Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / Hold The Line !!

Transcript

Hold The Line !! · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: This brief episode is something of a footnote following episode ten and recovering from control in the series The Psychology of Control.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It has to do with what you practically do in terms of how you communicate yourself and what you need to do internally.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm calling this the relational block and the necessary line.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I work with patients who are recovering from being in damaging relationships, I help them to try and see the principle of necessary self-protective withdrawal.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: One of the ways I do this is by asking them if they can imagine a line between them and the other person.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that they must not cross.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is a line that they must stay behind and not be pulled over.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: The line also represents something which the other person cannot cross.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is strongly influenced by the fact that in such toxic relationships, the line is never clear.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is both blurred and very often defined by the other person.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: What this means is that it is very easily crossed by the other person, but also something which the individual gets pulled over.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: The line is protective.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: The line is necessary.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the line enables clarity, distance, and recovery.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The line in its simplest form is I'm not allowing you in, and I won't be pulled into your narrative because that's where the damage occurred.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: The line serves to protect, and it's not punitive, but it keeps you safe.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: There will be from time to time sometimes a very strong emotional pull to cross the line or to allow the other to cross it.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the longer you hold the line, the more you allow clarity to define your thoughts, understandings, and actions.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is a necessary distancing position which isn't intended to be punitive, but it's intended to allow you to recover and see things for how they really were.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the pull is hard, sometimes fantasizing about the other person and the things that have happened and how they may be.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You may also question yourself, and sometimes that can be strong.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: With distance and time, the pieces of the picture will emerge, and you will remember not just single episodes, but you will join them up and you'll see the patterns.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in them, you can't see them.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But believe me, when you leave them, you can.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: There will be times when no matter how badly you were treated, you want to reattach.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the nervous system recalibrating, and it's a kind of processing of the reality.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But remember the line.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is so vitally important because essentially you are making this self-protective and self-preserving agreement with yourself about what is right for you.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's no longer about organizing yourself around the toxic demands and expectations of the other.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is truly about letting go of the illusions, the deception, and the manipulation that you lived within.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: You will find that this line allows clarity.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: It enables realization, recognition, and this gives way to the reckoning and then the recovery.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: The line means that you cannot enter into any kind of contact with the other.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It means that any kind of discussion, any kind of renegotiation, or the seeking of validation is pointless.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your primary task is recovery.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: This means that the line is your protective boundary.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: You make an agreement with yourself, and the agreement is underpinned by the realization that you can do so much better with people who will treat you with respect, who will care about you and love you.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: As the silence grows longer, it's replaced by quiet reckoning, quiet recovery, and quiet self-redefinition.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Damage can be repaired.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what you do: you end all contact, and I mean all contact.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Resist all efforts to explore the activity of the other person.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: This person is a taker, and they will seek to find you.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So block them.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Any form of direct contact, and this sends an incredibly powerful message.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's silent, but it is powerful and unmistakable.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: The message is you no longer occupy my life.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: There is no room or desire for you to be in my life.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not aggressive, it's quiet, and it's a powerful statement.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't need it, need to offer any kind of explanation.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're simply staying your side of the line.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a discussion, it's a statement.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a quiet one.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you regain control, and this is how you stop organizing yourself around the damaging behavior of the other.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: They will be destabilized, they will feel pain, they may complain and experience all manner of things.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: They may be angry, sad, desperate, they may be accusatory.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: But that is the other side of the line.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't your responsibility.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is because your well-being matters for you more than this.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: You probably spent far too much time accommodating the dysfunction and the toxic terms in which the damaging relationship occurred.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Remember this, you lost a great deal of power through this relationship.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You gave up a great deal of yourself and you didn't know it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now you do.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: You were played and you were damaged.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: But retribution is not the task.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Recovery is.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Such people tend to lose friends and relationships and always somehow manage to hold them responsible.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: You, on the other hand, will learn that you deserve better.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Once you have established a line, it will never leave you.