Ever notice how narcissists (and others) use tone to mock someone they want us to disagree with? Sometimes it's baby voice: "And they said "You're unweasonable." Hahaha!".

Why? It subtly signals to us that we shouldn't pay attention to what they are about to say. We can safely dismiss whatever the words are, because the person is being unreasonable, AS DEMONSTRATED by the tone used to convey what we claim was said. BUT... that baby tone is certainly an exaggeration designed to make us believe something and mock the person.

Until we realise how tone is used, we'll be vulnerable to it being used against us.

And what about "tone policing"? I.e. "I agree with what you say but I don't like how you said it?" Well... that depends if we discuss both independently, or whether tone is used as a pretext to AVOID discussing substance.

I share some thoughts on this to help make you LESS vulnerable to toxic people and their manipulation techniques. And maybe help you avoid using them, if you do so without realising it.

Life during and after toxic relationships can feel like hell. And sometimes we find helpful ideas that help us get our life back together. I try to share those, and a major source of those ideas has been Scott Adams, the Dilbert creator, who also wrote some exceptional books to help people avoid bad ideas and have (as a consequence) better and happier lives. His birthday is June 8 (today) and he is very sick, it might be his last birthday. So I have a HUGE favour to ask you, listeners:

When relevant, take the helpful ideas you find in this podcast and share them with people who need to hear them. You know how sometimes (maybe) I'll share something and it clicks, or something makes more sense? Some of what I share I borrowed from Scott and adapted to toxic relationships and narcissism (not everything, but many things).

You too can pass on those ideas so they outlive Scott, myself, and eventually you. Not only will that continue to help making the world a better place, not only is that maybe the best way to be grateful to all the giants whose shoulders we stand on (Scott is one of my giants), but also you will feel the joy of having helped reduce the darkness in someone's life. As we already paid the price of toxic relationships, we might as well make the most of the benefits. Helping others is one of the highlights of my life now.

And please share a thought for Scott. Without him, my work would be nowhere near as good, my life would be less enjoyable. I feel like I'm losing one of my closest friends, one of the highlights of my life so far. So it's time for me to step up and do more than I have recently. It feels lonely, and scary, and really sad.

But if this podcast episode inspires even one of you to pass on some ideas I share, that would mean the world to me (no need to quote me, just share the idea).

As always, thanks for listening.

And Happy Birthday Scott! I'm grateful beyond words for all you've done, you're truly an inspiration - and I will do more than I've done recently.

Shame makes us look away, and that makes us MUCH more vulnerable to narcissists. But it's possible to recognise when we're feeling shame and STOP our coping mechanisms to REDUCE our vulnerability.

I recently looked into shame and recognised some patterns I was not aware of, as well as coping mechanisms, and even dissociation. This explained some things I had experienced over the years. As this was awful, perhaps sharing my thoughts will make it less awful for you?

In this podcast, I run though some ideas and anecdotes, as well as share a few tips. If you'd like more on this topic, let me know.

Just as shame makes us look away, for some reason I'd been procrastinating from recording this episode. I hope you found this helpful.

I saw a post on social media about 8 mistakes to avoid when dealing with toxic people and... I disagree with nearly all of it. In this episode, I run you through the "advice", explain what I disagree with, and why - and provide my alternative suggestions.

I hope you find this helpful and it helps you figure out what to do and, more important, what NOT to do.

Dogmatic people refuse to change their minds about topics. However, until we realise this, we can assume people are open to new facts or blind spots. But it's exhausting and dishonest. After all, if people are certain they are 100% right about everything all of the time (1 chance in a million), the probability we can change their mind is... 0%.

So just say "I'm sorry, I didn't realise you're dogmatic about this." And if they say they are not, well, then things get fun.

As always, thanks for tuning in! Hope everyone is well!

I went to an event and it was weird. One person was being hyper negative, hijacked the event, made people uncomfortable - and some "flying monkeys" encouraged it.

Regardless of the details, we can learn from dynamics and hopefully help you avoid the same type of uncomfortable situation in the future by helping you be prepared.

Fungibility is a term used in economics to describe "items that can be mixed without differentiating the source". For example, if you and I pour a bottle of water into a pan, the water is mixed. We can't separate your water from mine.

Most of us view attention differently. A partner's attention is worth MORE than a random strangers. But narcissists see things differently. They don't care where the attention comes from, provided they get it, and enough of it.

That is why it's so easy for them to discard you when you no longer supply enough attention.

Narcissists love pretending to be offended. It puts them at the centre of attention, they can pretend cry, get sympathy, bully others. But this is not enough for them. This is why they get offended "in absentia", they pretend to be offended "on behalf of people who are not present" - and who often do not actually exist. This is an effective strategy to bully others, but there is one key tell that lets us know whether we are being provided good faith feedback, or are being told rubbish by a toxic person who is faking offense.

Narcissists will accuse people of doing EXACTLY what they are doing. If you see a problem and want to make an accurate diagnostic, they will accuse you of complaining. This happened to me, recently.

In this episode, I share how I handled the situation, the logic and techniques I used, so you might be able to use them too, if it is safe for you to use them. And, in all cases, this will make it harder for you to be gaslit into believing that you're complaining when you're actually trying to solve situations.

After a toxic relationship, it can be common to obsess over what happened - and even date more people who present the same symptoms of personality disorder. Why?

This episode explores some potential reasons -and what to do to avoid this.