I say I value safety but do I act that way? Here is a walk through my brain and how I'm unleashing the power of philosophy to help guide me through this chaos.

If you want to listen to the podcast version, head over to Spotify: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/j7r4xuwBfAb 

The Transcript 

Hello and welcome to the podcast. My name is Dr. Louise and I am a philosopher and coach. I help cycle breakers make decisions by unleashing the power of philosophy. Now, in today's episode, we are going to be talking about safety, so this is something that has been floating around in my brain, so this might be a little bit of a tour through how Louise is thinking about this right now, but I'm going to try to make sure that there's some helpful things for you to think about here If you are also a cycle breaker, if you have experienced abuse, especially childhood abuse, and you think that these things we're going to be talking about today should resonate.

So safety is...

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.

If you want to listen to the podcast version head over to the Spotify page: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/cWsDW8Ik1zb 

The transcript:

Hello and welcome to the podcast. My name is Dr. Louise and I help cycle breakers make decisions by unleashing the power of philosophy. Today, I am inspired by a fellow philosopher. Her name is Skye Cleary and she wrote a book called How to be Authentic And in that book she goes through some of the work of Simone de Beauvoir. If you've been listening for a minute here on the podcast, I've talked about her before, but I'm not going to talk about Simone de Beauvoir today. Instead, i want to talk about how Skye Cleary thinks about the self-help genre.

Okay, so if you don't know self-help is, you know it's like...

This is the transcript from The Toxicity Survival Guide's most recent Episode titled 

Harnessing Chaos Energy for Good or least not self-destruction

You can listen and watch the episode on Spotify and wherever you stream your podcasts https://open.spotify.com/episode/7vAWcJ8RC68gJdCBfPgNVz?si=f9237a0f281640ea 

Here is the transcript in full: 

Hello and welcome to the podcast. My name is Dr. Louise and I empower generational cycle breakers to confidently make decisions using the power of philosophy. Welcome, welcome, welcome Back to the podcast. I organically took a little break, there Turns out. I finished wrapping up my courses in Colorado. If you don't know, i was in Colorado teaching for a couple months and I am now back to my home base in Indiana And I'm very excited to be back. So during all of that you know teaching is a very intensive thing I was teaching university students, i taught a class in practical philosophy, i taught a course in Buddhist...

Philosophy is all about asking questions and connecting with the big deep questions.

And sometimes, we discover that we ask questions that simply don't have answers. 

What should we do then? 

In this audio clip, I share my process for what to do when you run out of answers. 

Here is the transcription: 

Alison

What happens if you get to a point where you like, don't have an answer to the question? Like you're like, almost like you ask a question and then it leads to another one and another one, and then you hit like a dead end and you're like, what do I do? 

Dr. Louise 

Yeah, that's a great question. So, in my own process, the things that help me in that space is to first of all take a break.

You know, some of the best philosophers in the world, they talk about how they'll be working on a Philosophical problem and, and they dead end, just like you described. And then they go take a shower. and in the shower, they're not thinking about it, right? They got...

Philosophy saved my life.

When I was growing up with two abusive parents, I was often overwhelmed by how little control I had over my own life.

Whether today was a good day or not often depended on whatever moods my parents found themselves in.

By the time high school rolled around, and I had begun to layer these problems with the more ordinary teenage woes of a devastating break-up, I was feeling profoundly lost.

In 11th grade I was drowning in AP courses, anxiety about applying to college, and suffering at the hands of my toxic ex’s leadership in my favorite extracurricular activity - marching band.

I discovered an old yellow book amongst the many shelves in our home - nearly every inch of available wall in the common spaces were filled with cinder block bookshelves.

It was called “The Essential Works of Stoicism”

I found myself drawn to Marcus Auerilus’ To Himself otherwise known as The Meditations.

I remember feeling particularly hopeless one gloomy fall day...

One of the biggest challenges survivors of toxic people face is isolation. 

We can often feel like nobody understands our situation. 

And you may be right that nobody immediately around us understands, it is false that nobody understands. 

So how to we overcome feeling isolated? Let's get connected! 

I am officially launching a 100% free Facebook group to help survivors of toxic people make peace with their boundaries. 

Not only will I be regularly going LIVE offering special trainings on how to level up your boundaries game, but I will also be posting exclusive content in the group. 

While I am showing up BIG TIME in the group, I would absolutely love if you would show up and help support your fellow survivors. 

So many of you have rich experiences that can help others. Together we can build a beautiful space that helps all of us feel a little more connected. 

If you are interested in joining the group, just click this link and it will take...

It is 100% natural to want closure after enduring any kind of narcissistic relationship. There are so many dramatic ups and downs in these kinds of spaces, it really does make sense to want some sense that this really is the end and life is moving on.

Unfortunately, narcissists generally are unwilling to entertain any such activity. Narcissists cannot tolerate closure because it means facing that they no longer have control over you. Narcissists are always looking to find their new supply and closure, by definition, means that they can no longer get that supply from you.

Because Narcissists refuse to believe that someone they once exerted so much control over has actually stepped outside of their control, they will never accept any process of closure.

So, what does that mean for us survivors?

We long for closure, but all the traditional ways to seek that closure - like having a heart-to-heart conversation- just aren’t going to cut it in our situation. Are we screwed?

No, you...

If you are going to survive toxic people, you need to establish boundaries. But if you are going to thrive once those toxic people are out of your life, you need to make peace with those boundaries.   

Making peace is the only way to be so unshakably confident in your boundaries that no matter what people say to you, you will never feel doubt or regret about them.

I’m going to cover three different reasons that making peace with your boundaries is so important. Ok, let’s dive in!

You no longer worry about whether you could have or should have made different choices with your boundaries.

You have to take bold, potentially imperfect action when you establish boundaries. For most of us, there are a million what-if scenarios that we can spend our time worrying over. When you make peace with your boundaries, no matter how imperfect they may be, you no longer spend all that time and mental energy go over the what-ifs. You embrace your journey as your own, and you go...

Going no-contact is really tough, but the process is a bit easier when you have a solid plan to work with. I've created an interactive guide to help you along the process. If you are ready, you can grab that guide for free here. 

I breakdown going no-contact into these big five pieces: 

Step 1 – Identify that you are ready to go no-contact with the toxic person

Step 2- Determine what you want and need from this boundary

Step 3- Come up with a plan to implement the boundary

Step 4- Get support to help once the boundary is up

Step 5- Implement the boundary

Each of these steps is very important. To learn more about them and what exactly you need to do in order to get through each one- download this free guide! 

Today we are going to tackle a delicate question. In the survivor community, we have a tendency to talk about toxic people as though they aren’t human. We talk about how evil they are and how inhumane they treat other people. And honestly, all of that talk is 100% earned by the toxic people we’ve had to interact with. However, it does bring us into some uncomfortable spaces when we are thinking about the children of toxic people.

I had a very interesting exchange with a follower over on my Instagram recently about how to think about the children of toxic people. It's easy to get wrapped up in thinking that anyone who is exposed to such high levels of toxicity from a young age will necessarily walk out of that situation with some toxic tendencies. And while that thinking makes some sense, it's got some pretty big flaws.

If you’ve been following my content for very long, you know that I am the child of two toxic parents. I can also say with full confidence that I am...