The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - Stop Absorbing Other People’s Chaos

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

How do you stay compassionate without getting pulled into someone else’s chaos? In this call-in episode, I answer questions about setting boundaries with people who create constant turmoil, dealing with difficult relationship dynamics, and protecting your peace without becoming cold or detached. We also talk about the communication advice every teenager needs, how to work through conflict with in-laws, what to say when someone makes your pain about them, and how to handle a parent who has chosen distance. These conversations are about staying kind, clear, and grounded when relationships get complicated. I answer your questions. Leave me a voicemail to be featured on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/ask-jefferson Join me on Supercast for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and AMAs: https://jefferson.supercast.com/ Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Thank you to our sponsors: Gusto: Go to https://gusto.com/jefferson and get your first three months free when you run payroll. ZocDoc: Go to ⁠https://zocdoc.com/jefferson⁠ to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Order my new book, The Next Conversation, today! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/book Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/topic Join my School of Communication. https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/membership Follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jefferson_fisher Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@justaskjefferson?lang=en Follow me on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffersonfisher/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I had a question about how to communicate and set boundaries with people who are very chaotic. Due to having very high empathy, it's easy for me to get sucked in to the chaos. And I also just want to understand how I can do better communicating with them when they're, you know, telling you about all these bad choices, decisions, just more information on that. Thank you. Awesome question. Two things I love that you said. one, you feel that chaotic storm. Second of all, you get sucked in. Those words are clues to me,

includes anybody listening, that it's like quicksand. It's like a vortex that all of a sudden you see it, and before you know it, you're caught in its orbit and you're getting sucked into the black hole. Whenever you are around somebody who's chaotic, here's what I want you to do. Number one, I want you to visualize it from afar. It's going to be probably very close to you. Maybe that conversation's happening right in front of you. But I need you to visualize it as if you're seeing the storm from afar. You're not part of it. You're observing it. You're not absorbed in it. You're seeing it. So you have to distinguish, separate yourself from what's happening to them versus where you stand, where you are. So do not make that part of you. Number two, what I want you to

to see is that you can still be part of their life without feeling like you are now, like you said, frazzled, you're now getting all kind of sucked into it. So what I'm saying is you can still show love. You can still say all these things that you want to say, but I'm going to tweak them in a way that's not going to get you to feel, and that's the key word, feel their feelings for them. It is not your responsibility to resolve their feelings. feelings. Number three, what you're hearing when somebody is venting, when somebody is complaining, I need you to simply affirm the feeling that they have and put down the feeling of having to be their solution. You are not their solution to every problem. You are not the person who has every

right answer. I know you want to be. And if you're somebody who happens to be maybe more people pleasing. Maybe you're somebody who has a very caretaker mentality. It's not your responsibility to go start fixing it for them. So how do we stop that? Use words of affirmation. That means when somebody is telling you about that chaotic energy, that complaint, that problem, I want you to say things like, that must be hard. I imagine that would, you know what, if I were in your shoes, I'd feel that same way. I would imagine it feels that way. Of course you'd feel that way. Yeah, I can see that's really difficult. I hear that. Use sense language. In other words, say, I hear that. I feel that. I see that. What you're doing is affirming the feeling and still keeping that storm separate from you of saying, hey, these are yours. I am affirming and acknowledging that you are feeling them.

That does not mean when somebody gives a complaint, you go, well, what if you did this? Or you know what you should do? Or, you know what, I'll go out of your way to start fixing and solving all the things for them. Did they ask you to do that? Or you just taking it on as a caretaker mentality to say, I'm going to start doing all these things for you and you go out of your way. And what are they doing? They're just continuing to add more chaos and add more people into their storm and into their vortex. Okay. So one, we're going to recognize the distinguish, the difference, the separation between you and their storm. Number two, we're going to understand that we can use words of affirmation that are going to resolve.

that feeling inside of you. And then three, what I want you to do is be able to say, hey, I'm not going to feel your feelings for you. It's not my job to make a solution. I can still be there and have empathy and love on you, but it's not my job to feel your feelings for you or fix them. The topic I would love to request is how to communicate with a covert narcissist.

Specifically, I'm in a relationship, and I have been for 10 years. and I realized that my partner has these tendencies and patterns of a covert narcissist. I no longer know how to continue in the relationship and not go through these consistent cycles and patterns. I've tried the Grey Rock method. I definitely have tried that. And I have tried just to not engage completely and walk away. however it seems to escalate no matter what I do any advice on this topic and how to communicate

without losing yourself would be wonderful thank you so much I appreciate you and your show the overt narcissism aspect is that you can tell when somebody is trying to have a lot of praise a lot of ego they they are very charming and lack of empathy right that you can spot that What you're saying is this seems to be somebody who's more covert narcissism, meaning everything's under the radar. It's not easily noticeable. They don't have all the charm and the praise that you'd see from other types. I want to be really careful of this and just strip it down and say, okay, let's just talk about somebody who's difficult to communicate with.

You've already tried the wet blanket stuff of using very neutral words. It sounds like you've also tried great rock method. These are all methods that work for some. don't work for others. There's a part of me that goes, okay, well, has there been any therapeutic involvement? Has there been counseling? Have we tried you testing for different diagnoses? A lot of different things I would say clinically that are options out there for you. And I don't know whether you've tried that or not. What I would encourage is that if there are just communication attacks on you, if he is using language that is attacking, then you set boundaries. And you use boundaries that say,

I do not allow people to communicate with me like that. I do not allow disrespect. I do not permit somebody to be verbally abusive to me. That is not something that is allowed, right? If you are able to put these boundaries in place and your consequence is, if this continues, I'm out of the relationship, then it is time for you to be out of that relationship. This type of displaying personality, what you call covert narcissism, is not something that's going to change. It's something that's been ingrained. It's been something that's been

learned. That's been something that has been part of the script in the story of their life. So if you're having communication attacks, put boundaries. If you find that short neutral phrases tend to work sometimes, use those. But what I'm telling you is there's not some kind of catch-all. There's no words I could give you that's going to say, hey, all of a sudden, this is going to have somebody who's displaying covert narcissism, narcissism, and all of a sudden it's going to suddenly go away. What I'm telling you is go back to the fundamentals and the basics, and are you staying true to your boundaries? Do you have boundaries? Are you using them more than just going gray rock? Or what somebody might say is I'm just keeping my distance from them. That's no way to have a relationship.

there has to be a conversation about this where you're not just running yourself ragged about it. Are you keeping up with your boundaries? Would be the question that I have to challenge you with. Otherwise, get therapeutic involvement and be okay with the consequence of needing to walk away. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about gusto. When you run a small business, you wear a lot of hats. You are not only trying to serve the business, make money, figure out how you're going to hire fire, what your business even is. There's also this thing called payroll. And payroll can be

extremely daunting and intimidating because there's a lot of things you don't know if you're hiring somebody who's remote, somebody who's in house, what kind of pay, what kind of rate, how often. Well, let me tell you, Gusto has saved me a multitude of ways. I've probably had four or five different Gusto accounts over the last 10 years. I kid you not, because it's just that easy. Gusto is an all-in-one solution for online payroll. So it can be remote. It can be right in front of you. For one monthly price, you can run unlimited payrolls. And the best part about it is when you have questions, you can talk to a real human. You can pick up the phone and you get to talk to a real person and they can help you. And on top of that, they take care of all payroll taxes. That alone is

worth its weight in gold right now. You can go to gusto.com slash Jefferson and get your first three months free when you run payroll. That's gusto.com for your first three months free. And now let's keep going. Hi, Jefferson. This is Chuck from Atlanta. I followed you for a couple years and wanted to thank you and share something that might give another listener some hope. I grew up in a family of four, my mother, my father, my sister, and I. My sister was the last one left beside me and she passed away from cancer this week. We've had a complicated relationship. She could be very focused on her own needs and want things on her terms, and sometimes our conversations escalated. Your advice helped me approach those moments with more awareness, including recognizing my own

emotional responses. I didn't always get it right. Sometimes I took debate and we argued. I couldn't always step up to the plate and hit a home run, but I understood more about what I could control, how to respond, and when to step back. Even in her final, days. She was fighting to hold on to her independence and control over what was happening. That wasn't always easy, but I did my best to stay present and help her feel calm and just to be her brother. I held her hand when she did pass. We didn't resolve every difference or undo our history, but your work helped me have a healthy relationship with her in the time we had left, and it helped me come to those final moments with love.

despite everything that had sometimes made our relationship difficult. If someone is listening and going through something similar, I hope they hear that there can still be a possibility for peace and connection, even when they can't see how to get there, it may not mean resolving every disagreement. For us, it meant being together at the end and knowing there was love. Thank you for helping me find my way to that moment. and I'll always be grateful.

Have a good day. Foo. Oh, man. That's what it's, yeah, that's, that's what it's all about. That's what it's all about right there. I got nothing to say to that. I got nothing to say to that.

I need to like save this and play it like when I'm down. Man, I'm going to need. God, listen to this. When you think things are bad. I just take the time out of the day to send that... What a good brother. Okay. Oh, that got me in the fields.

Hey, Jefferson. This is Hudson. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I just turned 15th and I was wondering what advice you would give someone my age about communication and dealing with people. So in the big two six, it's kind of hard to navigate with people my age talking modern slang while I still want to have a conversation. And I was wondering what advice you would give to keep standards high and communicate confidently and not let other people's opinions or behaviors bring you down. If you could give a teenager a few basic rules to live by when it comes to communication, boundaries, and how to carry yourself for another people, what would they be? It's an awesome question.

If I could give every teenager communication advice, it would be this. Number one, you will never regret saying the kind thing. You'll never regret saying the kind thing. In those hard moments, when somebody says something ugly to you, you are given a choice. Do you respond fire with fire or do you choose to say the kind thing? And when you go fire with fire, later on, you will remember. remember it. There are people right now, adults, who can tell you right now a few people who said positive things to them growing up, but I guarantee you every one of them know somebody who said

something negative to them growing up. Me, I remember exactly who it was. I remember their name. I remember what I was wearing. I remember exactly where I was on the playground where it happened. Negative words last way longer than positive ones. So what do you do with that information? You will never regret choosing to say the kind thing. When the opportunity comes, use kind words, not harsh words. Number two, no cussing in public is not going to serve you well. It shows that you're emotionally reactive, shows that you have typically a lower emotional intelligence. It shows that you're somebody who is very high and low. You're not going to be somebody who is relied upon, somebody who's seen as. steady as a captain as an anchor instead you're going to be seen as somebody who is volatile and most likely complains more than supports and number three ask more questions than you have answers to that's that's humility if you want to communicate humility instead of always trying to one-up somebody or feel like you earn respect by name-dropping or outdoing somebody else's experience

every single time, that's most likely going to leave a bitter aftertaste in your mouth. It's not going to earn you what you want. Humility does. That means you're going to have a learner's mindset. Ask more questions than you have answers to when something is presented to you. Instead of always having to have this response, get used to asking really good questions. That is a skill that is always going to serve you well. Okay. Also, my team wants me to make sure that that I'm communicating this in a way in the best way possible, because we are about communication here, I'm going to pull up some terminology from Gen Z Alpha so that you and I can speak the same language here. All right, if you want to communicate in life with more RIS and communication max

and increase your aura so that when you talk, people will be like, you ate, then no cap, the way to be a sigma in the way that you communicate is to be somebody who's going to ask a lot more questions rather than feeling like, you know, you always have to have the right answer. You gossip about other people, you're negative. When you choose to ask more questions, it's always going to give you more aura points. Because if somebody is, you know, let's say they're saying something insulting to you maybe six, seven times, you know, At that point, you can just be cooked. I'm trying, dude.

Rather than yeeding your words everywhere, what you need to think about is saying something in a way that people go, clock it. It is so good. That way you're not like a pick-me communicator, you know? If you want to increase your communication, not be somebody who's delulu, than what I've then use words that are going to further your life

not these skibbitty words that are not going to serve you for the rest, you know, for any other time. I want you to use words that are going to help you communication maxing, not somebody who's, you know, mid in the way that they

communicate. So it's as easy as being like, bro, I have a question for you. Low cap. or no cap. Try that. I listen to your podcast about when to cut off ties or do no contact. And a lot of it talked about how the parents work on the relationship with their son or daughter-in-law.

But there wasn't a lot about how can the daughter-in-law work on it with the in-laws. And so I'd like some more insight on that. What can I do to help have a better relationship? Because I've been dealing in this for eight years. I have tried everything you can think of. of in the book to try to have a better relationship. But in the end, the same arguments happen every couple months. And it comes down to that my husband and I, and what we do as a family, is just different

than what they do or what they did growing up. So they always will attack us and say all the things that have made us them upset for the last couple months, usually based off of one little ticking time bomb of a situation that is happening, aka we chose a different people than they thought. We would pick for godparents, or we didn't invite all of their family to the, to my daughter's birthday because it was not how they would do it. And I just feel like I'm never enough for them. And I've called me mother-in-law.

We've talked to her many times, and she always just throws that, well, I can't help my feelings. And I've validated her feelings. You can have feelings, but you need to be okay that we won't always do everything the same that you do. And they just cannot accept it. Like they feel like they can never, ever, ever be happy with us unless we do exactly what they do. So I'd love some insight. I've tried it all.

She suggested counseling, but my husband and I were afraid to go do that because she won't hold accountability. She won't accept that she's hurt our feelings in her constantly telling us all the things that have hurt. her because we're not doing exactly what she does. So let me know. Thanks. I was with you right there until the end. You said she has offered to do therapy, but we don't want to do that because we think she's not going to take account of accountability. I need to, I'm going to zero in on that for a second.

A lot of other things we can talk about on this call, but I want to zero in on that, okay? You've already decided for her. what's going to work and what's not going to work. You've turned what could be an observation saying, hey, she seems to have a problem with taking ownership and accountability of things. That's an observation. Therapy's never going to work for her, never going to work in this situation. That's a conclusion.

You're taking away the chance that something might come out of it and the fact that she is asking for it. Here's the truth. So many times in the people that I deal with, I can give them advice. But the thing is, they've already, their partner, their spouse or whatever, they've already had that same exact talk. They just needed to hear from somebody else. And so here between your mother-in-law and you, you've had these conversations. She's saying, I hear this. You validated it, which is awesome. And she's saying, yes, I just, I have these feelings. I don't know what to do with it. She needs to hear some hard talk with somebody who's a third party observer. Simply put, that's her recommendation for therapy. That is her offering to say, this is the solution I think might be able to help me. You have somebody in your life where you could go,

this is what you should do, this is what you should do, and they fight against it. And all of a sudden, somebody else goes, this is what you should do. And that's been the same advice you've given. And they go, oh, my gosh, what a great idea. It's because right. now, most likely, you, her son, your husband, represent to her something else, and that is some other version of what they wish they were. She's trying to impress upon how you should control your life, where you should go, what friends, who your godparents should be, how a party should be invited, because what they haven't, they have forgotten where they are at their stage in life. So they're trying to run their life through you. And you're not letting

and good on you. A therapist, a counselor, a third-party observer, it's put in the position to say the hard things that if you were to say them, it would be an absolute disaster. That's why mediators are there. In litigation cases, I can tell my client, until I'm blue in the face, this is what they should do. This is what they should take. This is what should be their expectation. And they may not be willing to hear that right away. But a mediator, somebody who goes, you know what, I'm looking at this from a third-party view, holistically, this is what should happen. And you know what? Every time they go, oh, yeah, okay, well, that makes a lot more sense. Having that outside voice is crucial. I wish, okay, I want you to understand what kind of wonderful gift this is that your mother-in-law says, I would like to do therapy together.

Group group therapy. Fantastic. So many people listening right now goes, go, go, go, go, go, I wish, if only that could happen in my life, that somebody that we know that we're having a hard time with, and my family says, let's go get help together. So I would not be quick to say, we don't want to do that because we don't think she's going to take authority. Give it a chance and voice that in the session. Say, this is my, I mean, tell you where my fear is. My fear is that there's not going to be accountability. My fear is that this is not going to work. Get all of those out there. That's what the therapy session is for. All the therapists that are listening right now are nodding their head going, come on, that's why we're here. That's how this works. So what I'm hearing is you're doing all the right

things, the fact that y'all are communicating. Fantastic. Understanding that it's not your job to take care of her feelings. It's not your job to manage her expectations. You can hear them, you can affirm them, and you don't want to go no contact. And here's the hard part. This is the hard part. This is the hard part where you are having to work through these relationships and have these conversations. And this is the work. But that does not make it your life. She can still be there and love her from afar and know that that still is not your life. So she can have all the feelings that she wants. That doesn't make it her life. And hey, listen, listen to me, I hear that all of this, you're coming from a place of deep hurt

and feeling like you've exhausted every option. You told me you tried everything. Is there a chance at all that your mother-in-law could feel the exact same way? Is there a chance that going to counseling is not so much about fixing the other person, but instead finding a path to live together, rather than having to have to.

to fix her, it's a finding a way to solve the problem, finding in it not be her, but a solution together, that y'all can be able to navigate and live and do things in a much more positive way. And I'm telling you this of only hearing a smidim, but what I would hope is that rather than feeling like this is a one-way street, that you can see that it's a two-way street and hearing what is truly going on behind the scenes

might surprise you. And I think that it's a conversation that at the very least, very least, it's worth having. Before we continue, I want to take a moment to tell you about Zachtalk. Right now, let's be honest, there is an appointment, a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment, a dermatologist appointment, that you have not. schedule yet, and you know you've been needing to schedule it for months. Introducing what you need to have is Zoc Doc. Zoc Doc has been awesome for me because I also have that ability to procrastinate the appointments that I know I need to have. They have a database where you can search thousands of providers. Not only that, they can find providers near you that are also in

network for you. It doesn't matter what the specialty. From general practitioner to dermatologist to dentist, you name it. You can search them, find providers right. right there. The best thing about it is you can book the appointment right there online. No playing phone tag where you call the office three different times and you're trying to schedule and I can't get anybody and you know how that goes. You call once and if they don't answer right away, it's okay. It's one more month out. ZockDoc takes all that pain away. Right now, you can go to Zockdoch, doc.com slash Jefferson and book that first appointment. Totally for free. Zock.com slash Jefferson. And now, let's keep going.

Hey, Jefferson. I've been a huge fan for many years. Your content's brilliant. I think I have the perfect question for you that a lot of people are dealing with, including myself. When you have friends who have drama with each other, and you might even have friends who

don't like each other, but you want to be friends with all of them, and they want to talk to you about their drama with each other, what's the best position to take to show that you support each of them but not feel like you're taking sides because when friends have drama

they kind of they kind of dig to get support which means you almost have to take a side against your other friend and I feel like this is a very common dynamic and adult relationships when there's unspoken drama

so I just wanted to get your opinion on how to feel like you can support all of your friends even if some of them don't like each other thank you so much I appreciate your time My name is Ernie. Thank you.

This is a very important question. When somebody in your life seems to turn every pain point into some personal story or reference, how do you get them to stop? You teach them what you need. This is how I want you to take this conversation. When you begin with, number one, I know. I know that you have a good heart. I know that your intentions are good.

Because the truth is they are. They're not sharing this. story to cause pain. They're trying to share the story to relate. They don't know how else to do it. They say, you in pain. They go, okay, well, I've been in pain before. I've had this before. And this is my way of trying to actually come closer to you. But that's not how it feels. So we have to communicate that. So begin with, I know that you don't intend for this. I know that your intentions are good. I know you mean well. I know you have to speak to their intentions first. Otherwise, they're going to get really defensive.

Number two, I want you to, when you I feel, it's an easy when you I feel statement. When you come back at me with a personal story about your brother or a sister or whatever's happened in your life, it makes me feel like you're trying to avoid my pain. You're trying to dismiss what's happening to me in that moment. It makes me actually feel more alone. When you, I feel statement is an easy framework of conveying. your emotion based on what they've done without making them defensive. Number three, you have to teach them what to do next time. Okay, that means you're going to say, hey, it would actually help me more

if rather than sharing your own story, if you would just say, hey, that sounds hard, or I hear that, or yeah, I can see that that would be really painful. Teach them words. that would be helpful. You have to do that. They can't invent those for you. You have to be able to say, what would help me is if you said X. You need to be that explicit. You have to be that explicit. So number one, I know. I know your intentions are good. Number two, when you do this, it makes me feel why. Number three, next time it would help me if you would instead say something like X, Y, and Z. That's how to stop the personal reference.

I'm calling to see how to move forward with my estranged mom. She actually had cut me out because I called her out on something that she did behind my back to me. And I did it in a loving manner, but I think because of her emotionally immaturity that she has always been, the fact that she got caught doing something instead of just apologizing she has cut me out. She also quit speaking to her adult grandkids, and I just don't know how to move forward from here.

I tried contacting her a few different times, and she wouldn't return the call, but last week she did answer, and I updated her on her grandkids going to college. Prior to me catching her talking behind my back, she was kind of involved in their lives and up-to-date on anything. So when I called her and I just let her know they moved and everything, she was kind of like she didn't really care.

And then she just wanted to talk about the weather briefly and then we went on our way. But how do I move forward? Do I keep trying to include her in stuff? Do I just, you know, reach out every so often with a card or a phone call? I feel like she's trying to punish me or she's trying to provoke me. I don't know. I don't really see how we can have a family relationship moving forward. This has been going on.

This behavior has been going on for years, but typically I let it slide. And when I heard the bad thing she said about me, I told her that I overheard it. And so ever since then, she's cut me out. And she does have a pattern of cutting people out of her life. How do I go forward? Think. Hmm, that's heavy. They say the hardest thing about parents is that they had parents.

So my guess is right now your mom's either avoiding or faced with some things of her own. Sounds like you are handling this exactly how you need to handle this. You brought it up with her in a loving way. She remained emotionally mature. She's cut off her adult grandkids. She seemed disinterested. And maybe your guts right that she's trying to use disinterest as a, a tactic for you to come back and allow her to manipulate and for her to play the victim and blame

everybody else. You asked the question of, is this something that you should continue to fight for or not? I've always been the type that has had the mentality of, I'm not going to go in the other room, but I'll keep the door cracked. In other words, I'm not going to go looking for you if you don't want to be found, but I will crack open the door should you ever want to return. And so whenever you find that there are these people in your life, your mom included, who decide that, you know, they're tapped out for a bit,

at least in this season, in this chapter of your life, they've decided to step away. There's nothing you can do or say that's gonna make her come back. And I don't want you to go out of your room searching for. But I would say, just keep the door cracked. That means you're going to have this spirit of, I'm going to take care of my family and my kids. And how do I move forward from this? Is I choose to have the most fulfilling and positive and loving life that I know how. And should she

decide to come back and engage, the door will be open for her. She's not going to find it shut. So sometimes, if you can't be a bridge, be a lighthouse. Allow her to see where you are and that you're doing well and the kids are doing well. That doesn't mean you can't call her up and say, hey, I just want you to know that I miss you. That's all. That doesn't mean you can't call her up and say, hey, I've just been thinking about you. And you don't have to bring up all the past. But I think over time, you're going to find that the more you focus on the path in front of you,

rather than worrying about what you could change behind, life's going to go a whole lot better.