Are you with a narcissist and want to know what they actually can't control? Yes, there
actually are things that they cannot control. And in this video, I'm going to tell you all about it.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung and I have been recognized as one of the top 1% of attorneys in the country,
and I've written two best-selling books, Negotiate Like You M.A.T.T.E.R and Breaking Free:
A Step-by-Step Divorce Guide. And most importantly, what I do here is help you
with actual strategy and steps to get out of relationships with narcissists when you're
negotiating with them so that you can do it in a way that allows you to feel empowered, whole,
and have an equitable result. And that's what I do for you here on this channel. If that sounds
good to you, make sure that you subscribe and hit that notification bell, and that way you'll
get notified when I upload new videos. So let's talk about what narcissists
can't control. I mean, one of the things that happens with narcissists is that they
want to control everything. That's part of how they get their supply. And if you want
to know what it looks like when a narcissist is losing control, check out my video on signs
that a narcissist is losing control and you'll hear all about that. Let me tell you it's not a
pretty sight, but they do lose control sometimes. But what are the things that they can't control
at all? I mean, they need to be able to control as much as they possibly can. And a lot of what they
do is trying to control you because that's how they get that narcissistic supply. And it really
happens when you're dealing with them in some kind of a dispute or a case or something like that. If
you're dealing with them in a negotiation setting, such as in a divorce or a business situation,
I also have had a lot of people reach out to me that are dealing with narcissists in a probate
dispute or something like that. So if you're dealing with a narcissist
in any kind of situation like that, you're going to see their characteristics, their
narcissistic characteristics go crazy. It goes even higher. It's like whatever they were before,
now here it is on steroids because the mask is getting ripped off.
They want to get to you before you can get to them. They want to be the one that looks like
the wonderful one in the situation. They want to make sure that you look as bad as possible
and they just want to take you down. So, scorched earth litigation and all those terms
that have come about, about people who are overly litigate or highly litigate cases,
all of those people are probably narcissists who've gotten involved with that because they want
to destroy you. I mean, that's really what it is. And for them, it's survival. For them, it's
like in order for me to prevail, you have to be destroyed. It can't be that you nicely walk away
from each other. I tried to do that with a couple of narcissists in my life; didn't work. I mean,
as much as I tried to keep the peace and I'm a person who wants to try to maintain relationships
with people, even if we're saying goodbye, because that's what makes it easier. You never know
when you want to maybe go and talk to that person again or see them again. You never know. But hey,
when you're dealing with narcissists, it can't be that way. They feel that they have to get you
before you can get them. So that's why they have this ultimate need for control. They
have to get that control over you, especially when you're in that discard phase.
So one of the things that they definitely cannot control are your thoughts, the way
you think. I mean, you can look at them and you can think whatever you want to think
and they can try to make you think a certain way, but they can't actually get control of
your thoughts. You know, I've often referred to the book I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.
It's because that caged bird, your thoughts, your soul, the essence of you, can never be controlled
by somebody unless you give them permission to. So one of the things that you can definitely,
definitely can't control are your thoughts unless you allow it, right? So that's number one.
The next thing that a narcissist cannot control are your emotions. And this is one of the hardest
things to do, because especially when you talk about your thoughts, your emotions, things like
that, they've worked so hard to get into your thinking, to get into your patterns of thought and
create that trauma bond, that it's really easy for me to sit here and say, "Yeah, they can't control
your thoughts. They can't control your emotions," but I recognize this is a really hard thing to do
and that you have to just learn how to pivot. And the first step in learning how to control
your thoughts and your emotions, and not allowing the narcissist to have control over those things,
is by recognizing that this is what's going on, by watching videos like this one and other videos on
my channel and others of us in the field who talk about narcissism. And you can start to
learn that this is a disorder, that these are people who are very broken. These are people
who have been hurt. And there's that old saying that says "Hurt people hurt people." You know,
people who have been hurt, who have been wounded, they end up hurting other people. And that's what
happens with narcissists. They were hurt at some point during their childhood, something caused
them to feel that the world is a bad place and they have to survive. And in order to survive,
"It's me or you, and it's not going to be me that ends up going down, so it's got to be you."
And so they have created this pattern of thinking and this way of being in the world
that is a scared way. And they're very scared; they're very frightened, little creatures.
That's the secret about a narcissist. You're actually the stronger one. You're actually the
one who has way more of a sense of self. They attach themselves to you as a form of supply
because you have so much value. So they then embed these thoughts into your brain,
where you start to create these neuronal patterns of thinking that you need them or thinking that
you can't live without them, or thinking that they're more powerful than you,
or thinking that they're smarter than you or smarter than everybody else.
I can't tell you how many people have said to me, "I'll never be able to win because they
always win. They're always more powerful than I am. They always get their way." And it sometimes
feels that way with narcissists because they can ride that level of entitlement and that pretend
confidence that they exude all the way to very high position sometimes, and really getting people
to believe that they know more, that they're smarter, that they're better in a lot of ways.
But the truth of the matter is they don't feel that way inside. And the first step to really
taking that mask off and really for you to distance yourself from the situation
is by realizing what it is that you're looking at, realizing what is going on with them and
understanding that it's not you, that it's them. And so once you start to do that, you can actually
start to take the emotion out of it and start looking at it as if you're reporting the news.
And that's when you can start actually not even getting into the vortex of negative emotion,
not allowing them to drag you down, drag you into the mud with them, by staying
out of that. And so you just have to start it one step at a time, maybe just one encounter
at a time, like maybe just decide, "Okay, for this particular encounter, I am not going to get
engaged. I am not going to feel any emotion about this. I am going to just watch what they're doing
and I'm going to just observe as almost as a third party observer." And just try it once.
And once you try it once, then you can say, "Okay, I did it. Look at me, I did it. Let me try that
one again and see how that goes." And if you are so ready to have this and just feel like "I got
this," give me an, "I got this" in the comments. The last thing that a narcissist cannot control
is your response to a situation, to your response to what they do.
I mean, they can do whatever they want and they will do whatever they want. You cannot control
a narcissist. You can't get in there and change them. They're really people that can't be
rehabilitated unless they would really, really want to be, which most of them don't. I mean,
most narcissists really will never go get the help that they need and really get the retraining of
the brain that is what would be needed in order for them to become like normal people. And so the
best thing that you can do is start to learn how to control your response to a situation.
When you are presented with something inflammatory, you can just take a deep
breath and say, "I can see that you're upset. I know that's how you feel. I acknowledge that
what you said is this," and just say it as if you are a person who is just observing.
And that's where you're controlling your thoughts, you're controlling your emotions,
you're controlling your response to the situation. And once you start doing that, then you will start
to feel more and more powerful. And that power that you start to feel when you just take one
little baby step at a time, will actually start permeating the rest of your life.
I've had clients that have told me that by standing up to their narcissistic exes,
they've actually now become more powerful and more confident in business. And in all of their
dealings, they've actually ended up feeling better than they ever have because they were
able to just start taking baby steps. If you want to take that dynamic and start shifting it around
180 degrees so that you start feeling like you're on the offensive rather than on the defensive,
so that you start feeling like you're driving the ship instead of somebody else,
so that you feel like you are the one in control and not just responding to what
the narcissist is doing, this is the way to do it. You just start taking one step at a time
and eventually you start to feel, "Wait a minute, look at what I've done. Oh my gosh,
things have changed so much." And you'll see that the narcissist will start to change too,
because if they're not getting the supply out of you that they want, then they're going to
start to lose interest. And they'll also start to realize that the things that they normally were
able to do in order to get a rise out of you, they can't do anymore. So your thoughts, your emotions,
your responses, those are the things that a narcissist cannot control about you. And I want
you to very much remember that. And if you are getting ready to negotiate with the narcissist,
make sure to grab my free Crush My Negotiation prep worksheet at winmynegotiation.com.
Once again, I just recently this week had somebody post in the private Facebook group that they
actually won their entire mediation just on using that free worksheet, so make sure you grab that.
And speaking of my private Facebook group, if you want to join that for support, connection, love,
and feeling like you're part of a community, join me in my free private Facebook group.
It's called Narcissist Negotiators With Rebecca Zung, and we'll drop a link to that below. If you
like this video, give me a like, give it a share, drop me a comment, make sure that you subscribe,
and hit that notification bell. And remember, as always,
that today is a great day to start negotiating your best life. I'll see you in the next video.