Episode 23 – Are you happy with the role you play?

In which we delve into the concept of victim mentality, emphasizing the psychological aspects of victimization, its implications in relationships, and what it means to shift from a victim role to a creator role.
Recorded December 26, 2024.

Show notes and links:
A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose – Eckhart Tolle
The Drama Triangle – The Roles We Play in Conflict | Ken Norton
Conflict Resolution: Utilizing the Collusion Diagram | Chateau Health
The Model – A Description of Brooke Castillo’s Model
Man’s Search for Meaning – Wikipedia
Dr. Brené Brown (and Teddy Roosevelt’s) Top 21 Tweet-Tweets
The Holy Bible: Romans 7, especially vs 20 and 25
A Lifetime of Leadership with President Joe Biden | A Bit of Optimism Podcast
Veridical – Definition, Meaning & Synonyms | Vocabulary.com

Transcript:

Jump to end
[clip] If something actually, legally is wrong, then of course you go to the system to do what
you can to fix it.
If someone is actually showing favoritism in a workplace or they’re…what else can
you legally point out to the human resources department?
If there’s actually something there that the human resources department can do something
about, you don’t let…you use that tool in your creative process.
[introduction] You are listening to our podcast, Do You Have a Minute, in which a guy and his daughter
dive into deep discussions about life’s most profound and mundane questions.
While we know we don’t have all the answers, and possibly none of them, we open our minds
to new perspectives and most importantly, we have a good time in conversation.
Join us as we explore the unknown together.
[main conversation] Okay, Mornin’.
Do you have a minute?
Hi.
Uh, yeah.
Oh.
I don’t know why I always say uh, because I have to think about if I have a minute or
not, but yes.
I don’t know, I guess I’m…
I’ve got a minute.
Yes, I’m free.
I have an issue, but I don’t want to talk about the issue, because issues are too close,
but subjects are okay to talk about.
Oh, yes.
So…
And hopefully we’ll solve your issue by discussing the subject.
Yeah, we’ll find some insight.
We’re looking for insight into the topic, and I want to just talk structurally.
How did I put it?
We want to talk about structure and expectations, but not specific events.
So we’re not solving an event.
We’re looking at structure and the topic that we should think about is victimization or
victims, victim mentality.
How about that.
Yeah.
That is a hot topic.
And it’s a hot enough topic, as I looked at it this week, there are no less than thousands
of videos on victim mentality.
So it’s a big enough problem that everybody is having.
Everyone’s talking about it.
Yeah.
That’s it.
Do you think the victims themselves are looking at these videos, or people that love the victims
are looking at these videos?
In general, half of them that I’ve looked at, about half, are talking to the victims
and making the changes, changing your own victim mentality.
And the other half are how to deal with the victim.
So I’m thinking that someone in that role is not willing to look at it.
They don’t see it.
They don’t recognize that they’re being a victim?
That’s the first thing.
The first thing in there is, well, they don’t recognize it as a problem or as an issue.
It’s someone else’s issue.
That’s the base of victim mentality.
If you’re going to be a victim, whose fault is it?
Whose fault is it that you are a victim?
Right.
Exactly.
Well, since you have the power to change your thoughts about something, then it is you,
the victim.
And that’s the way psychologically you’d look at it.
But we’re all psychological beings.
We don’t live in that world, though.
We live in our made-up world of relationships.
And in that world, you’re a victim because someone else victimized you.
And so from the victim standpoint, it’s always someone else’s problem.
That’s the only way you can hold that status.
How else could you believe that you’re a victim if no one else is responsible?
Right.
Right.
I mean, well, you could be a victim of your own vices, your own bad habits.
You’d be like, I suck.
I’ve got all of these problems with myself and I can’t change them.
I’ve tried to change then, just, I can’t fix it.
So I am suffering because I am this way.
All right.
And who are you blaming there?
Yourself.
No, you’re blaming your other self, the other self that you can’t do anything about.
So still, you’re the victim of this person that is inside of your body with you.
That’s running all of your faults.
Yeah.
So I see.
Yeah.
Psychologically, you can change any of that.
Can’t and that was where I think we talked about that some time in the past.
Can’t is a word that doesn’t exist.
Can’t means won’t.
It just means your will is not to do it.
If you would, if you would will yourself to change, you can change.
You can do anything.
All things are possible.
Even without considering there’s a God involved in it, blessing you.
All things are possible if you just start working on it.
A 1% better attitude can get you to 3x, 300 times better within a year.
If you just try to get a little bit better.
If your attitude is just 1% better.
Right.
A little bit better is 300 times where you are in one year.
Imagine what can you do in 10 years, even if you’re really slow.
Okay, so the victim, that is my first idea is those, the victim’s not ever going to watch
those videos because it’s not relating to them.
If they do see the video of how to change your own victim mentality, I mean, that’s
someone that’s already passed that anyone in a thinking psychological mode can identify
where, Oh, I, that was a victimized thought.
I was thinking like a victim there and I don’t want to think that way.
So I’m going to change that thought.
I mean, that’s, it’s simple.
And it can be quick to not play the victim.
I came up with one basis.
So I want to start with a basis.
A book, this is Eckhart Tolle, the new earth, a new earth, new age psychology.
Okay.
It talks about the roles that we play and victim is a role.
And I want to get into some of that too, but the roles that we played temporary roles,
we are parents or we are siblings or, you know, we have working relationships.
Each one of those is a, is a temporary role.
And then it’s not really us where, how did they put it?
If you’re, if you’re aware enough, so I’m just going to read some of this to be able
to observe how you interact with other people.
You may detect your subtle changes in your speech attitude and behavior, depending on
the person you’re interacting with at first, maybe easier to observe that in others.
Then you may also detect it in yourself.
The way you speak to the chairman of the company may be different in subtle ways from the way
you speak to the janitor.
How you speak to a child may be different from the way you speak to an adult.
So you’re saying what is that?
You have pre-established roles that you fit yourself into based on who you’re with.
Yeah.
That is a thing that I’ve observed in myself and in other people.
You talk different on the phone when you’re talking with mom versus when you’re talking
with a client.
And we all speak differently.
Your voice, your tone is different, you know, even it’s, you’re a different person.
You’re a completely different person with those people than you are with other people.
And I do that too.
And with your primary relationships, you’ve got some comfortability or some status of
a role that you play.
So he talks about that role here.
So, OK, the conceptual image of your mind is made of yourself.
The conceptual image your mind has made of yourself is relating to its own creation,
which is the conceptual image it is made of the other person.
So your perception of who you are and who they are is within your own brain is what
he’s saying.
So you’re conceptualizing who they are and who you are.
Let’s see.
So you’re not relating to that with that person at all, but who you think you are relating
to, who you think the other person is and vice versa.
So it’s your perception of this other person in the conversation, that who’s who you’re
talking to.
And we talk about our audience and who you’re talking to.
Right.
You’re not talking to who they are.
You’re talking about who you think they are.
Who you have in your brain.
Okay.
And so, and this is the same vice versa on their part.
The other person’s mind’s doing the same thing.
So every egoic interaction, he says, and that’s just anytime that you’re consciously involved
in it.
Okay.
You’re consciously involved in something.
Every egoic interaction between two people is in reality the interaction between four
conceptual mind-made identities.
They are ultimately fictitious.
It is therefore not surprising that there is so much conflict in relationships.
There is no true relationship.
Yeah.
There’s no true.
I mean, you have the relationships, but they’re all false.
They’re all based on what?
They’re all based on perception.
On your fictitious buildup in the mind of what the other person is, who the other person
is and who you are with that other person.
Right.
So that’s the first base is everything we do is kind of built as a guess.
Is it a guess or is it a lie?
Yeah.
So guess can be lies in this, I mean, it’s a guess and a lie.
You’re telling yourself a lie.
You don’t know it’s a lie.
You’re not recognizing it unless you know already, unless you know ahead of time that
you’re creating this person.
Which now based on that psychologist statement, we know that we’re creating that person every
time.
So we know.
Yeah.
You and I know.
Yeah.
So once you understand it, if you gain that in your understanding, then you know that
everything you do is a lie because you’re not getting to the true person.
You’re not even showing your true self.
Your self can’t come out.
In every conversation, there’s things you’re hiding.
It takes you awhile.
Why it takes a while to say something because you’re not just blurting out who you are.
You’re forming it.
You’re building it up.
And what you’re building it to is that, that role, that identity with the person you’re
talking to.
Right.
So we’re talking about the roles that we play and we play roles in every conversation.
If someone else comes in the room, the role adjusts, your role personally adjusts to them.
And we agree that this is a truth.
This is a principle of life.
It happens.
No one can do anything about it.
So the only way we can prove that is anecdotally, I guess, with our experience, have we experienced
that?
Do we know that it’s the case?
I’ve experienced that.
Yeah.
I would be interested in hearing from anyone that hasn’t experienced, that isn’t experienced,
that is their true self with somebody.
I mean, they say the very best relationship with a spouse or a partner would be one where
you could be your true self without fear of judgment.
But is that even, does that exist anywhere?
Even with your very closest friend, is it still possible?
Is it likely that you still have a mask around them?
Right.
And so we talk about the people who get closest, who can get closest to do that.
The next story that Eckhart Tolle says in this book, I want to read this because it
is kind of interesting based on what you said, can you be true?
So the monk with sweaty palms is the title of this little two paragraph thing.
Kazan, a Zen teacher and monk, was to officiate at a funeral of a famous nobleman.
As he stood there waiting for the governor of the province and other lords and ladies
to arrive, he noticed that the palms of his hands were sweaty.
The next day he called his disciples together and confessed he was not ready to be a true
teacher.
He explained to them that he still lacked the sameness of bearing before all human beings,
whether beggar or king.
He was still unable to look through social roles and conceptual identities and see the
sameness of being in every human.
He then left and became a pupil of another master.
He returned to his former disciples eight years later, enlightened.
So it took eight years to figure out how to drop that role to allow everyone to be the
same.
But that was, I mean, he did it eventually.
It took eight years, but it did happen.
Does that mean Eckhart Tolle is suggesting it can happen?
I believe so.
Yeah, but it, but it’s an effort.
It’s a large effort.
And a monk is 24 hours a day.
Eight year effort.
You know, and they’re trying to advance more than 1% a day.
And if they can’t do it in an eight year timeframe, what possible chance do we have?
So folks done it one thing, but you just recognize that there’s a difference in people still.
Enlightened.
Now he didn’t say that he was successful.
Maybe he’s just enlightened that you cannot succeed at this.
And so I’m going to go ahead and be a teacher anyway.
That it’s impossible.
Okay.
So he didn’t describe how he came back.
He just said he came back because he needed money again, I guess.
I don’t know.
There’s a model for victimization that’s, that’s out there that I’ve, I’ve liked and
I’ve heard it time and again.
It’s from Karpman.
Who is it?
I can’t.
Stephen Karpman, K-A-R-P-M-A-N in the sixties described the drama triangle, which is what
we’re talking about.
It’s taking on roles inside of a status.
I’m going to, we’re going to reference this again.
You pull this thing up.
Oh, where is it?
Bring the donuts.com.
It’s under bring the donuts.com.
And then from that, I think the drama triangle is what it’s called.
Bring the donuts, is that what you said?
Yeah.
And I’m not sure where it goes to without the addition.
Looking at the blog.
Look at the blog and then search it.
Can you search it?
I don’t see a search, but I’m going to search this site.
It’s the drama triangle on his first page.
Oh, I see right there at the top.
It’s one of the standard ones I think he talks about.
Okay.
So this is the drama triangle in his, on his blog spot, but there, a lot of people talk
about this and they talk about that he’s got this designed.
So just the psychology of being a victim, a victim is off on the fear side.
They have someone to blame and they have someone who is right, who they would rather be with.
So those are the three parts, the three quadrants, tridents?
It’s not a quadrant.
It’s a section, the three corner sections of the triangle.
And what they say about this drama triangle and Karpamini put it together.
He said you enter it from any place.
And so there’s a whole psychology around all this and it takes a long time to figure it
out.
And I don’t really know.
The words are here.
So either enter or enter as a victim.
You’re afraid of the villain or the perpetrator on that side.
And the perpetrator is the one that’s damaging you.
And then there’s a hero that that’s there to help you.
But the victim, you switch roles.
You fly around that triangle.
The victim flies around this triangle?
Right, the victim does it too.
So the victim can…
Or the individual?
As an individual, if you come in as a victim, the next thing you want to do is give them
their just desserts.
And then you become the villain.
So the victim will roll to the villain.
They call that reactive abuse as well.
So sure I’m abusing you, but you deserve it.
I didn’t deserve it.
Okay?
So if you start as the victim and you roll to that villain role, you start exacting your
judgment and your challenges on someone.
And then you can roll to the hero role and say, oh, I went too far.
I’m sorry.
Let’s make you feel better.
And then the other person says, you shouldn’t have done that.
And then now you’re a victim again.
And so you can stay…
It’s a collusion cycle.
You’re battling back and forth, but it’s just two people on this.
The two people pushing each other’s buttons.
So each one of these things is a button that gets pushed.
So any thoughts on that?
Other thoughts?
I think there’s this important note in the middle of the page as warning.
I want to pause here and make a really important point.
The victim role isn’t meant to describe someone who actually is powerless being manipulated
or abused, but rather someone feeling or acting as if they are when they are not.
Right.
And that’s the disclaimer for actual physical abuse.
Someone who is locked in a cage is different.
Right.
Right.
They’re not in this drama triangle.
They’re not a part of this.
They’re actually a victim.
And it says, it goes on, in fact, accusing someone else of playing victim or gaslighting
them is a classic villain move.
So no more accusing people of playing the victim.
Gaslighting them.
How much do you know about this?
As much as you.
Like, are you, I was, you just, I know three minutes of it.
I’m not an expert for sure.
Well, six months, six months I’ve been aware of this and been thinking about it.
So.
Okay.
Well, that’s more than me.
Yeah.
So this is, he says that this drama triangle is the reactive, the reactive thing.
And then he’s got a creative-
Using that word.
Option lower.
You have a resolution for it.
And that’s why I wanted to use this guy’s explanation, explained it with both of those
together here.
Reactive.
We’ve talked in past disappointment and things like that.
And the space, the space between stimulus and response, your reaction is immediate.
In our discussion in regard to the model of feelings and what?
Circumstance thoughts, emotions of feelings, and then actions.
Your reaction from an emotion goes right to an action.
This is a reactionary part of it.
There’s no pause.
There’s no pause.
There’s no space.
So the conscious, what did he say about it later?
Reactionary, making the shift.
You used a word right there that he said is the conscious.
If you’re conscious about it, you can make the shift.
It’s a creative side.
So the victim can change.
Reactive and creative.
And you can change this triangle by acting and responding in that space as opposed to
just reacting.
So reacting, you’re going to jump in the drama triangle.
And that’s been proven, I guess.
And that’s why Kapten is famous for it.
It’s because it can be proven.
It’s everywhere.
But making the shift to the other side.
So from a victim, from someone who’s having a challenge, you change to a creator.
Instead of seeing the victim saying that this is all self-internal changes that need to
be made.
The victim says, and it is just the words I used, you did this to me.
There’s someone out there or something out there that’s the problem.
Something out there is the problem.
The creator says, I can do this.
I can is that statement of a creator.
I can’t versus I can.
I can’t versus I can, yeah, probably.
And the center of this thing is presence of mind.
If you have presence of mind and you’re thinking about it and you can manipulate your own thoughts,
you’re trying to do that.
So it’s from I can’t, someone else is doing this to I can do something.
The rescuer who says, I can fix it.
I’m going to rescue you.
I’m going to solve this for you.
Instead of I can fix it, you turn into a coach.
So the rescuer changes to a coach and saying, here’s some more information that you could
use.
I want to help you.
Here’s some good information.
Perhaps use this.
But you’re not fixing it for them.
You’re providing them information or assets that they can do something with.
So still letting the creator be the creator.
You let them build it.
You’re not building it for them.
The rescuer says, I’m going to build it for you.
Give you something.
The perpetrator or the villain becomes a challenger.
And they’re the ones that says, perhaps look at it this way.
Or they’re the indicator.
We talked about disappointment.
What was the other thing that’s an indicator in life?
Figure disappointments.
Depression.
Depression.
Discouragement.
Is it discouragement?
It was another dis word that we used.
In our episode about joy.
It’s the opposite of joy.
Discouragement and despair.
I think it was despair.
That’s what I was thinking.
So despair is an indicator.
All these things are indicators that something’s not right.
And so that’s what the challenger or the villain becomes is the villain’s not necessarily
beating you down.
They’re just identifying.
Here’s a thing to look at.
Here’s a discouragement or a disappointment.
I’m not trying to hurt you, but I do want to point it out.
So I want to challenge.
I want to challenge what you’re doing.
And if the victim views them as a challenger as opposed to a perpetrator, then their role
changes.
And that’s the way the victim needs to see it.
The creator needs to say, yeah, I’m in control of my creation.
And you’re giving me information that hurts for a minute.
But that hurtful information is just a challenge that I can overcome, that I can build.
I can still do something with it.
I don’t have to be beat down with it.
Okay.
I think that’s it.
Yeah.
That’s the structure.
So yeah, there’s more further down on how to shift to the presence.
So and that’s why we’ll link this page.
It goes through all of it.
And then there’s a video that talks about what all the positions are and how you make
the changes.
So and Ken Norton, bring the donuts, is a trainer, I guess, executive coach.
But he’s put it together so that it’s a good cohesive discussion of Karpman’s Drama triangle
and how you can correct it.
Correct your reaction.
And so this is again that space.
You’ve got to have space to think.
Now we know that we play roles and I think even the good roles, the creator and coach
and challenger, you can take some time and play that role as opposed to the perpetrator
role or as opposed to the rescuer role, play the coach role.
So it’s just giving you new names and new ways to present yourself in the world consciously
as opposed to that.
The standard reactionary that hurt and so you must be a perpetrator, you must be a villain,
you must be mean because you hurt me with that word.
I’m offended.
You can choose to be offended or you can choose to create with that challenge that was handed
to you.
So it’s the way you look at it.
Yeah.
Your positive mindset, that’s a joy thing I think, but choosing to find joy in whatever
is happening to you.
Or content, content at least if not joy.
Choosing to be content and know that you’re creating.
I think the word creator makes a lot of sense.
We do create everything that we do.
This conversation is a creation.
It’s not something that’s just happening organically.
We’re making it happen.
We’re creating it.
Yeah.
Being creators.
Is that relatable to being a creator versus being a consumer?
Right.
I believe so.
Are consumers victims?
Are consumers victims?
They’re a victim of the one who made the product?
Of whatever they’re consuming.
It’s just here’s this TV show, here’s this junk food, here’s all of these YouTube videos
that someone else created and I’m just consuming it all.
Right.
So in relation to this drama triangle write up from Ken, gotta get his name, who is it?
Ken Norton?
Yeah, Ken Norton.
In relation to that, we didn’t create that, but are we the victim of that?
Or are we using it to create, we’re using him not as a villain or a perpetrator that
we victimized us with his words on the page.
He didn’t victimize us with the words on the page.
He challenged us by putting the words on the page and we’re taking it as a creator to make
something of it for ourselves.
So it’s the mentality.
Right.
So that, whether in our consumption of something is, are we thinking we’re a victim of what
we’re consuming or are we thinking we are, what is the presence, are we a creator, are
we a victim or are we a creator of this content?
So whatever content, you didn’t create the content, but you are creating your reception
of it and what you do with it next.
You’re a fully creator, a full creator with that.
If you watch a TV show, you may pick the best quotes you like out of it or get the moral
out of it or find the understanding.
You may mention it again in a conversation or in your life, you’ll think about it for
a day or two and it can make a change.
Or you may sit there and watch it and think, huh, I didn’t like that or, huh, that was
pretty neat.
And then that’s the end of, at the end of your consumption.
You don’t create anything out of it.
You’re just there watching.
That’s a good question.
Is it possible to do what you just suggested, to create nothing?
To just, yeah.
You know, I mean, I mentioned that I am judgmental of some people.
I do have judgments that I’m working on dropping, but that’s, there are some people that I see
that I believe don’t create anything out of what they consume.
They’re always moving on to the next thing that they can consume.
I mean, that’s, but you know, that’s my perception of them.
We already know that I’m creating this image of them in my mind.
But relate that to the victim idea.
I mean, it’s gaslighting if you say they’re victims, but if that were you…
It is, I know.
Oh man.
If that were you, where were they, where are they wrong?
Assume that that’s right, what you just said, and they don’t get anything out of it.
What does that mean?
That means they’re dead inside.
No.
They’re dead inside.
That’s not what it means.
Perhaps.
They’re happy with what they know.
They’re content.
They don’t care to think further about, I mean, these are all negative things.
They’re all negative perceptions I have.
Right.
And is a victim always on the negative side?
That’s what I’m trying to relate it to this model.
Right.
So is there any positive avenue of not creating something out of what you’re receiving, of
saying that author just victimized me with that book.
It was a horrible book.
But even in that, you created the idea that it’s a horrible book, or it’s a horrible movie,
it’s a horrible show.
There’s that creation.
Yeah.
That YouTube short was not good, but you’ve created the not good.
You created the not good.
So you still made a judgment.
You made a determination.
You’ve categorized it.
Is it possible to not categorize, to not create?
Can you be a true victim and never create?
Well, if you are indeed a true victim, like the victims that this drama triangle doesn’t
describe, who are powerless, perhaps at some point you check out and you’re just there.
You’re a zombie with your villain.
Only if you choose to be the zombie and the villain.
Still that’s your choice because we have man’s search for meaning, Victor Frankl’s work,
who is clearly in the worst situation of anybody that you can imagine.
Yeah.
I mean, what I’m imagining is even maybe even worse than the Holocaust.
Okay.
It’s in, how about incestual child rape.
Right.
With actual pedophile perpetrator.
When that happens, they just check out.
They take themselves to another place and they’re not creating anything.
They’re creating an escape out of what’s happening.
I don’t have any experience in this, but I’m speaking from what I’ve read.
From what you hear.
From others.
The stories of it.
I mean, it’s all over the place, so you can tell.
So perhaps they’re creating that ability to escape severe trauma like that, but they’re
not creating anything out of the actual experience.
It’s a dead experience.
It’s something they have no control over.
They just stop being.
But they go somewhere.
For those.
They create something.
They’re not.
They’re not there.
And you can do that in your mind.
And that’s the big problem with victim mentality.
Or what is it?
Everything.
I mean, child abuse.
Abuse as a child will affect the rest of your life and affect how you act and react, your
reactions to everything.
But even with that, it’s harder to consciously create and make a change in that space between
stimulus and response.
Harder to do that because your responses are so strongly embedded as that mentality that
I’ve got to protect myself from these villains out there.
So you can fall into that and become…and that’s the victim mentality.
That’s what they say what creates it.
A lot of these other videos identifying that it’s childhood trauma that has created your
victim mentality.
But all you have to do is understand it and then they do this.
You’re going through years of therapy to break your daddy complex or whatever it is, all
the problems that I had when I was a kid.
Yeah.
The trauma is always with you, but you’ve got to learn how to live with it.
Yeah.
All right.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I haven’t gone through therapy for that kind of thing.
You learn how to live with it or you understand it.
You acknowledge it and you understand this is where I’m at.
So this is what I’ll start with.
So I don’t know where we were going with that.
Let me think.
We were trying to discuss a victim.
Can a victim remain a victim?
In the drama triangle, you roll to perpetrator and to rescuer and you see other people that
are victims.
And so you’re more sensitive to that.
Maybe that’s empathetic and compassionate towards other people that you see are victims.
And so you want to rescue and so you can jump into that role in that relationship.
But the more positive, the proactive side, and maybe this is proactive and reactive,
that’s the difference of creator to villain.
A reactive is a villain or is a, yeah, is a villain.
A proactive is a challenger.
I’m not trying to perpetrate something on you that I know is right and you have to do
it.
I’m going to just challenge you.
Here’s something else to think about.
This is the way I view it.
What do you think?
You know, allowing it as a challenger and as a victim instead of saying that those people
are hurting me, they’re damaging me.
They say they’re giving me information that I can create something new.
I’ve got to make a change.
Let’s create that change.
So either you cycle on the collusion cycle, and it was described to me years ago, 40 years
ago as collusion when you’re working with someone else.
You’re just pushing a button and it makes you angry and then they push your button and
makes you angry.
And that’s really just flipping back and forth between a villain and a villain and a victim.
And then they say you’ve got to change it so that at one point you become a rescuer.
Maybe that gets you off that you decide something else.
But really you don’t want to be the rescuer
You want to jump out and be a challenger and both a Creator.
You want to jump to the proactive side as opposed to the reactive side.
Okay.
Right.
And then another commonly used opposite of reactive is responsive.
Yes?
Respond.
You respond to something instead of react to it.
Yeah, a proactive response.
Proactivity and responsibility are probably the same thing.
The ability to respond.
I mean, probably not exactly, but they’re in this context, they’re along the same.
As opposed to reactive.
They’re parallel to each other.
Reactive and just knee-jerk.
Just you are who you are.
So we’re saying I am who I am, so just live with it.
Right.
That has no value.
So how can you help a victim see the triangle, that they’re in this drama triangle, and that
they should want to move into a responsive, proactive mindset?
You have any ideas at all about that?
What he said in the middle of this is it’s just gaslighting.
If you try to convince someone to get off the drama triangle, you pinpoint that they’re
on the drama triangle, you’re gaslighting them.
And what does that mean?
What does gaslighting mean?
Gaslighting is when you are trying to get someone to believe something that’s not true,
or you’re creating a situation and then telling them that they’re crazy for seeing that situation,
that they’re crazy for whatever they experienced because of what you created.
I think it’s an intentional thing.
I don’t think that you can gaslight someone that is actually in a victim mentality.
Unintentionally.
Because they are in a victim mentality.
If someone is thinking that they’re a victim…
Where does gaslighting exist?
In the proactive or reactive triangle?
Can gaslighting exist in the proactive triangle?
That’s my current thought.
Between a challenger, a coach, and a creator, can you gaslight in that arena?
Yeah.
Okay.
So in that disclaimer in the middle, it further says the drama triangle is best used as a
tool for understanding one’s own perspective in a self-development or coaching setting.
It shouldn’t be introduced to teams or organizations without a lot of psychological safety and
an experienced hand guiding the process.
It can easily be misused or even weaponized against vulnerable populations.
Okay.
What’s a vulnerable population?
Someone who is thinking they’re a victim.
Right.
Which triangle here is vulnerable?
Everyone in the drama triangle.
In the drama triangle, there’s vulnerability there and you’re getting your feelings hurt
and your feelings stepped on.
In the presence triangle, in the proactive triangle, are you…what was the word?
Vulnerable.
Are you vulnerable in that?
Your vulnerability, and this is Brene Brown’s work on shame and vulnerability and all that.
She says you got to be vulnerable, but you can’t be vulnerable in a drama triangle.
If you’re in a drama triangle and you’re vulnerable, that hurts and you’re damaging yourself and
you are being the victim.
Okay.
But if you move yourself to the proactive triangle, to the presence of mind, and you’re
vulnerable, you want to be vulnerable there because then you can be challenged and you
can be coached and you can create something new.
You’re building as opposed to being beaten down, as opposed to wearing out.
Using your resources, so even a rescuer is using his resources to help someone else.
So that’s a downward cycle.
As a coach, you’re building up, you’re giving your information to build up, even if you
give substance as a coach, you’re building up, you’re building something.
They’re creating, you’re not rescuing.
So you’re always…you’re building people as opposed to tearing them down or being torn
down.
Yeah.
What he’s saying is you can’t point this out in someone else.
Gaslighting, I was going to talk about that.
Gaslighting is denying something.
And can you deny, you can deny yourself a denial that something is true.
And then we haven’t talked about truth.
We’ve talked about that in the last conversation that we should discuss sometime.
Can anything be true?
Can you identify?
Yeah.
Because it’s not that it’s true.
It’s true for somebody’s perception of it.
And especially in this idea that all of our roles are decided on and fictitious anyway.
We’re perceptive in our own self.
Our conversation here is four different people talking to each other.
And any conversation you have is four different perspectives that are interacting.
Right.
That’s the true me and the me that I’m…
Being.
That I’m playing.
You’re playing in front of me.
And the me that you see me playing in front of you and the me that’s actually me.
Those are the four people.
Well, right.
Because our actuals aren’t here because I think the four people are the person I think
you are and the person that you are playing and then the person that you think I am and
the person that I’m playing.
Oh, that’s right.
That’s the four people.
We are really not in this conversation.
The real us.
Right.
Yeah.
Yes.
So, gaslighting is denying the truth.
If you’re telling someone that they’re playing a victim, then you’re telling them that what
they’re feeling isn’t valid.
That’s what they’ll hear.
So let’s use that example.
You’re telling them that you’re just playing the victim.
If they are playing the victim, they’re going to take that as an affront, as an offense.
It’s going to offend them.
And so it will cycle them further on the thing.
And they’ll change to the perpetrator and say, well, here’s what you do.
And they’ll slam back at you to slap you back with something.
Yeah.
Okay.
So if you say that to someone who’s on the proactive side and willing and has gone through
the psychological effort, he said, you can’t do it unless you have self-development or
coaching setting without a lot of psychological safety and experienced hand guiding.
So an experience hand guiding the way.
So if they’ve got that experience and they’ve got the psychological understanding, which
we’re what we’re trying to attain to in these conversations, right?
A better understanding of the world and where we are.
Do you agree?
Right.
Do you think that’s our goal that we have?
Yeah.
It might not be our only goal, but yes, that is one of our goals.
So as we open up these things and deep dive into these rabbit holes and sides that we
want to try to have a greater understanding of interactions between us and between the
world.
So if someone says you’re playing the victim and the person receiving it is in the creative
mentality understands everything that’s going on, you can say, yes.
What would he say?
Well, what would be the response from the creator if he was gaslighted in saying you’re
playing the victim?
If I was in that position and somebody told me that I’m playing the victim, I would hope
that I would pause and maybe respond with, I see where you’re coming from and I see why
you would tell me that or like an understanding presentation.
Like I present that I’m understanding.
I would not say anything that I think would upset the other person maybe.
She wouldn’t want to be a villain or a perpetrator to them.
You wouldn’t feel like slapping them back.
You’d consider it.
And you would take it, did they say it to you from a position of wanting to damage you?
Are they being a villain or a challenger?
And you would hope you would just, if you’re being a creator, if you’re being a creator,
then you just assume that they’re being a challenger and not a villain.
You view them as a challenger and say, well, yeah, so that’s good information.
Let me create that a little bit and consider it.
And that’s what you said.
I would hope that I consider it and say, how did I react there?
What was my reaction?
And how can I adjust that?
And how can I learn from it and create something new in my mentality, in who I’m being right
now, my role?
How can I adjust my role?
And so you do that.
You accept it.
You accept the, and it’s not gaslighting then.
It’s a, what is it if it’s not gaslighting?
What’s the opposite of gaslighting?
If a challenger gives that to creator, says you’re acting this way, what you’re doing
is this.
What is that?
Instructive criticism.
Yeah.
They’re, what it says here is they’re provoking.
Provokes others.
They’re provoking others to take action.
I think I would use the name persuade instead of provoke.
What’s provoke mean?
That seems like a negative, doesn’t it?
And provoke does have that negative connotation.
He says more challengers provide loving pressure, take responsibility, question beliefs and
thoughts and facilitate action.
Challengers have the courage to be with discomfort and are willing to tap into authentic anger,
which clarifies and motivates.
So challengers are allowed to be authentically angry.
Yeah.
And well, certainly that makes sense.
And if the coach, if the, if the creator is hearing it right, they’re not going to be
damaged by or offended by that anger, they’re going to see that person really has passion
for this idea.
That concept is important to them.
And it’s important enough that they raise their voice and they pointed at me with that
finger or whatever.
Yeah.
But it’s still just a challenger.
They’re just challenging me.
They’re not, they’re not damning me or stopping me.
In that word of using damnation in that way, that’s stopping your progress.
They’re not trying to lock me up.
They’re just giving me information and I’m going to advance with it.
Okay.
So, yeah, and this page goes through the description of it.
And I’m sure in his four hour seminar on this, there’s a lot more information that he would
go through.
So, right.
It’s not like we’re going to, we’re going to come to a full understanding of this, but
just, and that’s why I wanted to just talk structure and, and where we can go with it.
Just like saying gaslighting, I would suppose that gaslighting cannot happen in the proactive
triangle.
It can only happen in the reactive triangle.
Yeah, I think so.
So that may or may not be true, but in the way I’m thinking that it is actual.
Well, if you can change your thoughts about things, then you can change whether you think
you’re being gaslighted or not.
Maybe.
Because you’re changing the way you’re receiving it.
If you receive it as a victim, then it’s gaslighting.
If you receive it as a creator, it’s information.
It perhaps is.
But if you are a true victim of gaslighting though, I was listening to a podcast episode
recently.
I don’t even remember which one it was, but they did discuss gaslighting a little bit.
And an example they gave was somebody who, like, let’s say a wife is in a situation of
abuse and her abusive husband will beat on her.
And then the next day he’ll be like, I never touched you yesterday.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Like, where did you get that black eye from?
Because it wasn’t from me.
And then making her believe that he isn’t abusive even though he obviously is.
So this is if you’re actually an abused victim, if you are an actual victim outside of this
drama triangle, then gaslighting is real.
And it’s lying.
It’s denial, then.
It is denial and lying.
Gaslighting is a lie.
The husband that hit his wife in the face and locked her eye and said, I didn’t do that.
And don’t be telling people that I did that because I didn’t do that.
And you know I didn’t.
Both you and I know I didn’t do that.
So convincing her.
Right.
And maybe he’ll have a very nice, cordial, caring attitude while he’s telling her, it
wasn’t me, I promise.
It couldn’t have been me.
I’m not like that.
You know, maybe that is part of it.
And that’s how he convinces her that she is crazy for thinking that he’s abusive.
So gaslighting, the thing that reminds me of that, and it’s scripturally.
I mean, I’m with that worldview.
Paul, when he says it wasn’t me that did sin, but the physical body within me that did sin.
So I don’t, somewhere maybe I can find that verse and add it, but that’s kind of a gaslighting
statement is, no, we know that it’s not me that’s sinning.
It’s the physical within me and my body sins, but I don’t sin.
Okay.
Yeah.
Is that like the true self that you never show anyone and the mask that you put on?
The mask that I wore that day was sinning, but I, my true self doesn’t do that.
Yeah, because I am rooted in Christ Jesus and I’m not going to do that.
I don’t do that, but the body that I’m in does that sometimes.
Well, yeah, that’s what Paul was saying.
Right.
But I think that that’s like what we’re talking about, the perception, the role that I’m playing.
Usually, the role we play is better than we are, right?
We want to put the smiling face in the, you know, everything’s fine as opposed to there’s
trouble in Zion.
Yeah, I got troubles.
So what if like you’ve fallen in with the wrong crowd and I don’t know, like you’re
in the West Side story and you’re on what was the other, what are the two factions of
the story called?
I don’t know.
You don’t remember?
Okay.
The Hatfields and McCoys, the standard feud.
And I don’t know, that was in a song.
Right.
And so sometimes you’re just on one side or the other and sometimes things get out of
hand and you don’t actually want to stab anyone, but it’s like, well, here I am.
What am I going to do?
And you react, you don’t respond and you stab someone and then you’re like, what did I just
do?
That’s not me.
That’s the me that was here with these people did that, but I would never do that.
Right.
You get into a group and then you do what the group does because it’s a group dynamics.
You’re just going to operate the way the group’s operating and you wouldn’t.
It’s like the people, why would anyone tear down goalposts at a football game?
It doesn’t make any sense, but it happens because the group gets together and someone
jumps up and grabs it and then they pull on them and I don’t know, it’s not a very smart
thing to do.
None of them probably went there thinking I’m going to be part of this.
And there was no instigator to tear it down, but that happened.
So could that be what Paul was talking about when he says that in his scripture?
That wasn’t me that sinned, that was my body that was with other sinners maybe.
The mortal within me or something.
I don’t really know how he says it.
I think we don’t need to go any further on that.
On Paul?
On trying to describe why he said what he said.
You guys can figure that out later.
But for us, I do want to talk about gaslighting in the political environment because that
came to mind.
There are certain people that are told that we’ve elected a…
What have we elected?
A tyrant.
A tyrant?
A dictator.
A dictator, yeah.
A fascist, a convicted felon.
A convicted felon.
But I heard Trump from his side, he said, you can’t use the term convicted felon because
I have not been sentenced.
And he’s not likely to be sentenced.
So there is no convicted felon there.
Yeah, he’s not that yet.
That was what you’re saying, is what he’s saying.
And if they can actually get there legally, that’s one thing or another.
But whether you’re a legal convicted felon or an actual convicted felon, there’s difference
there even.
There’s a nuance.
There’s a difference between a fascist and a capitalist.
I think he’s a capitalist, but you can take capitalism too far and become fascist, or
you can become a dictator if you take power too far.
But the gaslighting in general…
I’m gonna make a general statement.
The media has gaslighted everybody and maybe every one of their 30-second steps are gaslightings.
Whether they know it or not, they’re proposing an idea that may not be right.
Yeah, and they’re promoting it so much that people believe it.
Yeah, so they’re stating it as truth and that’s what you hear.
And so you’re gaslighted into thinking that this is a convicted felon, all our rights
are gone immediately with this individual.
And maybe the rest of us are gaslighted.
The other side, are we gaslighted to thinking that Joe Biden, President Biden is incompetent
or lacking mental capacity?
Maybe he has full mental capacity.
I saw his interview with Simon Sinek and he seemed very accurate in his discussion with
Simon.
Sinek was on point and he didn’t falter.
So maybe that’s really who he is and we’re just being gaslit by Fox News and all the
other media.
Or maybe Simon’s podcast is so perfectly edited.
They got rid of all that stuff.
They took out…
Because we edit our podcasts, there’s a lot of ums that happen that we take out and pauses.
And so they have the video one place and the other.
They could have put a video somewhere that they eliminated the faltering.
Yeah.
Okay.
You can’t trust anyone.
Not even Simon Sinek?
Come on.
Yeah, not even Simon.
You can trust Joe Rogan because he doesn’t edit his podcast.
It’s just three hours straight.
And that’s it.
It’s what it is.
I think Theo Vaughn does that too.
Yeah, Theo Vaughn is just straight.
Is just how it is.
But you can’t trust us.
You can’t trust this podcast.
No.
Awkward pause.
This is one of the things that will be deleted and it’s edited and it’s just not going to
be there.
As we consider our own view in front of the world and who our false identity is, I think
gaslighting is a thing that can only be identified by the receiver of it and say, no, because
what you said, your example, your example of gaslighting.
He’s intentionally saying, I didn’t do that.
And he’s trying to augment the story so that the story doesn’t make him the bad guy, even
though he is the bad guy.
I never hit you.
I would never hit you.
Right.
So yeah, it can be…
But that is a true victim.
It can be perpetrated.
Gaslighting can be perpetrated on purpose.
I don’t think the news organizations believe they’re gaslighting.
They’re not doing it for that.
They’re doing it to meet their end goal of maintaining power.
Yeah.
They tell the stories that they’re paid to tell.
That’s the thing.
Yeah.
And in that, if you’re being paid to tell a story, it is gaslighting or it is a lie.
As we talk about that, it’s not necessarily the truth.
Even under oath, things may be different.
Well, history, as you talk about history, veridicality is that idea that you can’t get
anything right from what you’re trying to remember from the past.
Even last week, even yesterday’s family event, you won’t get everything right if you try
to describe it or you identify it.
You don’t know everything that happened there.
Right.
And even what you were a part of, you don’t know fully.
You couldn’t recall or write down…
Even your own perceptions.
Dialogue.
You couldn’t write a dialogue of what happened for a little bit, even 10 minutes.
So no recollection of history is going to be accurate.
It’s as accurate as you can make it.
You’d hope that if there was a recollection of history that was directed by God, that
would be accurate, wouldn’t you?
Because God is omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent, so he knows the dialogue that
happened yesterday.
He knows everything.
He remembers it all, right?
Wouldn’t you say that God remembers?
He would be able to remember every minute?
Omniscient is…it’s like playing the movie.
We talk about the movie that plays when you die.
You’re going to see the movie of your life.
That’s the way it’s been described to me a time or two, but you know everything that
you’ve done.
You’ll see it.
It did happen.
And if it did happen, an omnipresent being has that recorded.
Or if your brain, you know, we’re using not so much of it.
A fall of it is recorded in there and it just can be opened up at some point.
You can see the rest of it.
Even then you’re not going to be able to see.
And that’s maybe the omnipotent, the all-powerful, is he can see…a God can see the reaction
between one person and the other.
Those four people that they’re talking together.
You can see all four of those and identify the real as part of that.
But it’s not the real that we’re communicating with.
Is he going to be able to identify the false people that we’re talking to each other in?
And…
Well, he is…he is God, right?
Right, right.
So the magic can happen.
So, you know, yesterday we were there in the room with 20 people.
There’s 20 different conversations times four.
So 800 interactions in that meeting yesterday, in that party, we had 800 interactions, 800
different conversations and permutations, and God has control of all that.
I mean, that’s simple for him, like sands in the hourglass.
There’s a lot of things that go on.
We can inadvertently gaslight by denying something, even though we don’t know we’re denying it,
denying that something happened, because we just didn’t recognize it that way.
Yeah, inadvertently gaslighting.
And then if somebody says you’re gaslighting, then do you become a victim or a creator?
Personally, if you’re thinking about that and you’re putting yourself on the proactive
triangle, if you utilize that space between stimulus and response, you’re always a creator.
You can’t be a victim in that space.
So you’re using that information.
Would you ever claim as a creator, would you ever claim that you’ve been gaslighted?
That rolls you right to the victim stance.
I think you can’t claim that.
But what if you were gaslighted?
What if you were the wife?
Yeah, the wife that has a black eye and she’s a creator.
How does she react?
What would be the legal right thing to do is you hit me, I’ve got proof of it.
We have the nanny cam there on the corner and I’ve already sent it to my sister and
the police will be here in three minutes and I’ll tell them just like you’re telling me
to that you didn’t hit me.
So I’m creating…
If you’re successfully, if the gaslighter is successful, then you actually believe him.
You believe that you are crazy, that something is wrong in your mind because you’re making
up these stories of abuse.
You really genuinely believe that.
But if you somehow escape and then you realize I’m not crazy, he was gaslighting me, then…
And then you’re a creator.
Then you…
So in order to be crazy, you have to be a victim.
Can you be a creator and have someone change your mind enough that you have been manipulated?
Can a creator be manipulated by a villain?
And that because a perpetrator, someone who’s authentically gaslighting is not being a challenger,
they’re being a perpetrator.
They’re saying, I got to change you.
I’m going to make you be something that you need to be.
So the villain, can the villain play with the creator?
And that’s kind of the collusion cycle.
As long as you don’t push the button back, you stop the collusion.
That was the way it was described to me 40 years ago.
If you stop the collusion, if you just stop pushing the button, so the creator will not
push the button back, doesn’t have to change to the reactive abuse cycle or the villain.
You’ve hurt me, damaged me.
You haven’t damaged me.
You tried to change my mind and you actually made me think that you didn’t hit me.
But the nanny cam says differently or whatever.
I mean, legally, if you can press charges, the creator will press charges and escape
the situation.
Get out.
They’ll find a way to be gone from that abuse.
Right.
That’s what they control.
They can control the scenario, their life by doing that.
They’re still in full control and they may be in control and stay in the situation.
And how would they do that?
They know they’re going to be hit again.
Why would they stay?
Right.
Right.
They feel out of control.
They would stay if they feel like they have no control.
If they’re a stay at home mom and they’re like, I have nowhere to go.
I have no way to provide for myself or my kids.
I would be homeless and in a much worse situation if I left.
Rather than being beat every week.
Maybe that’s why they would stay.
What is that?
The song about Laser Wolf.
He has a nasty temper.
He beats her every night, but only when he’s sober.
But only when he’s sober.
So you’re alright.
So you’re alright.
So just keep him drunk.
So she’ll find the ways.
So the creator in that position then would find the ways to lessen her potential risk.
You’re lessening the risk.
You’re identifying there’s more risk if I’m not in this house, stay at home mom with my
kids.
I don’t want to go to a shelter and live in a worse condition.
I kind of enjoy the swimming pool and the sauna.
And I’m going to continue enjoying it.
And then I’ll just try to keep him drunk so that he’s never sober.
So he never has to hit me.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So this is raising up another problem that I that that my husband has with the model
of being able to change your thoughts and taking control and turning into a creator.
You’re not a victim anymore.
You’re a creator.
The problem is so what about the action?
What about the villain then?
They’re they’re just allowed to continue to be a villain and I just have to change how
I’m thinking about it and and not do anything about it.
That’s going to make the villain more angry.
Yeah.
If you if you don’t collude, if you don’t fight back, what does that do with the villain?
The villain can just get more angry.
Right.
Right.
And I mean, they get away with whatever they’re doing.
Like if someone is.
Well, use that situation to black eye.
I mean, that’s good.
Yeah.
So the wife is like, OK, hit me.
Yeah.
This she can change her thinking and be like, I don’t care if you hit me.
Do it or whatever.
Yeah.
They stop the gaslighting because she doesn’t care if she’s being hit or not.
She could go to to martial arts training or what MMA training so that she could learn
how to accept the hits.
Because part of that, half of that, maybe 70 percent of that is being hit, being able
to receive a hit.
So she can go for the training to learn how to receive hits without damaging or breaking
her.
You know, just deflect them.
If you turn your head at the right time, you can get hit in the face and still have a black
eye, but not break your bones.
And so he feels satisfied.
So then what does that do?
What does that do to the villain?
Is the villain keep hitting?
Because the I like it doesn’t change the it doesn’t stop the villain from being an abuser.
Right.
If he’s actually a villain perpetrator and he doesn’t want to change, he’s not going
to change.
So but you want to stay with them.
My husband’s belief is that that is wrong to let the villain continue to be a villain.
I have to use like a real life scenario, though, because it’s different.
Try that then.
So his boss is abrasive.
Right.
Okay.
And he so this abrasive boss isn’t isn’t abusive outside of maybe saying offhanded comments
like I this is the worst report I’ve ever seen.
You know, that’s that’s very abrasive, even though it might be true to this guy.
It’s not nice to say it’s rude and it doesn’t it doesn’t promote growth.
It’s like you’re an idiot.
And that’s it.
As as a villain saying it stating it as a villain, as I’m trying to hurt you with this.
It wasn’t good work.
And I’m not going to say it.
I’m not going to coddle you with it.
I’m going to tell you straight up, it wasn’t good work.
And you better look damaged by my statement or I won’t be satisfied.
I’ll have to say more.
Right.
So I tell [redacted name], you have three things you can do here based on the model, the Brook Castillo’s
model, Eckhart Tolle.
I mean, she gets it from him, I guess.
I don’t know where it where it comes from.
You talk like it’s a bigger thing than just Brooke.
Right.
You know, you go to the place.
Yeah.
So the three things you can do is you can do nothing and just you’re you’re there.
You’re it.
Everything is the same tomorrow as it was today.
Or you can leave the situation.
You can quit your job.
He can quit the job and not have to deal with this manager anymore.
Or he can stay but just change how he thinks about the situation.
He can he can view this manager differently.
He can grow in this conflict and he can be a better person for himself.
But those are the things he has control of.
He can’t change the manager that he has no control over whether the manager changes or
not.
Right.
He could become a perpetrator and damage the manager by by yelling back.
And that’s just changing to the perpetrator role or to the villain role.
You become the villain as the employee and manage your manager and say, do you not know
any other words?
Are you that stupid that you only know those words?
Find some other creative way to tell me that there needs to be adjustments here.
That’s you’re just the worst.
I guess that’s a fourth option, right?
Yeah.
It’s one of those options.
But if you took it as a creator, I think the valid option would be moving to this so that
maybe this is the addition to the model in that space between stimulus and response.
You got a stimulus.
There are circumstances he yelled at you and told you this is idiot work.
And he tried to do it as a villain, trying to damage you and hurt you by it.
And again, if you don’t seem hurt enough, he’s going to keep talking until you cower
in the corner.
So that’s the type of manager he is.
And he wants to just hurt you.
If you’re not feeling damaged, he’s not doing his job.
So you you feign pain right away so that he stops talking.
Right.
If you’re really hurt, oh, I’m really bad.
I’m really bad.
I’m so, so sorry.
And you do whatever he says that is what he’s expecting.
And then when he leaves, you take that as a challenge, a challenger to you.
Whatever he said was accurate.
He actually had a feeling about it.
So if it was a total gaslight and you know that you did exactly right and he’s wrong,
you’ve got to solve that somehow.
In the collusion cycle, just pushing other people’s buttons, you just stopped to which
push the buttons.
You don’t fight them back.
You may be correct.
What it is you take it as an indication.
Anything a challenger tells you is an indicator of something needs to change.
So you create, you start working on what you actually said, not how it hurt, how it offended
me.
But what did he actually say?
What was the impetus behind his anger, his misplaced anger?
Right.
Right.
And that’s that’s a viewing that’s becoming a creator.
You’re not a victim anymore.
You’re a creator and your villain is now a challenger.
Right.
And you’re saying he thinks he’s a villain and he’s going to keep operating that way.
So if the challenger challenges continue being a challenger, there’s no way that they can
change that.
They can become a creator.
And I guess that you cycle around that same cycle as well.
But if you create something new out of it, I guess if the challenger does see, let’s
say it was a report that was just done with the wrong color of ink.
I don’t know.
Simply.
Which actually is is what [redacted name] says is the issue more more often than not is the formatting
of this is awful.
And this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
It’s it’s not anything substantial.
All of the data is correct.
It’s the bullet points and where they are and how far they’re indented and stuff.
Right.
So the bullet point.
So he says, well, what as a creator now, he’s giving me this information.
What is it that he’s looking for?
Maybe it’s this.
And so you try again.
No, this is worse than the last time.
So, OK, well, let’s try.
Let’s try this other thing.
I saw this and start searching out.
You search out what it is that formats can be.
And so you change the format.
And all of a sudden, the manager gets a format that he says, you know, this is beautiful.
I don’t know what it says in the report.
I can’t read the report.
I don’t even care about reading the report because this is so beautiful.
And then he’ll become a creator and say, now, let’s start caring about what’s in the report
because I think it’s garbage that’s in here.
I read through it and I don’t understand the words now, but I like the format.
So you’re dealing with one thing at a time as a creator, perhaps that just may be a way
to solve it.
So does switching from a victim to a creator help the villain, who is now a challenger,
be a better person, do things differently from there?
Just based on how you’re receiving it.
If you receive it as a victim, the perpetrator, the villain is continuing to be the villain,
can be, but if you receive it as a creator, does that affect the one who sent it?
It’s like receiving a gift.
If you give a gift and it’s not received, what’s that?
It’s like love where we started our whole conversations here.
You can’t give love.
You can feel it.
You can express it, but you can’t make someone receive it.
So as a creator, if you receive it as a challenger, does the challenger, does the offer of that
information, are they affected by it?
I think that they, well, there’s continual interaction.
If you receive it and you cower, just like being punched by your husband and getting
a black eye, if you learn how to receive the punch, then, you know, or be aware of it.
That’s not going to provide the same satisfaction from the abuser.
He’s going to be like, what?
That was not satisfying at all.
Maybe that’s what’s going to happen.
Maybe it makes it worse though.
Maybe the way you receive a punch makes the abuser angry and he pulls out a knife instead.
He’s like, well, that didn’t hurt you.
Let’s try this.
Right.
It’s like if you just laugh at someone, if you, what, guffaw, you brush it off.
You, if they come to you with their villain mentality and want to hurt you and you, and
you like to water off the duck’s back, you know, if you just brush it off and it doesn’t
affect you, that’s going to cause them to be a little more angry.
If you use it as a creator and you’ve changed something and you, you’re in the midst of
changing it, they’re still going to be bad.
So the question is how, how do you manage your manager or your relationship?
How do you manage the other person?
How do you manipulate the other person without manipulating them?
The only way is, and that’s the collusion answer is just don’t push their button back.
Identify where the buttons are.
Don’t push it back.
Don’t roll in the cycle.
Don’t continue in the cycle.
Step out, create something new, do something different.
Is that what it is?
Do something different?
Is that what creator means?
Yeah.
I mean, it’s, if you don’t do anything different than you remain in the victim cycle.
So you create something else outside of you.
You try to, you learn from it.
You learn some 1% thing and do that 1%.
And at some point, and what is it that can love heal all wounds?
Is there something that heals all wounds?
Time.
Time heals all wounds.
So sometime in time, if you’re continuing to be a creator, but it’s just how you’re
receiving it, whether that changes the villain at all.
The way of the Dow.
Managing your manager.
That’s a book, isn’t it?
I don’t know.
At least it’s a statement.
Someone’s probably used as a book title, but it’s something that’s…
Think it is a book.
Something that’s all over the place.
It is a colloquial, it’s part of the general mentality.
And the person that used as a title to the book was just egotistical about trying to
use that and probably didn’t treat the subject well enough.
Oh, okay.
Even if it was Stephen Covey.
Probably not good enough.
But even if it was a very popular author, Malcolm Gladwell, it’s just a presumptive
title to use.
Okay.
Villainism.
So what do we come to conclude?
I think it’s a change of thinking to move from victimization to creatorship.
That’s a psychological…
Not a true powerless victim.
Psychological move we can make is to always act from the proactive thing.
And they have to be part of the conversation.
Someone would have to hear this from us or from anyone else or read this page and go
through it and understand it and hear it and actually internalize it and say, instead of
a victim, I’m never gonna accept something as a victim.
I’m gonna accept it as a creator.
I’m gonna do something with it.
And instead of victimizing someone or being a villain, I’m gonna challenge people and
give them valid information that they can work with.
And instead of a rescuer and solving people’s lives and saying, I wanna just solve this,
I’m gonna be a coach.
I’m gonna give information and perhaps resources, everything that I can to care for them, but
I’m gonna let them build themselves and let them do the work necessary.
I mean, identify what the work is, let them do it and not pull them out of the situation.
Just like telling the victim, the black eyed wife, help her see that learning how to accept
that fight, if she wants to stay in it and it’s fine, she loves the man, but he’s gonna
hit her once a month, periodically whenever, until she can find out how to keep him away
from doing that, if he just feels like doing that.
And you’ve got to legally get out of that situation or legally change it somehow.
You’re still in the victim status if you feel trapped.
If you’re a creator and you’re a black eyed wife and getting beaten, you’ve got to create
your life the way you want it.
And if you can do that with deflecting the blows and painting your eye so that he feels
like everything’s fine and then telling everyone in the world that everything’s fine at our
house, my husband is a wonderful man, he does nothing wrong.
He’s practically Jesus.
And then endure what she’s enduring on her own because that’s just what she wants to
do.
She’s chosen that as a creator, she’s creating that life for herself.
It needs to be the created life.
If her created life needs to be away from him and the kids with grandma and whatever,
you do that.
You do what’s necessary.
You get the nanny cams all over the house and you make sure that you’re well documented
before you take it to the police and get him picked up.
Right.
And that’s a form of creation.
You create a better life.
You don’t remain a victim.
Create the escape.
Yeah, you create the escape.
And that’s, I think, Viktor Frankl, that’s what he talked about in Man’s Search for Meaning
is you’re creating in your mind the ability to function inside of this frozen tundra with
no shoes and you just can’t feel your body anymore.
You’re just moving barely.
Right.
Right.
But you’re creating it.
You’re creating it in your mind.
He says he would think about the nice things.
He would think about his work, the book that he was writing and what he was working on.
He was mentally working on things the whole time and had the book written down by the
time they got out of it.
Yeah.
Let’s see.
Do I have any questions about all of that?
Or any challenges?
Now, you came up with the challenge and I do believe that if you change, it’s going
to change the people around you because not pushing a button right away, a villain is
going to expect the victim to hit back if the victim doesn’t jump into the villain’s
stance and collude, go into a collusion cycle.
There’s going to be a difference.
You’ll recognize it.
You know, I may not recognize it right away.
It may take 10 times, but you’ll say, you know, he hasn’t cried in the last little while.
He always used to cry when I went in and yelled at him.
Now he’s not crying.
What’s going on?
Something’s different.
Something’s different here.
That’s what you want to create.
You’re creating something different.
Right.
And there is, if something actually legally is wrong, then of course you go to the system
to do what you can to fix it.
Like if someone is actually showing favoritism in a workplace or they’re…what else can
you legally point out to like the human resources department?
If there’s actually something there that the human resources department can do something
about, you don’t let…you use that tool in your creative process.
Right.
Yeah.
And you gain legal advice.
Maybe you pay $200 and get a legal advice, an attorney to identify exactly what the moving
parts are, the legal moving parts that you can use.
You go to that expense as a creator.
You say, I want to accomplish this.
And so what’s the steps?
You plan it out.
You make a plan.
You identify your next step, your 1% move.
Next 1% move is going to be this.
Or even if you’re just doing it yourself, say, I’m going to try this, see if this will
work.
And if you talk to human resources and they happen to be in bed with the manager and they’re
colluding against you, both of them, then you realize that’s not a place I’m going to
go again.
That’s not going to help me at all.
So I’ve got to do this on my own.
Yeah.
Right.
And so…
You continue to stay on the right side.
All of this is really helpful for someone who recognizes that they either can be a victim
or they are currently a victim.
If they don’t recognize their own victim role, then that’s how it is for them.
That’s their life.
They’re always going to be hurt by other people and there’s nothing that they can do about
any of it.
Right?
Right.
And you talked about that person who watches the movie and doesn’t have a feeling about
it, or just they’re not using it for them.
They were victimized by the creator of that drama.
Whether it was for good or bad, whether they liked the movie or not, they were a receiver
of it and they did nothing with it.
They do nothing with it.
Yeah.
And a conversation, if they get in a conversation, I had to spend an hour in that conversation
with them.
It was torture, but I endured it.
And really, that was another statement.
I’ve been in conversations like that.
I need to say, the victims do feel superior to everyone else.
That was one came out of something else is a victim says, I endured it.
They endure things and that’s what wears them down.
That’s what brings in the post-traumatic stress disorder events.
If you’re continually a victim, you’re continually being worn down, you’re going to get stress.
It’s stressful to be beat down all the time.
And if you don’t realize that it’s your choice to get out of that or not, change your thinking
about it, change to the creator side, then that’s your role.
But if you can state that you’re a victim, all those people are bad.
They hurt me.
They did this, they did that.
They’re the evil people and I’m the good people, but I’m the victim because I’m the good people.
I’m good because I am the victim because I didn’t do any of those bad things.
And now I’m doing those bad things, but they deserve it.
They’re still worse than me because they deserve to be victimized.
I’m in the right.
It’s that black and white thinking.
We’re going to have to talk about that when we get to the psychopathy discussion.
Yeah.
Black and white thinking is related to psychopathy.
And related to victimhood.
And related to everything.
The spectrum, if you can accept the spectrum, maybe you’re a creator, you can expect the
spectrum.
I can be anywhere on that that I want to be and I can place myself as opposed to I am
there or they are there.
They’re all bad or all good.
Yes.
Okay.
That’s…
We should be better people.
I mean, I hope that you and I, yeah, we’re talking about this and that means we are recognizing
our victimization or our creatorship and also trying to be better people so we’re not the
villain to someone.
We can try to be more challenging than villainizing.
More coaching.
That’s what we have a responsibility to do.
We do more coaching than rescuing.
Right.
And everyone that listens to this, I challenge you all to recognize where you are in this
whole scheme.
It’s important.
It’s important to be a good person, right?
Not because you get to heaven or avoid hell.
It’s just this is what is good.
Your relationship.
Yes.
So, we started out, all relationships are facades anyway in what our identity is, but
you can identify yourself either as a victim, a perpetrator, or as a coach and a challenger
and a creator.
So identify yourself positively and what you’re working for.
Be proactive.
Use that space between stimulus and response.
If you’re stimulated by something, something stimulates a response instead of immediately
falling into the collusion cycle and the victim mentality, the reactionary mode.
Go into a proactive mode.
Think about it first.
Consider and build something with it.
Create something with your reaction, your response.
Yeah.
So, I think the answer to your specific question in relation to a manager, someone who’s a
villain, you’re just creating something with your response.
You’re going to always create a new response as opposed to just staying in that cycle
of the victim.
Respond differently and things will be different.
Is that what you’re saying?
Yeah.
And I don’t know.
I haven’t read through this, but we could study that.
You could study that.
How effective is one person changing in that triangle?
If you change, does that necessarily change the other person or does it make him worse?
And maybe it’ll make him worse for a while.
Okay.
But then he’ll say, you know, this isn’t fun anymore.
I want a divorce or something.
And he’ll come up with the idea.
And you’ve got best of both worlds because he claimed it.
You can claim more benefits from it.
I don’t know.
Yeah.
All right.
So, next week is psychopathy.
Is it really that soon?
That’s next week.
Okay.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I am a psychopath.
We’ve got to define the term and everything else.
So it’s going to be an interesting dive into what psychopathy is and how prevalent it is
or how infrequent it happens in society.
How maybe we are all psychopaths and therefore no one is a psychopath.
If you’re all a sneetch with stars on, is anyone?
Whatever.
Is anyone?
Maybe psychopathy.
I don’t know.
It’ll be a full discussion, I think.
Let’s wait till next week.
Yeah.
Well, it always is.
It always is.
All right.
All right.
So I think that’s it.
Have a great day.
Thanks.
[outro] Thank you for tuning into our podcast.
We appreciate you taking time to listen.
We’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts.
Please continue the conversation with us at doyouhaveaminuteconversations@gmail.com.
Your participation means the world to us and we look forward to sharing more exciting
conversations with you in the future.

Jump to top