I'm going to teach you seven phrases that a narcissist hopes these words never come out of your mouth.
If you're always the one apologizing,
If you're always the one over-explaining,
If you're always walking on eggshells,
Feeling like you're in a fog,
Feeling like you're full of guilt,
Today I want to teach you seven key phrases that's going to help you take your power back.
I want you to stay for number seven because that's the hardest one that you're going to have to learn how to say,
But it's going to set you free.
My name is Lisa A.
Romano.
I'm the Breakthrough Life Coach,
And for over 20 years,
I've helped thousands of adult children of dysfunction children who came from alcoholic homes or narcissistic homes I've taught them how to self heal from codependency and how to take their power back after Narcissistic abuse and it is an absolute honor to be sharing this information with you today And a few days back someone that I love very much asked me Lisa I need to know what to say to this narcissist in my life and They have to be short phrases that I can wrap my mind around so I can understand why they're so powerful So can you help me push narcissists,
Or this one particular narcissist,
Off my back a little bit so I can have some breathing room?
And I thought about it,
And I thought,
What are some phrases that I used to use when I was in these situations?
And the first one might cause you to sit back and take a pause,
But stick with me.
That first phrase is,
You might be right.
Now,
Before you click away,
Just hear me out,
Because there is some genius in this.
Because I know that if you felt a reaction,
I understand why because everything and you said but they're not right.
They're wrong This is abuse and that reaction is exactly why this phrase works because it's a narcissist does not argue To find the truth.
They don't argue to listen to you.
They're not interested in your side They argue simply to hook you every emotion you share every explanation you offer every fact that you present Every time you defend yourself you're feeding the narcissistic machine The argument was never about the cheese or about the dishes or about the text message or about what you said at dinner or didn't say The argument itself is the supply when you say you might be right.
That's not you agreeing with them Listen to the words might you are not surrendering your truth You are refusing to hand over your energy remember that emotions are energy emotion now You're going to use it when they're beating you and you can sense it.
They're trying to hook you into a debate that absolutely has no exit.
It's just going to go around,
Around,
Around.
When you feel that familiar pang to explain yourself the 100th time,
This is how you're going to say it.
I want you to say it calmly,
Almost like you're bored.
There's no sarcasm,
Because sarcasm is supply to them also.
Say it like you're commenting on the weather,
And then go back to what you were doing.
My strategy for this when I coach people privately is pass the butter.
So yeah,
You might be right.
Pass the butter.
Now,
What's going to happen is this is signaling to them that I don't want to argue,
And it's extremely powerful if you use it the right way.
If that feels impossible,
If everything in you needs to defend yourself,
That pull has a name.
And it's codependency,
The fear of disappearing in someone's life.
It is the need to please people.
It is the fear of abandonment.
Now,
Number two,
The key phrase is,
I'm not willing to talk about this while I'm being spoken to like that.
That.
Might get worse if we leave so as adults we stand there taking verbal fire And we go we think to ourselves.
Oh,
We're just being loyal or if I walk out I'm going to be rude But the thing about this phrase is that it draws a line not around the topic,
But just around the treatment Notice what it does not say it does not say you refuse to talk it does not accuse them of anything It says the conversation can absolutely happen just not like this You're not controlling them.
You're governing what you will participate in and that is a world of difference So you're going to use it the moment you set the moment you sense the tone turns to contempt to mockery mockery or they Increase the volume you don't wait until you're 10 minutes in it's the moment You notice that they're trying to drag you in and this is how I want you to say it This is the coaching moment you say it's slow You slay it low.
If they escalate,
You de-escalate your voice.
Then,
And this is the part that matters,
You've got to follow through.
You have to leave the room.
You have to walk into the garden.
A boundary that you don't enforce is just want,
Want.
It's just suggestion.
And narcissists never respond to suggestions.
They respond to people who say something,
Set a boundary,
And then follow through.
Number three,
I see it differently.
And that's OK.
If you grew up being told that your perceptions could not be trusted,
This phrase is medicine.
In my home,
We were told our lives were great,
There was nothing wrong with our lives,
And if we were unhappy,
There was something wrong with us.
We were told that our feelings were wrong.
And that's the entire setup for gaslighting.
A child who learns to doubt her own mind or his own mind becomes an adult who can be argued out of their own reality and their own perception.
Now,
A narcissist needs you to need their agreement.
Let that sink in.
That's their leash.
As long as you cannot rest until they validate your version of events,
They own the ending of every argument.
They've got you on the hook,
Dear one.
Now,
This phrase,
Phrase number three,
Cuts that leash.
You are not asking them to see it your way.
You are not waiting for permission to perceive what you perceived.
You are announcing calmly that two people stand in the same kitchen They can be looking at the same experience,
But experience two different realities.
And yours does not require their signature or their permission.
And it's important that you know that.
Right now,
This is when you're going to use it.
You're going to use it when you notice that they're rewriting history,
When they tell you that,
Oh,
That never happened,
Or you're just too sensitive,
Or no,
You're remembering it the wrong way.
That's when you're going to use it.
Now,
Here's the coaching around that.
This is how I want you to say it.
You say it with a period at the end of the sentence.
It's not a question mark.
Do not add right.
Do not wait for their face to soften.
You say it.
Mean it,
And let the silence just sit and lob in the air.
Your reality is not up for a vote.
That's so important.
Number four,
That's not something I'm willing to do.
Now,
Do you know what codependents do when we say no?
We attach a dissertation to it,
17 reasons,
Three apologies,
And a peace offering.
And every reason we give a narcissist is a doorknob.
Something to grab,
Something to twist,
And something to argue with.
And that just has to stop.
And here's what we hear.
Well,
That reason didn't make sense.
You did it last month.
If you loved me,
You would.
What are you talking about?
You always say that,
But you always say something else after.
These are the arguments that we get from the narcissist.
So this phrase has no doorknobs.
It's smooth.
There's nothing to grab.
So notice it does not say,
I can't,
Because when you say you can't,
That invites them to solve your obstacle.
It says,
Willing.
Willing lives inside you,
Where they cannot reach.
So you're going to use it when you are being volunteered for something that abandons you.
You're going to use it for the loan that you cannot afford,
That holiday that destroys your peace,
The favor that is really a test.
This is how you say it.
You say it once completely and without a closing argument.
If they push,
And they will push,
You do not upgrade to reasons.
You simply repeat it word for word like a door that says closed no matter how many times the handle is tried and people are knocking.
That's not something I'm willing to do.
A no without a justification is a full sentence.
It took me years to learn that.
Number five,
I'm not responsible for how you feel about that.
Now this one goes against every fiber of your programming.
So let me say it gently.
As children of dysfunction,
Children of emotionally immature parents,
For example,
We were handed a job that we never applied for.
We had to manage our parents' emotions,
Maybe even take care of younger siblings.
Their anger meant we failed.
So if our parents were angry,
We felt like we failed.
Their sadness meant we were responsible to fix it.
So we became like these emotional employees before we could even ride a bicycle.
Now,
A narcissist hires you for that same job on day one.
Their rage,
Their sulking,
Their wounded silence,
All of it gets billed to your account.
And as long as you accept responsibility for their feelings,
Their guilt,
Their guilt is the remote control that they steer you with.
They use fear,
They use obligation,
And they use guilt.
So this phrase is basically you resigning.
This is your resignation letter.
It does not say that I don't care about how you feel.
There's a huge difference.
You can have compassion for someone's feelings without taking on responsibility for them.
So their emotions belong to their nervous system,
Their history,
Their choices,
And their perceptions.
They don't belong to you.
And quite frankly,
You can't even fix them or control them,
Although that's the screwed up thing.
They try to make you think that you're responsible and that you can fix them.
So you're going to use it when the guilt starts to trip you up,
When your reasonable boundary is met with a wounded outrage that's designed to make you out to be the villain.
So I want to coach you around how to say it.
Say it softly.
This one lands hardest when it's said the most gently.
No anger,
No defensiveness,
And I know how hard this is,
Just a quiet returning of basically luggage that was never yours to carry.
Number six,
I've heard you and I'll think about it.
Narcissists are pressure machines.
They need the answer now.
They need the commitment now.
They need the yes now.
And do you know why?
Because urgency bypasses your prefrontal cortex.
The wise adult part of your brain and it speaks directly to the frightened amygdala the child in your nervous system Amy the amygdala the child who learned that delay equals danger that making someone wait is asking for some form of punishment So rush decisions are how codependence end up in agreements that we never actually chose this phrase installs a pause between the pressure and your answer and inside that pause lives your entire a recovery,
Dear one.
It gives them nothing to fight.
You did not say no,
So there is no argument to have.
You did not say yes,
So nothing within you was surrendered.
You simply reclaim the one thing pressure is designed to steal.
That's your time.
When are you going to use it?
You're going to use it when you feel rushed,
When you feel cornered,
Or when you feel flooded.
If your heart is pounding,
That is not the moment to decide anything.
Your body.
Now I want to coach you on how to say it.
You use this phrase warmly.
I've heard you.
Let them know that their message arrived.
I'll think about it.
And then do you want to actually leave?
Hang up the phone.
Go do something physically if you can,
Because the pressure will follow you to the doorway,
And your only job is to keep walking.
So you want to do something right away.
Now,
Number seven.
Here it is.
I'm OK with you being upset right now.
And here we are.
It's the hardest one,
The one that I could not say for most of my life,
And the one that finally set me free.
And it still sets me free today.
Every phrase before this one leads here because underneath all of it the explaining,
The apologizing,
The eggshell walking.
Underneath all of it lives one core terror,
Which is tied to your core trauma.
If they're upset with me,
I'm not safe.
Now,
That's not a character flaw.
That is your child's survival math equation.
Because when you depend on unstable people,
Their displeasure generally was dangerous for you.
Your nervous system calculated correctly.
Decades ago,
When you were just a little bitty baby,
It knew exactly what it was doing.
But here's the thing,
Dear one.
Above the veil,
You can see this.
Below the veil,
You can't.
You're not that baby anymore.
And their upset is no longer an emergency.
This phrase announces the end of this inner child terror era.
It says,
Your storm can happen.
You can be upset.
And I don't have to stand in the storm.
I don't have to stand in your rain.
You can be angry in that room while I'm at peace in this one.
Their emotions and your safety have finally been separated.
And that separation,
Dear one,
Is the entire healing.
It's emotional detachment.
And once you see it,
Then you can heal it.
So here's when you're going to use it.
You're going to use it when you have a boundary or you want to set a boundary,
And they respond with a tantrum or the silent treatment or the wounded fury designed to make you take it all back and backpedal on your boundary.
And now I want to coach you around on how to say it.
And honestly,
You may only need to say it to yourself for like 100 times before you even whisper it to a narcissist.
So you need to practice this.
You're going to whisper it in the bathroom mirror if you have to.
Speak to yourself in the car.
I'm OK with you being upset with me.
Because the person who can tolerate a narcissist's displeasure cannot be controlled by their displeasure or their anger.
And a person who cannot be controlled is emotionally free.
You,
Dear one,
Cannot control a narcissist.
You cannot control how they see you.
You cannot control what they say and what they don't say.
And guess what?
You don't need to.
The one thing you control is whether you hand yourself over to them.
Every one of these phrases gives them nothing to pull on,
Even though they might try.
But if you understand the genius behind them,
It'll be so much easier for you to sit with them.
So let them think what they think.
You stay here,
Holding onto yourself.
Every phrase is you choosing you.
You're stepping off their chessboard.
These phrases are insights that you can actually learn.
Bye for now.
Until next time,
You got this.
