You're NOT Crazy! Staying Grounded in Your Truth During Narcissistic Chaos

Dealing with narcissistic or emotionally immature people can make you question your memory, your intentions, and even your sanity. What feels like confusion is often conditioning, a slow erosion of your self-trust through gaslighting, minimizing, blame shifting, and rewriting reality.

In this conversation, we’re going to name what’s actually happening and give you tools to stay rooted in your inner truth. You’ll learn to recognize the common tactics used to destabilize you, how to separate induced confusion from real clarity, and practical ways to ground yourself when the emotional chaos starts. 

This isn’t about winning arguments, it’s about protecting your reality, trusting your body’s signals and inner knowing, and breaking the spell of self-doubt. By the end, you’ll have a framework to stop falling for the manipulation strategies of narcs and reclaim your steadiness and truth they tried to steal.

For FREE Resources, 📖 Book Link, 📝 Quizzes, 👚 Self-Love Merch Shop, 🗣️1:1 Mentoring and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

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Transcript

Opening thoughts

Kristen 0:00

I'm going to go into how to stay grounded in your truth when others are trying to rewrite your reality. Because the truth is, there is many people out there in the world that we are dealing with who repeatedly make us question ourselves. They want us to question our memory, our intentions, our emotional responses. And this is typically coming from people who the world has called narcissists, which I'm mentioned this before, but I'm not a super fan of that because there's only a small percentage of people that are true narcissists. So I tend to call these people NTPs, which is narcissistic type people. And the thing is with narcissistic type people is at the bottom level, the core level, they're really just unhealed. They are people who are wounded, who have had certain experiences and have been programmed and conditioned into this way of being in order to avoid themselves, in order to avoid truth. And oftentimes we can come into one of these people's life, and especially if we are someone who is highly empathic, if we are a truth teller, if we are a seeker, if we are a sacred rebel, if we are a fair person, if we are a justice person, and we're someone who really wants healthy relationships and we want that reciprocal back to us. If we are that type of person, then we can really rub an NTP the wrong way. And that's when they're going to start throwing out all of these things that make us question our truth and our reality and our experiences. Being someone myself who is pretty keen on my truth, I'm very aware. I feel things where I know, I know right from wrong. And I know when someone's trying to deflect or turn it around on me or they're not owning their stuff. And this is what this talk is really about because I want you guys to understand that it's not uncommon. It's not. And I'm not here to send the hater flag out on these type of people. Because, like I said, we are all the walking wounded, and we show up in life based on those wounds in some particular way. And believe it or not, the narcissistic, the NTPs, the people that have the narcissistic tendencies, okay, they're not true blue narcissists, but the ones that have the tendencies that everybody wants to call a narcissist, they do have the ability to heal, by the way. I'm just throwing that out there, and this is true and this is fact. They do have the ability to heal. Oftentimes they don't because they have been able to get their way, kind of muscle their way through life for so long that, you know, they'll just pass on you and go to somebody else that's going to put up with their ish. But they are healable and I have seen it. I've seen it, I've coached it, I've worked with couples with it, I've had experiences myself with this. And so this conversation, though, is rooted on the idea that I want you to stay in your personal power. I want you to reclaim your truth, and I want you to get so grounded in who you are and what you're experiencing and your self-worth that you don't allow these, what I like to call methods or manipulation strategies of these particular individuals to rock you. I do want to start off by being very validating to you if you're having this experience. Trust me, my heart goes out to you. It is maddening. It is crazy making to have to deal with someone like this. And again, there's varying degrees of this. So you could have people in your life that just do one or two of the methods, or they don't do them very often, but they do do them. But here's the key with all of this: you can't change them. You can't change them. The only person we ever have the power to change is ourselves. So when I was dealing with this, there was a couple individuals I dealt with this in my life, and it was it was rough. I'm just gonna leave it at that. You guys know the claps are coming up here on the screen. It's rough, and it can be crazy making, and we can start to question ourselves, and we end up sometimes just shutting up and being quiet and not knowing what's happening and request uh questioning our own reality and the way we see things and view the world, and maybe there's something wrong with me, all of those things. And we've heard about this on some so many social media channels. I'm not, I don't need to get into all that. If you know, you know. But I do want to dip into some of the methods that they use, and then I'm gonna talk about how to stay grounded in your truth while this is going on. Okay. All right, so one of the methods, we all know this drum roll, please, gaslighting. Now, people use gaslighting in many definition forms. Okay, gaslighting really truly is is denying things that happened. It's saying that didn't happen. That's what gaslighting is. Okay, a lot of people want to call it other things. Uh-uh. Those have different names. But gaslighting is denying things that were said or done, even when you remember them clearly. Like you remember them clearly. So you can imagine how mind-messing this is when you bring something to an NTP type person or an unhealed person, and they're like, that didn't happen. And they straight up deny what happened. And you're sitting here going, okay, no, I know that this happened. And it was only between you and them. So there's no, you can't call in Bob next door and say, Bob, you remember when, you know, this person did this? And Bob's like, oh yeah. Even if you do that, that doesn't mean that the person that's applying the gas lighting is going to change, by the way. They'll just find another method. Okay, because they're not in the business of accountability. So just because this person says it didn't happen doesn't mean that you need to get on board with them saying it didn't happen. Okay. First thing. Don't doubt your memory, don't doubt your perception, don't doubt your feelings, don't doubt the emotions, don't doubt the way your body felt in that time. You know it happened. Number two, thing that they like to do is to minimize our experience. This is a biggie. And this means where they may acknowledge on some little level that something happened, but they strip it of its importance. They're like, yeah, that wasn't that big of a deal. Or why are you being so sensitive? Or you're still stuck on that. Like, what's wrong with you? Or you're making a mountain out of a mohill, or why are you always upset? Gosh, you're so dramatic. You're always looking for, you're always looking for a problem. I remember someone saying something to that effect for me, and I was thinking, what? I'm the opposite of that. I'm like the solution cheerleader, right? I'm right there just trying to find solutions, living in love, being happy, showing up as a good human. And then someone would try to tell me that that I was always looking for problems. I'm like, uh, no, I'm the opposite of that. But being a person who's self-reflective and would go within and ask myself questions, I would say, Am I always looking for problems? Is this true? And this is why self-reflection is crucial during this time. And I'm dipping into one of the how to stay grounded, but self-reflecting and being honest with yourself, all right, and saying, Did I do that? Am I that person? Is this what I do constantly? And I've even gone so far, you guys, as to go to people. I've gone to people I know who know me well and aren't afraid to tell me the truth. And I've said, Do I do this? Am I this person? Be honest with me, because if I am, I need to know. Every time, because it was that wasn't one of the things that I needed to be accountable for. They were like, oh my God, no, you're totally opposite than that. Thank you. See, this is one of the things we can do because otherwise we start questioning our own guidance system. When somebody else minimizes what we have experienced, then we'll start to question ourselves. We'll start to question our own body tells because we'll be like, you're making that too big. Well, is it really too big? You know what I've also done? I've also gone to individuals and have said, just throwing this out there, just throwing this out there. Hypothetical situation. If someone did this or said this to you, how would you feel? All of them, with this particular thing, the the particular things that I would bring to them, they'd be like, oh my God, oh no, that's not okay. Or I'd feel like this. And I'd be like, all right, validation. You don't even have to tell the whole story. You can just say, How would you feel about this? All right. The next thing that they can do is they can shift the focus. They can, this is deflecting too. So instead of addressing the behavior, they're going to critique you. So they're not going to address, address the behavior, they're going to critique how you responded to the behavior. Oh, this is a big one. So we've seen out in the world many times that like when a person has been dealing with this for a long time or quite a bit of time, and they start to have big emotions around it because it gets extremely frustrating. You can be the most patient person in the world, but then eventually you're just so incredibly frustrated. Now you're acting, you know, you're you're getting louder, you're doing whatever you're doing. And they're like, look at you. Let's not talk about the problem. Let's talk about this big reaction you're happening. Or if you weren't so emotional, this wouldn't be happening. Or look how you're acting. So again, this is all a guise to get you off the topic of what they did. Okay. This is, I'm not going to take accountability because we know NTPs don't take accountability as the hardest thing for them to do. So they're going to push away, push away, push away in whatever way they can. Here's the next way is that they play victim, which means they flip the narrative. This is a mind-blowing one, so they appear harmed by your boundaries or your honesty. Ah, somehow you're the problem. You've been over here, butterflies, rainbows, honeycombs, and love and light and fun. And all of a sudden, you bring up something to them and they flip it. You haven't done any of the things that they are saying that you have done. I see the claps of validation going up, people understanding this completely. And all of a sudden, you're the bad guy. This took me a while to figure out, you guys. All this narrative wasn't out in the world back in the day when this was happening with me in a particular relationship. And I remember sitting there thinking, like, well, wait a minute. I've I've come to you with my feels. I did all the things. I feel like this when you this, or this hurts me, when this, or whatever it was. And I had all the, you know, because I worked through stating it in a way that could be heard. And then somehow I was the bad guy. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. What's happening? They could also say things like, after everything I've done for you, this is how you're acting, or well, I guess I'm just a terrible person, or why are you even with me? Do you even love me? I've had that. Like, what do you even like about me? What? Or my favorite all time, why are you attacking me? Oh my gosh, who can relate to that one? Why are you attacking me? So you share your feelings or you set a boundary, and all of a sudden, they are calling you the attacker. Well, now, this is a this little quick sidebar, but I'm gonna throw this out there. Guess what, you guys? It does feel like attack to them. I know that's mind-blowing. I don't care if you deliver it with a hot fudge Sunday and a cherry on top with a side of Chips Ahoy. I don't care what you show up with, they're gonna still feel attacked because they are highly wounded. So they literally do think they're the victim. How about that for crazy making? Okay, the next thing that they might do is rewrite history, which means they will subtly or even blatantly alter the past events and how they occurred to suit the current story. So they'll say things like, oh, that's not how it went, and they'll change parts of the story to either downplay it, minimize it, or completely change it. Like, that's not how it went down. It went down like this. Or they'll say that you agreed to something, or they'll say that you always thought you were fine with it, or that you're making too big of a deal of it, or whatever. And this can make us lose trust in our own experience and in our own timeline. Here's the thing, you guys, the majority of us are of sound mind. We may be the walking wounded, we may have some of the filters that we see things through, but there are parts of our brain that track these things very clearly. So when somebody is trying to rewrite history, then we start to question our own reality, we start to question our memory, we start to question our timeline. Understanding that this is one of their tactics to deflect off themselves, to deflect on their experience. I've had, I've had where I've brought the stuff up to someone and I've said, you know, here's when it went down, and here's some supporting evidence of the same thing. And I've gotten that scoff, you're so stupid, or that's ridiculous, or the eye roll. And I've sat there and I'm giggling about this now, but I've sat there doing these things, and I just sit there and I think, okay, what are they doing? Because again, I didn't know about all this NTP stuff. And I thought, what are they doing? And I have actually asked myself, are they maybe they're dumb? Maybe they're not smart. I have thought that and then I started to realize as time healed me, and or I actively healed myself, but you get what I'm saying. Time passed, wisdom grew, got more information. I started to realize, now this person is very smart. They're not just oopsie, a little dumb in this area. They get it, they have a soul, they have a nervous system, they have all the same things that I do. They're not being dumb. That's a rough one too, because uh the playing dumb thing. That's that was part of my experience. The next one is withholding validation, withholding validation. Oh my gosh, that's a rough one, right? Because really all we're looking for is validation, aren't we? Just someone to say, I understand how that must have felt. Or I'm sorry, that was crappy of me. Just someone to say, that's a really, that's a really poopy thing. Can you tell I'm adjusting my language here? That was not cool. I understand. Or yeah, that that's reasonable. I I can see why you would feel that way. But what they do instead is they withhold the validation. They are no way, shape, or form going to validate what they've done. I've talked about this before in my family, and this was something that my son, I've learned so much from my kids, that my son just started doing out of the blue, I don't know how many years ago, he would just say, My bad. The second that I called him out, or someone else's siblings called him out on something, he would say, My bad. He owned it. And I remember everything just like all the tension, excuse me, all the stress, everything just dropping out of the situation. This is not to say he did something really crappy. Let's say he just, it's family, did something that was his bad. And I I picked that up and I ran with it. I'm like, yes, my bad, fast and furious, my bad. Own your stuff immediately. Well, the NTPs can't do that again because they have so many wounds. And I know people don't think this. People think that NTPs are like the devil and they're the most evil on the planet. And it can't appear that way, yes. But the truth is they are a soul and a human body that have had traumas, dramas, and experiences just like us. They're carrying around a massive level of shame. They're carrying around a massive level of lack of self-worth. They have developed the brain-developed defense mechanisms and coping strategies in order to get through this, and this is how it looks. When I started to understand that as well, that's a big thing for me. That that took a lot of the crazy out of this for me by truly understanding how these people work, what they're thinking. Because, as many of you know, there's this oftentimes with these people, there's this amazing side to them. There's this amazing side to them. But then this bad is so bad that oftentimes these relationships end because we can't take it anymore because they're so rooted, they're so grounded in their behaviors, in their patterns, and they truly don't know any different. Now, I want to just flip this script a little bit and think about us as people pleasers. We were so grounded and so rooted in our patterns. We kept doing the same things over and over and over and over and over ad nauseum, just like they're doing. It takes that moment where we decide this is not working for me anymore. I don't like these experiences anymore. When we decide that we need to heal, grow, evolve, shift, whatever it might be in some capacity. So, although these people drive us nuts, I will say that. I know that it can be like our nervous system can be through the roof. It can be uh abusive, it can feel emotionally abusive, all these things. I want to validate that in you. I get it, but I'm also here to help you reclaim your power. And part of reclaiming your power is understanding what's really going on at a deep level so that you can depersonalize it. Because oftentimes we want to personalize this. We want to make it about us. We want to make it that, you know, they're doing this thing to us. No, I promise you, there's other people out in the world that are doing this same thing. They're doing the same thing too, if they push the appropriate buttons, because they have some people in the world that don't push the wound buttons that they have. Loyce, welcome up. Thanks for joining me and thank you for letting me unpack that intro. Oh, no problem, no problem at all.

Loyce 18:15

I wanted to just add that gaslighting, you know, yes, it's used by narcissistic people, but it's also used by regular people because it's just a mechanism. Okay, it's a defense mechanism to help you not accept responsibility. Now, you gotta realize defense mechanisms were born in our childhood to help us uh protect ourselves and to build the ego strength. Because they're necessary in the beginning, but once we get older, we gotta do away with them because we need to be able to face the world without having to defend. But the thing is that when we're not accepting responsibility, um, period. We don't have to be narcissistic, okay, at all, not to not accept responsibility and we will deflect, we will blame shift, right? We will minimize, we will justify, we silence or stonewall, we'll do all the same things or weaponize apologies, okay. Oh, talk about that one. Okay, weaponize apologies. Oh, I'm sorry you felt that way. Instead of saying I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings with what I said, you say, Oh, oh, I'm sorry you felt that way. And that's not accountability, that's just a subtle dismissal. But the thing is, we all do this at times because we all got to grow up, we all gotta grow up. But the the bigger, deeper pattern of this is accountability, accepting accountability and responsibility for your actions or for what's going on or for what whatever you're thinking or saying without defending, just accepting it. This is this is it, this is what it is, and when you accept the responsibility, because you don't get stuck in that cycle of shame or or having that fragile ego or or having unresolved trauma or or or lack of emotional maturity, because when you realize that the deeper pattern is when you avoid responsibility, it's it's only stemming from fear of shame, fear or fragile ego, okay, unresolved trauma, but trauma and all that other kind of stuff, fear of consequences. You know, you did it, you did it. On up, yeah, I did it, I blew it, my bad.

Kristen 20:26

Okay, and you know what? I'm just gonna jump in there and say, Lois, that it for those who might struggle with that, because like you said, we all can do these things, it feels so incredibly freeing to take responsibility because there's so much energy that we're pushing down and holding down. So, yeah, that's why I adopted my son saying my bad. I'm like, ooh, that felt great. I'm doing that.

Loyce 20:49

Yeah, I've been saying that for a long time. One of my friends said, You got to stop saying that. I said, Well, if I didn't mean it the way you took it, I'm gonna say my bad because that means I know I I could explain that differently. I could have said that differently, but I didn't mean it like that. And the thing is, you give a person a chance to get it right, it matters because when you avoid responsibility, trust arose, resentment builds, patterns repeat, and growth stops. Okay, so if you start accepting responsibility for your stuff, guess what? Everybody on the outside of you who's gonna be vibrating toward you is gonna be accepting responsibility for theirs. Again, it's an inside-outside job. Okay, and I hate that sounds like well, you're blaming the victim. No, I'm not. I'm saying the energy which you are in will draw the energy to you that you need to pay attention to so that you can step into your power. If you know this is confronting you, these types of behaviors, that means you got to start accepting accountability and responsibility for what's yours and have that ownership. Okay, radical responsibility is what I call it. Okay, and it has to feel good at times.

Kristen 21:55

Okay. Yeah, I want to just jump in there, Lois, and you can come back if you have more to say. No one in the queue, but I wanted to jump in there real quick and say that. Oh no, I forgot what I was gonna say. Hold on, give me a second. Oh no, no, no, no. Oh, that believe it or not, and I want I'm curious of your experience of this. Dealing with the NTPs actually grew me. It was a classroom for me.

Loyce 22:18

Because I watched it as a mirror, it was a mirror of me. It was expressed differently. It was ugly. I didn't like it.

Kristen 22:29

Because I got to learn how to how to get more closer to me and how to stay more grounded in Kristen and how to trust Kristen and how to believe Kristen and how to protect Kristen. I I got stronger having dealt with those type of people because a lot of times, because it can be so awful, it can be horrible that a lot of times it just breaks people down. We don't have to allow it. You can come back, Lois, if you want. We don't have to allow it to break us down, guys. We can start to remove ourselves from this, like I said, take the personal out of it and pay attention and say, where am I faulty? Uh, not in like I mean in mistake-wise. I'm saying, like, where am I weak? Where am I unsturdy? Where am I not trusting myself? Where am I not holding a line? It is like it helped me grow in ways that that I'm so grateful for.

Loyce 23:24

Because it all happens internally, because as there are a court of uh attacking you where you have to bring up a defense, you gotta ask yourself, why did I bring up that defense? What am I defending? Why did I why did I react? Okay, instead of respond to what just happened. Why was I triggered? And if you're triggered, that just shows you a place where you're not healed. And once you heal, and no NTP on earth can trigger you. None, not a one, because you won't even be gravitated to those type of people because you ain't magnetized to it because you healed that piece that needed to be healed. That's why I love being in that relationship, even though I hated it at the same time. Because I was learning how to stand up for myself, I was learning how to draw boundaries. I I accepted my ownership and said, Oh, okay, I allowed this, I allowed this, okay, but this is where I'm gonna start healing. I'm not gonna allow this, I'm gonna stand, I'm gonna stand for something so I don't have to fall for anything. And that's that's where I made it. And when I did that, my relationship deepened, my respect for myself and others deepened, emotional safety returned because I was able to say, hey, hey, hey, hey, get off my foot. You know, basically, you know, and one of the other things as a therapist, what I did with my clients is I would give them a scenario, okay, of something that they had done that was very, very uh gaslighting to somebody else and and make it like it was about somebody else. And then I would ask them, man, what would you do if they did that? And then they were like, Oh, yeah, I wouldn't do that. And they would tell me all the solutions, and I was like, Oh, that's very interesting. And then I would after they would answer, then I would say politely, you know what? You just explain what you you what you did. I explained to you what you did to someone else, and this is how you responded to that, and that gave them insight, so they they can have insight, but you gotta know how to bring it to them. You can't bring it to them in the middle of a conversation, okay? If that ain't gonna work because they're gonna double down. Yes, you gotta bring it to them in in a nonchalant way, so it's kind of like as a therapist, I had to be very it was manipulative because I manipulated them into hearing what they did and then telling the truth about how I felt it's you know what I'm saying? Is it manipulative or is it strategic? Okay, I should I love look because I did it the way I did it, and as I did it when I was in my younger self, I was manipulative. I wasn't being strategic. I was I wanted them to see exactly what the heck they were doing, and so I had to do manipulate them in the same way they were manipulating others so they can see the mirror, and I would reflect to them people in the therapy chair, if they were doing something, I would actually sometimes I would take on the other person or I would take on their stance, and then they were like, Oh my god, you're so unreasonable. And I was like, Well, I'm just taking it taking the play out your uh a page out your playbook.

Kristen 26:37

So yeah, sometimes when these when they see it being done to them, yes, they can see wow, like now they're feeling the feels that they are creating in other people, yeah.

Loyce 26:51

Because all these are just defense mechanisms that we that we adapted that work for us as children to avoid responsibility, to not get in trouble, to be the good girl, a good boy, to to to not question authority. I mean, that's that's where I wasn't. We said you're questioning authority. So these are things that we learn, okay? And the thing is, is that if we don't unlearn them, I learn something new, we're gonna keep on playing these same patterns over and over. So I say to MCMP, MP3s, whatever it is, and I'm stuck, whatever it is, I say to anybody who is not accepting responsibility for their own life and the things that are happening in their life, take a page out of somebody's playbook like Kristen and look at yourself and find out that you are the common denominator in everything that you think whoever went wrong in your life. Okay, so you are the creator of this with your energy. And when you change your vibrational energy that's emitted from your heart, what is what it would come towards you, what is attracted to you by the power of attraction, the law of attraction, is gonna be the same thing that's in your heart. So when you see this stuff, look at you, look at you and love on you, love on you, man.

How to stay grounded in your truth

Tip 1: Stay anchored in your body

Tip 2: Confusion is often induced

Tip 3: Validate yourself first

Handling false accusations

Tip 4: Keep your nervous system regulated

Tip 5: Keep a reality record

Tip 6: Notice the pattern

Tip 7: Trust that you need distance

Closing thoughts

Kristen 28:02

Love on you. Right. I love you too, Lois. Thank you so much. I'm gonna circle back to what she was talking about with I allowed it. This can be a little triggering space for some people because when we have dealt with the heinous behaviors of other people, when we start to ask ourselves, like where someone says to us, well, you allowed it, right away we want to get defensive with that. I didn't allow this. Now, what we're what we're thinking, we're saying is that I invited this or I provoked this or I deserve this. That's not what allowing means. Allowing is truly, we're standing in it, we're sitting in it with them. We're not doing things that are rooted in empowerment and love of self. Trust me, I've done it. I can't, I got sucked in. I can't, I can't tell you how many times I got sucked into the mess. Oh, yeah, I'm in there, I'm fighting it out, and I'm gonna prove and blah, blah, blah. I thought, I'm just contributing to the energy of this. That's what I'm doing. And that's me helping this scenario and this pattern perpetuate. And I say this all, if you guys could see my face, I'm smiling because I know what I did, but I didn't at the time. So I had to start looking at it again. And this is one of the ways to deal with this and to stay grounded in your truth, is I had to say, what was this about me? Where am I contributing to this? How am I perpetuating this? How am I feeding into this? What's my role? Because if we're in a play, I have a role in this. There's a role. This is this is still going on and keeps going on. So I have to be involved in this somehow, somehow. So when I started to adjust my character, I started to get different results. Fascinating, fascinating. One of the things we could also do that came up while Lois was talking, she said how she would flip the script on them and start to do things back to them to help them to see the situation. And like she said, you can't do this when they're on fire, you cannot do this when they're triggered because they literally are feeling threatened on some level, okay? And so we're we're trying to get this in when everybody's nervous systems are activated, not gonna work. But I have said things like, How would you feel if this particular thing happened? Let's say we were we were doing something and I brought up a scenario to this person. It's totally kind of out of the blue, and they'd be like, Oh, I'd hate that, this, and that. And I'd be like, mm-hmm. What I did was just help them get awareness. And to me, that was strategic. That wasn't manipulative. That was just like, you know what, let me, because I kept trying different strategies to try to help break through and for this person to see things a little bit differently. Because, like I said, I do believe narcissistic type people, the the people that are throwing around all these things that I mentioned that you guys can go back and listen to, the gaslighting, the victimization, the rewriting history, the stonewalling, which I didn't mention, but that's a good one, where they completely ignore you, absolutely ignore you like you're not even there. Oh, so hard. They can abandon, they can do all kinds of things, right? But when you truly understand you're dealing with a wounded person, you're right there, you're stepping in your power seat. This person is a conglomeration, accumulation of conditioning and programming, and that came during their childhood and trying to get through some rough situations. But often what serves us in childhood to get us through, which did get them through, they lived, they made it, but it doesn't work in adulthood anymore. But now we're stuck with this programming, and now it's time that we have to change it. Okay. So I had particular programming, and now I'm dealing with this person that I obviously attracted into my life somehow, some way. Now they're here, my vibration called this person in. So, how can I do this differently? How can I adjust this, move this, change me somehow, some way? And that's when I noticed that I started to get movement because I, KB, started to do things differently. Uh, Sally said years ago I was attending a seminar and the speaker said something that was like a big light bulb moment. We teach people how to treat us by what we are willing to accept from them. Absolutely. It's such a simple concept, but I had never thought about it before. Life-changing. Absolutely. That's it. Right there is it. That is how we teach people how to treat us is what is acceptable, what is not. What are we gonna stay tuned in with, or what are we going to remove ourselves from? What are we gonna speak up about? What are we gonna let, or or the opposing of never saying anything? It is our job to teach people how to treat us. So what are we accepting? But understanding that we are, quote, allowing it or accepting it or being we're in a partnership with them with this particular dynamic, understanding that there's a we in here, there's a me in this we, when we understand that we have taken our power back. Even though we may have not walked too many steps in the direction of personal power, we have understood a concept that is going to change our path. It's going to change our trajectory, and we can start to put things into place that can move the needle in a different direction. Okay, so now we're gonna talk about how to stay grounded in your truth during this, these um crazy making behaviors of people when they are refusing to accept accountability, which is the core, core, core, core piece of all of this. It is the core piece is people not wanting to accept responsibility. So by the way, if someone ever called you a narcissist, because I did have someone say that to me once, and it was funny because it's just God, you guys know me, that is like the polar opposite. I mean, my kids wouldn't even say that. They're like, Oh, you're so giving and loving mom, and you really but I was called that once and I started laughing. I actually said to the person, Do you even know what that means? But this is they'll try anything, you guys. So we can get upset about it and say, I'm not a narcissist, you are, or we can freak out, or we can just really let's get smart. Let's get smart. Let's stop being so reactive with these people. Let's start really seeing this for what it is, so that we can take our power back. So, one of the ways that we can do that is staying very anchored in our body. All right, your body often knows things before your mind does, you're going to feel it. These are body tells. I talk about them in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser. I call them body tells. My body will experience sensations first. So when I know that somebody is doing an unhealthy response to me, my my chest tightens. I feel it. Some people might get knots in their stomach, or you can have a sudden onset of confusion or self-doubt. Or it could be you feel yourself physically backing away from them. It may not even be very much, but or your your head kind of pushes back a little bit, or your chin flips up a little bit, like as if a big gust of wind came at you. If you start to notice this is happening through your body tells, now you can make a decision. These are your signals. So one of the ways we can stay grounded in our truth is saying, wow, this is coming at me. Your body knows. Now you're like, oh, oh, look, I'm having this reaction. That means that X, Y, Z is happening. Super important to get in touch with our body. The second thing is to understand that confusion is often induced. All right. I like to stick to facts. That is how I have dealt with this in the past with these types of people. Even like I said, people that aren't NTPs, people that are just using these type of strategies because that's what they've learned to get by. Like Lois said, I'm so glad she brought that up. She said, these are all these things that I've listed are all behaviors of everyday people. They may not just do it as hard or as often, or it could be just for smaller things. If you notice and look around your life, and I've mentioned this before many times, if you notice and look around your life, you're gonna see it. You're gonna see it. I remember when my eldest brother, who I love dearly, there's a story, I won't get into all that because I don't want to digress too far. And I told him recently when he was older, I said, Remember when you did this? And he looked at me and he he smiled and he goes, That didn't happen. That's gaslighting. Instead of saying, Oh my God, I remember that or I don't remember that. He literally said, That didn't happen. He's not a gaslighter, he's not an NTP, he's not a narcissist, he's not an emotionally abusive person, none of that. But he said that. These things are good to know, just to deal with in everyday life, not just for the really rough, emotionally unhealed people. Stick to facts. My goodness. Oh man, when I stick to facts with people that have done this to me, or just like I said, even in the light way, there's there's no arguing with it. They're facts. Now they still may try to argue with it, but me sticking to facts is staying grounded in my truth. Because I'm not jumping on every little ball or every little sidebar or every little detour that they're trying to take me to. Oh, and trust me, I did. Because they'd go on a detour and I'd jump on that detour with them and argue about the detour, right? Uh uh. Now I'd say, I'd say, okay, here's the fact, but here's the fact, but here's the fact, but here's the fact. I would stick with facts. Eventually, as things calm down with this person, or if they do, depending, I don't know your person, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not here to analyze your particular situation. I'm literally sharing this with you for educational and informational purposes, for you to take the best, leave the rest, try to apply new strategies, whatever it might be. But what I have noticed in these particular situations is that staying fact-based was really helpful. Eventually, they started to see things. Another one, big one. Oh God, I was I was so bad with this one, and that was overexplaining. Man, if I can just say it one more time and say it a different way and explain it a little bit better this time, or maybe use different words, and I would just explain, explain, explain. Oh my gosh, you guys, we do not need to convince someone who is committed to misunderstanding us. They don't want any part of the truth. No matter you can say it six ways from Sundays and five ways from a holiday, they're never gonna get it. They don't want to get it. You're wasting your time, you're wasting your energy, you're burning yourself out. All personal experience. I'm here with my hand in the air, palm up right now, raising my hand saying, personal experience. I get it. I stopped explaining. I stopped sparring. I stopped getting involved. The minute it went a little sideways, I was like, yeah, done. I'm not playing. And I wouldn't say it like that. I wasn't snarky, I wasn't mean or anything like that, because I wanted to make my keep my side of the uh street clean. By the way, I do have an episode called Fixing Your Side of the Street. It's an excellent episode. You can listen to it here on Noom Vibe or any of my podcasting platforms. I don't know what episode it is. Um, there's not too many on the other podcasting platforms yet. There's probably, I don't even know how many, maybe 30 talks over there, not hard to find, but that's excellent. That goes hand in hand with what I'm talking about here. So go listen to that one, fixing your side of the street. So that's what I did. Instead of putting my focus on trying to change them, I started fixing my side of the street. I put my power where my where my power works. I put my change where my change works because we fight against reality. We fight against the reality of what we're dealing with, and we think that we can somehow convince them. Nope, not until they're ready. All right. Stop overexplaining. The next one is to validate yourself first. Again, huge, huge that we validate ourselves, huge that we understand we're not crazy. Like I said earlier in this talk, go ask a friend, call a lifeline. Am I crazy? Was this weird? Is this harmful? Would that hurt your feelings? I I had a girlfriend that I would call. God, this was so long ago. I'd call her and I would say, I need a I need a reality check. I need a sanity check. That's what I would call it, a sanity check. She goes, shoot. And I would tell her the thing, and she goes, Not you, you're not crazy. Nope, nope, that sucks. That's bad. That's this, that's that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, are you sure? Like, no, okay. I'm like, but I said this and I did that. They're like, nope. And this person was such a sanity check for me that it really helped me to stay grounded and validate myself. Because at that point I was rocky. And this is true, you guys. Sometimes we can be a little rocky in trusting ourselves, a little, you know, a little um delicate, maybe a little fragile in that area, just not sturdy. And it's helpful to ask somebody who might be a little bit more sturdy, maybe have wisdom in that particular area, have having had experience some things. And just someone who's pretty solid. You don't want to go to somebody who's a perpetual victim and ask them these things because, of course, you're gonna just get validated because they're a victim to everything. They're gonna say yes to no matter what you say to them. You want to go to a sturdy person. Validate yourself. Does this make sense? Did I actually experience what I experienced? Is this part of my values and my morals? Does this work for me? Is this something that I want to experience on the regular? Is it something that I should be willing to put up for? What do I know to be true in my body? What am I feeling right now? What is my body trying to tell me? All right. Self-validating is grounding. It's not selfish, it's not arrogant. But again, like I've said, I am completely always open to the truth. I want to know people's perspectives. And there has been times when I brought a scenario to somebody and someone tells me, well, you know, and they'll ask me a few more questions about my piece in it. And they might say, like, yeah, I probably wouldn't have done it that way. And I see what they're saying. So we got to put our ego out of the way here, you guys. We got to step aside from Mr. Ms. Ego and just, you know, open heart, open mind, open, heart, open mind, higher self, ask the questions and be willing to hear the feedback. And here's the thing: you don't have to pick up what they're throwing down unless it's true. Wouldn't you want that intel? I do. If someone gives me some intel, I'm like, oh, my little flag goes up. Don't do that again, Kristen. That was not healthy. That was not going to serve for the highest outcome for all concerned. Again, going back to ourselves. And again, this is not blame shifting, victim shaming, or whatever. When people say that stuff sometimes can make me a little crazy because if you know you know that you are the only person that you can change, heal, grow, shift, evolve. If you know that, then you don't feel like someone is victim blaming you when it comes to this stuff. Because I, if I stayed in something, that's me staying in it. That doesn't mean I created this person acting like this. This doesn't mean this is my fault. It just means that I stayed. So own what's yours only. I think that's really important. Do owning what's yours only. I have also had NTPs particularly accuse me of things that aren't true. Like in any regard, way, shape, or form, like their brain made up some weird story. Those particular things, I might say, I'm sorry you're feeling this. Way. I don't want you to feel this way. Can we break this down a little bit more? But I will not and have learned over years and years and years, I will not say my bad to is what is not my bad. I won't do it. I've done it. I played that game that didn't that perpetuated more of a problem. So this is about being open, understanding what's coming to you, own what's yours immediately. Fast and furious. My bad, that's me. Make amends. Do what you need to do. Let them share their emotions about the thing. But if someone's coming out of nowhere and throwing some crazy stuff on you and trying to, you know, say, say you're a bad person, you're over here going, uh-uh. No. There is ways that you can, because they may think it's true, by the way. They may think it's true because of what their brain is telling them. You can say, hey, I'm sorry you're feeling this way. I can see that this is upsetting you. And somehow, can we talk about the story that's in your head or what's the narrative that you're you're forming or whatever? Because I've had some strange narratives formed around me that had nothing to do with me. Like nothing. And I'm just sitting here. I don't even know what to do with it. Again, back in the day, I was like, where, where did they like, did they just are they in a different dimension as me? Like, what the heck? The next one is to, again, this is how we keep ourselves grounded during this. Now, I have not mentioned this yet. I'm gonna throw this in here. You guys, again, I'll preach it forever and ever and ever and ever. And that is calming your nervous system. And guess what? The more you're dealing with somebody like this in your life on the regular, the more you need to regulate your nervous system. Because you can get PTSD from dealing with people like this, depending how cray it is. Okay. Nervous system all day long. Every day, it's the one thing that I said I could teach calming the nervous system alone, and it would change your life in the most remarkable ways. Keep that nervous system regulated. Now, if we're not and we're dealing with these types of people, we're gonna be on this weird nervous level, just this little heightened survival mode, this little you know activation mode. And we and we may be functioning fine in life from that level, like getting the things done and being on time and doing all these things. But the minute that person comes in with their stuff, and all of a sudden we're super activated because we've already been humming. Yeah, anybody ever preheat your water? You're cooking and eventually you're gonna need to throw some pasta in. So you get that why I get that water right to below boiling. And then when I'm ready, I just turn up that gas and then it'll boil real quickly after that. And then I throw the stuff in, right? Well, this is how it can be if our nervous system is activated. So every time I've I was having experiences with people in my life where we're doing these things, I immediately went to decompress. I immediately went to reclaiming my grounding and practicing it on the regular so that when this came at me, I wasn't like and reacting to them as well. So nervous system, nervous system, all day long, every day. Also, just to keep yourself sane, again, there's varying degrees of who you're dealing with and what it looks like for you. So I'm just throwing spaghetti at a wall here. This might help somebody, and that is to keep a reality record. Yeah, sometimes it gets to this point, doesn't it, where we have to make a list, we have to write things down that this person is doing or saying. Or we start recording. And by the time if it gets to the point of recording, oof, that's not a fun place to be, is it? Like because they have blame shifted and gaslight and changed things around and turn it around on you and all the things that they do, and now you're like, okay, or they don't realize how what's the word I'm looking for here, how outrageous they're being. Yeah, you know, what about your little phone? Like, what about your little recording? You know, I've done that before where I've recorded something and just out there with that on. They don't know. They don't know what's on. And by the way, it's interesting. When you, if they know you're recording, they tend to shut up. I'm not kidding. It's like, are you recording this? Yeah. And all of a sudden they're like, and of course, they'll make you ridiculous for doing that. But then all of a sudden they're like, oh, like I better change the way I'm saying things. Or have you noticed they'll change things when other people are around? Here's another important thing. They have the capacity to control themselves. They have the capacity because I used to think, oh, poor little thing, they really just haven't learned this yet. Oh no. Then I started watching them handle themselves out in the world with things that were activating to them. And I started to realize it was a choice. That was so grounding to me. It is a choice. They get to choose how they're going to decide in any moment. At this moment, they're choosing to decide from this wack-a-doodle space with you. So keep a reality record if you need to. Here's another important thing is that it's important that we notice the pattern. Because, like Lois and I touched upon, a lot of people are doing these things. Okay. People can gaslight, people can deflect, people can blame shift, people can act like the victim. Poor me, because they're getting called out on stuff. All of these things are part of the deal with just humans. Humans can do these types of things. But if you notice there's a huge pattern that's happening over and over and over again, it's big and it's it gets sideways and it's making you feel you're doubting yourself. You're, you're, you're confused, you feel smaller, you feel your nervous system is activated. You are seeing what you're seeing. We're in relationships that are pretty calm for the most part. You want to go outside, beans? I'm sorry, I gotta let my beanies out. Hi, beans, you wanna go out? Okay, come on. Okay. I was trying to rescue you from crazy Lolly. When it's not happening all the time with people, like just every once in a while, you know, it could be with your kids, it could be with your parents, it could be whoever. It's usually people that are really close to us, by the way, because strangers don't typically act this way unless they've got something really going on in their mental health because they feel safest with us. So we're the ones that get to see all the emotions and all the things. When it happens a little bit, and understanding, you know, this person is just has a pattern of do or has a this is their defense mechanism. But when it's going on all the time, all the time, then that might be what you need, the next step, which is to trust that you need distance. It's important that we remove ourselves from individuals who are harming us. And they may not want to, and you know, a lot of times these types of people don't even know they're doing these things, but removing yourself from them sometimes is the most grounding thing to do. Go get your nervous system right again before you dive in again with this person. Okay. Also, distance can restore perspective. So when we have step away from the situation, again, calm the nervous system, the brain can think more clearly. Maybe we have a conversation with somebody, and then we we can formulate a plan. And this is often where we decide that, you know, we're not allowing this in this moment, like I mentioned earlier. We're not gonna allow this. I'm gonna pull myself away from the situation. I'm gonna protect my heart and my mind right now. I'm going to get calm. I understand that they're just losing it for whatever reason. And then you can decide a plan about the re-entry. I'm not gonna re-enter this conversation until the person can speak to me respectfully and kindly, or they can take a little bit of responsibility for something like, and I'm saying a little bit, saying, you know, they start to, if they start to kind of edge towards you, it's very hard for them to do this, by the way. But if they start to try to move towards you a little bit, and you're saying, allowing that to be the next step, slowing things down, all of these type of things can be extremely helpful. I want us to be very open to the idea that you're not alone. This isn't, you're not crazy. It's important for us to understand that that you're not alone and you didn't create this. We are all the walking wounded, like I say. We all have our behaviors that we're doing. Some people are a little bit rougher with their behaviors, and it can be very painful, it can be very frustrating, it can be very sad to deal with. I understand all of that. But my hopes are that you got something from this conversation. Maybe a little bit of validation, maybe a couple of ideas, maybe a creative way to approach this particular scenario for the future. Maybe you'll listen to this twice or three times. I will listen to the same podcast 10 times. I have been known to do that. And I will hear something different every single time. That's how I'm learning though. It's starting to really stick within me because through the repetition, or I'll see it through a different lens. So take some notes, you guys, listen to it again, recommend it to a friend, whether you're listening here on or on another podcasting platform. I would love if you do that. I love you guys. I appreciate you. You are doing so much good in the world. I want to honor you because you're a speaker, you're a lover, you're a giver, you're an earth angel, and you're learning how to balance that with being empowered and sovereign and confident and protecting of self and respecting of self. And I know that this is a this is a journey. Doesn't happen overnight, but man, you're on path, and that's all that matters. It really is. Much love, bye,