to shout, you know, shout from the rooftops that my dad's a horrible person. She said, when that information comes unsolicited from you, “it will inevitably make you look bad. Like you are the one stirring the pot or creating drama that you're the problem. And you will become the target or the scapegoat.” She's saying, “I'm not saying lie for him. If somebody were to ask or if it were to come up in conversation with other family members, confirm what, you know. But don't be the one to announce it in the world. Narcissists can't be alone. They need a supply. So it makes sense that he moved on so quickly.” And this person is so true and that is called the discard. She said, “Remember, you're no contact for a reason, not your circus, not your monkeys.” I love that phrase. “Keep your side of the street clean and you won't look like the crazy one.” She said, “Believe me when I say that this is the most frustrating and hardest thing that I was ever told to do. And when his world started to unravel, because others were starting to wake up,” she said, “I was able to witness from a distance which was the best satisfaction of all.” And I just loved this thread. And that is also hard to say, because I hate the fact that the person is posting this, but I just feel like it shows the power of people that are learning how to interact with the emotionally immature or narcissistic people in their lives and just the power that can come within a group.

And I want to share one more from the group today because I just feel this pattern is emerging of the way that the emotionally immature people communicate with others. That is not, and I'll throw out the word again, normal. Actually, let me play this one backwards. So here is an emotionally mature conversation. Let's pretend that my wife is going out to do something and it's when we had younger kids. And then I'm in charge of the nighttime routine. The healthy response or the healthy question for me to ask would be, hey, honey, what time are you gonna be home? And then she may say, I don't know, about 10. And if I know that the kids are normally down by 8:30, then. I know that that is my responsibility. And then I say, okay, have a great time. I'll see you when you get home. Period. And then I am going to take care of the kids. What a wonderful opportunity for a dad to be able to spend that one-on-one time with his kids and the nightly routine and being able to support his wife because no doubt, there are plenty of times where I would go out or I would be late, or I would be out of town for work. And she was going through the nighttime routine on her own over and over again. So there's a normal, healthy interaction. Now let's go to the way that this was presented in the group.

The person said, “I just had an aha moment about an issue that has been a huge one, our entire relationship. And it goes something like this.” She said, “I'll be planning to do something like anything, go to the store, go out with friends. Anything.” She said, “Literally go anywhere and my husband will throw out the worst case scenario. Okay, so you'll be home really late and you won't be able to help me with the kids.” So she said, I get annoyed that he's already decided what I'm doing. And immediately, I jump into defense and I say, come on. It's not going to be like that. And now he's got me saying, okay, well then I guess you'll tell me that you won't be home late.” And she said, “Without even telling you're asking me not to be home late when my plans, then if they even go slightly off what I've said, now I'm held to the decision that he made when he made me say that I would be home much earlier.” And she just said, “Does anybody else get into these twisted situations,”

And she said, “where, what would that be like if he just said, hey, what time will you be home? And then I can respond with somewhere between X and Y.” She said, “Like I know in my head that we could already have had a normal conversation.” And then, there were so many comments that were so supportive. People just saying this would literally happen all the time. And, one person said that her husband had a job where he was out most evenings. And so then when he would be home, she would try to go out and do something with her friends. And it was then continually about, well, what time and how late? And I guess now I'm, I'm in charge of everything. Someone else said, “I think we've had that exact conversation.”

And she said, “I think the key is jumping to the defense,” she said, “which is so easy in the moment. And she said, I've started just setting a boundary and saying, well, I didn't say that, which then will also turn into the, no, I didn't mean that. And I love the point that she made, where she said, they're just looking for conflict. And that is the truth in that button pushing, and let me try to just, I'm going to go on a little bit of a, just a train of thought here and talk about why does the emotionally mature narcissistic person push buttons to begin with? And here's just that scenario where it, when it wasn't modeled in childhood or when people just weren't allowed to do and be, that everything had to have an angle or everything. There was this, almost this social capital or currency in every transaction. So that, well, what are you going to do for me or, okay I need to make you feel bad so I can keep this in my back pocket and pull it out when I need something. So everything becomes this tit for tat or this, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, kind of a mentality. But what the emotionally immature narcissistic person doesn't realize is that isn't reciprocity. They're just trying to make sure that they will get their way.

So when the activity or the event benefits them, they're not keeping track saying, oh man, my spouse is an amazing human being. And now I owe them. I owe them the same respect if they want to do something. No, they go and do when they want to do, because that's what they want to do. But then when it's time that you want to do something, now here's an opportunity to make you feel bad or guilty. So that now they can have this, you know, again, this currency, this emotional currency to then use against you. To then make themselves feel even better when they want to do whatever they want to do, and then make you feel worse when you want to do what you want to do because that's impacting them. Because then all of a sudden, now they are being asked to take ownership or responsibility for something and it can be anything. I mean. You know, a dad can actually enjoy bath time with his kids, but it's the concept that will, where now I have to do that. Instead of looking at that as an opportunity that they have to connect with their children. So that question, it just leads to so many other, other thoughts or concepts around why the narcissist wants conflict. And it's because if you go to the very depths of attachment and attachment issues with the emotionally mature narcissistic person, this is where they weren't, they did not have a secure attachment with their parent. So it really did matter what they did or who they were, how they showed up in order to get their needs met. And so, this is that, it's that concept where a kid will do anything to know that they exist or that they matter, now matter doesn't mean that they are cared about, but matter means to know that they exist. So as a child, that constant conflict, whether they were doing something that they're, then they're emotionally immature narcissistic parent then said, hey, nice job champ. Yeah, you remind me so much of myself. Or, I notice how good you are doing whatever this, whatever it is you're doing. And that must be because I have taught you that. Or there's that conflict of the parents saying that, I see what you're doing there, and I was so much better than you at that when I was your age. But it's always, there's always a transaction happening. There's always a one up or one down position happening. So by the time this emotionally immature narcissistic person hits adulthood in their, in their relationships, that's just again, the air that they breathe. And so that can just be very, very difficult when everything does start to seem like what's the angle or why can't we just have a normal conversation or a normal night? Or why can't we just do things because we want to do them and it doesn't have to be, well, you did this and I did this and you never do this.

But that is the relationship. That's how that relationship evolves with an emotionally mature narcissistic person. So when you, then again, start to pull back, or disengage or not play into that, there's always an angle narrative. And you just start to go and do, and like this person said in the group, where they just said the key is not trying not to jump into the defensive mode, which is so easy in that moment. It's our reaction that we do. So when we can just know that it's okay for me to go out and it's okay for you to take care of your kids, because that's what we do as parents. That's why we have, when we have kids where we're signing up for that. Then I don't have to defend myself and I can come home when I'm going to come home. And I can let you know that. And then if that is something that then you will try to use against me, well then bless your heart. I mean, that's a you problem because we're too adult human beings and we're interacting in a relationship and we both have responsibility for these kids. And so we need to start changing the dynamic that the kids then are not the pawns to be used. To then have this, I don't know this emotional currency that can be used against each other.

So, we'll end things there today, but if you have additional questions, comments, if there's anything that this episode brought up for you, feel free to shoot that over through my website at tonyoverbay.com. And if you are looking to become part of my women's Facebook group, or if you're a guy who is in a relationship with an emotionally immature and narcissistic female, please reach out. Or if you are the person that is starting to say, hang on a minute. I do a lot of these things. I mean, and, you know, I can wrap my head around the concepts around emotional immaturity, and maybe I need some help starting to become more emotionally mature. Then I would love to hear from you too. And I just, again I appreciate all the support and we'll see you next time on Waking Up to Narcissism.

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Happy New Year! Whether or not you may be thinking about setting New Year’s resolutions or goals, or you absolutely detest the entire concept around goals and resolutions, this episode is for you. In this special bonus episode, Tony welcomes Neal Hooper, creator of The Achievement Tribe, a comprehensive goal achievement experience, to the Virtual Couch to talk about all things goal-related. Tony and Neal discuss why how people typically talk about and set goals eventually leads to feelings of frustration, inadequacy, and often shame. They discuss the importance of putting your values behind a goal and how to move forward even if you find yourself back to familiar patterns of feeling unmotivated or stuck.

You can find out more about Neal's Achievement Tribe here https://www.achievementtribe.co/a/2147501224/zbdmeGhs

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Tony reads an email from a listener who shares their “waking up” experience and how difficult it can be to break free from a “trauma bond” and stay strong when the narcissist/emotionally immature partner pushes all the buttons to get you back. He also discusses the origins of “pathological kindness” and shares more from Ross Rosenberg’s book, “The Human Magnetic Syndrome.” https://amzn.to/3iRBsvA Tony shares a theory of how the narcissist and the kind person meet based on the article “Discovery: Kindness Gene So Powerful It Can Be Detected by Strangers in 20 Seconds,” https://charterforcompassion.org/discovering-kindness/discovery-kindness-gene-so-powerful-it-can-be-detected-by-strangers-in-20-seconds

Transcript

Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 57 of Waking Up to Narcissism. I'm your host, Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and host of the Virtual Couch podcast. And soon, a brand new podcast called Murder on the Couch. I know, true crime. There's a lot of them, but this is one that I'm doing with my wonderful, amazing daughter, Sydney, who is a true crime aficionado. And we talk about this stuff often, whenever she's in town, we talk about cases, true crime podcasts. And then I can't help myself, I like to throw a little bit of a therapy or psychology spin. So at one point we decided let's just record some things. So if you go, I'll put it in the show notes, but if you go to the Virtual Couch YouTube channel, there's about a minute and a half sneak preview clip that I think that you will really enjoy, and that is going to be coming out pretty soon.

And thank you so much for all the feedback from episode 56 with Ashley Boyson. That episode, it just kind of went insane, but I know that she has a tremendous following, but even more so than just having a following, she has that because she is a powerful, powerful person. And just the mix that the feedback I've got has been really cool because it's people that are saying, here's somebody that has been through just one of the most horrific things that you could even imagine. Literally, the thing that true crime shows are made of. But she made no secret about how difficult things were, how she didn't know what she didn't know, how there was a process of waking up to the narcissism in the relationship of her husband that had been murdered and then also experiencing narcissism and the next relationship. And now she's in a really good place and she's doing big things with her life and helping people and being there for her kids. And so it just shows you that life will continue to move on, and this entire waking up to, whether it's the again, narcissism in a relationship with your spouse or with a parent or an in-law, an employer, any of that, that it's just a process that takes time. It's going to take a little bit longer than you probably would like for it to take and wherever you are, that's right where you're at and that's the place you need to be. Because if you're even listening to this, that means that at some point you weren't aware of what narcissism or emotional immaturity even was. And now you're aware and you're thinking about it more and you're listening to things and reading things.

And now you have a nice little confirmation bias. We're talking about the good kind. We're talking about the kind, when you buy a cool new car and then you see them everywhere and you feel pretty validated, I'm thinking, okay, that must be a good car. So now you're starting to recognize the emotional immaturity in the relationships around you and maybe not feeling as crazy. And again, it takes a little bit longer. A lot longer than we would like for it to start to really gel and feel like, okay, I think I'm going to be okay. So right now, if you're listening and you still feel like this whole thing is overwhelming, then you're a human being and you're going through a process and I will say this until the cows come home, wherever that phrase came from. But you did not know what you did not know. And now, you know. And you're starting to learn the tools, but guess what? You're probably not implementing the tools, and that's no shame or guilt intended again, it's because it's part of the process of being a human being, our brains like to go down the path of least resistance. And this is all new and scary.

So you go from, I didn't know what I didn't know, to I know, now I’m kind of not doing, and that's a pretty scary place to be because it can feel sometimes like, I wish I didn't know. But you do. And, you know, and eventually you're going to start doing more of the things that will help you raise that emotional baseline. Get that PhD in gaslighting, get out of those unproductive conversations, set healthy boundaries, and know that a boundary is a challenge to the emotionally immature or narcissist. And then, that last little lever is going to fall into place where you'll recognize that there is nothing that I can do, me, that I can do to cause them to have the aha moment or the epiphany. That needs to come from them. And so often, the more that I try to give them that aha moment or that epiphany, I'm an essence just saying, hey, I found a new page in this playbook of the buttons you can press later on. But, I'm going to hand it to you anyway, because I think maybe this one might be different. And that is the tale of the pathologically kind.

And that's maybe a little bit of a plug too, if you are someone that is in a relationship with the narcissistic, fill in the blank, fill in the blank does not mean “a hole”, fill in the blank can be a spouse, you know, again, an in law, an entity, an employer, a friend. And you just feel like you are made to feel insane. Reach out because I've got a private women's Facebook group now that is just amazing. I've got enough men now that are in these relationships as well, that I think we're ready to fire that group up in an even more interesting population.

And I'm grateful for this or the people that are saying, I think I might be the narcissist and not the one where you're the person saying, okay. I feel crazy in the relationship. And now am I the narcissist? Because I'm hearing all these things or if you are the person who is starting to say, oh, I am extremely emotionally immature, manipulative, I gaslight and I can't help myself. And my spouse probably is going through all of these things, then reach out, let me know, because we're putting a lot of groups together, which is actually a plug for next week, so that would be the week of January 20 something, then the Waking Up to Narcissism premium podcast question and answer podcast episode will be released and there is going to be, in essence, a trailer or a zero episode. And I'm going to explain a lot more about what that project is about. It is going to be a premium paid subscription-based podcast that will be nothing but questions and answers. And that's because of the questions that are coming in from this podcast. I think now we're up to maybe a hundred pages of single-spaced Google document questions. And I know that there's just not enough resources out there. And when people are in that “I'm starting to learn” phase, they really are just taking in so much data and have so many questions. And, if you can't find the right place to ask those questions, and if you are trying to work with a therapist who maybe doesn't really understand emotional immaturity personality disorders, it can be maddening. So I want to answer those questions and then the money from that premium podcast proceeds will go to fund the nonprofit that is going to be there to help people in these narcissistic or emotionally abusive relationships. So look for that. One of the quickest ways to know when that's going to be available is sign up for my newsletter at tonyoverbay.com or also you can follow me on social media, TonyOverbay underscore LMFT on Instagram is probably the easiest way. So, let me read the question. And then I want to talk about an article that I found that is so, so fascinating.

So the person says, “Hi, Tony. I just listened to my first Waking Up to Narcissism podcast last night. And I can't believe how accurate, absolutely spooky,” which I love that word spooky, “it was to hear your words. I recently became aware or more fully aware of what my husband is. So many of the tools for communicating and interacting with him I'd already come to understand and employ, but it was striking to hear them out loud from somebody else. I never knew before now what to label him and his behaviors. And I always felt like this was something unique to him or us. And that no one would ever understand or be able to help. And more than that, that it was all just me that I was overreacting or making anything a bigger deal than it really was. That if I just went along, agreed and complied with everything he wanted, everything will be fine. That we'd be able to make a nice home and raise our kids to be happy, healthy, and ready to take on their own life and embrace their path enthusiastically and well-balanced. So wrong. I feel I'm so overwhelmed with the amount of damage that's been done as a result of this 25 plus year engagement and marriage with a narcissist or an emotionally immature husband. Despite so many attempts to leave and repeated returns to this marriage, I was never able to fully disengage and I kept getting sucked back in his capacity to find and exploit vulnerability, fear and doubt has no end. I've been away from him and our home for the last six months. And now I never would have thought this, but I'm happy in the moment, day to day. I feel so much lighter, not being around him and subjected to his non-stop toxicity. And so now I'm looking for tools I need now that I'm in this space. Separated physically and living a life apart from him to stay apart. Try not to be drawn back into his conspiracies, his attempts to instill fear, doubt, or the syrupy pleading about how wonderful we are together and how foolish it is to throw away all of these years and how we're soulmates. And especially since our repeated history has been that I always do return. I want to, and I'm determined to break this cycle. I don't have any more time to waste on this relationship. So how do I maintain this long term? What resources or support is there for people like me that have sustained so many years of emotional abuse, gaslighting, mental abuse, and all the damage as a result. I would like my amygdala to return to normal, please. I appreciate the opportunity to reach out. And thankful to have happened upon your show.”

So much gold here. And I think these are, this is the framework of most of the emails that I get is someone that is finally recognized. And this person, she says so much, there's so much in just a couple of these sentences in particular. Where she talks about being sucked back in and his capacity to find an exploit, vulnerability, fear, and doubt has no end. And I've been going pretty big on this, I think the last few months. And that is the concept that as someone starts to wake up to that emotional immaturity or narcissism in the relationship and they start to recognize they have a voice that their opinions matter. And, and I don't, I'm going to say that I, you know, this might sound negative, but I'm kind of wanting to just normalize this process. That it's a real difficult thing to start to recognize this and not start to express yourself and start to try and do that fifth rule of interacting with the narcissist that I talk often about, still wanting to just try to give them that “aha” moment, but just the oh, an aggressive “aha” moment that they will understand now that it is okay for you to have your own opinion.

And that is okay for you to speak up and you are going to start doing that more. And unfortunately that isn't what is going to change that other person. As a matter of fact, you're handing them this data in real time of what other buttons to push and those buttons come reflexively from the narcissist or the emotionally immature. So when you say I finally am going to speak my voice, you can watch as a variety of responses that I could probably put on this wheel of narcissism could ensue. Finally, I've been begging you to say something our whole life. I ask your opinion all the time. You never give it or it could even be an oh, okay, so now you've got everything figured out. You're the smart one now, I guess I'm the dumb one. You know, or okay, well, yeah, you go and do whatever the heck it is you want to do and see how you like it there, because I'm going to tell your parents, I'm going to tell the courts or everybody that you're crazy. And you remember that one time that you didn't help the kids with their homework. And I'm going to show that you're an unfit mother. And so the emotional immature narcissist at that point is it's not like there's going to be anything different where that “aha” moment is still going to come. So unfortunately, when you get more angry and frustrated and fired up, then that is now just aggressively, just throwing these buttons over to your partner where maybe you used to hand them the buttons kind of kindly. Hey, you could talk a little nicer to the kids like that, and that's like a kind handing over of the button. And now you're just chucking those buttons at him as hard as you can. So yeah, they might hurt a little bit, but man, he's going to throw them right back at you and throw them back probably even harder.

And so I think this is one of the most difficult things is that the whole body keeps the score trauma vibe. When you finally feel like, I just can't take it anymore. And now I've been given a voice and I hear about other people that have a similar problem. And that my relationship isn't the only one. And that holy cow, I did not even know what I didn't know. I mean, even as I'm saying it right now, I feel like, you know, my own heart rate is elevating. And so that's that part where I like what she said at the end, I would like to be able to get my amygdala back to normal. So I feel like the unfortunate part is when somebody gets angry and frustrated, then their fight or flight response kicks in. We talk so often about the flight. You know, or even the fon where somebody just shuts down. But when you start to realize, oh my gosh, I did not have to be dealing with this my whole life, then that fight response kicks in. And unfortunately, when your heart rate elevates and you go into that fight or flight response, and it's that fight one in particular, then that is also triggering the person that you are now in conflict with.

And now their amygdala is right there, hijacked as well. But unfortunately now you're dealing with the emotional immaturity of a 10 year old boy who is now just going to throw out all kinds of things to try to hurt you at that moment. And it can be very, very bad. A thing is very bad accusations and words. So just know that unfortunately that's part of this process. So when you then are able to step back from that moment, that's the part where you’ve got to give yourself grace. You know, take a breather. And that's why I appreciate this person saying they did have to get away from this person to even start to feel like they were okay. And so when she said, when I left home, now I'm so happy in the moment, day to day, I feel so much lighter not being around him. And that goes back to that visceral or gut reaction that your emotions travel two and a half times faster than your logic. When data comes in through your eyes or your ears, it's converted these little electrical signals that go right to that amygdala and it says, okay, is this safe? And if you do not feel safe, then your brain is going to say, well, we don't even need those frontal lobes. We don't need logic or reason right now. We need adrenaline. We need cortisol. We need to shut down that logical part of the brain. Because there's no negotiating with a saber tooth tiger.

And now it is on. And so that is going to happen the more that you're around somebody that has been emotionally, physically, sexually, verbally, spiritually, financially abusive. So part of that waking up process is going to be this frustration. So if at any point when you recognize, oh, my amygdala is on its way to getting hijacked right now. I'm noticing people getting out of their seats on my amygdala plane and they look a little sketchy. They’re probably hijackers. At that point, we need to land that plane. You need to get out of the room and you will hear things on your way out of, okay. Fine, run. Leave. What about me? I mean, the buttons. That doesn't mean the buttons are not gonna be pushed. Again, if you're setting a boundary that whenever things are starting to go south, I'm going to exit the conversation. I'm going to exit the situation. I then know that that boundary now became a challenge. Oh, sure you will. Like you always do your runaway, this, the shows I'm going to tell everybody about this. All the buttons will just keep being pressed even on your way out. So back to when some determined to break this cycle, hey, you are, you know, you are because you're figuring it out. You're writing into a podcast, you're listening to a podcast, you're getting out of the environment. So your amygdala will calm down. I don't have any more time to waste on the relationship.

I can appreciate that. But how do I maintain this long term? I go back to the first rule of those five rules I like to talk about, and this is raising that emotional baseline. This is you time. This is self care, it is not a selfish time. So I want to talk about this big, big soapbox of mine is how we handle our thoughts. And so I feel like there's three things that I think that we just don't quite do correctly or we could do better with our thoughts. So the first thing is that when we are left to just ruminate and contemplate and try to figure out and try to make sense, that's not the most productive thing to do right now. Not, not at all as a matter of fact. Because right now, what you need to do is do things because the more that you try to just sit and figure out and stew and ruminate, then the more that you are going to start to feel that guilt, that shame that maybe it was me. Maybe I did something wrong. Okay. I understand. Now maybe I can go back in.

And Michael Twohig is a world-renowned acceptance and commitment therapy researcher that was on the Virtual Couch a few weeks ago. He had some amazing quotes. And one of those was he talked about healthy, happy people spend 80% of their time doing things that are important. And he made a point to say, it's not just doing things that are fun, but doing things that are important. So doing things that are important is not ruminating, doing things that are important are doing things. Things that are of value to you, things that will, at some point, even a healthy distraction, it will occupy your time. Because again, sitting in that discomfort of the relationship and the potential breaking of a relationship. Then that's where you're going to start to feel all those emotions and you're going to want to alleviate that feeling of discomfort by wanting to go and make peace with the emotionally immature person.

Now Michael Twohig also said that unhealthy, unhappy people spend 80% of their time in essence chasing pleasure or fun. And then I have since added to his quote. So, I'm hoping that he would be fine with this. But I have since added to his quote that then, yeah, 80% are unhappy, unhealthy people spend 80% of their time seeking this pleasure, but also trying to avoid discomfort or pain. And when we're trying to get rid of that, then it becomes even more prevalent and just upfront. So with that said, I feel like it is so important to just go and do, do things, do things that matter, do things that are important. Because that is going to keep you out of the rumination phase. And really at that point early on, you're trying to make sense of things that just don't make sense.But back to the concepts around things, I think we can do better when it comes to our thoughts. First thing that I think we do that is unproductive is we say, what's wrong with me? Why am I even thinking about this? Why am I doing this? Why am I going through this? Why is this so difficult? Why, why, why?

And let's start with, nothing's wrong with you. You're a human and you think and feel and behave the way you do because you're, you. Again, you are the product of your nature, your nurture, your birth order, your DNA, abandonment, rejection hopes, fears, dreams. That is what makes you, you. So guess what comes along with that? Your thoughts, your feelings and your emotions. Nothing's wrong with you. You're not broken. You're a human being. So when we say, what's wrong with me? Nothing. Part two is I need to stop thinking about this. I need to stop thinking about him. I need to stop thinking about how I can fix this, but then that's also saying I need to stop thinking about the plaid elephant wearing a tan, cowboy hat. So right now I'd imagine we all just thought of a plaid elephant wearing a tan cowboy hat and even tried to do one that I can't even quite muster up the image, but I sure did. So when you tell yourself, don't think of something, your brain's like, I will continue to think it. Psychological reactants, that instant negative reaction to being told what to do. It is built in, it’s innate, it's a survival mechanism. So instead of, what's wrong with me? Nothing. I need to stop thinking that. Now I just need to notice that I'm thinking that.

And then the other portion of that, that I think that we don't quite do as productive as we can, as we think is well, okay, instead of thinking about all the bad things or instead of trying to think about how it could work, I'm going to think about all the horrible things that he's done. But even then we're still paying way too much emotional, we're burning emotional calories, and spending this extra energy on still thinking about him. We have to think about the positive, but then think about the negative. So instead, this is just a moment to say, man, check that out. Look at what I'm thinking right now. Thinking about, I'm telling myself the old, “I can figure it out” story. I'm telling myself the old, “if I would have only done this” story, that's adorable. Thank you brain. That's what you've been doing. I appreciate it. Hasn't really worked very well. So now I'm going to go do. And then your brains going to say, oh, what are you going to do? You don't even know what to do. And there we go again. You know, oh, it's the old, “I'm not even sure what to do” story. So right now I'm going to do anything. I am going to walk outside and interact with the world. Life. I'm going to watch a show that I've heard about. I'm going to play a game. I mean, those don't sound like the most productive things in the world, but they are far more productive than trying to figure out how can I go back into the relationship and make it different when I've been trying that for two decades?

Okay. I want to shift gears a little bit because I found an article that I stumbled upon. And I know I use the phrase pathologically kind often, and I believe it was a couple of episodes ago where I was going through the five rules of interacting with a narcissist. And I might've answered that question about where did that pathologically kind concept come from, and it comes from Ross Rosenberg's work and the human magnet syndrome, but it turns out he didn't actually say pathologically kind, he was talking about that the kind people that are assuming the best or are thinking the best in others. And as a matter of fact, let me pull up human magnet syndrome. And I love Ross's work and he's been a guest on the podcast and here is what he says. So the human magnet syndrome thesis. He said, “Due to unconscious trauma based psychological forces, co-dependence and pathological narcissists are almost always attracted to each other. The resulting relationship is mostly breakup resistant and narcissists benefit the most from this situation.” And here's what I appreciate is he takes on the term codependency. He says, “Codependency is both a relationship and an individual condition that can only be resolved by the codependent. Many codependents are attracted to and maintain long term breakup resistant relationships with pathological narcissists.” And here's where I think I got the pathological kindness, this next concept that he talks about. He said, “Most codependents are selfless and deferential to the needs and desires of others over themselves. They are pathologically caring, responsible and sacrificing people whose altruism and good deeds are rarely reciprocated.”

So I love the concept. Even when we talk about confabulated memory, look at me. Confabulating that story right there. After reading that, and I had read it many times, then I jump on when I do an episode about pathological loneliness and I find his, the more about the human magnet syndrome and what Ross talks about as self-love deficit disorder, which is one of the things that he's bringing into the zeitgeists to address the almost formerly known as codependency. And so he talks about pathologically caring and then I moved forward from there calling the people pathologically kind, and I think it really does still fit. So he said that they are pathologically caring, responsible, and sacrificing people whose altruism and good deeds are rarely reciprocated. So he says, “While some codependents are resigned to their seemingly permanent relationship role, others actively, albeit unsuccessfully, attempt to change it. These people have become preoccupied with opportunities to avoid change and or control their narcissistic partners. And despite the inequities in their relationships and the consequence suffering, they do not end their partnerships.” So he said codependency is not just limited to romantic couplings as it manifests itself in varying degrees and most other significant relationships.

And so what I appreciate about that is that fits right into my number five rule, the nothing you will say or do will cause them to have the aha moment or the epiphany. And so I feel like that's where he talks about these in his view of codependency. Or these pathologically caring, or I call them now pathologically kind people. That they are almost what he says, resigned to the seemingly permanent relationship role, others actively albeit unsuccessfully attempting to change it. But the people become preoccupied where I would say you're spending a lot of emotional energy and burning a lot of emotional calories, which literally will leave people feeling absolutely exhausted and sometimes unable to show up as the best version of themselves with their kids or in their workplace or with their friends, because they are preoccupied with opportunities to avoid change and/or control their narcissistic partners. And again, he says, despite that inequity, because they can never cause that other person to have the aha moment. Then it leads to this consequence suffering, but they are not the ones to end the partnerships. And as a matter of fact, when you have that pathological narcissist, incredibly, emotionally immature person, when you provide them more data in your attempt to try and solve or fix the relationship in general, then that will come back to bite you.

I was talking with someone recently and they said that they, in a moment of just tenderness, it was a guy who said he reached out to his partner and said, hey, I realized that I wasn't the best person years ago. I didn't give you the attention or the love that you really desired and this is somebody who I think has continually gone back and tried to give that other person the aha moment. And then sure enough, this person said that it wasn't very long before that was then used against them. So now every time that, the all every time there's an all or nothing statement, but often now when they argue, then his spouse will bring up the, okay, see, you've already admitted that you weren't that great of a person or you didn't give me what I need. So now you must be doing that again. So here in a moment of tenderness where this person offered up this, you know, the guy itself confronted and he had really realized that he had, he played a role in this. That when he presented that to his partner, now it continually gets used against them. So that's the concept around that human magnet syndrome, the pathologically kind. And that is what has led to me wanting to break down this article because I think that this thing is just so fascinating because of that topic of kindness.

And kindness is a good thing. One of the women's group calls a couple of weeks ago I really tried to go into some depth about it's a form of betrayal when someone that takes that gift that you have, and then turns it around against you and then makes you feel like the gift of kindness or compassion is actually a negative thing because in a healthy, emotionally mature relationship, that kindness can be an amazing thing. Now, the kindness of trying to control or change others can be something that we could take a look at, but just a value of kindness or compassion, that is a beautiful, amazing thing. And will lead people to do really good things. But I think the part that, in this scenario pathologically kind, Ross talks about the codependent person. That kindness is putting the needs of others far ahead of the needs of themselves. And that's where I feel like when people are in healthy relationships, what happens over time is that kindness becomes nurtured and the person starts to feel like that really is one of their super powers. And they don't do that at the cost of their own self-esteem or their own self image, they raise their emotional baseline up so they can be the best version of themselves. And then use that kindness for good, not to try to explain or try to convince. And so, I'm going to read an article off of a website called charterforcompassion.org.

And just listen to this title alone, “Discovery: ‘Kindness’ Gene So Powerful It Can Be Detected by Strangers in 20 Seconds.” And this is some of that stuff that I really feel like three, four years ago, I would've looked at as, man, is that a little bit woowoo? Or now that we actually are finding the psychology and the science, the backup, the woowoo around energy and vibes and all of these things. I mean, whether it's mirror neurons or pheromones or whatever that looks like, but now, let's talk about your alleles and your DNA. So this is by Tima Vlasto, again, the article is titled “Discovery: ‘Kindness’ Gene So Powerful It Can Be Detected by Strangers in 20 Seconds.” Tima writes that man or woman across the bar, somebody you can trust or empathetic enough to spill out your story of pain and suffering to. “Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have found compelling evidence that healthy humans are hardwired to recognize empathetic strangers who can help them within 20 seconds. So if we go back to Ross's human magnet syndrome hypothesis, that the pathologically caring, pathologically kind person, if they are the ones that are putting out this kindness, energy vibe. And we're going to see if it's literally in their DNA. That then somebody can be hardwired to recognize that empathetic person within 20 seconds. So then is that where the human magnet begins to form. So there's a quote we've known that genotype can influence personality, but we'd only ever studied what goes on inside a person.

Things like behavioral scales and heart rate measurements, says Rodrigues Saturn PhD, A senior author of the study and an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon state university in Corvallis. This is the first time anyone has observed how different genotypes manifest themselves and behaviors. That complete strangers can pick up on. So over the past five to seven years, researchers have been exploring how genetics affect emotions, says Alexander Cogan, lead author of the study, and a postdoctoral student at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. What we're learning is that to a certain extent, we have a genetic basis that supports a lot of the processes that make us nice. So you could have kindness and niceness, literally in your DNA in particular, researchers have focused on a hormone called oxytocin. I've done an episode on the Virtual Couch. It's called the cuddle hormone, the feel good drug, that brings us together. So oxytocin has been linked to emotions like love and trust, and it's found in a variety of animals. “Higher levels of oxytocin have been linked to higher levels of trustworthiness, empathy, and willingness to sacrifice,” Cogan said. Widely known as the cuddle or love hormone. Oxytocin is secreted into the bloodstream and the brain. Where it promotes social interaction, bonding, and romantic love among other functions.

So in this UC Berkeley study, 24 couples provided their DNA and then researchers documented the couples while they discussed the times when they had suffered and video recorded the partner who was listening. So later a separate group of 116 observers viewed the 22nd video clips of the listeners. And it says then we asked to rate which seemed the most trustworthy kind and compassionate based on their facial expressions and body language. None of the viewers knew the video subjects and they watched the clips with the sound off. So they had no knowledge of the situation being discussed. They were then asked to rate how kind, caring, and trustworthy the listening partner seemed based only on visual cues. So the listeners who got the highest ratings for empathy, it turned out and here's where it gets kind of spooky, possess a particular variation of the oxytocin receptor gene known as the GG genotype. So, the article says all humans inherit a variation of this gene or an allele from each parent. So the UC Berkeley study looked at the three combinations of gene variations of the oxytocin receptor. The most empathetic, able to get an accurate read on other's emotions had two copies of this G allele. So in contrast, members of the AA and AG allele groups were found to be less capable of putting themselves in the shoes of others. And more likely to get stressed out in difficult situations. So, I mean, I'm not a genetics expert or aficionado, but here is where if you have these two G alleles and getting each one of those from a parent, then you will literally have a greater capacity to put yourself in the shoes of others. And it looks like that is something that then can be outwardly, I don't know if it's manifested, or if people just pick up on that. So, Cogan said people can't see genes, so there has to be something going on that is signaling these genetic differences to strangers.

He said, “What we found is that people who had two copies of the G version displayed more trustworthy behaviors, more head nods, more eye contact, more smiling, more open body posture. And it was these behaviors that signaled kindness to the strangers.” So I wonder then if this empathetic two GG alleles in their genetic makeup person. As they head nod, make more eye contact, more smiling, more open body posture, now meet up with the pathological narcissist or the incredibly, emotionally immature person who desperately subconsciously from childhood wanted that validation. And wanted to know that they matter. And if we look at deep attachment theory, if somebody didn't have a secure attachment with a parent, then they just need to know that they exist in the way that they know that they exist is to absolutely, I want to say ensnare or entrap someone, so that they will always have this person. They're there, period. Not saying a loving, mutually beneficial reciprocal relationship, but let's say, this is my hypothesis, that pathological narcissist meets this double G allele, oxytocin, super power, empathetic kind person who all of a sudden is putting out this vibe or energy to the person who desperately at their core just desires connection, but doesn't know how to do it accurately or correctly. They only know how to do that in a controlling way. Not taking ownership of things.

And then you've got the person continuing to head nod, make eye contact, smile, and open body posture. And it just seems like you can almost see the pieces starting to fit together of what creates this human magnet syndrome. So Cogan pointed out that having the AA or AG instead of the GG genotype does not mark a person as unsympathetic. So this isn't an all or nothing kind of concept. And he says, although scientists used to refer to the gene A variant as a risk variant because it increases risk of autism and social dysfunction. Many experts now think of the variation as just that variation that may along with other forces play out in personalities. Rodrigues, Saturn said it's important to understand that some people are naturally more held back or may be overcome by their own personal stresses and have a hard time relating to others. She says, “These are people who just may need to be coaxed out of their shells a little, it may not be that we need to fix people who exhibit less social traits, but that we recognize that they are overcoming a genetically influenced trait and they may need more understanding and encouragement.”

And this is where that just fine line or there's so much gray area where, when I like to say that, okay, let's start with almost the hypothesis with the assumption that we really, none of us have the right tools to communicate effectively. And so then it's a matter of, we go through things and then we have to find tools. We have to get help. But then that process now finding the right tool. And then implementing the tool. And now you've got two people in the relationship. So as one person changes the dynamic, the relationship, it really is up to them now to self confront and really say, okay, now I get it. It's my opportunity for me to be a better person to show up differently in this relationship and not try to fix the other person. But at that point then is the other person going to recognize they too don't know what they don't know. And is that going to be an opportunity to self confront. So I feel like that can start to sound a little bit overwhelming, but if we start knowing what we didn't know, then now we can have this opportunity to change. So Cogan said that many factors ultimately influenced kindness and cooperation. He said, “The oxytocin receptor gene is one of those factors, but there are many other forces in play, both genetic and non-genetics.” Here we go into nature or nurture. Cogan said, “How all these pieces fit together to create the coherent whole of an individual who is, or is not, kind is still a great mystery that we're only beginning to scratch.”

So I want to be very clear that I just found this fascinating in all of these, or I'm just throwing out some hypotheses, but when you combine this kindness, this kindness gene. And then you look at pathological narcissism and you look at pathological caring and kindness as Ross Rosenberg has talked about. I just feel like, okay. The picture is starting to become a little more clear, but then I find myself being guilty of what I say so often of, you know, sometimes we try to make sense of things that don't make sense. So it's nice to bring awareness, kind of a check this out. I wonder if it may be that helps us move forward as individuals on starting to recognize, okay. If I have two of these GG alleles and I have this superpower gift of empathy and my oxytocin is flowing, then that means I'm actually, I'm okay. And if the other person in the relationship is not someone who is able to recognize, appreciate, or support the emotionally kind person, then that doesn't mean that you can go against your genetic code, your DNA. If anything, man, what an opportunity to lean into that. So in an emotionally mature relationship, I would hope that the partner of somebody that is kind and compassionate can start to really recognize that as, that is them. What an amazing gift and opportunity it is to be in a relationship with somebody who is pathologically kind, who has these double GG alleles sitting in their DNA that makes that oxytocin flow. And if somebody, then let's say the more emotionally immature person can recognize, man, you know, I'm the one that is dealing with my discomfort in an unhealthy way. And I can recognize that my partner is my partner and what a gift. And then hopefully that will allow them to start to do their own work and self confront. And the two of you maybe can meet in both emotionally mature and healthy ways. And I find that even right now, as I'm saying that, what a mix. I'm sure the people that are hearing this, because there are people that still just desperately want to believe that this can be their situation, their relationship, and that's where I want to say this entire podcast is designed to meet you where you're at, but ultimately know that you are okay, that you are enough. That it's okay for you to have your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And the more we start learning about the brain, DNA, alleles that are sitting on chromosomes, that it really is who you are. And so someone telling you not to be who you are is not a helpful, productive thought or exercise.

And the more that you are trying to defend who you are, or the more that you are shrinking so that others around you won't feel uncomfortable, then that is going against your very nature. You know, the very core of who you are all the way down to your chromosomal level. So, hopefully this is something that can help you feel a little bit more of acceptance of what a gift. And if someone is trying to say, I don't like that gift, well, bless their heart. They don't really know what that gift is like. And unfortunately they may spend so much time trying to control your gift, your thoughts, your experience, that they too are missing out on a whole important part of life, which is trying to figure out who they are, but that's not on you.

So, I would love to know your thoughts. If you have additional questions, comments, anything like that, feel free to send them to me. Through the website, tonyoverbay.com, or send them to me at contact@tonyoverbay.com. Or you can interact with the post or the story that will go up about this on Instagram or on Facebook. And, I just appreciate you being here. And just know that man, you really, as cliche as that sounds, you're good. You're enough. I see you. And, wherever you're at is where you are right now. And that's okay. Check that out. You're not doing anything wrong. You're just starting to figure things out. And it can feel uncomfortable. A lot of the times we don't like discomfort. Sometimes being able to sit with a little bit of discomfort, you find out that, hey, I survived and I'm okay. And that'll start to give you a little bit of momentum. So work on that emotional baseline. Self care is not selfish. That's the first step. After recognizing that, okay, this is a thing, something's happening here. So get yourself in a place where you can do even more work to better yourself. To put yourself in a better position. And then either that person that you're in a relationship with is maybe going to say, all right, man, I don't want to miss out on that, but in reality, you're going to discover that, oh, I'm okay. I'm a pretty amazing person. And that's what's going to lift those around you as well as yourself. So, thanks again for joining me. We'll see you next week on Waking Up to Narcissism.

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Tony interviews Michael Rucker, Ph.D. In 2016, Michael experienced a series of serious setbacks that caused him to challenge the tools he had built over the previous two decades as a student of positive psychology. Ultimately finding himself “unhappy, a bit lonely, and burnt out,” Michael critically evaluated modern approaches to happiness. He quickly realized how much misinformation was being spread, and that caused Michael to spend the next few years researching the evidence-based practices that ultimately led him to discover the real way to “invite more fun and joy” into his life. Michael's book, “The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life,” https://amzn.to/3jAtln8 is the result of his journey. You can learn more about Michael at his website https://michaelrucker.com/

Transcript

Tony: Okay. Mike Rucker, welcome to the Virtual Couch.

Mike: Thank you so much for having me.

Tony: Yeah, no, I appreciate you coming on, and this is the part where I think it's that funny thing where I go find your background and you've done so many things, so I'm going to sound like an egomaniac for 15 seconds, but I get a fair amount of people that want to come on the show with the publicists and promoting books and I can't lie, I don't read a lot of them because a lot of them, I'm a transformational meditative life coach who wants to help you get the best out of, you know, all this stuff. But man, right out of the gate, you had me sucked in because I'm a big fan of fun and then I responded right away, and then you were kind enough to send a galley copy of the book, and I just, I love it. And then I go on your website and realize, okay, you're throwing me a bone by coming on my podcast. So I really, I appreciate your reaching out. You've done a lot of pretty amazing things.

Mike: Thank you. No, I, and again, I'm grateful for just having the opportunity, but I appreciate that.

Tony: And what I really like and I want to just kind of sit back and have you share your background because what I love is when people are going to hear all that you have gone through. I love that in your book, on your website, it sounds like, oh well you've got it made. You've kind of figured out life. And so I feel like, boy, you've got the experience to speak to the pursuit of just this happiness or joy or feel good feelings maybe isn't quite what it's panned out to be.

Mike: I kind of generally jump into the story. Around 2007, I was introduced to Marty Segelman’s work. And for folks that don't know who that is, he's sort of the person that brought positive psychology to the forefront. It was really the grandfather of this concept called flow, that's commonly talked about but I was coming out of a mentorship program from a clinical psychologist by the name of Michael Jervey. He remains a trusted mentor to this day and was kind of focused on peak performance and thought, I hadn't done my academic work, my postdoctoral work yet, but was trying to figure out where did I want to put my dent in the universe? And around that time I was invited to become a charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association because that movement was really growing right between the years of 2007, 2009. And I just drank from that well, and a lot of those tools and strategies, kind of coupled with over quantifying my tactics, were really successful up until 2016. I love to talk about it. I love to use them, in the rear view mirror I can say I'd over optimized my life, but at the time it felt like it was a warm glove that I was doing everything right. And then what happened was in 2016, my younger brother suddenly passed away from a pulmonary embolism, and that just kind of knocked me on my butt. And so I had low level anxiety up to that point, but I had been able to mitigate it fairly well through endurance exercise. And so this next event doesn't correlate to my brother's death, but it was just a misfortune that happened in the same timeframe. I found out quite suddenly that I had advanced osteoarthritis probably due to an injury and would have to get a hip replacement. And because it was at such a young age that I couldn't ever run again.

Tony: You're a two time Ironman.

Mike: So I did it, you know, sort of my own way. But yeah, I was able to complete two of them. I mean, I've really enjoyed the sport as an amateur. I think I've always kind of had that insight to really enjoy the activities that you're doing. Obviously I've brought science to the forefront in this book, the Fun Habit, but it was also a medicinal activity for me, right. I mean, I think it's certainly in my experience, been better for me to mitigate anxiety through exercise rather than pharmaceutical intervention. But that particular method that was really habituated in my life was taken away.

Tony: I know that you and I don't know each other and I have to say, with my audience, and I feel like that's why they're going to appreciate this so much. I talk often, I'm an ultramarathon runner and a dozen or more hundred mile runs and that's been what I thought was my, who I was. And I tore my meniscus and it's shredded like chicken according to the surgeon. And so I've been processing this a lot, even with my own audience over the last two or three years, of not being able to get that and not even realizing what medicine that was, the ultra running and the endurance. So that's why I really appreciate what you're sharing there, because that's a big thing to take away when somebody used that as a coping mechanism.

Mike: It's twofold, right? That we can both kind of empathize with each other is that one, it's this tool that was fairly successful and someone essentially took it out of our toolbox and smashed it in front of us, right? But then ultimately there's a big loss, right? Because that was, you know, what I've come to discover, I don't think I had this type of awareness back then, but what really lights us up, especially when we're not chasing happiness, is the connection to that activity, right? And so for me, I really did have a true love for running, not necessarily biking and swimming although I've been trying to develop that with cycling because I really do enjoy using my Peloton now as an alternative method.

Tony: We are the same cloth, Mike. We have to do a whole separate podcast on that because I have, I have the padded shorts now, the whole nine yards. So that’s kind of funny.

Mike: Yeah, so, and then the third kind of piece was having, sorry. My wife got an opportunity that took us out of California. So we were born and raised, both her in Southern California and myself in Northern California. But all of our friends and family, our support network was there and she had just supported me through my doctoral work while having two children during that period. And so it's not like I look at relationships as, you know, that there's any sort of equity that you have to pay back, but certainly, I did feel indebted for her having my back. And she got this job opportunity in North Carolina and that moved us away from friends and family and so, to make a long story short, I still wanted all these tools of positive psychology to be successful because I had in the past, and the more I tried to chase happiness, the less happier I was becoming, and I didn't understand why. And serendipitously through that period, there was emerging research. One researcher that I always quote, her name's Dr. Oursmouse, out of Cal Berkeley, but there's others. But her studies have been replicated, is that, especially in the western world, folks that are overly concerned with being happy. So not necessarily valuing happiness, right? I think all of us want people to be happy and flourish. That's not problematic at all. So I'm, I always try to be clear about that distinction, but folks that are overly concerned, so the metaphor or the illustration I like to use, and it applied to me at that time is that you see happiness over in the horizon and you identify where you are and you see the delta, the space in between the two. And you allow that space to start to bleed into your identity, right? Like, well, happiness is over there. And even though you're doing things actively to try and get there, you always see the space. You start to perseverate on the space. And that subconsciously starts to help you identify as being unhappy and you don't understand why, to the point if you believe the research that it can actually lead to mental illness.

Tony: Which I do agree and it's funny because I feel like that, I'll be happy if, or I'll be happy when I like that example because that I'll be happy when is always on the horizon. And in the cases where somebody gets there, well, I'll be happy when I make six figures, but then they get there and, okay, that must not be it. I need a million bucks, so I'll be happy when the kids are out of the house. So I'll be happy when I have six pack abs. So I like what you're saying because in your book you talked about we're so good at anticipating, I mean, is that part of that?

Mike: Yeah. Anticipating, adapting and comparing, and that's exactly it. In literature we call that the hedonic treadmill. But I'm at, you're spot on. The idea is if you believe evolutionary science, and I, I think, they make a sound point. We weren't meant to be in that state all the time because if we were, we would be satiated and bored and kind of lazy. And so those tools psychologically are meant to motivate us into certain behaviors. Now, once we become mindful of it, and get kind of, you know, figure out how to navigate our monkey mind we can have better control, right? But when you're sort of lost in that sea, it can become extremely problematic. And that's what happened to me.

Tony: I'm curious, does that research, because I want to interview her now. Because I'd love that in the ACT research I love, they talk about the brain as essentially a don't get kill device. And so it wasn't designed to seek pleasure all the time. And I like to make the joke of, we had to have a court jester. I mean, they used to have to literally have somebody come in and hey, right, five minutes, be happy. And if he wasn't good at it, they'd kill him. And so, I mean, that just is not our default. And then I feel like when we go to rest, our brain goes to worst case scenario. And I like what you're saying. I feel like in evolutionary biology, they talk about that because if we don't anticipate danger, then we're going to all of a sudden walk around a corner and there's gonna be a saber tooth tiger to kill us. So our default goes back to this negative.

Mike: Yeah. No one's given me the prompt to really jump deep into the weeds and so, I'll be careful here not to do that too much. And I say that to the end of the book because it is kind of sticky, and also not an area where I have an immense amount of expertise. But I was fascinated by the fact that almost all of our biological symptoms, that is the number one goal. And why that becomes problematic means that even from a psychological standpoint, we never want to accept that. And so, yes, the reason why I had to kind of back into that is that if we do and use the limited finite component of time as a motivational tool, it becomes extremely effective. Everyone that has an intimate sort of relationship with knowing that we have a finite time here on earth essentially changes the way they live because they look at everything as an opportunity. Right? Where the treadmill metaphor becomes problematic is we sort of think that the treadmill is never going to end. And that is really, our modus operandi right now with our brain, because our brain doesn't want to think we're going to die again. Every system is meant to sort live, you know, avoid death.

Tony: Okay. Can I stay in the weeds with you? Because I've never talked about this out loud, but one of the things that broke my brain for a minute is in the book, there's Sapiens and there's one called Homo Deus by the same author.

Mike: Oh my gosh, Sapiens is hands down what changed my life.

Tony: Have you read the follow up?

Mike: I haven't yet, it's been recommended, but with Sapiens, because I know you're going to get into it, but just in case we had a divergent path for me where I woke up was because I was kind of lost, from a spiritual standpoint and in some other ways as well. And when you get done with Sapiens, you know, I'm not one of those Elon Musk types that believe we live in a matrix. But you do realize that every social norm in our lives that kind of dictates the way we operate was made by man. You believe that book like, holy cow, money is fake, government and corporations are fake. You know, maybe God exists as a universal law. But religion and dogma around it are made up, and then you're just like, every single thing that's not tangible, has essentially been created by us. And you can start to then figure out the rules.

Tony: No, it's so good. And I will absolutely keep all this in because, and then I think some of the people are going to think, okay, and then we need to go watch YouTube to see if they put on tin foil hats at this point. And we're not, because I feel like if you want the, you know, I went from Sapiens to one called On Being Certain, and that one's another one where he is like, hey, our brain seeks and craves certainty, and that's why we ruminate and fixate on things and how adorable that is because we have to accept the fact that maybe there isn't certainty and he goes into challenging the way that our brain works and remember things and so we need to stop ruminating and thinking and just start doing. And he has this comment where he says, basically we're 3 billion neurons walking around just reacting to things and trying to make sense of it. But we think it's the other way around. I'm going to make sense of things and then do, and so. Then I'm in a full blown existential crisis, you know? But then eventually you'll land the plane with man. Then Deus comes around, Homo Deus and the part that broke my brain, Mike, was he said, eventually we are gonna solve death, that's the next frontier that people are trying to do in the brand new world. And he talked about, I think he even said Google, 20% of their funds are going into companies that are trying to extend death. And it freaked me out a little bit when he said something like, I think people, I don't know how old you are, I'm 53. So we might be the last generation that gets old is the way he's proposing it. But then he said this thing that blew my mind where he is like, but if all of a sudden death didn't matter, then people wouldn't really live. So I like what you're saying, because then he said if leaving your house was a chance you would die and now you're going to miss out on, who knows, thousands of years? And I all of a sudden think of that movie Wally, where we're all just sitting in these chairs and having virtual reality experiences. Because I don't want to go outside because I might get hit by a truck or that kind of thing. And so, and I couldn't understand what he was saying at first, but I think it's exactly what you're saying, where the fact that we know we will die is our opportunity to live and then I'm back, then I'm out of my existential crisis. And now let's do it. Right?

Mike: Yeah. I think going back to neuroscience, that pair as well, I'm a big fan of Lisa Feldman Barrett, and what she's been able to do is make a strong case that we're not cause and effect beings, we're more predictive beings because I think, I believe that's true. Yeah. It becomes really true when you look at how dopamine was positioned and how wrong we were. Right? Dopamine isn't a pleasure chemical. It's really an excitement chemical. We know that dopamine gets released, you know when we anticipate that. And so once you figure that out, and that's like, we're having a lot of fun here. So for me, yeah, I love to build systems, right? I still like to kind of understand my world. And again, that's why Sapiens was so interesting, like wow if you figure out how the rules were developed, then maybe you figure out the map but then can start to explore the territory as a work. So I paired that with something completely outta context, Annie Duke's work, with regards to predictions and that, how once you start to place good bets, if we are predictive machines, then let's look at our choices through the realm of probability rather than our anxious minds, which have both kind of shared, you know, where it's like, I think this is going to happen. No, there's a spectrum of things that can happen and let's plan for the ones that have a high probability. And that's really helped me.

Tony: I love it. I know this is so good I think my audience is going to resonate with this, Mike, because I feel like this is the stuff I just talk about incessantly on when I have my individual episodes or so I'm, grateful for you going on this path because I feel like once the, it goes back to that paradox of I feel like the whole mental health industry, and that's what I'm in, is almost, we're teaching the opposite of what feels natural. And I think it goes back to, because what feels natural is the brain saying, hey, I'll do, I'll just keep doing the same thing because at least I know what that feels like. And I can live, but in reality, you know, and that's where we keep putting everything off till later and later. And eventually I like what you're saying, what it feels like to be me is I'll do it later. And eventually I didn't do it.

Mike: I think another thing that I've stumbled on, I'm still struggling a little bit to say it in an eloquent fashion. But I think especially your audience sort of understands psychology and probably to some degree psychiatry, is that we know that any of these interventions to some degree some work faster than others. And obviously benzos might work in real time. But for a majority of effective interventions, they take time. We need to build this health equity, right? And so an argument I make in the book, but it's not an as salient sort of bullet point way. You know, when you start to index fun activities, things that really light you up and where you're able to understand and actualize that you have some agency and autonomy even in a state where you might be in negative valence, which just is a fancy way of being in a bad mood, those become the building blocks, right? Those start to have an additive effect. And unfortunately, you're never going to be able to say in that day, this didn't really make me happy because it really is a long body sort of initiative. It’s a long game.

Tony: It is long, can I read, are you familiar with a book called The Buddha Brain by a guy named Rick Hanson?

Mike: I’m not familiar.

Tony: And my audience will probably go, I can repeat this with my memory, but he says, as much as the body is built from foods you eat, your mind is built from the experiences you have, the flow of experience, gradually sculpting your brain, thus shaping your mind but he says, some of the results can be explicitly recalled, like, this is what I did, this is how I felt, but most of it remains forever unconscious. And that's called implicit memory. And I think it's exactly what you're talking about. He said, include your expectations, models of relationships, emotional tendencies, general outlook. It establishes the interior landscape of your mind or what it feels like to be you based on the, and this is the part that I feel like is not a good sales pitch, the slow accumulating residue of lived experience. So it turns out it takes a while to create that interior landscape, but it can be one way or the other.

Mike: Yeah. I think, you know, again, kind of geeking out on it, we're starting to understand from learning models that all of this is really a way to coalesce very nonlinear ideas. Right? And so through the act of neuroplasticity, which was really looked at more as a way to build cognitive reserve or cognitive decline. But what has it advanced in folks that are studying that is like, wow, over time these neural networks really are way more complex than we ever thought, right? Like, there are regions of the brain that act as biology landmarks, but we now know that all of them have a synergistic sort of method of working together and everything is way more interconnected than we thought. I mean, we're really geeking out now, so outside the realm of the book. But it is neat. I got to talk to this amazing neuroscientist for the book. His name is Blake Porter. And another thing that blew me away are these neurochemicals that we often talk about that do have an immense amount of influence on how we perceive the world are also used for a host of other things.

Tony: Do you talk about oxytocin? I mean, is that one of them? Because I don't know enough about it, I just know it's called the cuddle hormone but is that one of them that we don't understand enough about? I didn't mean to cut you off.

Mike: Well I think we're starting to understand it more. The context of what I'm going to share applies to that as well. It does a lot more than we talk about with regards to reduction is science, right? So we'll say yeah, more serotonin is supposed to make us happy. And you know, there was just an interesting paper in nature that refutes that. And I think you have really smart people and the truth is probably in the middle, right? Another thing is these neurochemicals have a huge impact on our stomach and the way we digest things. That's often why folks that are on SSR eyes either lose weight or gain weight, and we don't necessarily know what's going to happen because it's, you know, this is, so, we're so in the weeds right now. But what I'm saying is that all of this does tend to have these big synergistic effects and they will be specific to your biology. So that's where things get really heady, right. We talk about it like, hey, you do this and this is going to happen, but that's rarely the case.

Tony: Right. So I love more psychological flexibility or flow like you're talking about. So, here's what I'll do, man let's just have an episode down the road and we will just, Mike and Tony geek out. So, I won't be able to promote the book because I really enjoyed the book. So you're in North Carolina, I think is where I probably took you down a rabbit hole.

Mike: So essentially what I discovered was that, again, chasing happiness is problematic, right? And so, once that was validated through the research that I was finding, and then I self actualized like, holy cow, I’m my own worst enemy with regards to what's happening to me. I was like, well, there's gotta be something I can do, right? And so I had just finished up work on workplace wellness and I realized that one of the biggest levers with regards to wellbeing, which is well studied in the workplace, but not necessarily at the individual level is autonomy, right? Is the ability of giving employees more control over the domain. And I said, well, if that's the case, how can that be applied to the south? Because, and once I started to dig in, there's a lot of research to suggest that as adults we do habituate our lives. We do think that, you know, we begin to lose control and then also, especially here in the west, we're sort of driven by the sense of duty. You know, there are various reasons for that. Some people believe it's sort of a relic of the puritan work ethic. Our lives have gotten extremely more complex because when we lived in a time where work was primarily algorithmic, meaning that we made things and we sort of understood what was desired by us and we knew when our workday ended, we could have this transition ritual and really enjoy our leisure time. Like, work is over, and now I get to play. And we know that play and that type of leisure is extremely important to keep up our vitality. And so what I kind of realized is, holy cow, we have completely forsaken our agency and autonomy. Let me experiment with what happens if I take that back because I want to live a joyful life and that was sort of, you know, I always kind of positioned as the light bulb, but it was more of a slow awakening. Right? You know, over time I started to take control of one hour, two hours and go. I'm not trying to solve for happy here. You know, these aren't things that I have to do. Let me celebrate that. I get to do them. And so instead of sort of trying to unpack what was wrong and be stuck in these periods of introspection and trying to solve something, I just went out and started enjoying time with my friends. And I know as simple as that sounds, it had these huge impacts and so that's where I think people are really resonating with the book because again, it's something that someone can really do, within five minutes if they sort of need to understand how complex the barriers are to get there because we don't like change a lot of the time. We habituate our behavior. Adding new things often times becomes difficult. And so a lot of times the work that people need to do right up front is actually figure out what they can take off their plate first and need that space.

Tony: And I love, I talk about when somebody will do that, they'll get the little dopamine bump of okay, but then I say, now listen to all the “Yeah, Buts” that come in. Well, yeah, but I need to do this. Or, yeah. But somebody well thinks I shouldn't or, so I'll do it later. I'll figure it out later. And then later.

Mike: No, that's exactly right. I think especially as busy adults, we'll fill our time if we're not deliberate about it. And so taking that type of control, again, as simple as it sounds, nobody really does this. But once you've freed up your schedule, actually schedule it. We've been sort of socially conditioned that our calendars are immutable, but they're primarily filled with work obligations or, for parents, oftentimes children's obligations. Like make it an obligation to reconnect with one of your best friends or to do an activity that you know, really lights you up. And then, another thing that becomes problematic and again, it goes back to this concept that I'm trying to figure out how to package to say more eloquently, but it is really this issue of equity, right? So one of the constructs that I think becomes difficult for especially parents, is this idea that oh, I can't do anything on a school night because that's just not how people do things, right? Like, no, you can go take dance classes Wednesday night, that's okay. And yeah, and once you're able to do that, there are two things that happen, right? One, it often comes from a place of guilt, but like, I won't be there for my kids. Well, were you there for your kids when you were so exhausted that you popped down on the couch and watched two hours of Netflix, that wasn't really time spent with your kids? So either be honest about that and actually spend time with your kids. Or realize that you're not doing anything restorative. Like essentially oftentimes when people do, sort of plop down on the couch, they're also on their phones. So it really just becomes an extension of work anyways. And so, changing out those types of activities is something that really lights you up and is completely separate from your sense of duty, starts to build more vitality into your life. The problem is you need to do it for like two or three weeks. So that's kind of the second hump, right? You don't actualize the benefit, but that time that you thought would burn you out, but I'll be so tired at work on Thursday, that's just not empirically true.

Tony: Okay. I'm glad you said that. Because I feel like that's a, yeah, but, and I feel like when people are saying, but I, but I am, but I am tired. And that's where sometimes I feel like it's so hard to get somebody to self confront with that.

Mike: Yeah just try it, right? Yeah. Self experiment, but you gotta do it for two to three weeks. Change is difficult. We create, you've discussed this, at least in the episodes that I've heard, about the issues of cognitive load, right? And so you add that extra burden, the change is going to be difficult at first, the storming, norming, forming process, you know, joining a new group. So all of it's going to seem kind of uncomfortable, especially for introverts. But that doesn't necessarily mean you don't do it.

Tony: No, I love that. I like what you're saying. I call it my emotional baseline theory where, you know, when your baseline's low, you're going to respond to everything different, but all the stuff's still coming at you and self care raises your baseline and you show up different. And so I think what you said a minute ago, I so appreciate where if somebody's sitting on the couch, they, they're not, are they being honest with themselves about what they're doing with their time? And 100% love what you say, because if I took that time and did something that raises my baseline, then I actually show up better as a parent, or whatever that looks like. And people all of a sudden need permission to do it, which I think is kind of interesting and that's why I think that concept gets brought up a lot. And I think your book is like a giant thing of permission, you know? Because you look at your background and then your experience and that's why I got kind of excited about this.

Mike: No, I think that's right. And so what I'll suggest to someone that you know is showing a lot of resistance against that is, look, there's 168 hours in the week, just pick one. Because changing out one hour isn't difficult, right? And if someone really wants to do the work, a time audit is an amazing sort of illuminating activity. Again, 168 hours like that is, it's not that fun to do. I admit that, but you know, if you can approach it with a level of curiosity, you are always amazed that, oh my goodness, I have habituated this behavior. Time is this really rubbery thing. Right. And it becomes interesting where you don't realize you're wasting time. Because when you're in those moments that aren't really encoding new memories, they just fly by. It's not flow by any sense, but when we reminisce back on them, they kind of get condensed as one memory. So we actualize them in a really strange manner where, where you think, we're kind of led to believe through cognitive error that , oh, I'm just passing time. Where when you start to encode richer experiences, those are the things that start to light you up because now you have a whole tapestry of really cool stuff. And the thing is, this might be worth the people that kind of kept with us during the weed part. The fact that we now know that the brain is a predictive, more than a cause and effect, that allows us to make better predictions. Like, I know I'm going to have fun, so I want to do the thing. Rather than that prediction like, well, this is not going to be that great, so I'm just not going to do it, it kind of falls into Carol Dweck's work, right, with regards to the problematic aspect of a fixed mind.

Tony: I'm reading one called the Expectation Effect right now, and it has some crazy stories about the expectation in our mind. As a prediction engine, they have one amazing one where a guy was taking placebo in a drug trial. And then he didn't know he had the placebo, didn't know how the drug trial worked. And he went into a coma because he overdosed. And so he's blacking out. He gets to the hospital, they break the double blind study and then the doctor says, you're okay. It's like sugar pills. And then he is okay. So I thought, man, look at how powerful the brain is. Where this guy takes 30 m and ms basically, and then he is ready to stroke out. And then until somebody tells him, that really wasn't medication. I mean that, that power of the brain in that way. So, man, if we can tap that into, I'm going to have a good time. I mean, it's kind of crazy.

Mike: Yeah. The one that fascinates me, I think I got access to it in Daniel Pink's Drive, but I could be wrong. Is that story about the study in the UK where they pulled a bunch of teachers within the class that the kids were all gifted even though they were average students. And then, and then all of a sudden, by the end of the year, they were all exceptional students. I mean, you know, this stuff is just so profound and, you know, I wish we used it more.

Tony: Well, is it on your website? I can't remember if you talked about it in your book or the website, but you've got some new activity is it every month or quarter? And you're again, intentionally just doing things, which, even if they aren't things that you have a passion for. I mean, is that part of what this is about.

Mike: It's not part of the book. It's something interesting I did in 2007 and I did it just because I like to kind of create these systems as I discussed before. I guess it was more radical than I initially believed. Like for me, I just wanted to continually keep my saw sharp. I think I might have just read Steve and, you know, I was like, oh, let me come up with something simple where the bar is low enough, I know I'll do it. And so I committed for 25 years to interview two people a quarter, do something kind of out of my comfort zone or fun every quarter, and then donate time and money, the idea there was I wanted to give one year of my life back. And so, I initially did it with just friends and family, as a way to commit to it, you know, like, hey, I'm going to email you every three months and let you know how it's going and I'm halfway through now. And I guess a lot of people are finding value in that story because they're like, you know, for me it was just a simple system, and obviously just doing a few things every three months isn't hard. But again, it goes back to that topic of equity, right? Like I guess now that I have stuck with it and I'm halfway through and gotten to talk to over a hundred amazing people, that's certainly been enriching, you know? I've had a lot of fun along the way too, because of these prompts to do that, you know?

Tony: Yeah. I apologize because I took you in the weeds so long that we only have a couple more minutes left for me but, I mean, I couldn't endorse the book enough and I'll have links to everything. And I want you to come back on and I'm going to, I had reached out to Mike before and I want him, I want to try to make him laugh. So we're going to do that as well but where do people find you, and kind of share all of your information cuz , your website alone was really fun as well. I mean, you got a nice, I like the video of the analogy going down the river and the boat. I mean that one really spoke for me. There's just a lot of good info. Yeah. So where do people find you?

Mike: So my website is michaelrucker.com. The book, the Fun Habit, is available for pre-order now unless you're listening to this after January 3rd, 2023. And then it's available for sale wherever you enjoy buying books. And I play a little bit on social media, perform better on Twitter and the Wonder of Fun on Instagram.

Tony: Okay. All right, Mike, are you ready?

Mike: I don't, like I said, I'm the worst joke teller which is ironic.

Tony: Well, the name of the book though. Fun. I mean, so, right, but no pressure here. And I just think this is fun because I have a, I talk about humor as a value and one of the big things that I've enjoyed is even when I first was a therapist, I thought, well, I have to be a real therapist and I can't be funny or crack jokes. And then I thought that was going against what my values are and then the more, yeah, I use humor every now and again somebody will say it's silly and I kind of don't care. Not in a bad way, you know.

Mike: No, I mean, I have got dug into the lack of research for obvious reasons and it's so interesting how many benefits there are to it. I mean laughing yoga is there for a reason.

Tony: I didn't know that. I didn't know that was a thing.

Mike: Yeah. And it's not just hokey, I mean, again, there's some good, it's not just an anecdotal practice. So anyways, I'll do my best.

Tony: Okay. So, I'll go first. I'll try to make you laugh, and trust me, these are not, now I feel pressure because they're not hilarious jokes, but you know, I feel like the pressure of, okay. I'll do two, two of them. Okay man. Now I feel pressure to find a good one. Here we go, alright, Mike Rucker, try not to laugh. My dad unfortunately passed away when we couldn't remember his blood type. His last words to us were, be positive.

Mike: Not gonna work. My wife's B positive, so.

Tony: Okay. That was good. You're good. All right. Right. Here we go. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna try one more time. You might be the first person to then not laugh, and that was hilarious. Here we go. All right. Mike Rucker. Try not to laugh. I lost my job at the bank on my very first day. A woman asked me to check her balance, so I pushed her over.

Mike: All right, you got me.

Tony: Oh, no. I think that you were, that was a courtesy laugh. Okay, here we go. All right, I'm ready.

Mike: So this one's a little bit provocative, but I know you have a background in MFT, so, and I usually use this one to cheer up my friends that are going through a really tough time. Again, it's meant to be with levity, not meant to be sharp. Okay. Why is divorce so expensive?

Tony: Well, I don't know this one.

Mike: Because it's worth it.

Tony: Just coughing.

Mike: That's my best one.

Tony: Okay, great. Absolutely done with levity, of course, as a world renowned marriage therapist, that, you know, that's great.

Mike: Are the edges sharp enough? This isn't, this is too on pc, but I figured, you know, it's good. It's good.

Tony: That clip might not go in as in the reel of announcing my magnetic marriage course. No, but. But it might go on my Waking up to Narcissism podcast, you know? So you never know.

Mike: Do you want the dumb dad one that it was? Where is happiness made? At the satisfactory.

Tony: I don't know. Okay. That's, I, I like those jokes. I'm not gonna lie. So that was pretty good. Mike, what a pleasure. And, and this will go out before January, so people pre-order the book. I mean, I have it, and it really is, it's really good. I really enjoy it, but your website has a lot of good stuff there, and so I recommend people sign up for your newsletter and there's a lot that, and you've got a little mini course there as well, right?

Mike: Yeah, yeah. Anyone that signs up will get access to that for sure.

Tony: Okay, cool. Okay. And then I would love to talk to you again down the road. All right. Thanks a lot, Mike. Thank you.

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Tony interviews Ashlee Boyson. Ashlee is an author, trauma survivor, and victim advocate. In 2011 Ashlee’s life changed forever when her husband’s murder revealed his secret life.

Ashlee’s book “ The Moments We Stand: Silence Breaks: Book 1” is available at

https://amzn.to/3CMwO8Y You can find out more about Ashlee on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/themomentswestand/ or her website http://themomentswestand.com Ashlee has 4 courses available; use coupon code: virtualcouch to receive a 40% discount. Ashlee’s courses include: “Surviving Infidelity,” “The Light Within: a guided course for widows,” and the Pre-Launch of “Trauma Mama - Parenting the Hurting Child” and “Breaking the Chains of Eating Disorders.” https://www.themomentswestand.com/store

Transcript

Tony: Ashlee, how are you?

Ashlee: Hello, I'm so good. How are you?

Tony: Oh, I think I'm supposed to be all mindful and zen, but I think what was, 13 minutes after the hour of trying to find out the technical difficulties. And it turns out I was, I mean, this is probably a good segue. I was technologically gaslighting you wasn't I? It was my problem the whole time.

Ashlee: Seriously, I was starting to be triggered a lot.

Tony: I know. And I feel so bad because I was, I was like hitting the “Ashley point at your ears” and that sort of thing. Thank you for your patience. I know. And, and I'm grateful that you're here and, I know I'm jumping right in with humor and from looking at your account and listening to the things that you say, I think you're a fan of humor as well.

Ashlee: I'm a fan of humor, man.

Tony: Right. But you've, and, meanwhile, when my audience hears what you've been through, that is a real gift to be able to turn to humor. And I feel like just saying, man, I just want you to talk. And then, the me wanting validation also wants to tell the story of how we met, which is really emotionally insecure of me, but I'm really excited to talk to you, but yet then I know we're gonna talk about difficult things.

Ashlee: I'm excited too. It's gonna be awesome. Yeah, and we met because one of my good friends from high school who happens to live not far from me now, we had both been through similar things and she was like, let's meet up for lunch. And we were talking about a couple of things I said, she's like, oh my gosh, you have to meet this guy I know. And I was like, yeah, yeah. Everybody is always sending me stuff, but she sends me your podcast. And I'm sitting there listening to it and I was like, oh my gosh. I do have to meet this guy that you know, and I text her I'm like, this is amazing. This podcast about narcissism, like years ago when I was going through stuff with, I didn't even know what that word was. So to have this at people's fingertips is unreal and it's gonna help so many people go, wait a second, this sounds so familiar. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And I wish I would've had that a long time ago.

Tony: Well, I appreciate that but I can't imagine what you have been through now and looking over your story. And I will be honest, the first time I've met with somebody that their credits include forensic investigation or Dateline, NBC, or, I mean, your story is, it is that big and crazy. And so then that's I think why I go to the part where I feel like I'm really honored that I can provide something that will resonate with you. And so maybe we just dive in and where do we start with your story?

Ashlee: Oh man. Where do you want to start?

Tony: Your website is so good where it just jumps in, and basically the part where your husband was missing and you had just had your fifth child, I think, and then this just picturesque life and he was an attorney and you had the five kids and just everything just was amazing. I mean, is that kind of the case?

Ashlee: Yeah, that's where we were. That was 2011, and I literally was living my dream life. I just had my fifth baby, my son had a brother. Like everything was aligning. The market was low. We were just outta law school, bought our dream house. So it was kind of one of those, you know those times where you're like, I did it. I followed the list. And I checked the boxes. And when I was younger I learned that I would be blessed if I checked these boxes and here I am. I'm blessed. So it's kinda one of those times where I was almost patting myself on the back, look how much I've done. Here we are, we've made it. And yeah, there was just a few months that it started to feel like things were just like falling through the cracks.

Tony: What did that look like? What was that? What were the things?

Ashlee: It was a lot of moments that I felt like I was crazy. Like things wouldn't add up or things just fell off. Or I'd ask questions to my husband and it just, something didn't sit right and the, it was like the more I dug though, the more I asked questions, the crazier I felt. Because he always had a good excuse and there was always a reason why I just needed to be patient and he'd be back at spending time with the family once he got this or this or this, you know? So it was kinda just crazy making all the time. And I got to the point, like I always say, any normal crazy person going through the garbage, like is there any evidence here because I'm losing it. Everyone around me thinks we're the perfect family. I thought we were too, but something feels off. So I spent a lot of time doing normal, crazy person stuff. When you start to feel crazy, I was like trying to hack into his phone when he was in the shower. Never got in that I was trying to, like, I'd go through his car when he is in the shower, just like am I so insecure? And I started digging into my past like, okay, my parents got divorce. Maybe I'm broken. Maybe I just don't trust people. And I went to a marriage counselor saying that, by myself, I went to a marriage counselor by myself. We're gonna get that out there. Okay. And I begged him to just fix me because I think I have trust issues or something. Because all of a sudden I feel like I'm crazy and I feel like something's not right. But he says everything's fine. He comes home most nights, and even when he doesn't, there's an amazing reason why he has to be at the jail with a client or something. So I'm crazy and I need you to fix me. That's kind of what it looked like for me.

Tony: How did he handle that?

Ashlee: He was always like, oh my gosh, can you not handle just being a mom? Like this is your one job is to take care of the kids and I have to go to the jail. It's not like I can just say, sorry, I have a family. So it was always just kind of like making me feel guilty, like asking for his time was something that I should just buck up and be doing it all myself, which I pretty much was. But I was such that person who, you know, I've always been, I just love big. And I loved being a mom and every single detail of being a mom, I didn't wanna miss it anyway, like I wanted to be there. But then having this longing for a partner to do it with me, got bigger and bigger through law school I just did it because he was in law school and then through this, I just did it because he was always busy with clients, but, I just got that feeling like he has to be part of this. They're growing and I'm doing it by myself. And the more I beg him, the more it's like he's frustrated with me. Like I'm asking for something more than just even five minutes a day instead of watching my son watch the neighbor play baseball with his dad outside, I want you to be here playing baseball with him. Not just promising him that you're gonna sponsor his baseball team. Actually be the dad with him.

Tony: And did you feel like you had to buffer for the kids as well?

Ashlee: Oh all the time. I thought even his, his own family, like there was a Christmas where we were planning on going and like the day before this was I think it was the Christmas before he died, maybe two Christmases. The day we were supposed to leave it was like, oh let's tell them the kids are sick. And so I'm like, I'm not gonna tell him that, you can tell them that, nobody's sick. We're ready, we're packed, we're ready to go. But it was always like I was trying to cover for him. Even though, even though I tried to genuinely believe him, there was always that pit in my stomach like this, something's just not right.

Tony: Yeah. Ashley, I'm curious too, when you went to therapy, what did the therapist do or how did he try to work with you?

Ashlee: Um, that day he listened to me rant about all these things that fell off and then begged him to fix my issues and yeah, heal my past. And he stopped me right at the end. We were almost outta time and he is like, you know, I just feel like I need to say this. Sometimes those feelings deep down that something's not right, what if something really isn't right? And you almost panic when you've spent so much time covering and loving with all your heart, you almost panic because you don't wanna go there because that's really scary. It's a lot easier to live in your fantasy world, you know? So I said, well, no, no, no. It has to be me. Like he reassures me every day and he just tells me I need to get better at communicating and just tells me I need to get better at like, healing from my, my mom and dad's stuff. And so he literally said, bring him in next week and you guys can sit here together and we can work on this. I think you and him together will be the best way to figure out what's really going on so you can both be there for each other. And then next week, I guess we'll tell you what happened next week.

Tony: Yeah. And I appreciate the way you handled that, because I do feel like when that person is in my office, you, in that role that it is the, tell me what I need to do different, but so often it's the, hey, it sounds like you're trying to do everything is maybe the problem. And it sounds like that was what you were doing. I mean, just trying to figure I can figure this out. I can fix this.

Ashlee: Absolutely. Yeah, you fix me and I’ll fix this.

Tony: And we'll be good. Yeah. Yeah. So then did you ask your husband to come in?

Ashlee: So I did. He at that time had gone on a trip with his stepbrother and came home and things were like way worse, like they'd been off, but he got home and something had like snapped. He was not even trying to be kind, like he was yelling a lot. He was more aggressive. He was frustrated with the kids and he wasn't home most of that week and I remember it was a Friday morning and I woke up and I got on my knees. I am a praying woman, I thought, you know, with God, I can figure out what's going on and we're gonna fix it. Because that's what us women do anyway. You know, you've worked with enough women, you know we, we know we can fix it if we just have the tools and the answers. So that's what I prayed for. Just give me one answer. And once I have that answer, I promise you I will do whatever it takes. I will lose weight. I just had a baby. If that's what it is, I will change who I am. I will change my character if I have to. Because I want this and I love him and I love this family. And so it was kind of that kind of a day Where I, I could feel it was almost like I could feel this moment had to happen where we saw each other and we worked on whatever it was , and honestly, a few times it crossed my mind, maybe he's having an affair and he's gonna tell me. But, it would always be in weird, bizarre moments, like when I was in his office and his paralegal would give me a weird vibe. But then I'm like, no, she's 40 years old. I'm 28 years old. I just had his fifth kid. There is no way. And then I feel more crazy. So every time I had that thought, it was like I shamed myself for even thinking, like there's no way you're not enough for him. Like he would never pick this lady. And my thoughts would just kind of go in a circle. So anyway, that morning it was kind of finally, it felt like it was coming to a head. And I know so many people in this situation have felt that like, I have to find out now, it's here. I can feel it, so I got up and just did crazy people's stuff. Like I went to Target and spent a bunch of money on random things, like $200 in laundry baskets and things that we do to cope, you know? You've worked with these, I know you've worked with these. We have our coping mechanisms.

Tony: To be fair, I've never had the buying all the laundry baskets.

Ashlee: I was redoing the laundry room. That's the, that was the goal to keep me, to keep me, you know, focused that day. I went to the grocery store and bought all of his favorite food and we're not just talking like his favorite meal, like I went nuts. I bought everything. There was a whole array of food. By the time he was supposed to be home, the kids were decked out in their clothes. I'd sent him pictures of the kids. I wanted him to see what he had even though I wasn't changing much, like I just, I wanted the best version of us when he walked through the door that day. And he walked in a couple hours late. The food was cold. The babies were so tired, but I was like, no, we're gonna do this. He's gonna come in, he's gonna see your cute faces, and he's gonna remember why he wants to be here because it really doesn't feel like he wants to be here. And we sat down and ate. He didn't touch the food. It was kind of one of those, when he walked in the door, I tried to kiss him and he kind of brushed me away and I just sun deeper and deeper into this insignificant person who just felt so small. And pretty soon I could hear his phone ringing and he went in the back room which happened to be where the baby monitor was, and I'm like, maybe this, I'm gonna get my one answer. And I had asked this person who was a therapist to reach out to him, and it was one of those things that I'm like, maybe if he can tell me what's going on, I can fix it. But I listened over the monitor and everything he was saying wasn't even true. He was saying stuff about me like I had done, I was out sleeping around and I wasn't taking care of the kids. Like all the things that I knew weren't the answer I was looking for. But at the same time, played onto the crazy. And so by the time he got off, I went in the back room and called the same person, like will you help me out? And he validated that fear of being crazy? He's like, are you crazy? What are you doing? You're not taking care of your kids. You're not taking care of. So he went through, I mean, he was lawyered, my husband was a lawyer. He was lawyered. He believed everything he heard. And in the middle of our conversation, Emmett came in and said, hey, I'm gonna go run to Walgreens. I'll be right back. And it had been a few weeks of, I'm gonna go run here, and he'd be gone till 12 o'clock at night.

So I kind of panicked and held the phone away and, I need you to stay. Just stay here. Let's talk about everything. All the things that the kids are going through at school, like weird stuff is happening. And I just, I feel like I need you to be here with me tonight. And he literally looked into my eyes, and he said, don't tell me what to do. I'm gonna go, walked out the door, slammed the door. The babies were waking up. Just the baby, the young, almost seven week old baby. And I picked him up, got off the phone. And for seriously hours, I just sat there and rocked this baby trying to piece together what does this look like if I reach out to people? I've already reached out and said, pray for us, and people are like, well, what do you need me to pray for? And I felt more crazy because I'm like, I don't know, something's wrong. I know something's wrong. So I held this baby and just promised him for hours that everything is gonna be okay. And I read my self-help book that my marriage counselor had given me to read and I got on my knees and said many prayers, just, I need an answer tonight. I don't know what to do. And the baby finally fell asleep about right after I panicked. The baby fell asleep about 10 o'clock. He panicked and I panicked and I just felt it. And I called Emmett like four times in a row and texted him, are you okay? Please come home. And nothing, heard nothing. The baby finally fell asleep. And, I kind of felt more alone. I'm like, I kind of wish the baby was awake because I'm just sitting here. So I ended up laying down and falling asleep at about one o'clock in the morning. I heard just this pounding on my front door and I almost got excited. I'm gonna be honest. When you feel crazy and you're like, maybe this is hope, there's an answer. I was like, okay, you just bought a new truck. This is, this is what it's gonna look like. He got in a wreck and there's a policeman coming to say, hey, your husband's hurt, broke his leg, got in a wreck. His car's totaled, but he needs you.

Tony: Now I know what to do with that. Right.

Ashlee: I know how to, that's what I've been craving for so long. I need him to need me. So as I walked into the door, I'm like, okay, he needs me. I'm gonna, they're gonna take me to him. He's gonna see us, and he is gonna be in a spot where he needs us to take care of him. And I thought this gift was gonna be handed to me and I didn't even care if he wrecked his brand new truck. Like I just wanted him to see us. And I opened the door and it was just three people wearing random street clothes holding up a badge and saying, we need to come in. And I was just so overwhelmed. And by the time we sat on my couch, I didn't think, like, I, I never imagined the scenario that we were, we were gonna sit around and talk about. And they just said, hey, do you know this woman? And it was the paralegal that worked for us. And I was like yeah, I know, I know her, she works at our office. She literally just sent me a present home the other day for the new baby. And they just kept talking. I don't, I honestly still don't know exactly everything that they said. The weight on my chest as they were explaining this whole situation still is, even if I talk about it, it's just, it's still there.

And I know I've worked, I've done so much work to try to work through, but at that moment, that moment where you, first of all for me, they said your husband was there with her. They were having an affair. Her husband came and, they literally just spilled it all, he came with a gun. And your husband was shot once in the forehead and once in the heart and he died literally in her arms. And I, when I go back to that moment, it's not just about that, that pain of, hey, you really weren't enough, sis, let's talk about it. It was like, you know that dude in your head that plays him is like, hey, you little loser. See? See, you are so dumb. Look at you. You didn't even, you couldn't even figure this out. It took him dying in another woman's arms fighting for her because you're not enough. And that was kind of the core belief that just in that moment just grew and built and took over my every breath. He was gone. But not only was he gone, let me tell you what, he was gone because you weren't enough. That's what I believed in that moment.

Tony: Oh, Ashlee. And that default programming that we go to, I mean, that is just, it's unavoidable. And I'm so sorry you even had to deal with that. But I hear that, I mean, I've never heard a version like this, but to show that it can go there, even in that depth of, of that moment, just shows how deeply at our core we have that internal battle of I'm not enough. I mean, I almost feel like that's our default setting, and then we're trying to just beg someone to tell us that we're not. So I can't imagine that, Ashlee. And do you feel like, and this might be a silly question, but when you just said yeah, they just dumped all that on you, you know, at one time, I mean, do you feel like that was something that had to happen that way? Do you feel like it could have been broached in a different way? What are your thoughts?

Ashlee: Oh, you know, it was kind of like I wanted to make up a different scenario for my kids the next morning when they came running down the stairs. But it was one of those things that they, I needed the full truth because that crazy part of me that if he was there and he told me all of that, would've had the option to do crazy things and kick him in the face and be mad and decide for myself what my future looks like. It was kind of ripped from me because of this. It wasn't just a murder. It was almost like, hey, here's a reason why you felt crazy. And honestly, the first emotion that I felt when those detectives left my house, they spent a long time at my house and I remember calling people and telling people, I'm like, they were right there. But mainly I remember they shut the door and this wave of relief came over me. Not, not the relief that hey, your husband and the father of your children is dead. That, absolutely not. That was the guy that I was ready to give my entire life to it, and I gave my entire heart to. But the relief that so many women talk about when they find out finally, like their husband finally admits that he was having an affair. That relief is so powerful because you do start to feel crazy. You feel just trapped inside this twilight zone all the time. So that lasted about three seconds. But I just remember slapping, I remember slapping my couch, like I wasn't crazy. I wasn't crazy, just screaming, excited that I wasn't crazy. And then the guilt of having relief set in, because now this, I mean the life that you had. Like, you're literally gonna have to tell five kids that their dad was murdered. They don't even know how to spell the word murder or know what that means. And you're gonna have to figure out a way to tell them in about three hours. The relief didn't last long.

Tony: Well and one of the messages that you sent, and I appreciate you saying that. You said to remind you about that relief, and then you said that followed by shame because he was gone and so was my chance of saving him and that's the part where I feel like, man, I can't imagine how hard that is of feeling like, I mean, I wonder if the brain even goes in double time of saying, but I could've. I mean, now I'll never know, but I could've. Was that what that was like?

Ashlee: Absolutely. I walk into my closet literally begging. I'm like, I have seen it on the movies. I have to have a do over, rewind. I wanna see the alternative ending where I get to choose and guess what? I could have saved him. And I truly believed that to my core until I was given a second marriage with a similar scenario. Because I never did heal any of it inside me. Right? And I was given that second chance in a totally different way, but that's another story. But having that belief that I could have saved him and I was robbed. Literally the guy that shot him was named Rob. I was robbed of being able to save my marriage, save my husband, help him through whatever, pornography, whatever he was going through, which he was. I would've been able to save him and I truly believed that to my core.

Tony: What has that been like, I mean, this is where I feel like the, I don’t know if it's the confabulation that our brain does or to make sense of things. Or if that's just catastrophizing and we're gonna pile on when we're beating ourselves up, what has that been like to, or what has it taken to overcome that? I mean, do you still find yourself at times thinking, the more I learned, the more I know I could have? Or is it, the more I learned, the more I know I couldn't have?

Ashlee: It's more like, the more I learned, the more I know I was worth so much more. So it started out for years, even into my second marriage, like I said, I was insignificant in my own mind, right? Just like a narcissist is insignificant in their own mind, and they don't want anybody to know, so they make it all about them. I was so insignificant in my own mind, whether it was from my parents' divorce or whatever, that I really didn't have a healthy view of myself, similar to a narcissist, but the ones that attract narcissists, we go to the, we'll make it all about them. Because they like it about them and I want to give that to them. And that's the way I'm gonna love. But you don't know in the moment that it's really just you being insecure and them being insecure and both have a different reaction. So that's where I've come 180. And in my second marriage, when I, one one of the answers to my prayer I see now, it wasn't like I need to heal from my parents' divorce and I needed to fix that. It was like, it's from my last marriage that I need to heal. And so it was like I was constantly trying to heal that and I was going to counseling and trying to heal that so this marriage could be different. Even though I was at the same spot and I attracted the same type of person, right?

So, it began to be more like, I felt like God gave me these gifts. I one day, no joke, I literally heard a voice say, I need you to start a blog, which, I don't even, I don't even do this kinda stuff, and I need you to write this story. And I was like, all right. My mom and my sisters could read a blog, but I fought it all weekend and by the end of the weekend, I just kept getting it. And I got a blessing from my church. I got a blessing that said the exact same words. I need you to start writing for some of my children who aren't listening. And I'm like, write what? I can write a story. I can be pissed off and I can just, and I started writing this story and I, I, that's when my blog started. But, I thought I was gonna get this gift of get it all out right? Be pissed off. You were stuck, you're a victim, you're hurt. And I started writing and at one time, my computer just totally shut down. At that time, I was just writing straight to the blog, so it would just like auto save and not one word saved. It was a blank screen again, and I had spent hours just talking about hate and talking about how people are awful and all the things that I wanted to say, and I got this feeling like, I need you to start again, and this time I want you to remember how strong you were. I want you to write this story with grace in it. Same story. I wrote the same story, but I got this chance to figure out who I was, not who someone could tell me I was or being in a relationship could give me. And while in a really hard relationship that ended in divorce, years later, I got this new view of me. So anyways, I think that’s how we get out of, we can't change another person. I couldn't have saved Emmett. In my next marriage, I didn't save him. But we have to get strong enough so we can hear the inspiration that's coming. Because sometimes when we're stuck as that insignificant person who's making it all about the narcissist, right? In our relationship, we start going, well, what do you think I should do? Because they give us the validation when they want to. And if not, they take it away and then we feel small again. But getting that validation from your higher power, getting that validation from your inner self, the strength that you have, is the time where you're gonna be able to make decisions.

Whether you stay and put up with whatever is gonna happen, or you watch them find their healing and, and I don't know about you, Tony, maybe that is possible. But a lot of people that are in my spot eventually either end a divorce or they go crazy, which I've done both, but maybe you are told to stay, maybe as you pray and fight, you're just told to stay, but you have to strengthen yourself. And that's what I wish I would've known back then. Not I could go back and save them. I wish I would've known my worth. I wish I would've not, not gotten married to validate myself or to, or been a great mom for him. I wish I would've just done it for me.

Tony: I love that you used the word grace earlier. And I don’t know if you've heard me talk about this on the podcast, but I feel like we have to start from that we absolutely don't know what we don't know. And so everybody goes in and the assumption is that we'll all work out and we'll live happily ever after. And then I feel like that concept of, you know, then we hit life and things happen and now we both start to express how we feel about these situations. And that's really where you start to learn. Is it okay for me to have my own opinion, or does my opinion cause this other person to feel less than or feel attacked? And then are they gonna put me down? Are they gonna take that one up position? Are they gonna go victim mentality? And I think it does start that crazy making where now all of a sudden you're back in that I gotta figure out how to manage this person and I love what you said earlier, and you say it on your website too, of that loving big, because I feel like that's one of those concepts that can sound negative. But then, I know this can seem so cliche, but when you're loving yourself big, now you're putting out just vibes that can change the world. And I get that from you now and everything that I watch you do on social media, which is pretty amazing. So what does that shift, how does that feel internally? I mean, do you feel confident now? What's that self-love feel like for you?

Ashlee: Oh, I guess it's been more for me, just knowing that until I actually do love myself, not just the cocky, kind of like, oh yeah, I got this because that's what the narcissist does. They go to cocky, they're not confident. Because as soon as you shatter something or you say it the wrong way or you even if you did it yesterday and it worked and you had a good day, you could do it the exact same way and it doesn't work because they're just so unstable. So just knowing inside, I have to love myself before I'm gonna attract someone who's gonna love me. I have to love myself before I can actually fully give that heart. Because if I'm just making it all about somebody else, even if I'm okay with it, eventually, I'm gonna just be giving and giving and giving. And there's gonna be a moment, even if you don't ever think it, there's, there needs to be a moment where you do think, I, I need something back from this relationship. Not just when it's convenient for you or you wanna buy a new car, or you wanna control a situation. I actually need you to care. And when I'm on my low days, it's not an excuse to lash out at you, which I'm never gonna do, but I want you to come to me and I want you to be there for me too. Because I've been doing that over and over and over and over. So just, yeah. Even with my kids, I've realized the more I love myself, the more I have the capacity to love them and the more I see them love themselves. Because really we think I, I've heard so many wives, and I'm sure there's husbands in this situation that go, you know, I stayed for the kids. And I'm like, yes, but guess what? You just showed the kids how to be abused. Because even if it's not physical or sexual abuse, emotional, financial, all those kind of abuse, they're watching to see what their life should look like. And they're gonna try to emulate that. So don't, my advice is, don't ever stay for the kids, they will watch your strength. If it's time for you to go and that's your answer, they'll watch you leave with grace, and if it's time to stay and you fight, but you fight for you first. You fight to find yourself and you find your worth and you find your significance, regardless if anybody else is giving it to you, that's when your kids are gonna grow stronger.

Tony: So actually that, and I'm so grateful you're saying that cause I feel like that's the stuff where I can say it from a clinician's point of view, but then having not gone through that, I feel like people can easily just say, well, you don't understand. And that's where I appreciate, you're in it and you're going through that, and I've been saying a lot lately, I feel like, okay, so we get our sense of self from external validation and it's gonna start from our parents. And so then if we're able to be there and form that secure bond and attachment with them and hear all their hopes and dreams. I mean, that's amazing. But if we're continually trying to figure out how to manage their emotions from the narcissist and the relationship, and they're not seeing my best version of myself, I, I feel like it makes sense that then that's what their sense of self is gonna be. That they're also now gonna go be the person that's gonna try to, you know, the people pleaser or the person that's gonna try to keep the peace. And, and I had a situation a little while ago too actually, that there was kind of mind blowing where somebody was expressing to me that they were in the dating world. It was an amazing 20 something and a guy was starting to really just be a little bit more inappropriate. And then she said, you know, I thought that he was starting to get to that point, but I really didn't want to make him uncomfortable or feel bad. And I feel like that's part of maybe what, you know, this person will see in their childhood is watching, maybe their parent try to keep that peace and not want somebody to feel bad because if the person feels bad, then they're gonna be angry and then the whole house is gonna have to pay. Is that part of what you were doing with the kids?

Ashlee: Oh, absolutely. I was always trying to buffer and, oh no, everything's great. We're, we're doing great. And I, I do see people, and I see the world in a positive way because that's kind of just part of me. But that becomes I feel like it's almost used as your weakness and you become a liar. You start to lie for people. And you start to cover up what's truth, because truth is gonna hurt. I feel like either way, your kids, when they're watching you be that insignificant person that's allowing narcissist things around and they're watching their father being this person who feels insignificant, who's created this monster and made the world about him. Either way, they're gonna fail at life. And I watched my kids go through a lot of that stuff. And it wasn't until we stepped away from all of those patterns that my kids started actually even grieving their father. And actually, actually grieving their childhood and they started having things like eating disorders come up, but it was because they were finally in a safe place that those emotions could come out. So before it came out really sideways and then it came out really sideways for a while, and now we're like on the other side where there's peace and calm, and it's amazing to think that I thought I would have to stay with that for them to succeed. Because they absolutely, they're succeeding beyond my wildest dreams. And there were times where I was like, you know what? They all grew up and be strippers or what, no judgment. But if, if they all grow up and they're just on drugs, whatever happens in their life, it's because this happened to them. And then there was a point where I had the shift that I'm like, oh, heck no. They're gonna grow up and be the best version of themselves because I'm not gonna stop fighting to figure out how to become the best version of myself and give them all the tools and send them out in the world looking for the red flags, but not in a fearful way. And I have the knowledge, I have the worth, and I'm gonna be treated this way because I'm worth it. And that's the strength that I'm gonna give to my kids, and that's gonna be my goal for the rest of my life.

Tony: So Ashlee, I talk often about this concept of healthy ego versus the pathological defensive narcissism. And I feel like you're inspiring me in the sense that you knew you were a good mom, you knew you could love big. I mean, did you feel confident about your momming skills? Okay. So, when I talk about this healthy ego and this is from an author named Eleanor Greenberg who writes about narcissism, but, “Realistic sense of positive self regard based on the person's actual accomplishments and relatively stable, because you've assimilated into your self-image the success that came as a result of actual hard work to overcome real life obstacles,” So a mother of five and somebody who loves big, I can imagine that we could say that's real life obstacles. And then I love that she says, “because it's based on real achievement, it's relatively impervious to the slight and setbacks we experience as we go through life, it causes us to care about ourselves, do things in our self-interest and associated with genuine self-respect, something inside of us.” And now contrast that with pathological defensive narcissism defense against feelings of inferiority, like you said earlier. “And this person dawns a mask of arrogant superiority to convince the world he or she is special. But inside the person is so insecure about their self-worth and that facade is so thin that one pin prick will deflate it.” So that person is, they’re hypersensitive to minor slights that somebody that has a healthy ego wouldn't notice. And so instead, somebody with that type of defensive narcissism is wounded, takes disagreement as criticism, and then at that point they have to then put that person, you know, in their place. And so there's that part of me that feels like, man, your story is so good. And that I wonder if women here in this now and they know, no, I am a good mom, that that is one of those things where they can start to get a little bit of self-confidence in. And unfortunately, and I think maybe I talk about this on the podcast, but when you start to stand up for yourself, if you were doing it right with the narcissist, they are going to push more buttons and try to put you down. And I think that's one of those difficult parts. So would you have moments where you started to have your voice, and then what would happen?

Ashlee: Absolutely. The moments when I started to find my voice and actually find my worth, which I honestly did not have, I found my worth as a mother, but as an individual, I had not, I had not seen glimpses of that, I think, most of my life, to be honest. I noticed that as soon as I started to find my voice and I started to find a purpose beyond just being there for every whim, you know? It got louder, it got bigger, there were more swear words. There were more locked doors. Like everything got bigger because I think narcissists like us broken. They like us small. And when you start to find an option beyond that, they are scared. They're scared they're gonna be seen. For me it was definitely a battle of finding my worth despite it getting louder and bigger. It was almost like it fueled me to go, I'm on the right path. Sometimes when we start praying for something, you know, we get more opportunities to do it. It was kind of one of those like, I'm going in the right direction. The more I got put down, sometimes it would break me, to be honest, because that was the cycle. As soon as I start to get a little confidence, you just kind of get shoved back down. But when I started getting my feet under me a little more, I would break me less and less. And then it would just start to just empower me.

Tony: That, whatever you did there, if you can bottle that up. And then I went in on like a supplement deal maybe. Because I feel like that's that part where somebody does start to, to feel better. And we talked earlier I think people will say, man, if I would've known this stuff earlier and I was doing that, we don't know what we don't know, but I've got these five things I talk about. You know, you're gonna raise your baseline that's self-care and then get yourself in a better position. But meanwhile, if you're starting to do things that are self-care-like, then that is gonna be attacked by the narcissist, and then people are almost having to hide their self care and then get that PhD in gaslighting and get out of unhealthy conversations and set boundaries. But I feel like, tell me if this was difficult for you, but the last thing that I talk about in that, ways to interact with the narcissist, is recognizing there's nothing you will say or do that will cause them to have the aha moment or the epiphany. And sometimes I feel like that is the thing where the hardworking, good person is gonna, no, I can, I can find this aha moment or epiphany. Did you chase that?

Ashlee: I chased it like it was the only dream I ever had. It was like, okay we got it. We just had the best conversation. He said, next time, you just have to communicate better and then I'm gonna do this better and it's gonna be different. And then the next day it wasn't different or way worse, and then we'd go to a therapist or we go and it, it's just like you're constantly chasing this dream that you are gonna save somebody. I think some of the red flags that I wished I would've known, if you are in a relationship where you literally feel crazy more than you don't like that's a red flag. If you are constantly going, well, I can't talk to him about that today because today's not gonna be a good day. That's a red flag. Or you're like, oh, well he shouldn't know about this thing that I'm doing or buying or, you know. Communication like you've talked about. Communication is what relationships are built on. And if you can't say, “hey, I'm having a hard time with this”, and your partner can't hear that without taking it personal and making it about them, that’s a red flag.

Tony: It is. And, man, Ashley, I haven't busted this one out yet. So, Waking Up to Narcissism and Virtual Couch exclusive with you, which I appreciate as I've been thinking, I had somebody. Somebody brought up in my office a couple of weeks ago, the idea of turning red flags yellow. And they realized how many times they were doing that. And it was, especially when there was tension in the relationship. And then all of a sudden they would then okay, well I, I'll back down because I don't want that red flag to seem so dramatic, so I'm gonna turn that red flag yellow. And then once they did that, then they felt like, okay, now it's on me. I can work with a yellow flag. But then the red flag, I guess, is where I'm gonna have to do something. I don't know. Any thoughts on that?

Ashlee: Yeah, I just was picturing different times where I had a couple of times where some big companies asked me to come and do like seminars and stuff, and I told them no because I was afraid to be too big. Like when a narcissist wants to feel successful, you have to stay under their level of success, right? Because that's when you get the worst jobs. That's when you get put down the most. That's when you feel that weight of all of their problems become yours, and you're like, okay, I'll carry these for you. I got this, and I'll just stay down here, down at the bottom and I'll carry them. So you do, you just, you'll create different scenarios than one that would actually bring your success or bring you to light, or even make you feel like you're living in the light. You just kind of live in the dark halfway.

Tony: I’m kind of being maybe too humorous for this, but I've had people talk about situations where they've tried to do that, which I love the way you put that, where I'm gonna prop my partner up and then gonna say, see, look at how well you did. And then that person not only says, yeah, I did, you know, and, no thanks to you. You know, and this is the person that, that literally propped that person up. Did you ever have that experience?

Ashlee: Oh yeah. I even heard a few times just like, well, you're such an amazing mom, but you're just such a bad wife. Everything you do. And I'm like, I give the same love. Like that's just who I am. I had a stepdaughter and I still love her. I still connect with her. Like I just love people. And so to have a relationship where you feel like, first of all, you always feel like you're crazy, but second of all, you're just constantly being told that you're something that you're not. You really, do start to question like, oh did I do something bad? Maybe I shouldn't, he said he doesn't like tacos, dang it. Why did I make tacos? And you just start second guessing every little detail of your life.

Tony: Yeah, you said something that was so good there where, or it breaks my heart as well, but being told what you like or what you think or how you feel, and I feel like that's another one of those just ginormous red flags, that it's nails on a chalkboard for me. And I know it's not just as a therapist, but as a human, where somebody's saying, well, you don't even realize what you're doing and you're doing this and you don't even know this. And so if anybody is, if they're in a relationship where their spouse is continually letting them know what they think or feel, then that's a red flag.

Ashlee: Yeah, if someone said to me like, hey, what do you guys wanna do on our double date? And I'm like, I don't know what I wanna do. I'm gonna have to ask him, you know, like you can have an opinion, even if you have a spouse who's really, really smart and really, really good at a lot of things and really successful, you can be too. And that's the part that I really got to the point where I didn't even believe, like I have to be small. I have to be broken to be loved by this person. So it's either him or it, I mean it's, if I'm gonna build me, I'm not gonna have him. And that's a scary thing because you're so connected to that cycle and to that person.

Tony: And I feel like that's the part where people don't know what it looks like to be too interdependent, autonomous, differentiated people with two different life experiences and how amazing that can be. Because they go into that marriage feeling like, no, we're enmeshed and we're the good kind of co-dependent. And if we were two individuals, then why would we need each other? And no, it's like, that's when it's exciting to be together. And I feel like I was gonna say, man, don't make me bust out our deepest fear by Maryanne Williamson. But when you kept saying small, Ashlee, my favorite part of this poem is she says, “Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.” And I've never looked at that from the narcissist’s lens. So that's exactly what people do. Play small so that that person that's insecure won't feel worse. Or the hope is that well, they'll feel better, they'll get it, and then they'll understand, have the aha moment, and then we'll be happy forever.

Ashlee: And then I can start being me and letting my light shine. Once they figure out their stuff, I gotta say small until they do.

Tony: And in reality, you gotta start letting that light shine. And then if they don't, then they can go pound sand. I was gonna say swear words, but I don't have to click the explicit.

Ashlee: One thing I was thinking, yeah. So a goal that I always had was like, I've gotta help him find his worth. I gotta help him build. But that's not your job. If you're in a relationship. And a lot of people that are in these relationships don't even realize they are because it's so hard to see it when you're in it. Because it's just the cycle that you're used to. You're used to having really big days and really bad days and really ups and downs. But the only thing that you have power of is finding your significance. Finding your connection to your higher power. Finding your relationships that enrich your life and connecting to those even if you feel like you're not allowed to. So that would be my main advice. Figure out how to be significant. Because you are. Because we were created to have this mission and a purpose on earth. And our mission and purpose is not to just lift up other people. It's also to let our light shine and to become the best version of ourselves, and all the good things that life has to offer.

Tony: I love it. And I almost feel like if we were gonna do a cheesy role play, Ashlee, then if I were saying to you, hey, if you came in and said you're, you found some new hobby, you like, I mean, I feel like yeah. The correct answers for me to say, oh man, tell me more. What's that like? How long have you felt this way? And I feel like the narcissist version would be, well, why do you wanna do that? I don't remember you saying anything about this. And do you know what that would feel like for me? Or what am I gonna find time to do the things I like? And then all of a sudden now it's like, oh, now you know what I, yeah. I probably don't wanna do that. And I wonder how many people have that experience versus the, oh my gosh, tell me more, that sounds exciting. Which if that doesn't happen in your relationship, then, then that's a red flag. Right. Ashlee, where can people find you? I wish we had another hour and maybe you can come back on again. Would that be okay?

Ashlee: I would love that. Absolutely. I'm on Facebook and Instagram. “The moments we stand”. And then my website is themomentswestand.com. And right now I'm doing a lot online, I used to do a lot of public speaking, and I do it a few times a year, but I have little babies right now and seniors in high school that I really can't miss life right now. So I do a lot of online stuff. I have some courses available on my website. I do some podcasts, like different podcasts with people. I've done a lot of interviews and anyways, so that's mainly where you can find me. I think I got everything.

Tony: And I appreciate it so much and I hope that we can maybe do something again soon or do something together because I really love your energy and I have to tell you there's one, I don't know if it was on a story or it was a post or something and you were literally just kind of dancing and having fun with your kids. And if you go through my TikTok, it's almost all just people dancing and I have zero rhythm. And there was a part of me that thought, okay, look at Ashlee looks just normal. And just like in the moment and it just made it look fun. So I appreciate how much you kind of look like you're just being in that moment as a parent. That looks like a good time. Alright, Ashley, then I will put all the links everywhere that I can and then next time we talk, I won't technologically gaslight you and we'll have the whole hour. How does that sound?

Ashlee: Deal. Thank you so much and thank you for all that you do. I love, I love what you're doing.

Tony: No, that makes me, I appreciate it. I really do.