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Self-focussed Friends: What's Actually Within Your Control With Carly Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Cully here and welcome to you. This
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: speaks Mojo Monday. So we use the word narcissist a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: lot these days. You would see it all over social media.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I think there's even an algorithm I think about narcissistic people.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: The word has been used so often to describe someone
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: who we find difficult. But what I want to talk
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: about today isn't a clinical diagnosis, because it actually having
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnosis which most of us
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: are not qualified to give. But most of the people
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that we're frustrated with may not meet the criteria for
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: one anyway. So what I want to talk about is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: something much more common, and that is friends who consistently
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: are self focused, so people whose default setting is their
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: own experience and who struggle to genuinely take an interest
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: in yours. So you know the pattern once you notice it.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: So every conversation loops back to them, or they ask
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: how you are, and as soon as you've answered, the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: conversation is kind of back on how they are and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: what's going on for them. And when something good happens
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: to you, the response perhaps is not as supportive and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: as encouraging as you would like when something good happens
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to them, though you hear all about it in detail
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and maybe more than once. And when you're finally honest
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: about how something they did it has affected you, which
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: is always a difficult conversation, the conversation somehow becomes about
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: how hard it is for them. So none of this
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: makes someone a bad person, but it does make a
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: friendship tricky as it becomes very one sided, and it's
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: worth being honest about the toll that that takes. So
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: what I want to do is look at this through
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: a Stoic lens. So Marcus Arelius, the Roman emperer, Stoic philosopher,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: he used to write himself a kind of pep talk
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: before he started his day. So he did this in
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: his journal, and he would remind himself that the people
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: he was about to deal with were likely to be difficult.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: So they were meddling and ungrateful and full of their
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: own self importance. And he wasn't being cynical or starting
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the day off negatively. What he was doing. He was
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: preparing himself so their behavior didn't catch him off guard.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And I think this is actually a really useful move.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: If you know a particular friend tends to make things
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: about them. You can walk into the conversation already expecting it,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: so you're kind of bracing yourself for this, rather than
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: being disappointed all over again every single time you have
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a conversation. But the part of Stoic philosophy that I
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: think his most useful comes from Epictetus, who was again
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Stoic philosopher. Teachings had a huge influence on Marcus Aurelius.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Marcus quotes him repeatedly in his journal. Btitis said that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: when someone wrongs you or lets you down, it helps
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to remember that they are acting from their own sense
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of what's right, not yours. They're not guided by your values.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: They're only guided by their own, and if their view
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is genuinely wrong or limited, they're the ones who pay
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: for that in the long run through the quality of
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: their relationships and how people eventually respond to them. And
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I find that reframe genuinely useful because it really takes
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the sting out without pretending that the behavior is fine.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So you're not saying what they are doing or what
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: they did is acceptable. You're just recognizing that it came
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: from where they're at right now, not from some deliberate
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: plan to make your life harder. That shift alone can
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: lower how much a difficult friend takes up space in
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: your head. So you're almost putting yourself in those in
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: their shoes, not to excuse them, but more to understand them.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So stoicism also has something to say about how you respond.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: So Marcus Arelius wrote that turning your back on someone
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: in anger, in his words, is unnatural, not because you
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: have to stay close to people who treat you poorly,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: but because contempt costs you something too. You can create
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: distance from a friendship without needing to win the argument
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: in your head first, or without needing to be right,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and certainly without needing to hate the person to justify
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the distance. So here's what I would take from all this.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: You can't make a self focused friend more curious about
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: your life. That will never be within your control, and
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: is very clear on that point. What is within your
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: control is how much of your energy you keep spending
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: waiting for them to change, or managing your behavior around
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: them so they don't turn a conversation back on themselves,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: or that you don't indirectly maybe hurt them for whatever reason.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: So notice the pattern name accurately, without reaching for a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: clinical label that maybe it doesn't deserve, and then decide
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: calmly and rationally how much of that friendship that you
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: are actually willing to keep caring. So I hope that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: has been useful. If you are navigating a difficult friendship
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: right now, it really does come down to focusing on
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: what is within your control. Sometimes that's the harder path
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: in the moment. But the alternative is staying stuck in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: this loop and waiting for somebody to change, and that
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: can be harder in the long run. So I have
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a great wake everyone. I'll catch you next week. Sea
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: M