How & Why They Dominate You: They're Not Innocent!

[00:00:00]So, in this video, we're going to be talking about some more covert dominance tactics and a little bit about what dominance is and why people are dominating.

[00:00:08]So, welcome to the channel if you're new here. My name is Abigail.

[00:00:12]I've been studying psychology and spirituality for about 6 years and um here to share my knowledge and support with you.

[00:00:22]So, I like to call dominance a symptom of hierarchy consciousness and hierarchy consciousness is born of scarcity.

[00:00:32]When resources are scarce, people may falsely believe that they need to fight for them.

[00:00:38]Um when resources are scarce, self-esteem lowers, which causes people to fight, especially emotional resources.

[00:00:48]You know, if you've had any narcissistic mothers or fathers, you definitely know what it's like for emotional resources to be scarce.

[00:00:58]Um you know, the narcissistic mother or father picks a favorite and that favorite gets most of the the emotional resources.

[00:01:08]And often times that favorite is also expected to be just like the narcissist and that's where we start seeing dominating personalities in the workplace.

[00:01:23]So, I lost my train of thought there, but often times the most dominating people um are actually mimicking their narcissistic mother. So, really dominating individuals can be like the golden children, especially if you're familiar with narcissistic family systems theory. So, um what happens is the golden child gets all of the emotional resources and maybe even the physical resources and they also are deeply expected and traumatized into being just like the narcissistic parent. So, what they learn kind of subconsciously is that you know, being like the narcissist, dominating, intimidating, fighting, controlling, being like the narcissist gets you resources. So, when they come into the workplace, um they play out that same pattern where they're extremely dominating, controlling, and intimidating, and and it works, you know, it works in a narcissistic workplace system, it works.

[00:02:24]Um the most dominating individuals are often the favorites. And um for narcissistic people, their favorites are the ones who are most like them. Why is that? Because narcissists need that validation that their way is normal. You know, the more people that are like them, the more mirrors and echo chambers they have to validate the beliefs about themselves that their behavior is good and right, and they don't need to change.

[00:02:54]So, our power in society kind of against this comes from, you know, really getting to what is truly right and wrong, and and holding people truly accountable for their actions. But, that's another topic for another video, so.

[00:03:09]Um intimidation and dominance kind of go hand in hand.

[00:03:13]I like to call it auric dump.

[00:03:16]You know, when a really controlling, dominating person enters the room, they have this intimidation tactic where they kind of dump a threatening frequency into the emotional environment, and that threatening frequency is meant to control people.

[00:03:34]Anyone with conditioning who fawns to threats, who freezes in front of threats, or who fights in front of threats, really um is able to be controlled by them, you know, either if the narcissist wants you to fight so that negative attention is on you or not them. They want you to fawn so that you'll do whatever they say and that you'll give them compliments or you'll be really nice to them and then they're validated. Or they want you to freeze and then you are um labeled as shy or mentally ill. You know, everything they do is kind of in this hierarchy consciousness, you know, how can I be above you?

[00:04:15]And that's [snorts] the thing about hierarchy consciousness is that it's kind of an illusion in and of itself. Like the person at the top of the hierarchy is really just a hierarchy in their mind, you know, if someone wants to be at the top of the hierarchy and they're really dominating, they will force their way to the top and they will, you know, rewrite reality to feel superior to others and believe that they're the most high status and they'll um lie to themselves and misinterpret things so that they can feel superior.

[00:04:46]And it's really all about their self-esteem, right? Their personal power. And that's why this is all an illusion, you know, people with power have the most status.

[00:04:58]But narcissists who dominate their way to the top, they don't have power necessarily, they have borrowed power and that's not status, that's an illusion.

[00:05:09]Um but some examples of this, uh I'll tell you a personal story. So, um this one's pretty complex and interesting. There's a lot of kind of unhealthy dynamics going on, but I was shadowing a server um at a restaurant job and all of a sudden the guest kind of started getting quite angry about his salad.

[00:05:37]He thought the pieces of cabbage in the salad were too big and honestly, I didn't like the salads there either. I think that it was a fair complaint. The the cabbage definitely was a bit too big to enjoy the salads there. Um, they're also pretty pricey, so I could understand the complaint. But, just looking at his behavior, he kind of looked maybe like he was throwing a a low-key tantrum a little bit.

[00:06:01]Um, but knowing the person that I was shadowing, she was a very dominating individual. And I wasn't really attuned to her presence in that moment. But, we could kind of infer that she maybe had something to do with his overreaction to the salad.

[00:06:21]You know, when someone is dominating, threatening, threatening, unsafe, and you open up about a complaint, that's when they pounce.

[00:06:32]And so, I could empathize with the customer in that moment that you open up about a complaint, you realize the person in front of you is unsafe and dominating, and then you it creates even more dysregulation, and then he looks like the problem, he's scapegoated. And then the dominating person gets that superiority hit of fake self-esteem.

[00:06:55]And then this gets even more complex of how like the dominance cycle kind of operates.

[00:07:02]So, they'll first do that like org dump and make you feel uncomfortable, really uncomfortable.

[00:07:09]And then you're already feeling a little bit uncomfortable, and then a minor inconvenience happens.

[00:07:15]And then, you know, you're allowed to be uncomfortable or destabilized in public, it doesn't mean that you're over dramatic. But then when you bring up that complaint, it's like they turn up the org dump or the dismissal or they go into they start thinking threatening thoughts, and you can feel it. You can you feel it. They start thinking threatening thoughts, and then it cause that causes more and more destabilization, and often times this dynamic is intentional.

[00:07:41]So, they have that threatening presence.

[00:07:45]They are dismissive. They may not be paying attention to you.

[00:07:50]And then when you show any sort of vulnerability, whether that means a complaint or a question or you try to, you know, calm the dynamic down, that's when they pounce.

[00:08:03]It's when they pounce. I once had a I worked at this really chaotic workplace and I had this um this girl, she came up to me, the bartender, she said to about the manager, she said, "Don't show weakness.

[00:08:18]She'll pounce."

[00:08:22]Yeah.

[00:08:24]Yeah, I'm not even joking. She said, "Don't show weakness, she'll pounce." I didn't stay at that job.

[00:08:30]But it's so true. It's exactly how they work. Uh don't show weakness, they'll pounce.

[00:08:34]So, I had another ex- another example of this.

[00:08:37]Actually happened to me the other day.

[00:08:39]So, what they'll do is they'll say something really confusing. And then again, once you show vulnerability, they'll jump in to correct you.

[00:08:47]And it's that fake hit of self-esteem, you know? They want to make you look like the confused one or make you look like the incompetent one by destabilizing your nervous system. And as soon as you show it, which is strength, vulnerability is strength, as soon as soon as you show it, they jump in to correct you, but they caused the need for the correction or the vulnerability in the first place. So, this person is handing me my order and she started talking nonsense. It was like word salad. Like I have no idea to this to this day, to this moment, what she was saying. Um because it was just chaos. It was just like And whenever that happens, my first instinct is to try and resolve the chaos in the dynamic. So, I asked a very calm question to bring things back down to reality. And as soon as I did that, she pounced. She jumped in to correct me very aggressively and tell me I was wrong about something.

[00:09:46]Um and there could be a lot of like underlying traumas or whatever in her psychology. I don't know her, but um because I recognized the hostile nature of the interaction, I got a little bit direct.

[00:10:03]>> [laughter] >> And I kind of firmly told her to um I kind of firmly stated reality, I would say. So gaslighting is not always just the words or the behavior, right? When someone is purposely trying to confuse you and then correct you to make you feel bad about yourself as soon as you like try and get clarity, that is gaslighting. So my my instinctive response was to state reality firmly.

[00:10:46]And um then she [snorts] she kind of played the victim the way that they do where she didn't start It wasn't over dramatic, but she kind of like sulked and um went away and kind of resolved the issue. I didn't give a lot of context for what was actually happening, but um yeah. So, we can kind of see the drama triangle a little bit in here. This isn't a drama triangle video, but she's the persecutor by, you know, confusing me.

[00:11:21]And then she plays the victim as soon as I speak firmly, but you know, you don't really have to step into the triangle and be a villain for them to to cast you in the villain role. It's like her intention there was likely to make me the villain no matter what. And why is that? For emotional resources. You know, if she can plausibly frame herself as a victim of me, then she gets to go to her friends and complain. And then, you know, the attention again is on her all the mean customers she deals with and maybe not her lack of communication skills or her lack of her actual skills at her job.

[00:11:58]Um because that's what I noticed, you know, she whether she knew how to communicate with me or not, she wasn't communicating in any clear way, which is a responsibility of her job. And we see that with narcissists.

[00:12:14]They don't take responsibility for their job. Instead, they will just divert negative attention to guests or other um co-workers.

[00:12:24]And so I just thought of this. This is another thing with narcissists. Narcissists will often feign not having skills. So, we may perceive the narcissist as horrible communicators. Um but it's it's like weaponized incompetence, I think is the word for it, where they do know how to communicate. They are capable of communication, but they use incompetence to dominate people like this like in this last story this individual did with me. Her confusing, chaotic, incompetent um communication pulled a vulnerability out of me. It wasn't really a vulnerability.

[00:13:05]I just asked a question, but that she could pounce on and dominate me on. And then once they get that reaction, they're the victim.

[00:13:13]And I see this a lot in the restaurant industry because the roots of the service industry are kind of hierarchy consciousness, for sure, authoritarian.

[00:13:24]And that's where dominance is really rewarded and thrives.

[00:13:32]So, yeah.

[00:13:37]You know, when someone needs to dominate you and purposely destabilize you to make you look bad in front of others, it really shows that there's something shady going on in their intentions that they know that they're not doing a job and that they that they're not doing their job or that they're not doing a good job and that they're willingly choosing not to do it and to be incompetent because, you know, they're getting away with it or um they believe that it's okay to manipulate the system, you know, it's the absence of healthy morals and integrity.

[00:14:12]Um it also can be normalization, right?

[00:14:15]When we grow up in an unhealthy childhood, we believe that childhood is normal. We don't see dominance for what it is, wrong, intentional, morally [ __ ] up. We see it as mom or dad. And if those moms or dads told us that that was love and that they cared about us, we see dominance as love and care. And it's not the case. It's not the case at all. So, it's about, you know, undoing that conditioning, but I'll share another story with you where I this individual was training me and she really destabilized my nervous system. Like, again, her communication was really chaotic, really communi- really communi- really confusing. And one of the first things she said to me was, "I don't think you're going to get it." So, she kind of told me like, "You're incompetent." To to my face. She told me I was incompetent.

[00:15:20]Incompetent. And and it And it's interesting because it kind of shows a pattern. She had been training a lot of people before me where she had misinterpreted her chaotic, confusing, and bad training as every new hire is incompetent and people are incompetent when it was really her her her her her her horrifically bad training. And And it And there's nothing wrong with being bad at something, but what's wrong is being bad at something and then hurting others and convincing them that they're the bad one, right?

[00:15:52]And so that's what she kind of was doing to me. And so um one thing that I often do when in the presence of chaotic energy or stressful energy is I start moving slowly. And that's my instinctive response to create balance in the interaction. So, I'll talk slowly. I will um move slowly cuz if not, then I'm just going to get really stressed out and be in chaos too, and I'm not I I like to be calm.

[00:16:21]So, um but dominating people will weaponize that against you, you know what I mean?

[00:16:26]They're They misinterpret it. They destabilize you with their chaotic, confusing, dominating, threatening, intimidating energy.

[00:16:34]And then when you move slow, you know, you're slow.

[00:16:38]You're not fast enough.

[00:16:41]But the thing about chaos, when you're working in chaos, they are the slow one.

[00:16:46]Right? Slow is fast.

[00:16:49]And when you're when you're in that stressful energy, you don't really perform as well as you could. So, there's a there's a lot of projections that can go on, but I want to I say this to validate you because your nervous system also might instinctively move slow slower when you're in the presence of chaotic people.

[00:17:07]And it's kind of like a sign that you're in the presence of someone who is stressed or chaotic, and it's not that anything is wrong with you. It's actually a very healthy thing to do um to regulate and balance and some [snorts] people refuse to allow interactions to be cooperative.

[00:17:26]What I mean by that is if you try to calm down the interaction with a regulated nervous system or calm questions, a lot of people will refuse to come down.

[00:17:36]Because they need that control. For whatever reason that it is insecurity um fear, scarcity but they'll refuse to cooperate with you. It's like my way or the highway energy. They want every interaction to go that the way that they want to and often times it's a sign of a bit of a of shady intentions, but we don't pathologize people's intentions without proper evidence. I just want to say that. So, whenever I'm talking about intentions or my analysis is you know, without communication I can't fully understand people and my analysis is and your analysis is may not always be correct.

[00:18:20]But we don't want to make assumptions about people's disorders or mental health without actual supporting evidence and pattern recognition.

[00:18:30]Um but we can talk about it in a way of like these are the signs and it's highly likely that this is what's going on with this person, but we're still open to change. We don't need to be always right about it and we're really looking for that non misinterpreted supporting evidence for our conclusions when we're we're talking about psychology and this is the skill known as pattern recognition.

[00:18:57]Um and this is a really protective skill that many survivors like me and you may develop because when we're dealing with gaslighting and covert bullying and covert dominance and covert [ __ ] um behavior you really have to learn to rely on that intuition and your own um possibilities to keep yourself safe, but with balance where we can still be open and that we're not super hyper-vigilant all the time.

[00:19:29]So, if this was helpful for you, um like this video, share this with anyone you think could benefit from it, and um I'll see you in the next one.