How to Deal with Manipulators

[Music] hey I want to talk with you today about a topic that I suspect quite a few of you know about and that is what are you going to do when other individuals want to take advantage of your good nature now before we get into our topic for today let me let you know what we have coming up ahead coming up in September I'm gonna be doing a live seminar that's entitled free to bean and how to respond to those who want to be in control over you it's going to be a very interesting and I hope hope it's going to be a very stimulating kind of a seminar for you and we're going to actually and have some live participation from you so it's going to be a good thing so just keep your ear to the ground we're gonna have more information on this as the time goes by now what are we going to do when people want to take advantage of your good nature first of all I want you to be thinking about what you think about when you consider someone who has a really positive upbeat nature you know we say that that individual is the consummate servant they're friendly they enjoy making others Daigo better because of their own presence in it these are the individuals who are encouragers they like to share what they have with other people they think well I have bounty then I want to make certain that I spread it toward other individuals they can be optimistic they can be conciliatory these are people who look for ways to make someone else's day go well sounds like a pretty nice thing doesn't it now the question that we have today is is it possible that you might have too much of a good thing going on in your world I can't even tell you how many times I've had people who will say things like you know my partner is someone who just doesn't help at all but they have just ridiculously high expectations as to what I'm supposed to do and then when I try to talk with them about being more considerate or more helpful more of a team player they just kind of look at me like I have three eyeballs I just feel like folks are are just in total totally insensitive to me or I'll have some individuals who will just say you know I'm going into a resentment or I've got some real discouragement that's going on inside because I really feel like in my relationship I take my role seriously I want us to have a good successful relationship but this other person just isn't participating it may be that they're lazy it may be that they've gotten their own extra hobbies it may be whether it's golf or whether it's hanging out with their friends or playing video games and things like that and as many times as I try to get them to engage with me and join me it's just not happening and so that emotional garbage can build up on the inside or I've had other people they'll say you know I have people who ask me constantly to do favors for them and then when it's over I don't get much in the way of thanks and certainly I don't get a whole lot of reciprocation see if that ever happened to you is I know that there are some individuals who think what's the deal I mean here I'm trying to be appropriate and I'm not getting a lot of comeback how am I going to respond to this now there are a couple of angles that I want us to take here today as we talk about this one is I want you to try to get at least some idea of what's going on inside of that person who is being inappropriate towards you and see if you can at least know what you're dealing with so that you don't feel so pulled into their junk and then the second part I want to do is I want to talk with you about how you might respond both externally and internally to that individual who's taking advantage of your good nature now let's start with one awareness about that person who's not really responding well to you and that is keep in mind when people respond in a non loving or in a demanding or an insensitive way it actually can be evidence of their own emotional or relational woundedness you see when when you operate at your very you're gonna operate with love and goodness and kindness leading the way and yet these other individuals may be operating with criticism or anger or agitation or disinterest or insensitivity leading the way in other words they haven't figured life out well and when you begin looking into their personal background you can find that sometimes they've been given an attitude of entitlement by people who just don't expect them to being responsible or reliable sometimes they may have been criticized themselves and so now they're thinking okay it's my turn to become the critic some of these individuals have a history where they just haven't really learned the basics about relational wholeness but in some way or another they came into the adult life not exactly operating with a full deck if you will of information and enlightenment about what the good life requires and now it's being played out in your life but it's not all about you it's um something's going on in their background that ain't quite right or another and this is just kind of saving the obvious there are many individuals who approach life as just raw takers what are you gonna do for me next and it could be that there's just a sense of sense well people exist out there well I don't know to make my life go better they don't have a sense of teamwork I actually think it's reasonable to have a certain expectation when you're in various relationships to think well yeah I want to have some sort of good that comes from others towards me but you know the best way to get that to happen is to give it away you may have heard the old saying to have a friend you must be a friend or kind of a corollary to that to have understanding you must give understanding you realize that the best way to to have the healthiness in relationship is there's a real reciprocal effort there those who take advantage of someone else's good nature hasn't where have really learn the the give part they've got to take part down and so they're operating with an emotional immaturity it's kind of like you're dealing with a grade school kid in many kind of ways somebody that just hasn't learned to to step it up and be an adult in the way that they interact with other individuals or and we can say another thing about these individuals who can treat you that ways they're operating with a real low level of self-awareness so many times if you were to say something to them about how you just feel like they're not carrying their load they may honestly look at you and say what are you talking about and they try to may try to sign all sorts of different things that they do that in their mind is right and good but many times in doing so they expose the fact that there's not a lot of awareness of who they are and how they impact others and so part of your engagement that individual is going to be to help coach them up not that it's your job to tell them what to do or to somehow or another rescue them from themselves but they are operating with low awareness and so it may be that there's going to be an educational process that has to be a part of the relationship and then let's keep in mind something else just about human nature in general and that is all of us in some way or another operate with a desire to be in control we like being in that power position now the more you grow and mature you recognize that control in grieving on the inside of yourself and you learn to curtail it there's a certain self control or self restraint that you have but many people if they don't mature very well they haven't really learned how to have that that self restraint and so again this is not about you in that when these kinds of things happen that are unfortunate for you but it tells us that that person hasn't really grown in insight and awareness and then of course we can say that along with that I need for control they tend to have a low element of empathy and so you're not feeling like they're working very hard to understand you because they really aren't so there's a lot going on in that other individual when they treat you in a way that more or less says you owe me or you need to do more for me or what you can do for me next they're revealing that there's a lot of unfinished business on their inside so that takes us to the second part of what we're talking about today and that is knowing that this can be the case knowing that you're trying to be pleasant and good and friendly and helpful but you're not really sure that that other person knows how to respond in a clean kind of way what are you going to do so that you don't build a lot of emotional toxicity within yourself again many times when I talk with people in the counseling office they'll actually admit to me that they either feel depressed or discouraged because no matter what they tried to do it's not going to be enough I know I'm thinking of different people they don't think you know I really do work hard but I don't feel like anybody ever appreciates me so there's this feeling of defeat sometimes they respond with a real resentment and a bitterness like this is just not working and I can't stand it and so they're almost about to explode so what can you do so that that kind of emotion doesn't just take off and run away with you now first things first let's recognize on your side that not everyone is going to appreciate what you have to offer but having said that that doesn't mean that you have to be a different person just because they don't appreciate what you have to offer just because they're in a takers kind of mode and they're in a manipulative perhaps or a bossy mode doesn't mean that you have to cease being a good and kind and friendly individual it's just that they're they're not going to have the the appreciation for you which leads to another thought and that is you're going to have to adjust your expectations with respect to what may or may not happen inside the relationship often I have folks who themselves have thought you know I really want to hold a high standard for myself and then the the trick is they sometimes will say and I expect others to live with that same high standard you have to drop that not that it's wrong to want it but if others as we mentioned that in their brokenness can't or won't do that then you don't want to set yourself up for more emotional duress than is necessary by expecting more than it's going to be there now having said that that doesn't mean that you you have to just lay down and let these individuals walk all over you there are going to be times when it's not just ok but they're going to be times when it's going to be necessary for you to establish what your boundaries and your parameters and stipulations are going to be now sometimes the other persons will coordinate with you based on what you have to say and sometimes they want but sometimes you just simply need to hear yourself say I know that you want more from me or I know that you appreciate it when I do these things but I'm going to need some some fair-mindedness here and here's what you can do to help me or if you choose to to go too far and taking advantage my good nature then the consequence is going to be this I mean it can be something like I know you're constantly wanting me to help out with with taking care of your responsibilities and requirements but that's something I'm going to let you do from here on out I'm not going to constantly be so available to you that I feel like I'm actually enabling you to be irresponsible or lazy or something of that sort and so it is going to be good for you to establish your your stipulations and put your consequences out there now this doesn't mean that when you do that the other individuals are going to say hey this is terrific I'm really enjoying the new part that we're gonna have in our relationship well they may not like it they may get resentful and they may be bitter or they may try to put guilt trips on you hey what's wrong with you or why can't you be more cooperative when you know that you truly operate with the spirit of goodness and you're not being given credit for it then rather than making that other person see how they should give you credit you just again you can't convince them stand firmly and say I know that perhaps we don't see things eye-to-eye nonetheless this is the decision I made and you just go ahead and stick with what you're going to do you want to have a certain amount of self-preservation because if you don't take care of you well by definition if you're legal living with someone who's very manipulative well they're sure going to take care of you I guess what this means is we're living in a world that is depraved we're living in a world that's raw or imperfect now that doesn't mean that everything about everyone is negative and awful but you have to take into account that not everyone puts into their responsibilities a lot of thought about who they can be and how they can conduct themselves and so when you find that people don't really think that way then you kind of have to educate them a little bit about who you're gonna be whether they're gonna match picture with you or not that's a whole nother story keep in mind you can't fix somebody that doesn't want to be fixed so let's summarize with this you want to go ahead and continue with your friendliness you want to have as much goodness and as much servitude as common sense will allow those are healthy characteristics and if you have a good nature you don't want to let somebody else steal that good nature and take it away from you by you know making you be somebody that you're not so that so you want to go ahead and hold firmly with what you know to be wise and best at the same time you also want to put other individuals on notice that you're not going to be some sort of a patsy or someone that's just going to be a doormat that's not required part of the goodness that you bring to a relationship is your own self-respect and so as you acknowledge and let other individuals know that you respect you just as you want to show respect to them maybe just maybe they'll get the message and respond in a much better way but if not you're going to be able to live with your goodness intact without having to get pulled into the kind of bitterness and depression that I mentioned just a minute ago stay kind but stay firm and stay vigilant [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Les Carter, Ph. D.

Views: 142,383

Rating: 4.93958 out of 5

Keywords: manipulator, exploiter, manipulation, exploitation, Dr.Les Carter, MarriagePath, relate.able, get.relate.able

Id: nMD2jNEmTU0

Length: 15min 17sec (917 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2017