When you’re always “on,” it means you put on your game face in every interaction with others. It’s like being in customer service and having to smile at every single customer that walks in the door.
Do this all day and you’ll probably want to crawl inside your shell when you get home. In this episode, I talk about what this is like from celebrities to baristas to anyone that feels like they need to be “on” all the time.
I am reading two emails in this episode. Here’s the first one:
“Hey, I’m listening to your podcast, as many people do during the pivotal time of deciding what is going on in my relationship. My question is, do you have a specific podcast addressing people who are with someone in the music industry who is used to praise? I would think that person who is emotionally abusive could never be satisfied in a mutual relationship because a partner could never satisfy a person who needs constant validation and praise and they receive it from their fan base. Is the battle more difficult for them?”
From what they described, there are a couple things going on here. First, they mentioned dealing with emotional abuse and purchasing The M.E.A.N. Workbook (which is my workbook on emotional abuse over at loveandabuse.com). But the emotional abuse part is actually a separate issue from what they’re asking about celebrities and musicians.
They’re wondering if it’s different or more difficult for people who are always in the spotlight. Are they more likely to be emotionally abusive because they’re used to getting praise?
I think an ego can develop in those situations, but I also believe that people are already of a certain makeup. This may not be a popular opinion, but I believe that when we build our ego or inflate it, it’s either going to show others how rotten we are or how great we are on the inside.
How we are designed, how we are made up from birth, is going to expand the more freedom we have to expand it. People who gain money often gain more power and more responsibility. Some people who gain more money will become more charitable and giving, while others become more greedy and frugal, wanting to keep everything for themselves. It really matters how they’re made up in the first place.
I look at a lot of things this way: If you get married, you’re amplifying what the relationship already is. If you get a lot of money, you’re amplifying who you already are. If you get a lot of fame or publicity, who you turn into is who is already in there.
That’s not to say people can’t change. Celebrity, money, and power can absolutely change someone. But there’s usually a moral compass that we’re born with or develop as we grow up. There’s often an ethical compass, and we can choose to stray from that or not.
When we have more money, more power, when we go from being single to married – we have choices. We can continue to be who we are or choose to be someone else. But I still come back to how we’re designed is how we’re going to be, except amplified when circumstances change and give us more money, freedom, or power.
Every person is a person. Most people are emotional beings (except psychopaths). Most of us are driven by our emotions – we get hurt by them, become happy because of them, or become emotional because of certain events in our lives. Some people get money and power and feel happy all the time, but then they have no challenges because all their previous challenges disappear.
Or they face new challenges because they have more stuff, which means more stress, more people in their life, which means more stress, and more toxic elements. There are many variables that come with any type of abundance.
If you’ve never been wealthy – let’s say you made $15,000 a year, which I would consider poverty (I was there too) – and then suddenly you win $50 million, that changes your life completely. The day is different. The year is different. The rest of your life can be completely different.
Who are you going to be from that point on? Are you going to say, “Well, I’m not going to quit my job? I love it too much”? I can’t imagine anyone keeping their job when they win that much money because now they can do anything they want. I’m sure it happens, but I can’t imagine it because now they have the freedom to choose anything, even if it’s another job. The necessity is gone. And when necessity is gone, we make different decisions with different reasons and different motivations.
I remember when I was dead broke. I had zero dollars. I was married and we were both broke. We were going to the soup kitchen. Our decisions were a lot different than they were after we got back out of debt. There was also a difference in how we viewed the world. Our perspective was, “Man, this expired food is delicious!” It was wonderful. We were grateful and appreciative that the soup kitchen was giving us old bread and old meals. We were grateful that stores would give to charities so they would feed us.
That was our world for probably less than a year, but a good several months. We got used to that and we were happy. We were fine. It wasn’t pleasant all the time – we had to get up really early, stand in line – but it wasn’t bad. It was pleasant because we didn’t have any other bills or requirements. We got into the welfare system, taking what we could while trying to get back on our feet.
When we did get back on our feet, I made a promise to myself I would never be poor again. Not because I was unhappy, but because I wanted more for myself and to be able to share with my family. I made that my goal because I prefer having more options.
This is what I’m bringing up today – when you have more options, who you are expands. It amplifies. The more money you have, the more who you are amplifies. The more fame, the more publicity, the more of you amplifies.
Now, the problem with celebrities is that they can’t have a public life. They become limited in certain ways. You’d think their lives expand into anything they want, but maybe they just want to go to the store without being recognized. Maybe they just want to go to an event with other people and enjoy a meal with friends. The more popular you are, the harder that is to do.
You have to change your life. That may or may not change who you are, but I’ll tie this into this person’s question: because the problems are different, how you handle those problems and how you cope determines whether you’re happy or not. If you’re a person who doesn’t like having your picture taken and you’re really popular, you’re probably not going to be very happy when you go out in public, when people are following you around and stopping you for autographs. It’s going to be very difficult.
I’ve often considered this myself. As my show becomes more popular, I will eventually be recognized in public. At first, it will be exciting. They’ll say, “Whoa, Paul! Oh my God, you’re the guy that hosts that podcast!” Fortunately, I’m on a podcast, so some people don’t know what I look like. I don’t mind that people don’t know what I look like. At the same time, I wouldn’t mind if somebody came up to me. So if you ever see me out there, that’s fine.
But I imagine that the more popular you get, when you become a major celebrity and recognizable, you probably want to isolate yourself more because it’s very difficult to just be yourself when everyone is trying to get your attention. It’s hard to be yourself with all that attention. I know this doesn’t apply to a lot of people listening, but it does apply to some.
I’ve actually had clients when I was doing one-on-one coaching who were celebrities or high-profile people, and quite honestly, they’re just human. They’re people just like you and me. You probably already knew this, but they have the same issues – the same problems, the same romantic issues, the same family issues. They deal with anxiety and depression and all kinds of stuff.
They have all the same stuff. The difference is everyone can watch it unfold, whereas maybe a minor celebrity like me can walk around and not be recognized and not want to talk to anyone and just want to keep to myself. No one’s going to care. “That guy is over there. He’s keeping to himself. I don’t care. I don’t know him.” It doesn’t matter.
But a major celebrity – that could bring a feeling of never being left alone, always being… I don’t want to say pestered, but after a while, it can feel that way. I’m sure celebrities can feel pestered.
Let me wrap this up and tie it back to this person’s email. She asked if the person she cares about who’s in the music industry faces a more difficult battle because they need constant validation and praise.
I will say this: a lot of the celebrities I’ve talked to, or that I know about, or I read about, they’re not looking for validation and praise. They just want to be left alone. But then you have people that may have not reached the status where they get a lot of validation and praise. And so they constantly look for it because they feel empty inside.
This is just a guess, but an educated one, that when someone feels empty inside and they are a major or minor celebrity or musician, they may seek that constant validation as making them feel like they have purpose in their life. Like as long as that validation continues and that recognition and attention continues, they don’t have to visit what they feel inside. It’s always an external source that is a stimulation for them.
As long as they’re continuing to get that external source or that validation that you mentioned here, then they don’t have opportunities to reflect and introspect and think about their life in ways because they can look at their life and say, “I’ve got everything I need. I’m popular. I have money. I’ve got everything I need, so why would I be unhappy? Why should I be unhappy? I have everything.”
I can totally see that happening where somebody feels like they shouldn’t complain and they shouldn’t feel sad because they have everything they need. This applies to all of us. This applies to you and me and anyone listening right now. We can feel like we have everything we need so we shouldn’t feel sad or upset or angry. We should feel grateful.
That’s what we’re told, right? You should feel grateful. You should be appreciative. You should write three things down in your notebook every day that you’re grateful for, and then it changes your mindset. But I don’t really teach that here. You can do that for sure. I’ve done it before and it does feel good to write things down that I’m grateful for.
But I don’t do that. I don’t really talk about it too much because the direction I like to go is when you address what feels bad inside of you, when you reflect on that and introspect and process it and start healing from it, then you feel grateful naturally. You feel happier naturally.
I look at the negativity that we haven’t addressed and processed and healed from as obstacles to happiness. So you could write down a bunch of things in a notebook that say how much you’re grateful about this and how happy you are about that. But if you still have that negativity going on inside of you, you still have those blockages, then whatever appreciation and happiness that you feel will only be fleeting because it’s still in there.
I don’t mean to bring you down with that comment. I think it’s okay to have external stimuli to keep you going. I think it’s okay to be distracted by the outside world if you still have stuff to process.
I don’t think it’s okay to never process that stuff. We know of celebrities, for example, that have committed suicide. And you’d think, “What? They were so happy. They were so fun and outgoing.” You’d never think that person was depressed.
What I’ve seen is that the most externally focused people, the people that love the attention, or at least they’re always what I like to call “on” – if you’re always on and you’re always focused on making people laugh and making people happy and just showing others in the world that you’re this energized, happy person all the time, what ends up happening is that you dismiss what’s going on inside of you, or at least you bypass it.
When you bypass the negativity inside you and don’t address it, you might have thoughts and feelings that you haven’t processed. And when you haven’t processed them, those can amplify – talking about things that amplify inside of you. What you have inside of you can amplify, especially when there are more external things going on in your life that distract you.
When those things amplify, whatever they are – old trauma, old neglect, if you were in an abusive situation and you haven’t healed from that yet – that stuff can fester in the background. And if it’s not addressed, if it’s not talked about, if it’s not expressed, if it’s not healed, at least to a point, and you’re constantly focused outside of you, no matter who you are, whether you’re a celebrity, a musician, if you work in an office, if you work at a coffee shop, whatever, the more you are “on” – active for others, but not active for yourself, helpful toward others, but not helpful toward yourself, compassionate for others, but not compassionate toward yourself – the more you are on for others, you are off for yourself.
This is why you’ll see some people just want to be isolated, just want to be alone. They don’t want to turn on for others. They want to turn on for themselves. They want to be in their own space and connect with themselves. This is why you do see some celebrities and major personalities not wanting to be in the spotlight. They don’t want to be in the spotlight because they want to feel grounded. They want to connect with themselves.
The way I’m going to answer this question is: always deal with specific behaviors, not the overall who they are or how they show up. This is something I say over at loveandabuse.com. It’s important that when you’re in any type of relationship, no matter who it is, that the specific behavior is called out, if you can identify it. Sometimes if they’re really emotionally abusive and they’re very covert about it, it’s hard to identify, but you can identify how you feel.
If somebody is doing something and you feel bad because they did it or they said something to you, it’s okay to say, “Hey, when you said that, it made me feel, I don’t know, devalued or disrespected. And I’m not sure how you did that or what you said, but this is how I feel.”
The reason I think it’s okay to say that in most relationships is because if the relationship is healthy, the other person is going to say something like, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to feel that way at all. I definitely want to figure this out. What did I say? I don’t want to say that again. What did I do? I don’t want to do that again.”
Someone who cares about you and wants the relationship to work out and wants you to be happy is going to say something like that. That’s how I see a healthy response to a question or comment like that. Like, “Hey, what you just said kind of hurt. Did you mean that? Did you know that hurt?” That’s another question I like to ask: “Did you know what you just said or did hurt me?”
And the person who cares about you is going to say, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” They don’t have to say “oh my God,” but I do. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
The other response from a slightly toxic or emotionally abusive person (or more than slightly) is going to be, “Well, you know, that’s what I said. That’s how I am and that’s too bad.” They’re going to say something like that. Or, “You’re just reading it wrong. You’re just too sensitive. You don’t get me at all.” They might say something like that. That doesn’t validate you. That invalidates you, in fact. It invalidates how you feel. Instead of even listening to what you say, they just go right into, “Well, you know, that’s your problem, not mine.”
You just have to be aware that when people say that, they’re not showing any love and support towards you. They’re more concerned about being right or not being called out or not appearing weak. And when you have that, that’s something that you have to acknowledge inside yourself. When I’m hurt and I say I’m hurt, instead of supporting me and trying to figure it out with me, I’m not hurt because they care about my happiness. They are defensive instead.
Now, it doesn’t mean that every time someone’s defensive, that doesn’t mean they don’t care about you. I don’t want you to think that. Some people are defensive because they have triggers. They don’t know exactly how to respond, so they feel like maybe you’re attacking them. They might take it the wrong way. You might have to say, “Look, I’m not attacking you. I’m just saying what you just said or what you just did felt very disrespectful to me, or it felt like you didn’t care about me. I wanted to address that because I don’t want that between us. I want us to have a great relationship. I’m addressing this very specific thing.”
This is what I’m telling this person who wrote. It’s important to address the specifics. When something happens, bring it up because when you find out how they respond, you get to determine how healthy your relationship is. Because the individual acts and the individual things they say are the day-to-day minutia that builds up. What we have to do is break down the minutia. We have to take it apart, break it apart so that we can figure out the specific behaviors that are actually making us feel bad, maybe over and over again.
It’s important to know what makes you feel bad so that you can address that. And like I said earlier, you may not be able to pinpoint it, which is why it’s important to understand how you feel even if you can’t pinpoint the bad behavior or the hurtful behavior, whatever they did. If you can’t pinpoint what they did or said (which often we can – if somebody calls you a bad name, if somebody puts you down or insults you, you can often pinpoint that), but sometimes people are tricky. And if they’re tricky, we have to go with how we feel inside.
So that’s really my answer to this person who wrote and said, is it more challenging for musicians? It can be. There’s a lot of stuff that goes on for celebrities that doesn’t go on for the rest of the world. And they may be avoiding having to deal with what’s really going on inside of them if they’re in the public eye constantly.
If they aren’t reflecting and introspecting and just digging into themselves and drilling down into what makes them unhappy or afraid or angry, then they may focus on the outside world for, like this person said, validation, attention, and praise. And because of that, because that exists, it can be more difficult.
This is why sometimes you hear celebrities just kind of fading away. They fade away because they don’t want to have to deal with a lot of this stuff. That’s not the only reason. But a lot of celebrities don’t like the inability to go out into public anymore because we’re social creatures. And if you were getting followed and every time you turned around somebody was taking your picture or wanted to take pictures with you, it might be exciting at first, but I think that’ll wear on you after a while.
So I don’t know if I answered your question. Thank you so much for writing it. Thank you so much for reaching out.
Expecting Validation from Mom
Here’s the second email that goes in a slightly different direction from the last section, but there are some similarities. This person wants me to call her Samantha.
Samantha said:
“You’ve probably covered this, but I didn’t see any episodes on it. So my issue is I have a narcissistic mom that I live with, and I’m not in a place to leave right now. I’m wondering how I can stop looking for validation through her or expecting her to be the mother I do not have. I don’t feel like I’m looking for validation, but my sister does believe that I am consistently looking for it.
“I’m honoring my boundaries and staying firm with things like saying no and not taking things personally. However, she likes to accuse us of things that aren’t true, for example, stealing money and not being home long enough to meet her needs, which is basically just being in the same house. She is projecting her issues from her relationship with her ex-boyfriend onto me, and I am constantly feeling hurt because of this.
“I have been working on myself for the past four years to try to recover from her abuse, but I can’t seem to let it go. If I could pack my family and move, I would, but I would honestly question whether or not she would be safe. My question is how do I stop being so hurt by the things she says? Everything she says is often an attack or something laced with bad intentions. I don’t know how to get to a point where I can just hear her say something and let it go away.”
Okay, thank you for sharing that. There’s one thing that you said that I can’t get clarity on, which I wish I could, because you said, “I would pack and move my family if I could, but honestly question whether or not she would be safe.” If you mean your mom, if you’re not sure if your mom would be safe, I’m not sure exactly why that would prevent you from moving or why you think she would be unsafe.
It sounds like you moved back in with her and was she in danger? This is a tough one because I don’t have all the information here, but I want to make sure, and I say this with love and respect for you, that you’re not using that as an excuse. You don’t want to move because she wouldn’t be safe or you believe she wouldn’t be safe. Does that mean she might hurt herself? Has she commented on that or is she implying that? Is she using that as a tool to manipulate you to stay because she knows that if you leave that she’ll lose you or whatever?
It’s possible that’s what you meant, but I wouldn’t concentrate on that. Because what’s happening is the narcissistic person and some emotional abusers will absolutely want you to focus on them so that you do what they want you to do. That is part of the game.
So when you say, “I worry that she might not be safe,” that tells me that she has got you convinced that if you leave she won’t be. So when you’re in that position, you have to refocus on yourself and what is best for you and your family. Your mom is an adult. She can make her own decisions and she is making her own decisions. And if you make your decisions based on your fear of her not making good decisions, you will never ever make your own decisions for yourself and your family.
And you take all the energy and attention and focus and love and support away from those who really matter. Because your mom, she may matter to you. You hope that she turns into the greatest mom ever, but if she’s narcissistic she won’t. It’s determined that most diagnosable narcissists do not turn into anything else. They just stay narcissistic. I’m not saying that it’s impossible. I think anything’s possible, but it’s pretty well known that diagnosable narcissists, they typically stay narcissistic.
I’m just giving you a heads up that if you’re looking for something different from her, you will never see it. And this is something else I want to tell you is that because you’ll never see anything but probably toxic behavior from her, or at least very selfish behavior from her, you have to learn to accept that that’s all you’ll ever see.
Because if you are ever looking for kindness, respect, care, support, if you’re ever hoping that it shows up one day, you will end up disappointing yourself over and over again. And if you’re focused on just wanting her to show up as normal or healthy, you take the focus off of where it really needs to be, which is on yourself. And the people that you love most, aside from your mom, you may love her, but the people that matter to you, the people you have to take care of, you have to focus on them and what’s right for you and what’s right for them. That’s my take on where you are.
So if you are saying, “I don’t want to leave because I believe she might be in danger,” then she’s got you exactly where she wants you. If you believe she might be a danger to herself, has she ever threatened suicide? Has she ever threatened to hurt herself? Because if she has, I highly recommend you go over to my other podcast at loveandabuse.com and use the search field to look for the word suicide. And you’re going to find an episode in there that helps you understand what you need to do if someone ever threatens to hurt themselves or kill themselves.
In a nutshell, anyone that threatens to commit suicide or hurt themselves, you treat seriously. And if you knew for a fact, if you were 100% certain they were going to do it, what would you do then? If that happened to me, if I knew it was going to happen, I’d probably call 911.
I wanted to at least talk about that first and foremost, because if you aren’t leaving because you worry about her or have a concern for her health and safety, and she really is narcissistic and she’s really manipulating you, which it sounds like she is, then she has you exactly where she wants you. And that is part of the game. If you play that game, you will never get out of that situation, because she will always use your compassion and empathy against you. She will always cause you to feel guilty and that will stop you. And this is something that you need to overcome inside of you.
You need to overcome that. And I know you’re asking, how do I do that? Well, the first thing is just to accept that she’s not going to change. This is her. This is who she is. The mom you want will never be there. If she happens to be there one day, then I’m wrong and you have a great day with her. I’m not going to say that it’s never going to happen. But it’s so much easier to get through life just to accept that people are as they show up as they are, so that you don’t waste any time and you don’t waste any energy and you don’t waste your valuable love and support that you could give to other people that actually want it and will reciprocate.
That’s my thoughts on when you’re dealing with somebody like this. Now, the other thing is that you said your sister says that you’re constantly looking for validation. You said you’re honoring your boundaries and you’re staying firm with things like saying no and not taking things personally. You definitely are taking things personally. You want her to show up in a different way so that she sees you as more worthy, as lovable. And rightly so. You are more worthy and lovable.
You are more important than she treats you. So you can’t use her as the source for your sense of worth and your sense of lovability. You can’t see her as that person that’s going to show up and be that for you. So I have a feeling you know that’s true because of what you said here. But there’s also your sister saying that you’re constantly looking for validation. What does that mean? Does that mean you’re looking for something that isn’t there in your mom?
Is that what your sister means? Or do you believe you aren’t lovable and worthy because your mom is not capable of showing you healthy love? Because if it’s the latter, if it’s your mom not being able to show you what healthy love is, then yes, you might be looking for validation from a toxic source. And if you’re looking for validation from a toxic source, you will be constantly invalidated. You’ll be constantly disappointed and you will feel bad over it. So I don’t know necessarily if you’re looking for validation all the time or if you’re just trying to get through every moment and not take things personally. But you definitely are taking things personally because when she accuses you of things, things that aren’t true, instead of going into a place inside your own mind and saying, of course she would say this.
I mean this is what she says. I don’t expect anything less. In fact, instead of doing that, you instead probably say things like, “I wish she would just stop doing that. I wish she were different. I wish she would show up differently. I wish she would just see the truth. I wish she could see that I wasn’t trying to steal from her.”
Anytime you have thoughts like that around a diagnosable narcissist, again, you’re going to be disappointed and you’re going to lengthen your own suffering. This is where acceptance comes into play, where you accept that she will never ever show up in a way that makes you feel good. She’s just not that type of person. She’s not going to pull that out suddenly after all these years. It’s just not going to happen.
Anytime you have a thought like, “I wish she would see this” or “I wish she would see the truth,” you need to change that thought into something like, “Well, of course she thinks that. That’s who she is. Of course that’s who she is.”
In fact, you need to say that to yourself ahead of time, before you walk into the room. You say to yourself, “Okay, she’s going to say something hurtful. That’s who she is.” Instead of saying, “I hope she doesn’t say something hurtful this time.” Because as soon as you go there, you’re looking for something that will never exist.
Again, if I’m wrong, great. If it suddenly exists one day, if she has an enlightening moment and realizes how bad she’s been hurting you, great. It’s rare, but I’m sure it can happen. If it did, I would be happy to be wrong. But it’s always safer to assume that they’re not going to change, so that you don’t continue and prolong your suffering.
It’s going to be hard, because you may want the mom that you never had. This is where self-parenting comes into play. You do want to parent yourself and treat yourself as the daughter of a healthy mom. She’s not a healthy mom, from what you’re describing, so you need to be your own healthy mom. You’ve probably heard me talk about that, just self-parenting.
But it’s important. You need to know you’re lovable. You need to say, “Honey, my daughter, I love you,” as if your own mother would say that, but a healthy version of your mom. Maybe a different version of your mom completely. Maybe it’s not that mom. It’s a mom you make up in your head. But that needs to happen inside of you, because what happens inside of her is not, obviously, loving and caring and supportive for you.
So we need to get out of her drama and out of her reality, because her reality is something you don’t want to be intertwined or enmeshed in. You want to stay out of her reality, because it’s toxic. So we step out of that by saying, “Of course, that’s who they are. This is what I expect from them.”
Personally, I would just walk in the room. I mean, I’m not telling you to do this. Personally, I would just walk in the room and say, “Hey, Mom, do you have any questions about anything stolen, or do you have any thoughts about me being out late? I’m just here to nip it in the bud. Let’s just get it out in the open. Put it on the table.”
That’s me. I’m someone who doesn’t fear conflict. I don’t mind walking into the room and saying, “Hey, you know, you usually blame me for something. Let’s just get it out in the open now. So I’m just opening the door for you. What would you like to blame me for today?”
The only reason I would, again, I’m not suggesting that for you, but the only reason I would do that is because it takes the wind out of their sails. I don’t want them to hold that over on me. I would rather hold that over on myself so that I get to keep my power. I don’t want her having my power, or whoever it is. I don’t want them to come up with something that puts me down, makes me feel bad. So I’m going to walk in the room and say, “Hey, you know, what do you think I stole today? What do you want to blame me for today? You usually blame me for something, so let’s just get it out in the open. Let’s just make it public.”
It is tough when you’re dealing with certain people, especially when you’ve known them all your life. Toxic parents, they can be very difficult, but I want you to keep your power. I don’t want you to lose it to anyone, and it may be difficult.
My last comment is my first comment. Don’t use her being unsafe if she is trying to convince you that she would be unsafe. Don’t use that as your excuse to stay. If it really is true, if you know she’d be unsafe, then you have to believe that 100%, and do everything you can to make her safe, but you don’t have to be the one to do that.
You should be treated with kindness and respect, and you shouldn’t have to deal with somebody else’s toxicity. You’ve got to focus on your own stuff. It’s a challenging situation, but I do hope some of what I said has helped. Thank you so much for sharing this with me.
