The Toxicity Survival Guide

Inspired by the introduction to Skye Cleary's How To Be Authentic, I explore the tension self-help has with core features of our identity as cycle breakers, and some of the reasons philosophy might be a better choice for us.

When you grow up in chaos, you often crave chaos later in life. In this episode, I talk about how to manage that craving for familiarity without engaging in the more self-destructive side of this tendency.

I have been struggling to articulate exactly why philosophy is so freaking powerful to folks who are going against the status quo. On the heels of running the world's first ever Practical Philosophy course, I finally figured it out. In this episode I break it all down.

I am spilling the tea on my colleagues! In this episode I explain why you tend to see a lot more psychology in cycle breaker spaces than you see philosophy, and what I am doing about the situation. 

After some hard thinking about what the real secret sauce is to philosophy, some changes are coming to Empowerment Through Thought. Inspired by the struggles with flying monkeys, I'll continue to serve my fellow survivors and call in all those seeking to go against the norms. 

There is trend in the healing space to reject psychology's talk therapy and embrace that healing must come at the level of the subconscious. In this episode, I explore how we can acknowledge the limitations of psychology's talk therapy without necessarily moving to the much more vulnerable space of the subconscious. I share how philosophy can is another way to engage in conscious dialogue that can produce extensive healing. And I share why I think philosophy has some intense benefits over psychology's approach to talk therapy. 

Suffering follows us wherever we are on the survivor journey. We might as well learn how to live well within its presence. In this episode, I share some of Marcus Auerilius' thoughts on how to deal with inevitable suffering. 

You may have heard of grey rock, but I bet you haven't heard of Stoic Philosophy or Marcus Auerilius. In this episode, I explain why understanding the philosophic foundation of this popular technique for navigating toxic people can help you immensely. I share how it helped me on my journey and why it can help  you deal with both guilt and anger. 

Started playing with my current angst in the form of a fiction piece and I have discovered that it is wildly difficult to live in the peace that so many of us strive for on the journey. 

We often strive to be the version of ourselves that are no longer burdened by the challenges of long-term abuse, but this idealization of our fully healed selves may be causing more harm than good. I explain why I think that there is no such thing as being fully healed and what survivors can focus on instead. 

Have you ever thought about how much power the algorithm has when it comes to your healing work? The more we rely on social media to help us on our healing journey, the more susceptible we are to the preferences of this robot. 

In this episode I explore the potential shortcomings of social media as a tool for healing from abuse and what you can do about it. 

Learning to allow emotions that once brought us a lot of heartache back into our lives in the wake of healing from toxic people can be a CHALLENGE. In this episode I reflect on my own recent experience crying in a public space and what us survivors can do who want to learn to heal our relationship to these formerly dangerous feelings. 

This episode is all about the identity crisis that comes up for us survivors of narcissistic abuse. Often we cling to old parts of ourselves since that served us well in navigating abusive environments, but as we make progress on the healing journey, we can struggle to make sense of these older parts of ourselves and the new folks that we are becoming. 

In this episode, I talk about the final communication my toxic father ever sent me. I discuss a particular "witnessing" technique that I have been using to help ease the absolute horror and dismay his final cruel words have created in me. 

I do not share any direct quotes from the letter, but I do discuss death and many of the harsh realities sacrifices we make to toxic parents. 

Email me: dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com

Ready for some fun healing! In this episode, I invite you to consider the stuff that toxic people forbid you from doing. I also share how this has been quite liberating on my own journey, including some spicy talk on the paranormal. 

When you are ready for some one-on-one support, reach out 

Email: dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com

Radical Curiosity can help you transform our tendency to judge ourselves harshly into something fun and playful. As survivors of narcissistic abuse, we internalized a lot of the negative judgements that toxic people handed out to us. Through radical curiosity we can let go of these habits to judge ourselves so harshly and instead learn to explore and play with ideas. I think that this is essential in our healing process. 

Email me: dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com

In this very raw episode, I share with you my recent experience of losing a friendship and how this too is part of the healing journey as survivors of narcissistic abuse. 

Email: Dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com 

Sometimes feeling ok isn't enough. At some point on your healing journey, you are likely to want to actually feel GOOD. But how the heck do we accomplish that after navigating so much darkness? I share my recently developed ideas on how exactly to do that. 

Much to my surprise, the memorial service of my toxic father was overall a good experience. In this episode I recap how the event went and unpack some of the reasons I think it was an overall good experience. 

Loneliness and isolation is one of the hardest things to deal with on our survivor journey. The bigger our boundaries get the more distant we can feel from the folks around us. In this episode, I talk about how I am working to ensure that us survivors never have to feel lonely again!

Toxic people taught us directly that we are not worthy of goodness and beauty in our lives. Unfortunately, survivors have likely interanlized these messages and are likely to have self-worth issues popping up in unexpected places. Listen to this episode to hear what I'm talking about and what you can do about it!

Hot of the heels of shutting down this house, I am bringing you a recap and the biggest lessons I learned along the way. If you have worried about what it will be like shutting down the house of a toxic person, this episode is for you. 

This episode original published in September 2021 covers such an important topic that I really wanted to bring it back to y'all. It is was a very difficult episode for me to originally come up with, and it hits on topics that are so so important in the abuse recovery journey. Hope you enjoy!

In this episode I share a piece I wrote on explaining what exactly philosophical counseling is. I explore how it differs from mental health services and how it compares to life-coaching. 

After a recent explosion on Instagram, it was clearly time to do a deep dive on the controversial topic of forgiveness. Many folks in the survivor community seem to think that you must forgive toxic people in order to heal. In this episode, I bring in the work of Aristotle, Kant, Hume, and a contemporary philosopher named John Kekes to show why forgiveness really is optional. 

While the standard advice for dealing with toxic people is to go no-contact, what enables a person to be able to do that often depends on a bunch of things that are outside their control. In this episode I explore how privilege plays into the decision to go no-contact, and why those folks who are not able to do so can still make a lot of progress on their journey. 

If you are ready for some support navigating toxic people in your life, reach out to me

Email: dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com

This episode I turn to the wisdom of Aristotle to help us unpack why anger is totally good and appropriate for us survivors of toxic family. I break down Aristotle's views on when anger is good into three main criteria and show how almost everyone who has experienced long term abuse at the hands of toxic family will benefit from being angry. 

Let me know what you think of this episode: 

So many survivors just want to officially close the chapter on this toxic relationship. Many of us imagine that if we just got an apology from the toxic person we could move forward with our lives. In this episode, I explore why this apology, even if you got it, is unlikely to bring you what you are looking for. 

Email: dr.louise @ empowermentthroughthought.com

It is hard to figure out what the right thing to do is when it comes to siblings. Whether you are navigating a younger sibling who is still legally in the custody of toxic parents or your adult sibling is acting as a flying monkey for your toxic parents, these situations are ethically complex! In this episode I give you three big ways that you can successfully navigate this situation. 

If you want to know more about philosophical counseling reach out: 

Email: dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com

We hear it all the time - "Don't talk bad about your parents, they were only doing their best." 

And it is a bunch of BS. Here is a deep dive look at why these sorts of comments are harmful. 

Email me: dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com

Overachieving survivors are amazing at getting focused to achieve their goals. But sometimes this ability can create a challenge in our pursuit of becoming a thriving survivor. I explore what those challenges look like and what you can do about it. 

Contact me: dr.louise@empowermentthroughthought.com

It can be very disruptive to be triggered as a survivor. In this episode, I talk about why triggers are hard to handle and also why they can actually help us advance on our healing journey. The answer might surprise you! 

Contact me: dr.louise @ empowermentthroughthought.com 

Three big ideas on why you should be setting those boundaries even if it is coming from a place of overreacting. 

I explore whether it make sense to be bitter and give some concrete tips on what you can do if you decide you want to let go of bitterness. 

This one might be controversial, but that supposed *need* to have somebody else tell you that you did the right thing might not be helping you on your healing journey. 

Toxic people abused us by controlling us, so turning around and exerting control over ourselves doesn't seem like a good plan. But then how do we push ourselves to do stuff outside of our comfort zone? The answer lies in recognizing our agency and really getting in touch with all the many choices that are available to us. 

The glories of January are upon us and so comes the horrible entourage of diet ads and exhausting exercise regimes. Here are three big reasons survivors should think twice before the jump on board the diet train. 

Three big things to be aware of as you move through the New Year Hype for 2022. These ideas can keep you from undermining your own healing work on this survivor journey. 

I cover three big reasons it is totally ok as a survivor to not be into the holidays. Survivors are on a complex journey and sometimes that holiday energy hits us differently depending on where we are in our healing journey. 

Be sure to get your complementary session booked. 

Inspired by a recent experience of having another coach steal my work over on Instagram, this episode covers red flags for working with professionals on your healing journey. 

After explaining how I am not totally healed when it comes to the holidays myself, I explain how I have done a bit better with Christmas. I lay out three big things you can do in order to heal your relationship to the holidays, even if you are still actively dealing with toxic people in your face. 

Three big strategies for getting through that dreaded holiday meal. 

If you are looking for more support, be sure to check out "Surviving the Holidays: How to Deal When You Are Navigating Toxic People" 

Toxic people are super challenging to deal with as an adult. They can be even more challenging to deal with as a kid. In this episode, I reflect on some of the things I would have liked as a child of toxic parents, and some concrete things you can do to help the kids in your life navigate these difficult topics. 

Surviving The Holidays Masterclass: 

Email me: dr.louise @ empowermentthroughthought.com

Three things I wish I knew before setting those big boundaries. The last one is so so important so be sure to listen till the end. 

Meditating and staying busy might have a role to play in the healing journey, but in general they aren't the end all be all solution that some folks make them out to be. In this episode, I pull on my background in Buddhist philosophy and my lived experience as a survivor to do a bit of a reality check on these methods. 

You hear all over the internet that you need to go no-contact the second you realize you are dealing with a toxic person. But that just isn't realistic. In this episode, I cover four indications that you may be ready to start exploring going no-contact. 

Are there any circumstances where the potential harm to us would be justified? I cover three conditions that might make it appropriate for you to have a meeting with a toxic person. There are a lot of variables to sort out to determine whether this is the right sort of move for you. 

After a bad experience with someone who was supposed to help me, I started to think about what things people should just never say to the survivors of toxic people. This episode is about three of them!

So maybe its not actually *being* a jerk, but it can definitely feel like being a jerk. Most survivors tend to be people who care a lot about taking care of the folks around them. While that is a beautiful thing, reclaiming our agency post-abuse sometimes requires stepping outside of that role. 

Survivors are often told that they shouldn't share their stories because it is stigmatizing to folks who have the same mental illnesses as their abuser. In this episode, I explore whether that has any merit and what, if any, conditions survivors should be open to revising their beliefs about toxic people. 

When you can balance being data driven while honoring your feelings, you have a powerful method for navigating toxic people. I contrast this method with being an emotion based survivor and discuss three reasons being an Evidence Based Survivor can help you on your journey. 

After sharing a bit on the timelines of my journey through my toxic parents, I share three things you can do to soothe the frustration we all feel about our speed of recovery from toxic people. 

Three concrete things you can do to get the closure that you deserve without having to put yourself in harm's way. 

I know this might make you feel uncomfortable, but seriously every bit of work you can put toward this one is absolutely worth it!

I am officially announcing the start of my newest challenge - Boundaries Maintenance! This 5-day challenge is all about helping you advance on your journey by maintaining the boundaries that you've established to protect yourself against toxicity. Besides announcing the challenge, I give some general tips and tricks on how to navigate the boundaries maintenance stage of navigating toxic people!

It's high time I talked about what you should actually do when you are ready to get the toxic people out of your life. In this episode, I break it down into a 5 step process. 

Here I lay out TWO different things you can do to start sorting this out for yourself.