Ep. 328: How Manipulation Shows Up During the Holidays and How to Get Away from It

I want to talk about manipulation today, because it’s something that I used to do without realizing it. As a former people-pleasing rescuer, victim, and savior, manipulation was one of my main operating systems, but I had absolutely no idea that’s what it was.

What just popped into my head is something my mom said to me years ago that stuck with me ever since. Someone at work said, “Our boss is Machiavellian.” That means he’s manipulative. When I mentioned that to my mom, she said, “Well, he must not be very good at it, because if people are good at manipulation, others don’t even know they’re being manipulated.”

That statement hit me hard. And it freaked me out when I eventually discovered that I was manipulative — because I was so good at it, I didn’t even know I was doing it.

When I first learned about people-pleasing, I thought, “That’s not me.” But the more I learned, the more I realized I was basically the poster child for people-pleasing. And then I learned that people-pleasing is manipulative. It’s also dishonest.

Here’s why.

When I was people-pleasing, I said yes to things I didn’t want to do. I acted like things were fine when they weren’t. I volunteered for things I didn’t actually want to do, I over-gave, I built up resentment, and sometimes I even complained about people behind their backs.

And my motives weren’t as pure as I thought. Sure, I liked helping, but deep down I was trying to get approval. I wanted you to think I was dependable, capable, kind, easy to work with — a good person. So I was actually lying.

I was pretending.
And pretending is manipulation.

Because what I was really doing was trying to control what you thought of me.

When I first realized that, I felt horrible — like I must be this terrible person. But I’ve learned that this doesn’t make you a bad person. It means you learned bad skills. You learned ways to get your needs met or to stay safe that were adaptive in childhood but don’t serve you in adulthood.

Most of us learned to manipulate because it worked — it helped us survive in environments where being direct or having our own needs wasn’t safe. So we learned to twist ourselves into what other people wanted.

And all of this gets really activated around the holidays, doesn’t it? Because family traditions and expectations can bring out old patterns fast. A lot of people use manipulation tactics — guilt, shame, obligation — to get others to do what they want during the holidays.

Let me give you an example from a client, with details changed for privacy.

She’s in the process of a divorce, and she’s also in a new relationship. Everyone knows about both situations — it’s open, honest, and above-board. Her new partner had plans to go out of town for the holidays, and my client was going to spend the holidays with her soon-to-be ex and their young kids.

When my client shared that it was going to be emotionally hard to do that, the new partner canceled her trip. She didn’t check in first, she just assumed that’s what my client wanted. But my client was actually looking forward to having some time alone while her partner was away.

When she said that, the new partner got defensive and said things like, “I don’t want to be a burden to you,” and “Wouldn’t it be hard for you if I spent the holidays with my ex?”

Now there are several things wrong with that.

First, the new partner wasn’t actually spending time with their ex — they were making a comparison that didn’t fit.
Second, my client isn’t even legally separated yet and has very young children, so this is not the same situation.
And third — and most importantly — people get to be upset about things. That’s part of being human. But then you take responsibility for being upset.

It’s not my client’s job to make sure her partner never has uncomfortable emotions.

That’s what manipulation looks like — trying to make someone else responsible for your feelings so you don’t have to feel them. And. – my client’s new partner was trying to take responsibility for my client’s difficult feelings, and they weren’t asked to do that. My client simply wanted to be heard about how challenging it would be during the holidays.

There’s another kind of manipulation that happens all the time in relationships, and that’s when someone treats you poorly, and then makes the conversation about your reaction instead of their behavior. They shift the focus away from what they did and onto how you responded.

That’s a deflection tactic. It’s a way to manipulate the narrative and make you the problem.

When that happens, I don’t say, “that’s manipulation” because that’s not going to lead to a productive conversation. Instead, I’ll say something like, “If you want to talk about my reaction, we can do that later, but right now we’re talking about what happened.”

And if that still doesn’t work, I’ll say, “I’m not willing to talk about my reaction unless you’re also willing to talk about what caused it.”

We all get to have feelings when something upsets us. The real question is: what do we do with those feelings? Do we use them to manipulate? Or do we take responsibility for them?

Let me give you a personal example of that kind of ownership.

When I first started dating my sweetheart, he was still friends with his ex, and she’d sometimes come to yoga with us. One day they arrived together on his motorcycle — she’d been walking, he offered her a ride — and they came in laughing. And I felt this pang of jealousy.

They hadn’t done anything wrong. But I recognized that I was triggered.

So I said to him, “I need to tell you something. This is about me and my issues. Nobody did anything wrong and nothing needs to change. But I want to be honest with you because if I don’t, it’ll sit between us. And I spent all my previous relationships putting things between me an dmy partners without ever telling them, but would still feel the weight of it on my own.

I told him I’d felt jealous, which shocked me because I’d never thought of myself as a jealous person. It took me a few months to realize that what I saw between them was a moment of intimacy that he and I hadn’t yet developed. Once we did, that jealousy went away.

That’s what it looks like to own your emotions instead of using them to manipulate someone else’s behavior.

So as we head into the holidays, here’s what I want you to remember:

Manipulation is often rooted in fear — fear of rejection, disapproval, abandonment, or loss. But when we start to take responsibility for our emotions instead of trying to control others’, that’s when we find true freedom and internal safety.

You can’t stop other people from trying to guilt, shame, or pressure you, but you can decide how you show up. You can stop pretending. You can stop managing other people’s feelings. You can choose honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Because real connection — the kind we all crave — only happens when we drop the manipulation and start being real.

Thanks for spending this time with me. I’ll be back next week with another episode—and going forward from there, I’ll be returning to weekly episodes! I’m so excited to get back into that rhythm and share more stories, tools, and lessons from recovery and real life.

Take care of yourself this week, especially as the holiday season ramps up—and remember, you deserve to feel safe and free, inside and out.