By Javinne J. McCoy
Rant Switch ON!
The very Folk who you think have the power to make or break your unhappiness, all while treating you like poo from the bottom of their shoes, will lose their power and deflate, when you tap into your own personal power.
It’s at this point you can decide to meet them with the one thing that will level things- the great equalizer of detachment.
Feel free to mix in a dash of indifference too.
This will also get the job done.
If you are losing sleep at night, racking your brain about folks crazy making behavior (like pretending mistreatment of you didn’t happen), and getting black circles underneath your eyes over folk who are of the shady variety, with paltry characters, it’s time to get to a place where it’s No EFFS Given. Period.
When you make the decision to detach, you step out of the role of a child groveling for approval from people who just won’t and can’t give it.
Instead, you tap up your personal power and step into the role of a grown ass adult, who has options, and decides what and who is responsible for your happiness.
You can then make your decisions based on your own core values, self-esteem, and beliefs (which are always non-negotiables).
When you are operating in adulthood, you move away from making fear based decisions, motivated by the survival needs of what you may not have gotten as a child-love, empathy, approval, care, respect, kindness.
When you detach, this Oh So Great Person or thing that use to mean so much begins to collapse into the reality of who they are-NOT almighty and powerful- because they are flesh and blood just like you.
You can begin to see that they just ain’t all that.
They now lose their power over your life because you have determined they are a non-factor in their ability to influence your happiness.
Their threats of withholding approval and validation, because you may have set boundaries with them, or voiced concerns about how poorly you are being treated, no longer force you into submitting to their selfish agendas, because now you could care less about them, and could give a WHATEVER about them.
One of the many features of toxic and emotionally unavailable Relationship dynamics is placing people on People Pedestals.
Often when he have deep rooted core beliefs of “I am not good enough” or “I must earn approval”, we will allow certain people in our lives to sit on pedestals and high thrones as they chip chop away at our self-esteem ( due to their own insecurities).
Unfortunately, these are the very folk who will mistreat us or exploit us in some way.
Typically this Power Imbalance Dynamic won’t be apparent until some critical event which occurs (or series of critical events).
During this critical event (or series of events) it becomes all too apparent that this person doesn’t have your best interest at heart, and from jump, they were being quite unrealistic and insincere about you and the relationship, despite their seeming initial approval of you.
This critical event/s will undoubtedly involve them over stepping the line of respect, bestowing upon you some sort of mistreatment, boundary violation/s, or other shady and abusive behavior.
It usually goes something like this, once upon a time you could do no wrong when things were going well, but if there is a blip or a ruffle, toxic folk will need to shift the blame to you like you did something wrong because they like to skip and dip out on accountability.
You are now scapegoated and become the problem.
IN reality you aren’t the problem at all, but the DYNAMIC is the problem.
It’s the dynamics that toxic folk create due to their own dysfunction that’s the problem.
When we are insecure, we enable the unhealthy dynamic, instead of making a swift exit, cutting the supply, and trusting ourselves that this person means us no good thing (caution: don’t fall into victim mode because you have more power in this than you think).
Because of our inner checker, our internal GPS (Gut Positioning System), the unhealthy dynamic will register to us on a soul level as “something doesn’t feel right” and unhealthy.
However, we may doubt our experience of the person and The Real Them, because if we admit how truly janky they are, we may have to knock them off of their pedestal, and make some really uncomfortable decisions about how we deal with them in our lives .
Often it’s the decision to not deal with them at all that will be most effective because these folk are very resistant to change and growth. We are afraid we will have to “go there”and scoot them out.
Sometimes we need to just keep it simple when people pull outlandish behavior in relationships (from romantic, to family, to business).
So, let’s keep this simple.
When people show you who they are you need to BELIEVE THEM.
Heck, some will even spell it out and tell you. Listen!
That’s all.
It’s really not that complicated so don’t complicate things.
Just make the adjustments you need to make about the image they presented you with and who you thought they were, then start preparing to make your exit, stage left, stage right, stage front, stage back, basically whatever exit you can find.
I may sound rigid and mean, but no negotiations are necessary when it comes to people valuing you, and treating you with respect.
If they can’t and won’t value and respect you, get to walking and quit the talking.
One boundary I now live by in all life areas is that if I come to see at any point, in ANY relationship (romantic or otherwise) , that I am not being TREATED with value, and I am being jacked around with mistreatment, I register it quickly, and I take action.
I don’t discuss my value with ANYONE. I act on it. Talk is cheap.
That means at some point, sooner rather than later, I will scoot ANYBODY’s mistreating ass out with a swiftness.
No discussions needed. I am dead ass.
Their is no amount of sex, money, approval, social status, or any other superficial thing that will keep me hanging on to a situation where I am devalued or mistreated. I don’t care who you are. If you mess me around with sloppy treatment I am out. Deuces up!
I know how to let go and I am no longer afraid to be alone.
I tap up The Lower Within me.
When you fail to see folk for who they are (their character-what they do) and don’t question or challenge their mistreatment of you, you are making them an authority in your life, putting them on a pedestal, and giving them Cart Blanche to eff you over.
These people will then (through manipulation), convince you that they know you better then you know yourself, and will assign themselves as an authority in your life (they will even begin to create imaginary flaws in you, so they can cut you down, while they keep themselves up on the People Pedestal that they sit upon).
We can also consciously or unconsciously assigned a person with jacked up character as an authority figure in our life, and resurrect an altar of false people worship for this person (this person may represent a reactivation of our unfinished business).
They are not the end all be all and they just don’t have that much power over you.
You have power over you, so don’t hand it away to someone who doesn’t have the bare essentials of human decency.
CUT IT OUT!
These folk who we assign as almighty and powerful have supersized egos that are cultivated in the Garden of Shadiness.
When you are in their good graces, they will bestow you with approval and praise, but their approval has a hook, and comes at a price.
The price being YOU.
These folk will then take away their approval and adulation when you make a mistake, or you try to set a boundary for your well-being, then, they will perceive you as being “difficult” or “inconvenient” , because you are disrupting the flow of their selfish motives or agendas, by not having complete compliance with their B.S.
You are now a pain in their ass if you won’t comply and roll with their program (even if going along with their program means your boundaries get jacked, your self-esteem has to take potshots, or you no longer recognize you, because you have to alter your entire being to suit them)
You have now become an inconvenient layover on their ego trip.
When we have core beliefs of not being good enough we will vie for approval from people with jacked up characters who are mean, cruel, or just plain old nasty Jerks or Jerkettes.
In the pedestal dynamic there is always one party who gets uplifted, on a throne, to the high heavens.
They then sit in all their glory, on a People Pedestal, while those around them are loyal subjects.
This is a ripe breeding ground for exploitative and emotionally/physically abusive relationships dynamics to form.
Often when people are placed on pedestals there is an undercurrent of abusive dynamics happening behind the scenes in the relationship. It’s often covert (slick and hard to pick up on), but sometimes it’s overt (jackassedness all up in your face).
Take note that this person (or people) in your life sitting on their Ego Trippin’ Throne, almost always will have the chronic avoider syndrome, go on to do jaw dropping things, and then pretend that problems don’t exist, or that their mistreatment of you didn’t happen at all.
Should you call them out, they may gather people, the enablers in their circle (people who have placed them on a pedestal too), to corroborate their own reality of events-that nothing happened at all. Mind games in true form.
Next time you are faced with someone withholding approval or validation, after seemingly being on your side, as if you could do no wrong, and then suddenly shape shifting into a python sinking their fangs into you, see them for WHO THEY REALLY ARE.
SHADY, Mean Spirited, with Paltry Character!
Then, ACT IN YOUR BEST INTEREST.
Get out of victim mode and get away from them with an Olympic sprinters’ swiftness.
If you dig deep into this person’s backstory you will find they have done this many times with others.
You are not the first to be the recipient of their crap, and you unfortunately won’t be the last.
Don’t internalize people’s mess.
Instead, meet them with detachment and indifference.
Don’t become a pawn in their twisted pathology!
Often these people will control and manipulate others because they feel incompetent or out of control in some area of their own personal life (or many areas).
They ain’t God or a Higher Power!
Stop treating them like it and take back your power.
In the bigger picture of your life, they ain’t that important unless you make them that important.
It’s time to dismantle all people pedestals so you can have more balanced, healthy relationships, meet people as an equal, and have peace of mind.
If someone seems greater than life to you, they have become puffed up and inflated in your perception of them.
Shady folk will use the power you give them as energy to feed their super-sized egos.
Detachment and indifference will be the two things that will pop them right down to size, without you having to do ANYTHING at all.
These people just don’t have that kind of power over you, or matter a lick of salt, if they are being mean spirited and nasty toward you.
I repeat, these people mean NOTHING if they are mistreating you, abusing you, just fighting unfairly with you, and then trying to convince you that their treatment of you is normal.
IT IS NOT.
See them for who they are, then shrug your shoulder.
Once upon of time you may have racked your brain about the crazy making. However, you no longer care because you have now detached from the reality of who they are, are indifferent, and have knocked them off their people pedestal.
RANT SWITCH OFF!
Thoughts? Comments? Stories?
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The post Take Folk Off The People Pedestals: They Don’t Have That Much Power Over You. Really, They Don’t! (Facts of Life Friday) appeared first on Love Antics- The Relationship Blog.
