Narcissists And Their Flying Monkeys

hey do you remember that movie The Wizard of Oz it had quite a cast of characters and of course you have Dorothy and her little dog Toto and they're trying to get back to Kansas she has the Tin Man and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion that's with her and then you have the Wicked Witch of the West and she was the baddest and the meanest of all and if you recall the Wicked Witch had these this cluster of flying monkeys that would surround her and they would do whatever she would tell him to do clearly she was the one who was in charge and she was a highly controlling and they were just there to do her bidding well you bring it on up to where we are right now and as we talk in pop psychology then as we discussed narcissism we realized that narcissists can have what we would refer to as the flying monkeys who can surround them let's take for example a family unit and it may be one really large and in charge person is in that family that's highly narcissistic very controlling and they make sure that they punish anyone that's not the same as they are and so many of the other family members may fall in line or it could be that you have a political system and you have that person who's ascending to the top and even though others may not like the way they think or do things well they're the ones that has a power so they go and fall in line with them or it could be a sports team and you have that over flipping coach that treats people terrible but they win so you have to fall in line there you can have it in churches you can have it in civic organizations you can have it in social groups any time where there are a cluster of people that are there the narcissist is the one that likes to show up and be at the top of the heap and often they will gather around them they're flying monkeys who will say yes and then when when there's something that seems to be out of the ordinary or unusual they don't push back they just kind of go along because they've decided I'm too weak that person is too strong there's too much other secondary game that I might have so I'm just going to kind of go along with the program and the narcissus is thinking yeah that's the way I like it keep it up and some of them actually do and sometimes for a long time now I want to get into a little bit more about what makes that flying monkey you'd be the way they are I do want to make you aware though that we do have some resources for you right below the video you're gonna see some links to a couple of books that I have one is entitled when pleasing you is killing me and then there's another one entitled the anger trap and then my partner Laura Carranza has a book we have a link of hers they're called ugly love and so I hope that you'll find books like that to be helpful in your library and then we'd invite you to subscribe to our channel too so that we can send you notices whenever new videos come out now let's take a look at people who allow themselves to go into that role of the flying monkey the ones who actually prop up and play an enablers role towards the narcissist see let's keep in mind that there's there's got to be something in it for them and basically it's of a vicarious nature the flying monkeys themselves may not be strong enough and powerful enough to have that position of control and dominance so they they are able to do so through that other dominant person that narcissists and so first of all now the flying monkey is very willing to allow the narcissist to save what's correct and they'll just kind of you know hand over their sense of correct think and say okay what she said or what he said and they just allow that person to do the thinking for them the the narcissist sets the the norm and the flying monkey says okay the flying monkey can take glee when the narcissist is a bully or when the narcissist is overwhelming I could say they may not feel strong enough themselves to be the the top dog but it's like but I'm on the top dogs team and so thinking that to go against the narcissist would mean to feed they just stick around for that reason being flying monkey can lack analytical thinking it's like they they have to turn off any kind of depth of thought or a contemplation and they just allow themselves to be shallow well then with with something like that you can also see that flying monkeys tend to overlook obvious red flags there are times when Outsiders might look into the narcissus cluster of people and folk surrounding him that outsider may say what are you doing or why do you do this at this way and don't you see that there's an inappropriateness and all of them in unity will say mmm oh and there are red flags rudeness and condescension and inequities but the flying monkeys will just ignore that in on top of it flying monkeys make excuses on behalf of the narcissus in fact they'll explain it away and their apologetics on behalf of the narcissus now flying monkeys may actually fear the narcissus and sometimes it comes out they can be quite defensive but then most of the time they tend to suppress whatever emotion goes along with that sometimes flying monkeys complain behind the narcissus back but when given the opportunity to speak up and say something they don't now a flying monkey may come to you as an outsider and say well why don't you tell me what your thoughts and feelings are and then if you say something that's contrary to the narcissist they go tattletale on you do you see what I'm talking about the narcissus loves to have these lackeys that are around that the narcissus gets to be the one that does the thinking and a type of group thing comes into play and so let's suppose whether it's in a family system or some other kind of social structure you're watching this and you may be tied to that narcissus but over time you begin thinking oh I I can't do this I feel like I'm losing a large piece of my soul I don't want to participate anymore I don't want to be anyone's flying monkey well there are four things that I want you to be aware of as you go about doing this you're gonna have to extricate yourself from that that groupthink that is there and four things first to look at when you stand up and say this is not something I can go along with anymore this is not something I want to participate number one be be prepared to hear all sorts of statements of defense and denial keep in mind that the narcissist doesn't receive input the narcissist has their own alternate view of reality so when you stand up and say this is wrong or I disagree or we can do better or you're being very cruel at times then there's going to be a barrage of defense and justification and of course in doing so you're gonna be blamed and accused and being told that you're ungrateful and things of that nature so point number two as you stand up against this groupthink that goes along with this whole flying monkey system make sure you're willing to pay the whatever the price might be when you say I am opting out and the price can be in times very steep very high I've known people who have left jobs because they couldn't go along with that overwhelming narcissistic system that was there I've known people who have not gotten political appointments because they would dare to say I don't need to go along with the party line here there's something about this that just doesn't seem right I've certainly known a lot of people who have been ostracized from their families they may have that one very dominant person who keeps dictating how things are supposed to be inside the family and so the price that you have to pay there is rejection you're on the outside looking in and it's a it's a high price particularly when you're somebody that wants to be connected in a healthy kind of way and so yet the other side is the price of staying with the narcissist and being inside that flying monkey cluster is you lose yourself which brings us to a third thought and that is make sure you're willing to be an assertive person now when you hear that word assertive what kind of connotation is that word have for you see many people tend to think that you're assertive that just means you can speak rudely to others and say and do whatever you want well that's not really assertive that's aggressive anger and that's a whole other topic first to get into but when you're assertive it means that you do have your convictions and you are aware of what your valid needs are and you're willing to stand up for them now part of the definition of assertiveness means you're gonna have a decency about you and a common sense and a respectfulness and the way that you do that but it also means that there's a firmness that you're not going to back away from sometimes assertiveness means that you set stipulations you establish boundaries you give yourself permission to act independently and so make sure is you're breaking away from the flying monkey cluster that you are prepared you're gonna need to hold onto your assertiveness and then when the others push back and they demand that you explain why part of your assertiveness may be to say I don't feel like I have to give you an explanation since it's gonna be even shot down anyway I've made a decision it makes sense to me I'm just gonna stand firm and when you're told that you're an idiot keeping in mind there's all that denial then the the response assertively is you may think anything you want but the bottom line is I'm making decisions that are right for me that's your assertiveness and then a fourth point I want you to make is make sure that you have a high commitment to your own authenticity flying monkeys as I mentioned earlier tend not to do a lot of their own independent thinking they don't have a lot of contemplation or analysis of who they are and where they're trying to go in life but I'm hoping that you will have that deeper thought and there will be a sense it says I know who I am I know what I stand for and what you see on the outside is going to be quite consistent with what I have on the inside narcissists and their flying monkeys but they don't have that internal external consistency what you see on the outside may not have anything to do with what's going on in the inside it just all depends on what they're trying to achieve in that moment and it's never going to be good for you commit to being an authentic person internally and turning consistent now in doing so you are going to show yourself to be other and as you commit to having your own sense of determination and decisiveness and you're going to stay away from that groupthink there is one quality that you'll be able to claim at the end of the entire process and that's the quality of your freedom many times I've had people talk with me whether again it's with family or business or social or elsewhere where they've decided to opt out of the groupthink and be their own separate person they'll they'll speak with me and say you know the angle is off my chest I can think for myself I get to be me see I operate on the very simple assumption I'm not very good trying to be somebody that I'm not flying monkeys they're not being true to themselves you don't have to be that you can be your own separate into independent person I think you're gonna like the results they're much better

Channel: Surviving Narcissism

Views: 181,645

Rating: 4.9355278 out of 5

Keywords: narcissist, narcissism, surviving narcissism, flying monkeys, enablers, abuse, controlling people, Dr. Les Carter, Laura Charanza, divorce, marriage, family conflict, psychology, counseling, sociopaths, codependence, codependency, anger, communication, anger management, Vital Mind Psychology, Dr. Ramani, MedCircle, Ariel Leve

Id: xBIauMej5Ok

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 04 2018