The short answer that the experts won’t tell you: It is a response to unhealed trauma.
If you claim you have a lot of energy and get it out by bouncing your leg, you aren’t entirely wrong. But this “energy” is likely a form of PTSD. That bouncing is stored trauma we haven’t released. It shows up in our bodies and has been proven scientifically many times over. There are great books by Bessel Van Der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) and Peter Levine, who wrote (In an Unspoken Voice) who are both experts in PTSD, that looked into this phenomenon.
Specifically, a part of the brain is meant to act like a gate that closes and opens as we process information. In the case of the bouncing leg syndrome, the gate is stuck open. While, that part of the brain has been flooded by an experience or series of experiences that were too overwhelming to process. That trauma creates the gate open “stuck” position. Whether it is a bouncing leg, nervous tick, having to count things, cracking our knuckles…while, all are a sign of unhealed trauma.
In the bouncing leg, the movement goes into the leg specifically because the lower body can be an extremely emotional place. While, it’s how we move and get around. With PTSD, we’re stuck and don’t want to move forward (walk). So we bounce our legs. It’s a metaphor for, “No, I’m not going to move. I’m not going to let this go. I’m not ready to.
People Detached
Many people are detached from it and likely don’t even realize they are bouncing their legs. While, a suggestion would be to look introspectively as the urge arises and ask, “what am I really feeling right now?”
You may say, “it’s just energy.” Is it energy? Or is it fear? Most will notice feeling anxious. While, emotion from the past has not been healed and this is the body’s way of alerting us that we need to address the painful moments from the past we have attempted to ignore, suppress, repress, minimize or deny.
I also did this video to help you heal the trauma that creates the need to bounce your leg.
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Recently, a friend asked me what the right amount of communication between exes should be? She is worried about how her boyfriend and his ex text constantly. They text when she’s lying in bed with him, and there’s always a text when they wake up. My friend feels like she’s married but living in the same house with this other woman sharing her husband. How much communication is appropriate?
Unfortunately, this happens quite a bit. We are not taught much about relationships and thus don’t realize this is massively codependent and a sign that they have not emotionally disengaged from their former partner. Due to the lack of teaching about what constitutes a healthy relationship, these people likely don’t know this – it may be an innocent mistake. Regardless, in this instance, the communciation goes against my friends morals and values so she must put some boundaries in place.
The key with boundaries is to understand that they are not meant to control or change the other person – instead, our goals are to be known, to meet our need to love ourselves and share how we feel with our partner. This way, both can decide if they want to be in the relationship.
There are 6 key building blocks to setting boundaries:
Share what you observe. Tell the person you see them communicating with their ex, texting and calling at inappropriate times.
Share your feelings about what you observe? You might feel rejected, replaced, or inadequate? Whatever your true feelings may be, express them.
Share what you “make up” about your feelings? It is important we own that we are making this interpretation up and choosing to have these feelings. We are not mind readers. We might be “making up” that our partner is still in a relationship with this other person or as though we don’t matter to our partner?
Ask for what you want and need. For example, “Would you be willing to consider putting a plan in place to stop the communication?”
Celebrate their “no.” Asking for our needs and want is not about control or getting them to change; it’s about self-love and advocating for ourselves. We celebrate when our partner says no to our request because we recognize they are advocating for their own needs, and they have every right to do so.
Have a plan for their “no.” This is your backup plan. If your significant other refuses to let up on communication, insisting it’s innocent, explain, “ I appreciate that, but it just doesn’t work for me. I will get back to you and let you know what I decide.” Your choice could be sleeping in the spare bedroom or a hotel or ending the relationship? It really depends on your own morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s and non-negotiable’s. Once you decide, express your decision to them.
Boundaries are not about controlling or getting what we want. The other person doesn’t need to change. They get to be whoever they want. Boundaries are about advocating for ourselves, sharing and being authentically vulnerable so we can be known. Explaining how we are choosing to make ourselves feel in a situation like this is extremely vulnerable. We are giving them a look inside at our insecurities and what matters to us. That’s what boundaries are about – true, real intimacy. Intimacy is “In-to-me-I-let-you-see.”
Here’s the beauty in setting a boundary: we both get to step back and reevaluate the state of the relationship. He decides if he wants to be in a relationship with someone uncomfortable with his communication. She decides if she wants to be in a relationship with someone who won’t give up communicating with his ex? It might just be a simple misunderstanding and with vulnerable communication the relationship grows deeper? Both people win.
In addition, we learn about ourselves, each other, and what our non-negotiable’s are. If we keep our feelings to ourselves and put up with it, we’re hurting our partner as much as we feel hurt by them. All of that unspoken hurt, frustration and anger will come out passive aggresively.
Saying “yes” to things that go against our morals, values, needs, wants, negotiable’s and non-negotiable’s is not loving. That is codependency.
Enjoy The Journey! ??
If you would like to learn more, check out the video here:
Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who is Narcissist? If so, I feel for you. The turmoil, gaslighting, games, and manipulation are overwhelming! I know because I’ve married two of them!
Sadly, the main source of the continued confusion is that nearly all books, chatlines, and even experts focus all of their efforts on figuring out the narcissist. How to handle one, how to spot one, and what causes one. But I want to talk about the person that’s attracted to the narcissist, which might be you? This will be groundbreaking for you because very little has been written about what really causes our attraction to one.
Before we start, I want to clarify that I am not making excuses for the narcissist’s behavior or advocating that we should minimize the pain they cause. I know that pain all too well. The withdrawal from my second narcissist wife nearly caused me to take my life. Instead, I am advocating for those of us who have fallen prey to their deception. In my experience the best way to advocate for anyone is to empower them. Facing our own deception generates that empowerment.
The first hard truth to accept is that we play an equal part in the relationship and the dysfunctional dynamic with the narcissist. We cannot divorce ourselves from the truth and responsibility we chose to be with a narcissistic individual. Take me – like all men, there are millions of women to “chase,” yet I chose two narcissistic women. That is my responsibility. I am the one constant in both relationships. We all have the responsibility and ownership for who we allow into our life. Though we are not to blame, we were doing the best we could with what we knew at the time; we are still responsible. We must resist the temptation to deceive ourselves and place all of the responsibility on the narcissist. This is the first truth we must accept to get what we really desire: love.
So what makes us attracted to a narcissist? To discover what creates the attraction, we need to understand that Narcissists are created, not born. They experienced massive trauma as children, and developed a maladaptive personality to survive. They may have experienced neglect, abuse, over-indulgence, or under indulgence, to name a few. Unfortunately, the adaptation they developed was to become falsely empowered to avoid feeling the original pain.
The reverse is true for people like myself and those of us who have been with a narcissist. We, too, have gone through horrific childhood trauma, which was primarily experienced as abandonment. This created the polar opposite adaptation, disempowerment. As disempowered people, we were so love-starved and hungry for affection that we become willing to accept almost anything to get it. That’s why the charm, sexuality, intellect, challenging, powerful, and manipulative allure of the narcissist attracts us so much. The chase to figure them out satiates our hunger to regain our lost power.
Unfortunately, because of the lack of teaching and information around what constitutes healthy parenting and what creates childhood trauma, nearly 80% of people will exclaim, “that can’t be true; my childhood was great.” Many aren’t aware that growing up in a single-parent home, having a family member we had to take care of physically or emotionally, being a latch key child, having a parent who had to work constantly to keep food on the table, an addiction, divorce, what people would call “normal parenting” can create the disempowerment. The groundbreaking Adverse Childhood Experiences study (https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html) concluded that nearly 70% of adults had experienced at least one traumatic childhood event. In other words, trauma is the rule not the exception for nearly all of us.
Finally, to understand this attraction completely, we need to understand how the brain and body function. For decades, behavioral psychology has shown that we all become the subconscious programming we experienced in the first seven years of our lives. Famed biologist, genetic researcher, and author of The Biology Of Belief, Dr. Bruce Lipton, points out that 95% of our adults lives, we are just reliving the subconscious programming from our childhood. What makes it into our subconscious are the most emotionally impactful moments in those first seven years. Dr. Lipton points out that even in the best home 70% of those messages are negative, disempowering and even self sabotaging.
In addition, the design of our brain works against us in two ways. Firstly, it doesn’t not know the difference between right and wrong. We all can relate to knowing the “right” thing to do but not being able to do it. And secondly, it takes tremendous energy for our brain to do anything. Its solution to these problems is to conserve energy by seeking to repeat what it already knows. Basically, our brain and body get addicted to replaying our known emotional subconscious experiences from childhood, most of which were hurtful. I call this process “The Worst Day Cycle.”
Still unsure if this is true? Think about the last time you swiped left on a dating app. Your brain and body felt no electrical connection. Most likely, you even said,
“They seem attractive and nice but kind of boring.”
We are bored by them because our subconscious has no known experience with a healthier, more stable person. This stable person will not allow our brain to repeat what it knows, the emotionally hurtful drama of our childhood. Simply put, our attraction to the narcissist comes from our unhealed childhood trauma.
I experienced the electrical explosion the day I met my second narcissistic wife. I was standing outside the restaurant on the evening we met for our first date. When I turned around, and saw her walking towards me I felt hit in the gut, took a step back and heard myself say;
“Oh, My God, she’s the devil”!
Was she actually the devil? Of course not. Narcissists are not evil. My brain and body instinctively knew this would be crazy and chaotic, and I could not stop myself from pursuing the relationship.
The brains design, our childhood trauma and the resulting hunger to regain our lost power create the 7 ways we attract a narcissist?
We knew from the beginning. We see the red flags. And we ignore them. I have found this to be true with every disempowered client attracted to a narcissist. They all saw the red flags, but the brain and body could not resist the temptation to relive their childhood trauma.
We think we can fix them. We see their potential through their flaws, and we try to gain power by being the ones to fix them. Like the parent we couldn’t heal or get love and attention from. Trying to fix the narcissist helps us hide the disempowered pain from our childhood. It is a learned subconscious manipulative attempt to get our power back. If I can heal you, I am powerful.
We do everything we can to control their actions and behavior to get them to stop. We throw fits, we complain, we throw it in their face. Some of us are aggressive. This is another attempt to regain the power we lost in childhood.
We try to become whatever the narcissist wants. We become chameleons. In my case, I changed the way I dressed, my career choices, and more to appease my first narcissistic wife. This creates the self deception that we are “nice.” And sometimes, we want to change, but the disempowerment learned in childhood taught us that we can not voice our desires. Like me, we then pick a narcissist who will demand the change we wanted, but since we never mentioned it, we can then blame them for making us change.
We keep going back to them, but we keep blaming them. We are unaware that it is our childhood that has created this compulsion to self-victimize. It is all we know. Society has not told us that this is a two-sided dynamic where both parties have responsibility. We are unaware that if there are perfect imperfections in one person, there have to be compatible perfect imperfections in the other person and the unhealed brain is drawn to them.
Society has taught us to deceive ourselves by not taking ownership for our part. Society has failed to teach people that no one enters our life unless we allow them. Instead it focuses on blaming the narcissist and celebrating the role of the victim. Being the victim also garners attention and care. The care we did not receive in our childhood. As the victim, the unspoken inference is that I am nicer and kinder, and therefore I am better than the narcissist. This deceptive viewpoint strips the individual of their authentic power and keeps the abuse cycle alive. Society never taught us that ownership and honesty with ourselves provides us the agency to create change and is the only way to authentically reclaim our lost power.
While it is disheartening to recognize that our childhood and society conditioned our brains to believe that we must manipulate for power from the disempowered position, there is hope because disempowered people are capable of empathy, and so, unlike the narcissist, they can recover. We only need new knowledge, skills, and tools to stop the subconscious self-victimization and learn how to express healthy empathy towards ourselves and others. That healthy empathy needs to start with not blaming ourselves.
I always remind my clients
“We can only do what we know. As we know better, we can do better.”
If you have never been able to find the source of your attraction before, then this is a momentous occasion. You now know there are things in your past you can address and heal so that future attractions will be healthy ones. By doing so with an expert like myself or many others out there who specialize in these matters, we will become authentically empowered .
All worth exploring because everyone deserves a brain and body capable of being attracted to someone kind-hearted enough for true intimacy!
You’re not alone. Millions of people are stuck in codependent relationships that make them feel bad about themselves, and don’t know how to break free. We’ve all been there.
Or maybe you find yourself always attracted to someone who is not good for you, and the cycle starts again.
But it doesn’t have to be this way! There is hope! We will help you find your way out of the darkness and into the light.
If you are single, you deserve better than being stuck in a cycle of narcissistic abuse or neglect. You deserve love and kindness! Don’t let another day go by where someone else controls your happiness or self-worth. Take control today with this course and start living life on your terms again! Save yourself from heartache and take back control over your life with this course now!
If you have a partner, it’s time to take back control of your life and start learning how to save and resurrect a toxic, broken, codependent relationship. Fill it with love, safety, affection, kindness, understanding intimacy, and mutual connection. Start living the romantic life you deserve by breaking free from your toxic codependent relationship patterns today.
It doesn’t have to be like this forever – we want to show you how it could be different for you now. All it takes is one step at a time…and we’ll walk with you every step of the way on your journey to the loving relationship you deserve.
The sooner you take action, the sooner your life will get back on track. Join our community and learn how to heal yourself from codependence so that you can find happiness again.
You are worth it!
Sign up NOW!
How To Break Free From Toxic Relationship Patterns
WLearning how to create boundaries for yourself is essential to heal codependence, develop true intimacy and connection in our relationships, and live content, peaceful, happy lives.
The Two Types of Boundary Systems
external boundary system (physical): Our external boundary consists of how close we allow somebody to get to us and whether we allow sexual intimacy.
Internal boundary system (emotions): The internal boundary consists of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and how to express them moderately and allow somebody else to express their thoughts, feelings, and actions without losing containment of our emotional and intellectual condition even when the other person is not healthy and moderate.
How to create and protect external physical boundaries
Physical boundaries revolve around hugs, personal touches, and personal belongings.
If you want to set a physical boundary around your belongings, you might say to someone: “My personal belongings are off-limits. If you’d like to investigate those things, please ask my permission.”
Sometimes we feel bad or guilty and want to withdraw our boundaries, but remember that those feelings of guilt are a sign of codependence. You’re giving yourself away, going against yourself, and letting those feelings influence you to drop your boundaries.
When it comes to physical intimacy, we get to decide who, what, when, where, and how we are physically intimate. The best way to do this before we enter a situation where we are unsure about our boundaries is to make a plan ahead of time in our minds and ask ourselves, “What are my boundaries around this person or situation?” and then when you are with that person you can say, “This is how I view this, and this is when it’s okay for me, what are your thoughts?”
It may be too early in the relationship to express that, but you want a plan in place until that time comes so that if somebody’s going to be more aggressive about it, you know exactly what to say and exactly what to do.
How to create and protect internal emotional boundaries
The best way to protect ourselves emotionally is to create a forcefield around our hearts and who we are. For instance, a common way to do this is to imagine a castle with a drawbridge where we are in control of who gets across and doesn’t get across the bridge, and we are safe in the castle where we have a way not to catch other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions that come towards us. Others have used the idea of a glass jar dropping over top of themselves with a door that only they can open from the inside. This allows them to control what thoughts and feeligns to allow in and which ones they want to let bounce off.
We always get to decide if we let any of someone else’s emotions in.
If we ever hear someone say, “Well, you made me feel,” that’s a sign of co-dependence. While nobody can ever make us feel anything because we decide if we will take on their reality and their belief about us or the situation. If someone else’s stuff gets in, that’s our responsibility. We have lost our boundaries and it is our job to fix that. We can negate it if we choose, so the castle or glass jar are important visualizations to protect us.
When we learn how to navigate emotional intimacy boundaries with someone, the best example is imagining pedals in a car. While, if you’re on a first date, and you speed up to 5, 8, 10 miles an hour telling about your past, watch what they do.
Do they back off?
Do they shut down?
Maybe it’s a bit too much.
Or maybe they join you.
Then the dynamic moves into, “Oh, we have mutual emotional boundaries. We’re working on this together. We’re staying moderate. Working as a team here.”
When you’re sharing your emotional intimacy, think of gas pedals and protecting yourself. If you feel safe and protected, keep accelerating. So, if you don’t feel safe and protected, then back off and protect yourself.
Enjoy The Journey ??
If you’d like to deep dive deeper, you can check out the video below.
I also recommend reading Pia Mellody’s book Facing Codependence. You can read my Book Summary and purchase it here.
You’re not alone. Millions of people are stuck in codependent relationships that make them feel bad about themselves and don’t know how to break free. We’ve all been there.
Or maybe you find yourself always attracted to someone who is not good for you, and the cycle starts again.
But it doesn’t have to be this way! There is hope! We will help you find your way out of the darkness and into the light.
If you are single, you deserve better than being stuck in a cycle of narcissistic abuse or neglect. You deserve love and kindness! Don’t let another day go by where someone else controls your happiness or self-worth. Take control today with this course and start living life on your terms again! Save yourself from heartache and take back control of your life with this course!
If you have a partner, it’s time to take back control of your life. Also start learning how to save and resurrect a toxic, broken, codependent relationship. For instance, fill it with love, safety, affection, kindness, understanding, intimacy, and mutual connection. Start living the romantic life you deserve by breaking free from your toxic codependent relationship patterns today.
It doesn’t have to be like this forever – we want to show you how it could be different for you now. All it takes is one step at a time…and we’ll walk with you every step of the way on your journey to the loving relationship you deserve.
The sooner you take action, the sooner your life will get back on track. So, join our community and learn how to heal yourself from codependence so that you can find happiness again.
Hello and welcome back. I have received a lot of requests on this topic: “How do I protect my kids from a Narcissist ex?” I have lived through the same challenging experience. So I’m going to share with you what I did and what I tell my clients. I’ll provide you with what I think are the three best things to do, and also some great resources with you, so please read to the end.
The first step in this process is to become an expert in a few areas! Unfortunately, we are not taught how to navigate something like this. We can’t make sense of a narcissist or anything else in life until we gain the knowledge, skills, and tools.
Become an expert in parenting. One of the key aspects to learn about in parenting is: children need attunement. That’s not attention; it’s attunement. Kids need focused attention, which means we as adults have to put aside our emotional condition (our internal struggles from jobs, relationships, etc.) to sit in front of the child and ask them about their day, interests, feelings, etc. Attunement is all about “I am here for you.” Our children don’t need expensive or grand things, they need our focused emotional connection. Unfortunately, daily life as a parent most often consists of asking where their homework is, yelling to get in the car. Quite often there’s very little sitting down and attuning with our child.
Coparenting With A Narcissist
The second expertise we need to gain is around the topic of parental alienation. This is the single most significant cause of hurting our children in a dynamic like this. We often have a narcissistic ex that’s being awful, and we inadvertently drag the kids in, telling them, “your mom/dad is…”, saying that their other parent is wrong in some fashion. This is a hard and fast rule, black and white. We never, ever, ever, ever (before the age of 18) say anything negative about the ex. EVER!
No matter what they do. The second we do that, we’ve inflicted trauma on the child. Every child wants and deserves to adore their mother or father regardless of that parents behavior. It’s our child’s choice, not ours. The second we tell our kids the bad things about the ex or current spouse: we’ve placed them in a double bind. Now they’re in the middle. Whichever parent they choose, they lose. Doing so is abusive to our child.
Parental alienation is one of the most common and destructive things that happens in this dynamic. We might convince ourselves that it is important our child hears the truth but this is adult information and a child does not have the emotional development to navigate this information.
Here’s what I learned to do: my response to my kids was always,
“I hear that you’re really upset. I just want you to know both your mom and dad love you. Therefore, We see things differently. Your mom gets to parent and will believe things she wants. I have my own beliefs, and sometimes we disagree. Your job isn’t to worry about that adult stuff. Your job is to be a kid. That’s it. Your mom and dad are doing their best to figure it out.”
That was my go-to response every single time. If my kid exclaimed, my ex said this or that about me; I would do my best not to bite. Narcissist learn that mantra. Say it every time. It’s too much information for them to process. When they are adults and if they decide, you can have more transparent discussions when they’re over 18, but not when they’re a child.
Coparenting With A Narcissist
The next thing to learn about is Stockholm syndrome: the term comes from a bank robbery in Stockhom where the hostages became emotionally attached to the robbers. This happens to children: many times, they will connect to the abusive spouse. For instance i had to learn that part of my kids assaulting me was because they felt safe with me. They knew I would protect them. While children are just trying to survive, so they attach to the abuser to save their lives. That’s OK. Don’t give into fighting and alienation. Be patient. Wait. As long as you don’t do the alienation, when they get older, they’ll see it. It’s your only chance to save them. If you give in to alienation, you will play a part in the destruction of your child. I beg you: become an expert in parenting, parental alienation, and Stockholm syndrome.
After you become an expert in parenting, become an expert in codependence. The only reason we ended up in a relationship with a narcissist is that we’re codependent and lack boundaries and the ability to say no. However we have a lot of our own pain and perfect imperfections to heal. While this healing is important because a codependent person will need their child to know the truth to get their child’s approval of and love. It becomes about the parent, not the child. While that’s not loving: it’s using the child as a pawn. It’s also passive aggressive and thinly narcissistic. Becoming an expert in healing our codependence is vital to help our children.
The final step is the most critical: we need to become an expert in healing our pain. People don’t like hearing this, but not a single person enters our lives unless we say yes to them. I don’t condone or excuse a narcissist’s behavior. It’s not OK. But if we don’t take ownership of allowing them into our lives, we are out of reality and we lose our inherent power. While It is critical that we learn that we allowed them in because we went through horrific childhood pain, and that pain created the attraction. Many will believe they had a great childhood – that shows me how painful their childhood indeed was.
Coparenting With A Narcissist
No childhood was perfect – we are all left with wounds because no parent is a God or perfect. Narcissist basic psychology shows that our children become our emotional condition – if we don’t heal, our child has no model for what a healthy state looks like. Children learn most not by what we say or demand but by modeling and taking on our emotional condition. That’s why this is so important. If I haven’t healed me, how can my child heal themselves? So until we become an expert in healing our pain, we are just going to pass it to our children.
Here are some great books and resources to help you:
Hold On to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate. This will help you learn about attunement and how to build a connection with your child.
Parenting With Love And Logic by Foster Cline and Jim Fay. While they have this for teens and various ages. So start with attunement before going to this one.
The Emotionally Abusive Relationship by Beverly Engel. This will help you work on codependence and learn about your childhood and pain. You’ll see the less than nurturing environments we were all raised in.
Facing Codependence by Pia Mellody. While heal your codependence, so your child doesn’t grow up with the same dynamics.
Your Journey To Success by Kenny Weiss. This is my book. It will help you unearth and conquer your pain from the past.
Finally, I have a whole course to walk you through the steps of the entire recovery process.
Thank you all for bringing up this important topic. You’re a great parent, and you adore your kids. Do the work, let them feel it, and give them the best chance possible to be the child and the adult you so desperately want for them. Parenting is a challenging narcissist process but a feasible process.
You’re not alone. Millions of people are stuck in codependent Narcissist relationships that make them feel bad about themselves, and they don’t know how to break free. We’ve all been there.
Or maybe you find yourself always attracted to someone who is not good for you, and the cycle starts again.
But it doesn’t have to be this way! For instance, there is hope! In other words, we will help you find your way out of the darkness and into the light.
If you are single, you deserve better than being stuck in a cycle of narcissistic abuse or neglect. For instance, you deserve love and kindness! Don’t let another day go by where someone else controls your happiness or self-worth. While Take control today with this course and start living life on your terms again! Save yourself from heartache and take back control over your life with this course now!
If you have a partner, it’s time to take back control of your life and start learning how to save and resurrect a toxic, broken codependent relationship. Fill it with love, safety, affection, kindness, understanding intimacy, and mutual connection. Start living the romantic life you deserve by breaking free from your toxic codependent relationship patterns today.
It doesn’t have to be like this forever – we want to show you how it could be different for you now. All it takes is one step at a time…and we’ll walk with you every step of the way on your journey to the loving relationship you deserve.
The sooner you take action, the sooner your life will get back on track. So join our community and learn how to heal yourself from codependence so that you can find happiness again.
You are worth it!
Sign up NOW!
How To Break Free From Toxic Relationship Patterns
Many women find themselves frustrated while in a relationship with an emotionally shut-down man, and they want to try and change them or fix them. But, unfortunately, this causes distance in relationships, and neither side gets their needs met.
When we understand why men shut off their emotions and why it isn’t the woman’s job to fix them, we can set both sides free from the codependent dance.
There are two reasons why men shut off their emotions:
Society created this dynamic
Enmeshment in childhood
Because the parent created this dynamic and normalized it in childhood, we continue to perpetuate it as a society into adulthood.
How does childhood contribute to the creation of emotionally shut down men?
For centuries, we have perpetuated the stereotype and dynamic that men need to be intense, cold, aloof, and not cry. Therefore, we have a society of men who believe that sharing their emotions would make them look weak, so they shut them off.
It is a paradox because many women tend to find this cold, confident, masculine man attractive, so society reinforces this dynamic, even though, in reality, many women get frustrated when their partners are closed off from them emotionally.
How can men turn on their emotions?
The good news is, men are not permanently emotionless. Due to the discoveries on neuroplasticity, we now know that we can change the brain and adapt to become whatever we want. DNA and genes vary based on emotions. That means the emotional condition can shift the DNA, and the possibility is there to transform men into the emotionally available partners in relationships that women are desperately seeking.
How does enmeshment create emotionally closed-off men?
Many emotionally avoidant men grew up in a home where they enmeshed with their mother or father (or sometimes both). We can think of enmeshment as an umbilical cord that goes in the opposite direction. Instead of the parent feeding the child emotionally, the parent requires them to meet their emotional needs.
This type of parenting leaves the child emotionally drained and fearful of connection as an adult. A typical example of this is a parent who makes their child their best friend or is the helicopter ‘rescuer’ type of parent who always swoops in to clean up the mess the child makes, even in adulthood.
Due to enmeshment, when men are in a relationship with a woman and the woman wants to get close, it’s terrifying because the man has the same familiar feelings from childhood, “Oh no, I’ve already had the life sucked out of me, I can’t let this happen again.”
To men who suffered enmeshment, intimacy seems incredibly terrifying because they had to spend their entire childhood making one or both parents feel better. Naturally, therefore, they have a fear of getting close to anyone and going through that same experience.
Why do women try to change emotionally avoidant men?
Commonly, women find themselves in a codependent mindset when they want to change them. Statements such as, “But I care about them so much, I just want him to open up. I know they have a great heart” are evidence of their codependence.
The issue with what the woman is asking for is that it starts with “I.” “I want to help them.”. The woman’s desire to help, in this case, is a need to meet their own needs through the man. It is the man’s job to address these topics on his own. Therefore, it is a backdoor manipulation to get what they want.
In a non-codependent dynamic, a man gets to choose whether or not he opens up emotionally; it’s not the women’s job to try and change him. They get to live the way they choose.
Without awareness, women will not see how it’s less than loving to approach someone in a relationship and try and change them, but they can work on their role in the relationship with understanding. The key to freedom is for her to focus on codependence recovery.
How women can learn to meet their own needs
The first step in learning to meet our needs in a relationship is to stop blaming others and recognize our job to meet our needs and not the other person’s responsibility. To end the blame, we have to come to terms with the truth that we chose this person and allowed them into our life. They were this way from the beginning, and they showed us who they are, and we accepted it. It’s possible that the man may have been more open at the beginning of the relationship and then started to shut down later on, but that’s because of enmeshment – the closer a woman tries to get to them in a relationship, the more they will withdraw.
If our relationship lacks connection, it’s a good idea to sit down and think about or write about why we picked someone who isn’t available for an emotional connection.
Learning how to ask for needs and wants in a relationship
When we are in a codependent dynamic, it’s common to not ask for our needs and wants and think that the other person is a mind reader. When we get silent and say to ourselves, “Well, he should just know.” It’s impossible for another person to know our needs and wants, especially if we don’t know them ourselves.
Asking for our needs and wants is the first step in moving out of a codependent dynamic. The second piece of that is understanding that it’s not the other person’s job to meet our needs and wants. They get to say no. Asking doesn’t always mean receiving.
We should always have a backup plan for our needs and wants; for those occasions, our partner says, No! A backup plan can include:
Going to a support group.
Meeting up with friends for lunch.
Calling someone to connect.
We can celebrate that our partner cannot always meet our need for connection. Whatever our other requirements may be at the time.
When we need that intimacy and connection, we meet the need ourselves.
Determining negotiables and non-negotiables in a relationship
When we are in a relationship, it’s our responsibility to determine what is negotiable or non-negotiable for us and not try and change the other. Suppose we find ourselves frustrated that we are in a relationship with an emotionally unavailable man? In that case, we can ask ourselves if that part of their personality is negotiable or non-negotiable for us?
For example, they may be capable of many other things that align with our needs and wants? But, if being in a relationship with someone emotionally unavailable is non-negotiable – then we get an opportunity to decide to look for a new relationship.
How can we meet our own needs and wants instead of expecting someone who isn’t emotionally available to do it for us? And, if that’s the case, we also get to decide if being with someone emotionally unavailable is negotiable or non-negotiable for us.
If you’d like to learn more, you can deep dive with my YouTube video ‘How to Cope with Emotionally Shut Down Men’:
CLICK THE IMAGE TO LEARN MORE
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I find that many of us know what habits we can implement to maintain (or gain) self-confidence, but what about the things we do, maybe even unconsciously, that damage our self-confidence?
Going Against Ourselves
One of the main ways that we damage our self-confidence is by going against ourselves. Our confidence drops when we do things that we don’t want to do, and we find ourselves asking, “what am I doing? I don’t want to do this!”
When we’re doing things that align with our morals and values, our needs and wants, our negotiables and non-negotiables, we’re walking in who we are.
When you do those great things that you know you’re good at it. You’re like, “Man, I’m killing it today.” You walk taller. You walk smarter. You’re just more kind. You’re in your morals and values, your needs and wants negotiables, and non-negotiables.
We all need a North Star to guide our behavior. And the more we follow those values in ourselves, the more self-confidence we have.
Posture
Our posture has a significant effect on how we think and feel about ourselves.
For most people, their posture is, frankly, not very good. Just walk around. In addition look at how many people walk with their eyes down. Looking at the ground. Shoulders slumped, crossed over, standing there with their arms crossed.
Above all, To instantly boost your self-confidence, get your shoulders back. Get your chin tucked in because I would tend to walk like this. And so I worked on it.
And it’s incredible. You will feel a complete shift in your body. And for those of you, try it right now. Just try sitting up straight.
Thinking vs. Feeling Positive
Many of us also struggle with thinking positive vs.feeling positive. Similarly, we can say affirmations, but if we haven’t learned how to attach a feeling behind the words, the affirmations often don’t stick.
The way our brain works, we feel, almost always, before we think. However, the key to an affirmation is to feel it. Not just think it or say it.
With affirmations, it’s essential to focus on what feeling comes up in your body as you’re stating the affirmation in the present tense.
If you’d like a copy of the Feelings Wheel to help you on your journey towards self-confidence, you can download one for free.
Think Negative To Think Positive
When we use positive thinking to mask the negative feelings we’re experiencing; we find ourselves unable to utilize that strategy because thinking can’t cover up the feeling – we have to let ourselves feel the underlying feeling first. No amount of thinking can help us skip that step.
Doing the healing work to create a positive feeling that correlates to positive thinking is the answer to overcoming our negative feelings.
To overcome our negative feelings, we have to realize what they are and where they originated from feeling positive. The best way to do this is to notice a negative thought or feeling that you commonly have. Sit in it for a moment, and as you think, ask yourself, what am I feeling? Where in my body am I feeling it? See what comes up.
You can quickly jot this down in the notes section of your phone if you’re on the go. That way, when that thought reappears the next day or the next week, you can keep track of the feelings associated with that thought.
As you become more aware of the feelings and the thoughts, you can grow your list as you start to write down as many negative thoughts and feeling patterns as you build a list of what you’re noticing.
The second step is to plan 10-15 minutes of alone time and look at one negative thought and feeling pattern from the list. Then, while you ground yourself in your chair or where you are sitting, let the feelings come up, and then ask yourself, “When was the last time I felt these feelings?”
Let whatever needs to come uprise to the surface of your awareness and write it down.
Then, ask yourself, “When was the last time I felt this?” add the answer to your notes.
Your questions will originate in childhood and bring up a specific memory of the actual event that created these negative thoughts and feelings.
However once we know the original wounding, we can empower ourselves to give it back to where it came from. Usually, these are our primary caregivers, but not always; it could be a sibling, extended family, or a teacher.
Those feelings and thoughts aren’t ours to carry anymore. Instead, we can visualize ourselves giving them back to the originator. As children, we lacked the appropriate boundaries and accepted the false truth as our truth, and it became part of us.
But now we have the opportunity to no longer carry those negative thoughts and feelings with us into the present moment, and we can release ourselves and be free from the pain that we’ve been carrying for them all these years – it was never ours.
It’s important to remember that we must think negatively to think positively. If we try and override negative thoughts with positive ones without focusing on the negative feelings we are trying to cover up, we can create dis-ease and illness in our bodies.
Not Saying No
Not saying no is one of the most significant habits we all have. When we don’t say no, we relive those childhood feelings when we weren’t allowed to say no. In other words when we use what we learned in the last habit to give back our parents’ feelings, we don’t have to carry it anymore.
Conclusion
When we stay true to our morals and values, needs and wants, negotiables and non-negotiables, our confidence skyrockets; if we find ourselves saying yes when we want to say no, then our confidence can plummet. These habits take time to build, so remember to give yourself grace at being perfectly imperfect as you implement them into your journey of self-confidence.
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Addicts are self-absorbed, so any mutual sharing of information, of their heart, or their interests doesn’t exist. A lack of mutual sharing is a barrier to intimacy. That is because the addiction runs everything, so any sharing they do is manipulative.
No Stability
With addicts, everything’s intense. Therefore, addicts are completely impulsive and compulsive, which leads to a lack of stability. When there’s a lack of stability in a relationship, it creates a high state of stress and fear and a massive amount of intensity.
No Trust
Addicts lie, they manipulate, they steal. They’ll do anything to keep the addiction going. They’ll hide it from you. They are covert in their ways. Therefore, trust is not possible, and neither is intimacy and connection.
Addiction comes from self-loathing because every addict goes against their morals and values, needs and wants negotiables, and non-negotiables. As a result, they don’t want to be an addict, even if they try and convince you by saying, “Oh, I’m not an addict,” or “It’s no big deal, I’m fine.”
All of that is a lie, and the lies that they continue to tell are more self-loathing and more of the pain they project onto you. Since they cannot take ownership, they won’t see that their lies aren’t true.
Delusion
Addicts operate from a skewed reality. But addicts are extremely convincing. After all, they’ve convinced themselves and most likely you that they need the substance or are not abusing the substance.
Detachment
Addicts survive their unhealed pain by detaching from reality. They aren’t present in the world, and therefore they aren’t present in the relationship. When in a relationship with an addict, you’re essentially in a relationship with an actor. Can you have a relationship with an actor? Of course not. Is there true, authentic intimacy? Of course not.
Solution
If you’re in a relationship with an addict, there’s only one solution. You have to face the addiction and accept that you can do nothing to stop it. The addict comes to that on their own. Typically an addict will exhaust all of their denial mechanisms until they’re in so much pain that the consequences of continuing the addiction feel worse than the addiction itself. For some people, that never happens because usually, they’re great at finding enablers to keep it going.
Conclusion
If you’re in a relationship with an addict, you’re not really in a relationship because it’s a codependent dual enabling. So there’s not an authentic relationship or authentic intimacy.
It’s two people doing the best they can with where they are at the moment. Both of them are hurting; both of them are perfectly imperfect.
Life is so challenging because we don’t teach how to navigate these complex issues. Ultimately it all boils down to a choice:
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