Editor’s note: Liberty Forrest, author of several self-help books and a certified Law of Attraction Life Coach, explains an empowering concept — despite what you may think, no one can make you feel hurt, angry or any other emotion. Knowing this, you can take back your power. Read more about Liberty.
By Liberty Forrest
“He makes me so angry!”
“You make me jealous when you see your friends!”
“I’ll make her feel so guilty for this…”
“Oh, I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings!”
Sound familiar in general, if not specifically? No doubt you’ve been down that road a time or two, on one side of those statements or the other. These are the kinds of statements many people make on a regular basis. And that’s because they believe it’s possible for one person to have control over the feelings of another.
Well, I’m here to tell you it is absolutely not possible.
“But wait!” you might say, able to give me a long list of examples about this person or that one who knows how to “push your buttons” and make you feel hurt, someone who knows exactly which triggers will get what reactions from you. They know how to wind you up and oh, my goodness, do they ever go for it when they really want to upset you!
How Can This Be?
So what am I talking about then? How can I possibly say that no one else has any control over your feelings?
Read more: The smear campaign — when sociopaths lie about you
I can say it because it’s the truth. Absolutely, 100%, always. Those people have learned that if they say or do something in particular, you will react in a certain way. You have taught them that if they do “this,” then you will do “that.” It’s that simple. Those people do not “make” you react the way you do. Your reactions are your own choice. Every. Single. Time.
You may be familiar with the work of Ivan Pavlov. In the late 1800s, while doing research on aspects of the digestion of dogs, he ended up becoming famous for the “conditioned reflex.” He noticed that dogs salivate just before they are given their food. Pavlov began ringing a bell and then feeding the dogs. Soon the dogs were salivating as soon as they heard the bell – even when there was no food present.
A ringing bell would not normally have induced such a response because it had nothing to do with food. The bell, in and of itself, had no power to make the dogs salivate. It’s just that the dogs had learned to associate that sound with being fed.
Learning to make you feel hurt
And so it is with every single occasion upon which you hear yourself saying that someone makes you feel this or that – whether good or bad. Those people have simply learned what your response will be when they say or do something in particular. Whatever might be at the root of your unhappy feelings and reactions is up to you to discover and heal.
If you believe that other people “make you feel” hurt, angry, guilty etc., you’re handing them your power on a silver platter. You’re saying, “I’m not in control of my life or my feelings.” You’re saying, “I can’t make you stop hurting me.” Or put another way, “You hold my power – and therefore my happiness – in your hands.”
How to Take Back Your Power
But you can take back that control the moment you accept that your feelings are entirely in your own hands. You get to decide how you will react. If people are used to you being angry when they say or do something in particular, and your anger is their desired response, you can always choose not to lose your temper, and even if you do feel angry, you can choose to keep it to yourself and let them see only a calm exterior.
This really throws people who are used “pushing your buttons” and “making” you react in a way that leaves them feeling like they have control over you. But when you change your reaction, suddenly their old tactics aren’t working. Commonly, their response is to try harder to make you be the way you used to be. So they might step up their efforts to get you to react in the old way. They might push harder, or throw more barbs, just waiting to see how long it takes for you to crack and return to your previous response of blowing up or bursting into tears.
If you continue to remain calm (at least outwardly) no matter how many times they push those buttons (that don’t really exist), eventually they’ll give up because they’re no longer getting the desired response. And that’s because they have no control over your feelings at all. And they never did. You just thought they did (and so did they). The simple truth is that they had only learned that they could expect certain behaviours from you in a particular set of circumstances. They just never realised that you were always free to change what those behaviours would be. And neither did you.
Learn more: Tools for navigating narcissists and other manipulative people
But you can teach them something else now. You can begin by reacting in ways that do not give them the desired response. Soon they will learn that they cannot “push your buttons.” They’ll learn that they do not have any control over your feelings, and you’ll learn that, too. This is immediately empowering and freeing, and you can enjoy it any time you like!
This article was originally published at LibertyForrest.com. Reprinted with permission from the author.
I am embarrassed about falling for his lies
Great article! I use a “responsibility wheel” and show my clients how they are only responsible for their own feelings, thoughts, actions, etc. and not another person’s! Children have a hard time with this concept, naturally, but if you work with them on their level, eventually, as they evolve developmentally, they will understand. Thank you for posting!
Thank you for your interesting comments, Joanie! You’re so right, it can be difficult for children to understand the concept of not being responsible for another person’s thoughts, feelings etc. It’s great that you’re doing such wonderful work in the world.
Best wishes,
Liberty
This is such a crucial concept. Understanding that we have the power to choose how we respond to another’s provocation enables us to take back our power.
Indeed!!!
I look at this posts now to see what’s happening with the discussion about this topic.
It’s earily quiet I see after the first few bursts of comments on my initial comment.
Which I see was a bit over-the-top emotion driven to make my point clear.
But in essence I still stand for the moral-rational-emotional content on all I stated.
I still firmly believe it’s a very dangereous route to support any views that try to sell victims of abuse the thought they learnt their abusers to abuse them.
And upon this; promoting the idea that no-one can make them feel anything they did not choose to feel. This is just absolute nonsence. And straight-on victim-blaming.
The Pavlov-example ‘Liberty’ provides makes this clear enough. She/he uses this example in a gas-lighting way. She/he provides ‘evidence’ that completly contradicts her/his narrative. Just to confuse.
The Pavlov-example clearly shows those dogs had NO rational choice at all about how they would react. Their feelings and instincts were much stronger.
Those dogs were rationaly targeted and manipulated by researchers just to use them for their own goals. Sounds familiar?
This is exactly what sociopaths do all the time. You should see ‘Liberty’ does exactly the same. A bit more sophisticated maybe but very clear to see if you take the notion and time.
Torro2006 – you say it is “eerily quiet” in here and wonder why. Perhaps it is because your last few posts have accused Liberty and those trying to explain her statements of “mind f—ing, gaslighting, victim blaming” as well as being “delusional” and accused her and them by extension of being psychopaths, narcissists and self-inflated themselves. You imply that anyone who has an opinion different from yours is wrong and that their opinions are all “crap”. And you wonder why no one wants to reply? I am very new here and have been reading a lot. Just about everyone on this site has been called these things by their abusers and made to feel like their opinions dont count. Why would anyone want to hear it again? You have a right to your opinion, of course – as does everyone – but my goodness you have an aggressive way of making a point. No wonder people have gone silent.
After all the reading I’ve done on your overall excelent articles on the subject I came across this very recent article. It just completely suprised me after all I read before from you.
Now suddenly you promote a viewpoint which is the viewpoint of a sociopath. He/she is able to not being triggered by emotional push-buttons for he/she lacks the emotions to be triggered. They are not there. There’s nothing to trigger.
Now you support in this article the view that if your emotions are triggered by abusers it’s because you failed to control those emotions. In short it’s all your fault you reacted the way you did. ‘No one can make you feel hurt, angry or anything else’ you proclame now.
Putting all the responsibility and blame on the victims again.
It’s the sociopaths game and it seems you fell for it with eyes wide open.
Or you took the higher ground for it appealed to you. Turned into a sociopath yourself demeaning all those people who rightfully believe they were victims of those abusers.
Now, in fact, you condem them as being totally responsible for the abuse they endured. It’s just such a strange/wicked turn-around from your previous views. Such a betrayel in fact.
It might be you’re still lost yourself and found refuse in an inflated, narcissitic world you created with your site.
With this article though you fell through the basket and showed your true colors. You sure still have a big problem accepting what happened to you.
whoa Torro2006 — you mistakenly are blaming the site owner (Donna) for this opinion piece – actually written by a contributor. As is stated in the intro “Liberty Forrest, author of several self-help books and a certified Law of Attraction Life Coach, explains an empowering concept — despite what you may think, no one can make you feel hurt, angry or any other emotion.” So this is HER opinion – please don’t blame the LoveFruad site or owner! Everyone is entitled to an opinion – and some may not align with yours.
This concept of “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” is accredited to Eleanor Roosevelt back in 1935. Essentially it says we can’t help how we feel, but we can choose how we act – a pretty wise philosophy. Essentially this article reminds us that yes, the Very Bad Person in our life triggered some pretty powerful emotions and did Very Bad Things to us – and THEY are 100% responsible for those actions. However, when we finally get away from them and have time and space to reflect and heal, it is really up to us to choose our healing path. Some ruminate and ponder and self-blame; some seek affirmation and “poor you”s from understanding friends; some move forward with head held high, faking it until they make it. It is OUR choice how to feel, how to react, how to deal with what happened. It is in NO WAY our fault what happened to us – and this is just one way of dealing with those overwhelming, horrible, guilt ridden feelings. And, if you think of it – it is also a way of pointing back at the abuser and saying “Neener neener — you DON’T win. I CHOOSE to move on.”
I read the article wasn’t written by her ofcourse but she allowed it on her site and commented very positively on a reply in this section. That’s about fully agreeing with the content of the article.
The writer of the article (also) states clearly that victims of abuse ‘learn’ other people to abuse them and therefore are fully responsable they ‘trigger’ the abuse by their conduct. This is absolute nonsens.
No-one learns people to be abusers. Certainly not their victims.
The article is a classical, vicious example of mind-fucking, gaslighting and victim-blaming.
Then see this ‘LibertyForrest-site’..
The content is all about rational domination over emotions and feelings.
Just what sociopaths (and high functioning autists) see as the only logical drive in life. For they are incapable feeling those emotions.
It’s such a narcissistic/autistic/sociopathic world-view.
And then Donna places this article and comments very positively on it.
All I can conclude; she still hasn’t learned the essence of the problem. Like you.
In fact it seems like she- and you started to believe you had to become narcissists/sociopaths yourself to defeat them.
It’s a shame this article has been placed here with Donna’s full support. All the previous work by Donna and others on this site is rendered useless concerning her with just this blow in my opinion.
She fully supported victim-blaming by posting this article and commeting on it with full support.
You can say what you want but I won’t by your crap or feeding your delusion.
Just read the article 10 times if nesserary.
torro2006,
I can understand your point of view. I remember being angry and upset about my sociopathic husband as he spent all my money and ran up my credit cards, and then accused me of being part of the problem because I was angry and upset. I totally get it.
Luckily for me, that was many years ago, before I really began my healing journey. But many Lovefraud readers are still mired in the disaster. I can see how anyone who is still caught in the web of lies, or still trying to claw their way back to normalcy, or still dealing with people blaming them, or blaming themselves, can take offense to Liberty’s views and advice.
So maybe, for many people, Liberty’s perspective is aspirational. It may be where they want to get to, but not where they are. Perhaps I should have been more sensitive to that. Therefore, I am grateful for your comment.
Recovery from the sociopath takes a commitment to healing. The process of healing, in my opinion, means actually allowing ourselves to feel the deep, painful emotions caused by the sociopath’s behavior. But the goal is to release these emotions — so we can get to the point of equilibrium, where we realize that no one can actually “make us feel” badly. Which is the point of Liberty’s post.
Sociopaths are responsible for their atrocious behavior. But we are responsible for our recovery. It may take time, but it is possible. With recovery, we take back our power.
Donna, I just discovered your site a few weeks ago. I’m in to this subject for quite some years. Your articles overall are great. Then I was just shocked by this ‘Liberty’- article posted. How could you not have seen the victim-blaming promoted here?
I still wonder.
I would like to add that it’s actualy a blessing someone can make you feel bad, sad and fearfull. It demonstrates you are still a normal feeling person. If no one actuallly can make you bad, sad or fearfull anymore you’ve turned into a sociopath yourself.
The recovery is in seeing clearly you are just not like them. They are like a different species, alien to us. You should treat them like you should treat crocodiles, snakes and other emotion-devoid animals.
Thats all. Just avoid them when you read the signs clearly.
I feel I own you and your readers a more detailed response.
I believe the biggest mistake we can make is not honouring and taking serious the feelings and emotions abusers trigger in us. They are real and completly normal for normal humans. No-one learnt you to have this feelings and reactions. They are build in to your normal human-being hardware. Anyone who tries to sell you the idea that you have a rational choice about how you can feel is at least mistaken or a sociopath/autist.
The rational mind (Neo-cortex) is the latest asset live has got in evolution. In humans it has evolved the most.
All the other layers which evolved through millions of years under this neo-cortex are in fact steering the neo-cortex in normal humans.
Ration only has therefore by definition a limited control over feelings and emotions. We all can see this if we look at it carefully.
The harder we try to deny our feelings/emotions rationally the harder they will push themselfs into our lives.
We all should accept those feelings and emotions as completely natural, especially regarding abuse. And react according those feelings and emotions to our abusers. Not keeping quite! But call them out in your most honest angry language and acts based on the facts they commited.
It’s about you. You have to spit out your anger about the betrayals in your most vicious words. It will light your heart. They will not care a bit but then they will no where they stand with you once and for all. And will never bother you again.
Your feelings, emotions and intuition are in fact your saviour. They guide you to healing if you take them seriously at last.
Denying them and taking the rational road like ‘Liberty’ proclaims, is a set-up for failure and more harm to come.
It’s the sociopaths way of seeing live.
I agree that emotions are important warning signs and should be honored. I explain further in my comment below.
However, once you realize that you are dealing with a sociopath, then it’s time to learn to pause between whatever they do to incite you and think about your reaction. It does no good to interact with anger towards a sociopath. If you do, you are giving them what they want – an emotional reaction, which proves their continued power over you.
I agree that anger needs to be expressed and released, but I recommend doing it away from the sociopath. Punching bags are a good option. The anger has to come out. But expressing it to the sociopath only gives them what they want.
I read in your reaction a typical flaw in reasoning many victims make and made constantly during their encounters with their abusers.
I believe this reasoning is born out of fear for the abusers.
Contrary to what you proclame (and many others, ‘liberty’-people upfront) you’re not giving sociopaths anything by showing your anger and frustration. You show them your bounderies!
Staying quiet to them (and others) about their abuse is what they want most. Then you realy give them what they want.
They love it when you release your anger to them on a punching-bag instead of them. It makes them stay off the hook and harms-way and live happily everafter.
One thing they don’t want is consequences on their behaviour. So your keeping silent and soft is the best they can get.
I’m a promotor of victims expressing their anger and frustration to the abuser involved in very clear felt words. Not to a stupid replacement like a punching-bag.
You could write them a final letter with all the anger and contempt you feel about them now. Just how you honestly think of them now. They won’t care but they will understand there is no opening with you anymore.
Ofcourse safety can be involved. If the guy or gall is known to react with physical violence this will not be a good way to react.
But in all other cases I believe it’s the best thing to do to lighten your heart and close the doors to those abusers to ever entering your live again.
They depend on keeping you quiet about the abuse. This ofcourse is what they want. This gives them the control and power to continue the abuse.
Pushing your emotional buttons is all about testing your limits. To them it’s a cat and mouse game.
Only once the mouse bites the cat in the nose severly he/she will back-off and avoid this ‘vicious’ mouse in the future.
Keeping silent, and punching trees or punching-balls, will not keep them away. You’ll have to stand up to them personally with all the anger and frustration you have inside in clear words. In my opinion a final letter is best.
They can review it. And they will know the score.
By keeping silent you give them what they want most.
I like to add that I don’t take offence by ‘Liberty’s views’ because I’m still ‘mired in the disaster’ and haven’t seen the light yet. That’s your interpretation putting me (and others) down below you wihout knowing me (or them).
I’m very well informed in this subject and have overcome the ‘disaster’ quite well.
I don’t take offence with the Liberty-article at all. To me it’s just plain clear this is a sociopath talking or someone who’s still in complete denial.
I take offence though if someone who claims to be a uncompromizing supporter of victims of abuse publishes such a victim-blaming/shaming article and defends it. Than I have to stand up.
Hello!! Thank you so so so much for your fantastic comments! You put it all so beautifully! Really love your closing line!! Brilliant!
You made so many powerful points and it was a joy to read your thoughts. Thank you!
Best wishes,
Liberty
This realy sounds like love-bombing..
Hello, I am the author of this article and I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.
First, I must say that I have been on the receiving end of a lot of abuse in my life from childhood through to my adult life.
I’ve been the person who is being abused. I’ve been the person who is afraid for my life. I’ve been the person who has a raging, screaming abuser in my face and threatening me. So I know very well how it feels.
You have grossly twisted my words. I am not in any way, shape or form suggesting that victims are “totally responsible for the abuse they endured.”
I’m talking about their response to it, and this is where the power lies.
I know how it feels to cower in terror, afraid for my life, and I know how powerless and utterly helpless I felt in those moments.
And I know how it feels to stand in my power and not allow myself to be fearful of the raging bully in front of me because I refused to give him what he wanted.
I was not responsible for what he was doing. I was only responsible for my own responses to it. And THAT is what I am talking about in this article.
Far from making victims responsible for their abuse, my words put power back in the hands of the people who are on the receiving end of the abuse. What abusers want is to see you upset, fearful, in tears, angry – whatever. They want an emotional reaction; it makes them feel powerful. The best way to take back your power is NOT to give them what they want.
They choose to be abusive. They are fully responsible for that. Just as others are responsible for how they choose to respond to it.
Best wishes,
Liberty
It’s just not what you say in your article and your head-line: ‘No-one can make you feel hurt, angry or anything else’.
This head-line only counts for sociopaths. You go in lenghts that this is absolutely impossible. You’re completely right regarding sociopaths for they miss the feelings and emotions (and autists I like to add) that otherwise could be triggered.
Normal humans can not help being triggered by abuse and their reactions are overall completely in line/understandable with the abuse they endured.
You also state that victims of abuse learn other people to abuse them. This is such crap.
No-one learns an abuser/sociopath to abuse them. It’s just the way they are.
There’s really nothing you can do or not do to stop them abusing you or others.
You can try to take the higher ground with adopting the illusion you make yourself untouchable to their abuse. Like you seem to do. But this is a useless effort if you are a normal feeling human. You cannot become like them.
And certainly should not fall for any thought that you are in some way responsable for their abuse. You did not learn them to abuse you!
As a normal feeling human-being you have very limited control about how other people make you feel. Your statement; ‘No one can make you feel hurt, angry or anything else’ is just nonsence but not for sociopaths/autists.
You don’t fool me brother. I read your ‘Liberty’-site. It’s full of narcissitic/rational/sociopathic world-views.
Donna should have done a bit more inevestigating maybe.
Another reply to this comment of yours. You start of with explaning what a specific, very sad victim you’ve been to introduce your motivation on your article later.
You start playing the victim-card here at first while it’s not needed for your explanation on my critics. To soften me up? It doesn’t work on me.
If you realy believe what you are saying in this article, you are delusional, or still in denial, or a sociopath yourself.
Normal human-beings are unable to shut their emotions and feelings off. Feeling emotions, like anger, fear, confusion and sadness is just their human nature. That’s just what happens when other people trigger those responses with abusive behavior. You don’t have a rational choice about not reacting to this abusive behavior. It will come-in anyway.
When you truly learn about sociopaths you’ll find you still have a choice though. And that’s the choice to call them out with all the anger and contempt that’s in you in one final honest blow (best written). Then forever abandon and avoid those people in the future (they sure will if you called them out this way).
The statement you made that victims learn their abusers to treat them this way is just the greatest nonsence. Abusing people is a trait which is within the personality, not learnt. That’s why it’s called a personality-disorder. Anyone with a sound consious and empathy has no tendency/intention to abuse people.
You with this article though put all the responsabilty back on the victims.
It’s just vicious victim-blaming from a sociopath, or someone who’s still in denial.
Regarding the way you commented with your love-bombing to Donna and you playing the victim-card in your previous comments I suspect you’re a sociopath yourself.
Hi torro,
I can sympathize with your feelings. No wonder you’re upset. There are actually two issues involved here. One, which I first encountered twenty years ago, is about the confusion between “victim blaming” and “personal responsibility.” The latter is the power we have (and need) to take of our own welfare. I assure you, this is a perfectly healthy site and there is no “victim blaming” here–though it’s easy to see how victims, in early stages of recovery especially, can mistake one for the other.
However, the second and main problem is with the article itself. With due respect to Liberty, whose article does have a real and valuable message, I’m afraid I have to say with brutal frankness that the way it’s written leaves much to be desired in terms of clarity, emphasis, the marshaling of facts, “overselling” an idea, and the muddling together of different concepts. As a result, it’s wide open to misinterpretation, and I can fully understand why you reacted to it the way you did.
I want to put together a more detailed critique of Liberty’s article if I get the time, to point out the problems with it, why it can be misinterpreted, and how it could be improved by a rewrite to get her real message across. No matter how good an idea, it has to be presented right! But in the meantime, I couldn’t help thinking how much of the essence of what Liberty was really telling us was captured in a mere four lines of lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II seventy years ago, which he considered his “best work.” These inspiring words he put into the mouth of brave Anna (a real and remarkable historical woman, incidentally) and set to a cheerful melody by his partner Richard Rodgers in this classic song from their musical <i>The King and I:</i>
Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no-one will suspect I’m afraid
While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no-one ever knows I’m afraid
The song was beautifully sung by Deborah Kerr in this historic movie performance from 1956, where she teaches her little son “the lesson”–a lesson just as important for daughters as well!
[Note I don’t know what’s gone wrong with this interface. Now it won’t let me post a live link the way it used to. But here’s the link anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGS029Peq7k
]
Interestingly, the lyrics go on to say:
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well
I whistle a happy tune
And every single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid
Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are
You’re welcome to believe that part or not, though there is truth in it. All I can say is “Try it and see.” However, I did want to mention that this all occurred to me <i>before</i> I read Liberty’s response here, which I appreciate. And having read Liberty’s remarks, I think and hope that those lyrics are a perfect representation of much (not all, but much) of what she’s telling us.
I hope this helps you. Take care!
Redwald, the dealing you take here is one of merchandizing with the facts presented in the Liberty-article. The lyrics you posted are about severe denial of the facts she/he encountered.
Not lyrics from a sociopath for he/she would never bother to consider such thoughts/feelings. Let alone make a sensefull song or a poem about it. Unless it could gain her/him a lot of attention or profit otherwise.
Your problem still seems (like the most of victims) you still try to align them with your own reasoning and feelings. This is a crucial mistake we all make with them, for we expect to deal with a normal human-being. Like they presented themselfs to us in the beginning. Sometimes for many years they kept this mask upfront.
In fact they are mentally disabled people. Missing the brain-parts and connections to feel empathy for others. They are like calculating reptiles in essence.
If you read the signs this it’s all you need to know. They won’t change like your home-kept lizard won’t change.
Human-lizards though are more intelligent. This ‘Liberty-site’ is a shining example of proclaming a Narcissistic/Rational/Sociopathic world-view.
If you, or Donna, or anyone else here cann’t see this, they still haven’t learned a thing about the core of sociopathy.
Rereading this article, I agree with Redwald – the concepts could have been presented better.
When a sociopath does something offensive to his or her target, two things follow: First, a an emotional feeling, and (perhaps) second, a reaction.
We don’t necessarily have control over the initial feeling. Nor should we, because the emotions we feel are important, indicating that something is wrong. But we do have control over how we react.
I once learned a very important concept: Pause. Create some space between the incident and how we react to it. A pause can help us think about and evaluate what has happened before we make any response.
There’s another part to this dynamic involving sociopaths.
In the beginning, when we don’t know what they are, we get blindsided. We think we are dealing with a normal person who has emotions, morals and a conscience, and through his or her shocking behavior, we learn that we are not.
But once we learn this, we do have the ability to stop reacting emotionally to their provocations. Once we know just how hollow they are, and that their bad behavior is intentional, that they want to upset us, then we should understand that this is what they are and this is what they do.
Our goal is to get to the point that we just roll our eyes and say, “there they go again.’ It may take awhile to get there, but it can be done.
I think now there is a problem in semantics here. It’s about what I read in the article and you and others hardly read. I agree with you here. The ultimate goal is just to roll our eyes and accept we just encountered another ‘lizard’. Our feelings and intuition though are our best guide. If someone makes you feel hurt, angry, bad or anything else this is your best guide. Something you should never ignore.
And certainly not get fed the idea that you learned people/sociopaths to treat you bad. That it’s fully your responsability. This is such crap and victim-blaming.
Preciesly the arguments an intelligent sociopath would use to shift responsability to their victims.
This is exacly what ‘Liberty’ tryes in her/his article. And her/his site is full of this way of thinking.
That’s what triggered my responses. To alarm you.