 So I've been recently getting quite a few questions from people and This one is about how to deal up with a bully or a narcissist or someone who is intimidating you or someone who is being threatening and I'm going to give a few tips here and general tips for how to deal with this because there is do's and don'ts in this and By the way, if you have a question I'll try to answer it for you. Maybe by email or if a video question like this if you would like Obviously, I only answer video questions for people who want video responses So you can go to my website for that if you'd like to maybe flesh out your question But this question is as I said, it's about dealing with a narcissist or a bully. I Think the term narcissist may be being overly used nowadays, but certainly many many people out there Coming from a very dark negative energy Bully is certainly probably appropriate For for more people But we'll see let's I'm going to go down through this and at the end I'm going to give some tips So the question says I recently had to deal with someone who accused me of something I didn't do It shocked me as it came completely out of the blue Not only did they accuse me they stated that they had proof of me doing it They were extremely aggressive and rude. I couldn't believe it. They even threatened to get the police involved. I Think they may be a narcissist or and they say it here as well at the very least they're using bullying tactics on me This was very stressful for me and it affected me very intensely Emotionally, so my question is how should I do on one hand? I feel helpless when I think of doing nothing and On the other hand, I feel I lose control if I confront them openly and won't be able to control my anger Is there a way to negotiate this best? so My advice on this and it applies to pretty much all confrontations with people who are aggressive or threatening or intimidating or using any of those tactics I'm going to give some general tips here but in this case for instance, especially in this case the biggest thing to remember is that you're holding the winning card in this situation because the truth is you actually didn't do anything wrong and There is no onus on you here to do anything at all So first of all just start with the assumption that look this isn't my issue. I didn't bring up this So therefore, why am I putting any pressure on myself to do anything to this? You're putting yourself into a reactive state when you're responding to this person's behavior So first of all is just realize there's no emphasis on me to take any action here whatsoever Now a second point on this is It's a big mistake To think that you can try to reason with this person, okay, or to seek out a conversation to be reasonable with them So my advice and my strong advice will be to not try to engage them in conversation because They've already shown you at this point what they're like in conversation. They're not open to it So the onus again is not on you to go and seek out a conversation to clear things up or to try and be reasonable They've already shown you that they're not reasonable. Okay, so I would say there's no need to do that because What will happen if you do that is you're placing yourself in a position of need if you do that, right? right now you don't need anything and But if you go to them with okay, I'm going to have a rational conversation or I'm gonna I'm gonna clear the air with this person Well, now you're going in with it a kind of a need or an expectation for them to be rational for them to be reasonable for them to be calm for them to be civil and In all likelihood given what they've shown you to this point Well, it may very well be the case that they won't be any of those things And now you're going to find yourself reacting to what is wrong with this person. Why aren't they very being reasonable? Why won't they listen to reason? Why are they being so rude? Etc. Etc. So you're beginning to realize It's a tough one to swallow. It's a tough pill to swallow because Oftentimes we do have expectations that People should be reasonable. Okay, people should be nice people should be polite people should be thoughtful about other people's feelings and it's it's That's all it is is an expectation because there are many many people out there and again, this is why it's a hard pill to swallow that are not like that and it's holding that expectation that People are reasonable and rational Well, it's going to run you into trouble if you're if you have that opinion now Some people think, you know, you should have the expectation. You should always expect the best of people And I I think that that's not even helpful because I think what you should do is have an expectation that people are going to be themselves The expectation is people are going to show me who they are I expect people to reveal to me who they are through their behavior through their actions through their words through their their Through their energy if you like I don't really like using that word energy, but through the way they treat you Okay, so the expectation is people will will show themselves to be who they are Not that people are necessarily good because then when you run into people who aren't good, it's very very upsetting Okay, so I would say second thing is don't seek any conversation to resolve this because it's putting yourself in a position of weakness Okay Now another point if you deal with this person in Future any narcissist any bully who is using these intimidating tactics for instance or Accusing you in this case and this even goes for this person in this question Didn't do anything wrong, but even if you did do something that you feel somewhat Implicates you in something even if that's true nothing changes here the the When you're dealing with someone like this never ever defend yourself to them never find yourself getting into a defensive posture Okay, and by that I mean never find yourself being Persuasive towards them finding yourself in that persuasive mode. We're trying to convince them of something. Okay Never even say to them that you're wrong because that's trying to convince them of something It's always just a non-reactive Type of language that you use with a person like like this Okay, so if you do talk to the person again if you have to talk to this person and you shouldn't seek out that conversation Make everything about them. Okay, so you can use questions or you can almost reflect back to them questions that they have asked you So it can be things like well, they must seem like that from your perspective So that's making it about them their perspective. Okay, you could say things like Okay, that's interesting that you think like that or you could say something like Okay, it's interesting that something gave you that impression you you you everything is about them when it's about me It's about defensiveness now. I'm defending myself and this is not your issue You didn't bring up any of this stuff So make it all about how they are seeing things and that's in a non-confrontational way so in the end they have no proof at all in this case there is because no proof exists and Here's another super interesting thing any defensive stance that you take will actually work in a very weird way because If you find yourself being defensive to someone like this What'll happen is something called counter transference because they're projecting guilt onto you and when you start to defend yourself like that You actually start to feel guilty and you start to act guilty because well, you know What would a guilty person do if they were accused of something or they were threatened like that? They would say oh, no, no, no, they get defensive, right? So if you find yourself getting defensive even though you didn't do anything or even though you shouldn't even have to respond to someone who's given treating you in this way You start to feel like you're guilty and that's that's called counter transference and that will happen So above all just don't get into defending yourself with someone like this at all. Okay? Because right now I'll end with this but right now in this situation. You have all the power Okay, because you have the winning hand You have all the power because they don't have any power what they're using aggressive behavior or whatever might be Although it can look powerful is actually coming from a deeply rooted place of lack and weakness Okay, I would say in general, you know, it's it's why I don't really use like the term narcissists too much because it is over overused Bullies narcissists whatever label you want to put on it. It's always coming from a place of emotional pain or trauma. Okay? So it's not to see them as powerful people. They don't have any power That's why they're in this mode of being like this with people in relationships So You have your power. So if if you start to get into that defensive posture thing It's not like you give them your power because I've heard people say that before when you're giving your power away to the person You're not giving them any power at all. Okay, when you do that when you make mistakes like that It's it's more that you're just giving your you're losing your power now. It's not like it's going to them this is a kind of a Subtle point I'm making but it's an interesting point You don't give them your power because they're powerless. They'll always be powerless if they're coming from that mindset, right? You're just giving up your power too so Just Realize that that feeling of helplessness that you talked about in the question where if I feel I don't do anything here I feel helpless realize that the most proactive thing you can do is To not react and see that almost as an action if you like and that will make you feel less less helpless around this but The worst thing that we do with this is that we do react and we get drawn into The conversation that they have decided should be had you never proactively decided to have this conversation So don't have it right one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from somebody was Never answer a question. You don't want to answer. There's no there's no There's no need to answer a question that you don't want to answer and it puts you in an awful lot of control So realize if you follow those steps, you have the power and you will retain your power and you've got this You can just relax with this now, right? It's it's very difficult when when somebody acts like this and expectations we have because You know, we do have this expectation that well people will be normal people will act like they're they're friendly and have a You know an empathetic energy towards us Many many people will from my experience, but then some won't you know and it's not to get angry or reactive to it It's just to accept people where they are and not try to To change them or to react to the fact that they're not the way we expected them to be And then just leave all the all that drama over on their side of the equation. Don't get drawn in. I hope that was helpful and Take it from me that that one that will work and The drama will just fizzle out and fade away As I said guys if you do want to contact me you can just send me an email and If I have if I can answer the question that you you send me I will try to and if I can't I won't I Only want to answer questions that I feel I can actually add something to and Obviously you can reach me there for online counseling as well if that's something that you're looking for Take care of yourself and I'll talk with you again soon