Save Your Sanity - Help for Toxic Relationships

A whole chicken and egg thing! Anger and anxiety are closely related, and it's essential to see how. Hijackals in the mix create a whole other level of mess! Listen in for help to clarify what's happening IN you and TO you. If you were raised by, live with, or have left a Hijackal--a relentlessly difficult, toxic person, you know what it is to live with anger and anxiety. Sometimes, at the same ti...

When you've suffered trauma, it can have a long term affect. Long-term trauma is different. In this episode, you can learn about the attributes, traits, and causes of C-PTSD to help you understand what may be lingering in your body/mind system, and what you can do about it.  How you were raised creates the beliefs you hold about yourself, others, and the world. If you've had dysfunction...

Don't Hijackals love to stir the pot and keep it swirling? They definitely have goals in mind and one is to keep you spinning and the relationship unstable. You want that to stop. Get insights into stopping the spinning and instability in this episode. When a Hijackal wants power over you--and they all do, one of the most likely ways they go for it is to catch you off-guard, keep you uncertain, an...

You could be suffering from enabler's guilt without knowing what is causing your fear, anxiety, or depression. THE GOOD NEWS: It doesn't have to be that way. Once you recognize what's going on, you can take steps to change it, reclaim your power, and rebuild your life. Do you ever feel that, somehow, it's your job to make other people happy? Where do you think you got that idea? Who taught yo...

Enmeshed, Entrenched, and Emerging Empowered! Know the Differences so YOU can Make a Difference! You know that being enmeshed or entrenched with another human is unhealthy, right? You may not recognize just what's happening right now, though. This episode will help you see what's unhealthy and how to move towards Emerging Empowered. Hijackals want you to become enmeshed and entrenched, along with...

Fawning can be thought of as a step further than people-pleasing. SO, you really need to know about it. Until you become conscious of it, you may be doing it. To get your life back, and to be emerging empowered, you want to recognize it, take charge of it, and garner new insights and skills. When you have suffered from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder--which many people who have been abused...

It is essential to recognize when you are abandoning yourself. You may think it's part of being a good person. It's a delicate balance, for sure. How do you re-establish that balance if you have become an enabler, or are codependent? Listening to this episode is a very good start! At the extreme, you abandon yourself when you totally accommodate another person's needs and wants even when thos...

8 Essential Factors for Recovery After Emotional Abuse. that you need to consider even if you don't want to and just want to go get the love, fun, attention, and validation you've been missing. What if you skip them? It could be a disaster. You may be anxious to date, or you may be scared spitless! Or, sometimes ready and sometimes sure you'll never be! That's how uncertain you can feel once a Hij...

For many women--and men, too, restoring a feeling of safety to enjoy sexual intimacy seems a long way off. Anna-Thea share invaluable insights for regaining that sense of safety. Trust, too, can be a big issue. In fact, letting a new person into your life at all can cause concern. That's natural. You are wise to take care of yourself. Today's insights in this episode can help so much! You want to...

You likely give people the benefit of the doubt, or are willing to go the extra mile for them. That's healthy and usually reciprocal. Great! BUT, when you're with someone with narcissistic behaviors, it's not healthy or reciprocal. It's unhealthy and one-sided. Most people immediately think of a particular set of traits when they think of narcissism in general: the blustery, look-at-me, superior,...

You hear the same demeaning, dismissive things from narcissistic Hijackals all the time. It wears you down and they put your down. You need tools and strategies to neutralize the poison when it's being poured on you. This episode gives you specific insights into keeping yourself safer. #Hijackals are always looking for a way, a place, an opening to exert power over you. I'm thinking that you're no...

Ugh! The narcissistic Hijackal falls silent, ignores you, and won't respond. What's up with that? What are they hoping to achieve? What's your internal dialogue? What ways are most effective to respond? That's today's episode. So dismissive! Hijackals can treat you as though you're invisible, erased, and definitely not present. They want to impress upon you the contempt they feel for you. So, they...

Hijackals & other narcissistic people have neither thought nor intention of leveling any playing field. No, it's about the all important winning. Why? What can you do or say? Use the ideas in this episode to step back from the crazy-making!  When you're in a relationship with a relatively healthy person, you work things out. In working them out together, you build trust and safety. It bri...

You had no choice in the role a narcissistic parent created for you and assigned to you. You were stuck with it--while usually being quite unaware of it. It's just the way your family is, like it or not, right? NOW, in this episode, see your assigned role(s) so you can shed them and choose again!  In episode #201 on pseudomutuality, I talked about how #Hijackals like to paint a public picture...

Power in relationships can be a very difficult and disturbing issue. Of course, if you have a Hijackal parent, partner, sibling, or adult child, you're well aware of that! This episode will give you new insights into solving ever-arising issues! My guest, Mira Kirschenbaum, wrote in Why Couples Fight: "A power move is anything we do or say that makes the other person feel disempowered." Of course,...

Everything is a potential deal breaker when all-or-nothing thinking prevails! People who were raised in emotional abusive homes learn to think that way. If you are with one, you may be on the receiving end and need to understand and name it. You need to be able to do that. If you were raised by an emotionally abusive parent, you may have learned to use all-or-nothing thinking as a safety mechanism...

You know how some people and families both "put on a front: and are "a closed shop?" You can sense that something is off but the story they tell sounds good. They may be SO good at the story that you can't help but believe it. Why would you question it? And then, you marry into it and the legs fall off! YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THIS!   Mutuality is one of the three MUST-HAVES I talk about...

Have you experienced a toxic boss? Were you one? Today's guest, Krister Ungerbock, admits to, at one time, being an aggressive boss. Maybe, even, a toxic one. He changed. Learn why and how it became important to him to shift, and how that lead to his writing 22 TALK SHIFTS: TOOLS TO TRANSFORM LEADERSHIP When you have a toxic parent, you may pick up toxic behaviors. That can ruin your personal rela...

Do you ever wonder if you're the problem in a relationship when you know that the other person is forever pushing your buttons, blaming and shaming you? You may be suffering from "Reactive Abuse," and that's a cycle that you can put a stop to. You are patient. You give the benefit of the doubt. You take the blame. You apologize when you have done nothing wrong. Any of those sound familiar? Do you...

Wonder why you don't seem to create the momentum to address your toxic relationship? PastCasting™ is one way. It's my term for a well-established internal program that immediately causes you to stay stuck, even when you know you're settling and unhappy. Or, why you are fearful and exhausted. It's so much easier to think of the past than face the present when you're in a toxic relationship. Distant...

Ever wonder why you give difficult or toxic people too many chances? Ever wonder why you make a plan to leave, execute it, and end up going back? It happens, and it has a reason...or twelve! Childhood trauma often is recognized when it was obvious. Much of childhood trauma can be subtle and somewhat under the radar, too. You can heal that, too, and it can make a huge difference to your satisfactio...

Growing up in an emotionally abusive home, or an overly compassionate home, or even and emotionally neglectful home can set you up to accept emotional abuse. It's not your fault! Maybe, you had a perfectly lovely home, but you were encouraged to put other people's needs, wants, expectations, and desires ahead of your own. That can happen, and you being so giving gets sadly and badly taken advantag...

Yes, you are wise to be self-reflective, asking yourself "What is my part in the relationship difficulties?" #Hijackals and other toxic people want you to taking responsibility for the whole relationship. They are happy to tell you that everything is your fault. You know that. In this episode, I'm addressing the three BIG questions I am asked so frequently when someone gets to the point of conside...

Men, would you like to know what to say when your female partner is really angry? The answer--and many more--are in this episode with GS Youngblood, author of The Masculine in Relationship. He says, "There are so many couples in pain in the world. The man feeling that his partner criticizes and belittles him, and is not interested in sex. The woman dying for more emotional connection, and to feel...

All those promises! All those dreams! Was it future faking? That's a very common way that #Hijackals keep you engaged in the relationship. Learn how it works...and, what really doesn't work about it. You need to see this clearly, or you'll be hooked on hope! All you ever wanted and more...one day. That's the promise of future faking: when a Hijackal promises or alludes to giving you something you...