How Narcissists Play A Role In Our Spiritual Awakening

Why are we suddenly recognizing narcissists in our lives? Why do empaths end up with them? What pattern are they showing us? What do they have to do with the domination paradigm we've been living in? How can we strengthen ourselves when we find ourselves in the arena? What is this curious journey?

Transcript

So today we're talking about how narcissism plays a role in our spiritual path.

And this doesn't mean how to be a narcissist or why we should become more like one,

Obviously.

But it's more about,

You know,

Right now in the world we seem to be really focused on narcissists.

It's almost like they've always been there.

But for the first time,

We're labeling them.

You know,

Maybe it's not the first time in ever,

But it's really common now.

Like all of a sudden it's like,

Oh my God,

This person's a narcissist.

Oh my God.

Like it's like this,

These veils are dropping.

And it's an interesting thing because the question is why?

Why are we suddenly seeing this?

How does this relate to our personal journey?

Right?

It's not all about saying you're a narcissist or you this.

It's not always about that,

Right?

It's about why,

Why is this happening for me?

Why is this happening to us as a collective?

And first,

I also want to say that in no way is this talk about minimizing the effect of having a narcissist in your life.

If you have parents or siblings or partners or ex-partners who are full-blown narcissists,

This does not take away from that struggle at all.

This is more of an experiment of thought that we all want to look at in the land of the energies and the characteristics of narcissism.

And that when we come up against them in our lives,

And it might not even be a person who is a full-blown narcissist,

It might be an institution that we interact with.

It could be something at our job.

It could be an insidious expectation in the family.

It could be people in our lives who for all intents and purposes are really lovely,

But because of the society we've been living in,

Which essentially is set up as a narcissistic society,

And this is the big,

Big point that I really want to make,

Because of that,

Because of our upbringing,

Because of how we've been treated,

There are very innocent people out there who may actually have some of these tendencies who we love,

But it's not that they lack empathy.

It's not that they are sociopaths or something,

But they've all just been hit with the same club that we've all been hit with.

And so when we come up against that in our lives,

It's a very interesting arena for our own spiritual journey.

And that's sort of my hypothesis or my premise here for this talk,

Is that the very characteristics that we are seeing in full-blown narcissism are really important examples of contrast in our lives to help us get back on our spiritual journey.

They're not about sidestepping us.

They're not about destroying us.

They're not about ruining our self-worth,

Ruining our lives.

That's not what it's about.

It's about identifying it so we can look at it and say,

Oh,

I get it.

So that's what this is.

This is a,

It's more of a philosophical discussion so that we can name it,

See it,

And perhaps avoid it in life if it's a really serious issue,

Like a job placement that's just completely self-serving and soul-sucking for everyone that works there,

Or a relationship that you're like,

Wow,

I got to pull the plug on this one because there's no coming back out of this.

But it might be much more subtle,

And it might just simply be someone you love that just simply is doing some of these things,

And because you love them,

We get caught up in it,

And we don't see it because it's just not so obvious.

And then maybe we can heal that,

And we can heal that relationship with them.

But we do it from our side.

It's never about changing the other person.

It's always about our journey.

So we're going to go through a bunch of the characteristics that we see in narcissists and understand how these help us and how important they are to our spiritual path,

Because you figure,

Even for us right here on Insight Timer,

Why are we here?

We're here to actually bring ourselves back together.

We want to be happy.

We want to feel our divine self merge with our lives.

This is a spiritual journey,

Is the merging of the divine and our physical.

But we have blocks,

Or we have blind spots,

Or we have programs,

Or we have things we read,

Things we grew up with,

That for some reason stand in the way of that bliss and happiness that we're kind of promised on the spiritual path.

So that's where these tendencies are gifts,

Because they'll wake us up to something.

So the first one is obviously this idea of when we're around someone with narcissistic traits,

They have a curious entitlement that you are meant to serve them,

That they can't live without you.

You have to bend your life around their needs.

If they text you,

You had better text them back.

If they need you,

You'd better get over there and do the thing.

You must be at their beck and call,

Or else do you even love them?

Do you even care?

What's wrong with you that you don't even,

You don't even care enough about me to consider my needs?

Are you selfish?

Right?

This is sort of that classic thing.

And I laugh about it only because of course I'm a massive people pleaser,

Which of course is the other end of the spectrum.

Because if someone is like that and we are unconscious to this behavior,

Our people pleasing mechanisms will kick into gear and we will just run circles around them.

Whatever they want,

Oh,

Whatever they want,

Oh,

How high,

You know,

You want me to jump?

How high do you want me to jump?

Where do you want me to go?

Oh my God,

I wouldn't want you to be unhappy,

Because that'll be my fault.

That it's my fault that you're unhappy.

It's never my fault that you're unhappy.

You're a sovereign being.

You have every right in the world to be anything you want.

You can interpret every situation any way you want.

You know,

In the immortal words of Viktor Frankl,

The very last human freedom is that we have the right to choose our reaction or response to any situation.

And if you choose to be unhappy,

That's your choice.

It has nothing to do with me.

But this is a game that somehow we are all meant to serve them.

And of course,

It also takes advantage of the fact that we are naturally empathic.

We naturally feel other people's emotions.

So if they can turn on the emoting,

They can really throw out some big emotion.

We will go to them and try to help and try to fix them and try to heal them.

Because they're hurt and they're broken and you don't understand their childhood and you don't understand what their ex said to them and how hard their life has been.

And so then all of a sudden we're like,

You know what?

I can help.

I can help.

I can fix you.

I can just come to me.

This is a huge problem.

And of course,

They never get better because the attention is all they wanted to begin with.

You know,

As long as they get to be king and as long as everybody's around,

It's all good.

But of course,

This makes us ask ourselves a very important existential question.

Why are we here?

Why is every single one of us here?

Why are we all unique souls?

Why were we each given a different DNA sequence?

Why were we each given a different set of gifts and challenges and paths to take?

Does it ever have anything to do with circling around another person's path?

Why do we have unique paths?

What are we doing here?

And it's really interesting when we are faced with someone or an institution or a job or a family member or a partner who believes that our entire existence is about serving them.

This really needs some serious attention.

We need to back up and just look at our life and say,

Hold on a minute.

Why did I come to earth?

Why am I here?

Certainly,

It's not about you.

So it's just a very important thing that sometimes just throws us back into our own orbit.

And we kind of go,

Right,

That's interesting.

So then we have to look at where this pattern shows up in society.

Because what's curious about this pattern is it's hard to see sometimes.

For some reason,

There's some part of us that believes that,

No,

I think I am here to serve them.

I think I am here to,

This is me being selfless.

This is my karma.

This is my dharma.

This is what I'm here to do.

I'm here to serve others.

I'm sure that is what I'm here to do.

And don't get me wrong.

Being kind to others,

Being there for your friends,

Being supportive,

All that,

That is human.

That's community.

That's love.

That's kindness.

But it's not your sole purpose.

Every one of us has a light inside of us.

Every one of us has a path.

And it is not about serving another soul.

But where do we see this in society?

Where do we see this in the big picture of what we've been raised within that makes us believe it's true or makes it hide?

Well,

There's this idea of royalty.

The very concept of royalty is off the charts.

That this human has a different bloodline than this person.

And that this person is better than you.

And so we're going to raise them up for no good reason.

And then everyone else serves them.

You will make me my food.

You will shoe my horses.

And you will drive my car.

And you will clean up after me.

Because I am,

I am the king.

I'm not going to do these lowly things.

This went into the caste system,

That we are the Brahmins.

And all of you are here to serve us.

Oh,

And the reason you're here to serve us is because you were crappy in a past life.

This is this definition of karma.

It's not the definition of karma.

But this is a definition of karma that says,

Well,

You've got to shoe my horses because obviously you were crappy in a previous lifetime.

Literally built right into our system that,

Well,

I must deserve this.

How often do we feel like that?

That,

Well,

I must have done something.

I must,

I must deserve this in some way.

This is deep in our training,

In the whispers in our minds.

And then when women became subjugated in many parts of the world,

Suddenly the wife is there to serve the husband.

Or the daughters are there to serve the father.

And then the mother is there to serve the children.

And the woman has no role other than to serve the family.

And many men can feel that as well.

That I have no role except to care for the family.

That this is my whole existence.

It isn't just a sexist thing.

And then this whole idea of having indentured servants or slaves or all these kinds of ideas.

Or even you can see it even in the service industry today.

The customer's always right.

You can just treat that person like crap and they've got to just smile.

This is not just narcissists.

This idea of entitlement is built into us that somehow some people are more important than other people.

And that crazy ex husband or ex wife or whoever,

Somehow I'm supposed to keep them happy.

And they shouldn't be uncomfortable.

I should sacrifice my own time and energy to make sure they're okay.

And that their perch is comfortable.

This is nonsense.

This is complete nonsense.

So it's really important to see this.

This is why it's insidious.

This is why we fall for it.

Because it's built into our society.

And this is just this society.

I don't think it's human society.

I think as human beings we are capable of amazing symbiotic loving coexistence.

This is just the one that I believe began in the last couple millennia.

But it's not how we have to live.

And it certainly doesn't serve the majority of people.

I don't even think it serves the ones that are feeling so entitled.

I don't think they're that happy either.

So it's okay to let it go.

And then there is the dreaded gaslighting.

This is where your reality isn't valid.

My reality is valid.

Oh,

You're just emotional.

Oh,

This must be because you had such a hard upbringing.

Oh,

This must be because you're just tired and you're frustrated from work.

Hmm.

Poor little you.

Yeah,

You just don't understand.

And it's like gaslighting.

By definition,

Gaslighting is when someone does something and you call them on it.

You're not being a jerk.

You're just saying,

Hey,

That's not okay.

And then they turn it around,

Change the topic,

And somehow make it about you.

One of the greatest challenges,

Especially for people who are on a spiritual path in the spiritual community,

Is this also exists in the spiritual community.

Because of course,

These people exist in the spiritual community.

And because the spiritual journey is inside,

And we want to get inside,

We want to look inside and say,

Where are the blocks inside of me?

Where are the things that maybe I learned from my family?

Where are the adaptations that happened because of my childhood that are getting in the way of my happiness now?

Where are those?

So this is the spiritual journey.

It is an introspective path.

So then all of a sudden,

Somebody does something,

And they're being a jerk.

They're being mean.

They're being self-serving,

Entitled,

And sometimes downright cruel.

And they do this thing and you say,

Hey,

Hey,

Hey,

That's not okay.

And now,

Because they're going to twist this,

And they're going to gaslight you,

They're going to turn it around within the spiritual community and say,

Oh,

Are you being triggered?

Is this an issue?

Is this like because something that happened with your father growing up?

Is this something like,

Oh,

I understand.

Yeah,

I get.

And they're going to turn it around,

And they're going to send you inside your own psyche to try to find some reason why it bothered you that they were mean to you.

And don't get me wrong.

This is like all over the place.

This is like,

It just drives me crazy.

I remember being at a retreat once.

It was a tantra retreat,

But it wasn't one I would recommend.

And they were doing this exercise where,

And they were calling it masculine and feminine,

Which again,

I probably was at the retreat to find out all the things that weren't masculine and feminine,

Where the one partner had to hunt the feminine,

And they had to go and attack them and devour them and eat them.

It was so disturbing.

And I thought,

Well,

I'll try it.

Maybe I'm wrong.

And I did it.

And of course,

I was the one to be devoured first.

And afterwards,

When they were kind of checking in,

They go,

How's everyone doing with it?

And I said,

This is rape culture.

This isn't masculine and feminine.

And the leaders of the program singled me out and said,

Is this because you were abused as a child,

Katrina?

And it was so interesting.

And this is the interesting thing,

Because later,

We're going to talk more about how to strengthen ourself in the face of this,

Is to be very clear when someone does that,

That my perception of this is not wrong.

Just because everybody's got stories,

Everybody has stuff,

Everybody has times they were hurt,

Times they were hurt,

Times they were abused,

Times they were neglected.

Everybody has these stories.

But that does not mean that we can't have an opinion in this moment.

Right?

It does not mean that my perception in this moment is necessarily jaded.

It might be,

But that's my journey to take.

It's not your journey to call out.

So if someone calls you out like that,

And says something like that,

You know,

That's your first sign that,

Oh,

Okay,

That's what we're dealing with here.

So it's a very interesting thing.

When somebody turns the tables on you,

And now somehow makes it about you.

It's not about you.

If you observe patterns in your life,

That you keep getting triggered,

That's an interesting thing.

If I am going one relationship to another relationship,

And another relationship,

And I'm noticing a pattern,

Or I keep getting triggered at work,

At business,

At family gatherings,

In my relationship,

That's me to observe.

But as soon as someone turns that around on you,

This is manipulation.

But even the whole idea that someone else is allowed to determine what your response to something should be.

Someone does something,

And you don't like it.

And you say,

That's not okay,

What you said there.

And then what do they do?

Oh,

Yeah,

You didn't understand what I meant.

Here's what I meant.

And here,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And what they're basically saying is your reaction to this is incorrect.

But the truth is,

The world and we've been trained to be very careful with our words.

It's like we because we were raised in a litigious society,

Like it's almost like,

If I say this,

You can't prove it in a court of law.

I only said these four words,

I don't know what you're so upset about.

But of course,

These four words were backed by a zillion words,

And a zillion assumptions and a zillion assertions about this situation.

They just honed it down to these words,

So they wouldn't get in trouble.

But the bottom line is,

We heard the whole thing.

We heard everything behind the words.

And the reality is my reaction to it,

My emotional response to what you said is valid.

I don't care what you meant.

My response is valid.

And the idea that someone else can come to you and say,

No,

No,

No,

Your response is invalid.

No,

It's like,

I remember some of you guys met my friend Nelda in one of her relationships.

She was arguing with her partner.

And she was sort of just standing her ground and he just kept it.

Nothing was working.

He had all these arguments that he was going to convince her of this and convince her of this and convince her of this.

But she was just standing her ground because she could see what was going on here.

And finally,

She said something and he said,

This conversation is not going the way I planned.

Can you imagine that we have conversations and we expect that we already know the response of the other person.

This other person is a human being.

This other person is a sovereign,

Sentient being,

Theoretically with their own ideas and their own emotional responses to things.

They're not an object or a robot in your little game of chess.

So it's a very interesting thing,

The idea that someone else can define our reality for us.

Again,

It comes back to the whole idea that somehow they're better than us.

So again,

It's very important to honor your truth at all times,

No matter how people might want to twist it,

No matter how anyone wants to twist it,

That we really stand in our truth and say,

I don't know why we're talking about that right now.

We were talking about your behavior.

This isn't about me.

But again,

This brings us back to our spiritual path.

It brings us back to our path that says,

No,

I'm pretty clear about this.

Because we're constantly being pulled off and constantly being distracted.

So it's just very interesting when that happens,

That it's almost like you're thrown back to your own center.

And you look around and you go,

Wow,

What a weird distraction.

Another thing that's really important is as we go through life,

To really see things as they truly are.

Because one of the challenges with the narcissistic tendencies is that there is,

And especially people who are real full out narcissists,

They don't have empathy.

They don't care about you.

They don't feel your pain.

They aren't worried about your feelings.

I don't even know how they do it,

But somehow they just don't feel you.

So what happens is we then project our kindness,

Our consideration onto them.

We assume that because they've done this thing,

Obviously,

They must have considered me and they must have considered everybody involved.

And this is the decision they made.

So I should really consider it important for me.

Like I went into business with a man who was a narcissist and I didn't know.

I've never met a narcissist before.

So I didn't see it.

So any time he would say something or he would come up with some idea or he'd have some opinion about something,

I would project my reality onto him.

I would assume that he had done the same due diligence inside that I had done.

I would have assumed that he considered me and everybody else that would be affected by this because I would have,

But he never did.

It was only about him.

It was never about anyone else.

And I learned it the hard way.

I mean,

Lots of good stuff's happened because I became a teacher and all kinds of good things through the experience,

But that was a massive dark night of the soul almost to realize that,

Wow,

I was completely projecting my reality onto him.

So the key is to always look for evidence on the ground.

If they're really caring about you,

What do they do,

Actually do that shows that they care about you?

What do they do that shows that they care about other people?

If they promise you this and this and this,

Did they do it or is it all talk?

And this is a very interesting thing because we easily can project our reality out into the world and not actually see what's happening.

It's almost like we're so accustomed to being optimistic and seeing the silver lining and trying to give people the benefit of the doubt and trying to see the good in people.

And there's real benefits to that.

Don't get me wrong.

But if the reality is there's something inside of you,

That's just not sitting right.

Look for evidence,

Look for evidence in the 3D world and trust it.

What was that movie,

Jerry Maguire,

The guy's like,

Show me the money,

Show me the money.

You know,

It's like,

Cause everyone's all blowing smoke up his butt,

But he's like,

Show me the money.

And that's the thing we need to do.

And it's really important because we don't want to have to be that way.

But in life,

It's a weird thing.

It's a very strange thing where we kind of get promised all kinds of things,

But none of them are real.

And so then when people promise things and they don't happen,

Oh,

Well,

You know,

He just got busy.

You know,

They meant to obviously,

Cause they're good people and I love them.

But eventually you realize that nothing ever manifests because it's all just stuff to keep you busy,

To keep you thinking,

To keep you off and about pondering the things they're going to do next that never happen.

So it's a very interesting thing to actually really watch the world for what it is.

This isn't a negative thing.

To me,

It's a very Taoist way of seeing the world that we allow all things to be what they are.

We don't have to judge them.

We don't have to make them wrong.

It's like that classic story of the Taoist master sitting down by the river and there's a scorpion and he,

The scorpion's drowning.

So he reaches in and he grabs the scorpion,

The scorpion stings him.

And then he,

His hand opens and falls into the water and he starts to drown.

And the master grabs the scorpion and the scorpion stings him and he drops it in the water.

And this guy walks along and he says,

What are you doing?

Why do you keep saving the scorpion?

It keeps stinging you.

And he says,

Well,

It's the scorpion's nature to sting.

It's my nature to save.

I'm not sure what's wrong with that.

Curious example to use in a talk about narcissists,

But yeah.

But if we simply just allow things to be what they are without judgment,

Then we can just make choices based on them.

There's no right or wrong.

They're not bad people or anything like that.

It's just,

Oh,

Okay,

Here's the evidence.

Is this something I want to have in part as part of my life?

Yes or no.

And then there's no head games.

There's no nonsense.

There's no fantasy.

We're not swirling in something that's not even real.

You know,

Our feet are firmly on the ground.

This is really important on a spiritual journey.

Because again,

Sometimes we think that a spiritual journey is all up here and it's all about dreams and manifestation.

Well,

You can't manifest anything if your feet aren't on the ground.

We actually have to be connected to the earth.

That's the whole thing about being human.

And that's a huge deal to just allow people to be who they are without judgment,

But really see the evidence.

And the other thing to just consider is this curious domination paradigm that we live in.

This idea that,

And it's not just like the entitled royalty idea,

But this idea of we're accustomed to being dominated.

We're accustomed to being controlled.

We're accustomed to other people having some kind of right over us,

Whether it began in sometimes in our childhood,

That children are to be seen and not heard.

And I know this is super old and out of date,

But it is that idea that I am the parent and that's the way it is.

And it's like,

Well,

It depends what you consider children.

If they're also interesting little infinite beings,

Growing into more interesting beings,

Then considering them is very interesting,

Very important.

There's no reason to control them.

Our school system,

Which I believe is going to shift big time at some point,

It's very much that way.

Oh,

You are just a blank slate and we are here to fill you with knowledge as opposed to us coming in as these juicy,

Incredible beings,

Ready to flower,

Very different perception.

Or some churches are very,

Very oppressive.

And again,

Because we believe this to be normal,

Well,

Because they know and they studied and they've done this and they're more advanced,

They're more enlightened or whatever.

I mean,

We get into trouble with this all the time,

Which is why I think that the gurus are falling left and right,

Because we just can't do that.

Nobody has power over us.

No one's more enlightened and all this stuff.

It's like,

We're all just hanging out in the sandbox here.

We're all responsible for our own paths.

We can't look to other people to sort it out and then have them have control over us.

So then what do we do?

What do we do to actually strengthen ourselves in the arena?

We've come against the boss.

We've come against the partner.

We've come against the parent.

We've come against who,

What do we do to actually be able to stand in our truth and be clear and that our life doesn't just become some endless battle of total nonsense that goes nowhere.

The first place we have to look is inside,

Whether or not we have actually internalized this domination paradigm in our own heart.

So if you imagine the masculine feminine dynamic inside of you,

Very often again,

Because in the society,

This is why the masculine feminine is so important to talk about,

Because it's been this domination paradigm where the masculine oppresses the feminine,

And this is everything.

This isn't like just men and women.

It could be,

And it's not even men and women.

It could be one partner over another partner or the parents over the children or the church or the people or the government or their constituents.

It doesn't matter.

And then there's a disconnect in here.

There's no connection.

It's just a power dynamic.

Because of that,

That may be what's going on inside of us.

Does my masculine self oppress my feminine self?

Does my masculine self say,

Oh,

For God's sake,

Stop crying.

What are you being so emotional about all the time?

Is my dominating self saying,

Get your ass out there and start running.

I don't care if your knees hurt.

Stop being such a whiner.

You're going to run 5k every day,

No matter what.

Is that what it's doing?

Is it criticizing you for things you did?

Is your inner masculine gaslighting you and telling you that you shouldn't feel like that?

And it's probably you anyway?

Is your masculine side,

Your brain,

Your ideas,

Is that what you're supposed to be here to serve?

No matter what your feelings are,

No matter what your truth is,

What your soul really wants.

Because if we're doing it inside of us,

We won't be able to see it out there.

And somehow we will justify other people's bad behavior because we're doing it to ourselves right now.

But when we shift the inner dynamic that our inner masculine serves our feminine,

That our inner structure says,

Hey,

You know what?

What can I do to help us really live our soul's path?

Then all of a sudden we have this beautiful symbiotic dance happening inside and this becomes normal.

And then all of a sudden when we're out in relationships,

We expect it with them too.

We expect to talk and listen and discuss and be open and be loving and be connected.

We expect it everywhere.

So then all of a sudden when someone jumps up and they start being entitled,

Condescending,

Condescending,

Whatever,

There's no hook in us.

There's nowhere for it to land.

It's almost just like they become this funny little dog yipping about something.

And you're looking at them and you can't quite figure out where they're coming from because it doesn't land inside of you.

And you listen to them and they start talking about how,

Well,

You should be doing this and how could you do this and this?

And you're honestly,

You're not being aloof.

You're not being anything.

You're just listening to them,

But it doesn't make any sense what they're saying.

And you honestly,

In full heart and love can say,

Wow,

I have no idea what you're going to do about that.

Like,

I don't know what that has to do with me.

And you're being genuine.

You know,

It's not like you're just,

You're being honest because it's not a dynamic that happens inside of you at all.

So that's the number one thing.

That's the big thing we want to look at is what's going on inside of us.

We want to always connect with our truth.

If someone does something and it hurts us and we have an emotional response,

It's like,

Wow,

That really hurt.

Then we stand in that.

And if we feel called to say something,

We say something.

And if they try to explain it away or they try to change the topic,

Or they try to engage you in some kind of emotional discussion about why you feel that way or why you shouldn't feel that way,

When we're really connected to our truth,

That's where we live.

That's where we simply look at them and say,

But none of that has anything to do with what we're talking about.

I really want to talk about this.

Oh,

But it's just because,

You know,

The way you were raised and what was like,

No,

It has nothing to do with how I was raised.

You wrecked my car.

My childhood has nothing to do with the fact that you wrecked my car.

But the more we are accustomed to listening to our truth,

Gandhi would talk about satya graha,

Standing in my truth.

You just stand in it,

No matter how this,

Because again,

You could have people in your life that you love very much,

But this is normal behavior.

This is how they get out of being in trouble.

So they talk around you and they try to make it not about them and they try to da da da da.

But maybe they're really great people and you stand in your truth and you say,

I really want to talk about this thing that happened.

And eventually,

If they care also,

They'll stop with the distractions and they'll come back to you.

They'll come back to what you're actually talking about.

And maybe we break a pattern and maybe we find resolution,

But it begins with us believing that my truth is real and my truth matters.

My response is real.

It all comes down to us.

The last thing I want to mention is it's so important that we are whole in ourselves,

Because very often we can be manipulated by other people,

By family,

By employers,

By institutions that we belong to,

Because somehow we think we need them,

That without them,

My life would be horrible,

That I can never get a different job,

That I'll never have another friend,

That I'll never have another lover,

That I'll never have whatever,

That somehow without this person in my life,

I am not complete.

And that puts us at a great disadvantage,

Because then they do hold all the power and then they are allowed to do anything they want,

And that boss can act however they want.

That institution can tell me what I'm supposed to think and believe and how I'm supposed to act.

They're allowed to treat me badly and I'll,

Well,

I guess I'll just,

I'll start to pick my battles.

This isn't so important.

My feelings don't really matter.

It's not worth causing trouble,

As if we're causing the trouble.

But if we're whole,

If we actually understand that we are a whole spiritual being,

We are a complete entity,

Having an experience here on earth,

And maybe there are times that we have more people in our lives and sometimes there's fewer people.

Sometimes we may have jobs that we make a lot of money.

Maybe we have jobs that we make very little money.

Maybe we have jobs sometimes that are very fulfilling and some that aren't.

Things change.

I'm just me,

Regardless of my job,

Regardless of my relationship,

Regardless of which particular friend circle I'm a part of.

I'm just me.

And this is a really important place to come to,

That as soon as we notice that we are dependent on any of these people,

Institutions,

Whatever,

We really need to look inside and say,

Whoa,

What's this dependency?

Why do I think that I'm not enough without this thing?

If you have any questions,

I'd love to answer them.

What if they are nice sometimes,

But manipulative other times?

Well,

This is exactly it.

How sometimes these weird tendencies come out and when we stand in our truth,

They just can't do it.

And perhaps that pattern then lets go.

And we can do it in love and then it won't work anymore and it'll just let go.

Most of the time you can't win an argument with narcissists.

I would just finish the conversation saying that you can't get me.

Yeah.

Well,

And it's always interesting too,

Even when when it is an argument,

Why are we arguing?

Why aren't we having a discussion?

Why aren't we considering each other's thoughts?

What's going on here?

Sometimes we just have to back up and look at it and say,

Why is this an argument?

Not look at the topic,

But back up and say,

What's going on between us that we're arguing?

Because that's the problem.

The problem isn't the topic.

Because if everything was okay between you,

Then you wouldn't be arguing about it.

You would just be having a discussion.

So it's just interesting.

It's an important thing because sometimes we get lost in the words that just fuel the drama,

But we don't back up and go,

Wait a minute,

Let's get deeper into the root.

What's really bothering us here?

Because one of us is angry or both of us are angry and we need to talk about that.

Then we can discuss this topic that we're discussing.

Arguing is never a good idea.

Arguing.

Does a narcissist realize what they are?

Are they aware of their cruel manipulations?

So,

And this is just my perception.

There are people who are diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder.

This belongs in the category of psychological disorders that have personality disorders.

And one of the defining qualities of that is that they don't know there's something wrong with them.

So they don't get help.

They don't want to take medication.

They blame everyone else for it.

Whereas oftentimes,

Say if we're suffering from depression,

We know we're struggling with it.

And so there are those who are diagnosed with this personality disorder and I don't believe they have any idea of any other kind of reality.

They're not choosing this over being empathic.

It's all they know.

And they don't have any idea.

One of the big points of our talk today is that I believe that a lot of the individual characteristics of that disorder exist in our society,

In institutions,

And in very innocent people.

Not that they aren't innocent,

But in lots of people who aren't full blown diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder people.

They're just people who grew up in tough homes or who had difficult relationships or who just have really struggled in life.

And for whatever reason,

These are the coping mechanisms that they've developed.

Or maybe in the health,

Or maybe in the house in the household,

They were grown up,

They grew up in entitlement was normal.

And the idea is that if we stand in our truth,

And we are kind,

And we listen,

And we meditate,

And we are whole,

They may be able to figure it out.

It's sort of like the idea of like we did a talk on anger.

Previously,

A lot of people learned as children that a temper tantrum would get them their way.

So it continued into adulthood.

And so when they don't get their way,

They freak out,

And they have a temper tantrum,

And they scream and yell.

And very often,

It still works.

It's enough of an intimidation tactic,

That it still works for them to get their way for their whole life.

And they're that person in a in an old age home in their 90s,

Screaming and yelling at the nurses,

Because they didn't get their way.

And they never changed it.

And they still got their way.

The squeaky wheel gets the most grease.

But it's something that it could have been caught at some point.

And it could have been corrected,

Maybe,

If that person loved someone enough.

And that other person called them on it and said,

No,

You can't have a temper tantrum.

You wouldn't say it like that.

That would be inflammatory.

But you might have been able to correct it.

And my sense is a lot of these narcissistic tendencies that we see in the world might exist to certain degrees in the people we love.

But if we can see it,

Then we can hold our center and find a way through it.

I asked once if he actually believed the stories he told.

He responded,

Yes,

Absolutely.

He could have easily passed a lie detector test.

That is so true.

You know,

I didn't even talk about lying today.

It's interesting.

But what's really interesting,

I remember one of my friend who,

She was married to someone who was a narcissist.

And he would dead out lie.

And she would say,

But that's not true.

And he'd say,

The details are not important.

So for him,

The idea of truth and false was not clear.

It was actually like,

Like,

Who cares?

Who cares if the details aren't right?

I mean,

You know,

The point,

And she'd be like,

No,

What you're saying is incorrect.

Doesn't matter.

So for us,

We're like,

No,

We have to say the truth.

But for them,

The truth meant nothing.

It was no different than an embellished,

Made up story.

So the lying is so the lying is very weird.

It's a strange thing that they,

They don't even it's not even that they don't know that they're lying,

Or they believe the lies.

They don't think there's any difference or any value in telling the truth with all the correct details.

So there's not even a loadedness about that.

So it's very strange.

So thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

✨💕interesting helpful. wonderfully insightful as always

You have such a beautiful way of getting to the heart of things, Katrina💗. This came at the right time for me. Thank you so much.♥️

You handle the topic with intelligence and compassion. I was curious about how you would address this topic because I respect your passion and skill as a teacher. Still, I feel uncomfortable with a discussion, even one led by you, that focuses on what is wrong with other people. I have a question or two but don’t know where or how to post them.
🙏

This talk is spot on and will surely help us as we navigate the narcissists around us.

Wise and empowering talk on narcissism and how to stay grounded when dealing with it

This really hits home like most of your talks. Thank you for you insight and guidence. 🙏