Get The Narcissist Out Of Your Head

In this episode, Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach discusses how controlling your thoughts can lead to healthy internal boundaries you need to get a narcissist out of your head. The less control we have over our emotional responses to narcissistic behavior, the more control a narcissist will have over us. Healthy boundaries are an absolute MUST.

Transcript

How we can be careful and become aware of what a narcissist's aim is.

So a narcissist is important that we recognize that a narcissist needs to get inside our head,

Right?

It's like a disease process.

If cancer lived outside of your body,

Then it couldn't affect you.

If anxiety was sat on your coffee table,

It wouldn't affect you.

If some blood disease lived outside of you or was in the refrigerator,

It couldn't affect you.

So narcissists want to infect you.

They have to.

They have to get inside your head.

They have to get inside your heart,

Right?

That's where they do the most damage.

It's important to remember that narcissists really,

If a narcissist was the only person on planet earth,

They really couldn't be a narcissist because a narcissist requires flying monkeys.

A narcissist requires a mirror,

A reflection,

Right?

Think about the story of narcissists looking into the reflection in the water,

Falling in love with his reflection.

And he didn't want to leave the reflection.

And so he died there,

Right?

So if you're thinking about what a narcissist needs,

A narcissist needs you to reflect back to them some source of narcissistic supply.

Now there are some sort of.

.

.

People think,

Oh,

Narcissistic supply always comes in ego-stroking.

No,

Not necessarily,

Not always.

Narcissists will get their supply in other ways by intimidating people,

By threatening people,

By being that vindictive person in your family that just loves to stir the pot,

That just loves to,

Out of the blue,

Something perturbs them and they have to throw a grenade in your lap.

So you get a nasty text or you get a nasty phone call or you hear from your sister that your cousin is saying this and you're like,

What the frick is going on?

Or you have a narcissistic mother-in-law who twists the story or they're notorious for leaving parts of the story out,

Right?

This is so common.

And so narcissistic supply can come in the form of negative energy,

Knowing that they've upset you,

Can be a source of narcissistic supply.

Gossip,

Gossiping about you,

Smearing your name,

Getting the attention of your sister-in-law,

Right?

It could be a source of narcissistic supply,

Knowing that they have somehow made the person who cares about you think less of you,

Source of narcissistic supply.

So how do narcissists get to be able to create the most havoc in your life?

Well,

They get inside your head.

Now narcissists want you to essentially be off balance.

Narcissist,

If it's a narcissistic man in a heterosexual relationship,

The narcissist will resent a strong,

Confident woman.

And anything that comes out of that woman's mouth will be seen as a threat,

Will be seen as an attempt to control this person,

Which it doesn't necessarily have to be.

In some cases it is,

But it doesn't necessarily have to be.

But if you're a narcissistic man and this is your issue,

Then it will always be.

You may have an issue with women.

Maybe you had a very domineering mother.

So now every woman that you meet becomes your mother and you project this onto a woman.

This happens.

You can have a very domineering father as a female and a couple of things might happen where you are so,

It's unresolved.

And so now you become the domineering female and you want to dominate a male in a heterosexual relationship.

So these are some of the things that can happen.

But it's important for us to realize that if you break it down,

And I love to,

You know,

De-layer things,

Pull layers back,

Because I want to understand it at the microcosm.

I want to understand it at the subatomic level.

Because if I can see the problem at the root,

Then I can work backwards and figure out the solution to that problem and poof,

It goes away.

It's like a spell.

I want to see it.

I want to see what the cause is.

I want to understand it.

So I can fix it.

When it comes to narcissism,

You have to understand that narcissism is about getting another person to believe something that isn't true.

A,

The narcissist is your boss.

You have to be afraid of the narcissist.

What the narcissist says is right,

You will always be wrong.

Somehow,

Somehow,

And they're very good at it,

And I think the reason they're good at it is because they are absolutely,

100% convinced that they are the good one.

They are the one that sees things clearly.

Their perception is absolutely perfect.

Everyone else is out to get them.

Everyone else has a hidden agenda,

And everyone else is wrong.

And so they are so convinced,

And it's scary.

And if you're somebody who naturally self-reflects and questions and naturally has a healthy sense of self-doubt,

That means that you're a humble person.

You have empathy.

You're willing to be wrong.

You're willing to be the person that says,

I'm sorry,

Maybe I didn't see this from all angles,

And now I can see the big picture.

But a narcissist will completely take advantage of someone who has a healthy self-doubt.

Somebody who isn't 100% convinced that their way of looking at things is correct,

A narcissist will exploit that in someone who's willing to be wrong.

And that's something that you really need to know.

Because if you're struggling with codependency,

That means you're struggling with boundaries,

Internal as well as external boundaries.

It's really easy for someone to knock you off balance and for you to question yourself and get the emotional hangover and not be able to think straight and just feel way off balance.

Have you ever felt that way?

I know I have.

Just having a simple,

What should have been a really simple conversation over perhaps a simple misunderstanding,

And you're dealing with a narcissistic person,

You don't know it of course,

Who claims to be the victim,

The victim of you,

And all you did was try to explain that this was a misunderstanding for instance.

And they take the position of victim and then persecute you.

You don't even see it coming.

And then you think,

Maybe I did do something wrong.

And then you're hit with all these innuendos and you're hit with all of these insinuations about your intentions.

You're being told what your true intention was.

And you can feel really,

Really off balance.

You can experience brain fog.

You can go into a true CPTSD response where you feel disoriented.

It's absolutely horrible.

And anybody that's gone through this,

You know what I'm talking about.

And if you've experienced this since you're a child,

If your parents humiliated you,

If your parents accused you of looking for attention and then didn't give you attention,

They're immature.

At least they're immature.

It could be a lot worse.

They could be malevolent.

They can enjoy watching you squirm in your skin.

You grow up with shame thinking,

Oh,

Did I want attention?

It's normal for children to want attention.

And children really shouldn't want attention so much.

And in my opinion,

I think children got enough affection.

They wouldn't need attention as much as some children are just trying to feel seen.

They want to feel like they're part of.

They want to feel like they belong.

And so these are the things that we need to think about.

But a narcissist will create fears inside your head.

And then what happens is you're afraid that these things are true.

And so let me read a couple of these are eight common things that a narcissist will say to you to create mental confusion.

I'm not cheating on you.

You're just paranoid.

If you weren't so insecure,

You would not think I was cheating.

Think about that.

So you confront someone who you think is cheating and they make it about you being paranoid.

How horrible is that?

It's gaslighting.

If you were prettier,

You probably wouldn't be so paranoid.

So now you're dealing with the narcissist thinking that you think that they think that you're unattractive,

Which is hurtful in and of itself.

So now you're dealing with that emotional wound on top of it being insinuated that you're paranoid,

Which means that your experiences are null and void.

So how do you hold onto your instinct after you've been emotionally annihilated this way?

Right?

You never see things correctly.

That's why you think I'm cheating on you.

So now your perceptions in general are being called into question.

So how do you trust your instincts if your basic conception of life is being called into question against the backdrop of a human being that seems so convinced that he or she is always correct?

It's very destabilizing emotionally.

I have no idea who you're talking about.

I don't even know her.

I've never met her.

So these are things a narcissistic cheater would say.

So now your perception of reality is being questioned.

You saw your whoever talking to this woman or this man,

And now your perception of the entire dynamic is null and void.

Like I don't even know who you're talking about.

So it's almost like the sky is blue and the narcissist is saying,

I don't know what you're talking about.

It's purple.

Right?

How maddening would that be if your senses are telling you it's blue,

But the narcissist is saying,

No,

The sky is purple.

And they want you to think that you are not seeing things correctly.

Why?

Because if the narcissist can get inside your head,

That burrow,

Like a parasite,

Like a worm,

Right,

Like a,

What do you call those worms,

Like a tapeworm,

You know,

If the narcissist can burrow deep inside your psyche,

Right,

And get you to doubt the very perception of reality,

They can get to control you.

The problem is you like to make stuff up,

Right?

So the problem isn't the narcissist cheating,

Flirting,

Lying,

Or whatever.

It's that you just like to make things up.

Right?

So again,

How do you,

How are you able to trust your perception?

This is what the narcissist is trying to do.

Erode your perception of life.

Erode your perception of them in this situation.

You should stop talking to your friends because they've put stupid stuff in your head and that's why you think I'm cheating.

So now it's not that the narcissist is cheating.

It's not that your friends also think that the narcissist is cheating.

It's that you're trusting people and again,

There's a trust factor.

You are trusting yourself to trust these people that you shouldn't trust and that's the problem.

So again,

It's like the tapeworm inside your psyche where the narcissist is like,

Why do you trust yourself?

Right?

If you can't trust yourself,

You are going to feel very off balance.

Your intuition is a gift from the divine.

And what a narcissist wants to do is to get you to disconnect from your divine instincts.

Right?

And the narcissist sticks these fears in your head that you really shouldn't trust yourself.

Number eight is you're,

You're,

You've always been irrational and that's why you think I'm cheating.

So it's not that the narcissist is cheating.

It's just that you're irrational,

Which means that you can't trust your feelings.

Right?

Um,

You're just a judgemental person.

You're judging me right now.

Right?

So,

Um,

That's the next one.

Um,

Another one is your,

Um,

Your ex cheated on you.

So now you think everyone cheats on you.

This is your problem,

Not my problem.

So these are gaslighting phrases that someone who's cheating on you that you catch might say to you.

Okay.

But you can take these phrases and plug them into almost any situation when you're dealing with a manipulative person,

Because the outcome is the same or the goal is the same.

The goal is to infiltrate the way that you perceive your intuition to get you to disconnect from your divine intuition,

To get you to emotionally distrust your divine intuition.

Now when you can't trust yourself,

Life becomes very topsy turvy.

Right?

You don't know what to order for lunch.

You don't know how to answer your boss.

You don't know how to separate your laundry.

You don't trust your ability to separate laundry anymore.

You don't know how to respond to an email.

You don't know how to make the basic life decisions because a narcissist has been able to get you to doubt your ability to make decisions.

So the narcissist is trying to infiltrate how,

What,

What you perceive literally your everything because your senses and your gut intuition are your natural internal guidance system.

Now why would a narcissist need to do this?

Because they're a narcissist.

Because a narcissist needs to dominate and control other people to feel emotionally regulated.

A narcissist needs to feel that you're out to get them.

So that justifies and rationalizes why they get on top of you first or they're on top of you first with insults and innuendos and whatnot.

So it's in their head,

You're wrong.

They are smarter than you.

You could have an amazing career in some area.

Right?

And narcissists like,

She doesn't deserve that.

People don't know what she's really like.

I could do what she does.

If people only knew what she was really like,

They should come talk to me.

Right?

It doesn't matter that people in your niche come to you.

You might be a doctor,

You could be a lawyer,

You could be a teacher,

You could be a pharmacist,

You could be a dancer giving classes,

You could be a yoga teacher.

With lots of people that trust you,

There's a narcissist in your life.

Know what they're saying?

I don't know why people go to her yoga studio.

She's really not that good.

And sometimes they're your siblings.

They're your parents.

They're your best friends.

They're the people that are in your family.

They're your cousins.

Right?

They're your neighbors.

The people that should support you the most,

Oftentimes support you the least.

Trust me when I tell you.

You're never a prophet in your own town.

There's always a hater that's going to be willing to drag you down.

Misery loves company.

And people that will never do what you did,

The people who are more narcissistic,

They will always poo poo what you've done.

Right?

And that's why you've got to break the chains and you've got to go for it anyway in spite of the naysayers because that's your goal.

Your soul's mission is to come here and to be that facet of individuality that you are meant to be.

And you can't be that person if you are being controlled by what narcissistic others think.

This is not something that you can go and talk to a narcissistic family member about because it's so easy to like look at you and say,

You're crazy.

I don't see your mother that way.

I had a great relationship with your mother.

Well she wasn't your mother,

Sweetie pie.

She was my mother.

Your ex-husband?

I think he's awesome.

He was always nice to me.

Well he wasn't your husband.

I washed his socks,

Lady.

I fed him.

Okay?

I dealt with the house with him.

I had kids with him.

Did you?

So obviously my perception of this man is going to be different than your perception of this man.

Right?

So we have to develop the ability to trust ourselves again.

Now how do we do this?

You have to understand the root,

The root,

The root,

The root,

The root,

The root is that the narcissist wants you to be afraid.

The root is that the narcissist doesn't want you to trust your perception.

The root is that the narcissist wants you to live in doubt and live in fear of what other people think about you.

You have to go into the darkness.

You have to go into the fear.

How do you do this?

You accept the darkness.

So imagine that all of the fears that the narcissist has created is this one giant black room.

Right?

It's just this one giant black,

Dark,

Dark,

Dark,

Dark,

Dark room.

Blackness,

Total blackness.

Right?

And what happens when you go down a dark alley or you walk into a dark room and there are no lights?

You're afraid.

It's primitive because you can't see.

Your senses are off.

You can't see what's in front of you.

So your mind and your brain can't protect you.

So it's natural and it's normal to avoid the darkness.

Right?

But here's the thing.

It doesn't work in the spiritual world.

It doesn't work.

Because where there is darkness,

We have to be the light.

What do I mean by that?

So imagine that all the fears that you're feeling right now,

Right?

If you follow my work,

Chances are that you're dealing with this stuff.

Right?

Codependency is fear.

I'm not good enough.

I need to take care of people in order to feel good enough.

Right?

I need to subjugate my feelings for the sake of someone else.

Generally someone with high narcissistic traits.

I'm a people pleaser.

I'm a peacekeeper.

Right?

I take care of you,

But I avoid taking care of myself.

I enable people.

Ah,

It's okay.

He didn't mean it.

Don't rock the boat.

It's okay.

We pretend that all these boundaries are not being broken because we don't know how to set a boundary.

We freak out when we set a boundary and our knees start to shake because we said no to someone or we told someone how we really felt.

Right?

These are the boundaries that we need to work on so that we can excise any control someone else has over us in here.

Narcissists is out here,

But they found their way in here.

So the problem is not out there.

The problem is here.

Right?

The problem is I'm afraid to go into the darkness that the narcissist has built with all these boogeymen.

And so what I learned to do in my own life was I learned to sit.

I learned to be still.

I learned to breathe.

I learned to meditate.

I learned to understand that although the boogeymen were outside and their criticisms and judgments and just the nature of my personality,

Maybe I was biologically born this way,

But had a lot of empathy or maybe the way that I grew up really forced me to have more empathy because if you've been bullied as a child by your mom,

Your dad,

Whoever,

Your peers,

You generally develop a heart for other people who have been bullied.

You can't,

You feel it.

It's innate.

You just feel for other people.

So when something's happened to you,

You develop a natural empathy meter for people who have gone through similar things.

At least that's the way it's supposed to work.

Right?

So when you are this person who has high empathy,

You are very sensitive to what people think about you.

But we have to understand that although the lions and the tigers embarrassed it out here,

Somehow they're in here now.

The fears are in here now.

So this is where we have to work.

We have to slow things down.

Why do we slow things down?

So we can see them.

See what?

So that we can see the beliefs,

So that we can see the fear,

So that we can be the light in the dark room.

So once I learned to still myself,

Well first once I learned what was wrong,

Okay,

They were out there.

Now my mother's thoughts are in my head.

My ex-husband's thoughts are in my head.

Now the fear is inside of me.

Now I'm triggered.

In the middle of the night,

I'm waking up with a panicked heart.

I can't sleep.

It felt like horses were in my chest.

Seriously.

One time I woke up and I couldn't feel my hands and I couldn't feel my feet.

Another time I had tunnel vision.

Panic was taking over my life.

And I was getting desperate.

And so these are some of the things that I did to recognize what was really going on.

So controlling other people.

People said to me,

I want my mother to stop texting me this awful thing.

You can't stop your mother.

You know,

I want my father to talk to me differently.

It's not going to happen.

These are external things that you cannot control,

Dear one.

Somehow you've got to change.

Your perception of what's happening has to change.

Your reaction to what is happening has to change.

Your belief associated to these people has to change.

They can no longer have dominion over you.

They can no longer be your god.

You cannot have a false god before you.

A narcissist is a false god,

Except they believe they are the god.

So that's what you have to realize.

A narcissist wants to be your false god.

You cannot allow anyone to be your god.

No one can be the god over you.

You must be the god over your own self.

You are enough.

You are connected to source.

Now,

Your brain might not believe that.

The fears that a narcissistic parent or a narcissistic spouse or,

You know,

In some cases a sister or sibling,

Whoever,

The fear that they put in your head might cloud your ability to stay connected and tether to source,

But that's the problem.

So problem's not out here.

The problem is now in here.

So what I would like to offer you is a little bit of an exercise that I use to help me heal this.

So now that I understood it was inside here,

I had to gain control over here.

So I had to give back.

It's like if my chakra system,

If this is my chakra system,

I was out of alignment,

Right?

I wanted to be like this.

You know,

I wanted my chakras to be in alignment,

But they were all screwy.

They were all over the place,

Right?

I had to find balance,

Right?

And so slowing everything down is so important.

Creating a sacred space,

Clearing out your home,

Get rid of stuff you don't need.

Just clear it out.

Feng Shui,

Man.

Get rid of it.

It's negative energy.

Anything that you don't need,

Get rid of it.

Make sure that your house is neat.

Clear out your car.

Make sure that you're getting in the,

You're organizing,

Right?

So when you look around your home,

Think about the things that are disorganized and know that that's a reflection.

It could be a reflection,

Let's say,

Of your chakra system.

And they're trying to separate me from my divinity and I want this.

I don't want this disjointed.

I need to come into alignment mentally and emotionally with my divine guidance,

Right?

In spite of what's happening outside of me,

Right?

In spite of what the narcissist says,

In spite of what my mother says,

In spite of what my father thinks,

It doesn't matter.

Namaste,

Namaste,

Namaste,

Namaste.

I see me.

Namaste,

I see me.

You're entitled to your opinion and I see me.

Really that's the goal,

Right?

So you find a quiet spot.

You make sure that you're home.

You work on organizing your mind.

You work on organizing your life.

You work on organizing your finances.

You organize your shoe closet.

You organize your clothes.

I'm telling you,

The more organized your life becomes,

The more organized you feel on the inside.

This is you controlling outside of you what you can,

Which will make you feel empowered.

So you're getting in the habit of focusing on me,

Focusing on eyes on me,

Not on the narcissist,

Right?

The next thing you want to do is you want to get quiet and you want to imagine that you are in the darkest of darkest rooms,

Right?

Which is kind of scary,

Right?

And then what you want to do is you want to imagine that every 30 seconds or so,

You have someone walk in carrying a candle and another candle and another candle and another candle and another candle and another candle.

What does this represent metaphorically to the brain?

What it represents is that the darkness is still there,

But what changed is the light.

Darkness is still there,

But what changed is the light.

So when you're healing,

You're not fighting the darkness.

You're embracing the darkness.

You're saying there's the darkness and without the darkness,

I cannot experience the light.

Without death,

I cannot experience the light.

And without life,

I cannot experience death,

Vice versa.

But what if I accepted what was inside of me and accepted what was outside of me,

But I took the time like a metaphysicist,

A mental scientist,

I took the time to quiet my mind and deliberately bring the light into my mind space where I thought about what I could focus on.

I thought about loving myself.

I thought about honoring myself.

I thought about what I feel and what I think,

You're sifting,

The narcissist said this,

But what do I think?

The narcissist feels that,

But what do I feel?

The narcissist believes that about me,

But what do I believe about me?

One of the really sticky,

Sticky things about narcissistic abuse and cognitive dissonance is the persecution,

Is the unfair persecution.

It's the distorted cognitive perceptions they have about other people.

And when you struggle with codependency and low self-worth and your lack of sense of selfhood,

It could be really,

Really easy for someone to accuse you of something that you're not guilty of and you to feel so much shame for it.

And for you to go down the rabbit hole of,

Oh my God,

I can't believe they think that about me.

And then you acquiescing and subjugating and then like a little puppy trying to get these people to not think that about you anymore.

That was the goal.

To turn you into a puppy seeking approval was the goal.

So what we have to do is we've got to cut that.

We've got to unearth that belief system,

Get to the root of it and say no more.

This is why I love Melody Beatty's work,

Codependent no more.

I'm not going to be codependent on what you think about me anymore.

I'm going to move to another spiritual plane and accept and surrender to what you think,

Even if it's nonsense.

You're entitled to think whatever you think.

You have a perception.

I think it's faulty.

You think it's correct.

Okay,

We're going to agree to disagree.

Oh,

You don't think I have a right to disagree?

Well,

I'm sorry.

Again,

I have to keep the focus back on myself.

Well,

I disagree with that person's perception.

I hear that person,

But I disagree.

I've chewed on it.

I've thought about it.

That's not why I said that.

This is why I said that.

Because what happens is anything that you say to a narcissist gets what you have to understand,

Runs through the narcissist's filter.

Part of the filter is they have to land on top.

You have to be wrong.

You're out to get them.

They can't trust you.

No matter what you say,

No matter how you come to this person,

Humble,

Even if you apologize for your part in a negative conversation,

They'll turn it around.

They won't hear the apology.

They'll accuse you of something else.

Or they'll hear your apology about one part of the conversation,

And they turn it into,

Well,

I'm glad you admitted that you were wrong.

I admitted that I was wrong for when I said this.

This was a misunderstanding.

However,

I'm not wrong for this,

This,

But it's a rabbit hole.

It's a rabbit hole.

The best thing that you can do in any situation is to be honest with yourself about what's going on.

I think it's important to have these conversations because most of us will end up in a relationship at one point in time.

We are not taught to be objective about relationship dynamics.

We're not.

Oftentimes,

We're taught we should try harder.

We should love more.

We should be more giving.

We should be more understanding.

Well,

Where's that gotten us?

Seriously,

Where's that gotten us?

My mother died under the veil of a codependent narcissistic relationship.

I watched her mind turn to mashed potatoes.

I saw the most horrendous things happen between my parents that would make your skin crawl,

But it is what it is.

Being more giving didn't work.

It kept my mother below the veil.

It kept her a slave to a relationship.

That's what it did.

My dad passed on this year due to COVID.

I'm just telling the truth.

I love my dad,

But that doesn't mean that I agreed with him.

That doesn't mean that I necessarily like the person he was.

Did he have good qualities?

Sure,

There were good qualities,

But the narcissistic qualities when pushed emotionally,

That's when it showed up when you challenged him.

When you said,

Dad,

That was wrong.

You should have never said that to Mommy.

That's when you saw his anger explode,

His rage.

How dare you?

There was never a self-reflective thought like,

Well,

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe I need to look at this.

No,

Never.

When you're having a conversation with a narcissist,

You will notice over time it runs through a filter.

They have to come out on top.

You have to be wrong.

That means you're wasting your time,

But that doesn't mean that in a conversation you should be abusive also.

No,

Because that tethers you to that energy.

You don't want to be tethered to narcissistic energy.

You've come to fly.

You've come to grow.

You've come to be spiritually empowered.

When you go after a narcissist to try to convince a narcissist how wrong they are,

I'm telling you they have stamina.

Forget it.

They are like Muhammad Ali of relationships.

They have stamina that is ridiculous.

They will fight you tooth and nail.

It's what they thrive on.

It's their gasoline.

It's their oxygen.

And most people,

Thank goodness,

Most people aren't built that way.

Most people aren't.

There are a lot more narcissists over the past 20 years that are actually through the tests that they're doing and exams that they're doing,

Narcissistic tests that they're doing.

We see that narcissism is on the rise,

But I really think that social media has a lot to do with that.

I think that over the years we've gone from being people that needed one another for a sense of community,

To survive,

We needed one another back in the 1600s,

1700s,

1800s,

And early 1900s.

But after the industrial revolution and after many of our needs became right at our fingertips,

I mean Amazon is an instant manifestation.

I want some dog treats for my dog.

I can have them in six hours.

I don't have to get in my car.

I don't have to go shopping.

This is really amazing on some level.

But technology has also,

In the age of social media,

Has given narcissists a platform.

And anyone who has maybe some narcissistic traits,

They can blow up due to social media.

You can be stalked on social media.

You can have a narcissist smear your name on social media.

Narcissists get plenty of narcissistic supply on social media.

They can use it against you as a weapon.

So we're seeing this trend,

But thank goodness most people are not this way.

Most people don't want to hurt other people.

And most people don't have the energy to keep fighting.

It's exhausting.

Most people just stop,

Stop,

Stop.

Why do we have to go through this?

But a narcissist will beat a dead horse,

Of course,

Beat a dead.

.

.

Until you are saying,

Okay,

Uncle,

I'm wrong.

Okay,

Can we pass the butter?

Like,

Are we done?

I'm wrong.

Yes,

You're right.

That's why I said that.

You're 100% right,

Right?

Don't say it that way.

Say it this way.

Okay,

I was 100% wrong.

I mean,

Just the way you say everything is going to be brought into question,

Right?

So I guess what I'm trying to say in this very long-winded live stream is that whatever happens outside of you with a narcissist,

Their goal is to get inside your head.

And so what we have to do is learn to embrace the darkness,

Not push it away.

Embrace the shame.

Embrace the fear.

Think about what it means to have a narcissist smear our name and then be okay anyway,

Because this too shall pass,

Right?

And the less we focus on it,

The quicker it dissolves.

It's not comfortable.

But there's also a lot of spiritual lessons that come with having someone try to destroy you and with you understanding that you are a child of the universe.

You're an heir to the universe.

And understanding that at your core,

You can't be bad,

That there is only good at the core.

And that you are deserving in spite of what anybody says.

In spite of feeling a love by your mother and a love by your father,

In spite of your narcissistic family,

You are loved.

There are people who will accept you,

Right?

But you have to start accepting yourself.

So you have to start turning away from the people that reject you.

And you have to stop being codependent.

You have to stop fawning.

You have to stop subjugating your needs for the sake of this narcissistic family,

Right?

You have to start using boundaries.

You have to start going gray rock.

You have to shut your shut.

You have to go no contact or minimal contact.

You've got to shut up around a narcissist.

Very hard to do.

I was triggered last week or a week and a half ago.

Not proud of it.

But I was triggered and I went after somebody who just out of the blue poked the bear.

And I regret it because it was exhausting.

I was definitely triggered.

And even my husband said,

Wow,

You're really off balance.

I said,

Yeah,

I really am.

My energy's off,

Right?

So I took the bait and I shouldn't have.

But in hindsight,

I learned so much from it.

I apologize for my part in it and then I let it go.

But it wasn't enough.

It wasn't enough.

You know how this goes.

It wasn't enough.

Still came at me.

And I was like,

OK,

I'm done.

So I just let it go.

And so this is what we need to learn to do in life.

We need to be responsible for when we are triggered and for our part of the conversation.

And so if you ever offer someone an apology,

You offer it because you want to walk with integrity.

You acknowledge that you did something wrong.

You went overboard and you let it go.

Sometimes if you're dealing with a narcissist and you apologize to someone who has high narcissistic traits who poked the bear first,

Who lobbed a grenade in your lap first,

It doesn't matter.

You apologize and they use it to beat you over the head with it.

Don't allow them to do that.

Very calmly and confidently walk away.

I apologize.

You're entitled to your opinion.

I can only be responsible for my part in this.

And I wish you well.

Don't sit there and wait for the narcissist to agree with you and to apologize for their part because it's ain't gonna happen.

Because anything that you say,

Right,

If they hear that you think that they're wrong,

They're going to say,

Oh,

You want me to feel guilty?

How dare you?

Remember,

Narcissists can't be guilty.

Narcissists can't be vulnerable because they can't get to remorse.

They don't have that ability to have empathy for what's happening.

They're entitled.

They're exploitative.

So you're not going to win.

So my advice is just walk with integrity and focus on yourself.

Be accountable for yourself.

And if the narcissist can't accept that,

That's on them,

Right?

That's on them.

That's not for you to discuss.

Don't try to talk them into seeing the errors of their way.

It ain't going to happen.

This is a conversation that's going to go on for days through texting,

Or they'll keep you up till four or five o'clock in the morning.

Like they're going to start,

They'll tell everybody they know about the,

They'll show everybody your texts.

It'll be taken completely out of context.

It's just,

It's not worth it.

When peace is just a mind switch away,

I can turn it off and say namaste.

I can turn it off and walk away.

I can say,

I'm really sorry that you feel this way,

But your entitles your opinion.

And I'm going to pray for you anyway,

Really,

Because I don't want to wish anybody ill,

Not even a narcissist.

I don't want to wish someone ill.

I really don't.

That energy will come back,

Right?

So our job is to get them out of our head.

Our job is to go into the fears that they've created.

And that's how we take our space back.

That's how we take our mind back.

Reviews

Thank you 🙏🏼

Just Brilliant Information and advice Lisa. So true. Bring the light into the dark. Thank you 🙏🏻

Excellent! Thank you!

Thank you Lisa A. Ramano for making more talks available to insight timer. You have a wonderful way of teaching. I feel focused after listening to your message.

Thank You so much 💗

Wonderful and practical tools that work. Once again Lisa your teachings on boundaries to protect and heal frim narcissistic abuse is powerful information. Your experiences and wisdom to help others take control of ones own happiness , self care and self love is outstanding. I loved this podcast great reminders to stay awake and aware. Thank you 🙏