April 30, 2025 • 29 mins
It's time to stop your brain from talking you out of what really happened, what was really said, and what events actually transpired that day in your life. It’s interesting how we create narratives in our minds as to what happened in a given situation, we change and augment those events to better align with keeping our current situation to offset the feelings of fear or uncertainty. We allow this reality augmentation to occur when it comes to current overwhelming events, phenomena without logical answers, and in our interpersonal relationships. In this podcast, I am offering you solutions to remember things as they happened and how to put an end to the unhealthy loop of accepting manipulation and gaslighting. These techniques will empower you and help you to get out of the matrix of codependency and stop waisting your time in exhausting relationships loops.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're in a good place now. You are listening to
Perspectives with Ashley Burgets. Welcome back live to the Ashley
Burgess Show previously known as Livirtrue Life Perspectives, and on
today's podcast, I want to discuss and really deep dive
into how we allow our brain to talk us out
(00:22):
of what actually happened, what was said in a situation,
and what events that transpired and took place, because I
find it very interesting how we can talk ourselves out
of something or into something, and sometimes what really took
place is completely different than what we remember or how
(00:43):
we process it. We can actually create narratives in our
head to change what took place to better fit our lifestyle,
our narrative, what we want in our life. We change
and augment things because we tell ourselves one thing, or
we need to live this life, or we need to
(01:04):
be in this situation, or we need to be in
this relationship, or we believe that we should be in
this career no matter whatever that is. And this happens
in real situations as well, like current events, where we
will change it like something really did happen, and then
you're like, well, there's no way that actually took place
there's no way, and so we make up an entire
(01:26):
narrative to make it easier on ourselves to not get
scared of things, to feel as though we have a
really good beat on things, and so on today's show,
I really want to discuss that, and more so even
not just how we do it in current events, right,
and things that happen you're like, oh my gosh, did
that really happen? And we color it and we change
(01:46):
it and we make it out to be something different.
But I want to talk about it in relationships and
how we do that in our relationships today. Many of
you are doing this in your marriage, in your current relationship,
even maybe at your job, your career, or in your
family dynamic, maybe even with your parents or what have you,
and you're changing and augmenting things from what's really taking place,
(02:09):
and we need to be able to see and recognize
this as happening. Why it's important to recognize it is that, well,
when we change what really happened, we kind of find
ourselves in a pattern, right, because many of us change
things because we don't really want to see the truth.
We'd rather avoid the truth or avoid the situation and
(02:30):
hope that things will get better on their own. And
I think that some of us are in these patterns
of action because maybe we've been down this road multiple
multiple times, maybe with somebody different or maybe the same person,
and we just don't want to deal with that. We
don't want to have to argue it, we don't want
to have to shine light on it, what have you.
(02:53):
And those are things that we really need to look
at in today's podcasts. So in our relationship, we tend
to rewrite history, making either somebody the angel or somebody
the devil. And some of you are not, you know,
black and white thinkers. So I'm not saying many of us,
you know, see obviously shades of let's say gray. But
(03:16):
I do find that interesting when I work with clients.
Most of my clients are the avatar that is coming
from the position of, Hey, I've just gotten this new
relationship with this person and they're telling me that their
ex is a narcissistic abuser. You know, what do you
think about that? And you know, sometimes that could be
the case, but it depends on how we see the
(03:37):
concept of narcissistic abuser, right, I mean the way that
you probably see it is the way I see it
where it's somebody that's you know, a bully and all
self centered and mentally and emotionally putting somebody down and
gas slighting them and manipulating them and hurting their feelings
where that could be their definition or their definition could
be very different, and so they can color their exes
(03:59):
as devil and horrible people and abusers and what have you.
And then you have some people out there too where
you know, they lose a spouse or they or they
or a relationship falls apart, and even though the relationship
was you know, smattered with lots of problems and difficulties
and issues, and maybe that person had some issues of
their own, maybe lots of issues of their own, you know,
(04:21):
the other person still, you know, colors them as this angel,
this amazing person that got away, this amazing angel. This
you know they couldn't do and they could do no wrong,
you know, they put them on that pedestal and they
think every day about they lost out on this amazing,
perfect relationship. And I find that the narratives that we
(04:44):
create keep us in patterns of thought, they also keep
us in patterns of manipulation and control. Right, So if
you are in these types of patterns, there's somebody probably
on the other end who is controlling you, controlling in
the narrative, and you're allowing them to as well. And
so you know, when we have tendencies of being people pleasers,
(05:07):
of trying to help people out of trying to do
the right thing, and many of us come from, you know,
the people pleasing kind of standpoints. As far as when
you were being raised, there were issues and problem dynamics
in your family dynamic, right, so you know, if you
had this perfect childhood and mom and dad were amazing
(05:28):
and everybody was like, you know, very supportive and helpful
and and committed to being there at the highest level,
you know, I don't think you'd be tuned into this podcast,
and you know your life would probably be amazing right
on all levels, because you would have been given the
fuel to be able to come from a space of
(05:49):
not limitation or feeling bad about yourself or trying to
be better or trying to get attention from others, because
you would already have it right. It wouldn't be something
and you wouldn't have to be in that code dependent
stance because you know, they would be giving you what
you need and vice aversa, you wouldn't have to be
helping them to get the attention you need from them,
(06:11):
you know, in order to facilitate this type of codependent relationship,
right where I do these things for you, and therefore
you care about me. But if I don't do these things,
then you don't and you're incapable of taking care of
yourself as well. Talking about the parent dynamic, right, And
so when we come from that dynamic taking care of
(06:31):
mom and dad or mom or dad, and we find
ourselves giving and giving and giving and not even knowing
exactly if you know, we necessarily want to give all
the time, or if this is really coming from an
altruistic place, or is this just coming from the fact
that now my entire concept of my value has become
based on the fact that I do things for other people.
(06:53):
And that's how I was raised as a child, coming
out of the situation with the parent dynamic. And I
think many of you fit this avatar. And so when
you find yourself in different relationships, you begin to try
to tackle the big issues with these people and try
to help them, But at the same time they're doing
things that might be very negative, possibly very unhealthy or
(07:18):
maybe even manipulating you, and we'll go into that and
you know, instead of really looking at it honestly, you know,
maybe we discard that because of the fear of being
alone or the fear of abandonment, or we keep wanting to,
you know, help that person out because we feel if
we can help them, then that adds to our values.
So even though they might be fighting us and shooting
(07:40):
a hole in the boat, we're still trying to patch
the boat every night as much as we can because
our value is about getting that boat to safety. With
everybody concerned, we're not really thinking about our own mental, emotional,
and absolute spiritual safety that we need to have. So
we color what are the events of things that happened
(08:01):
with our feelings and emotions right, the needs that we have.
So something might be really bad, and maybe we're in
a relationship that's very toxic, but yet you know, we
wake up every morning, you know, telling us says, oh wow,
you know I live in this great house, or you know, hey,
things are going to get better, or you know things
have gotten you know, things have been good in the past,
and so we sleep on things, right, we sleep on
(08:22):
things and in the process of sleeping on things. Many
of us revert back to the beginning of the relationship.
You know how great the beginning was, and the connection
and the conversations that were had in the beginning, and
so we use that as a point where this was,
this was there in the beginning, this was this was happening,
This was actually real, This really took place. Now, we
(08:44):
don't we don't want to acknowledge the fact that, yes,
there was a pedestal phase and some people might have
been loved bombing us, or it was the newness of
the relationship, or people weren't being extremely honest and there
was still a mask on that sort of thing. We
don't want to see any of that. We just know, Hey, back,
you know seven months ago or two years ago or
five years ago, you know this was actually working. And
(09:06):
so I'm gonna wake up and pretend to some degree
that this never happened. And some of you are so
good at it you actually forget the events of each night.
Because I think there's a lot of PTSD going on,
because there's these negative patterns. You're trying to change things,
things won't change. And so if I just sweep it
under the rug, I don't really think about it, maybe
things will be better today. And I find that one
(09:30):
of the most helpful things that you can do, and
I personally do it as well with regards to specific
relationships in my life, is I keep a tally a
notebook of situations, circumstances and events that take place. And
I keep that because I like to keep and it's
(09:52):
not like a record, so to speak, but I like
to keep a mental record for myself. So there's certain
things that I don't forget. I don't try to colorize,
I don't try to change or augment, because there's patterns
in many people's actions, and there's patterns and things that
people do that if we actually begin to see it clearly,
(10:15):
we begin to see it clearly, we can have power.
And now I want to give one caveat because I
know that some of you might be thinking, huh, well,
you know, maybe if I sweep it on the rug,
eventually things will get better, and you know, there's a
possibility for anything. But also the longer we sweep it
under the rug something that's constantly happening, the longer we're
in this toxic, unhealthy relationship, the more time we're wasting
(10:37):
in our own life, the more time of our life
that we're putting on the back burner, you know, and
think about it, it's like, Okay, do you want to
keep wasting the time in this situation? And I don't
mean to say wasting, because you know, tough lessons are
not necessarily a waste of time. But do we always
want to go through the tough lessons constantly? And do
we want to elongate these tough lessons out for years
(10:59):
upon years upon years. And I know some of you
out there saying, well, I'm already in five years of this,
you know, And I understand too. It's the time I
put all this time and I put all this effort
in and I get that. I understand that. But sometimes
we have to step back from that narrative as well
and really ask ourselves, like what what do we really want?
(11:20):
You know, what would really be important? It's not about
making us happy. We can only make ourselves happy. Like
when I hear people say, oh, he makes me so
happy or she makes me so happy, it makes me
want to vomit. And the reason for that is not
because I'm like rude and crude. It's just because if
somebody makes you happy, they can also make you really sad.
(11:41):
If they can make you sad, for example, if they
leave and you're distraught, right, that's not going to be
healthy for you. Not to say that we don't want
to have emotions in our relationship, but you don't want
to give somebody like your entire happiness, like, oh, because
they're in my life, I'm happy. But when they leave, okay,
so then what happens. We have to actually make ourselves happy.
(12:02):
And happy is such a weird, kind of strange blanket
word that really doesn't have that much meaning. We have
to make ourselves content, I think content at peace. As
far as you know, you don't have this racing brain.
You're not freaked out all the time, you're not stressed out.
(12:22):
You know, when somebody's inner out of your life, it
doesn't make you go from one extreme to another. Instead,
you can be very level. And that's what's very important,
because we have to create the stability in our own life,
and then that stability needs to be like an anchor.
That stability needs to be like the foundation of your home,
which is your body, where you can control that. You
(12:45):
don't want someone else in control of that foundation, you know,
where they can demo that at any moment, or they
can add pain to that, or they can pull up
the rugs from up underneath you. And some people might
get some joy from that as well. And unfortunately, there's
a lot of people out there that manipulate and control
with because of their own psychosis and issues. Right, because
you know, an unhappy person, an unhealthy person, you know,
(13:10):
is coming from that fact of a hurt person. Right,
So a hurt person is going to hurt people, Okay,
and when you get involved with a hurt person, they
will hurt you. I know that you might think that
you're the special one, the chosen one, the special friend,
the special relationship, the best person in their life. And
that's also part of our you know, our codependency and
our desire to make things work. But again I'm just
(13:31):
saying I would love to assume that you're above it.
But again, you know, their track record shows different that
nobody's above the hurt quotient. They're going to hurt you
until they take you down notches to make you feel bad,
to get you where they feel like they're above you. Right,
Because that's the type of person that you're dealing with
when you're dealing with hurt people. I'm not not judging them.
(13:54):
I'm just saying, you know what you get into when
you are with a hurt person that has not gotten help,
is not seeking therapy, is not in coaching, is not
working on themselves, has nothing they consider themselves having nothing
wrong with them. Okay, when you're with that type of
a hurt person, you're with somebody that has absolutely nothing
to lose. And a lot of times, in my own practice,
(14:16):
in my work, a lot of times what I see
is that that hurts a lot of my clients and
we have to regain ourselves. We have to rebuild our
identity throughout the process and figure out who we are
in order to get over that relationship, because they've done
a number on us and we have to overcome that
abuse that we have have been through, and some of
it is not just for a year, it's years at
(14:36):
a time, and we have to rebuild ourselves. So I
like to keep the tally of events just so I
remember things as they happen instead of what they're told
to me later on, because a lot of times people
will change the way that things happen or they'll rewrite history. Okay,
we see that a lot of times with regards to everything,
(14:56):
the rewriting of history, and so in a relationship that
happens too, right, So if you can do it on
a big level, you can do it on a relationship
level as well. So one of the really interesting examples
of rewriting history that we do even as children, and
I want to talk about this is many of you
were born into a family dynamic where mom and dad
(15:20):
honestly were just not good parents. Okay, some of them
are very very poor parents as far as very neglectful,
and I just you know, just really bad parenting. You know,
they weren't there for you. They didn't take care of you.
You know, you had to find for yourself. There were
times where you know things, you know, maybe the electricity
(15:40):
wasn't on, and it wasn't because they didn't have the money,
they didn't care, they didn't get you the food you needed,
or they didn't take care of you, or they were
too busy, you know, going out to the clubs or
drinking or doing drugs or whatever that was going on, okay,
and they didn't take care of you. And so as
a little kid, we can't we don't have the ability
to process the fact that Hey, mom and dad are
(16:01):
really neglectful. They're really bad parents, you know, And I
really got born into a bad parent dynamic. Hm. I
need to fend for myself, but I recognize the fact
that these people shouldn't have had kids. No, we don't
think about that when we're kids. We don't think about that, right,
we don't sit there and analyze and judge. Hey, mom
seems to be very self centered and probably very narcissistic.
(16:22):
Dad seems to have sociopathic tendencies and doesn't listen to
a word I say. I haven't heard that out of
any three, four, five, six year old, right, Okay, But
you know what we do is we rewrite the concept.
We rewrite history. Instead, we turn it around on us
and say we're a bad kid. I must be a
bad child. Something's wrong with me, because otherwise mom or
(16:44):
dad would be here for me. I must be a
horrible child. Okay, I must be horrible and I need
to prove my value to my parents. I must be
able to prove my value because obviously I haven't stepped
up to the plate. And that is the narrative that
many of you have sold yourself in order to not
hate your parents. Okay, like not be like down on
(17:06):
your parents, you know, I mean, you sell yourself this
bill of goods in order to continue to survive and
the family dynamic. That's what you do, right. We do
this all the time in our adult life. We do
this all the time with the news and history in
our relationships. We do this all the time, right, because
it's easier to put the pain on us. Okay, this
(17:27):
has to be my fault, my problem, my issue, because
that way I feel like I'm kind of in control. Right.
I put it on me because that's the only power
I have is to make changes within my life. And
then many of you do. What I like to say
is like the all star move. As far as you
become everything you try to. You try to be the
top in your class. You try to be the best
(17:48):
sports if you're if you're a boy, you try to
be the best, best kid in sports. So you try
to be the best in band, or you try to
as a girl, you try to be this or that
or whatever it is. And you're trying to prove your
value all the time. I'm in school in sports, you know,
trying to prove your parents what you do, doing things
around the house, that sort of thing. And sometimes you
get kudos and what have you, and sometimes you don't.
(18:11):
And you keep just trying to get their attention. And
the more you do, the more you think you're going
to get their attention, the harder you work. And in
this process of working harder, you're not working to take
because these are the things you want to do. You're
doing this because you want to impress them. You're trying
to get their attention. Okay, and you've already you know,
you've already changed the narrative where you know you're the problem,
(18:34):
You're the issue, You're the problem child. It's not their problem.
So remember you keep doing more and more and more
thinking that again, you're the problem. And this happens in
our adult relationships when somebody when you're in a relationship
with someone who's manipulating you or lying to you, and
you might actually know it, you can feel it, you
can watch it. You know it. You know that they're
lying to you, you know that they're manipulating you, you
(18:57):
know that they're playing a game on you. You know
what they're trying to do. And some of you don't
want to deal with it. I mean, some of you
just can't deal with it. It's so painful to know that
this person is doing this on purpose that you keep
denying that this is happening, okay, or you keep changing
the narrative to give them the benefit of the doubt. Well,
(19:17):
you know they had a bad childhood, you know, and
or I think they were you know, physically abused, which
I'm not discrediting. I'm just saying, we give all these outs.
Oh they well, this happened to them, This happened to them,
This happened to them, right, So that's why they act
that way. But if I keep giving them more attention
(19:37):
and being there for them, they'll see my value. Now
we don't actually consciously think that we just if I
just give more, if I'm just there for them more,
if I'm just the listening ear more, if I just
hold them up more, if I just if I just
you know, give them this and do this more, you
know they'll be better, you know. I and I find
that interesting because that happens with a lot of people.
(20:00):
People that fall into this trap is that you're telling
yourself you're you're giving them an out for their actions,
their manipulation. They're lying their gas line. So you're giving
them an out, and then you're putting all the cargo
on your back to carry all this luggage and baggage
because you know it's got to be you. It's all
gonna fall on you. You have to take care of it,
(20:21):
you know, because that's what you've always done. And so
there's part of it where the narrative is interesting because
you've given them an out. The other part of it
is that you're kind of also taking It's almost like
you're seeing them as like this child or this like
wounded little kid, and so they're allowed to get away
with it, with whatever. You're also kind of taking the
(20:42):
power away from them in a way, because this is
their own karma, this is their own direction. They can
do whatever they want. We can't change anybody. If they
want to go crazy and do what they do, that's
what they do. You can try to calm them down,
you can try to reason with them, but in the end,
they are another human. They have rights to do what
they want to, just like anybody else. Not to hurt anybody,
(21:04):
not to you know, but they have rights to do
what they want to do, and so you trying to
help them, they end up seeing that as control. Okay,
So then they create their narrative because they are so
out of control, right, they create their narrative that they're
fine and that you're just a controlling, manipulating person. And
then that's a lot of times where you know, the
(21:25):
names will fail out, the narcissist names and everything, because
they're fighting you. Because they're fighting you, and the more
they fight you, and the more that they put things
on you, the more defensive you become. The more defensive
you become. Right, the less that you keep bringing up
their issues, they're the stuff that they have to deal with,
(21:46):
the easier it is for them to continue to do
what they do if you're not calling it out and
they're getting away with it. Remember this, it's like a
kid having a tantrum. Right, If you keep enabling them,
which is what you're doing, you're enabling them. If you
keep enabling them, why do they have to change? They
only have to change if you don't accept it anymore,
(22:07):
you know. And it was interesting. I was talking to
a client the other day and I would say that
I've heard this probably a thousand times, and I hate
to say that, but with the parent dynamic, it's like,
you know, they were trying to impress mom or dad,
and you know, and in these situations usually there's you know,
multiple kids involved, and usually my client was not the favorite,
but there was a favorite, and you know, trying to
(22:30):
go against that is very challenging. Trying to prove your
value is very challenging. And I think that in those
situations where there is a favorite, you know, the non
favorite never really wins, you know, I mean, it's not
you know, there's no winning in this. This is just
this is you know, a parent that it has a
deficiency that is probably closer to one of the siblings
(22:51):
more because that sibling, you know, kisses their ass or
does what they want to do. And I find that
interesting because when you can't win over that mother or father,
their dynamic in the relationships that you have after that,
you're constantly still trying to win them over. And what
I mean by winning them over is I mean you're
trying to get their acceptance and approval. That's what it is.
(23:15):
So if you find yourself in these toxic dynamics and
you continue to hang out and spend time with raging narcissists, right,
that's going through this process and not just narcissism. We
don't We don't need to just say narcissm. Anytime that
somebody has uh, somebody's manipulative, controlling line, somebody that has
(23:36):
psychosis to the degree that they are manipulating controlling you
line to you. Someone that's not coming from a place
of honesty and authentic you know self, that's a problem.
So we don't have to label it as narcissism. We
just we just realize that this is not the same vibration,
This is not the same level of relationship that you
probably need in your life. This isn't aiding and embedding
(23:57):
in you. It's only just taking away from you. And
so we have to really look at this relationship and
how somebody is manipulating or lying to us. We have
to kind of see that and begin to write that down.
And I like to keep a tally of it, and
whether they are gas lighting or lying to convince you
of something, or are you choosing to lie to yourself or
(24:18):
to overlook things? Okay, because this is a two way street.
It takes two to tango, right. Even if somebody is
lying and gaslighting me and manipulating me, I can choose
to see that for what it is and say, hey,
I'm not gonna accept this anymore. And eventually, if you're
not gonna change your behavior, I'm kind of OUTI you know,
but it takes two to tango for the other person
(24:39):
to you know, be nice the next day and sugarcoat
it over and then do it all over again, and
then you act like it doesn't exist, or you can
call it out and keep certain with that and and
be honest with yourself and ask is this a little
bit of a trickle down effect? Which I believe it
is from childhood, because I don't think this person would
have that much of a hold on you if this
(25:01):
isn't just a perfect puzzle piece for how you were raised.
And so, you know, when we're dealing with somebody that's
compulsively lying or gaslighting us or manipulating us to feel
or act a certain way, we really just have to
be honest with ourselves because if this is really happening,
(25:23):
which for most of you, it is really happening, okay, uh,
and stop trying to tell yourself that it's not. I mean,
And I think sometimes when you just write it down
and you put the dates and times, and you write
things down and you start seeing it for yourself. Okay,
this is how we do lot. This is logic, you know.
And we have these different you know, pieces of evidence
(25:44):
and information. We have these you know, these you know,
the these kind of like data points here, and then
we kind of look at all these data points and
we realize you can't overlook all these data points. But see,
the brain wants us to because the brain is used
to this path or a behavior. We do these things
for other people even though we might not want to.
We do these things to prove, to try to get value,
(26:06):
to probably prove our value, to try to get acceptance
and approval. It doesn't work. We keep doing it, and
we keep going to the wrong people to get it.
We keep remember this, We keep going to the wrong
people to get the acceptance and approval over and over
and over again. You have to break that cycle. So
(26:29):
the longer you stay in a manipulative situation, I mean
you might say, oh, it's the money, or it's this,
or it's that, or we have a property together, or
we have this, or we have a dog together, or
we have a child together. You can still raise that
child and co parent. It's gonna be tough. It's gonna
be tough. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. It's
already tough living with them, right, but you could do it.
(26:50):
But there's some point where you say, what is right
for me and what do I deserve in my life?
Is just what I deserve? And you have to ask
yourself that question too, because some people like pain or
have accepted pain as a choice in the relationship, and
so really uncovering these things are very important because remember,
the brain likes to change the narrative to keep you
(27:12):
in the loop. You know, the longer you're in the loop,
you don't change. The universe doesn't have to change for you, right,
so then nothing has to be done. It's status quo.
Things go on as usual. And so that's why I
want you to really start taking initiative in your relationships
(27:34):
to really recognize what is truly happening, what people are
honestly doing around you, what they're constantly doing around you,
watching their patterns, their choices of actions, their lives, their deceits.
I want you to take itallya that writing this down,
dating it, timing it in a journal, keeping it very private,
(27:56):
so that you can start looking and seeing what's happening
here because all these data points are going to make
your mind go Okay, do I want to keep going in?
Do I want to keep lying on myself? Or am
I ready to accept the reality here and to accept
the reality that I've been in this relationship. It's not
because of my doing. It's not because I'm a bad person.
I'm a good person that got trained into this process
(28:20):
at an early age. I was trained in this process.
So I have to give myself some grace, and I
want you to really think about that, giving yourself some grace.
I hope that this podcast has helped you. Please share
it with anybody that needs to hear this message. Please,
you know, I'm trying to get the word out. You know,
don't do any advertising. I just want to get the
word out so that people can learn and grow as
(28:43):
much as they possibly can, so that they can be happy,
so that they can be you know, positive, and grow
in their life in the right way, and to end
these patterns once and for all. By ending these patterns,
our lives changed in such an amazing way. And so
(29:03):
please share this if you ever already check out my
website Ashley Burgers dot com Ashleyburgs dot com. You can
set up a session right there online thirty sixty or
ninety minute sessions. Also, don't forget the YouTube channel. At
least twice a week we put up new video content.
You go to YouTube put in life Coach Ashley Burgess,
(29:23):
you'll find a channel. Please subscribe if you haven't already.
We were almost hit two hundred thousand subscribers. And again,
remember it was not your fault, but we do have
to turn the ship around and guess what, you're the
captain of the ship. Don't miss next week's show, The
Ashley Burgess Show. You know I'll be back this time.
(29:43):
I'll be back this time. You know it. I'll be
back this time. In three shakes,
You're in a good place now. You are listening to
Perspectives with Ashley Burgets. Welcome back live to the Ashley
Burgess Show previously known as Livirtrue Life Perspectives, and on
today's podcast, I want to discuss and really deep dive
into how we allow our brain to talk us out
(00:22):
of what actually happened, what was said in a situation,
and what events that transpired and took place, because I
find it very interesting how we can talk ourselves out
of something or into something, and sometimes what really took
place is completely different than what we remember or how
(00:43):
we process it. We can actually create narratives in our
head to change what took place to better fit our lifestyle,
our narrative, what we want in our life. We change
and augment things because we tell ourselves one thing, or
we need to live this life, or we need to
(01:04):
be in this situation, or we need to be in
this relationship, or we believe that we should be in
this career no matter whatever that is. And this happens
in real situations as well, like current events, where we
will change it like something really did happen, and then
you're like, well, there's no way that actually took place
there's no way, and so we make up an entire
(01:26):
narrative to make it easier on ourselves to not get
scared of things, to feel as though we have a
really good beat on things, and so on today's show,
I really want to discuss that, and more so even
not just how we do it in current events, right,
and things that happen you're like, oh my gosh, did
that really happen? And we color it and we change
(01:46):
it and we make it out to be something different.
But I want to talk about it in relationships and
how we do that in our relationships today. Many of
you are doing this in your marriage, in your current relationship,
even maybe at your job, your career, or in your
family dynamic, maybe even with your parents or what have you,
and you're changing and augmenting things from what's really taking place,
(02:09):
and we need to be able to see and recognize
this as happening. Why it's important to recognize it is that, well,
when we change what really happened, we kind of find
ourselves in a pattern, right, because many of us change
things because we don't really want to see the truth.
We'd rather avoid the truth or avoid the situation and
(02:30):
hope that things will get better on their own. And
I think that some of us are in these patterns
of action because maybe we've been down this road multiple
multiple times, maybe with somebody different or maybe the same person,
and we just don't want to deal with that. We
don't want to have to argue it, we don't want
to have to shine light on it, what have you.
(02:53):
And those are things that we really need to look
at in today's podcasts. So in our relationship, we tend
to rewrite history, making either somebody the angel or somebody
the devil. And some of you are not, you know,
black and white thinkers. So I'm not saying many of us,
you know, see obviously shades of let's say gray. But
(03:16):
I do find that interesting when I work with clients.
Most of my clients are the avatar that is coming
from the position of, Hey, I've just gotten this new
relationship with this person and they're telling me that their
ex is a narcissistic abuser. You know, what do you
think about that? And you know, sometimes that could be
the case, but it depends on how we see the
(03:37):
concept of narcissistic abuser, right, I mean the way that
you probably see it is the way I see it
where it's somebody that's you know, a bully and all
self centered and mentally and emotionally putting somebody down and
gas slighting them and manipulating them and hurting their feelings
where that could be their definition or their definition could
be very different, and so they can color their exes
(03:59):
as devil and horrible people and abusers and what have you.
And then you have some people out there too where
you know, they lose a spouse or they or they
or a relationship falls apart, and even though the relationship
was you know, smattered with lots of problems and difficulties
and issues, and maybe that person had some issues of
their own, maybe lots of issues of their own, you know,
(04:21):
the other person still, you know, colors them as this angel,
this amazing person that got away, this amazing angel. This
you know they couldn't do and they could do no wrong,
you know, they put them on that pedestal and they
think every day about they lost out on this amazing,
perfect relationship. And I find that the narratives that we
(04:44):
create keep us in patterns of thought, they also keep
us in patterns of manipulation and control. Right, So if
you are in these types of patterns, there's somebody probably
on the other end who is controlling you, controlling in
the narrative, and you're allowing them to as well. And
so you know, when we have tendencies of being people pleasers,
(05:07):
of trying to help people out of trying to do
the right thing, and many of us come from, you know,
the people pleasing kind of standpoints. As far as when
you were being raised, there were issues and problem dynamics
in your family dynamic, right, so you know, if you
had this perfect childhood and mom and dad were amazing
(05:28):
and everybody was like, you know, very supportive and helpful
and and committed to being there at the highest level,
you know, I don't think you'd be tuned into this podcast,
and you know your life would probably be amazing right
on all levels, because you would have been given the
fuel to be able to come from a space of
(05:49):
not limitation or feeling bad about yourself or trying to
be better or trying to get attention from others, because
you would already have it right. It wouldn't be something
and you wouldn't have to be in that code dependent
stance because you know, they would be giving you what
you need and vice aversa, you wouldn't have to be
helping them to get the attention you need from them,
(06:11):
you know, in order to facilitate this type of codependent relationship,
right where I do these things for you, and therefore
you care about me. But if I don't do these things,
then you don't and you're incapable of taking care of
yourself as well. Talking about the parent dynamic, right, And
so when we come from that dynamic taking care of
(06:31):
mom and dad or mom or dad, and we find
ourselves giving and giving and giving and not even knowing
exactly if you know, we necessarily want to give all
the time, or if this is really coming from an
altruistic place, or is this just coming from the fact
that now my entire concept of my value has become
based on the fact that I do things for other people.
(06:53):
And that's how I was raised as a child, coming
out of the situation with the parent dynamic. And I
think many of you fit this avatar. And so when
you find yourself in different relationships, you begin to try
to tackle the big issues with these people and try
to help them, But at the same time they're doing
things that might be very negative, possibly very unhealthy or
(07:18):
maybe even manipulating you, and we'll go into that and
you know, instead of really looking at it honestly, you know,
maybe we discard that because of the fear of being
alone or the fear of abandonment, or we keep wanting to,
you know, help that person out because we feel if
we can help them, then that adds to our values.
So even though they might be fighting us and shooting
(07:40):
a hole in the boat, we're still trying to patch
the boat every night as much as we can because
our value is about getting that boat to safety. With
everybody concerned, we're not really thinking about our own mental, emotional,
and absolute spiritual safety that we need to have. So
we color what are the events of things that happened
(08:01):
with our feelings and emotions right, the needs that we have.
So something might be really bad, and maybe we're in
a relationship that's very toxic, but yet you know, we
wake up every morning, you know, telling us says, oh wow,
you know I live in this great house, or you know, hey,
things are going to get better, or you know things
have gotten you know, things have been good in the past,
and so we sleep on things, right, we sleep on
(08:22):
things and in the process of sleeping on things. Many
of us revert back to the beginning of the relationship.
You know how great the beginning was, and the connection
and the conversations that were had in the beginning, and
so we use that as a point where this was,
this was there in the beginning, this was this was happening,
This was actually real, This really took place. Now, we
(08:44):
don't we don't want to acknowledge the fact that, yes,
there was a pedestal phase and some people might have
been loved bombing us, or it was the newness of
the relationship, or people weren't being extremely honest and there
was still a mask on that sort of thing. We
don't want to see any of that. We just know, Hey, back,
you know seven months ago or two years ago or
five years ago, you know this was actually working. And
(09:06):
so I'm gonna wake up and pretend to some degree
that this never happened. And some of you are so
good at it you actually forget the events of each night.
Because I think there's a lot of PTSD going on,
because there's these negative patterns. You're trying to change things,
things won't change. And so if I just sweep it
under the rug, I don't really think about it, maybe
things will be better today. And I find that one
(09:30):
of the most helpful things that you can do, and
I personally do it as well with regards to specific
relationships in my life, is I keep a tally a
notebook of situations, circumstances and events that take place. And
I keep that because I like to keep and it's
(09:52):
not like a record, so to speak, but I like
to keep a mental record for myself. So there's certain
things that I don't forget. I don't try to colorize,
I don't try to change or augment, because there's patterns
in many people's actions, and there's patterns and things that
people do that if we actually begin to see it clearly,
(10:15):
we begin to see it clearly, we can have power.
And now I want to give one caveat because I
know that some of you might be thinking, huh, well,
you know, maybe if I sweep it on the rug,
eventually things will get better, and you know, there's a
possibility for anything. But also the longer we sweep it
under the rug something that's constantly happening, the longer we're
in this toxic, unhealthy relationship, the more time we're wasting
(10:37):
in our own life, the more time of our life
that we're putting on the back burner, you know, and
think about it, it's like, Okay, do you want to
keep wasting the time in this situation? And I don't
mean to say wasting, because you know, tough lessons are
not necessarily a waste of time. But do we always
want to go through the tough lessons constantly? And do
we want to elongate these tough lessons out for years
(10:59):
upon years upon years. And I know some of you
out there saying, well, I'm already in five years of this,
you know, And I understand too. It's the time I
put all this time and I put all this effort
in and I get that. I understand that. But sometimes
we have to step back from that narrative as well
and really ask ourselves, like what what do we really want?
(11:20):
You know, what would really be important? It's not about
making us happy. We can only make ourselves happy. Like
when I hear people say, oh, he makes me so
happy or she makes me so happy, it makes me
want to vomit. And the reason for that is not
because I'm like rude and crude. It's just because if
somebody makes you happy, they can also make you really sad.
(11:41):
If they can make you sad, for example, if they
leave and you're distraught, right, that's not going to be
healthy for you. Not to say that we don't want
to have emotions in our relationship, but you don't want
to give somebody like your entire happiness, like, oh, because
they're in my life, I'm happy. But when they leave, okay,
so then what happens. We have to actually make ourselves happy.
(12:02):
And happy is such a weird, kind of strange blanket
word that really doesn't have that much meaning. We have
to make ourselves content, I think content at peace. As
far as you know, you don't have this racing brain.
You're not freaked out all the time, you're not stressed out.
(12:22):
You know, when somebody's inner out of your life, it
doesn't make you go from one extreme to another. Instead,
you can be very level. And that's what's very important,
because we have to create the stability in our own life,
and then that stability needs to be like an anchor.
That stability needs to be like the foundation of your home,
which is your body, where you can control that. You
(12:45):
don't want someone else in control of that foundation, you know,
where they can demo that at any moment, or they
can add pain to that, or they can pull up
the rugs from up underneath you. And some people might
get some joy from that as well. And unfortunately, there's
a lot of people out there that manipulate and control
with because of their own psychosis and issues. Right, because
you know, an unhappy person, an unhealthy person, you know,
(13:10):
is coming from that fact of a hurt person. Right,
So a hurt person is going to hurt people, Okay,
and when you get involved with a hurt person, they
will hurt you. I know that you might think that
you're the special one, the chosen one, the special friend,
the special relationship, the best person in their life. And
that's also part of our you know, our codependency and
our desire to make things work. But again I'm just
(13:31):
saying I would love to assume that you're above it.
But again, you know, their track record shows different that
nobody's above the hurt quotient. They're going to hurt you
until they take you down notches to make you feel bad,
to get you where they feel like they're above you. Right,
Because that's the type of person that you're dealing with
when you're dealing with hurt people. I'm not not judging them.
(13:54):
I'm just saying, you know what you get into when
you are with a hurt person that has not gotten help,
is not seeking therapy, is not in coaching, is not
working on themselves, has nothing they consider themselves having nothing
wrong with them. Okay, when you're with that type of
a hurt person, you're with somebody that has absolutely nothing
to lose. And a lot of times, in my own practice,
(14:16):
in my work, a lot of times what I see
is that that hurts a lot of my clients and
we have to regain ourselves. We have to rebuild our
identity throughout the process and figure out who we are
in order to get over that relationship, because they've done
a number on us and we have to overcome that
abuse that we have have been through, and some of
it is not just for a year, it's years at
(14:36):
a time, and we have to rebuild ourselves. So I
like to keep the tally of events just so I
remember things as they happen instead of what they're told
to me later on, because a lot of times people
will change the way that things happen or they'll rewrite history. Okay,
we see that a lot of times with regards to everything,
(14:56):
the rewriting of history, and so in a relationship that
happens too, right, So if you can do it on
a big level, you can do it on a relationship
level as well. So one of the really interesting examples
of rewriting history that we do even as children, and
I want to talk about this is many of you
were born into a family dynamic where mom and dad
(15:20):
honestly were just not good parents. Okay, some of them
are very very poor parents as far as very neglectful,
and I just you know, just really bad parenting. You know,
they weren't there for you. They didn't take care of you.
You know, you had to find for yourself. There were
times where you know things, you know, maybe the electricity
(15:40):
wasn't on, and it wasn't because they didn't have the money,
they didn't care, they didn't get you the food you needed,
or they didn't take care of you, or they were
too busy, you know, going out to the clubs or
drinking or doing drugs or whatever that was going on, okay,
and they didn't take care of you. And so as
a little kid, we can't we don't have the ability
to process the fact that Hey, mom and dad are
(16:01):
really neglectful. They're really bad parents, you know, And I
really got born into a bad parent dynamic. Hm. I
need to fend for myself, but I recognize the fact
that these people shouldn't have had kids. No, we don't
think about that when we're kids. We don't think about that, right,
we don't sit there and analyze and judge. Hey, mom
seems to be very self centered and probably very narcissistic.
(16:22):
Dad seems to have sociopathic tendencies and doesn't listen to
a word I say. I haven't heard that out of
any three, four, five, six year old, right, Okay, But
you know what we do is we rewrite the concept.
We rewrite history. Instead, we turn it around on us
and say we're a bad kid. I must be a
bad child. Something's wrong with me, because otherwise mom or
(16:44):
dad would be here for me. I must be a
horrible child. Okay, I must be horrible and I need
to prove my value to my parents. I must be
able to prove my value because obviously I haven't stepped
up to the plate. And that is the narrative that
many of you have sold yourself in order to not
hate your parents. Okay, like not be like down on
(17:06):
your parents, you know, I mean, you sell yourself this
bill of goods in order to continue to survive and
the family dynamic. That's what you do, right. We do
this all the time in our adult life. We do
this all the time with the news and history in
our relationships. We do this all the time, right, because
it's easier to put the pain on us. Okay, this
(17:27):
has to be my fault, my problem, my issue, because
that way I feel like I'm kind of in control. Right.
I put it on me because that's the only power
I have is to make changes within my life. And
then many of you do. What I like to say
is like the all star move. As far as you
become everything you try to. You try to be the
top in your class. You try to be the best
(17:48):
sports if you're if you're a boy, you try to
be the best, best kid in sports. So you try
to be the best in band, or you try to
as a girl, you try to be this or that
or whatever it is. And you're trying to prove your
value all the time. I'm in school in sports, you know,
trying to prove your parents what you do, doing things
around the house, that sort of thing. And sometimes you
get kudos and what have you, and sometimes you don't.
(18:11):
And you keep just trying to get their attention. And
the more you do, the more you think you're going
to get their attention, the harder you work. And in
this process of working harder, you're not working to take
because these are the things you want to do. You're
doing this because you want to impress them. You're trying
to get their attention. Okay, and you've already you know,
you've already changed the narrative where you know you're the problem,
(18:34):
You're the issue, You're the problem child. It's not their problem.
So remember you keep doing more and more and more
thinking that again, you're the problem. And this happens in
our adult relationships when somebody when you're in a relationship
with someone who's manipulating you or lying to you, and
you might actually know it, you can feel it, you
can watch it. You know it. You know that they're
lying to you, you know that they're manipulating you, you
(18:57):
know that they're playing a game on you. You know
what they're trying to do. And some of you don't
want to deal with it. I mean, some of you
just can't deal with it. It's so painful to know that
this person is doing this on purpose that you keep
denying that this is happening, okay, or you keep changing
the narrative to give them the benefit of the doubt. Well,
(19:17):
you know they had a bad childhood, you know, and
or I think they were you know, physically abused, which
I'm not discrediting. I'm just saying, we give all these outs.
Oh they well, this happened to them, This happened to them,
This happened to them, right, So that's why they act
that way. But if I keep giving them more attention
(19:37):
and being there for them, they'll see my value. Now
we don't actually consciously think that we just if I
just give more, if I'm just there for them more,
if I'm just the listening ear more, if I just
hold them up more, if I just if I just
you know, give them this and do this more, you
know they'll be better, you know. I and I find
that interesting because that happens with a lot of people.
(20:00):
People that fall into this trap is that you're telling
yourself you're you're giving them an out for their actions,
their manipulation. They're lying their gas line. So you're giving
them an out, and then you're putting all the cargo
on your back to carry all this luggage and baggage
because you know it's got to be you. It's all
gonna fall on you. You have to take care of it,
(20:21):
you know, because that's what you've always done. And so
there's part of it where the narrative is interesting because
you've given them an out. The other part of it
is that you're kind of also taking It's almost like
you're seeing them as like this child or this like
wounded little kid, and so they're allowed to get away
with it, with whatever. You're also kind of taking the
(20:42):
power away from them in a way, because this is
their own karma, this is their own direction. They can
do whatever they want. We can't change anybody. If they
want to go crazy and do what they do, that's
what they do. You can try to calm them down,
you can try to reason with them, but in the end,
they are another human. They have rights to do what
they want to, just like anybody else. Not to hurt anybody,
(21:04):
not to you know, but they have rights to do
what they want to do, and so you trying to
help them, they end up seeing that as control. Okay,
So then they create their narrative because they are so
out of control, right, they create their narrative that they're
fine and that you're just a controlling, manipulating person. And
then that's a lot of times where you know, the
(21:25):
names will fail out, the narcissist names and everything, because
they're fighting you. Because they're fighting you, and the more
they fight you, and the more that they put things
on you, the more defensive you become. The more defensive
you become. Right, the less that you keep bringing up
their issues, they're the stuff that they have to deal with,
(21:46):
the easier it is for them to continue to do
what they do if you're not calling it out and
they're getting away with it. Remember this, it's like a
kid having a tantrum. Right, If you keep enabling them,
which is what you're doing, you're enabling them. If you
keep enabling them, why do they have to change? They
only have to change if you don't accept it anymore,
(22:07):
you know. And it was interesting. I was talking to
a client the other day and I would say that
I've heard this probably a thousand times, and I hate
to say that, but with the parent dynamic, it's like,
you know, they were trying to impress mom or dad,
and you know, and in these situations usually there's you know,
multiple kids involved, and usually my client was not the favorite,
but there was a favorite, and you know, trying to
(22:30):
go against that is very challenging. Trying to prove your
value is very challenging. And I think that in those
situations where there is a favorite, you know, the non
favorite never really wins, you know, I mean, it's not
you know, there's no winning in this. This is just
this is you know, a parent that it has a
deficiency that is probably closer to one of the siblings
(22:51):
more because that sibling, you know, kisses their ass or
does what they want to do. And I find that
interesting because when you can't win over that mother or father,
their dynamic in the relationships that you have after that,
you're constantly still trying to win them over. And what
I mean by winning them over is I mean you're
trying to get their acceptance and approval. That's what it is.
(23:15):
So if you find yourself in these toxic dynamics and
you continue to hang out and spend time with raging narcissists, right,
that's going through this process and not just narcissism. We
don't We don't need to just say narcissm. Anytime that
somebody has uh, somebody's manipulative, controlling line, somebody that has
(23:36):
psychosis to the degree that they are manipulating controlling you
line to you. Someone that's not coming from a place
of honesty and authentic you know self, that's a problem.
So we don't have to label it as narcissism. We
just we just realize that this is not the same vibration,
This is not the same level of relationship that you
probably need in your life. This isn't aiding and embedding
(23:57):
in you. It's only just taking away from you. And
so we have to really look at this relationship and
how somebody is manipulating or lying to us. We have
to kind of see that and begin to write that down.
And I like to keep a tally of it, and
whether they are gas lighting or lying to convince you
of something, or are you choosing to lie to yourself or
(24:18):
to overlook things? Okay, because this is a two way street.
It takes two to tango, right. Even if somebody is
lying and gaslighting me and manipulating me, I can choose
to see that for what it is and say, hey,
I'm not gonna accept this anymore. And eventually, if you're
not gonna change your behavior, I'm kind of OUTI you know,
but it takes two to tango for the other person
(24:39):
to you know, be nice the next day and sugarcoat
it over and then do it all over again, and
then you act like it doesn't exist, or you can
call it out and keep certain with that and and
be honest with yourself and ask is this a little
bit of a trickle down effect? Which I believe it
is from childhood, because I don't think this person would
have that much of a hold on you if this
(25:01):
isn't just a perfect puzzle piece for how you were raised.
And so, you know, when we're dealing with somebody that's
compulsively lying or gaslighting us or manipulating us to feel
or act a certain way, we really just have to
be honest with ourselves because if this is really happening,
(25:23):
which for most of you, it is really happening, okay, uh,
and stop trying to tell yourself that it's not. I mean,
And I think sometimes when you just write it down
and you put the dates and times, and you write
things down and you start seeing it for yourself. Okay,
this is how we do lot. This is logic, you know.
And we have these different you know, pieces of evidence
(25:44):
and information. We have these you know, these you know,
the these kind of like data points here, and then
we kind of look at all these data points and
we realize you can't overlook all these data points. But see,
the brain wants us to because the brain is used
to this path or a behavior. We do these things
for other people even though we might not want to.
We do these things to prove, to try to get value,
(26:06):
to probably prove our value, to try to get acceptance
and approval. It doesn't work. We keep doing it, and
we keep going to the wrong people to get it.
We keep remember this, We keep going to the wrong
people to get the acceptance and approval over and over
and over again. You have to break that cycle. So
(26:29):
the longer you stay in a manipulative situation, I mean
you might say, oh, it's the money, or it's this,
or it's that, or we have a property together, or
we have this, or we have a dog together, or
we have a child together. You can still raise that
child and co parent. It's gonna be tough. It's gonna
be tough. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. It's
already tough living with them, right, but you could do it.
(26:50):
But there's some point where you say, what is right
for me and what do I deserve in my life?
Is just what I deserve? And you have to ask
yourself that question too, because some people like pain or
have accepted pain as a choice in the relationship, and
so really uncovering these things are very important because remember,
the brain likes to change the narrative to keep you
(27:12):
in the loop. You know, the longer you're in the loop,
you don't change. The universe doesn't have to change for you, right,
so then nothing has to be done. It's status quo.
Things go on as usual. And so that's why I
want you to really start taking initiative in your relationships
(27:34):
to really recognize what is truly happening, what people are
honestly doing around you, what they're constantly doing around you,
watching their patterns, their choices of actions, their lives, their deceits.
I want you to take itallya that writing this down,
dating it, timing it in a journal, keeping it very private,
(27:56):
so that you can start looking and seeing what's happening
here because all these data points are going to make
your mind go Okay, do I want to keep going in?
Do I want to keep lying on myself? Or am
I ready to accept the reality here and to accept
the reality that I've been in this relationship. It's not
because of my doing. It's not because I'm a bad person.
I'm a good person that got trained into this process
(28:20):
at an early age. I was trained in this process.
So I have to give myself some grace, and I
want you to really think about that, giving yourself some grace.
I hope that this podcast has helped you. Please share
it with anybody that needs to hear this message. Please,
you know, I'm trying to get the word out. You know,
don't do any advertising. I just want to get the
word out so that people can learn and grow as
(28:43):
much as they possibly can, so that they can be happy,
so that they can be you know, positive, and grow
in their life in the right way, and to end
these patterns once and for all. By ending these patterns,
our lives changed in such an amazing way. And so
(29:03):
please share this if you ever already check out my
website Ashley Burgers dot com Ashleyburgs dot com. You can
set up a session right there online thirty sixty or
ninety minute sessions. Also, don't forget the YouTube channel. At
least twice a week we put up new video content.
You go to YouTube put in life Coach Ashley Burgess,
(29:23):
you'll find a channel. Please subscribe if you haven't already.
We were almost hit two hundred thousand subscribers. And again,
remember it was not your fault, but we do have
to turn the ship around and guess what, you're the
captain of the ship. Don't miss next week's show, The
Ashley Burgess Show. You know I'll be back this time.
(29:43):
I'll be back this time. You know it. I'll be
back this time. In three shakes,
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