Chances are you have been socialized to believe
that in order to be valued and loved and included
you have to be good.
Essentially if you're not good,
none of your needs are gonna be met.
The worst thing in the world is to be selfish.
Because of all of this,
let's call it programming,
what you do is that you learn
that the best thing to do in life is to abandon your best interests.
And when you abandon your best interest,
you believe that doing so makes you a good person.
But what's actually happening
is that your wires are getting drastically crossed.
Because those wires are drastically crossed,
you may think you're the "good guy"
but actually by abandoning your best interests,
you become the "bad guy".
Own Your Best Interests!
You've heard me talk a lot
about the "zero-sum game"
in relationships.
What a zero-sum game is, is: "I win and you lose."
There is no possible way
to create a relationship that will last
and that feels good when you're playing a zero-sum game.
Because by definition,
it corrodes trust in relationships.
Trust is to rely upon the fact
that somebody will capitalize on your best interests.
If I'm playing an "I win and you lose" game
I have literally proven to you
that I will not capitalize on your best interest.
And so you cannot trust me.
It would be ridiculous and idiotic to do so.
To understand trust,
which is the most important part of a relationship,
you can watch my video titled:
What is Trust and How to Build Trust in Relationships
To give you an example of a zero-sum game,
let's take two people.
Let's say these people are currently
in a committed relationship.
Let's say that one person...
Let's say their best interest
is to have an open relationship.
But the other person's best interest
is to have a monogamous one.
If one person the one that wants the open relationship
simply goes out behind their partner's back
and starts having sex with other people,
this is a zero-sum game.
It's also a zero-sum game if
the other person the one wanting a monogamous relationship, says:
"Well we're in a committed relationship,
and so it's gonna be monogamous."
That's the end of it.
That is also a zero-sum game.
Parents and caregivers
are the ones that teach children
to play zero-sum games.
The reason is that parents tend to treat children,
even not just parents,
adults tend to treat children as if they're subhuman.
An adult who tends to have more power
for a great many reasons,
tends to subvert a child's best interests
and not accommodate them.
This is especially true because
as parents we have this wonderful belief, that is:
"We know what's best for our child"
and a hell of a lot more what's best for them than they do.
For example, let's say a child is miserable in a certain situation,
a parent will usually say: "You're going anyway."
and invalidate the child's perspective about
whatever it is that they're having a conflict about.
But many parents take it one step further.
When their child expresses his or her best interests,
they shamed their child for it.
They call the child selfish for it.
They teach the child that to be good
and to have a chance at meeting any of their needs
and to show their parents love,
they should abandon their best interests.
The child is literally systematically programmed
to disown his or her best interests.
Now here's the most interesting thing about all this that I've said;
When we disown our best interests,
we swing all the way to the opposite side of the pendulum
from people who are so attached to their best interests
that they fail to or refused to
accommodate other people's best interests.
But by swinging to the opposite side of the pendulum,
we actually also create a zero-sum game.
What we have created with this zero-sum game
is a set up.
The set up is that when we disown our best interests,
we force other people around us
to enter into a zero-sum game
that they never knew they were playing
and never intended to play
and none the less we punish them for it.
In a business situation,
this is rather straightforward.
It's understood that a business decision,
a business transaction, has to be a win-win.
It's understood that if the best interest of one company
cannot be accommodated by the best interest of another company,
then there is no business deal.
In other words,
the best interests of both companies would be considered incompatible.
When this is the case,
the focus is no longer put on "How can we find a great deal?"
It's on: "How can both of us find resolution
with there being no deal?"
This seems really straightforward, right?
But this the thing,
our relationships actually work the same way that these business deals do,
however, we don't actually think of them this way.
It doesn't seem so straightforward
when it comes to especially a romantic relationship.
Basically, we don't commit to "win-win" in our relationships,
in our personal relationships.
We also don't change or end relationships
that are in fact zero-sum games.
Instead we Bank on the fact
that another person's best interest is to stay with us
and we use that to give us leeway
to play a zero-sum games.
We also, believe in our heart
that our best interest is to stay with somebody
and to not be alone.
So we put up with zero-sum games.
We also don't face incompatibility in relationships.
I'm aware that in the world today
where the basic mantra is:
"Where there's love there's a way"
is really really popular,
it's not great to hear people like me say
that that's total B.S.
But it is.
Compatibility and relationships
is absolutely critical.
And when there's incompatibility in a relationship,
we have to be able to face that directly.
For this reason, I highly suggest you watch my video titled:
Incompatibility (A Harsh Reality in Relationships)
Something that most people don't get about facing incompatibility
is that facing incompatibility
is in both people's best interests
always in a relationship.
Basically, facing incompatibility
is part of accommodating both your and other people's best interests.
a fish can't be in the air and a bird can't be underwater.
If a third option can't be found,
it is in the best interest of both to face that incompatibility
rather than to demand that a fish fly or a bird swims.
In a relationship,
just like in a good business situation,
you have got to know what your best interests are.
You have to own them.
That means that you commit to taking responsibility for care taking them,
and part of that is commit to
making sure that you're going to put
yourself or your company, whatever it is,
in a situation where its needs can reasonably be met.
And a big part of owning your best interests
is to clearly communicate those best interests,
so as to allow other people
to accommodate them or to face incompatibility
and decide what the both of you are going to do,
in alignment with your best interests,
given that there is one.
Not doing this,
sets up people to be the "bad guy"
even when they aren't.
I often say that all it takes
to become a narcissist
around a real embedded codependent,
meaning somebody who has adopted a codependent style of relationship,
because let's remember,
the codependent and the narcissist they aren't actually
personality disorders at all.
What it is, is it's an adaptation.
It's a style of relationships that they have learned.
Now that being said,
All it takes to become a narcissist
is to be in a relationship with a good-enough codependent.
Because all it takes to be a narcissist
with someone like that, is to have an opinion.
To have a need, to express a desire,
to share the honest truth
or to take the lead.
The reason is that
a person who adapts this codependent style of relationship interaction
disowns themselves in order to meet their needs covertly.
This includes their best interests.
The person who disowns their best interests
does not take any responsibility
for care taking their best interests or communicating them.
Instead, they expect the people in their lives to be psychic.
They expect them to not only be psychic,
so as to know what their best interests are,
but also, for people to own and therefore take the full responsibility
of their best interests for them.
Underneath this behavior is the programmed belief
that if somebody loves them,
they're going to do the same thing that they do all the time,
which is to
sacrifice their own best interests.
That's their actual subconscious definition of love.
Now obviously, if this is their subconscious definition of love
and it's what they were trying to do by their parents
and it's what they do in habitual patterns of relationship,
then it's obvious why somebody would just expect
that that's what other people are going to do towards them.
Now this is a massive set up, isn't it?
Not only for the other person but also for themselves,
because what do they find?
People don't really sacrifice themselves do they?
Then they get to see those people as totally
self-centered narcissistic assholes.
This moral judgment about what people should do
and especially should know to do
relative to the best interests that were never even communicated,
demolishes relationships.
This is a big reason why some people feel like they are
constantly self-sacrificing
to all the self-centered people in their lives.
The thing is, the people in their lives
have been expected to be psychic about their best interests
and know when yes means no.
And they've been expected
to own best interests that were never even communicated.
Keep transactions they never knew they were getting into.
And sacrificed their own best interests to prove their love.
It's tempting to see these self-sacrificing individuals
who are always subverting their best interests
for the best interest of others, as the "good guys".
But I don't want you to think so fast.
Not only does this fuel the dysfunction
of their psychology,
it's also not the truth.
Have you noticed that everyone around them
is the "bad guy"?
Have you noticed that everyone around them
seems to be playing a zero-sum game?
Consider that potentially
everyone around them isn't actually a bad guy.
Potentially not everyone around them is playing a zero-sum game.
Potentially they have set everyone up
to unintentionally play one.
I'm gonna give you an example of this dynamic;
Someone I know started a business.
She figured that it would be a good opportunity for a friend of hers
who hated his job to offer him to come work with her
and start the company with her instead.
She paid him a salary.
When the Articles of Incorporation were written,
100% ownership of the company
was written to the name of the woman who started the business.
The man who had quit his job in order to work with her
to start the business knew this and said nothing about it.
Years later this friend
wanted to move into a different house with his girlfriend.
Because it costs more money than he had,
he approached her to ask for money.
She was completely shocked during the conversation,
to find out that without ever communicating the expectation,
he had not seen the opportunity she gave him
as an opportunity to work as an employee,
but instead saw himself as a business partner
and instead expected that
because he started the business with her,
regardless of what the Articles of Incorporation said,
that she would simply give him a portion of the company
or buy him a house when he needed it,
or at the very least,
give him a lump sum of money
that a partner in a company would be entitled to
in case he ever asked for it.
It was a transaction she never knew she was getting into.
A debt she never knew she was accruing.
And one she would never have committed to
if she would have known from the get-go
that that was what she was getting into.
She would have said no
Nevertheless, her refusal to give him
what he perceived to be owed to him,
based off of his perception of this whole transaction,
enabled him to cast her in the light of "the bad and the evil one".
Basically, the bitch narcissist.
The sad thing is this relationship
still hasn't recovered from it.
Now the thing that you need to understand about the scenario is,
the woman in the scenario
was not actually playing a zero-sum game.
She was not playing an "I win and you lose".
She never even knew that she was getting into that scenario.
Instead, the man in the scenario
set her up to look as if
a zero-sum game was being played.
He set the whole situation up
to make it seem like
she was winning and he was losing.
There was no ownership of his best interests
and no communication of them,
and so there was never an opportunity
for them to be accommodated
and there was never an opportunity
for there to be a great look at the incompatibility
between their expectations.
If I had a quarter
for every time I sat down with a woman
and heard her complain to me
about the fact that her husband is such a narcissistic asshole
because he never puts an energy into her,
never really spends time with the kids
and then watched with my own eyes,
watched her get a phone call from him
where he says yet again
he's gonna be gone somewhere.
"I'm going to play golf honey." "I'm going on a business trip."
and she says: "Okay, honey."
"Well, will you be home for dinner?
Well, that yeah, that's okay."
Hangs up the phone and rolls her eyes,
as if it's confirmation,
I would be a gazillionaire.
Do you see the dysfunction in what just happened?
Regardless of how commonplace it may be?
She is not presenting her best interests.
She is not standing by them.
She's complaining to a third party about her best interests,
while giving him the message that it's fine.
By not owning your own best interests
you make it literally impossible
to have a relationship.
You make it impossible
for your best interest to be accommodated.
You make it impossible
for anyone to consider and directly face incompatibilities,
so as to meet your best interest
and their best interest
given that there is incompatibility.
Because by doing this,
by not owning your best interest
you make a win-win impossible.
You actually are incredibly dangerous
to be in a relationship with,
because you frame people.
Whether you directly own your best interests or not,
you can't actually get rid of your best interests.
Because they're the same as needs.
I mean so many of your best interests
are your personal needs, right?
And so...
What happens with needs?
If you disown your needs
you won't directly and consciously take care of them.
Your only option,
because you can't get rid of them,
is to meet those needs in a manipulative way.
It's no different with best interests.
To understand this in depth, watch my video titled:
Meet Your Needs!
If this pattern of disowning your best interest
runs deeply enough,
then you're gonna meet your best interests
in a really dysfunctional way.
A way that will damage both you and the people around you.
And this is how it will happen;
You will unconsciously manipulate
to meet your best interests,
through the pity you get from being the victim.
You will turn everyone around you into "the bad guy",
so that you see yourself as good.
And so that other people see you as good.
And you can get the kickbacks of being the underdog.
Even when you actually aren't.
If you disowned your best interests,
the nicest person on the planet
can be forced to play a zero-sum game
they never even knew they were playing
and therefore never would have wanted to win
if they knew they were playing it.
For this reason,
even though it is absolutely terrifying
to go from being a person who has learned
that to be a good person you have to be selfless
and disown your best interests,
it's terrifying for you to consider owning them.
Even if it's terrifying,
if you want a good relationship,
you have got to begin to own your best interests.
You also have to communicate them.
And when I say communicate them,
I mean communicate them from the get-go.
Don't communicate them
days after even hours after
but especially not months later
and God forbid years later.
That's when...
That's when you know
that your life is really going to hit the fan.
It is when you don't express those best interests
in the beginning.
And retro actively punished someone
for not meeting them.
Regardless of what your parents taught you,
regardless of what society that you have been raised in taught you,
love is not about self-sacrifice.
Love is about finding a win-win scenario,
for any party involved in the relationship.
Love is about the accommodation of each other's best interests.
And love includes facing incompatibility
when no win-win actually exists.
Have a good week.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com