Behavior Panel's Mark Bowden on Toxic Relationship Red Flags: When to Distance Yourself, When to Run

hi everyone this is hannah and kalyn back again with double talk i'm hannah and i'm caitlin after america and the world were shocked and heartbroken by the case of gabby petito a missing person story which turned out to be a tragic case of domestic violence and murder we were left with one important question one that will hopefully spot change in a better ending for couples in similar situations which signs did gabby miss which might have let her know it was time to leave the relationship what can the rest of us do to protect ourselves and get out of toxic or dangerous partnerships even with people we love mark bowden is a world renowned body language expert keynote speaker and best-selling author who has been voted global guru's number one body language professional in the world he is one of four experts behind youtube's wildly popular channel the behavior panel which analyzes body language and human behavior in videos of public interest today we are speaking with mark about the warning signs and the toxic relationship and how to get out in the safest way possible listen in you are an expert in human behavior and body language you've become kind of the go-to guy for that is there anything that you've learned that you would say is the most important warning sign for a toxic relationship and that's keeping in mind that relationships can take many forms yeah so let me give you the the top one and and when i say toxic in the case of of gabby potito in that particular one you know eventually what was being looked at there was was ultimately a what is that we don't entirely have the facts on this at the moment but it is most likely a violent toxic relationship okay uh unfortunately with the the uh perpetrator dead now will will never potentially know exactly what went on um but but let's just talk about toxicity or just something a little bit negative in a more general term one thing that i want you to look out for when you're with the group of people or you're with a partner or potential partner is disdain so disdain is when you're going to see this lip either side kind of move up to show a fang here it's that look of i don't quite agree i'm slightly disgusted or disdainful or contempt i have contempt for what's being said here's what we know about relationships in general if there is disdain or contempt between the potential partners it doesn't last it's it's never gonna go or certainly it doesn't last in a very positive way though the relationship could last a long time it's gonna be a relatively negative uh situation now what does this uh disdain or contempt mean it it means that you don't appreciate the values that the other person has so let's talk about you know your your relationship okay though you disagree with each other now and again on some fundamental things my guess is is you would very very very rarely if ever show contempt or disdain to the other because ultimately you want to stay bonded together you know that there is so much more value in being together than there is being uh apart and therefore you want to fit in with each other and and you genuinely like the values of each other there's some similarities and there's some differences in relationships that aren't going to do very well there's a lot of differences in the value system and not only that some some very strong negative dislike for the value system of the other person that will show up in contempt or disdain so watch out for somebody saying something and the partner you see one side of their mouth curl up or if you're with somebody and they're doing that to you not potentially not good potentially are you able to recognize the difference between the behavior of body language that is a red flag and somebody that may just not be a good friend or may just not be a good romantic partner and then somebody who may be outright dangerous where's the line between i should probably distance myself and i should run yeah yeah okay so look people will have all kinds of odd behaviors when they're confused or they're uncomfortable or they're anxious and there's every reason why you know if you're dating somebody or a relationship is starting that they might be anxious or confused or you know just not on solid ground around you and and show all kinds of behaviors that you don't quite know what they are so they're a little bit confusing and when people are confusing we defend we tend to default to quite a few negatives you know um around around them so so there's that so take that into account now i think one of the behaviors you probably or set of behaviors that you probably most want to look out for is what might be controlling behaviors okay so so look there's a difference between you know if if one of you were to say um you know hey what do you think of how i'm dressed you're asking for advice you're going hey do you like this okay that that's that's advice they might go yeah yeah i like that i don't like you know here's this and that you know there's a big difference between that and somebody telling you what to wear okay that's a big difference and if you ask for the for the uh advice what do you think of this no no it doesn't have to be about what you're wearing it could be hey what what do you think of this internship that i've got what do you think of the job give me some advice on the job that i have right now or tell me what's your opinion on this there's a big difference to here's my opinion on this and here's my opinion on this and i want you to do x you should be doing x job do this don't do that do this watch out for what feels to you like controlling behavior now there's there's some thin lines in there okay there's some thin lines so you need to have a good idea for yourself of what is the kind of control that you would like to be part of which is maybe a warm a warm support okay what is warmly supportive for one person may be controlling for another okay so you've got to work it out for yourself what do you think is supportive and what do you think is controlling you also need to check out where did you learn that gradation okay how have you worked out that this is warmly supportive and this is this is controlling because you've got to make sure as well that you didn't learn these criteria from people in toxic relationships themselves okay so there's a bit of self-exploration going on here but but if you can even start to work out for yourself here's my buckets here's my criteria that's a really great thing that's a really good thing to do to go this i think is controlling this is supportive and i think i learned that idea from people who i think were i truly think we're having a good relationship rather than they were kind of a relationship that i was stuck around and therefore that's the only model i have for a relationship i guess you can't just assume that everybody's an expert just because they're giving you advice and one once you identify red flags or you know you have your boundaries and somebody crosses them what is the best way to go about working through that and then when do you know this isn't working anymore i need to just break it off what would be the ideal situation in which you confront somebody about the red flags and then ideally how would they react and then what if they don't respond in that way then what do you do yeah so that's a really good question because i think i think if this situation happens it's a very quick route to working out whether you should not be in this anymore so somebody crosses a boundary with you okay what you might want to do is is to say look for me that's too far okay i'm uncomfortable with that i don't like that that's a really important one i don't like that okay to tell them that that that that you personally you don't like it because you can't argue with that i'm telling you that's how i feel i think that the way someone responds to that says a lot about them right so here's the response that you are here's the response that you're looking for and here's the response that you're not looking for okay the response you're looking for is okay i get it okay i get it i'm sorry about that either it was my intention and and and clearly it's the wrong intention or it wasn't my intention it doesn't matter whether it was intentional or not intentional you don't like it they go first of all they go i get it okay i get that yeah that was my intentional not my intention and then they go here's like i'm not gonna do that again or what are you or they might go what do you want me to do about this okay they might ask for give me some direction how i could be better next time or just like i'm not going to do that i'm going to stay clear of that yeah okay so that's kind of there's some other ideas as well but that's a good rough area where you want to be now the area you don't want to be is oh come on be nice come on that's not that's not how people behave you're just being uh you're just being x and this idea of especially bringing in a societal lever okay the idea of look people like this people usually like this behavior and you've got it wrong and especially be nice okay because what they're trying to do is lever you into behaviors with this idea of of nicety social a socialized idea and though there might be social norms okay i totally get that it doesn't really matter at this point because this is you and them okay there are societies involved like you are part of society they are perhaps part of society or maybe they're antisocial okay maybe they have an antisocial personality disorder could be possible and therefore they will understand the leverage that they can use on you of be nice this is what somebody who was normal would do this is how other people react nobody else reacts to me like that you know you want to watch out for that one chances are it's a good gamble it's a good gamble that's not going to go in the right direction for you when we see cases like the gabby potato case that are so tragic i think a lot of us have this initial reaction to figure out how we can prevent this from happening again and obviously as you mentioned identifying those those red flags are really important but people you know they look at the body camera footage um of the officers when they made that arrest in mohab they say that possibly there's something that the police officers could have identified that would have either had them separated and made an arrest or have them separated for longer did or said something that would have prevented that tragedy from happening do we need to bring in psychologists in those sorts of situations or police officers do they need to be trained differently or long term what needs to happen to prevent this from happening yeah look police have you know all first responders have a hard job everybody can train more everybody can do better okay around this and uh you know there are so many things that a an officer may be dealing with in a day that uh you know there's a huge panoply of situations going on and in this particular case as will have been many others in the past okay it maybe wasn't detected the issue maybe wasn't detected as early or immediately as it as it could be always better training more questioning more time okay all of this all of this all of this is just more resource more resource more resource i i would move this to what we can do all of us um to help out with this situation as i understand it uh there is a sign it doesn't matter who you are okay you can make this sign okay and that that might be helpful not that it is particularly your job to help law enforcement understand what is going on okay but if you didn't know about this sign then maybe you do now okay there are situations that you may be in where it's hard to make that sign and everybody understands that so so one element is i would say again you got to know yourself a little bit better and know what your boundaries are and start already thinking already thinking what for you is a good relationship yeah how do you know that's a good relationship and what are those boundaries around it because being a little stronger there may well help you look there's all kinds of people out there that are meant to help you but they unfortunately won't always be there for for you so my best suggestion is is is how can you help yourself as much as you can around this and for me it would be can you understand just a little bit better what for you are the boundaries of a good relationship and a bad relationship and start thinking really clearly about that because if you're clear with that okay you may well be able to be a bit clearer with everybody else around you when things are not as they should be when you've spent so much of your career getting so technical and really analyzing and analyzing body language and human behavior and you know all the technicalities behind why people do certain things are you still able to be a believer in gut instinct and not questioning you know the meaning behind why you feel the way that you do in a certain situation so look gut instinct is important for everybody because you both of you and i would be dead by now if it wasn't for gut instinct because we'd already be run over by a vehicle okay if we didn't use our gut instinct that says that vehicle is moving at such a speed at such a direct trajectory in the corner of my eye that i need to jump back quickly or i will get hit then you know we'd be dead already so your instinct is important however your instinct is not uh concerned with with accuracy it's concerned with your safety right now it wants you safe right now and it'll do accuracy tomorrow so your instinct often gets it wrong but it gets it wrong to the negative which means you always stay safe which means it could keep you too safe so how do you know when your instinct is keeping you too safe okay because it's always going to keep you safe it's working for you and i because we're alive and we don't need another person with us all the time keeping us safe because there are some people out there who don't have great instinct capacity for all kinds of reasons and they need somebody caring for them all the time or they get into massive massive trouble okay so how do we know that we're being kept too safe watch out for your gut feelings gut reactions when you're actually in a very safe place you've got a lot of power you know where the exits are it's a lot of light you can see lots of stuff you have agency in power you have the ability to make decisions and act them out yeah you have enough power in the room you can see everything and you know where the exits are and if you're talking to somebody and you're going i don't know i don't like them summing up with them maybe they're just not one of your group and you or you don't like their ideas yeah but you've made them into a bad person or a bad personality because it's actually their value system that you don't like okay and you might miss out on an incredible person if you make that if you go oh it doesn't feel right for me doesn't feel authentic i think they're weird i think they're weird because often people who are under stress under pressure they're they're they have anxiety and they'll give off all kinds of signals which are so close to the signals of predator that your mistake one for the other yeah because any confusion is predatory to the brain but if you've got if you know where the exits are there's plenty of light in the room you've got your friends nearby okay you've got a lot of power it's like maybe investigate some more now if you're in a dark place you don't know where the exits are okay you don't have friends nearby okay you don't you your your ability to take control of the situation is is is lower trust that instinct you know if it feels bad let's make it bad why not why not because you can be wrong but safe and alive okay the next day you can go somebody can go what you did you moved away from that person why they're the nicest person that i know i mean i genuinely i know them really well i've known them all my life they're fantastic everybody knows that you might go oh wow i made a really wrong decision there but i'm alive so i get to go back and say hey let's have a meeting with this person then let's i got it wrong is there an overarching a message doesn't feel like the right word but an overarching message or idea that you just hope that in general someone will take from watching the videos on the behavior panel yeah i hope so i hope so certainly for me and it may be true for the rest of the guys because many things we we think very similarly on um for me it's it's about the body language is really about getting on better with other people that's that's really we though though we look at a lot of crimes and a lot of problems and a lot of stuff where there's some drama already happened because that's entertaining for everybody quite honestly i think partly what we're doing is yes helping people be forewarned safe and and understand where danger might be better i totally get that but more so i want to help people understand where there might be some benefit even further and the skills for getting on better with people i think all of us at the behavior panel we're actually really good at getting on with people on purpose now that doesn't mean we're making it up but we're often you know challenging ourselves to get on better with people quicker using the techniques that we have so that things can get better quicker for for everybody so i i hope you know my my hope would be is that's a message that comes through [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Double Talk with Hannah and Cailin Loesch

Views: 70,347

Keywords: Hannah and Cailin Loesch, Double Talk with Hannah and Cailin Loesch, Double Talk, hannah loesch, cailin loesch, loesch twins, twins, identical twins, gabby petito, brian laundrie, toxic relationships, dating advice, dating red flags, relationship red flags, mark bowden, truthplane, the behavior panel, relationship advice

Id: Jn5b6KMiBGQ

Length: 20min 52sec (1252 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 11 2021