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Welcome to Episode 318 of The Non-Anxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. If you are new to this podcast, you can connect with me by emailing me at jack@christian-leader.com. With your suggestions, comments, and ideas for new episodes. You can also find more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com, where you can subscribe for my Two for Tuesday email newsletter. I also have a link to the subscription landing page in the show notes. Now, without further ado, here is episode 318, How to Handle People who Use Fear, Obligation, and guilt to manipulate you. I want to start by saying thank you to Reverend Kenneth Brummel, who sent me a Facebook clip of an interview with Chase Hughes called How to disarm a Narcissist. This caused me to go into a deeper dive, and I found a YouTube video by Hughes called behavior Expert Reveals Exactly What to Say to a Narcissist.

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I'll post a link to both in the show notes, and thanks again, Ken, for sending me that video. I found Hughes' advice to be helpful even when you are not dealing with a narcissist. It can help you anytime you are dealing with an emotionally dependent person. An emotionally dependent person is someone who can't define self but meets their emotional needs by defining themselves in relation to other people. When someone says, You don't love me when you do this, or, You don't love me if you don't do that, you are dealing with an emotionally dependent person. Manipulation is a sign of emotional dependence. It's also helpful to remind yourself that people who manipulate often don't realize they are doing This is how they've learned to function, and to some degree, it has worked for them. When I remember this, it helps me to have more compassion for the other and to not take it personally. The concept that Hughes introduces in the Facebook clip is fog, fear, obligation, or guilt. When someone uses any or all of these, it is manipulation. Knowing this can help you recognize when someone is emotionally dependent. Generation to Generation, Edwin Friedmann uses the term the leverage of the dependent.

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What he means is that as long as we are trying to get an emotionally dependent other to agree with us, we are stuck. It's a no-win situation. They'll always find ways to argue, complain, condole, and will use fear, obligation, and guilt to get us to comply with their demands. The key to dealing with this is self-differentiation. Instead of trying to change their minds, which is about defining them, you define self in a non-anxious way. This reverses things. It means that the other will have to try to change you, and they're likely to try to do that. This is when sabotage occurs. They will double down on trying to use fear, obligation, guilt, her other forms of reactivity to get you to comply. This is what Friedmann calls the moment of truth. If you can maintain a non-anxious stand, it will ultimately change your relationship for the better. The other will either begin begin to grow and learn to take responsibility for self, even a little bit, or they'll go find someone else to try to manipulate. Either way, remaining a non-anxious presence enables you to handle their manipulation in a way where you don't argue and you don't agree.

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This is not easy, but it's much easier than trying to change the other person. How do you handle it when another uses fear, obligation, and guilt to manipulate you? The first thing you need to do is to recognize the manipulation, recognize the fog, the fear, obligation, or guilt. Realize that something is going on with them and that rather than taking responsibility for self, they are making demands of you. The example Hughes gives in his YouTube video is a coworker says, If you don't finish this project for me, I'm going to have to stay late, and that would totally ruin my weekend, but I guess you're too busy to care. Notice Notice how the other is making an emotionally dependent statement. If you don't do this, it will ruin my weekend. Also, they are defining you. I guess you are too busy to care. There's both obligation and guilt being used here. Once you recognize the dependency, the second thing to do is to self-regulate, or as Hughes puts it, to pause. Statements like these are designed to provoke your own emotions, and when that happens, you are much likely to respond reactively or adaptively. That is, either by getting defensive or aggressive or by just giving in.

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Self regulation interrupts your automatic reactions and gives you a chance to think. You don't have to answer right away. Taking a thoughtful moment will not only help you recognize what's going on so you can formulate a non-anxious response, it can also help lower the overall anxiety in the interaction. Hughes mentions one of my favorite approaches self-regulation, which is to breathe deeply and look away thoughtfully. If the other is highly agitated and is pressing you for a response, you can even say, I'd like a moment to think about this. You don't have to respond immediately. Slowing things down through self-regulation gives you the best chance to respond as a non-anxious presence. You won't always do this, but when you recognize fog, if you can do it, it will help interrupt your automatic reactions. Once you've self-regulated, Hughes offers several approaches to how to respond to fog, fear, obligation, or guilt. One approach is to call out the other's fog in a non-confrontational way. The example he uses in the Facebook clip is to say, Maybe you didn't mean to, but it sounded like you wanted me to feel guilty. I know that you are a good person, so I don't think you meant it that way.

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There are two things going on here. One is that you are defining self by telling the other how you experienced it without blaming them. You're giving them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't manipulating you, and you are emphasizing emotional connection. The second thing is you are giving them an out. Hughes notes that this is called the golden bridge, which is a principle from the art of war, where you always give your an opponent an out so that they can retreat. By giving them the benefit of the doubt in this way, you give the other a chance to backpedal from their original statement. My own opinion is that like the other approaches, you may not want to use this in every situation, but it's good to have it available. People may not realize they're using fog, and calling it out gives them a chance to grow. Another approach that Hughes suggests is to try to identify the emotional need. In the example given, you might say, It seems like you are stressed out about this. Can we talk more about what's bothering you? This is similar to Marshall Rosenberg's non-violent communication, where you identify the feeling, then the need.

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In this case, the feeling is stress, and asking to talk about it reinforces emotional connection and helps you to remain a non-anxious presence. Hughes also suggests using yes and to redirect control of the conversation. This affirms what the other is saying, avoiding a conflict of wills, but also gives you a chance to self-define in a non-anxious way. In our example, you could say, Yes, and I'd like us to discuss what other options there are that could address this situation. Another approach from Hughes is to call out any extreme statement such as never and always. When someone says, You never listened to me, you can say, So what I hear you saying is that in all the time that I have known you, I've never listened to you. This is a subtle way of giving responsibility back to the other by defining self in terms of what you heard. Finally, Hughes suggests providing controlled choices. This enables you to create a healthy boundary and gives the other responsibility for their choice. His example is, We can discuss this calmly now or we can wait until another time. It's your choice. The common element in all these approaches is that you are taking responsibility for self.

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You are self-differentiating without giving in to the demands of the emotional emotionally dependent. You don't argue, you don't agree, and you give the other the opportunity to take responsibility for self. The less differentiated the other, the harder this will be, but it will give you a better chance than letting your automatic reactions take over. That's it for episode 318. Remember, you can connect with me at jack@christian-leaders.com and find more resources at thenonanxiousleader.com. If you have found this episode helpful, please share it with somebody who might benefit, and please leave a review on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks for your help. Until next time, go be yourself. Thank you for listening. If you found this episode helpful, there are two things you can do to help others find this podcast. First, tap the subscribe button on your podcast app, and second, leave a review. I appreciate your help. Finally, you can find more resources as well as subscribe to my blog at thenonanxiousleader.com. Now, go be yourself.