WUTN Ep 112
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Tony: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to waking up the narcissism. This is episode 112 to be exact. And these episodes are, they are evergreen. I know that I don't actually have to say that I've been gone for a few weeks and I'm truly not seeking validation wanting some why no podcasts. Although there, there have been a number of people that have reached out through email or social media and have asked me if something happened, if the podcast had met an untimely demise at the very hands of maybe a narcissistic entity, or if I had gone into hiding or been abducted by aliens.

And a lot of those were by one email from one person, but I did miss a few weeks. Of any and all of my podcasts, including the virtual couch and love ADHD and the mind, the mirror me, and having put together a pretty significant run of consistency. That was a value I was assigning to my podcasting, a value of consistency.

, the virtual couch actually had been almost eight years of weekly episodes and waking up the narcissism. I think I'd missed maybe two or three over the past two years, but it's been a few weeks and my plan is to ramp things back up as this is a [00:01:00] big part of what I love. It's an extension of what. I get to do in my practice, and that is hopefully a healthy ego way of saying that the info that I present is based on real life , therapist experience.

Although it is not a substitute for therapy as well as research, et cetera, et cetera. And I mentioned this only because I am not only a podcast host, but I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And it's always fascinating to me when I have to put the tools that I teach into action. And one of those is that life is sometimes going to just life all over you and your plans might change even when you don't want them to.

So with that, what do you do? Do you fold up like a house of cards? You know, I, okay, had a good run. But now I might as well just pack up my podcasting bags and go. Or do you accept that that happened? It did indeed, it happened. And I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't quite factor in a lot of the variables that popped up during my first move in over 30 plus years.

So those are definitely things that happen just period. So now let's get back to podcasting. Acceptance does not mean that you don't care. Doesn't mean that [00:02:00] you're bad, broken. Doesn't mean that that you are apathetic. Just means that that happened, take it in without defense in its entirety.

Podcasts were not recorded weeks were missed. So here we are. So welcome back on to today's story. Let's talk about feelings and I'm talking big feelings and why on earth they make us feel so much. And it is story time. So I have a dog actually a couple of dogs, three now that we have moved. And we have my grand dog that is with us as well with our two dogs.

And one in particular, she's a Morky poo, which is a mix of a Yorkie, a Maltese and a poodle. She's the color blue Merle. And if you do not know that that is actually a color, cause I sure didn't. You can Google it. They're adorable blue Merle. There's all kinds of blue Merle coats on different dogs, maybe cats.

I guess I don't really know, but it's the. Blend of colors you see in a sky during a thunderstorm and you see a bunch of clouds swirling together And it's it's shades of gray and blue and maybe even a little hint of [00:03:00] silver So that's what a blue Merle dog's coat looks like. It's nature's own artistic blend of colors, and it looks amazing then all those colors are wrapped up in a In a furry package that actually rains when you come home and you see her after a very long trip, meaning that she will inevitably get excited and pee on you or the floor or herself.

If she gets all the way rolled over one, the tummy rub, she also. She has a tendency to grab a really big toy in her mouth and approach you just this giant toy in her mouth. a few nights ago, I came home. I had been in my California office. I was coming back to Arizona and I got home.

She literally ran under the bed and she came out with this giant toy in her tiny little mouth and then wagging her entire body approached me and wanted me to start up with the petting. And I don't really remember which one of my kids, but one of them had looked up. Why do dogs do that? Why do they grab a toy and come to you when it's obvious that they aren't looking to play?

And they said that what they read was that the dog had big feelings. And so I think about that every time that I come home [00:04:00] and Olive. The little dog who has the big toy, when she grabs that toy, comes up to me, I've been gone for a while and she wants to cuddle or be picked up and we just say, Oh, Ollie's all up in her big feelings.

I would be lying though if I didn't say that might not be a bad idea for some human people that I know to adopt something similar when they are feeling their big feelings and maybe they aren't the most positive of feelings. Some of the feelings that we have are pretty fun. I've been there when my son hit a buzzer beating game winning shot in a pack gym and basketball.

And I've also watched some amazing moments where one of my daughters excelled in cross country or was starting to play or graduated cosmetology school or radiology school. Or I've had amazing feelings when I'm sitting there doing these live question and answers with my daughter, Sid. All of those are awesome, big feelings.

But there have also been times where I've interacted with others that, again, I would have liked if they would have taken a toy or maybe I would have taken a toy and maybe placed it gently or even forcefully in their mouth [00:05:00] to stop their big feelings toward me or especially toward a client in my office.

And that will happen at times where one partner really probably should have a toy before they say something that I'm so sure that they'll eventually need to process, which is a nice way of saying regret, , but hold the shame. But the truth is we're not typically good with our feelings if they aren't readily accepted by or agreed with or validated by others.

And if you're thinking to yourself, not me, I want the truth. I want you to just. Tell me how it is. Be blunt with me. Cause I get to hear that on occasion and I do, I will make room for, I know there are some people that, that are okay with that. You have to have a pretty developed sense of self to really be able to sit there and hear someone else's version of you and then not feel like there's some reactions that are underneath the surface.

, and when people say, I want the truth, if you didn't just say to yourself, the few good men reference. You want the truth. You can't handle the truth. 

But do we really want bluntness or, you [00:06:00] know, no, tell me what you don't like about me because I really want to know deep down inside, we really want validation. And darn near aggressively want that validation and I find that often when people are saying, no, you can tell me like it is, be blunt with me.

Someone's this aggressive, but tell me what I want to hear. Because on occasion, and it, it takes a fair amount for me to do this, but somebody will say, I really don't want you to sugarcoat it. What would you honestly say if you're, if you know what, you've seen a lot of people as clients. So be honest, tell me what you see works in my situation or what doesn't.

So sometimes I will say, okay if you insist, here we go. What I think you should do is learn to maybe be more calm during the storm that's your relationship and I'm immediately met with a yeah, but she starts it. You don't even understand what it's like. And there you go. That person actually wanted me to say, okay let me be honest with you.

I think you actually need to be ruder and she needs to even be more accommodating and do what you say. And let me just add that despite you having [00:07:00] only attended therapy now, what, two or three times, but because of these things that you've told me about her behavior I'm seriously thinking about changing up my entire approach that mind you, it's now based on nearly 20 years and thousands of people and tens of thousands of hours and numerous books and podcasts and lectures and trainings and my reps in the chair.

But you the information you presented shows me that you truly are special. I really believe that we hide our big feelings if we are afraid that others will view us as weak or unconfident, or they're going to disagree with us because we're wired to avoid discomfort. It is almost like a reflex and our brains naturally seek pleasure and they steer clear of anything that feels unpleasant.

I mean, that's a survival instinct. But to truly grow and to improve ourselves, especially in our relationships, we have to learn how to handle discomfort differently. And now this doesn't even just mean that I have to learn how to face it and then lean into it. Because I know that people that are in relationships with emotionally immature people, that can [00:08:00] be a really scary situation.

And that discomfort, I theorize that that discomfort is trying to tell you something because we're so wired to, to get rid of it and not feel our feelings that if we can learn to sit in it a bit, not react, be grounded, learn how to tap into our, our true self, our sense of self.

That then that discomfort can be an opportunity for growth. So instead of instantly reacting to uncomfortable feelings, like frustration, embarrassment, anger, sadness, we do need to pause and sit with it. Now, it doesn't mean you need to sit there and take it. , you may need to then set the, that boundary of if this person that you're interacting with, you're in a relationship that you're talking to starts to.

To really get intense or starts to say negative things about your starts to tell you how you feel, then you are going to calmly walk away. Doesn't mean that they're going to think they're going [00:09:00] to be okay with it but that is what we can do more productively with our discomfort. Often without realizing it we dump these feelings onto others.

We diffuse them into our relationships with our partners and our families and our colleagues at work, expecting them to fix them for us. You know, it's saying, I don't like how I feel, but now it's your job to make me feel better. And here's where this becomes a big issue, especially to the Waking Up the Narcissism audience, that so many of you are then the ones who feel like it's your job to then take on those feels, those emotions of others and caretake them, and fix them, and calm that person down who is projecting them onto you, or projecting them into the family system.

And that comes with a pretty heavy cost. Oftentimes, it's your own sense of self or your sense of worth or , you feel like you lose your own life, often feeling like it's just passing you by. Don't worry. You may often think if I can just get through this situation, this period of my life, this difficult moment, then it will get better.

And guess what? That in and of itself may get rid of your discomfort for the time being, but it [00:10:00] doesn't address the core issue with the fact that until you can truly learn to sit with your own big feelings and not feel like you have to react. To then fix other people's problems, then you're going to continually find yourself in that position in your relationships, in your family system.

I think it would be nice to go back again to the origin story of where this comes from and that it probably has something to do with, as a kid, most of our interactions with our parents or other adults or authority figures was with them teaching us or instructing us or getting mad at us or telling us what we need to do better or telling us what we should not be doing.

And I know that this isn't always even coming from a negative place. I know that for any parent, one of the main jobs that we feel we need to do is teach our kids right from wrong. You know what we believe would be best for them much like we as adults are still for the most part just being and doing and Going through life for the first time and reacting to things a kid doesn't even realize that there are other people having experiences Because they're just living [00:11:00] so much from their ego that of course, they're just reacting to things impulsively.

So as a kid If you really stop and either think about it or you look around you know, the kids are continually being told to calm down, don't say that, sit up straight. Why did you do that? Basically the being and doing of a kid eventually becomes wrong. And in some way, shape or fashion parents, and I'm saying this in a bless their heart way, kind of way, then often feel like if they just let their kid be themselves, then the kid's just going to stop trying or caring about anything, or they're not going to want to achieve things with their life, and they'll never make anything of themselves, which makes the parent uncomfortable because the parent then feels like then I have done something wrong.

They've made it about themselves. So how do they get rid of discomfort? Oftentimes they, they diffuse that into the relationship they have with their kid saying, you need to get a job. You need to take school seriously. You need to do these things that I think you need to do. Now, yes, it might be the best thing for the kid, but [00:12:00] there's better ways of going about it of trying to get the kid to buy in and telling them, this is what you need to do so that I feel better.

So again, even the best of parents have a difficult time being curious about what their kid's experiencing. And then back to this point of what do we do with our discomfort, even when a parent's trying to be curious about their kid's experience it, again, it makes them feel it in essence makes them feel uncomfortable.

So back to what do we do with our discomfort? Well, if I, I can teach them how to do their life better than I, then I can help them skip some of the things that I went through and then they'll be happy, which in turn will make me feel like a good parent. Or for the emotionally immature parent, we may feel like our kid can't just do what they want to do.

They have to suffer and grind through the hard times. They have to go through the experiences that I had to. And I am not saying that we need to hand them everything on a silver platter, but do they truly need to relive my life experiences? Or is that just a me thing? Because my experiences were based off of I mean, my [00:13:00] experiences.

So back to this origin story, though, the more that the kid is just being and doing and interacting with life and responding to the various Things that they're encountering that is a nod to the book on being certain, which essentially says that we are all just 3 billion neurons walking around, interacting with things and then creating meaning.

We're meaning based creatures. We're making meaning on those interactions. I really do recommend that book, but I will say it comes with a very small but yet free existential crisis. But we are interacting with the world. So ideally, it would be wonderful if the people that we care about or rely on to help us make sense of the world could start from a place of giving grace and then coming from a place of curiosity to truly understand that this is my experience before given that advice, that that I will now be held accountable for.

So the more that the kid is externalizing their emotions. The more they're having those big feelings, the more they're being told here is a different way to be you. So I kind of feel like the game of life [00:14:00] ends up being a tiny bit rigged from the start. So rather than having somebody, and again, bless their heart, they only know what they know, but rather than having somebody start from a place of acceptance and curiosity because that truly is the place where we can grow, we are told that our very existence is, for the most part, wrong.

What we're doing is wrong, how we're feeling is wrong, so keep those feelings down and just do what I say because that'll make me feel better. So then we enter into relationships. And hang on, though, for a second, first, with our emotions now internalized, we have set the stage for us to stuff and ignore our feelings, and they really are there for a reason.

I go back to the fact that anxiety in and of itself started as a good thing. It was something that kept us alive. It was something there to heighten our senses. So we would be cautious when rounding a corner, coming up over a ridge and not be an easy target for some predator, be it an animal or maybe even a human.

But only now. We already think that we are doing things wrong or if we are broken or something is wrong with us Then I can imagine our anxiety is already telling us something but we are not willing to listen to our own internal voice That this is how I'm feeling, or these are the things [00:15:00] that I'm thinking because, again, my experience tells me my feelings are wrong.

So I need somebody else now to tell me what to do, how to feel, or what I did was right or wrong. And that can even go into your relationships. So if that was part of your growing up experience, then I believe we find ourselves then in those relationships with people who are more than willing to tell us what to do.

And you can see that this is where it feels familiar, so it starts to set the table for how people find themselves in these relationships with emotionally immature people because they were most likely raised by immature people themselves who didn't have, who didn't provide a secure attachment, didn't provide curiosity in their childhood.

And this is, I think it's really difficult to find people that did have secure attachment with their parents because we're finally only talking about this stuff now. So a couple of weeks ago I exchanged messages with a client about an appointment time, and I told them that I would get back to them if I can make a particular time available [00:16:00] that was not on my schedule.

And I was able to make the time work, and I put them down for that time, and I did not follow up, and I did not think about it. And over the week, I found myself remembering that, Oh, I'm seeing this client at this particular time. And I really like working with this person. So I was just looking forward to it.

So then the morning of the appointment, I was texting them to give them my ETA, because I was flying in from from Arizona, back to my California office. And it was at that time that I saw that Oh man, in the text, I actually never responded back to them and let them know that that I could make that time work.

And not only could I make that time work, but I had booked them in that appointment time. So I reached out immediately and I apologized. And if the story would have ended there, then man, I blew it. I did the wrong thing, but it ended up that they couldn't meet at that time anyhow. And they had meant to let me know.

So it turns out that it was a good thing. But just look at the story. I just, I did it because I did it. I forgot. I didn't mean to I am a 54 year old professional human being that relies on appointments daily to earn my living. And so that is something that happened.

It doesn't normally [00:17:00] happen. It doesn't happen very often at all. And thanks to having my scheduling software, I feel like I've got that part. Pretty well taken care of, but it felt absolutely though, like I blew it and I did the wrong thing, but because the client had their own experience and that they couldn't make it anyway, it ended up being a good thing.

So even this very concept of good and bad is a bit of a hindsight principle for so many things. It's based on so many different variables. So I share that example because now as adult human beings, here we go. We are almost afraid to. Express our feelings or emotions because we've been told they're wrong, but we're also just doing and being in the things that we're doing.

We're interacting with the world for the first time, but then we're told so often that we're doing it wrong. Well, who, who gets to say that? Because of that childhood programming, not only do we stuff our emotions and default from this place of what's wrong with me, or I blew it, or I know that I did that wrong, or I was bad, but then we actually need somebody else to tell us.

Now [00:18:00] it's, it's okay. It's okay. You're good. And I would like to think that even if that person would have been disappointed, the person that I was talking about earlier that I had, I had blown the scheduling with, but even if they would have been disappointed because they'd been planning on coming still, that there would have been an acceptance because we've established a good rapport and a track record of consistency, but regardless, my job would have been to know that happened.

There's no way I will be perfect. And is there anything I can learn from that, which I really believe there is because I am trying to be more diligent and responding immediately in situations like that. So that was yet another opportunity for me to use those uncomfortable feelings as a change agent, as an opportunity for growth.

And here's where it can be hard for the pathologically kind. But if the client was so mad about that experience that they didn't want to ever come see me again, then I would absolutely feel uncomfortable. But what do I do with my discomfort? Maybe in olden days, less differentiated, I would have thrown myself, prostrate on the ground, [00:19:00] begging for forgiveness and offering a discounted rate for the rest of the time that we ever meet.

And that would have maybe made me feel better. But knowing this person, they would have felt bad and told me, no, no, it's probably not a big deal, which would have made me feel better. But then I could have imagined that she would have felt worse for making me feel bad. So from a differentiated place, it happened, and I will take ownership of it, and I will use this for my good.

And if somebody is losing their mind, so angry about it, man, that, that would be hard. And I hesitate to even say that's a them thing, but I can understand that my actions caused them to feel and respond a certain way, and I would love to know more. Tell me more about that. And while I would appreciate and hope for grace and forgiveness, or rather acceptance.

It's not up to me because I know that things happen and they make us uncomfortable and I can sit with those feelings and they can teach me ways that I can show up better. But if I took on her emotions, her big feelings, and I needed to manage those as well, well then that's pretty much a crapshoot on how to do that.

She would be welcome [00:20:00] to be disappointed and could express that as well and we can handle that like mature adult human beings. Here's the problem. Nobody else can truly fix our feelings for us. And it is unfair to expect somebody else to magically know how to make us feel better. And when they inevitably can't, we end up feeling even worse and we might even lash out or apologize just to ease our discomfort.

And this whole pattern starts to create an emotional rollercoaster for everybody involved. You know, the people around us never know which version of us that they're going to encounter and then they're left tiptoeing around trying to avoid setting off. Our emotional triggers are our big emotions. Ultimately this reliance on other people to manage our emotional state, , to take on our anger, our anxiety, and make us feel better, leaves us feeling disconnected from ourselves and from them.

We start to lose sight of our own identity because we're constantly looking to others to define how we should feel and behave. Let me run through a couple of narratives. We'll call this one the Pathologically Time spouse. , the names of the people can be , any gender that you would like.

I know that [00:21:00] in the past that I so often default to the female is the pathologically kind, the male is a narcissist. I feel like I have a run on people right now that I'm working with where , there's a pathologically kind guy and a more emotionally immature woman. And that, that's a whole different struggle there too.

So we'll just say Chris and Pat, I've been married for four years. And Chris is the epitome of kindness and empathy. Pat, however, struggles with managing their emotions and often reacts with anger or frustration over the smallest of issues. So whenever Pat gets upset, Chris immediately jumps in action, trying to soothe them and alleviate their distress.

And Chris sacrifices their own needs and feelings to ensure that Pat feels better, believing that it's Chris's responsibility as Pat's partner to keep them happy. , one evening, Pat comes home from work in a very foul mood. Pat had had a tough day, Pat's in a very interesting job, and everything seems to set them off.

And as soon as Pat walks through the door, they start complaining about their boss and their co workers and the traffic. And Chris, now senses Pat's frustration, makes Chris pretty uncomfortable. So [00:22:00] Chris rushes to comfort Pat. And Chris listens patiently as Pat vents and offers words of reassurance and you're the best and you're going to figure this out and then tries to crack jokes and lighten the mood, but no matter what Chris says or does, Pat's anger only seems to escalate.

So feeling overwhelmed and drained, Chris starts to doubt themselves, wondering, okay, , is it my problem? Am I somehow to blame for Pat's unhappiness? Because Pat had surely said in the past, if you would have done this differently, then I would have felt better. So Chris starts to lose sight of their own needs, their own desires, focusing just on managing Pat's emotions.

so after months of feeling trapped in a cycle of catering to Pat's emotional needs, then Chris realizes, okay, something has to change. So they start recognizing the toll that Pat's outbursts are taking On Chris's well being and Chris decides I gotta set some boundaries.

So the next time that Pat comes home in a bad mood, Chris takes a deep breath. Centers themselves, calmly expresses their own feelings, and then instead of immediately jumping into the role of caregiver, they tell Pat that they understand Pat's had a tough day, but they remind him that they also need support and [00:23:00] understanding, and they explain that they feel overwhelmed when Pat gets angry and ask Pat to consider how their behavior affects them.

So initially, Pat's kind of ticked off, taken aback by Chris's assertiveness, because Pat's used to Chris always just being there to comfort them, and their newfound independence surprises Pat. As Chris continues to assert their boundaries, prioritize their own well being. Pat starts to realize the impact of Pat's behavior. Pat starts to take responsibility for managing their own emotions and starts to look for better ways to cope and stress, to self soothe.

So with Chris's support, Chris's encouragement, they work together. They create this more balanced, a whole mutually supportive relationship. So then you look at that Chris's journey from being the pathologically kind partner to setting boundaries and prioritizing Chris's own needs highlights this importance to self care, self regulate, and as well as then being confident and assertive in navigating these relationships.

But by recognizing their own worth and setting these boundaries, Chris [00:24:00] empowers themselves and encourages growth and change in the relationship. So Pat then, as you can probably understand, finally gets it. They have their aha moment. And then they both float out to their private jet, fly on a cloud, do Unicorn Island, where they're met by an adorable leprechaun named Kevin, who points them to a beautiful unicorn who they adopt as a pet.

And who never sheds, is always kind, learns a rare language where every word of it says nothing but specific words of affirmation that Chris and Pat want to hear. And who, unknown to them, eats negative energy as their source of fuel and poops wishes and gold coins, and they live happily ever after. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

, but if you're here and you're listening to this podcast, here's a more realistic take on what happened. And yeah, this whole thing was based on a true story. , Chris set the boundary. When Chris set the boundary, which was absolutely the right thing to do for them, because of Pat's immaturity, they only pushed more of Chris's buttons.

Meaning that they amped up their immaturity trying to find ways to make Chris continue to think that perhaps they were the problem, causing them to go [00:25:00] back to the caretaker role. And this is perfectly normal and common and is what I like to refer to as rule outs. That , you get the new information, new skills, and you want to think that you can now immediately change the family system.

And technically, they are changing the family system, but that change isn't an immediate healing of the relationship. Often, the fact that Chris even has to find ways to try and express themselves, and because they, they have had, to finally seek help on their own are part of what I like to refer to as these leading indicators of where the relationship might be moving if Pat doesn't seek their own help.

But meanwhile, Chris, as they change the dynamic, can begin to notice patterns that truly don't have anything to do with them in the sense of them beginning to develop their own sense of self.

But they have everything to do with Pat's lack of self, because that will manifest in the relationship as Pat not knowing how they truly feel, but it feels uncomfortable. So now they need Chris to manage their discomfort, and since they aren't even aware of what the core issues are, , or what it is that causes them the discomfort, now they're asking Chris to basically make me feel better, even though I'm not really [00:26:00] sure How I feel or what would work.

And Chris is operating from a place where they now have far too many experiences where they have gotten it wrong and there's a complete lack of emotional consistency on the part of Pat , and it can be difficult to change the dynamic in these relationships because we have been dancing , this same dance for so long.

, I covered narcissistic family systems not too long ago, but in a nutshell, now we put this information back into this framework. , picture in a narcissistic family, everything revolves around the needs and the ego of one central figure, usually a parent. And then the other family members basically dance around him.

They bend over backwards to keep things smooth or to avoid setting off explosions to get rid of that discomfort. Each person in the family gets assigned a role like the scapegoat, who always gets blamed for everything, the golden child who can do no wrong, or the caretaker who's always there to fix things, clean things up.

And communication in that sense is basically just It's like a funhouse mirror where everything reflecting back to that narcissistic individual's wants and feelings while everybody else's needs are getting [00:27:00] shoved to the side. And again, problems with the narcissistic family system is now imagine somebody in this family system decides they've had enough and they want to break free from their assigned role in the family.

Maybe the scapegoat says, I'm not taking any more blame. Or the caretaker finally puts their foot down and says, enough. This shakeup can really throw a wrench in the works because it messes with the established order of things, which makes everybody uncomfortable. And how do they get rid of their discomfort?

To try to get people back in those familiar roles, which then. forces these attempts to re establish these familiar roles in the narcissistic family system. So what happens next? Well, the other family members or even the narcissists themselves might go into overdrive trying to show the rebellious family member who's willing to break this, , the whole family system.

force them back into their box. They, you know, they may start laying on the guilt trips. They might mess with their head by making them doubt themselves, or they just straight up try to bully him back into the submission. And it's like they're scrambling to restore the peace and the quiet by any means necessary.

So no wonder why those of us [00:28:00] who have developed within a family system like this might find ourselves in that old comfortable role in our marital, family, work, or even church relationships. So it's, it's never too late to grow. It's never too late to learn even with the heavy amount of discomfort. Yeah, mindfulness, raising your emotional baseline, those are so important, but I might suggest starting with a little bit of boundaries.

And let's go right back to what we've been talking about in the last few episodes, boundary versus ultimatum, especially when dealing with somebody who is emotionally immature or narcissistic. So remembering that boundaries they're like your own personal guidelines. They're about what you are okay with and what you're not.

So for instance, if you start calling me names, I'm out of here. It's all about you taking charge of your own actions and reactions. Not to be confused with ultimatums, because those on the other side are, they're essentially like demands. So when you tell somebody else what you need them to do or not do, like you need to calm down right now.

I mean, ultimatums can rub people the wrong way and it can make them want to rebel. Here's why ultimatums are tricky, especially with somebody who is not exactly the most [00:29:00] emotionally mature, but ultimatums bring these reactions. They start to feel like a challenge. They might even just push your boundaries to prove that they're in charge.

It's kind of like they're saying, you can't tell me what to do. And then there's my old pal, psychological reactants, ultimatum set off this knee jerk reaction called psychological reactants. , basically it's when you're told what to do and your brain is like, no, not going to do it.

So things can escalate pretty quickly. , and then it also causes confusion for the good people, the nice folks, pathologically kind. If you're somebody who is all about being kind and setting boundaries, it can be tough because you muster up the courage to speak your truth. And then your boundary gets bulldozed, which does not cause you to want to continue to try to show up and set boundaries.

But here's the thing, though, true boundaries are still so important, even if the other person doesn't always respect them, because that is about you taking care of yourself and staying true to who you are. , remember, it's all about setting boundaries that empower you to handle your own stuff.

Rather than trying to control somebody else's behavior. , let's wrap this one up. , circle back to a key theme that we talked about earlier today. [00:30:00] What do we do with our discomfort? When we've learned that discomfort is often a signal that change is needed. Whether it's in our relationships, whether it's within ourselves.

And so when we set boundaries or we assert our needs, discomfort will arise. Especially if we're challenging some pretty hardcore established patterns or roles. And when those big feelings arrive, it's so tempting to want to run back to what's familiar, even if it's not serving as well, because it's the familiar.

keep in mind that discomfort is part of the growth process. It's a sign that we're stretching ourselves, that we're pushing against the boundaries or comfort zones. And while it might feel uncomfortable in the moment, it is a sign that we are moving in the right direction. So instead of shying away from I would love to challenge you for the next Week, two weeks to lean into it a little bit.

It can just be a little bit let it sit with it, explore it. Because ultimately when you start to trust your emotions, trust your gut, welcome those feelings in, they're going to tell you, Stories. They're going to help you learn lessons in life because ultimately it's through facing our discomfort that we will find the courage [00:31:00] to create the change we need.

And that is going to change our lives. , we're not worrying about this so that we can change our, spouse, because we have to then realize that , in order to even try to attempt to, to really find myself, I have to let go of that need to soothe and manage others and learn how to self soothe and manage myself.

Thanks for joining me today. And if you have stories or questions or anything , about this concept of what do we do with our discomfort, , how do we become more differentiated? Shoot me a email at contact or info at tonyoverbay. com. , go sign up for the newsletter. And, , I'm so glad to be back.

Because remember you are not alone in navigating discomfort and it does, honest to goodness, become an opportunity for growth through every challenge that life throws our way. All right, I appreciate it. We will see you next week on Waking Up to Narcissism. Have a great day.