15 Most Thought Provoking Quotes From Confucius That Will Expand Your Mind

Lessons

June 26, 2018

We are all unique beings who follow our own path.

Some people excel in business, arts, engineering, sciences, and other areas where they make great contributions to the world. And there are quite a few whose contributions can impact all of humanity with their great spirits and wise words.

They’re the spiritual masters and teachers gifted with wisdom where we all can learn from.

Because our life experiences are limited, it is wise that we learn from the greatest teachers in the world and allow them to expand our perspective to a world beyond the limits of our own thinking. One such man was China’s Confucius.

Considered as one of China’s most influential teachers, Confucius’ eternal wisdom has gifted the world with rules for thinking and living that expand our minds.

Here are some of his best quotes that will certainly expand your perspective.

15 Most Thought Provoking Quotes From Confucius:

1. “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.”

There are some people who want to try something out. But because they’re scared of the consequences, they’ll persuade others to do that thing and see what happens.

This is just not good. Don’t push others to do things that you would not even want to do yourself.

2. “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.”

The quality of your life speaks the quality of your thoughts. When you have happy thoughts, you have a happy life.

And it vibrates to the world at large even if you don’t shout about it on the rooftops because good thoughts, as well as meditation, brightens your light.

3. “When things are investigated, then true knowledge is achieved; when true knowledge is achieved, then the will becomes sincere; when the will is sincere, then the heart is set right ; when the heart is set right, then the personal life is cultivated; when the personal life is cultivated, then the family life is regulated; when the family life is regulated, then the national life is orderly; and when the national life is orderly, then there is peace in this world.”

In short, the change that we want to see in the world begins in our homes and in our hearts.

4. “To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.”

You’re not in control of other people’s thoughts and actions. Whether or not they hurt you is their own choice. But when they do hurt you, you’re in full control of your own reaction to it.

It’s only when you allow the hurt to linger in your mind that you’re giving them power over you. Yet, if you choose to forgive them and move on, you’re giving yourself freedom from the act done to you.

5. “Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.”

Don’t forget the kindness done to you by other people because they can serve as your inspiration to pass the kindness on to others. And it’s what our hurting world badly needs.

6. “If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?”

Worries serve you nothing. Give up worrying when there’s no reason to be feeling that way.

7. “The Superior Man is aware of Righteousness, the inferior man is aware of advantage.”

The person who doesn’t feel inferior to others won’t act out as superior. But those who feel they’re inferior to others take every opportunity where they believe their superiority is being recognized.

8. “The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters.”

The people who think small engage themselves only in small matters, while the people who think big, engage themselves in greater matters.

In whatever you do, your actions speak whether you are a small or big person.

9. “When you see a worthy person, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy person, then examine your inner self.”

Seeing the mistakes of other people should remind you of your flaws too, instead of judging them for their flaws and imperfections.

10. “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

These words encourage you to stay present, to be in the moment. You can’t be fully present in one place when your thoughts and heart are somewhere else.

Besides, success in one undertaking can only be achieved when your heart and soul are into it.

11. “He who wished to secure the good of others has already secured his own.”

The easiest way to help yourself is to help others. The good that you have done to others will return to you twice as much. It’s how the law of The Universe works.

12. “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

Similar to what we have always known, Experience is the best teacher. It may not be the easiest, but it’s the one that can provide you with the greatest life lesson.

13. “What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.”

The incredible and wonderful things lie inside your heart and soul. You don’t need to seek it in others because you already have it.

If you do, you’ll act small because you don’t know how magnanimous your state of Being is.

14. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

It is but human failing to complicate things. If you find your life is complicated, maybe you need to double check your priorities and what really matters in your life.

Life is never meant to be complicated.

15. “Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. A desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.”

These words are what our modern times need. This fast paced era has already produced enough workaholics and depressive people.

Productivity may be on the rise, but the quality of our life has been at risk. Look at your life and see if it’s productivity is equivalent to its quality.

Just focus on your goals, doing one thing at a time, in small baby steps. Being slow does not imply failure. Stopping along the way is.

3 Destructive Mental Habits That Keep You From Being Mentally Strong

Attitude

Nezel Padayhag

June 25, 2018

We live in a world that’s full of uncertainty. We may have planned carefully our life, but circumstances could thwart all our plans in just one second. This could happen with the loss of a loved one, a job, or even a dream.

In an uncertain world, how can you stay mentally strong through challenging circumstances?

The answer to this question could be tricky because no matter how knowledgeable you might be about dealing with certain situations, knowing and doing are two different things.

When someone is in a particular situation, say they lost a loved one, it would be much easier for you to cite how they should feel in order to cope. But it’s a different thing when you’re on the same situation.

When it comes down to our own personal story, everything else looks different.

In her TEDx talk, Amy Morin specified, “When you go through tough times, good habits aren’t enough.”

She continued that the secret to staying mentally strong was to give up your bad mental habits.

These destructive mental habits are what might hold you back from reaching your full potential, and most especially, could drive you to nuts when life challenging circumstances arise.

Check out if you have these bad mental habits and start to break yourself away from them one step at a time.

3 Destructive Mental Habits:

1. Unhealthy beliefs about yourself.

Feeling your pain is okay and even healthy. But when you magnify it, you’re putting yourself in the self pity trap.

Self pity keeps you stuck in life and intensifies your problems.

Instead of seeking for solutions, you put yourself and your life on a dead end by constantly feeling sorry for yourself.

How to overcome it:

Unhealthy beliefs about yourself come up when you’re not comfortable with your thoughts and emotions. You think the best means to avoid that discomfort is to wallow in self pity, feeling you’re a victim of circumstances.

Yet, no matter how much you look at it, self pity could only prolong your pain. The only way to escape from uncomfortable thoughts and emotions is to go through them and feel them.

When you’re able to acknowledge their presence, you’ll gain confidence in dealing with such discomfort.

2. Unhealthy beliefs about others.

If you’re not aware, this destructive mental habit is a subtle one that most of us are guilty of. It comes as a complaint about how others are making our lives difficult and complicated.

Unbeknownst to us, this is a mental habit where we give away our power to others. We allow them to control our lives, thoughts, and feelings.

What’s worse, we’re giving this power away, open-handedly.

How to overcome it:

Your unhealthy belief about others often comes up as a result of a comparison. You believe other people are either above you or below you.

Their actions affect how you feel and behave and you think your actions affect how they feel and behave.

If you allow this belief to go on, you will one day find yourself blaming others for your circumstances in life. You even blame them for holding you back.

The truth is, you are in full control of your thoughts and your life. You hold the power to yourself and you have the right to exercise it.

Stop comparing your life and circumstances with that of other people. Don’t resent their success either.

Moreover, do something not because others want you to do it, but because you want to do it yourself.

3. Unhealthy beliefs about the world.

This unhealthy belief is where most of your ‘whys’ in life stem from. You may ask why isn’t the world giving you what you deserve, why it favors others and not you, and many other questions which answers can only disappoint you.

It’s because you think the world owes you something. This thought process can only disappoint you because a cosmic reward is only given to people who don’t vibrate from a place of lack.

Believing that the world isn’t fair is how the world will likely respond to you.

How to overcome it:

At times, accepting the truth that the world isn’t fair could be liberating.

Let go of the thought that the world isn’t fair. Once you’re freed from that kind of thought, you’ll start to see that the world is how you make it.

You can only change your world by believing that you have the power to change it. Give up the thought that the world will reward you for doing good deeds or going through a lot of tough times.

The world’s response to you is largely dependent on the kind of thoughts that you allow in your mind. Thus, it’s of utmost importance to let go of the destructive thoughts and beliefs before you can allow good mental habits to settle in.

After you’ve identified your destructive mental habits, focus on starting new ones. Start with practicing gratitude because it’s a mental habit that not only strengthens you but opens you to a whole new world of possibilities.

Most of all, good mental habits can carry you through life’s storms with emotions intact, which is also the key to achieving your fullest potential.

Becoming More Aware Drains Your Energy And Here Is How To Recharge It

Journey

Nezel Padayhag

June 24, 2018

According to Abraham Hicks, we have two vibrational vantage points, which are our inner being and our physical body. In becoming fully conscious, our role is to align these two.

But the process wouldn’t be easy because as you start to align yourself with your inner being, who you really are, the energy moves faster, causing you to get drained all along.

Here Is The Main Reason Becoming More Aware Drains Your Energy:

Raising your vibration

Once you start to raise your vibration through positivity, appreciation, and meditation, you’re focusing your conscious mind and awareness into how the accumulated emotions inside your inner being feel like.

You’re more conscious in the realization of the blending because your attention is being called to it. And you can’t exist in your physical body without being replenished and refueled by the Source energy.

Whether or not your emotions are stronger, you’re just more aware of them. This hyperawareness of your emotions is draining at first. But it’s just because you still have resistance towards these emotions that you kept inside yourself unfelt for so long.

The vibrational gap

The faster your inner being vibrates, the less able you are at keeping up with it. It’s the realization of this gap that drains your energy.

This vibrational gap stands between who you really are and who you are allowing yourself to be.

The drag that you feel might be caused by two things, either you’re moving in a different direction or you’re inner being is having a growth spurt that you can barely manage.

Managing the gap

Your role is to manage that gap through processing your emotions and thoughts.

This is one of the challenges down the path to awakening.

But when you know you’re moving in the right direction, it’s much easier for you to manage this gap even if it would take quite a time. Let your emotions be felt and trust the process.

How To Recharge Your Energy:

There are many conscious ways to replenish your drained energy. Here are some proven options that work:

– Go back to nature and ground yourself;

– Use your voice and sing a song or talk to a trusted friend;

– Spend time with a loved one who lifts your spirits up;

– Move your body through physical activities like walking, dancing or biking;

The choices are limitless.

If everything else fails, you can do the act of surrender. Acknowledge the emotions and allow The Universe to take control.

Doing the right things to manage the gap depends on your preferences, on what truly resonates with you. And when you’re consistent with it, you will soon realize that the blending of your two vantage points no longer drains you. This is the greatest thing that could happen to you through your awakening journey.

7 Ways To Help Yourself Heal Through The Power Of Your Voice

Activities

Nezel Padayhag

June 23, 2018

Our voice is an incredibly unique tool that can be used for more than we realize.

Surprisingly, aside from being a useful tool in delivering our message, we can use our voice to help ourselves in the healing process.

Our voice is linked with the throat chakra that governs communication.

The throat chakra emphasizes the expression of our truth and our connection to our spirit because of its strategic location in our body.

It’s also related with the etheric body that holds the blueprint of the other dimensions of our body, an important reference point when realigning our energies through the whole chakra system.

Using our throat, we propagate sound into the air. This creates a vibration that can be felt all throughout our body and makes the creation of sound to be the best medium for our evolution and healing.

Resonating at our own frequency, we can create sounds that can help us in aligning and healing ourselves.

7 Ways To Help Yourself Heal Through Your Voice:

1. Singing along with your favorite song.

Whenever you hear your favorite song being played, you can’t help yourself but sing along.

This gives you a good feeling that automatically raises your vibration.

When your vibration is raised, so are your spirits lifted up. This helps you heal your energetic body.

2. Singing with your own voice.

There are also times when an inspiration sparks and you just want to belt out a song.

This usually happens when you’re in your car, or when you’re doing something enjoyable whether at home or at work.

This not only boosts your mood but makes others happy too because of the good vibes you make them feel.

3. Engaging your voice in breathing exercises.

Deep breathing is a good way to calm your mind and relax your tired body.

When accompanied by a sound in the exhale, the benefits you get are doubled.

You can try this exercise by letting out a sound in the exhale. Or you can start with a high note while you inhale and drop it when you exhale.

4. Humming a song.

Humming is also a great way to sing your favorite song, especially when you’re unsure of the lyrics.

Regardless of the song you wish to hum, this act helps you to relax and stay calm.

Not only that, humming also helps release your tensed muscles, slows down your breathing and thoughts, refreshes your mind, and releases the stress and worries in and around your stomach area.

5. Giving a musical tone to affirmations.

Affirmations are a big help in the pursuit of positivity and goal achievement.

Instead of reciting your affirmations, you can give them a tone to make them easily remembered and to work with your system too.

By singing your affirmations you are linking them with positive energy that additionally helps you.

6. Screaming your pain out.

Screaming is the best way to release tensions and pent up emotions inside you.

Just make sure you do it in a place where you can’t bother anyone, like in the mountain or by the sea.

The release calms down your nerves and clears your thinking.

7. Laughing.

Laughing uplifts your spirit and sends a vibration in your body that can eliminate stress and lower anxiety.

It’s been found that when you laugh regularly, you create a happier default state of being.

This gives you better vibes and higher energy. As you become more positive and happier your energy flows more harmoniously throughout your body and energy centers.

7 Ways To Raise Your Vibration And Eliminate What Blocks Your Abundance

Journey

Nezel Padayhag

June 22, 2018

Our world is currently undergoing an energetic shift that leads us to become new beings, more conscious of our true selves and our way of living.

Because we’re still in the beginning stages of this shift, nothing can guide us more accurately than our inner guidance.

This can often be seen as having the urge to retreat and recalibrate yourself because the fears of not doing enough or not making money are starting to haunt you.

You may feel uncomfortable, but you have to face your own shadows as an integral part of going with the shift.

You need to get past the blockages and claim abundance to be able to fully give the gift that you have for humanity.

To be able to do this you need to face your inner shadows and remove inner blockages. Abundance is all about releasing your fears and raising your vibration.

When your vibration is functioning at its best, you see past the fears and have everything that you need in this lifetime.

7 Ways To Raise Your Vibration By Eliminating Your Abundance Blocks:

1. State clearly what you want.

The Universe will only give you what you want if you’re clear about it.

If you’re not clear about what you want, The Universe responds to that same vibration, and that’s the main reason why so many people can’t have what they specifically want.

Be positive and present as you send your desires to The Universe.

2. Use visualization techniques.

Visualize yourself to be in a place where all your needs are met.

See yourself sharing what you have with others, exchanging your energies, and basking in abundance on a day to day basis.

By visualizing your desires you are showing yourself that you are abundant enough to see your desires.

3. Release yourself from self limiting beliefs.

Most of our negative or self limiting beliefs are passed on to us by our parents who were also unaware of what they were doing. Dig into your inner self and look for the self limiting beliefs that are hiding somewhere.

Cut the ties by writing to your parents or the person who inculcated in your mind those beliefs. Tell them you’re cutting off the tie from them.

Specify how it affected you and why you want to release yourself from that belief.

4. Practice meditation.

A meditation practice helps clarify your thoughts. Through it, you’re able to distinguish the negative from the positive thoughts.

Whenever a fearful thought pops up, meditation helps you to become aware that it’s only a thought and not a reality. And that you have the power to choose whether you continue to believe in it or not.

Changing the flow of your thought is possible as you progress in your meditation practice.

5. Be willing to take a risk.

The key to living a conscious existence is by following what your soul longs to do. Usually, this is an area that is unfamiliar to you.

Go beyond your comfort zone and explore other areas of your life or other ideas that you feel where your soul truly fits in whether it’s a teaching endeavor or artistic pursuits.

Join others who do the same thing. You don’t have to do it quickly. Do it gradually until you stabilize yourself in that area.

6. Get a formal training.

If changing your perspective is a struggle to you, you can opt for intensive thought reprogramming, like hypnotherapy or neuro linguistic programming.

These pieces of training can help you create new associations in your brain and eliminate the old thought patterns.

Finding someone who can energetically remove your blocks is always a smart thing as they are professionals in that aspect of healing.

7. Seek higher guidance.

Each of us is being being helped by a spirit guide, some call them guardian angels and higher beings. Seek out their help and ask them to show you the right way.

You can ask the Divine or God or The Universe for assistance in your journey. Connect to the light every morning and feel this light in your heart.

Express gratitude before bed and after you wake up to open your heart and raise your vibration. Being grateful is probably the best thing you can do to remove blocks.

The 3 Mental Pitfalls That Fool You To See Your Emotions Incorrectly

Psychology

Nezel Padayhag

June 21, 2018

You often fall victim to your own mental processes that lead you to predict your emotions in an incorrect and unhealthy way.

Your mind is supposedly designed to aid you in staying present and being mindful. But most often, you let your mind wander into the future and predict how you would feel.

Thankfully, behavioral economics is here to guide your way by presenting insights into your wrong mental habits of incorrectly predicting future emotions.

Being aware of these mental pitfalls helps you to change the course of your thoughts and prepare your emotions for positive outcomes.

This also gives you the option to choose the kind of emotion you wish to feel, such as the likes that make you feel good.

The 3 Mental Pitfalls That Fool Your Emotions:

1. Allowing the memory of negative experiences to predict your future experience.

Painful experiences in the past are likely to interfere with your future preferences because of its emotional intensity.

For instance, if you asked for a favor from a close friend in the past and they turned you down for some reasons, you’re likely not to ask a favor from that person again for the fear of being rejected the second time around.

Or you may never ask a favor from anyone else because the fear of rejection hurts badly. And the mind has this habit of engraving into its core the most intense emotions and its end.

This makes you disregard other components of the experience because what registers in the mind are the peak emotions that could either be good or bad.

In this case, even if you consider that person to be your close friend, you’re likely to change your attitude towards them in the future because of how unfavorable your last interaction with them went.

2. Forgetting that everything will come to pass.

Humans have the tendency to forget that everything is temporary. Positive experiences are ideal, but when you get so attached to them, you’re likely to get disappointed when the negative experiences start to occur.

Instead of adjusting to your new situation, you keep on thinking how good the past had been as if you don’t hold the key to your own happiness.

Even if some changes may affect your life entirely, it doesn’t mean the pain will last. The good times are not here to stay, so are bad.

This mental pitfall is often seen in the behaviors of impulse buyers who buy things instantly with the belief that they will still feel that way in the future.

If you’re one of them, then you’ll probably buy stuff that makes you feel good at the moment, forgetting that such emotion can wear off with the passage of time.

Or you may buy items in bulk, like food, because you think they taste good only to find out that your taste has changed after eating some.

3. Having a cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance happens when you’re not consistent with your thoughts, beliefs, and attitude. Sour graping falls into this category wherein you want something so badly that you do your best in order to get that thing.

But when your attempts bear no fruit, you’ll start to find some flaws with that thing just so you will not feel bad about yourself.

For example, being turned down from a singing audition leads you to convince yourself that singing is not your favorite activity anyway.

In a way, you’re not being coherent with your choices and emotions, and with yourself in general. When you rationalize something, you will lessen the emotional power that a certain situation brings you.

However, cognitive dissonance prevents you from having a positive evaluation of yourself. And it’s a mental pitfall you should stop doing to stay coherent with your emotions.

You Have The Power To Literally Change Your Mind Through Deep Breathing

Attitude

Nezel Padayhag

June 20, 2018

Have you experienced being in an emotional turmoil as if you’re about to erupt?

What if I tell you that you can manage to pull through if you just breathe more deeply.

If you’re like us, you may have gone through this dilemma.

Calming your mind through deep breathing is not something magical that happens to your body say scientists.

Every part of our body needs oxygen to maintain its proper functioning. Without oxygen in the body, no one will ultimately survive.

Our body is such an amazing masterpiece that there’s no need for us to voluntarily breathe just to survive.

When there is a part of our body that needs more oxygen, our brain sends signals to the muscles involved in breathing to adjust the amount of oxygen that body part needs.

Hence, when we’re in a panic mood or in a strong emotion, our breathing automatically goes heavy.

But according to science, there’s more that we can do with deep breathing than just calm our mind. We have the power to change our mind’s structure and pattern of thoughts too!

Here’s how the research went!

How To Change Your Mind Through Deep Breathing:

Doctors Jose Herrero and Ashish Mehta conducted a research to find how deep breathing affects the mind.

They observed the brain activity of patients during normal breathing.

After that, they distracted the patients’ attention by giving them a task to click a button every time a circle appeared on the computer screen.

This allowed them to distinguish whether there was a difference between conscious breathing and normal breathing. Then, they asked the patients to count their breathing.

What they observed was the patients’ brain activity changed every time the pattern on the screen changed.

Different parts of the brain were activated as they manipulated their breathing. This showed that breathing patterns had an effect on brain activity.

The study, however, needs further research that, when proven effective, can help athletes and others to manipulate their breathing and enhance their mind’s activity.

In meditation, deep breathing is the key to controlling the activities of the brain, which is beneficial not only to our spiritual health but also to the physical.

The brain benefits greatly through deep breathing as oxygen gets evenly distributed to all its parts. This process stimulates brain activity and promotes good health.

Furthermore, deep breathing also calms jittery nerves.

Even if there’s no final verdict yet as to the effectivity of manipulating breathing patterns to change our minds, our bodies already enjoy the amazing effects of deep breathing.

And if further studies solidify that deep breathing can indeed change the way we think, then we should take deep long breaths as much as we can to improve our brain’s activity.

7 Mind Games Narcissists Play To Manipulate You And How To Use Them In Your Favor

Psychology

Nezel Padayhag

June 19, 2018

Narcissists are great con artists. Through the years of using different tactics to get what they want from people, they have become masters of it.

They can hide their true selves perfectly that you may not even be aware you’re dealing with one.

Dr. George K. Simon, a psychological expert, described the three main traits of narcissists: they’re good at hiding their violent tendencies, they’re experts at analyzing other people’s personality, and they’re numbed at the suffering of others that they might have caused.

These traits are the main ingredients needed in the art of controlling others. Recognizing a manipulator isn’t easy since they don’t appear harsh or violent. They may even make you believe they’re angels sent to guide your way.

Sadly, in this world filled with materialism, your chances of meeting a manipulator on a day to day basis is big. If you’re not too intuitive, you may fail to realize the low energy you will feel around them.

And if this is the case, you need to find ways to be more aware and to avoid becoming a victim of manipulators who are hiding around the corner waiting for their next victim.

Watch out for the following mind games they love to play with you and learn the tricks how you can dismantle them and turn them in your favor.

The 7 Mind Games Of Narcissists:

1. They want to know the details of your life.

Manipulators don’t talk you about themselves. Instead, they’ll pretend they’re interested in you and ask even the tiniest detail of yourself, especially your thoughts and plans.

Without your knowledge, they will use this information against you to their own advantage.

How to notice: The best way to know if someone is deeply interested with you is by looking at them in the eye. Those who counter your gaze don’t hide anything. But manipulators continue to bombard you with questions without even looking at you.

How to dismantle: Ask them to share something about themselves or ignore talking about you.

2. They want to send you a subtle message of superiority.

In their quest to appear superior, manipulators will provide you with massive information of figures, stats and numbers on things you’re not familiar with.

They want to show off how smart they are with the hidden intention of exerting their influence over you.

How to notice: Ask them the source of their information and a possible proof. You can ask them to back up their claims and explain what makes them so sure about what they say.

How to dismantle: To slow them down, ask questions and let them explain an uncommon word they love to use. Manipulators hate interruptions.

3. They overwhelm you with negativity.

At times, manipulators intentionally act negatively, like speaking in a loud voice or showing ill manners. This is their way of controlling the situation and manipulating other people.

They know that fear is a powerful tool to make people listen, back off and control them. So they will use it in a form of aggression or painting negative picture to lower the energy. High energy cannot be easily controlled so they try to lower it.

How to notice: This one is tricky to become aware of because of the emotional charge in play. But you can take a hint when a person becomes overly negative all of a sudden or uses aggression and negative tone to paint their opinion. To best test you can make to find out if someone is trying to manipulate you via negativity is to try to remain positive and insert jokes about what they say. Try to twist their negativity into laughter. If they start attacking you and your jokes to bring back the negativity that’s your best signal.

How to dismantle: Try to stay calm and unaffected, or better yet ignore them. Even without saying a word, let them know they’re not in control. The best case scenario is to remain positive.

4. They feed on your insecurity.

If you’re struggling with some insecurity issues, manipulators are able to smell that. In fact, they love feeding on the insecurities of other people.

If you show and reveal some insecurity to them, they will use it to climb higher than you on the social hierarchy. They will use your insecurity in conversations. It makes them feel superior and good about themselves. Other people’s insecurities mask their own.

How to notice: They will light up when you show your insecurities and they might try to bring them up in a conversation even when you are with other people. Lie about something you are allegedly insecure about. See their reaction and change of energy. If their energy goes up, that’s your signal. Normal people would remain unaffected.

How to dismantle: Check out with yourself first and be clear with the things you’re insecure about. Face this issue head on to prevent becoming a victim of narcissists.

5. They’ll act innocent.

As what we have stated above, narcissists are con artists who are really good at manipulation. They will convince you of their innocence whenever they mess up.

They may appear blameless from the outside, but inside they’re the sly fox who keeps thinking on more ways to appear innocent.

How to notice: Whenever they mess up something they will act as if they feel guilty but they will give out reasons of why it isn’t completely their fault. They show these reasons so you will state that it’s not their fault. They might act as if they take responsibility, but they don’t. They play the role of a victim so you will step up and use the reasons they give you to convince them that they are not a victim and it’s not their fault. They will use your reasoning to make them appear innocent in your eyes. So when they act like it’s not their fault it’s because you made them think they are innocent.

How to dismantle: If you’re in doubt, listen more to your gut feeling and investigate about the truth without letting the manipulator know what you’re up to. Point out their mistakes instead of defending them why they are innocent. Show them how they can be better. If they are manipulators they will get mad because you don’t think they are innocent, if they are normal people they will use your feedback for constructive improvement.

6. They twist information.

When the misdeeds of manipulators are revealed, they will twist the information and create stories where they can appear as the victim. Finding other people to blame is their means of escape.

If you’re not too careful, they may manipulate you into believing their stories. Don’t allow manipulators to get away with it.

How to notice: Look for the credibility in the stories and for the hard facts you can check. Try to make them elaborate objectively on the other side. Manipulators do not care about objective reasoning, they want to convince you in their side of the story.

How to dismantle: Gather the facts and speak to the people whose names they dragged to get the bigger picture of the situation. If it’s not something you care about, tell them that you don’t care about who’s right and who’s wrong. Ask them to change the subject.

7. They put pressure on you.

Manipulators will drive you crazy if you allow them to. They have this ability to put pressure on your shoulders until you no longer can contain it and erupt into an emotional outburst.

This is what psychologists call the technique of fear and relief, which is a manipulator’s way of preying on your emotions.

How to notice: After your emotional outburst, they will relieve you of the stress. Because you’re already disarmed, it’s now hard for you to make logical decisions. Then manipulators ask you something they know you’re likely to agree. Hence, it is important to be aware when someone is trying to push you to the limits.

How to dismantle: Whenever you get an emotional reaction and someone who was the trigger for that emotional reaction calms you down as if nothing happened, watch out for what they say next. Do not agree of anything they say just because thy made you feel relieved. Remember that they triggered your stress in the first place. Do not be afraid to speak about their intention and ask them to explain why they pushed your buttons in the first place. If they avoid such conversation try keeping a safe distance from them.

While watching out for the signs that you’re dealing with a narcissist is helpful, keeping yourself emotionally healthy is the best way to guard yourself. Narcissists don’t like people whom they know they can’t manipulate. Work on strengthening your emotions because it will keep narcissists at bay.

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