Love Your Life: Love Your Life: Midlife Reinvention, Emotional Regulation, & Parenting
Aug 19, 2026 · 19 min · 10 segments
Do you ever find yourself talking, talking, talking…trying to explain your decision, your actions, your boundary? Hoping that if you talk enough, the other person will understand? Uh…me!!! And in…
Susie PettitHost
We were told, you know, you don't feel that way, or you shouldn't be upset about that.

In our innocence, we're like, well, wait, if they can just understand why I feel this way, then they'll get it, you know? And so we're sort of like, oh, but let me tell you, mom, or let me tell you, dad, or let me tell you, English teacher.

Our parents were not schooled in the validating and letting us have our feelings, even though maybe the way we were thinking about things was insane.

And so we felt that we weren't allowed to have our feelings and that we were misunderstood.

Another big reason is that many of us were in or are in narcissistic relationships or relationships with emotionally mature, immature people.

So we sit there and think as adults, we're like, well, how we feel makes sense to us.

So if we just explain it to them, right? But that doesn't work for narcissists, okay? It just doesn't.

The more we explain with the narcissist, the more words we give them for date to use as a weapon against us later.

They are committed to their perception of reality and narcissists or emotionally immature person, as I keep saying, is very insecure and they are not, emotional immaturity or narcissism means they're very rigid in their thinking and that thinking is very black or white.

that is right one way you know my way or the highway type thing and so they don't have that flexibility of thought to be like oh wait that's a good point susie okay now if any of this is you're like but i do that susie that's okay you're in the right place you're a warrior you're listening to this i am an emotional intelligence coach i help people with this none of us were born with emotional intelligence all right so if you have that there that's okay i get it I'm emotionally immature at many points in my day.

Another thing that might be coming up for you as you listen is you're like, but wait, this is my kid.

We were told, you know, you don't feel that way, or you shouldn't be upset about that.

In our innocence, we're like, well, wait, if they can just understand why I feel this way, then they'll get it, you know? And so we're sort of like, oh, but let me tell you, mom, or let me tell you, dad, or let me tell you, English teacher.

Our parents were not schooled in the validating and letting us have our feelings, even though maybe the way we were thinking about things was insane.

And so we felt that we weren't allowed to have our feelings and that we were misunderstood.

Another big reason is that many of us were in or are in narcissistic relationships or relationships with emotionally mature, immature people.

So we sit there and think as adults, we're like, well, how we feel makes sense to us.

So if we just explain it to them, right? But that doesn't work for narcissists, okay? It just doesn't.

The more we explain with the narcissist, the more words we give them for date to use as a weapon against us later.

They are committed to their perception of reality and narcissists or emotionally immature person, as I keep saying, is very insecure and they are not, emotional immaturity or narcissism means they're very rigid in their thinking and that thinking is very black or white.

that is right one way you know my way or the highway type thing and so they don't have that flexibility of thought to be like oh wait that's a good point susie okay now if any of this is you're like but i do that susie that's okay you're in the right place you're a warrior you're listening to this i am an emotional intelligence coach i help people with this none of us were born with emotional intelligence all right so if you have that there that's okay i get it I'm emotionally immature at many points in my day.

Another thing that might be coming up for you as you listen is you're like, but wait, this is my kid.
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