Name: Protect Yourself From Emotional Blackmail
Uploaded: 2021-11-15T17:47:08.000Z
Duration: 8 min 26 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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I recently came across the term /emotional blackmail/, in a book of the same name by

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Dr. Susan Forward, and I think it's a very powerful concept.

And unfortunately, it's a reality that a lot of people deal with.

So I'm gonna explore the concept in my own words.

As always, I'm gonna explore these ideas through a dialogue.

The following is a conversation between a monk (M) and a student (S).

M: If you wanna thrive, protect yourself from emotional blackmail.

M: Emotional blackmail is when someone else makes you responsible for their feelings.

And if you don't do what they want, they use obligation, guilt, and fear to pressure

I think I know what you're talking about, but can you give me an example?

M: If you don't do what someone wants, they may threaten you.

But emotional blackmail is closer to someone saying, “make me feel good, or else I'll

For example, if you don't do what a parent, or a friend, or a partner says, they may refuse

to talk to you until you do what they want.

They're letting you know, “if you don't take responsibility for my feelings and make

me feel good, I'm gonna make you feel bad about it.”

Or they may threaten to harm themselves, or stop eating, or stop working, or “get sick”,

or “be depressed”, and they'll make you feel at fault for all of it.

They make themselves feel bad and then claim you're the reason why.

They hold your feelings hostage, and they use your empathy and compassion against you.

S: You always tell me that if I wanna understand an action, I need to understand the belief

Well, what are the beliefs behind all of this?

Why would someone choose to blackmail someone else?

And why would someone allow themselves to be blackmailed in this way?

Let's start by looking at the blackmailer.

Fundamentally, the blackmailer is entitled.

They believe that others are responsible for their feelings.

They believe others must act in a way that makes them feel good, rather than taking responsibility

S: Oh, that actually makes a lot of sense.

What about the person who let's themselves be blackmailed?

M: The blackmailer refuses to take responsibility for their own feelings, but the blackmailee

is the exact opposite: they take responsibility for feelings that aren't their own.

While the blackmailer wants everyone around them to act a certain way, the blackmailee

While the blackmailer feels entitled, the blackmailee feels like they owe a debt.

While the blackmailer passes judgements, the blackmailee is always looking to be positively

They take the judgments of other people very seriously.

If someone says to them, “you're a very selfish person,” they believe it immediately.

I need to fix this right now./ While the blackmailer wants everyone to serve them, the blackmailee

They wanna be liked and approved by everyone, and they'll do just about anything to get

While the blackmailer believes what they say is the truth, the blackmailee believes that

And while the blackmailer's mind is dominated by taking, the blackmailee's mind is dominated

I'm starting to understand how these relationships come about, but it sounds like the blackmailer

needs the blackmailee and the blackmailee needs the blackmailer, right?

M: I'm not going to say there's anything right or wrong with it, but let's take a

A relationship like that is based purely on power, not love.

It's mutual slavery, governed by domination and submission.

And when a relationship is based on power, there's no intimacy.

Intimacy arises when two people understand each other, are free to express their desires,

But a relationship dominated by emotional blackmail is always one-sided.

One person's desires are always subordinated to the other's.

And there are other effects on each party too.

The blackmailer becomes more and more delusional about their own entitlement, and they pin

their entire happiness on the actions of someone else.

Because they consider others to be responsible for their feelings, they are never in control

Meanwhile, the blackmailee becomes more and more hollow as a person.

As they sacrifice their own desires for someone else, they start to lose themselves.

They don't even know who they are anymore apart from the person they serve.

Ultimately, the blackmailer is a slave to the actions of others, and the blackmailee

But it sounds like you said there's another type of relationship: one based on love, not

Why do some people not succumb to emotional blackmail?

M: A sovereign person realizes that they're responsible for their own feelings and desires.

No one else can have ownership over their feelings, their desires, their thoughts, their

They are the sole proprietors, the only owners, of their own bodies.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Protect Yourself From Emotional Blackmail

perspective

entire

conscious

empathy