7 Steps To Winning The Narcissist's Invalidation Game

[Music] [Music] Allen set up today's discussion by just kind of getting you to think about how things go when you're in a dispute with a narcissist first of all you ever find yourself at odds with that individual you know the narcissist is very enamored with themselves it's like well I'm a pretty enlightened person I have a lot of great ideas about how life is supposed to unfold in fact my ideas are so good that I don't really need yours and so this sense of enlightenment and specialness and their self absorption can lead to them being stubborn and in control and there's one huge word that that comes with all of this and that's the word invalidation now to kind of get you thinking about how this might work I want to kind of present to you the opposite and I want to present to you what you'd like to hear when you're going to dispute with a narcissist when was the last time that person said I want to validate the fact that you feel as you do that are happened to you Oh or do they ever validate and say you know you have your own unique perspective and it's very important if we're gonna get along with each other for us to each know and comprehend what the other person is thinking and feeling again they can't say that or I want to validate the fact that you're your own unique person and if you do some things differently from me maybe I could actually even learn something from you just as I would hope you could learn something from me the narcissist cannot think that way a validating attitude is not something they bring to the equation instead whenever you have that dispute it's you don't know what you're talking about or shut up or I don't want to hear from you or knock it off or just do what I tell you to do and then when you do say something they'll explain to you why it's wrong or if you talk about something that's important they can roll their eyes they can talk to you about how you need to change your plans that ever happened to you and so today I want to give you seven steps for beating the narcissus at their invalidation game now part of what I'm going to do is we're gonna beat them at the event the invalidation game by not playing the game so that's that's gonna be kind of counterintuitive and the first step I want to give you is and again it will sound a little counterintuitive when you're at that place where the narcissist clearly has an opinion and they want to foist that opinion onto you the step number one is pause and ask the question or make the statement I'd like to understand what you're wanting me to know now that can be very counterintuitive because you don't want to say that to the narcissist but by making that kind of statement what you're doing is you're taking yourself out of the adversarial position the narcissus by by invalidating and putting you down and insulting and criticizing is more or less saying it's a competition now and I want you to go into the competition with me so when you say help me understand what you want me to know you're showing yourself to being a decent person get that step one step two once the the narcissist will say well what you need to know is what you need to do is do what I tell you to do step two state your perspective calmly how many times do you find yourself going into that defensive and persuasive and pleading tone of voice would you quit talking to me like that or you're always arguing you know you can do something like that no that's not that's not what we're going to do let it be known I have a perspective this is what it is speak in this tone of voice now step number three when and notice my use of the word win not if when you receive the inevitable push back and they go back into that invalidation mode the the next thing to say is I understand that's your perspective that's it make no attempt to change their mind make no attempt to make them see the light because in doing so that means you've gotten pulled into the game and they have to be the victor and so just let them know okay that's your perspective step number four is go ahead and say I'm comfortable with what I've already did that's it you don't have to elaborate you don't have to give the 14 reasons why it's okay for you to be me be what you are I'm comfortable with what I've already decided step number five when they give the next inevitable pushback you use what I have referred to in past videos is what I call the nonetheless approach well nonetheless I'm holding to my decision and then you let it go and then when they give you the pushback again they started validating repeat as necessary nonetheless I'm holding firm to my decision let it be and then step number six is do what you say you're going to do follow through on what your decisiveness is and they're going the narcissist it's not going to like it they're going to dog you they're gonna just follow you around sometimes or they're going to come back later on and say why you what you did was such a bad an awful thing and just do what you need to do let your behavior speak on its own behalf and then step number seven is kind of a nine step make no further defense okay do you see what I'm saying here the narcissist is wanting to draw you in to their game and so when they invalidate you they're trying to take the superior position and what you're not going to do is you're not going to try to put yourself superior over them you're just going to start with the assumption I'm a reasonable person and if if that's something that you'd like to acknowledge then maybe we can go somewhere with that but if not I just feel no need to play your game now when you take this seven step approach that I just mentioned there are certain key ingredients you have to have on the inside of your personality in order to pull it off one is you have to have a determination not to go straight into your anger mode that's exactly what the narcissist wants to do so when you go into that high anger and you just let her rip or you just have this harsh kind of reaction to them it's like oh this is so playing into my hand because now you're going to make yourself look foolish and then they can tell you see this is why you have to listen to me you know what anger is your emotion of self-preservation and they're actually times when it's legitimate to speak up for yourself but in the case like this it's like I don't want to waste my emotional energy on someone who's going to shoot it down anyway and so that's why you can't you know you maintain that steady mindset that I talked to you about now a second huge ingredient that you have to have in order to pull off this mindset that I'm talking to you about and that is you have to have confidence in yourself in your own intentions do you believe that you're a decent person and do you believe is you engage with your world whatever it is that the narcissist is invalidating you over whether it's the way you handle things at home or how you handle the situation with a family member or co-worker or friend and now they're telling you how awful you are do you honestly know well in those circumstances I have good intentions and yeah I'm always capable of making some some errors and so I'm welcome some feedback when it's positively in given to me but I'm a decent person and and I don't need to tell that other individual that I just know it within myself a third huge ingredient that you need to hold on to and that is a lack of shock regarding the narcissists need to be in control you know when you get into that real high flustered and agitated and tense reaction to the narcissus it's as if you're wanting to say I can't believe you're doing this to me well believe it how many times have they done this before ten times twenty times three hundred times 1582 times I mean they've done it a whole lot and so every time that you react with your harsh response it's as though you're saying seriously you're gonna do this seriously they're gonna do this and so drop any kind of shock and then this leads to another key ingredient and that is I want you to be able to spot the power play that they're trying to get you in - and you refuse to get drawn into the powerplay you want to ask yourself is my goal with this person to establish power that's their goal they want to establish power over you but is that your goal in Reverse it's like no I don't need to establish power what I want to establish is decency respect dignity and honor civility those kind of things and and so III don't play the power game and then finally you'll want to acknowledge within yourself I'm not able to change this person and I don't even feel the need to waste my time and energy doing so what I can do is I can focus on Who I am and me being a healthy me so we've got this seven step process that you can use when the narcissist wants to invalidate you and I can promise you when you don't play that game that's how you win you win by not trying to win then the narcissist is going to just roll their eyes walk away think you're terrible person they can hold a grudge and all that and we know that but I'm hoping that you can recognize this is not somebody that I need to to take into my inner circle so that I can determine if I'm going to be a healthy person today or not they want to rob you of your own self your own legitimacy and the way they do it is they make you to be a counterpart to their silly childish games and so thanks but no thanks I'm not going to do it I'm gonna go ahead and be into healthy me that I want and if you want to play those invalidation games go right ahead but you're not going to get a participant here I've got better things to do with my time and with my life I do hope that you gain from the videos that we post here and if you've not already done so I would invite you to hit that subscribe button beneath us and we'll keep you apprised of more videos we have an email list now that we'd like for you to sign up for so that we can keep you apprised of other kind of things that are coming along and actually we're going to be making available some some other videos that are not going to be put up on YouTube but some small videos that we can pass along to you and things of that nature articles and things like that if you need some online counseling we have some links a link below here for that we have my books online workshops and things of that nature so if you have the need make yourself available to all of those kind of things now I want to let you know I I really appreciate being along on the journey with you this is what I do and this is what I enjoy doing and so when I get the positive feedback from you its nourishment to my soul just as I hope this nurtures your soul so thanks for being here and I will see you next time [Music]

Channel: Surviving Narcissism

Views: 218,871

Rating: 4.9554806 out of 5

Keywords: narcissism, Dr. Les Carter, narcissistic personality, marital communication, counseling, Surviving Narcissism, psychology, self help

Id: WmU8HYenwgA

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019