What up, Mahami! Welcome back to part 2 of the incredible manipulation revelation. I actually want and I love it! We're doing that today with my girl, psychologist, Mario B.K. Losing time and energy to wonder if you're crazy or if you're just imagining things because your toxic, significant other is constantly painting a distorted picture of you. Are they breaking your confidence and damaging how you feel and see yourself? Well Mahongi, I've got part two of this conversation with Mario for you that's going to freaking blew your mind, starting with the idea of holding a relationship funeral to make sure toxic exes stay just that, toxic ex in your past and nonexistent in your future. So let's get straight to part 2 with my girl, the psychologist Mario Buket on Women of Impact. So how do we tune in? What is that first step? Because assuming that you have to unwire so many years of not tuning in, you know, ignoring it. Yeah, yeah. And you know, tuning in, it is a practice, but it just starts with sitting in silence. How many of us actually do that? How many of us not like sitting in silence and maybe like scroll through our phones but really sit in silence and look at the room that we're in and be present and mindful and connect to how we're feeling and like any of the sensations that we feel inside of our bodies. It literally takes us like 30 seconds to 60 seconds to just offer ourselves a tune in. Like it's not something that needs to be like elaborate. It's just something that we can do for a few seconds a day and it can be a really good practice to help us to get into the flow of understanding our bodies better. So it's as simple as that. I mean, it can be more elaborate in that we can sit and meditate for like 20 minutes and like have real body attunement and do body scans and maybe do like some muscle relaxation, practices with it. And then there's a lot more that we can probably tap into far as like our body knowledge. But really all that takes is just a 30 second like moment to just pause and reflect and think, what do I feel? So when you write down what do I feel? And you're like, oh, my gut feels like it's in a knot. How do you then take that into action with everything that we're talking about with identifying what in your life is giving you that note? Well, you know what? I dated someone with whom I felt like I could never go to the bathroom. My stomach was frozen. And I was like, why is it that I usually, when I would get home, I would actually be like, okay, I need to use the bathroom, but never around this person, because my stomach was always in knots. Yes. I think it's like a bowel move. Yes, I couldn't, like, and so my stomach was telling me, like, you're too tense around this person. They don't feel good to you. They make you feel unsafe. And so I had to tune into my body and say like, my body is literally saying, I'm home, I'm safe. I can now use bathroom. And it's literally in things like that. I also had an experience where, you know, I mentioned this to you like previously where I was engaged and during my entire engagement, I broke out and h. And my entire body was saying, no, this is not the one. This is not the person for you. And as soon as I took off my engagement ring, the highs went away. Mind you, I like went to so many different specialists about these hives and like trying to get answers about why is my body responding this way? It was responding to the person that was closest to you. All right, so take me through that because I remember you telling me this story but we never really went deep. So because to your point you go hard to like, oh it must be queen that I'm using, it must be the air, I must have allergies, how on earth did you then realize it ended up being because of your engagement? I realized that when I took the ring off and I gave it to him, and then the next day I literally, oh, so you didn't realize that was the reason? No, but I knew that this person made me feel uneasy. Like I felt overwhelmed every time I was around him. However, like I made the decision not knowing that the highs were connected, but when I took the ring off, I was like, this is mind blowing. Our bodies respond to people. They respond to our environments. And my body was literally telling me, like, you are unwell. There is a toxic element of this relationship that's literally manifesting in your body. You need to let it go. Wow, and did it start when you got engaged? And I'm not sure how comfortable you are talking about it. Was he a toxic person? Absolutely. He was actually someone that when I actually went into my doctoral journey in grad school, when we started going through the diagnostic manual of narcissism, I was like, no way, no way. I actually talked to my sister about this all the time. I'm like, I couldn't believe that I didn't have that knowledge. I feel like everyone should know when narcissism looks like, when manipulation looks like the ways that these people like, who were into your life, how they suck you into cycles, we should all feel some sort of protection from these kinds of experiences and relationships. I had no idea and this person was in my life for years. So they basically like believe themselves to be like above everyone else. And he would always like talk down to people, talk bad about people,

and then that quickly turned into talking bad about me

or talking down to me, right?

Because it's like anybody who can be a target, right?

He would often like use any kind of power that he had,

including like for example, like he had like a lot of money and he would use that money power in order to almost manipulate the people around him. For example, he would give money to his mother who was more elderly, but whenever she wouldn't do something that he would want, he would actually take the money away. And so he would utilize the power that he had to inflict pain or to withdraw love. I mean, it was just like, he did so many things. It was to me, it felt like when I realized that all of these things were a part of this characteristic of narcissism, I was like, I wish to never go back into something like this. I must know this to run through and equip myself with how this can show up in my life, know the signs and make sure that I am protected, but that I also help other women to protect themselves because it can leave a lot of deep, deep wounds that you have to fix for a long time. It's like many years to actually get out of the fog of that relationship and it, and that's the case for a lot of us. Once you left it took you years? Yes. Yeah. Is that why you believe naming things is so important? Because was it enaming that he was a narcissist that allowed you to the light bulb go off for you to then leave him? Well, I wish that I would have had the word gaslighting. I was gaslit so much in that relationship. Had I known, had I actually had the power to say that's gaslighting? My version of the event is not your version of the event. And you know what, that's okay. But instead I was like,

am I making this up? Is this like really what happened? Well, he says I'm, you know, I'm

always like in La La Land and I don't really like take notice of what's happening around me.

Like is that really how I am? Is that my true self? Is he seeing my true self or do I know

my true self? Right? Like it's like in all of those things. Now I know, I know not to, you know, I can really spot the signs, right? Like and I guess it really helps that I'm a psychologist too, but just for my own say, I can understand how a person is trying to get to a place where they're berating me in that way or gaslighting me or trying to manipulate me in any way and I can actually protect myself. And that's what I want for a lot of women. I want that for all of us. I don't want us to have to suffer in this way from people who haven't done the work to actually carve out their own wounds and then inflict the wounds upon us. Yeah, God. And your work is so beautiful and the value you bring is just profound. I'd love to know if you don't mind again, sharing how did you end up leaving him? What were the things that you said to him? Because a lot of my audience have had either toxic or narcissistic relationships and they have just, it has broken them to their core and some people people are still in that and they don't know how to leave. Yeah, you know, having a community around you that can actually help you to transition from these relationships is critical. More often than not, we think we are going to leave the relationships just on our own. And typically, you know, with people that feel like their power is being taken away, they can get violent. And it's going to be really important for you to have people around you that can keep you safe, but also help you to feel connected and loved in the ways that this person did not. That's some of what I did. So I actually got my family together and I actually like relayed the message with my family because I didn't want this person to become violent or to, you know, lash out at me because I could see he had some of those tendencies. And so I rallied up my community and I said, you know, this isn't working for me. I don't want you in my life. And this engagement is over. And I was able to part, but with community with me, I think that's really critical and important. And so you did it with your family then? Yeah, I did. And another thing that I intuitively did, which I, and I know a lot of psychologists also recommend this too, which is really important to do, is to keep record of thing.

I actually kept the record of like giving the ring back. And I, you know, and like, things that I knew that he was gonna try and come after me for. And so I was like, you know, he's someone that has the tendency to say, you never gave me the ring back, you owe me money. And so I didn't want that to be the case. So I actually recorded the entire process.

And it's sad that we have to go to such great lengths to protect ourselves, but it's more important to feel safe and protected than to feel like, you know, this person could actually violate you yet again. So I always think, you know, like keep record, whether it's written record of what transacted, what you did, how you parted ways. If you live with the person, how you, you know, divvyed up like furniture or how you like, you know, took them off the lease and things like that. And then also to have community around you to really help you to feel safe and protected. You said that you, it took you two years, basically two years to kind of come out of that fog. What did that two years look like in that healing process? Because I've actually heard you talk about having to grieve toxic relationships. I believe that, and this is something that I did not know that I was doing it, but then I started adding language to it once I became a clinician. But I believe that we have to literally attend the funeral of the people that we ex-out out of our lives. Like we literally have to mentally map out like our process of like going to their funeral. And or writing out like what it means to have that loss and to no longer have them in our lives and to completely literally close the casket. Because otherwise, we're leaving open, even in our own minds, opportunity, them being able to contact them, there's so much that can happen whenever we're not closing that chapter and really sealing it in, that can be to our detriment.

So I actually, like, even my clients,

I walk them through the process of like, we're attending this person's funeral. Is it literally like, you wear black and everything? Yeah, I feel like we're black. That is genius. So I might- I'm like, I'm a very rich man. I haven't done that, but I love the imagery. But no, it's really like, you know, like an imagery-based meditation.

Like, we're going into the funeral home and like, you know, just like really walking us through. And people can't really, really emotional because often people also have a lot of love for these people. And so there's a lot of complex emotions and complicated grieving that's happening in that process. But we're processing it. We're going through the motions. We're going through all the emotions, all of it, right? The shame that you experience from having stayed too long, the sadness that you experienced from losing the loving parts of that person, the anger that you have at yourself for, you know, like, like even becoming toxic at certain points in the relationship yourself,

right? Like all of it. We're processing it, but we're processing it by also ending that chapter. Yeah, God. That's such a complex way to think through the issue, because I couldn't imagine there's more shame in feeling like you miss them, even though you know that they're toxic or an ulcerist.

Yeah, and people start to wonder what about them even, you know, attracted this person. What about them made it so that this person acted the way that they did. And we have to oftentimes remember that, yes, there may have been characteristics that you have, like sensitivities and things like that, that could have made you perhaps in their eyes an easy target, but their behavior is never your fault. It is always reflective of a character flaw in them and never really a character flaw in you. So you said two years, how often do people have that long-term negative impact on their psychology from being with somebody who is constantly manipulating them or being around people like that? More often than that. And people sometimes, I've actually had one client that was healing for almost two decades. I'm a two-decade relationship. So it took her literally the same amount of time that she was in the relationship to heal from it. And some of the wounds can be so, so deep. But some people, they're able to move on and move into healthy relationships. However, you know, it, it, it all, it varies, it varies. But what I have seen in my work is that most people take months to years to actually do the healing work. And it can be really, really heavy, but sometimes necessary to take those years. And then she's going back to your, the funeral or another, I just love it so much. Do you think in doing that funeral and closing that book, like you said, eliminates the possibility of them trying to come back into your life and love bomb you and who you back? It doesn't eliminate that possibility because that's a behavior that's enacted by them. But what it does is that it allows you to go back into that imagery and say this person is no longer alive to me. They're not present. When you close a casket and bury a person, you don't exume them and relive your life with them. That's why the imagery is so powerful because it allows you to go back into your understanding that that's it. That's the end. It eliminates your possibility of going back to them. Exactly. And responding to their hoovering efforts or to the manipulative tactics to get you back in into their lives. What about the loneliness? Because I know that that can be actually quite a big draw into why people may, I mean, again, I'm just going to speak for myself myself when I was with my ex-boyfriend, it was the fact that then I felt so lonely once I left him and then I would replay all the great stuff. It wasn't all the bad stuff I would replay. It was all the amazing moments that one time that he took me to that one restaurant, like on my birthday. How do we prevent ourselves from acting on loneliness as a mechanism to get back into this toxic cycle? Because again, playing devil's advocate, I understand like you're gonna let go, you've gotta heal, you've gotta get it over it, and I've actually had you also say, time doesn't heal all wounds though. So trying to get past it, trying to let go of the past, but sometimes in those moments where they're trying to whove you back or love bomb you or you're just missing them, would holding on to the negative serve you. Well, you know, it is a really important thing to remember. But in addition to that, I would say, remember how you felt in the relationship. And remember how you felt in the moments when this person was gaslighting you, was lying, was manipulating you. Like, remember that. Don't forget the feeling. I love that. And I've heard you talk about not making sure that you don't pretend that you don't see the red flags. So in your relationship, once you started to find that out, can you go back and know that did you see red flags in him that you chose to ignore? Absolutely. So many. But I didn't choose to ignore them. I didn't know. Not to ignore them. However, there have been relationships there after that, you know, where there have been some reflags. And I like, you know, but this person is like really cute. So I'm going to try and just, I'm going to try and stick it out and just maybe, maybe that was just a one time incident, but I really wanted it to work out. But eventually, of course, like, you know, I saw the pattern and I knew that I didn't want what I experienced back then. So there have been moments when, you know, I have made the choice to ignore the red flag. But in that incident, back when I was in my early 20s engaged, I really didn't know. And a lot of us don't. We just don't have the knowledge that this is something that is happening and can hurt us. I'll ask you then, in those moments though, you may not have had words to it, but seeing that he used money to either give to his mum or not depending on what he wanted wasn't that like a note in your head is like, ah, that's kind of a mean thing to do. Yeah, it was, you know, the thing about even circumstances like that was that when I would talk to him about it, he would actually say things that would convince me otherwise. So I would actually think, oh, okay, well that makes sense. Because of course, character assassination, right? He would actually say, well, my mother is belligerent with money. So I would think, oh, okay, well, it makes a lot of sense for her son to withdraw the money and make sure that she doesn't spend it all in blah, blah, blah, right? And that's the thing is that all of those tactics come back. But when in retrospect, when I looked at it, I was like, you know what, I never seen her actually like be bad with money. And that was years. Like, well, for years, I think I would have at least spotted it one right instead of you know Not seeing it and so it was in those moments when I was able to see that okay This person was actually creating an idea of his mother for me so that I would actually buy into this awful like Manipulation that he was engaging in with her and going back, what would you do with that same situation arose? How would you address it with him? Right now, what I would do is I would actually tell him what I think about his approach with this mother. And at least just a plan to seed. But from my experience, personal and professional, it takes a lot for a person to actually come to an understanding that they can cause harm in this way and they will rationalize their own behavior. So I can, if I am willing and if I really want this person to change, try and help them to see it and say like like, that's not the way and that can actually hurt her. And it's manipulative or it's toxic or it's not kind at the very least. But if the person is unwilling to see that in themselves, then I'm speaking to air, just empty words. I've actually got quite a few years. How many times are you willing to forgive the same thing? Yeah. And we have to really ask ourselves that honest question. Like, if you see that there is a pattern, a pattern is two, maybe three. And you see that it's ongoing and that you're asking for change behavior and the change behavior is not happening, then how many times are you going to be willing to put yourself through the grief of that circumstance? You have to wonder, right? And you also have to wonder, like, do you believe that that is what you're worth and do you believe that that is what you deserve? And if you don't, then you have to make a decision in reference to it, just to protect yourself and to the care for yourself. I love that question so much when I heard you say it, it really hit me because I thought, you've forgiven me kind of move on. At least my experience with my husband being with him for 23 years is like, you don't hold on once you forgive, you move on. Because if you are holding on to something over time,

it can lead to resentment and contempt.

So we have a wall.

If you actually forgive me, then you forgive me, and we move on. But if you've got that idea or that notion in a relationship that can be toxic, then they can almost use it as a way of being like, Oh no, no, I'm sorry and then you keep doing it.

So having that question is so beautiful.

What other questions can we ask ourselves

...