Well, a good place to start is to start taking better care of yourself, exercising extreme self-care, and giving yourself the gift of healing from your unresolved issues. Another key component in particular for those who still have co-dependency issues to address is to stop being so nice all the time. Now, I don’t mean to go out and be mean for no reason. What I mean is stop giving to your own detriment. Stop being a people pleaser. People pleasers are easy prey for narcissists.
Always being nice, always being agreeable, helpful, and eager to please, hopeful for their approval and validation only makes you seem weak, insecure, and uncertain. So instead, stop going out of your way to put other people’s needs above your own at every opportunity. It’s okay to be assertive and stand up for yourself when necessary. Furthermore, it’s okay to say no. Although they may not like it, especially at the moment when they’re not getting their own way, eventually, they’ll have no choice but to respect you for it. Why? Because you respect yourself.
Recommended: Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.
Remember, there’s a difference between being kind, decent, respectful, and boundaried, and being a people-pleasing doormat. One is a healthy, functional, and productive way to go through life. The other is a good way to set yourself up to be exploited, taken advantage of, trampled on, and walked all over. In other words, hurt and victimized. So respect yourself first if you want anyone else to respect you.
Something else that’s very helpful when it comes to commanding others’ respect is learning how to set clear boundaries.
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