Dealing with Emotional Blackmail – Phase 1 

Awareness, Witness  and the Power of Intention

Bring your AWARENESS to this situation. Stop, look, and listen. It’s important to admit to yourself exactly what is going on in order to be able to deal with it. Oh – and stop making excuses for your son. That’s how you remain stuck in the spider’s web – you know that, don’t you?

So once you have recognised what is going on, something that can really help is to have someone WITNESS your situation.

• Go to an Al-Anon meeting and share about what has been happening.
• Talk to a good friend who you know won’t judge you.
• If you are seeing a counsellor, discuss this emotional blackmail with them

Why am I suggesting this? Because bringing your situation out into the open will help you begin to release your guilt and shame, which you’ve been storing up for so long. You can vent about it – that’s good. Let it all out! When people witness your problem in an Al-Anon meeting – it’s almost as though that problem loses its ‘power’ over you. That then releases your energy to set an INTENTION to do something about the emotional blackmail you are suffering.

The power of INTENTION is simply the power of focus.

• You set your intention to eliminate emotional blackmail from your life
• You write down your Intention
• You commit to doing whatever is necessary to achieve that – which means you need to…
• Share your Intention with your team. this is important. Please see and revise Plan of Action/For You –  Paragraph 4: ‘Gather your Team’.
• Working with your team gives you accountability and therefore increases your ability to eradicate emotional blackmail from your life. It’s a good idea to review your progress with your team regularly. In order to do this, you need to…
• Keep a record or diary of your progress with your Intention to eradicate emotional blackmail from your life. Share this record/diary with your team. (I would suggest you meet with them every two weeks to begin with. You can make it once a month when you feel you are ‘getting it right’ most of the time).

I know this may sound like a mission. If you choose to accept it, you are giving yourself the best possible chance of a more peaceful life. You deserve that.

In the process, your son or daughter, whom you love very much, will receive your gift of the discipline of Boundaries. He or she has been behaving like a toddler – and so the only way out, for all of you, is to apply the same firm Boundaries that you would for a toddler.

Stay with me here and move on to Emotional Blackmail – Part 3