SELF-ARCHEOLOGY

Those of us who have encountered people with narcissistic, predatory, or even sociopathic tendencies (for the sake of simplicity referred to as manipulator ) have experienced a phenomenon where the manipulator tries to vilify you by using triangulation , gossiping, power play, mischaracterization, and other tactics. It usually goes like this....  The Mechanism Behind It The manipulator is driven by shame, insecurity, and fear. As soon as they start feeling inferior, or as soon as you notice the manipulator's toxicity—or as soon as they notice you noticing their toxicity—they begin feeling deep insecurity. In their attempt to manage it, they may try to cover their tracks and save their image by giving you made up explanations and excuses, instead of recognizing their unhealthiness and working on themselves to overcome it. If you are able to see though their smoke and mirrors tactics, ideally you will either set a firm boundary and distance yourself from them or they wi...

Yesterday, on the Self-Archeology Facebook page one person posted a comment saying that it’s very hard for them to keep a journal. I’ve heard similar things from my clients, friends, acquaintances, and I’ve had difficulties with journaling myself, so I decided to talk about this topic in more detail. There are different ways to journal . For example, some people much prefer an audio log or video log to a written/typed journal. So, it might be useful to experiment and see what fits you the best. What stops you from journaling? I found it to be true that the main difficulty people have with journaling is fear . Here, I will talk about some of the most common fears. Sometimes people are afraid that they are not doing it right , that they don’t know HOW to journal. There’s no right or wrong way to do it . Everything you say is important and might be useful in some way. And nobody will punish you, laugh at you, humiliate you, or hurt you if you don't do it "optimally....