Think Like A Black Belt

When it comes to defending our inner well-being or our lives, it’s important how we view the world’s impact on us. We need evaluate our feelings about personal power.

For example, do we feel our lives are like yo-yos, dependent on the input or feelings of others:

• Does our day and energy go up and down with the situations around us?
• Do we feel proud when someone brags about us, but down when we aren’t recognized?
• Do we fear looking out of place or saying the wrong thing most of the time?

If our inner state is dependent on how well received we are by others, our well-being is a boat bouncing on the sea of circumstance. Our inner well-being will always be buffeted by the next withering glare, shrunken by someone’s embarrassment at us, or squelched by a more powerful personality wanting to exert itself.

Yes, it’s tough to:

• disregard the opinions of others
• have the inner strength to shrug off criticism
• feel comfortable in our own skin

But when we give away our inner state to the whims of others or to circumstances, we will be less inclined to defend ourselves, to stand up for our ideas, or to make sure no one crosses the line with us.

Compare that mindset to these three quotes:

From now on, I’ll connect the dots my own way. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

I LIVE to think for myself. I refuse to be a mindless sheep following the crowd into cookie-cutter oblivion. Otherwise I’d just be a zombie with no heart or passion in life. ~Hervey Taylor IV

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. ~Dr. Seuss

Question:
What empowers you to stand up for yourself?

——————–

Thank you for visiting!

Lori Hoeck

Photo: Monsieur Gordon

NOTE: This is a change up from my usual posts. Skip it if you want. I write it because many us face tough, daily routines. Whether you are a martial artist, weightlifter, cop, EMT, firefighter, writer on deadline, on-the-go worker bee , or being driven crazy by a narcissist, I think this snack food can make your day better.

(Disclaimer: I like these bars so much, I am an affiliate advertiser. Clicking on the Native American Natural Food logos and purchasing your own Tanka Bars helps pay my bills and for caregiving costs for my mom. Thank you in advance!)

TANKA BARS — MY NEW BEST FOOD

When life comes at you fast and taking time for quality food seems like a low priority amid the daily battles, don’t you wish there was a better snack food out there?

You know, a snack that requires no work, but fuels you big time? One that doesn’t taste like a snack — with no sugary buzz, no funky after-taste, no stuck-in-the-gut feeling? But instead has a real food taste that satisfies like only protein can? Perhaps even good enough to be a healthy comfort food?

Well, I have found such a snack — my new best food — the Tanka Bar.

The Tanka Bar 70 calories and 7 grams of protein.

I wish I’d had this product as a firefighter/EMT, a martial artist, writer, and caregiver a long time ago!

And, the Spicy Pepper blend Tanka Bar  is the recipient of a 2010 Backpacker magazine Editors’ Choice Award.

If you are always on the go or a worker bee with too many candy machines facing you, you’ll appreciate the protein boost Tanka Bars give you.

The Tanka Bar is an Authentic Native American Food, made from historic Lakota recipe combining tasty, satisfying buffalo and sweet-tart cranberry.

From the first bite, the Tanka Bar hit me with one strong thought: “This tastes great — like real food. The chewy blend of flavors satisfies my taste buds and a comfort food need.”

My husband’s take on them? “Hardy, refreshing, and gives me energy.”

I tried two types of Tanka Bars, the regular and the Spicy, Pepper Blend. My family all liked the spicy — the perfect blend of snappy, flavor-laden goodness. I guess we are all in good company, because the same Tanka Bar caught the eye and taste buds of Backpacker magazine as well.

According to the Native American Natural Food’s:

Tanka Bar Spicy Pepper Blend, a product of Native American Natural Foods, has been honored as a recipient of a 2010 Backpacker magazine Editors’ Choice Award, the most prestigious award in the outdoor industry, given annually to products in recognition of their outstanding innovation in design, materials and/or performance.

Tanka Bar Spicy Pepper Blend, which pairs prairie-raised buffalo and tart-sweet cranberries with a mix of four peppers, was one of only 15 innovative products that have been honored with a 2010 Backpacker Editors’ Choice Award. The Tanka Bar, which is available nationally at REI and more than 3,000 other retail locations as well as TankaBar.com, is a modern artisanal take on a traditional Native American recipe for “wasna” or “pemmican,” which has been described by many nutritionists as the perfect energy food. The 100 percent natural bar is 70 calories, 7 grams of protein and 1.5 grams of fat per 1 ounce serving, with no trans fats.

Why not check out Tank Bars for yourself right now? Just click the banner ad and start a healthier snacking lifestyle today!

As hardy, resilient Oklahoma farm and ranch folks, my grandparents faced drought, floods, the effects of two world wars, the Great Depression, and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.

As for the last disaster, my mom remembers wetting towels to put in the windows and around doors in an attempt to keep the dust from coming in the house.

Preparedness helped make life easier.

In another childhood moment, she sat terrified in the storm cellar as her dad and granddad held the door shut with strong rope to stop the suction of a tornado from pulling anyone out.

Preparedness helped save lives.

This is not to say every day of farming and ranching was horrible. But all my family grew up keenly aware of how to “hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.” Taking the personal responsibility to prepare is simply a family habit.

For my grandparents, that meant taking time to put things out of the way of floods before the huge thunderstorms rumbled by. It also meant stocking up on supplies — enough for both humans and livestock — in case no one could make it to the store for days or months. Their due diligence in keeping the farm safe and secure even included the best and most feared Doberman Pinscher in the state, Duke.

Preparation is key in self defense and emergency thinking as well. As a volunteer firefighter and EMT a few years back, I was trained in HAZMAT drills that were pretty unthinkable and unlikely. I sure hope a dirty bomb doesn’t go off in my city, but thankfully our local firefighters could handle it and much worse.

My karate students over the years worked their butts off to make themselves ready for something that may never happen. So did I. I really doubt I will need the skills learned in those blindfolded drills against multiple attackers, but still it was fun, exciting, and taught me to move and think in different ways.

Preparation is key in facing disaster, the bully at school, or the knife-wielding attacker. Research shows people with even a small sense of control over their situation perform better that those who believe they have no control. When you realize you have options, you are enabled to take more effective action.

In self defense situations, the more you know about your own skills and the flow of physical, mental or emotional violence, the more likely you will be to respond in a way that keeps you safe.

Preparation.

• United States Coast Guard understands it, “Semper Paratus” or “ever ready.”
• Boy Scouts understand it — “Be Prepared.”
• My grandparents understood it, “Lori, we never know what might happen. Best to be ready.”

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UPDATE on the release of the ebook, The Narcissist: A User’s Guide:

Both Betsy Wuebker of Passing Thru and I thank everyone who has downloaded our power-packed ebook! If you haven’t yet, you can discover more about it here, and then read Betsy’s great backstory to its beautiful layout and design by Sirius Graphix here.  (The wonderful folks at Sirius Graphix made sure we were prepared for our launch!)

We’ve found the rush of  emailed feedback, comments, and discussion to be great, and we want to invite anyone to share their stories as well for a future, follow-up book. Interested? Drop Betsy an email: betsywuebker AT passingthru DOT com

Again, thank you!

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Thank you for visiting and learning more about self defense.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

Lori Hoeck

Photo: Wikipedia Link

“I wished I had this
information years ago.”

Easily a dozen people who’ve already taken a sneak peek at The Narcissist: A User’s Guide have said those words to my co-author Betsy Wuebker of Passing Thru and me.

I’ve said them myself. So has my husband.

• Who wouldn’t want a guide to steer them away from a nasty, drama-filled relationship?
• Who wouldn’t want to know why certain relationships are so maddening and draining?
• Who wouldn’t want to thwart others from verbally and emotionally bullying, belittling, and brow-beating them?

Betsy and I have endured our respective narcissists and survived to tell and write about it. Now we offer our hard-won, passionate, and “rueful” wisdom, as Betsy calls it, as an ebook.

Want to know more? Take a look at
The Narcissist — A User’s Guide

Here are what what two others online writers say about The Narcissist: A User’s Guide:

I read The Narcissist: A User’s Guide.  I started it and I couldn’t put it down… At 29 pages long, it is a crash course in narcissism, but it touches on everything someone about to make the jump to emotional freedom would want to know…The value of the advice given is that it is aimed at making a positive change in you, rather than dwelling on the person with the disorder.  It is taking control of what can be changed and accepting what cannot.
“OAD”
One Angry Daughter

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If you’re dealing with a narcissist right now, this ebook is a must. It will show you that you are not alone, that you are NOT crazy, and that there ARE ways to cope with the narcissist in your life – including leaving them, and learning to avoid entering into a new codependent relationship in the future…I’ve read many self development books and ebooks, and this is by far one of the most empowering guides I have ever come across. Highly recommended!
Vered DeLeeuw
Momgrind.com

You owe it to yourself and your children to arm yourself with this potent version of narcissists’ Kryptonite! You can learn more information here.

Follow us on Twitter:
@lorihoeck
@betsywuebker

The Narcissist: A User’s Guide has a Facebook page with a discussion area and a Squidoo lens.

Landing after bo-supported side kick

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Thank you for visiting.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

Lori Hoeck

When Betsy Wuebker and I started writing The Narcissist: A User’s Guide, I started sensing a more defined pattern to the dramatic, crazy-making, and convoluted ways of narcissists. (For a list of 100 narcissistic traits go here.)

For example, narcissists crave people watching them, wanting them, and being wow’ed  by them. They love to have direct, ego-strokes pump them up. If they can stick an metaphoric intravenous needle in their arm and draw their narcissistic supply from admiring underlings, grateful colleagues, or an article about them in the newspaper, they will.

If they can’t, oooh, look out.

Let’s say for example,  a narcissist presents a plan to a group. But then, one person deftly finds all the holes in the plan and points them out. The rest all concur.

Since no direct, positive attention is feeding the narcissist in this situation where he expected it, he must create other attention. Stirring the pot, creating division, sabotaging others are just a few options. So is attacking the messenger, emotional plea bargaining, and illogical arguments.

Here are a few ploys narcissists use:

Challenge
At least I’ve put some thought into this problem and presented a plan. How about the rest of you?

Deflect
Well if Bill here hadn’t screwed up a week ago, we’d never be talking about this now.

Sob Story
Look, you all know how important this plan is to me. When my daddy was on his death bed and I was taking care of him every day after school, he told me, ‘Son, don’t let a few drawbacks every hold you back.’ To this day, I like to honor that man’s courage. I owe it to him to stay committed to this plan.

Whine & Weasel
I can’t believe you all would gang up on me like this! After all I’ve done for you? Last year, didn’t I go to the big boss and get us all a penny raise, didn’t I? You bet I did…

Play Martyr
OK. OK. I see how it is. You all just want to gang up on me. I get it. You can’t come up with a better answer, so I get bashed for trying to offer solutions.

Rage
Now look here, I’ve worked my butt off developing this plan. How do you think I feel having it shot down like some mangy dog? You (pointing at someone) say it doesn’t use Twitter and social media. Who cares? My grandmother doesn’t tweet and neither does yours. You (pointing elsewhere) dismiss my numbers, but this is still in the planning stage — it’s not like it rolls out tomorrow…

One Upsmanship
I’ve always worked my butt off for this company. When I was first started here, I spent 72 hours straight working to get us over the public relations nightmare we had with the workers’ strike . I’ve always gone above and beyond. So don’t tell me this plan won’t work. We are going to make it work.

—-

I’ve heard all of these before and once in the same conversation, with the verbal attacks coming at me like killer bees. At the time, I wasn’t armed with a countering, verbal bug zapper. Betsy and I hope our ebook, The Narcissist: A User’s Guide and articles like this one better arm you against the narcissist’s verbal onslaughts.

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For more information on narcissists and articles about the ebook:

Sith Lords in the Real World

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Laying the Keel

Nobody Does It Better: Sirius Ebooks

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Thank you for visiting and learning more about self defense.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

Lori Hoeck

Photo: Phil Whitehouse

Design: Sirius Graphix

Narcissist as abuser — when the charm turns to harm

In the ebook Betsy Wuebker of PassingThru.com and I co-authored, The Narcissist: A User’s Guide, we write about detecting, avoiding, and handling a narcissistic relationship.

But there can be an even more abusive and twisted side to narcissism that Betsy and I only touch on in the book.  One of the three personal stories we include in our ebook describes this chilling side of narcissism. The writer is Lori Newman, author of a book on her battles with narcissists to protect herself and her children “Here All Along.”

“Secrets”

Secrets – he was all about making sure no one knew what went on behind closed doors.

He drank a lot that night, but he always drank a lot at night, and he continued to drink until he had passed out. I found him still holding his beer, on the couch in front of the TV.

The last time I found him in this position and did nothing, he told me, “Why would you just leave me there; you think it’s funny?”

So that evening I knew it would not be wise to leave him there again to sleep it off. I took his beer from his hand and tried as best I could to get him to stand and follow me to the bedroom. He awoke for a moment and began lifting his hand to his mouth as if taking a drink from his beer. I got him to stand and managed to help him stumble into our room.

I awoke several hours later to hear someone banging into the walls and mumbling to themselves how crazy the walk to the bathroom had been. Then he passed out on the floor and didn’t move. I got up to make sure he was still breathing. That’s when the smell of what he had done fully hit me. He had been standing in front of my closet with the door opened believing he was in the bathroom.

The next morning when he awoke and found himself on the floor, he got up and asked what had happened. He laughed as he left the room, telling me, “Have fun cleaning that up.” He took a shower and left.

“Make sure that’s cleaned before I get back,” he told me.

No apologies, no offer to help, just letting me know I had a timeline to get my own shoes and clothes cleaned up. A few months later, I shared this story with a friend. She, in turn, told her husband, who then laughed as he teased my husband about his midnight mishap.

I came home one day to find my husband in our yard swinging a golf club. He wasn’t supposed to be home from work for another four hours so I knew something was wrong.

“Do you think you are funny?” was the only question he had asked me.

I saw his eyes go black, and I knew I was in trouble. I ran for the house but heard him close behind me. I tried to lock myself in our room, but I wasn’t fast enough. He pushed me onto the bed and put a pillow over my head and explained, “No one laughs at me.”

• This is how the narcissist works—it is always the fault of others for why they cannot succeed.
• This is how the narcissist works—no one is more important than they are.
• This is how the narcissist works—no one is ever truly worthy of their love.

—————-

Some narcissists can fit so well into society, it’s often hard for those outside their influence to see or believe the nature of their power and control. Much of their abuse is verbal or emotional abuse, but they can and will step over the line into physical abuse if their false or balloon self sees that as an option.

Want to know more? Take a look at
The Narcissist — A User’s Guide

—

Thank you for visiting.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

Lori Hoeck

Photo: Casey Fleser

I took the verbal bitch slapping and emotional manipulations of a narcissist in a business setting for a number of years. I wanted to leave, but part of me said I would be a quitter if I did, so I stayed for months on end, hoping things would get better.

They never did.

Every attempt to set boundaries was met with disdain and anger. Every new suggestion was shot down or sabotaged. Every attempt to withdraw from the relationship created another firestorm of drama.

I felt powerless and used with no way out. I couldn’t separate his induced sense of guilt in me from my self image. Back then, I would have given anything to have a resource to explain what was going on and give me some answers.

EMOTIONAL NINJA
I didn’t realize at the time a narcissist is like an emotional ninja. They appear normal in so many ways, but when it comes to controlling the relationship, they quickly rise to the top. Their greatest weapon is the ability to read your weaknesses and turn them against you without appearing to do so.

Until now, it’s been hard to find practical, actionable ways to see through their crazy-making ways and deal with them.

I’ve tried to write about them here at Think Like A Black Belt, but I always felt like I’d  just scratched the surface. Thankfully, one of my readers kept leaving awesome comments that showed me she understood the wily ways of narcissists, too.

POWER COLLABORATOR
After a few emails, Betsy Wuebker of PassingThru.com and I became collaborators on an ebook  The Narcissist: A User’s Guide. Energized by our passion for the subject, we tackled a host of topics in the ebook, including

• What creates a narcissistic personality?
• Why can involvement with a narcissist hurt you?
• What are common indicators?
• Questions you can ask someone to help determine if they are a narcissist.
• Why are narcissists so hard to deal with?
• Why are narcissists so effective at what they do?
• What can I say to set a boundary with a narcissist?
• Is the price of caving in worse?
• Why does it seem narcissists crop up more than once?
• Why do some people seem immune to narcissists?

AWESOME
In the “things just keep getting better” category, Betsy and I were blessed to have our ebook professionally designed by Deborah Dorchak of Sirius Graphix at no cost to us. Deb writes about this wonderful and serendipitous collaboration at the Sirius Graphix website. (And you must read her take on narcissists: “Sith Lords in the Real World.”)

I can tell you first hand, Sirius Graphix understands the meaning of collaboration. These four women started out by pooling their skills together and now they’ve continued that tradition by reaching out to others in the same way.

This ebook sparked the idea for their program called “Sirius Inspirations”. Once a month for this year, Sirius Graphix will choose an author who needs a boost to get their ebook out on the web and help them with everything from design to marketing.

The Sirius Ladies understand business, but more importantly, they understand people and how to make a client’s dream come alive.

BEYOND EXPECTATIONS
Betsy says she started this project thinking it would be wonderful if it helped just one person. (Her side of this wonderful story is What Goes Around, Comes Around.)

We’ve already gone way past that with just our sneak peeks of the ebook to family, friends, and online colleagues.

Want to know more? Take a look at
The Narcissist — A User’s Guide

Here’s one person’s reaction after reading the ebook:

I had two narcissists in my life. The first one lasted 16 years, the second one 6 months. Seems I am learning to identify their existence in my life, and impact, faster. But, I sure wish I had the The Narcissist: A User’s Guide during these painful periods.

Recovering from the damage of these relationships was slow, and I thought I had wiped the last trace of their impact on my psyche clean away. But, when I read The Narcissist: A User’s Guide, each word leaped off the page at me and flooded me with relief.

It was like the Roberta Flack lyrics, “strumming my life with his finger,” only Betsy and Lori were strumming my life with their words. They confirmed that everything I experienced was very real. The damage to my psyche was very real. And the length of time it took to recover was very real.

I recommend The Narcissist: A User’s Guide to anyone who suspects they are dealing with a narcissist. You will learn, like me, that you are not crazy. And with this knowledge, you will gain the strength to untangle yourself from the Narcissist trap.

~Eliza Fayle of Silver and Grace

I eventually left the narcissist who’d run rough-shod over my life, talents, and emotions. A final sabotage by him at the deepest levels was the last straw. The peace and calm — translate: lack of drama — that now fills my life is priceless.

—

Thank you for visiting.
If you think others can benefit, please pass it on!

Lori Hoeck

Beyond the Self Defense Tweets:
Taken randomly from my self defense tweets on Twitter.  I write super-short blog posts to go Beyond the Tweet, chosen from the archives.

The Tweet:

Is assertiveness rude? Is it rude set boundaries for jerks, bullies, & bad guys? Value your safety over their egos.

Beyond the Tweet:

If you don’t set boundaries on your time, energy, money, relationships, and emotions, someone else will.

American society has slowly moved from “I’m responsible for me,” to “I’m responsible for you” — in a bad way. Political correctness, social justice, and tolerance concepts that have gone too far allow bullies, bad guys, users, abusers, and narcissists, and jerks to flourish. Time to take back the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

• You have the right to defend yourself
• You have the right to be free of oppression from users, abusers, and predators
• You have the right chart the course of your life and happiness without paying for everyone else’s emotionally or financially

You are important. You have value. You deserve a life free from the control or attacks of others.

Take claim to your right to safety and never let it be taken away.

—

Lori Hoeck

I tweet here @LoriHoeck.

Photo: Randy Son Of Robert