Narcissists Always Lose With Empaths; Here's Why

If you have ever loved a narcissist, you eventually discover that no matter how hard you have tried to empathize, support, and or nurture them, it was never enough. Highly empathic people are generally agreeable, which is what the narcissist requires. Narcissists rule in relationships with those with high empathy. However, narcissists eventually always lose in relationships with empaths, because in time, empaths begin to understand that their kindness has been taken as a weakness. When a healed empath is done, it is game over

Transcript

Welcome to Breakdown to Breakthrough,

The podcast that empowers you to transform your life by awakening to your true,

Authentic self.

I'm Lisa A.

Romano,

Your host.

As an award-winning author and certified life coach,

I've dedicated my life to helping others understand the incredible power of an organized mind.

I believe that true empowerment begins with awakening to our false self.

My mission is to support you on your journey toward mental and emotional regeneration through conscious and deliberate awakening.

In this podcast,

I'll share insights,

Tools,

And transformative stories that illuminate the path to healing and self-discovery.

So today,

We're going to be learning about what narcissists and people who are toxic and manipulative eventually learn about highly empathic people.

I wanted to approach this topic because I've come to realize in my own life and through much self-discovery work and working with people one-on-one for,

I would say,

Close to 25 years now that people who are highly empathic,

People who contend to be codependent,

Who contend to even be enablers,

People who are fixers,

And they're not always the same thing.

A codependent is someone who lacks a sense of self.

A codependent is someone who enables because they're afraid of losing control.

And they have been conditioned and thus brainwashed as children to think that they are not good enough.

And in order to feel a part of and to soothe that need for connection,

Which all human beings have,

And it doesn't matter from where you come in the world,

As human beings,

If you feel disconnected and abandoned,

That is the worst thing that you can carry in your life.

And that will create a disorganization in your mind and a disorder of your mind,

A disorder of your psyche.

And that's not your fault.

That's just a consequence.

The good news is that you can reorder your mind and you can gain a sense of self-back that is more ordered,

That is more in alignment with your personal truth and empowering.

But that's for another session.

Today I wanted to talk about why a codependent who is highly empathic,

Some of the things that they need to know,

And also recognize why and what codependents need to understand about themselves,

Why they need to understand this part of their personality.

And with an empath,

Someone who is not necessarily codependent,

But somebody who was born and interprets the world through their feelings,

And someone who cannot help but feel other people's feelings and intuitively understand why people are self-destructive,

Why people are in pain,

Why people keep sabotaging their life,

And how an empath cannot help but soak up the energies of the people in the room.

And what people who are highly narcissistic eventually learn about empaths,

Especially those who take up the sword of self-discovery and self-empowerment,

Who take up the sword of inner child healing work,

And who are really serious about ascending the chains of the past or the limitations of ego consciousness,

And yes,

Empaths can operate from ego consciousness.

We are people who want to save everyone.

And not from a narcissistic sense where I'm going to save everyone and I'm a communal narcissist and it's not about the person that I'm helping figure out how to save themselves.

It's about the notoriety I get because I help teach people how to save themselves.

They're two different things.

And you could be involved in an ashram,

You could be going to temple,

You can be going to yoga classes,

You can be seeing a psychotherapist or a therapist or a life coach,

And come to realize that the people who you've hired and trusted to help you are really more concerned about what you think about them being awesome because they do what they do.

That is a form of communal narcissism.

That is someone who maybe knows something and understands the process of healing,

But is coming at helping other people from ego versus how does this empower the people that I'm trying to reach?

Very,

Very different.

And how clearly am I articulating this message so that the person I'm trying to reach can really absorb it and apply it to their life and how does that affect that person's life and their ability to show up in their life in a healthy way,

Feeling emotionally confident and resilient because they figured out how to process their mind and organize their mind in a way that they're not going down the rabbit hole over their emotions around this person.

So empaths,

People who are highly empathic,

And I know that there's a debate where people say there's no such thing as an empath.

And maybe that's by definition,

Maybe there's no psychological term for being an empath.

But certainly if you are someone who cannot help but interpret the world through your feelings and you are someone who feels overwhelmed by the sadness of other people,

Somebody who can just intuitively pick up on why people feel the way they do,

Even if they're making a mess out of their life,

Right?

Because that's the sticky part.

It's like when you're super sensitive around people's emotions for whatever reason,

It could even be early childhood abuse that makes you super sensitive.

Your needs weren't tended to,

So you don't have healthy ego boundaries,

So you're forced to try to understand the chaos around you,

Which makes you super,

Super empathic.

Maybe there isn't a psychological term that is true,

Like,

Oh,

Empaths are a thing,

Right?

And we've got to be careful.

There are opportunities for people to think that they're morally superior to someone else because they have deemed themselves an empath.

So even that in and of itself,

It could be narcissistic.

So you want to be careful.

That's why it's so important to organize your mind and to understand that we're supposed to be coming from a love-based and a compassion-based mindset that is inclusive versus exclusive.

Although it's important to flush out where is the separation from me and other people,

I also understand that we are one.

So it's not about moral superiority or subjective morality.

It's none of that.

It's like,

Wow,

I've had these issues with narcissistic siblings or narcissistic parents or narcissistic coworkers or partners that were manipulative or very self-absorbed,

Very grandiose,

Lack self-awareness my whole life.

And recognizing now that I tend to be someone who feels other people's feelings.

And in feeling other people's feelings,

I also,

For whatever reason,

Can intuitively understand why this person is abusive or why this person is narcissistic.

And there's a part of me that feels drawn to wanting to save or rescue that person.

And that is like a truly innate feeling.

Whereas you could have all of those feelings and you could be codependent,

But those feelings are motivated by fear.

They're motivated by lack.

They're motivated by actually self,

The wounded self,

The false self.

Please see me.

Please need me.

Please find value in me so I can feel okay.

So my anxiety,

If I'm a highly empathic codependent,

My ability to be empathic is being filtered through the lens of a wounded codependent who doesn't feel good enough.

So now my desire to save you is also mixed with adult children issues where,

No,

No,

No,

I have to be the savior of my family.

I have to be the glue.

I have to be the mommy.

I have to be the rescuer because no one rescued us as children.

And so I have all this empathy for my siblings or I have all this empathy for my parent who's being taken advantage of.

And when I feel in control and everybody's operating the way I want them to and all of my good favor is being acknowledged and I'm seen as valuable,

Then my inner anxiety calms and I can feel like,

Okay,

We're on the right track.

So we could be highly codependent and highly empathic,

But our empathy,

Our innate empathy is going to be obscured or I would say littered by our inner child wounds.

That's why it's so important to flush this out on your life's journey.

If you really want to organize your mind and learn how to use your brain and your emotions and your thoughts in a way that it's optimal.

Because if you have inner child wounds,

Then the most amazing processor and that's on the entire planet,

The human brain is not going to work optimally for you because you're running off of false data.

You're running off of lack.

You're running off of trying to control outside of you what you can only control inside of you.

And so what I want to really everybody to take away from this is that you can be codependent and highly empathic at the same time.

And you could also be,

In my opinion,

Highly empathic and not codependent.

But what will eventually happen in both situations,

If you're highly empathic,

You want to really be careful because your natural empathy for other people,

Especially if you're a go-getter and you recognize how hard work eventually pays off,

You could be a super achiever and highly empathic and sensitive to the needs of other people.

And in a relationship,

You are very likely to attract somebody who is wounded and then jump right into the role of,

Well,

I can fix this person.

All I have to do is love them.

I jumped into that role with my first husband.

I thought,

All I have to do is love him.

I could see all of his wounds from childhood.

I understood the family dynamic,

Or at least I should say I thought I did at 21.

And I thought,

All I have to do is love him and be there for him and nurture him and things are going to work out.

That's very short-sighted.

It was very immature.

And I was settling for crumbs.

I didn't know what I know now.

I didn't understand personal boundaries.

I didn't understand that wanting to save people doesn't solve anything.

And saving people doesn't solve anything at all.

If anything,

It just makes things worse.

Whether you're codependent and highly empathic or codependent or an empath or someone who's highly sensitive and you tend to really feel the emotions of other people,

You're probably going to get into trouble,

Or if you haven't already,

In relationships.

My son is extremely empathic.

And he has his whole life,

Except for the last relationship,

Thank heaven,

He's in a beautiful loving relationship.

He is now married to a wonderful,

Wonderful young woman,

Which I'm so happy for him.

But he's always been a highly empathic man.

He was always a highly empathic child.

And the problem that he had when he started dating was he was attracting people that he wanted to fix.

He had so much emotion towards them and so much understanding towards them,

And it didn't come back from the females.

It did not come back.

And his first marriage was,

In my opinion,

To someone who was highly narcissistic,

Manipulative,

And was lying to him from day one.

So she had an agenda.

And yet my son did not have an agenda aside from,

I see her boo-boos and I want to nurture her so she knows how much I love her also,

But so that she could feel good about herself.

It doesn't work out.

It was a complete exploitation.

And so what you will discover,

Or what narcissists or people who are highly manipulative,

People who are predatory in their personality,

People who are highly disagreeable,

People who see you as a means to an end,

People who lack authentic emotional empathy,

They may have cognitive empathy where they understand the cause and effect nature of like a wound,

Like your dog getting hit by a car,

They know,

Oh,

That must be causing sadness.

They get that.

But the ability to slip into your skin,

No.

They don't want to do that.

They can't do that.

They're impaired.

They're empathy impaired,

Which is why it's easier for them to be a predator,

Where somebody who is not empathy impaired,

Especially someone who's healing.

It's really difficult to be someone who can rationalize and justify hurting another human being because you can slip into that person's skin,

Even if that person has hurt you.

Now we're talking about boundaries.

We're not talking about vindictiveness.

We're talking about boundaries,

Right?

So when you recognize that you have high empathy and then someone treats you in a way that is indicative that they lack emotional empathy for you,

It's not about being vindictive.

It's about using the spirit of discernment and saying,

Okay,

I recognize that this person has fangs.

And in all my trying to fix them and standing up for them and being there for them,

Having their back and supporting them through everything,

They have the ability to bite me.

So all the good that I've done towards them is really for naught.

And so then at that point,

Even though it really,

Really hurts someone who's highly empathic,

You're asking an empath who only wants to feel for you and love you and nurture you to shut themselves off from what is so innate.

It's like asking the sun to only shine on one side of the street.

Now imagine how difficult that would be.

The sun just wants to shine on everybody.

The sun just wants to nurture us and offer us the heat and the center of our solar system,

The groundness of our solar system,

So we all don't fly off into the outer space,

Right?

The sun just wants to be there for all of us.

And imagine if we said,

No,

You're not allowed to be the center of the solar system for that planet.

You can only shine magnetism or repulsion or heat towards this planet.

It would be really difficult.

And that's what it's like for an empath.

An empath is someone who just wants to love,

Who just wants to nurture.

They are natural peacekeepers.

They are natural healers.

But this is what a highly narcissistic or emotionally immature or someone stuck in ego and reactivity will eventually learn about somebody who is on the healing path and is an empath.

What a highly narcissistic person will realize is that once the empath realizes that all of this loving energy that they've,

They've motherly energy,

Divine motherly energy,

Even divine masculine energy in the form of trying to protect you and support you as well as nurture you,

Once they realize,

Once it clicks in their mind that,

Oh,

Okay,

Wow,

You can hurt me.

Or wow,

In a moment of reactivity,

You could hurt one of my kids.

Or wow,

You can talk poorly about me behind my back.

Or wow,

You can triangulate people against me.

Like wow,

You can be really short-sighted when it comes to me.

And yet all I've wanted to do was to help you.

And once an empath,

Once that light goes off in an empath's mind,

What a narcissist or a highly immature,

Reactive person,

Someone who has taken them for granted,

All of this kindness and,

Hey,

How are you?

All this checking in with you,

You know,

Paying for your rent or making sure your kids are taken care of,

Just the consideration,

Just the energy that they've always offered you.

If that goes unappreciated and there's a point where an empath recognizes that this other person has the potential to hurt them,

To say mean things to them,

To really like go after them and to cause them emotional duress,

Which is bullying.

Once an empath realizes,

Oh man,

You have that in you towards me,

They cut them off.

Like an empath will say enough is enough.

So what a highly narcissistic person or emotionally immature person or reactive person eventually learns about empaths,

Especially those empaths that are really invested in not allowing others to drain them and are really invested in how do I live my life well so that I can operate well,

So that I can feel empowered,

So that I'm not drained by others,

So that I'm not affected by other people's opinions.

And you have to understand that other people are always going to speak to you at their level,

Right?

So if you're trying to get to a higher state of consciousness,

Not for an egoic reason,

But for the reason of self-expansion and self-growth,

Because operating at that level is better for everybody so that you're not operating from ego consciousness and ego reactivity,

Despite every valid reason for you to be able to.

Obviously,

If you've been abandoned and rejected and you've experienced great duress as a child,

None of which is your fault,

Sure,

You can be stuck in ego consciousness because ego consciousness is survival.

But if you live in survival,

You're living in protective mode,

Which means that you're on the lookout for predators and you may see predators where they don't exist.

And when you bite the hand of an empath who has no ill malice towards you,

You can bite them maybe once or twice,

But there's going to come a time where the empath says,

No more.

I realize that in all my loving of you and in all my trying and in all of my trying to mother you and either protect you,

To be fatherly towards you,

All of it,

It's for nothing.

You still have the potential to hurt me and enough is enough.

I think this is what a lot of empaths,

When they get to this point where they have to let a family member go,

And what I mean let them go,

I don't mean never talk to them again.

I mean,

The energy in which they relate to them has to shift.

That's really hard for an empath because someone who is highly,

Or I'll use the term highly empathic,

Somebody who is highly empathic,

Highly intuitive,

Highly aware of keeping people and things together.

Someone who is inclusive,

Somebody who wants you to heal,

Somebody who wants you to feel good about yourself so that you could feel good about yourself.

Once that person realizes,

Wow,

Like you're toxic towards me and no matter how much I try to love you,

Like this is what you offered me and that hurts me.

Now that I know that you can hurt me,

I have to shift my energy towards you.

I can't keep putting myself in this situation where you get to treat me this way.

It knocks me off my game and I don't want that for myself.

That's you going down a rabbit hole and you reacting in a negative way to something that happened outside of you and we don't want that.

We want people who have the capacity to love and who are really amazing healers and who are interested in inclusion versus exclusion,

Who feel incarnated and born with the ability to love and to just be a fountain of love.

You have to protect that.

And when someone in your life proves to you that they're more interested in controlling you and making you feel bad about yourself or someone in your life proves that they can take a swipe at you and not really take accountability for that swipe,

You as an empath are going to struggle a little bit because that's not your true nature.

It's not your true nature to not be loving.

And so I think what I can offer you is that when in this situation,

It's not a matter of not being able to love this person.

You can still flow love and good intentions towards someone that you know is below the veil of consciousness,

That you know is operating from ego consciousness,

That you know is operating from lack,

That you know is operating from survival,

That can only see you through the lens of the level of self-awareness that they're at at any current time.

So once you start to do that work,

It's like,

Wow,

It's not about me.

How someone treats me,

Sometimes if you treat me poorly and you're honest with yourself or if I treat you poorly and I'm honest with myself,

I'll be able to take accountability for that and make amends and realize there's a chain reaction here.

There's only cause and effect.

There are only conditions.

And I either operate within the divine laws that empower my life or I operate within the divine laws that disempowers me.

And certainly my intention that I have towards people,

Whether via face-to-face or an email or text message or on social media or in the vicinity that I'm sharing with someone,

There's going to be a chain reaction to that intention,

Verbalized or not verbalized,

Known or not known.

If I have ill intentions towards you,

There's an energetic consequence to that.

Or if you have ill feelings towards me,

There's an energetic consequence to that because nothing escapes under the heavens.

Nothing is not known.

And that's because of the divine laws that govern time and space,

Like cause and effect.

So nothing escapes.

So that's also wonderful if you're somebody who is just in love with the process of life,

Who is in love with living life well,

Who is committed and dedicated to life,

The life that you are,

That is less concerned with what you look like and how much money you make and what people think about you and all of that superficial stuff that fades anyway,

None of which really is life.

If you want to know what life is,

Look at a tree.

That's life.

This tree is living and it's growing.

And it does the best that it can to live its life well.

Or a flower,

A rose,

And a rose isn't competing with a daisy,

Right?

There's no anxiety in a rose.

I just want to be a rose.

That's living.

That's us staying in our own lane and figuring out what's important to us.

And us also ebbing away from people who,

Through their stuckness,

Through their state of consciousness,

Have the ability to be thorny and prickly and to take swipes at us unnecessarily.

And someone who is highly empathic has to recognize where that line is so that you can protect yourself.

And if you're an empath,

You're not going to be comfortable when people tell you to just cut people off and to be vindictive and to try to get them back.

That's never going to feel right for you.

Now there are some people like,

Yeah,

I got to get my ex back.

I got to do this.

I got to do that.

And they are not,

They don't want to let go yet.

But if you're an empath,

It hurts you.

All you want to do is walk away so that you can be peaceful and you can start flowing your love and flowing your light towards something else.

It could be a passion of yours or a desire of yours or just towards yourself.

But if you are highly empathic,

You're never going to be comfortable,

A,

Tolerating someone else's mistreatment.

It's never going to feel right to you.

And one day that person who's,

Who's not treating you well is going to recognize that they bit the hand that fed them once too many times and there is nothing left for you.

It was just like,

Once that light bulb goes off,

You're just like,

Oh,

Okay,

Got it.

Okay.

You can do that to me.

I have to start flowing my love towards myself now or towards something else,

You know,

And I can still love you,

But the dynamics have changed,

Which is super important.

So it's really important that we as empaths recognize,

Or if you're trying to figure out,

You know,

Am I highly empathic?

You'll know that you're highly empathic if what's more important to you is that you're able to start finding the flow of love again,

That you want to be loving again.

You want to be nurturing again.

I think highly empathic people make the best healers because your,

Your ego isn't in it.

What's most important is that you share information or that you,

You help someone,

You're a conduit,

Like you're a bridge between that person and their ability to heal themselves.

That's what's going to matter to you.

And if you do that,

Right,

You're never going to have to worry because abundance follows that.

That's an abundant stream.

And so I just really wanted to create this session to help people who wonder,

Am I an empath?

Or what do I do with this when,

When someone in my life that I've tried to love,

I've tried to nurture,

I've tried to help,

Really crosses the line.

And to me,

It feels like it's over.

That's okay.

You don't have to keep giving to people who show you their teeth or show you where they are in their life.

You don't have to keep doing that,

But you will struggle.

And I encourage you to recognize that and to understand that you can still love someone without checking in on them and without creating a situation in which this is a one way street,

Which actually enables people who are highly narcissistic or just expect you to always tolerate their nonsense.

It's an opportunity for them to level up also.

But if you don't set a boundary,

A personal boundary,

Like enough is enough,

I'm not doing that anymore.

If you don't make that shift,

You're actually enabling that unhealthy one way relationship.

And I think what we all realize as empaths is that we do have that line and that doesn't make us bad people.

It makes us healed empaths.

It makes us more conscious and more aware of who we allow into our lives.

And it doesn't mean we stop loving.

It might mean that we change the way we love people.

It might mean that we're not so available for people anymore.

It might mean that it's best for us to love from afar because it's almost impossible for us to not have the empathy for them.

And the one thing that's really been,

And Anthony and I try to flesh it out with Anthony all the time,

And it's hard for him to get it,

But I know myself.

I struggle when someone that I've been trying to love does something and has now made it blatantly obvious that they can hurt me.

No matter how hard I've tried to love them,

No matter how hard I've tried to assist in their own expansion,

When someone makes it obvious that they can strike against me and it's unwarranted.

And now I have to change the way I'm showing up because I'm not putting myself in that situation to be taken advantage of or abused.

That hurts me.

I can no longer love that person the way I want to love that person.

That hurts me.

But it's important to take that bounce as someone who is highly empathic and to learn to put yourself first,

Not in a narcissistic way,

But in a way that allows you to not allow other people to drain you.

So we should be flowing our love,

Our consciousness,

And our desires towards people that want what we have,

That want to reciprocate it.

And I think that's why I've been successful as a life coach because I finally made the connection over 25 years ago that my family didn't want what I was learning.

And I just stopped trying to fix people that weren't interested in being fixed.

And I trusted my gut and I aligned with what I thought was important.

I aligned with what I thought I could help people with that had similar wounds to me.

And I haven't looked back.

That's why working as a life coach and mentor in a professional capacity works,

Is because my clients are asking for what I've gained,

What I've learned.

And I've realized that when you're talking to people who aren't asking for what you've learned,

It falls on deaf ears.

And so there's nothing wrong with switching gears as an empath and leaving things as they are.

Adult children of alcoholics,

Adult children of narcissistic parents.

Professionally speaking and personally speaking,

I've seen more of the dynamic with the older children wanting to save the younger children,

Wanting to save them and having so much empathy for them because they had a first-hand seat and they were the witness to what was happening to their siblings in childhood.

And they've been aching with a desire to pull their siblings out of that situation.

If that's you,

If that resonates with you,

There's nothing wrong with realizing one day that you can't save your family if they don't want to be saved.

It's akin to having someone kicking you in the face as you're trying to pull them into the rescue boat.

It's so horrible to let that person go.

It's so horrible.

But if you don't,

They're going to take you down with them.

And that's really hard.

I think the hardest thing in the world for somebody who has high empathy is to choose the self.

But when you choose the self,

You choose love.

As long as when you choose love,

You're not looking to be vindictive towards people and you don't wish them unwell.

You can still wish someone well that you need to set a boundary with.

So I hope this session has been helpful.

Namaste everybody.

Until next time,

As I bow to the love and light that is absolutely in you.

Reviews

Thank you so much Lisa, most grateful for all I am learning🩷

Wow! Living and speaking the light! Thank you again Lisa!

Excellent. Exactly what I needed to hear. I’m an empath as described, wanting the good for all but since healing from codependency, I’ll drop you in a minute if I feel the lack of respect. I have firm boundaries. However I have found zero true friends in the US. Very disfunctional society. So I venture with myself on this journey. I know the Universe has my back but a friend like Lisa would be welcome. I’m so done with unconscious people. Currently about to let go of a friend who generated AI messages…this is a blow as it shouts “you’re not worth it”. Bye bye I’m done. So sick of fake shallow people in the US. Grateful for Lisa here.

Thank you so much! This is very helpful for me and gave me clarity on my family dynamics. I appreciate the work that you do and helping others to heal.

Absolutely spot on! Thank you Lisa for explaining. Boundaries are difficult when dealing with a parent dementia, sometimes she knows how badly she is treating me others not much. This feeling on wàiting for the loving parent to be there is draining. I'm working on stepping away but it's hard. I will listen to this many times. Blessings.

Learning so much from these podcasts & talks, thank your for that🙏🏼