Emotional manipulators try to convince you to think, feel or act a certain way. Why?
To improve their own sense of well-being.
Their sense of control, importance or happiness.
Everything we do in life is to create a certain feeling.
Your well-being is hardly ever on their radar.
Emotional manipulation is a power-play, plain and simple.
It’s ironic because they do this without much awareness or thought.
They hardly realize that looking to you to create a feeling gives all their power away to you.
Now who’s got the power?
Is someone trying to manipulate you?
Your own emotions are your best gauge for determining if you’ve got a problem.
If you feel defensive, ashamed, guilty, angry, or overly sympathetic toward the other person, you are probably caught in the cross-hairs of an emotional manipulator.
When you start feeling these emotions in your relationships, take a good, hard look at yourself.
You are probably haven’t learned how to manage your mind around the words and actions of the emotional manipulator.
If you aren’t intentionally managing your mind or you are not aware of how the mind works, it’s easy to fall prey to the emotional manipulators attempts to control you.
Are you allowing someone else to determine your thoughts and feelings about yourself by what they say or do?
Are you believing thoughts others are using to try to manipulate you?
As Eleanor Roosevelt famously opined:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
It is up to you to decide on purpose what to think or believe in any relationship or interaction.
You don’t need to try to emotionally manipulate others for the sake of your own sense of well-being. Nor do you need to respond to other people’s attempts to emotionally manipulate you.
No matter what anybody says or does, no matter what they try to convince you to think or do, you are 100% in charge of how you receive or believe their attempts to control you.
How emotional manipulators detect your vulnerability
- They’ll ask you very pointed and leading questions to discover things about you that you might not want people to know.
- They’ll figure out how to use those vulnerabilities against you.
They’ll tell you things like this:
- You have to…
- You should…
- You shouldn’t…
- It’s only fair that…
- It’s the right thing to do.
- It’s for your own good.
- You’ll thank me later.
They may try to make you think you are not worthy or able. To doubt yourself. To second-guess yourself once you’ve chosen a course of action.
You don’t have to let people treat you like this.
One of the easiest ways to deal with an emotional manipulator is to keep your distance from them.
- Create boundaries
- Create distance and avoid directly connecting
- Structure limited engagement situations
- Disengage all together
- Don’t blame yourself
- Believe in your own version of the truth
- Stand up for yourself
- Look out for your best interests
- Learn to manage your mind around these relationships
It can be very upsetting when you know you’re dealing with an emotional manipulator and can’t decide what to do about it.
You may love this person. Or want to love this person. Or believe you should love this person.
So often this happens with a family member or someone in a position of power over you. This can make it especially difficult to separate yourself from these people.
Managing your mind around these people is the key to regaining your equilibrium.
Learning how to manage your intentional thinking about these relationships can help you create the feelings you need to drive the actions you need to take to protect yourself.
When emotional manipulation has you beaten down…
Let’s get to the bottom of what’s going on.
Let’s get you set up with the skills and tools you need to create boundaries and and intentional thinking that can shift your emotional response to these manipulators.
Isn’t it about time you looked out for your best interests?
Ready for your FREE Strategy Call?
Reach out to me in the right-hand column. Just click on the red button to schedule your free Strategy Call.
