It can be quite easy for someone who's manipulative to use their past as a way to mobilize your empathy.

Welcome everybody to the Love Life podcast. I am Matthew Hussey and this is a clip from the archives that I think is really going to help you today.

Check it out and I'll speak to you at the end of the episode.

Let's talk about that for a moment. When does empathy go too far?

Empathy extended outwards is a beautiful thing but I think it becomes dangerous when you can't extend it back to yourself.

Explain what you mean by that for a moment just so that everyone I really want people to get that message. What do you mean by that?

I was going to say if you're with someone who's taking care of them and making sure they're okay and they're taking care of themselves and making sure they're okay, who's taking care of you.

You know, it's quite a common thing that you hear but in order to be there for other people your own cup has to be full and your priority in life should always be to make sure that you're okay.

Now it doesn't mean that you have to put yourself first in every single situation and in fact you shouldn't. It's really important to put other people first sometimes and to put those you love before you when they need you more than you need them in that moment.

But ultimately your empathy towards other people cannot come at the detriment of actually making sure you're okay.

That's when you have to suspect yourself. I think as to whether or not is it really empathy or you just call in a toxic cycle where it's serving some kind of need for you.

You know, whether it be that you you like the identity of coming to the rescue of other people or you feel safe in that position because then you never have to look at yourself and you never have to look at the ways in which you're not really taking care of yourself.

It's much easier to put it's for some people it's much easier to put other people's needs before their own because there's a lot of shame and guilt around having needs and sometimes people who feel that way can gravitate or can be a magnet for people who are narcissistically inclined because ultimately they're just people who have a hell of a lot of love to give.

Right.

And that's not by no means blaming in the instance of an actual true relationship with a true narcissist. I know by no means blaming the person who finds himself in that situation of victim in that situation.

I do think that in general sometimes we if we are wildly empathetic we can sort of we can almost wear that as a badge of honor and use that as our identity and it can get us into trouble because we end up having no boundaries with how far we let someone exploit that.

Well, I think that that's exactly right and we what happens is because we're so close to this person.

We've heard all of their stories and people who are really good at mobilizing your empathy get very good at telling stories that make them sympathetic.

Yes, I have this awful trait. Yes, I am not good at this. Yes, I struggle in this way, but this is what happened to me growing up.

This is what my mum was like. This is what my father was like. This is the stuff that I've been through in my life.

And by the way, we all have things that we've been through in our lives that could have made us worse people or better people.

Everyone has things, but there are certain people who are really good at taking their past and constructing a narrative that creates excuses for really bad behavior.

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