In healthy situations, you would never think that empathy and compassion could have downsides, right? When you’re with a Hijackal, a narcissistic, or other endlessly difficult person, you can find that you’ve stepped over into some strange land where empathy and compassion cause you to suffer. SO IMPORTANT to recognize when too much is too much and it’s hurting you.
You’ll also benefit from the tips in this episode to help you keep your empathy and compassion in balance. Game-changer!
It’s a slow slipping away into taking care of the Hijackal’s emotional demands and ignoring your own needs. You can lose yourself…even, abandon yourself. Listen in and avoid that. If you feel like you have already lost yourself, know that you can certainly come back from it, stronger. It takes work, and may be the best work of your life.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS EPISODE:
- Why too much empathy turns toxic and how
- The toxicity of enabling
- The problem of over-identifying with a Hijackal®
- Losing yourself to meet the demands of a Hijackal
- Reclaiming yourself after overgiving
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Shaler:
Hello, and welcome to save your sanity. I’m Dr. Roberta Schailer, who knew that some of the basics of being a good and healthy person could actually turn toxic? Well, they certainly can, and often do when you’re in a relationship with one of those relentlessly difficult people I call a hijacker. These are the people who hijack relationship s for their own needs and purposes, and then scavenge those relationships for power, status, and control. So tonight’s episode is going to focus on how, if you give up too much, then empathy and compassion, two things that are in the yes, let’s have more of that in our life category, can turn toxic. And it’s important to see that empathy is a good thing. Too much empathy is not. Compassion is a good thing.
Dr. Shaler:
Too much compassion can be debilitating. So where’s the point when it goes toxic? How do you know and what’s happening in your relationship? Today’s episode, I hope to give you the clarity and insights you need to keep compassion and empathy healthy and in the category of appropriate for a good relationship, and tell you also how to avoid letting it slip into toxicity, because it’s wise to see and feel the point. When that all shifts, I’m sure that this will help you understand some of the things that go on in a relationship with a hijackle. Are you in a crazy making relationship feel anxious, angry, and unsafe? Welcome to save your sanity. Insight, skills, strategies, and inspiration for emerging empowered from toxic relationships and breaking the bonds of emotional abuse. Keep listening. We’ll figure a few things out. You’ve probably heard someone say too much of a good thing, and that whole idea that there can be too much of a good thing, well, we’re kind of on the cusp of that when we’re discussing this difference between healthy empathy and compassion.
Dr. Shaler:
And toxic empathy and compassion. Compassion is our concern for the suffering and misfortune of other people. Well, there are certain kinds of hijackles who want to dig deeply into your compassion and always want you to be thinking about their feelings, how they are, how they could fall off the turnip truck and go into a deep depression, and how you’re responsible for never letting them fall there. And these are people who have covert narcissistic tendencies, and they’re always playing the poor me card. They’re always playing the victim. So they are tying in and tying up to your empathy and compassion and endeavoring to keep you out of balance. And one of the things that will happen in that case when you become out of balance, is you will become an enabler. And I’ve talked about that a lot because it’s so important to see, there’s a fine line between when you are being appropriate and when you become an enabler, or when I could.
Dr. Shaler:
And an enabler is a person who doesn’t let other people take responsibility or accountability for what’s happening to them. They jump in and they endeavor to fix or rescue or solve or make the consequences of another person’s poor behavior go away. If there are no consequences to another person’s poor behavior, they’ll just keep doing what they’re doing. And hijackles want to keep doing what they’re doing, so they want you to enable them, and they’re attracted to that. So for you to see that enabling is what happens when compassion turns toxic. It’s toxic to you, not to them, it’s toxic to you. And when you remove accountability from someone, you’re not letting them be an adult. Same goes with when you remove responsibility for someone.
Dr. Shaler:
They have no accountability, no responsibility. Therefore, what ever is the incentive for them to do the right thing? And so we see that, and then we start making up stories in our head about, oh, they’ve had a terrible life, oh, they’ve been wronged by other partners, oh, I should forgive them for this, that and the other thing. And certainly forgive them. You’ll never forget, but never condone their behavior. Never mix up forgiving it for condoning it. That’s a big piece to keep in mind, isn’t it? Because sometimes when you think of forgiveness, you think of saying, oh, that’s all right. No, it’s not all right. It is not all right.
Dr. Shaler:
That would be condoning the behavior. We can’t excuse behaviors or pretend they’re not intended to hurt. Just because you understand why a person is toxic doesn’t undo their behaviors, doesn’t take away the fact they intended to hurt you. And I did an episode on that a while back on. Do narcissists hurt you on purpose? So you can look that one up and you can always find all of those on the website at emerging empowered.com. Just hit the podcast button so you can look more deeply into that. But if you have compassion and it turns to toxic compassion and it’s coming from a hijackle, you can know it’s not real, but it’s being used to reel you in. And if you can see that distinction, that can be really helpful to you.
Dr. Shaler:
Their compassion is not real. They’re just trying to open you up so they can hear your vulnerabilities your fears, anything so they can weaponize it in the future. So it’s not real. It’s to reel you in. And your compassion becomes toxic when you no longer matter. And helping the hijackle takes precedence over everything, when you become much, much more concerned about the needs of the hijackle than you are about your own needs or the needs of your children or other people in your life. And empathy is very similar because it’s the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Now, we all know that hijackles are empathy deficient, so you may try to make up for that.
Dr. Shaler:
You’ll be super understanding, you’ll super jump in to make excuses for them, and you will become an enabler, and it will happen, you’ll slide into it. And then it takes a long time to crawl back out. So it’s a good thing to be an empathetic person. An empathetic person listens to you and captures how you really feel. And they do it because they care. But a hijackle does it to listen and exploit and weaponize your vulnerabilities. There’s a very big difference between the empathy and the toxic empathy coming from the hijackle. And it turns to toxic empathy when you give too much for too long with nothing in return.
Dr. Shaler:
You become overly dependent and overly identifying with the hijackle and with their feelings and their needs and their emotions and their sensitivities and their expectations. And you’ve really gone over to the dark side. And you know it. You know it. You lost. You’re losing yourself. And you can take on their needs and their anxiety and their stress and their demands, and then it’ll keep you from taking care of your own life and your own needs and your own responsibilities and your children. So when you get in a hijackle, we involve with a hijackle, you can find that they demand to come first, even before your children.
Dr. Shaler:
And be careful for that. That’s a topic for another day. But it’s important to see that. Truly important to see it. Toxic empathy means you let the hijackle’s feelings or expectations or thoughts or needs take you over. You think about it for a moment. How much of the time do you spend thinking about, what’s the hijackle going to think? What are they going to need? What do they want? What are they going to find fault with? Have I forgotten anything? Oh, so much real estate in your head taken up by a hijackle. And you begin to become enmeshed, and you lose your identity, you lose yourself, and you have become identified with the hijackle.
Dr. Shaler:
And that is an unhealthy kind of selflessness, truly unhealthy, because you have been taken over and you may not recognize it. And then when you do recognize it, it’s a big task to emerge empowered again. And remember, that’s the name of my community. If you want to join us and talk about all these things and get three group, ask me anything calls with me a month, go on over to joinintoday.com. Joinintoday.com and we can talk about emerging empowered, because we need to emerge empowered from being submerged in the thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, demands, hijackle. We really do. And so if you go on a diet of what’s eating the hijackle, you will definitely suffer from emotional malnutrition, which I spoke about in another recent episode. So you might say, oh, we’re so on the same page.
Dr. Shaler:
And that may be your rationalization for staying in the relationship. But what you need to recognize is the hijackle is in a different songbook. They truly are, and it is not shared. And you are in danger of overempathizing. If you overempathize, you’re going to lose yourself. You’re going to give up on your values. You’re going to give up on your vision for your life. You’re going to give up on your beliefs.
Dr. Shaler:
You’re going to be submerged by their demands. You’re going to give up on your goals or your desires or your dreams. And that makes a hijackle very happy because they have ultimate power over you. They have taken everything from you. And you gave it thinking that you were going to create a healthy relationship. And when the penny drops, that this is in no way ever going to be a healthy relationship is the minute that you begin to come out of that dismal place and say, whoa, there’s a lot of work to be done here, but it’s important work. And I’m going to do it for myself and my children. Because if you give yourself away, if you give up on yourself, if you abandon yourself, in a sense, where are your children going to get their sense of self? Where are you going to give away your entire life to try and make somebody happy? And that somebody, being a hijackle, is dedicated to never being happy? Because that’s the case.
Dr. Shaler:
No matter what you do, no matter how perfectly you do it, in order to meet the needs of a hijackle, they will always move the marker. It will never be enough. I’m sure that you’ve noticed that the hijackle is thrilled when you have given yourself up and over completely. It’s that total gotcha. Okay. And now I have you at my beck and call, totally at my mercy, and then very, very difficult to find the energy to move on. But that’s what these podcast episodes are all about. That’s what the emerging empowered community is all about.
Dr. Shaler:
Then if you need more to talk to me about, and you want to speak to me privately, you can take advantage of my one time, 1 hour opportunity to talk directly with me. For only $97, go to beaclient.com. Beaclient.com. So what happens when you overidentify, overempathize with a hijackle? Well, the first thing is you lose your ability to make your own decisions in your own best interest. You have put yourself on hold in order to let the other person have what they want, or to express how they want, or in the hijacko’s case, to demand that you let them do what they want, and they dismiss and discount and degrade your ideas. So the first thing is you lose that ability to make your own decisions in your own way and in your own best interest, because they want that power and control. So if you have overempathized, overidentified, given them too much compassion, you will find that at least in some areas, you have given them your ability to make your own decisions. And they’ve probably convinced you that their decisions are better than yours anyway, right? They do that regularly.
Dr. Shaler:
Another way that you can recognize that you’re overempathizing is that you feel exhausted. Everything feels like you just climbed a 20 miles hill. You feel some resentment, but you’re kind of fuzzy about the resentment. It doesn’t feel good. And then you tell yourself, oh, well, a nice person, a good person, a person who’s committed to a relationship, wouldn’t have resentment for the hijackle taking over their lives. Well, I hope that you do pay attention to that resentment, because it’s inappropriate for someone to take over your life. And when your whole being screams through exhaustion, have a really good sit down and ask yourself, what’s up with this? It’s not that you are not sleeping well. It’s that you have been robbed of a sense of well being.
Dr. Shaler:
And there is too much emphasis on you taking care of somebody else’s thoughts, feelings, needs and wants, and not taking care of your own. Because we must find balance in everything. We must find it. Another sign is you look at the world through the hijackle’s eyes and not your own anymore. You’ve lost you. You’ve just lost you. And you know when you realize that, yes, it’s a sad moment, but it’s also, I hope, a brilliant, vibrant moment when you realize, I’m going to get myself back. I am not going to give myself, lose myself in a hijackle.
Dr. Shaler:
So I found a list of six signs that you are already experiencing a toxic empathy situation. And these are from lifestance health. So I’ll just read them to you and see if these apply. Just think about this. These are signs that you may be experiencing toxic empathy. The first one is you’re pitying others situations often and use it as a justification if they’re mean and unpleasant towards you. Whoa, that sounds pretty hijackly, doesn’t it? You’re pitying other people’s situations and you use it to justify their meanness and their unpleasantness. That happens a lot in hijackle relationships.
Dr. Shaler:
The second one is giving in to others demands easily and find it difficult to say no or refuse. Isn’t that the case? The more you’re with a hijackle, the more they want, the less they want you to have. And you lose your voice often and you need to get it back. You can get it back, too. Number three is unintentionally physically replicating the other person’s stress. So you feel the same things. You have the same knot in your stomach or clammy hands. You’re overidentifying with the person even throughout your body.
Dr. Shaler:
And number four is emotionally mirroring another’s pain and feeling persistent emotions of sadness and suffering for a long period of time. So when you’re around a very depressed person, you will tend to become depressed as well. And much as you might want to, not want to, and you might be quite resistant to it, you will at times have those feelings for most people, and that’s experiencing toxic empathy. Number five is feeling exhausted physically and psychologically after interacting with people. It’s so much work to interact with a hijackle and then you have very little left for other people, so you’re always tired. And the last one that lifestance health offered was being unable to complete or fulfill your own responsibilities because you feel overwhelmed by your feelings. Did any of you identify with that? Does that seem to be something that happens to you? I can clearly see that, and I think it is a natural progression of being with a hijackle. So as soon as you see it, resolve to do something about it.
Dr. Shaler:
You don’t have to change it in a day. Baby steps and nanoseconds are just fine. Be gentle with yourself. This was a process that occurred. It took you over over a period of time. You became over empathetic to the toxic level, you became over compassionate to a toxic level. And now you have to regain yourself and you’re worth it. You truly are.
Dr. Shaler:
So I have four things I want to share with you that are signs that you’ve really fallen into toxic empathy and that you could relate to directly. So the first one is you are an enabling person. You are justifying the bad behavior of another. Have you given up and just justified that’s just the way they are? Or do you make excuses for them? Do you rationalize why they’re like that? Do you stop expecting better? Have you given up your own boundaries because they don’t like boundaries? What have you done to enable them so that you are not letting other people experience the consequences of their own behavior? You’re running interference trying to save them from themselves. That’s not an adult thing to do, particularly not a healthy adult thing to do. So if that sounds even vaguely familiar, listen to some of the episodes, read some of the materials, go to relationshipprograms.com and find all my seminars and ebooks and courses all there for you@relationshipprograms.com. So that was number one, you may be enabling. Number two is you give too much and seldom say no.
Dr. Shaler:
So you learn that yes makes them happy. And that’s just such a load off. And so, while overwhelming and submerging your own needs, thoughts and feelings and wants, you say yes to them anyway. You don’t matter anymore. You simply don’t matter. You just give too much. And you have become yes, whatever you want kind of person. And you’ve even forgotten perhaps, that you do have the ability to say no.
Dr. Shaler:
Now, it’s not easy. They don’t like you to say no to them. I understand that completely. However, healthy people know how to say no, and healthy people know how to hear your no. So keep that in mind. When you’re dealing with a hijackle, you need to start saying yes to yourself. And sometimes that sounds like no to them. But say yes to yourself, keep saying yes to yourself.
Dr. Shaler:
Number three, sadly, if you’re a longtime with a hijackle, you can get ill. You can actually have physical manifestation. You kind of get too much inflammation in the body often, and so it’s constantly being triggered by the fight or flight arousal system and inflammation is the result. So you could end up with autoimmune diseases or digestive problems. And that could be just based on the fact that you have been overly compassionate and toxically empathetic. So this might be the very episode that allows you to say, I need to get back into some balance here. And the last one, number four, is you find that you’re falling into toxic empathy when you just can’t think straight and you can’t get things done anymore, and it just becomes paralytic, or you’re too exhausted, or you’re paralyzed and exhausted, and you just don’t complete things. And doesn’t that just play in the hijacko’s favor? Because when you can’t do things with some efficiency, then they can be angrier, they can be more degrading, more belittling, more discounting, more dismissive, and it becomes a lethal kind of circus.
Dr. Shaler:
So, if you find yourself at the place where you can’t think straight and you can’t get things done, you’re probably overly concerned with the agenda and the emotional agenda of a hijackle. So ask yourself, do the hijackle’s needs come before mine? In my own mind, have you got to the place where that’s what you think? First, what will the hijackle think? You don’t think, what do I think of that? You think, what will the Hijackle think? You may be overly empathetic, and do you think you’re being nice or good, giving up your life for them? They’ll demand that you do it. But does that make you nice or good? It certainly doesn’t make you healthy. But sometimes we’ve been taught that just give, give, and people will like you. No, a hijackle will take, and they still won’t like you. So some of these equations certainly don’t play out when you’re dealing with hijackles. So we are always balancing. I don’t think we’re ever balanced.
Dr. Shaler:
We are always daily balancing, balancing our needs, our wants, our thoughts, our feelings, all of those things. And we need to be balancing in our relationships, too, because you matter. And you know, I say that at the end of every podcast. But here is a good example. If you have become overly compassionate or overly empathetic to the point of toxicity, there is no equality, there is no balance, and therefore, you are not behaving as though you matter. And the hijackle will not behave as though you matter. You know that that’s not on their agenda, because only they matter. So it becomes imperative to see where that flip is, from healthy empathy and healthy compassion to toxic compassion and toxic empathy.
Dr. Shaler:
And I hope this has caused you to think about a few things, and maybe as you think of them, you’ll make some decisions in your own favor and take back your life. And until we speak again, take very good care of yourself because you’re precious and you matter. Talk soon. Hello, everybody. Welcome. All right, let’s see what we have here. Haunted salmon says giving too much will cause a hijackle to expect it on a regular basis. If you stop, they’ll crucify you.
Dr. Shaler:
Oh, you’re so right. You’re so right. They love to get used to you accommodating their every need, don’t they? And then it wasn’t a one time thing. It’s now the way it needs to be. Good insight. Hi, Kathy. Hi, Linda. Hi, Heidi.
Dr. Shaler:
Hi, Sandra. Hi, everybody. Ok, let’s see what we have. Jesse says truth. He took over my garage, my closet space, amongst other things. I didn’t have a voice with him. I could speak. I just wasn’t heard, remembered for what I had said.
Dr. Shaler:
Yeah. Well, basically, you only exist to give to them. And when you don’t give to them, you become a lesser human being. So that’s a good example. They will take over everything, including your closet and preferably your bank account. Kathy says, so true what you’re saying about giving up on oneself. I totally did that and lived to regret it. But through this and much counseling, I’ve learned to love myself.
Dr. Shaler:
Have. Good, good. You see you affirming what I said. You can get it all back. Once we recognize that we’ve given it away or it’s not coming our way, then we can do something. We can become proactive and say, no, I’m going to take that back. I don’t want to live like that. That’s not the way that I expected to be living my life.
Dr. Shaler:
And it all slid over to be taken over by a hijackle. And I say no to that from here on in. Hi, Linda. Oh, thank you for the dollar. Love the gift. I appreciate the support. Jesse says he also attempted to hijack and manage my relationship with my children. He would put down how I cared for my teenage kids.
Dr. Shaler:
Mind you, they’re very good. Well, you know, he knows that he couldn’t contribute to the very good kid part, so therefore, you have to be the scapegoat for that. But good for you for raising really good kids in spite of having somebody who was always ready to put you down because that’s the way they are. They put you down to push themselves up and they always have to be on the top of the pile so you can expect to be put down. Okay. Honda says, oh, speaking to Jesse. Jesse says, I was always exhausted and it was as if he was superior to me. Oh, I’m sure he truly believed that he was superior to you.
Dr. Shaler:
Very little question about the superiority of these beings, whether they’re male or female, whether they’re your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your partner, your sister’s husband. I mean, whoever comes into your life, they’re all superior beings in their own mind and deserving of so much more than they’ll ever give you. And it just goes with the know. Kathy says, with my ex, I did that. I saw the world through his eyes. And he has MPD, diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder. I was young and boy, I learned, but not at a cost of having CPTSD now. So complex.
Dr. Shaler:
PTSD is something that we talk about a lot, post traumatic stress disorder, but complex complex comes from having not one big event that was traumatic or two or three similar events that were traumatic. It comes from living like that every single day, living with that fear, living with that uncertainty, living with one eye open all the time. And sort of instead of death by three big blows, it’s death by 100,000 paper cuts. And that’s the kind of thing that happens. You just get so many paper cuts, emotional paper cuts when you’re with the hijackle that it becomes debilitating but never enough that you can’t rouse yourself for another go. And that is just what they want. They want to be having you as disabled as possible from behaving in any functional way that would call them to account or responsibility. Jennifer Krapp.
Dr. Shaler:
Hi. I haven’t seen you for a bit. Excellent podcast tonight. Good. I’ve been moving the rest of the things out of the family home while he took the kids to Italy, a trip we talked about going on together for years. So sad. But I know it would have been a nightmare for me to be stuck with him in a foreign country. I’ve been listening to you to give me strength.
Dr. Shaler:
Thank you. You are welcome. Good move not to go. I’m sure there are many people in here who would have recollections of going on vacation with a hijackle. It never quite works out well, does it? Because they’re always using it as a way to isolate you. They’ve got you captured, especially in a foreign country. Kathy says my boys are growing now and have issues due to him. So sad.
Dr. Shaler:
Yeah, it is. But the fact that you see it and you know where it came from, you can help them with it. And that’s know, having parents like that. Myself, I am really empathetic about that. And knowing what it takes. It really takes a lot. Kids need our support, but they don’t usually get it, really understand the dynamic until they’ve been out of the house for a while and they’ve seen other homes and other people, other lifestyles where these things do not occur. So it’s a long term thing.
Dr. Shaler:
Right. Okay. Honda said, you say no to a hijackle, they’ll throw a fit and say you were being selfish. They won’t take no for an answer. No, they won’t take no for an answer. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t serve up a no. And not in their face, not harshly. You just say, I don’t care to do that, or, that doesn’t work for me, and you just start making little inroads with them.
Dr. Shaler:
And I know that sounds like, oh, what do they do if I say that we have to start making little inroads or else you need to make one big outroad, because they really are. You’re absolutely right. They will say, how dare you say no to me? Well, I do dare. I’m saying yes to myself, not no to you. I don’t care to do that. And when you use the personal weather report, you can get very skilled at that. And the only complaint about that for the first 20 years, no, for the first few times that you do it. And if you do it skillfully, after a while, they kind of simmer down.
Dr. Shaler:
Yeah, there are a few rage at everything and anything, and they won’t ever simmer down. But hijackles do get used to a little bit of neutral fairness. That really doesn’t work for me. I could do this part. Instead of saying a hard no, you begin to soften the blow, and you can get very skilled at that. Kathy said yes to that. Body keeps the score. Inflammation? Totally.
Dr. Shaler:
For me. Cancer. I’m ten years in remission. Good. And digestive stuff. I feel like a walking. What next? Yes. Well, you’re out and away, and your body will heal, but it does take a toll.
Dr. Shaler:
It really does take a. You know, if you read Gaba mate’s book on the body says, no, that’s a good book to read. Or you read Bethel book on the body keeps the know, you learn that there really is a correlation. And any ill health that you may be feeling, you can begin to see that it’s not a failing of your body, it is a poor environment for your body. And what’s going on is unhealthy in your environment and that’s where you begin to make changes. Oh, thanks again. Jennifer says, I got breast cancer after ten years with him. I always think that’s interesting and I’m sorry that happened to you.
Dr. Shaler:
But I think it’s interesting how frequently breast cancer comes in for women who are with hijackle men. And I can’t help wondering if it isn’t because of this nurturing aspect of women and breasts and providing nourishment. And we’re vulnerable in that way because they keep demanding more from us and you only have so much to give and that fits the metaphor of breastfeeding too. And so they deplete us. Sometimes I wonder if that isn’t why breast cancer is one of the more common things for people to experience when they’ve been with a hijackle. Oh, thank you, Linda. I always appreciate when people send super care money, which people on YouTube can do because it helps defray the expenses of the podcast. Jesse says, I’m learning to cut the giving.
Dr. Shaler:
I’ve been a huge giver in my life and has gotten me taken advantage. Know people love people who give, but you’re only in a healthy relationship when there is. And everybody knows equality, reciprocity and mutuality. Sure, we’ll give to somebody, but somewhere in the realm of the relationship there is balance and balancing. And when you’re with a hijackle, there isn’t. It’s all take and no give, so it’s always going to be in a deficit. Sounds high. Just saying hi.
Dr. Shaler:
Well, hi to you, Jess. You are welcome for whatever you’re saying. Thank you for haunted says giving too much. Dress takers only. You’re right. When you need help, you’ll find them having the attitude of not wanting to cross the street to spit on you if you’re on fire. It’s a lonely feeling. I imagine there are a lot of people nodding in the room right now because it is a lonely feeling.
Dr. Shaler:
It’s a terribly lonely feeling to be in a relationship that isn’t working for anybody. But when you’re in a relationship with a hijackle, it is purposefully lonely. The hijackle wants to keep you isolated and dependent on them for your emotional goodies, and they refuse to engage with you emotionally except to get what they want. And it makes it more lonely. I think that’s so difficult. Let’s see. Jennifer said 15 years out from cancer, but still digestive issues. Yeah.
Dr. Shaler:
It’s an irritation, isn’t it? Irritation of the digestive system. Kathy said mine was breast cancer. Okay. Oh, sounds also had uterine cancer. All right. So here we’re seeing how it attacks the body. Jennifer said the tumor was in a weak spot where I had trouble before. Yes.
Dr. Shaler:
And what might have happened if you didn’t have the irritation of the hijackle? Right. Jesse said my joints would start to ache, and I had a lot of muscle tightness in my shoulders and back of my head from all the stress with him. Yes. It’s really difficult. And we carry so much in our shoulders and neck and our jaw, and you want to be really careful to always keep your jaw loose. This is one of the most powerful muscles in our body, and we will tense there. What people do for many reasons, but definitely it will happen when you’re around a hijackle because you’re afraid to speak. It is all about speaking up.
Dr. Shaler:
It’s all about being put down for speaking up. It’s all about anxiety and tension, and it will go right into your mandible, and that’s very powerful. And it will take energy. So when you have your shoulders up around your earlobes and then you tighten your jaw, that takes so much energy. So do get in the habit of just so that you are allowing everything to. Oh, there’s haunted. Said I had TMJ for years from clenching my teeth. Yeah, that happens.
Dr. Shaler:
It’s very common. Very common. And, yes, Jesse, balance is key. And I would say balancing is key as well, because we’re always balancing. Life is a bit of trying to stand on a ball. We’re always balancing. It’s a little pull this way, a little pull that way. And so it does take a lot of thought to stay balanced.
Dr. Shaler:
Kathy said, hi. Jackals suck. I agree. How come they want to do this to others? I guess that’s the $54,000 question. There’s so much goodness in life. Why the heck do they want to be so mean? Well, I could give you a really long answer to that, but the fact is that there are some people who are so fearful in life, don’t put your compassion hat on. So fearful in life that their only thing they know to do is to be on the offense and the defense all the time. And that’s where you find a hijackle.
Dr. Shaler:
So when people are constantly on the offense and defense, they have no space for other humans. They just don’t because they’re running from fear all the time. And fear quickly turns into anger really quickly. And that’s why you see, know, that’s why it happens. Jennifer says, it’s amazing how similar the stories are. Yes. It says, he took me into the woods where I didn’t want to be. Thank God I had the wherewithal to have an escape plan.
Dr. Shaler:
Yes, indeed. Good for you. Because having an escape plan, having even the idea that you can have an escape plan for some people is the beginning of freedom. Don’t ever feel less than if it takes you a while to get away from these folks. They’re very enticing. They’ll pull you back. And they’ve made you second guess yourself, always, can I manage on my own? Am I good enough? Would anybody ever want me again? And they’ve built all that in all that fear. So it takes you a while.
Dr. Shaler:
So it takes you a while. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is, if you need to get out, get out no matter what time it takes. That’s important. Sal said, I love the reminder not to be compassionate all the time. You are welcome. It’s important. And Jennifer says, braces at 45 from jaw tension.
Dr. Shaler:
I’m sure that’s what it said. There we go. Kathy said, well, I just don’t get it, but I will accept it. Why they are the way they are. I’ve done lots of episodes on why they are the way they are. So maybe you can go back and revisit those. Linda says, because they’ve never been loved. I’d be careful with that one, Linda.
Dr. Shaler:
That’s the kind of thing that pulls us in the direction of overly compassionate. Remember always that the hijackle in your life goes and does things in the community or at work or at church or wherever, they show up, and they show up as a different human than they do show up to you at home. And that tells you that they can be much more pleasant, much more giving, much more charming, much more thoughtful than they choose to be at home. So when we think they’ve never been loved, that could be true. That absolutely could be true, because maybe they had hijackled parents, and that can be true. But on the other hand, remember, too, they are still choosing those behaviors, and they’re adults now, so they can choose better than they’re giving. But they don’t often do that, except when they want something or they’re terribly afraid of losing you. So it’s important to see that, yes, they may not have been loved, they may never have had the opportunity, but on the other hand, they’re adults now and they’re choosing to behave that way.
Dr. Shaler:
Haunted. I’m glad you look forward to the podcast. I’m glad it’s helping you. I think you’re talking to one another there. Kathy said, it makes me feel less lonely with these similar stories. Or I guess less crazy made. Crazy making. Yeah, good.
Dr. Shaler:
Jennifer said, the future faking. I thought I was losing my mind. Yeah, isn’t that just the know, you think, oh, they finally get it and they say, we’ll do this, we’ll do things differently. Or when this happens, things will change and they get what they want in the moment by future faking. And then it’s all gone in a puff of smoke. Never to happen. That can be so disappointing. Linda said, yes, I love that we can take our time to exit and make sure it’s safe and we’re taking all we’re entitled to.
Dr. Shaler:
Truly entitled. Yes, that’s very important. Because sometimes we’re just so tired or scared or worn out that we just grab what we can and make do and they really repent at your leisure and maybe regret when you do. That sounds. I don’t know how long you’ve been on your journey, but it takes a while to get past that stage for me. I felt like I yearned to have that answered for years. I’m not sure what you were talking about sounds, but I’m sure somebody does. Jess says they definitely work hard to undermine and kill your confidence.
Dr. Shaler:
Oh, absolutely. Because they know that that’s the key to having power over you and that’s what they want to do. Jess said, I did tell mine that the mistake I made was being too kind to him. He had nothing to say for once because he knew it was true. Good. Yes. To review some videos on why they do that. Because it’s good to know what they’re doing on purpose.
Dr. Shaler:
Because they’re different creatures. They really are. People from the hijackle human planet think very, very differently from people on the healthier human planet. We want to be very clear about that. So I hope that I have been able to help you understand this idea of being overly empathetic or overly compassionate to your detriment. It’s important to see where the flip is between being healthily empathetic and healthily compassionate in it and where it flips over to toxicity. So super important. So until we meet again, take very good care of yourself because you too are precious and you matter.
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