44. When You Want Them To Still Need You

hello everybody how are you guys doing today I have a little announcement for you third quick one first and then I'll remind you guys about it towards the end and then we are going to be talking about neediness so y'all before I begin I just want to let you guys know that this Saturday August 5th I am opening up the Beyond The High Road membership the monthly program I'm opening it up for one of our coaching calls it's a 90-minute class and during that time during the coaching call I'm going to take the beginning portion of it I'm going to teach a class each month we have a different course this month the topic is the skill that will change your life okay yeah this Saturday 11 30

a.m eastern time okay so if you want to join in you don't have to be coached you don't have to come on nobody needs to see your face if you don't want to but if you also if you do want the opportunity you need to get coached after I'm done teaching the class then you are welcome to join okay so you have to go to beyondthehighroad.com backslash change your life you go to this link to sign up okay so you want to sign up as soon as you can that way you have a seat reserved okay so the sooner the better I know this is last minute but I only decided that I wanted to do this the other day and I wish there was a way to get in touch with all of you guys that listen to the podcast but I don't know

of another way except for to put out another episode so until you guys join my email list and then I'll be able to to do that tell you guys about stuff coming up sooner but for now free webinar this weekend sign up okay okay Eastern Standard Time 11 30. now let's get on with the episode the underlying topic for today is actually emotional adulthood being responsible for our own feelings but I do decided to specialize it towards the feeling of neediness or leaning on our children or significant other or somebody else in our life okay because I think that these are great examples of emotional don't take me the wrong way when I say this but emotional childhood Okay so we've all been this is

like not an uncommon thing to be in the place where you are acting out of fear and so you in turn will sort of latch on to the person that you feel like you're losing and in the case of alienation this is all of us right at one point or another we have we we felt this way it's not an uncommon Behavior but the desperation the feeling that we have when we are in fear of losing somebody is Agony right it's awful and it's all consuming right it's exhausting because we feel like we we have to sort of scheme and plan and manipulate essentially in order to coax the person back home back into our bubble yeah so I recently I hadn't spoken to my daughter since before her birthday it was like

the mid-may I think was the last time I'd spoken to her up until last week we are at this point in time we're scheduled for bi-weekly Zoom calls about three weeks ago I was waiting for our scheduled Doom call and it didn't happen I will go into all the details but basically I've been stood up and last week we got on the call I was so excited to see my daughter's face I couldn't contain myself I'm seriously I was like a little kid before Christmas or like getting ready to go do like his favorite thing you know I was just so excited to see her I hadn't seen her so long I needed to know like she just started driving and you know all of the things that every parent wants to know about

their kid she had gone on vacation she'd done the things and so I wanted to hear about all of it and I didn't hide my excitement whenever we got on and she was somewhat closed off when we first started you know there was an expressionless face and she was like you know very um closed off and I on the other hand was like the kid and I was like tell me all the things and I was so excited just just to see your beautiful shining face right in her beautiful eyes and her right and within the first couple minutes I think she might have expected which I don't even know why you know well I do know why but it's not typical for me to catch attitude you know to be like pressurey or anything but I think

she might have expected that of me because she was closed off I think she might have been expecting me to maybe make her feel guilty or something but I was just I was thrilled just to see her and within a matter of minutes her guard completely went down and we ended up going overtime and laughing and having like just a regular great funny like hilarious actually conversation just sharing some like really just fun moments together and I was thinking about it afterwards and I was thinking about how that call could have gone much differently like it could have been just disastrous she could have stayed closed off I could have been like well if I could have seen you last week well if

you would just show up or oh you went on vacation with you know I could have shown up heavy needy leaning hurt emotes right and I knew I know that that doesn't it's not doesn't doesn't serve me it doesn't serve anybody and so that's not even like a go-to for me anymore where it wants I'm sure it was it'd be interesting actually to look back on so I was wondering what the difference was and I am sure that the reason it went as well as it did is because I did not need her I did not need her to be or do anything different than who she was and what she is yeah and I think I probably didn't in the past practice this so well because I thought that by accepting what was going

on the situation of alienation that I was giving up my power I thought that if I normalized it and made it like admitted it that it would make it more real and that I'd be giving them permission to continue and what I realized is that they never needed my permission to do so the alienation to begin with they were gonna alienate regardless permission or not and so what my stance was before of like not wanting to accept what was what is was really truly not only hurting me but it was hurting my relationship with my daughter in the exchanges that we did have my ego told me that if I act like everything is okay and that I if I didn't make her feel bad or if I didn't if I didn't

stand up for what I believed that I was in turn the doormat like I was like openly like giving over all of my power and tell you it's just not so what it did to me was caused me to resist so much good in my life and so much good in my exchanges not only with my daughter but like with all the other people around in my life when I was not accepting of what like the reality the current reality but even back then that current reality and what I didn't normalize it I was in resistance to what was happening then I was creating this this ease within me and within my interactions with everybody because then I felt had all this shame around the alienation because I had not come to

terms with it right with what is happening with what has happened and so then I felt really Shamy around other people I was holding it like close to me and felt like I had something to hide always is and then I felt slighted like taken advantage of by of course by the people alienating my child from me and so it was just this big [ __ ] fight right I lived in fear so when we cling on to somebody or when we want to make them feel like make them aware of what they have done to hurt us for the purposes of wanting them to change and to do it our way one this is called a manual it's like when we want other people to behave in a specific way so that we can feel a specific way it's a

controlling Behavior but two when we put our fears onto somebody else we end up pushing them away but we push them Far Far Away most people cannot take that kind of pressure on them because we're placing our expectations on them for them to care for us that's what happens when we want our children to change we want our our children to need and want us and because they're already going through an active state of alienation right and the narcissist or pathological parent in their life is already expecting so much from them the last thing that they can probably take is you us needing them in that way putting more pressure on them it's parentification it's adultification right when we do

that and let me just add that when we need them to behave in any way so that we can feel better because that's what it is when we're in fear that they're going to leave we want validation from them we want them to show us love to make us feel needed then we're in essence doing the same thing that the narcissist is doing you see that you see how like the narcissist wants them to behave a certain way by alienating us so that they feel needed and then when we out of fear understandably so right because a child rejecting a parent is just isn't a normal behavior yeah so it makes sense that we would act out of fear that you would act out of fear and want to grasp

right and try to pull them back in in your mind as they should be right that's usually the one of the thoughts is that this shouldn't be happening they shouldn't be rejecting me I shouldn't be all bad the other parent shouldn't be all good those are only fear inducing and anger negative feeling inducing thoughts so when we do that we we are in essence acting exactly in the way that we're faulting the narcissists for it looks different on the outside it it's less Sinister but it's still the same thing we are trying to control the way that they think about us we are trying to make them need us again because we need them you see like narcissistic Supply The Narcissist needs them in

order to make themselves feel better right and to give them their supply we're needing them you're needing them in order for you to feel better right so maybe if you haven't yet looked at it that way then hopefully that will help you but it's it's not necessarily so easy to just say okay I won't do that anymore the the Crux of the problem the deal is is that when you need your child or you need a partner or you need whoever in life to behave a certain way we all do it okay but when you need them to behave a certain way so that you can feel a certain way this is basically living in a like an emotional childhood and so in order to live in an emotional adulthood then you must be responsible

for all of your feelings all of your emotions through your course you have thoughts that cause your emotions every time no matter what anybody else does somebody else can lie to you and they're because they lied to you that's not why you're mad you're mad because you have a thought that thought is up to you not that you don't want to be mad at somebody if they lie to you but that anger is yours and you have it because you had a thought like they shouldn't lie to me I expected them to not lie to me I trusted them and now I don't something like that right none of those thoughts are wrong and none of those thoughts are bad none of that right but it is your thoughts that caused the

emotion does that make sense and this is a really good thing because when you know that it's your thoughts like it's always your responsibility any way that you feel then you never need anybody else to act a specific way in order for you to feel anyway does that make sense so I made a little protocol call for you to move through the neediness and into emotional adulthood and so the acronym is need okay fittingly the n is for notice okay when you notice that you are wanting your child or anybody in your life to behave a certain way so that you can feel better this happens I was speaking with a couple clients last night one in particular was speaking about how her son who is alienated the

father is exercising alienating strategies is leaving for college very soon right and she is not being asked to be a part of the move and a part of the process as she expected to be hoped to be and it makes sense that she would feel you know sad feel rejected feel discarded yeah but what she was doing was trying to scheme trying to think of ways that she could present herself in order to be invited and if that wasn't going to happen then she was already like okay well maybe I lost out on this whole moving to college thing but the next holiday that comes up I'm or I'm she was already planning how she was going to get there and what she was going to do and all the things and so

she was wanting her son needing her son to need her so that she didn't feel the discomfort of the emotion she was already having the emotion of feeling discarded the emotion of feeling hurt of feeling sad right all of these emotions are completely valid right all of them are but her action of leaning on her son and needing wanting I should say him to behave different to think differently about her wasn't serving her and it's not serving the relationship with him she was reaching oh he's leaving he's leaving which already first off parents that aren't experiencing alienation and their firstborn is leaving this is already an emotional thing you see on Facebook all the time and I'm sure it's

going to be coming up a bunch you know like the the beginning of the empty nester situation right moms get very upset especially when their sons first leave for college so it's already an emotional thing and then on top of that you add in alienation so it makes sense that she would be sad right that she would be having the emotions and those emotions are hers yeah and now that he is an adult he's going to behave how however he wants now if she could go and be needy and many moms out there the ones that aren't experiencing alienation do the same they are needy don't you need this don't you need that Ki combo you know all the things they ain't nag and they're needy and they're you know

just always in kids business but it's not help full especially in a in an alienation situation because what it does is it just pushes her son away from her because he already feels so much pressure coming from the other side that pressure is too much for him and so the first person to push away the easiest is the one that's already being alienated so yeah I just got off track notice when you're doing it when you start to feel like frantic and manipulative right like you're trying to scheme to figure out how you can get another person to behave a specific way when you're like how could I word this so that they'll like me or that they'll respond the way that I want them to or what could I do to

make them want to see me when you notice yourself doing that then also notice how you're feeling at the time like stop yourself and be like okay how am I feeling where am I feeling it in my body so if you can take a deep breath in and just slow down and it's going to be hard in that moment because when you're in the spot where you're feeling needy and you feel like you're grasping it feels urgent it feels like you can't stop right now because you don't have time because you need to do the thing to make them do the thing okay so it's going to go against everything in your body to have yourself stop and like take some breaths and exhale and like close your eyes and notice how you're feeling

inside like do a scan of your body and then once you locate where you're feeling the wool it's usually like in your belly or it might be like solar plexus sternum area you know all the way up and down the center of your body sometimes it's up through the throat notice where it's at and just breathe into the emotion right allow it to be there and then when you're done noticing it name the emotion okay so notice name that's your n okay your e the first e is evaluate evaluate the cost how much time you have spent and how much time you might spend going down that road trying to manipulate them evaluate the outcome of what might happen if you continue to do the thing

they could push me away further we don't really like to base what anybody else's reactions so much it's not a controllable thing how other people behave but you know that you could by latching on to somebody by being needy you you could push them further away yeah so evaluate the cost is your first fee your second e is a motion name the emotion that you want to feel the goal emotion okay so you just simply ask yourself how do I want to feel about this situation so if we're using an example of my daughter not showing up okay let's just take a couple weeks back so I was waiting for the zoom call and it got to be about six minutes after the hour and I thought that's usually not

the best sign and so I was just like okay well I knew this was a possibility how do I want to feel about this situation in that moment I chose on purpose to feel at peace and a little bit disappointed yeah that felt true to me I wasn't gonna choose to feel happy about it because that's we could try to like trick my brain I chose to feel at peace about about it I went into the call feeling before signing on knowing it was a possibility but I felt at peace with it and I asked myself again when it was like maybe 20 after it wasn't going to happen and so I was like yeah I I want to feel a little bit disappointed at least for the moment but I also want to feel at peace I want to feel

empowered in control and not slighted yeah that's how I went about it so that would be the best thing to do so you evaluate the cost right and then you decide on the emotion that you want to feel you do this all with your prefrontal cortex you're mindfully deciding like what's believable to me and what is what can I feel the most empowered with the last step is devotion devote all of your attention to serving the new desired emotion I was talking about this in a recent episode too your primitive brain will be like yeah but aren't you pissed off about that I mean you should be pissed off about that or another thing is you'll share the experience with somebody else and

especially when you're new to this work this happens a lot where people you know will be like our family members or friends will be like oh are you okay that's horrible what a terrible experience I don't know what I would do if I was you this right there that is the most toxic thing to fall into they can say it because they don't it's it's fine right that's not a problem but when you feel permitted to start feeling poorly because somebody else says that you should that is the most disempowering thing ever to like give in to negative emotion because somebody else suggests that you should somebody says that to you oh I would feel like [ __ ] I'd be so pissed off yeah I

considered being pissed off but I realized also that it doesn't really help me to do that it doesn't it just wastes my energy so instead I've decided for me I've decided that I am a little bit disappointed yeah it is disappointing I love my daughter I want to see her you know but I'm also at peace with it because I know that I cannot control the situation right I cannot physically go there and make her get on Zoom and if I could do that then obviously I'd be spending time with her face to face right but like there's nothing I can do about the actions of somebody else right so the best thing that I can do is to manage my own mind around it so you want to devote yourself

to the emotion that you've chosen already again it does not mean that you're to do this does not mean that you're giving in or you're permitting somebody else's Behavior the reality is is we cannot control other people's behaviors right we can't we just can't so it's not like I just think that's a crappy thing to be sold oh you're gonna allow them to to do that you're going to allow them to treat you this way yeah you couldn't have boundaries right and then you take care of what you will do in the case that they don't follow your boundaries but if they don't if they are doing something to harm you yeah how somebody else acts that's on them that says everything about who they are right

so that's all I have for you guys today this Saturday which is August 5th I am doing a free training if you're considering like been wanting to maybe do the membership if you wanted like a little taste of what it's like then come on this Saturday so the link to sign up so that you can get the link the zoom link is beyondthehighroad.com backslash change your life do it sooner than later it's free it's on zoom and the topic is the skill that will change your life okay and just as a Hint it sort of feeds off of today's episode normally there are hour calls but this week it's going to be a 90 minute call beyond the hotroad.com backslash change your life that is it so if you want to get a

little taste and come do a free little class on Saturday come on 11 30 a.m eastern time all right y'all I'll see you Saturday thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership where we take the concepts that you hear about here and using a logical framework you learn to apply them to your specific situations upgrading your thoughts and your life even while experiencing the grief of alienation for more information go to beyondthehighroad.com see you soon foreign