One Thing A Narcissist Will Never Let Go Of

Narcissistic people are not always easy to spot, especially if you struggle with codependency, have been raised in a dysfunctional home, and by those who emotionally neglected you or routinely minimized your emotions. When you are neurologically and subconsciously programmed to look outside of you for a sense of worthiness, and you meet a narcissist, you will easily become swept up in a crazymaking relationship, where they hold approval over your head. And outside of consciousness, an adult child may not be able to recognize they are dealing with a narcissist, because these dynamics seem so normal and familiar.

In this episode, Lisa unpacks the signs that you are dealing with a narcissist so you can peel back on losing yourself trying to get through to someone who cannot and will never hear you or agree with you.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

So today,

We're going to be talking about the number one thing a narcissist will never ever be able to let go of.

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You'll be the first to know.

So today,

We're going to be talking about something pretty deep,

Something that I hope will help many of you be able to release your own attachments to difficult people,

To toxic people,

To the narcissists in your lives that seem to make your life feel bananas.

Narcissists who use crazy-making communication,

Who stand there very self-righteously,

What seems like they are full of self-confidence,

And they are unmovable in their perceptions of you,

Of themselves,

And of the world,

Which can make someone who is healthier,

Believe it or not,

Feel a little bit off balance because healthy people question themselves,

Well,

Am I wrong?

Like,

Am I not seeing this correctly?

Could I have been too harsh in my perception?

So the ability to be self-analytical is actually a healthy quality,

But when you are dealing with somebody who has narcissism or has high narcissistic traits or is just a really toxic person,

What you discover is that you're standing there talking to someone who believes that they're a gorilla,

Right?

You're seeing a human being,

But imagine you're talking to a human being who believes that they're a gorilla.

100%.

And you're like,

You're not a gorilla.

You shouldn't be acting that way.

You have no self-control.

You turn furniture over.

You're not nice to people.

You rage at people.

You're not a gorilla,

But the person you're speaking to believes that they're a gorilla and they beat their chest.

It's maddening.

And you think,

Maybe it's me.

Maybe there's something off with the way I perceive reality.

So I'm really hoping that this session,

Talking about the number one thing that really makes a narcissist a narcissist fundamentally and what will prevent their own spiritual growth spiritually,

And what keeps them stuck psychologically,

What keeps them rooted to the karmic wheel emotionally,

If you will,

Is this idea that there is one thing that they will never let go of.

That one thing is their mind.

And so let me explain.

Many of us come into this world,

Well,

Most of us come into this world not knowing that our mind is subject to environmental factors.

That what molds my mind is what I've experienced externally.

Not bad news if I have enlightened parents.

Not bad news if I come from a community of people that I've been exposed to that are self-loving and love others.

Not bad news if I come from a family environment where there is no harsh criticism or judgment.

There is constant secure nurturing,

The type of nurturing that I can securely rely on.

Even if I bump into a wall,

Even if I'm full of warts,

My community,

My mother,

My father love me.

Children don't come into this world with a sense of self.

When you look into a child's eyes,

You see wonder,

But they're wondering,

Who am I?

Experiences of other,

And isn't it interesting that when you think about the word mother,

Take the M off,

You see other.

Take the word parent,

Switch up the words,

You get partner.

Dig a little deeper and you'll see the word pattern.

And so what we have to realize is that mother,

Other,

Partners,

All of it,

It's sort of a reflection of what's happened inside of us or what has not happened inside of us.

I come into this world,

A newborn,

Not knowing that I have a self,

But needing a sense of self,

Needing connections to mother,

Needing connections to father.

And not just connections,

Bonding.

Not just bonding,

Good bonding.

Not just bonding,

Good bonding,

Healthy attachments,

A secure attachment.

I see you,

Lisa.

I hear you.

I feel you.

I'm there for you.

You are enough.

You know how I'm teaching you are enough?

I respond to your cries lovingly.

I make sure that people treat you lovingly.

So I'm protecting you from the harshness of this planet called planet Earth.

And so now that when I'm developing and growing up,

I have this healthy sense of safety and I'm able to explore.

I have positive reinforcement that tells me I'm enough.

I'm okay.

I bumped into a wall.

Mommy forgave me.

I spilled the milk.

No big deal,

Right?

I'm growing up with this sense that I shouldn't sweat the small stuff.

The big stuff is that I'm enough and I'm good just because I breathe.

Isn't that beautiful?

Now that's great news if that was your experience,

But I don't know anybody who has had that experience completely.

And that's okay because what it means is that we have come to transcend the experiences of the mind so that we can experience fulfillment,

So that we can become enlightened while still in body.

When we transcend the body,

We will transcend and we will become the spiritual self completely if you are someone who believes in that.

If you don't believe in the spirit body,

Then you might want to believe or you might believe that whatever energy or prana or life source that beats your heart will merge with similar energies.

Either way,

Once you transcend,

Once your body stops physically working and you lose the electricity that you need to keep your body animated in the 3D experience,

Which is energetic in nature,

Energy manifested is all you really are,

Is all the earth is,

It's all a butterfly is,

It's all a narcissist is.

Energy manifested through the 3D experience.

So what we're trying to do on the path,

In our life's path,

Is to be able to transcend the darkness.

The darkness of what?

The darkness of mind.

What creates darkness?

Illusions.

How do illusions perpetuate a veil?

One of the things that you've heard me saying over the years is that we have the ability,

Each and every single one of us has the ability to live below the veil of consciousness or above the veil of consciousness.

We can live in the dark or we can live in the light.

And I think it's fair and normal to say that the average human being dips in and out of light and darkness because the brain has the default mode network.

So when I'm learning something new,

I'm more conscious,

I'm more in the light zone,

Right?

When I'm activated or inactivated out of consciousness and I'm doing mundane tasks and I'm pulled to drive my car or vacuum the rug or clean or something I've done a million times before,

I don't have to stay highly conscious.

The default mode network is actually driving my car.

Think about it.

When you get behind the wheel of a car or when you get on the bike,

You're no longer riding that bike and you're no longer driving that car.

Your subconscious mind has found the neural pathways and has developed enough neural pathways through habituation to know when to turn your head to look for an oncoming car,

Know when to take your right foot off the gas and put it on the brake and back on the gas again.

You're not consciously choosing those decisions anymore.

That's a narcissist.

What I'm trying to say is that a narcissist is tied to the mind.

Whatever has been habituated is within the narcissist's mind.

This is not something that the narcissist is willing to release or let go of.

When we're talking about the mind,

When we're talking about the subconscious mind,

We're talking about ego.

We're talking about wounds.

We're talking about perceptions.

We're talking about a lack of awareness.

We're talking about ego defense mechanisms,

Which operate subconsciously.

The mind is subconscious until it is more conscious.

Now,

You can be involved with a narcissist who thinks that they are enlightened,

But if you pay attention to their behavior,

You will know by the way that they behave they're not enlightened.

A narcissist is not willing to let go of the mind because if the narcissist is willing to let go of the mind,

The narcissist has to fight the golden dragon within.

The dragon that is right at the precipice and stands right in front of the chamber of the true self,

Which is non-ego,

Which is non-duality.

Narcissists believe in the world of duality.

They believe in the 3D world.

They believe in separation.

They're better than you.

They're smarter than you.

You are the one that's wrong.

They are the one that's right.

They're black and white thinkers.

When you're dealing with someone who has high levels of narcissism,

Somebody who may not even realize they're in that pool of narcissism is somebody who very much believes in separation,

The right and the wrong,

The up and the down,

The black and the white nature of reality,

Which is the dualistic nature of reality.

The goal for each of us is really to transcend the black and white realm,

The realm of duality,

The realm of judgment.

To truly be enlightened is to know that you are nothing and yet everything at the same time.

When we're talking about a narcissist,

A narcissist's mind does not want to live in a world of non-duality because then they lose their identity.

When you are attached to mind,

You are attached to an identity.

This is who I am.

This is what I think.

I am valid.

My opinion is more valid than your opinion.

I have the right to verbally abuse you.

You're stupid.

You deserve to be abused.

You did that thing that you did on purpose to upset me.

I punish you because you made me angry.

I would not be sad if you didn't do this.

I would not be depressed if you didn't do this.

I would be happy if you did this.

If you pull it apart and just observe it,

What you're observing is someone who has identified with the mind and who is identified with these patterns and these programs and these habits of thought.

If you go deeper,

Really deeper,

You'll be able to recognize that the way someone thinks,

The way they self-identify comes from childhood.

If you were abused terribly by your mother and father and you couldn't figure out how to please them,

And by the age of two or three,

You decide that the world is a terribly scary place,

Terribly frightening place,

And you retreat to the inner world,

And you believe now you must survive on your own,

You can become a little sociopath.

You can become a narcissist who now manipulates other people,

Who now takes advantage of other people.

You can become narcissistic,

Someone who believes that the world is a dangerous place,

And the only way to feel safe and secure is to take advantage of other people,

To dominate them,

To look for power and control,

Right?

When someone believes that,

Their mind becomes habituated to think in a certain way.

They become antagonistic.

They become predator-like.

They will blame shift and not even realize that they're blame shifting.

They will become passive aggressive or gaslight you and not even realize that it's gaslighting.

This is just the way they relate to people.

Oh,

You caught me with my hand in the cookie jar?

Well,

Let me accuse you of having poor vision,

Then admit that my hand is in the cookie jar.

Let me try to convince you that I was sleepwalking and I could have never consciously put my hand in the cookie jar.

This becomes a way of life for somebody who is narcissistic.

This is a part of their mind.

They've identified that the world is an unsafe place.

A narcissist doesn't want to let go of an ego defense mechanism that puts them at the top of the food chain.

It's too scary.

A narcissist would much prefer to pummel you.

A narcissist would much prefer to hang on to the ego constructs which put them in the place of first place,

Which makes them dominant over you.

A narcissist does not want to release this idea that they are more powerful,

That they are more brilliant,

That they are more beautiful than you.

They don't want to do that because the idea of letting go of that has them fade into an abyss of non-duality.

Therefore,

A narcissist does not want to release their mind.

Healthy people know that there's something wrong with them,

As wacky as it sounds.

If you're healthy,

You're questioning,

What's up with me?

What can I do better?

What about me do I need to change?

You're self-analytical.

You're questioning everything.

In order to transcend the mind,

You must question everything,

All of your beliefs.

Why do you believe what you believe?

Where did the belief come from?

What would happen if you were born into a different faith?

Would you have this faith?

Would you be of this religion?

Would you think the way you think if you were born into a different family?

If you're actually a healthy person,

Then you're someone who is learning to question the mind.

You're learning to believe that you are not your mind.

If you stay on the path long enough,

Which I hope you do,

And this is very difficult work.

This is another reason.

Why would someone want to do this work?

Shedding the old and learning to embrace something entirely new,

Something you have no construct for is the path to enlightenment.

But if you're a narcissist,

Are you really going to want to shed the old and embrace the new?

No,

Because shedding the old means that you're shedding the false mask,

And that is your entire identity.

You've lived your world trying to manipulate this mirror reflection back to you.

You've tried to find other people who could furnish you with a source of narcissistic supply.

It's absolutely terrifying to want to give that up if that's what your identity is.

In order to transcend,

A narcissist would have to be able to go within and to relieve himself or herself of the old,

Release their egoic attachments to these ideas that they're better than everybody else.

How do you do that if that's the only thing that you believe,

Which is all in your mind?

It's a mind construct.

How do you do that if that's all you've ever known and all you've ever believed in and your ego is kicking and screaming to not let it go?

To transcend the old,

You have to become non-self,

Which is non-dualistic.

You have to realize that you are not your ego,

But you're not the illusion of self.

When your identity to the matrix self,

The self that your mother created within you,

This idea that you're not good enough,

This idea that you need to fawn after people's approval,

Which is a staple of codependency,

This idea that you need to prove yourself worthy of love.

These are all constructs of your personality self or your matrix self or your 3D self.

Now when you're on the healing path,

And I really do,

Like I said before,

I really do hope you stay on this path.

You will get to a point where you realize there is no self,

Or at least not that self.

When you move beyond the no self,

The matrix self,

That's when you find the true I am.

The true I am doesn't identify with the matrix.

It doesn't identify with ego.

What a narcissist will never let go of is the aspect of the 3D mind,

Because to relieve the mind would mean to be no self,

Or at least to release their attachment to the 3D self.

The path to enlightenment really is overcoming levels of narcissism in our own self,

Our attachments to the ego self,

Our identity to ego,

This aspect of our mind that has us attaching to our wounds and our story,

The behaviors that we learn to adopt and we repeat over and over and over again on our life's journey,

The patterns of relationships that we find ourselves in that are codependent and narcissistic,

The patterns of relationships that repeat childhood wounds.

There are many experts out there that agree that if you find yourself in a relationship with the self-centered,

Egotistical,

Self-righteous person who feels entitled to exploit the emotions of other people,

Somebody who lacks empathy for how their words and their actions affect other people,

There's usually a reason.

You may have tremendously high empathy.

You may be somebody who is highly forgiving.

You always give people a second and third chance.

You believe in people,

And you don't think that there are people out there that would take advantage of your kindness.

Well,

I'm here to tell you that's a bunch of malarkey.

There are sharks in the ocean,

And there are predators on land,

And they're not just four-legged.

There are people who actually smell other people's empathy,

And these are narcissists.

These are sociopaths,

And these are psychopaths who are looking to exploit your kindness.

They're looking to exploit your niceness.

They're looking to exploit your desire to live a more spiritually abundant life,

And you have to know this.

We don't know this so that we shake our finger at the narcissist and we stand in judgment and duality of them.

That's not what this is about,

Although there are some people that will teach you that that's what you should be doing,

And I get it.

I think what the necessary component of standing in judgment,

If you will,

For lack of a better word,

I like the word discernment because I think it gives rise to a different intention.

Every time I'm in judgment,

I'm in duality,

Which is not the goal.

The goal is non-duality so that I can merge with the true I am that I am,

Which is not identified with form.

So then I'm able to play the game non-attached.

Then I'm able to understand,

Yeah,

I need this body,

I need this mind,

I need this face,

I need this hair,

I need these words.

I need all of that to play the game in the 3D world,

But I'm not attached to my form.

I'm not attached to my gender or the color of my skin or what I think or what I feel.

I'm not attached.

This is the game I'm playing while I'm here.

Beautiful.

What I try to do is I try to remember and catch myself when I find myself in experimenting or dabbling in duality,

Which is judgment,

Which is believing that I am my emotions,

Losing it for a minute,

Like losing consciousness and forgetting that I have the ability to observe a pain.

I don't have to identify with an emotion.

I can grieve and not become the grief.

I can be sad and not become the sadness.

I can be happy and not become the happiness.

I can just stand in the background and witness all of these very human experiences and not lose myself.

These days,

I try to remember that the goal is to be non-dualistic.

The goal is,

And it's not easy.

The goal is to remember that I am not my form,

That I am not my beliefs,

That I am not the identity that my ego has been clinging to,

And that is really the benefit of staying on the path to emotional recovery,

Understanding that codependency is a prison.

There's this great Greek myth of Sisyphus,

Where he is someone who is portrayed as pushing this gigantic boulder up this mountain,

And he gets just so far and the boulder comes down again and he repeats it.

It's rinse,

Recycle,

Repeat.

It's like Groundhog Day.

Codependency and narcissism is a prison.

It's like Groundhog Day.

You're doing the same thing every single day and nothing changes.

It's the same experience.

When you come from a dysfunctional home and your mind,

As it's developing its sense of self,

Is wounded and it begins to think that it's its fault,

Right?

So the being thinks it's my fault that I can't gain this love from mommy and daddy,

And so the ego identifies with this not enough stuff,

And then the ego comes up with defense mechanisms.

To what?

To gain love.

Oh,

Well,

I'll fawn.

I'll people please.

I'll do all of these things,

And hopefully I'll be good enough.

To make matters worse,

The brain has its own stress response system,

Fight,

Fawn,

Freeze and flee.

Our brain is going to override in many situations and cause us to feel and experience things as well.

We have a personality self.

We have the brain that's responding to stress.

The brain is responding to what we think and what we've identified with.

It is prison.

The unawakened mind is prison.

If you are someone who just believes in mind,

I can almost guarantee you life is not as happy as it could be.

The joy of not being a narcissist is,

Wow,

I do have the ability to go beyond where a narcissist is willing to go.

I am able to go beyond the self.

I am able to go into and embrace this idea of non-duality.

I am willing to let go of all of my ego constructs.

I am willing to let go of my ego.

I am willing to fade into the abyss to find my true I am.

I am willing to see my brothers and sisters as facets of myself,

Awakened,

Unawakened at different stages of the spiritual path that we're all on or the path to enlightenment or the path to awakening our consciousness.

Narcissists won't do that.

They'll get just so far and then they pull the plug or they get so far and they still rationalize and they still identify from a self-righteous place why they're better than someone else or why they're more enlightened than someone else,

Which is still narcissism.

When we get to a place where we're able to see others as extensions and mirrors to ourself and we are no longer hung up on thinking this person has to do what we think they should do.

So the goal is going to be for us to learn how to see what's happening in our experience without attaching to any particular belief or idea that has us believing in the dualistic nature of reality.

If we are to stay on the path to emotional recovery and if we are looking to experience spiritual enlightenment and if we are someone who wants to raise our level of consciousness.

So a narcissist is never going to be willing to release their mind.

They don't want to because they identify with their mind.

Their mind has them believing they're better than you.

So it literally is where their sense of identity comes from.

So remember that a narcissist's identity splits them from you.

So they believe in separation and yet to experience spiritual enlightenment,

We have to understand that separation is an illusion,

That we are all facets of one another.

And we begin to see in our society how often,

Whether it's a political party,

Whether it's a government,

Whether it's a friend,

Whether it's a flying monkey,

Whether it's a religion or whatever,

Whether it's an idea,

That there are so many ways in which we are infused with this idea that we are separate from one another,

That we should fear one another.

And I think we have to be very,

Very careful of those who continue to draw lines between us and them or them and us or vice versa,

Whatever it is.

Anytime someone is trying to get you to feel separate from something else,

We have to be careful.

Now,

I do understand that there is a benefit of talking about things like narcissism in a way that sounds like it's coming from judgment.

But I believe that a healthier way is to view it from the level of discernment because intention is everything,

Right?

So when we look at learning about narcissism with the level of discernment,

So I want to understand who in my life I can trust and can't trust,

Who in my circle I can keep close and who do I have to push out of my circle.

So that what?

So I can hold on to myself.

So I can be responsible for my own energy.

So I can be the best version of myself so that I can have less confusion in my own mind and I'm able to have this veil continue to lift and dissolve this idea of separation between me and myself and me and others so that I can experience this non-dualistic nature of reality.

So I can merge with my true self.

So I can transcend my mind unlike what a narcissist wants to do.

I understand the benefit of saying lions and tigers and bears.

That's a narcissist.

That's a sociopath.

That's a psychopath because the labels help us identify what's wrong.

So a label that I use for myself was I am highly codependent.

I am someone who fawns and people-pleases.

I like to rescue people.

I enable.

I can set boundaries.

I stay in relationships,

Unhealthy relationships,

Even though I know it's unhealthy,

Longer than I should.

I don't know how to set a boundary and then realizing,

Well,

That's because I had no self.

So my identity was tied to these false images or these false ideas.

You can even say a false self.

Even a narcissist has a false self.

I think most of us walk around with a false self.

But a narcissist is someone who is dominant that needs to have power and control over people and leaves a plethora of carcasses,

If you will,

Emotional souls that have completely been drained by narcissism,

By their inability to care about how other people feel,

By the way they manipulate,

They betray,

They gaslight,

They cause people to doubt their own inner reality,

And their abuse often gets worse over time.

So you can end up being someone who is absolutely in a terrible situation,

Financially dependent upon a narcissist,

Completely confused by their crazy-making communication,

The fear that they're going to say the wrong thing to your children if you dare leave them alone with him or her.

You can be financially drained by someone who is narcissistic.

You can have a narcissist lie about what you've done,

And you could end up battling in court with someone who has just completely made up these stories about you in court documents.

And this is the maya.

This is the mind of a narcissist,

And they will drag other people in.

And so identifying yourself as someone who is codependent and seeing the separation,

Like separating yourself in the world,

In your world,

From a narcissist and be able to say,

Wow,

I'm codependent,

This is wrong behavior,

That person's highly narcissistic,

They lack empathy,

And so on,

In the world of the 3D,

You're able to see you need this idea of separation from you and other.

But the goal is to even transcend that.

That can only happen,

Or that idea of separation can only be transcended once you figure out what's up with you.

What are you doing that needs to be corrected?

Shifting your perceptions.

The amazing thing that,

One of the amazing things that I learned on my journey was that my ex-husband,

My mother,

My father,

They didn't change,

I changed.

So they remain the same people.

The people in my life are all the same people,

But what shifted was my perception of them.

And that shifted when I shifted my perception of self.

So I had to let go of everything that I knew and go into this abyss and challenge my mind,

Question everything,

Is that true?

Do I have to believe that?

Am I nothing?

Do I have to cling to relationships?

Do I have to be afraid of this person?

Do I need him to survive?

Do I need my parents' approval?

Do I need to do that?

Do I need to follow this program?

Do I need to do what society says I should do?

Do I have to be this single mom or that divorced mom?

Lions and tigers and bears are mine.

Do I have to go to school,

Get an education,

Get a bunch of diplomas for me to be able to support my children,

Which I did not do,

By the way.

I was too busy making money.

I was too busy working three jobs trying to survive.

But all of these things that I had to challenge,

I was challenging my mind,

Which is what a narcissist doesn't do.

A narcissist won't challenge their mind.

They won't transcend their mind.

They live in their mind.

They're attached to their mind.

And so if you've ever wondered,

Am I a narcissist,

Ask yourself,

Am I willing to challenge my mind?

Am I willing to be wrong?

Am I willing to get out of the prison that is codependency,

That is narcissism?

Am I like Sisyphus who keeps rolling this boulder up this hill only to have to have it roll back down again?

Am I doing the same thing over and over and over?

Am I living below the veil of consciousness?

What does that mean?

What does it mean?

What are the effects of growing up with childhood emotional neglect?

Am I still holding onto that story?

Is this story,

Has it become my identity?

And am I willing to release this story?

A narcissist is not someone who's going to be willing to release their story.

Now,

Trauma can make it difficult for us to let go because our trauma responses become defense responses that help us feel safe in a world that's taught us that it is unsafe.

And so this is not something that happens overnight.

This is something that can take months.

It can take years.

It can take decades.

I'm still learning how to do this myself.

I just believe in what,

When you learn something,

You should share it because there are going to be those of you or people in society who want to be able to transcend their story.

There are going to be people who actually want to transcend the mind.

Am I willing to believe that I am not my story?

Am I willing to live above the veil of consciousness?

Am I willing to stop pushing this boulder up the hill?

Am I willing to just go into a state of non-resistance?

Now,

When we are in a state of non-resistance,

What this means is that we are accepting of everything.

It doesn't mean we like everything.

It just means that we're learning to understand that if it's happening,

It's something that's been already created.

And your resistance to that thing is actually going to make that thing persist.

In law of attraction language,

Anything that I am focusing on,

I am actually,

Through the nature of a stream of consciousness,

I am bringing focus to that thing.

And if you can imagine that,

Your energy is almost like the image I just got in my head is like a bank.

So every time you look at something,

It's like you're depositing coins in your bank.

You're making it grow.

You're bringing life to it.

You're creating it.

And so anything that we dislike,

That we focus on,

Is something that we're actually breathing life into through your consciousness.

A lot of people don't really want to adopt that as a reality,

But that doesn't mean it's not true.

And so what we have to learn how to do is to think about what we want to experience rather than focus on what we don't want to experience.

When we're talking about a narcissist,

A narcissist is stuck in their mind.

And what they want is to dominate.

What they want is power.

They want ultimate power.

They want to be seen as brilliant and the best and the better,

And you know the deal.

They want admiration.

And if they don't get your admiration,

They want you to be afraid of them.

They're very vindictive people.

So if they feel abandoned by you or perceive you as one who has abandoned them,

They're coming for you.

And so these are things that we're all learning to do,

And we're using the ability to discern what we are or how our behavior is or what we identify with as a tool to help us awaken.

But we know that the goal is to transcend this need to continue to lions and tigers and bears so that we can move into a state of non-resistance and identify more fully with the I am that I am.

Now a narcissist isn't going to be able to identify with the I am that I am because that is ultimately the path of enlightenment.

And in order to transcend this narcissistic identity,

You have to give up the narcissistic identity.

You have to give up the mask.

You have to put it down.

You have to go into the abyss.

You have to face your dragons.

You have to face all your fears.

You have to let them burn off,

And you have to allow the false self to die,

And you have to emerge the true self.

And unfortunately,

Many narcissists,

If not all narcissists,

If we're talking about a true narcissist,

Just isn't willing to let go of their mind.