The Narcissist Empath Dynamic - An Alternative Approach

This is an episode (Series 2, Ep 3) of my You-Ni-Verse podcast. I noticed there seems to be an explosion of content on Youtube around the topic of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder and what to do about it. In this talk, I propose a different way to look at this challenge if you identify with this relating dynamic, which focuses on self-empowerment (focus on you, if you identify as the empath in this dynamic) as the road to healing and recovery.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of the universe podcast. This is a podcast and also I share it on YouTube where I speak about topics like self love, Inner freedom, Relationships, Personal growth, Personal development and all of those juicy things. I am Akasha and I am a soul alchemist as well as a meditation teacher and I also offer one on one sessions in Tarot for life coaching and guidance. So today I wanted to speak to you about relationships and particularly I wanted to talk about the topic of narcissism because I've seen on YouTube it seems like there's an absolute proliferation, A flowering if you like, A summer of narcissism videos that are all over YouTube at the moment and seem to be extremely popular let's say. And I just wanted to address this because I can see the danger in this tendency of focusing on the other. So the whole narcissist question is, Well let's just start with a narcissist, It's somebody who has a grandiose sense of self and who is not really concerned about the needs of others, Is not really able to respond to the needs of others so they're just putting themselves first all the time and looking to take whatever they need from others without necessarily giving anything back. And so all of these narcissism videos are directed towards the people who find themselves in relationships or friendships in connection with narcissists or have them in their family as family members, So parents or children or brothers or sisters. And these videos are directed at these people helping them to work out ways to either disconnect or separate, Go no contact or go grey rock are some of the terminology that is used in these videos or if not to manage that relationship with their narcissist so that they are not too damaged or too hurt in that relationship. So I just wanted to add the reflection in here that there's a real danger in focusing too much on the other, In focusing too much out there and too much on what we can perceive as our enemy in some way if we really start to obsess and think about the other, So the narcissist in this case, And often we will in that process of thinking too much, Of obsessive thinking, We will begin to demonise that person and then really what we have developed through an obsessive thinking about that person or those people and through negative thoughts about their true distressing behaviours, We then begin to demonise them, We then create a kind of a fight between ourselves and the other and in that fight we generally put ourselves in the victim position and this is just not a useful place to be really, So if we want to be able to manage this relationship better or if we want to be able to lovingly disconnect from this person, It's not a good place to be in a victim place to do this so it would be better if we could be in an empowered place within ourselves in this connection or this relationship and decide to do what to do from there. So my suggestion to you if you have been going down this narcissism rabbit hole and if you have identified a whole load of people in your life who you think are narcissists based on watching a lot of narcissist videos on YouTube, I would invite you to really reflect on whether this is helping you or hindering you, So has all this content that you might have been consuming put you in a victim position or in more of a victim position than you were before and is this helping you to see yourself in the light of a victim of other people? Is this really serving you in any way? So I would suggest that it's probably not and it's much better to instead of really analysing and focusing on the others and instead of demonising anybody in our life, Whether they are true narcissists or whether they just have some narcissistic traits, It's just much better to focus on ourselves and focus on our inner self love, Focus on staying within our own power, So staying in our own empowered sense of self and recognising that it's up to us to choose with whom we are in relationship, Even in our family we can choose the extent to which we relate with our family members and this takes us out of this victim mentality. So if you identify that you perhaps have had a tendency in your life to attract narcissistic either relationships or friendships, Then you look at what it is in yourself that is attracted to these kinds of people and then you do your own self healing. You do that by yourself and you do that in a work and you change whatever those patterns or dynamics are within you that is attracting these kinds of people and then you will slowly see that the kinds of people that you are attracting change. And also another way of reframing if you like this dynamic is what is it that you are learning from the interaction with someone that you perceive to be as narcissistic and uncaring of you and not recognising your worth or your value, What are you learning from them? So I would suggest probably the thing that you are learning is you are learning to own your own worth and own your own value and stand more securely and more firmly in your own self, So stand in the middle of your own being, Own your own worth and not enter into imbalanced relationships where you are not receiving an equal amount or a relatively balanced amount of love and interest and caring as you give out to the other person. So in this way, In this way if we reframe these dynamics with these narcissistic people that we may have previously demonised, We can then see that well actually maybe this person or these people are my teachers and they are teaching me to be stronger in my own sense of self. So even though I may recognise in them that they have let's say too much sense of self because they are not able to really care about anyone else, Their ego is so strong that they can only take from others and not give, But what if they were my teacher, What if actually I need to learn to be more like that so they are up here let's say in their sense of self, They are overvaluing themselves, Their ego is a little bit out of control and we might be undervaluing ourselves and we might have not enough sense of our own self worth and our own value. So this person, So if you say, If we say the line is here with a healthy sense of ego and a healthy sense of self worth, Not too little, Not too much, Then this narcissist is teaching us to rise to a healthy level of our own self value, Self worth and recognising our own beauty and power and what we have to give and perhaps the lesson that we are teaching the narcissistic person is to drop down and let go of so much of their ego so they may be able to come into more harmonious relationships with us or with people in the future. So I think this is a healthier way to look at this dynamic which often is an empath narcissist dynamic so an empath is somebody who is deep feeling person, Highly sensitive and is so sensitive that they often use their sensitivity to their own detriment so it's so easy for them to tune in to the feelings of others that they unconsciously will energetically reach out and log in, Let's say or tune in to another person and feel whatever it is that they need or want and see then if they can meet these needs or wants because they know what they are. So this is a really unhealthy way to be so even though empathy can be a superpower if it is used in this way in that we are reaching into other people, Scanning them for their needs and wants and desires and then seeing if we can meet those needs and wants and desires, That's a really unhealthy use of our empathy. It's much better to stay within our own self, Stay connected with our own needs, Wants and desires and leave the other person to communicate their needs, Wants and desires rather than us to somehow decipher them through our very powerful empathy. So this is often the dynamic between a narcissistic tendency person and an empathetic person. So each person in this dynamic is a teacher for the other and as I said, Each person is teaching the other to either grow a stronger sense of self and stay more grounded in their own being or in order to let go of too much ego and come down to the same level so that they can more, The narcissistic person can more easily actually relate and communicate and understand the other person. So I hope this has been helpful for you. If you have been one of these people that has been down the rabbit hole in YouTube watching narcissist videos, I would love to hear from you in the comments. Let me know if any of this, What I have said resonates for you. Let me know. That would be really good for me. You

Reviews

Thanks for this discussion. Both of my parents have been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. I’ve been told that I’m an empath. I’ve listened to some of the YouTube videos that you mentioned. For me, I’ve had to separate myself emotionally from my parents because trying to get emotional support from them would be like going to an empty well to get water. Recently I had major surgery and my mother insisted that I stay with her to recover. She used the time to attempt to belittle me especially in the compromised condition I was in. Thanks for reminding me about the ways of the narcissist.

This is a different yet profound way to view these relationships . I feel confident after listening to this.

Great way of looking at this dynamic. Great weight off my shoulders today🙏

Very helpful. Stop seeing ourselves as victims and see the other person as a teacher that helps us feel stronger and empowered! Yeah! 🙏🤗