Hey everybody. Happy Thursday!
If you're new to my channel, welcome. I put out videos 3 days a week; Monday, Thursday, Saturday.
And if you are wanting your question answered, you have to pop onto my Monday video. I'm in there for about the first 24 hours or so.
Pretty much all of the day through Tuesday I'm answering questions in the comments.
And also on katimorton.com under Kati's Videos, Q & A for videos.
And I would encourage you all to do that, as opposed to just YouTube,
because on my website there are a ton of wonderful and supportive people with their, sharing their own experiences.
And helping you better understand what you're going through.
And honestly I think almost every question, someone's in there chatting and giving an answer and an experience.
So I think that it's a really powerful place.
And if you find yourself having a hard time and needing some extra support,
you can hop on there, 'cause there's a chat feature available 24/7. Okay?
So today's question is one that we can all learn from. Something that I still work with in my own relationships in general.
And something I'm always trying to improve on.
And the question says "Hey Kati. Any tips on how to manage lashing out/ reactivity, particularly with family members?
I'm concerned I have learned a lot of poor communication habits and emotional volatility from my family
and am going to carry this into future relationships. Also it's a strain on my current relationship with a parent.
I want to just take a deep breath before reacting, but it's hard when someone is constantly provoking.
They will not come to family counseling or get therapy with me."
I want to talk about this, because I think this is something a lot of us struggle with in all sorts of relationships.
It can be familial, but it can also be friends.
And it can be co-workers or anybody, you know people that we're in school with.
A ton of different people in our life that can be provoking.
And I think provoking, a good word that I will swap that out for is triggering and upsetting.
Any of that, it happens in our daily life. Right?
A lot of people are like 'this is a trigger free zone.' But life is not a trigger free zone.
We have to be able to understand that things can happen and cope with it.
Process through it in a healthy way and come out the other side okay.
And be like yeah, that was shitty, that person was an asshole but I'm okay. I got this. I've done it before, I can do it again.
And that is my hope for all of you, because life isn't trigger free and so it's gonna happen.
So what do we do? Okay, so we have a communication issue.
We have a really horrific family situation, where we're afraid we're gonna take these traits and put them into other relationships, which is very common.
The best thing we can do is work on ourselves.
Now I know that that is really hard to hear.
And a lot of people feel like 'but they're the asshole. They're the one that they're poking my buttons.'
But we get to choose how we react to it. And whether we react versus respond.
It's very different types of communication and types of managing people and situations.
And if we don't consider ourselves and our own control of the situation. If we only think it's them them them.
It's their fault, their fault, their fault. Wow, that was like a tongue twister. Ha!
Then we take the power away from ourselves, and we give them all the power in the relationship to make it good, bad or ugly. Right?
So the way that we can take control and make things healthier for ourselves and start to change the dynamic of the way that we interact with other people.
So that we don't carry this into our other relationships or start unhealthy relationships, is to look onto ourselves.
To turn the mirror on ourselves.
And that can be anything such as I don't speak up when things really offend me,
I harbor resentment, I never told them how much that bothered me,
I don't tell them what's going on with me so they have no idea what could be offensive.
Any of those things. And there are a ton of other things.
But we all know we're guilty of doing one, if not all of those things at one time or another.
And so therefore we can't really expect the other person to read our minds or to know what could be upsetting,
because we haven't told them what's really going on or what things actually bother us.
And so let's say something that's really provoking is they say 'oh, wow. You look like you've gained a lot of weight.'
And we're struggling with an eating disorder.
Or they say 'you look like you've lost a lot of weight.' Or 'You look healthy.'
Everybody hates that term when you're recovering from an eating disorder.
Let's say they don't even know you have an eating disorder or they don't even know you've been working on it.
And so we're going to have to express some things to them. Now it's up to you what and how much you tell them.
But I would say something such as "You know, I've been really working on myself
and my weight is just a really really sensitive subject, so if you could just not mention it.
That would make me feel so much better. And I know sometimes we don't know things are going on.
And I haven't told you about this, but if you could just remember this for future that would be so helpful for me."
That goes a long way. Then they know where we stand. They know what's going on.
And then so we have enacted our own power. We've communicated directly. We've told them what's going on. We've been very clear.
Then if they do say something, we have the right and the ability to walk away. Stop talking.
To say 'I told you that that's a really sensitive subject, so I'm just going to leave.
I know that maybe you forgot, but this is a reminder. And I'm just going to go into my room.'
Or 'I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna go see someone else. I'm going to go for a walk.
I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want, but I'm not gonna spend time with you because it's really hard for me.'
And that's okay. And you don't have to be hurtful about it.
You can just say 'I told you and you did this, so now I have to walk away.'
And I know for a lot of us being assertive and true to our boundaries is really hard.
But I promise you when it comes to people who are provoking, who enjoy maybe hurting people,
and triggering people, or just don't realize that they're even doing it.
And that I think is the most common. And so if we clearly communicate what's going on.
What struggles we're having. Where we're at. What bothers us.
Then we have the ability to create those boundaries, uphold those boundaries, and have healthier relationships.
And yes, it's gonna feel uncomfortable.
Whenever we're changing the way we do something, it's really uncomfortable.
But that means positive change is coming, so we have to keep it up. Okay?
And if you have any experience dealing with difficult parents and ways that it worked for you, can you let us know below?
But this is what works for me and what I know tends to be the most beneficial.
Is taking control of it ourselves instead of giving the control to someone else.
And we can do that by creating healthy wonderful boundaries.
And I know you're all sick of hearing about that, but I promise it helps.
I love you all and I will see you on Saturday.
If you have a journal topic leave it below. Bye!
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