Transcription
Everybody, thanks so much for listening. I'm Jenny. I'm a life coach and today I'm talking about narcissists. Um, in ter the when I say narcissist for the sake of this episode, I'm talking about people who are consciously manipulative and who lack empathy. Okay? So, so it doesn't just include people who have narcissistic personality disorder. Um it's just anyone who is conscious consciously manipulative and who lacks empathy.
Um every everything has a positive and negative pole. Narcissists and heroes are twigs of the same genetic branch. Um they have a boldness and a fearlessness that would be amazing if they directed that energy into the right place. But they do not. They do not direct it into the right place.
Narcissists and empath empaths, empathists, I don't know what I'm saying. Empaths have shared trauma, but our trauma fractured us into different extremes. They chose the coping mechanism that hurts other people. We both suffer from early developmental trauma, but they are weak and succumb to selfishness and hate. Empaths rise above it. Um, so empaths usually had too much judgment, too much consequences, which leads to trauma and helplessness, people pleasing. Narcissists often had too little judgment, too little consequences, which has led to entitlement and selfishness. Spoiling your kids is a form of neglect. Neglect is a form of abuse. Both extremes cause problems. Um, it causes adults who are basically just like a bunch of spoiled children in a trench coat. Um, so shame and guilt and consequences do have a place. They can be overused, but they do have a place. Okay? People with no shame, no guilt, no consequences develop no empathy. So neglect plus no consequences creates psychos. Extreme abuse can also create them. Um abuse to the point where like they they've decided that feeling nothing is better than feeling abused. Um but that includes feeling nothing even for good people. That's the problem.
So, narcissism is an ego defense mechanism. They have no internal locus of control. They believe that everyone else is the problem. They have an overactive protector personality fragment. At some point, it helped them survive, but now it just feeds their emptiness. Um, they're in denial of their trauma. They might be able to objectively name their trauma, but they don't allow themselves to feel their trauma. Their ego won't let them be a victim of the valid past. So, they play the vict the part of the victim in other more dysfunctional ways. Um because their ego will not let them admit to the valid ways.
Um, these people who lack empathy typically have a cluster B personality disorder. This includes narcissism, borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and histrionic personality disorder. I consider these to be attachment disorders because the closer you get to these people, um, the worse they treat you. and normal disorders do not come and go depending who's in the room. Um, no one teaches us about these people growing up. Um, which is a huge problem because it's our nature to believe in empathy. It's hard for us to conceive that there are these people out there. Um, and so we're not able to fully be on the lookout for them or protect ourselves from them until we learn the hard way.
Um all of these disorders are characterized by a lack of empathy. Um there's a spectrum of of ones who are very fragile emotions to ones who have no emotions or very controlled emotions but they all lack empathy. Um so um psychopaths, sociopaths um are more controlled with their emotions. People with borderline personality disorder are extremely emotional and reactive. People with histrionic personality disorder are more performative and sexual. Um but you can have um multiple personality disorders. A lot of people share traits from different boxes. Um, some psychologists don't even differentiate. They'll just say cluster be undefined because there is a lot of overlap.
Um, to someone with borderline, love is not safe. To a narcissist, love is not real. Um, but there are a lot of people with CPTTSD who are misdiagnosed with BPD because they both feel deeply. They both have strong emotions, but people with BPD exaggerate their victimhood and people with CPTTSD minimize their victimhood. People with BPD lack um empathy and they're manipulative to get what they want. People with CPTTSD do have empathy and they turn their anger inward instead of outward.
So, if you know a snake is poisonous, it doesn't matter what species it is, okay? Whether someone is a highly emotional manipulator or a more controlled um manipulator, they're all they're all different versions of poisonous. Okay? So, they all feed on you. They're all vampires. They all feed on guilt, shame, power, control, sexual coercion to make up for feeling powerless. They do it to feel powerful. Um, it can show up in different ways. If we take the diagnosis away and just look at their behaviors, there's tyrannical ones. They're aggressive. They're violent. They're ruthless. They feed on fear and control. There's bratty ones. They're manipulative. They're passive aggressive. They feed on criticism and manipulation. There's fragile ones who are constant victims, martyrs, attention seekers. They feed on pity and sympathy. There's aloof ones who are distant, mysterious, hot and cold. They feed on being chased. A lot of them are shape shifters who just cycle through different strategies until they get what they want.
Um, they're all stuck at different ages. Okay, so the more emotional ones are stuck at a younger age than the more controlled ones, but they're all stuck at some age of childhood. And sometimes this manifests as having very childlike food preferences, very childlike preferences in TV shows. They are like children and that they act the worst with the people that they're closest to. Um, another common trait is they don't yawn when other people yawn. They rarely sweat. They don't cry. Um, they have bad teeth. They treat their body like it's separate from them, like it's just a puppet. It's like they're the dead animating. It's like they're it's like they're an archetypal force that is animating an already dead body. Okay? Not in a literal way. Um, but in a it's just that's how it feels when you interact with some of them. And a lot of them when they're angry their eyes go completely black. It's very demonic looking. I'm not just talking about the pupil gets wide. I'm saying their whole eye gets black.
Um, these people have cognitive empathy. They know exactly how their behavior makes you feel. They lack emotional empathy, which means they don't care how their behavior makes you feel. These people have lost their souls. They've experienced a soul loss. From a shamanic perspective, they have no identity. They're archetypal forces. They will play whatever character gets their needs met in the moment. They have no moral compass. Um, everything is a manipulation strategy. They have an unhealthy relationship with theirel with themselves. They'll do anything to get what they want and they don't care who it hurts. um they think that they're not getting hurt if they're the ones doing the hurting. They became v villains so they wouldn't be victims. On some level, this was a choice. They they chose to become villains so they wouldn't be victims.
So, um, be wary of having too much sympathy because there are people who have been through worst things that don't hurt other people. And having sympathy for them makes you easier for them to take advantage of. They know how to stroke their your ego because they're all ego. Um, they know how to play with your dopamine and how to get you to depend on them for dopamine hits. Um, it's hard to take them seriously as dangerous because they can be so childish, but children in adult bodies are extremely dangerous. They don't respect you because you let them take advantage of you. Um, they don't love you unconditionally. They love you because you love them. Um, if you've ever been so mad that you just wanted to destroy something beautiful, that's how a narcissist feels about you.
Um, psychopathy can be genetic. Um, it's passed down through the maternal line. It's less common in women because women would have to carry it on two chromosomes and men only need one. But it's childhood experiences that switch this gene off and on. So it's not as simple as just looking at the mom. Um but you want to pay close attention to the mom. However, um for the narcissist, reality is an aggression. They have no foresight. They can't see that being selfish ultimately makes their life worse. um they're alluring because they don't feel anxiety like we do. They don't care what other people think. And that's kind of intoxicating to someone who's an anxious people pleaser.
Um, there's a really interesting YouTube video where they're interviewing a psychopath and they ask if she's dangerous and she says, "No, I'm not dangerous." But then in the same video, she talks about how she has no regard for emotions of others or consequences of actions. She goes into a gray rage where she has no control over her anger. And she says, "But nothing ever happens because I've always snap out of it before I find the person I'm looking for." Okay. So that matches the that matches what a dangerous person is, but not to her. So, you can't trust. They have no um self-awareness. Okay? They have no self-awareness. When narcissists get caught, they don't think maybe they should change. They think, "How can I avoid getting caught the next time?"
Um, and it doesn't matter if they can heal or not because believing that they heal is the narcotic that keeps their disorder fed. If they are capable of change, it does not happen until they've been so abandoned and so starved of energy and attention that there is no one left to displace their anger onto. And so whether they can change or whether they can't, the antidote is the same. The antidote is assuming they cannot. Um, and them going to therapy is not proof that they're getting better because they need energetic supply from other people. And therapy can be just a way for them to get that energetic supply. They might go to therapy to just play their best victim act or to just complain about everyone else. Um, they will learn how to manipulate their victims better and others by getting proof from their therapists that they are not the problem. They're master manipulators. A lot of therapists are not trained to recognize this and so the therapist just becomes another pawn in their scheme.
Um, they also love the manipulation tool of giving hope. Hope becomes the empath's downfall when it comes to narcissists. They prey on people with hope. Sympathy just feeds them. Okay? They logically do know right from wrong and they do have control because they will treat you completely different in private than they treat you in public. They have control. They can choose to stop any time. And it's not because you don't deserve for them to stop. Okay? It's because they have no concept of empathy. It's like they're brain damaged. Um they will sabotage holidays. They will sabotage your good news. They withhold what you want because they think it will make you stay and keep fighting for it. They think they're smarter than us, but they win because they're more ruthless. They're deeply insecure and they project this in insecurity onto others. So, they're brutal, guys. They're brutal. And this is a classic um milestone on most empaths journey is we have some kind of runin with these people at some point often multiple times.
So I want you to give some new ways I want to give you some new ways to think of narcissists. We're drawn to narcissists because we have opposite polarities. Our trauma fractured us into different extremes. And so, so they're repressing their empathic side. We're repressing our selfish side. They're showing us the missing pieces of ourselves. That's why we're drawn to them because the universe is trying to restore balance. Um, our lost duality. So, that's why they're magnetic is because we're living at different polarities. And so, if you want to become immune to narcissists, you have to change your charge. You have to become less polarized. You have to come back towards the middle. Um, so if there was ever a reason to be more selfish, this is it. To protect yourself from narcissists, we both suffer from misplaced blame, but they blame everyone else. We blame ourselves. We internalize guilt and shame. They push it on to others. We're internalizers. They're externalizers. Um, they have a harsh outer critic. We have a harsh inner critic. So, our critics are all agreeing that we're the problem. They're blaming us. We're blaming ourselves. Our inner critics are in agreement with theirs. Misplaced blame feeds the cycle. Um, misplaced blame feeds this cycle because we're both agreeing that we are the problem. Unhealed people either take too much responsibility for their problems. Empaths or not enough narcissists. The cure for narcissism is vulnerability, but they're not capable of it because narcissism is all about control. They um they don't have authentic relationships because it requires vulnerability, which means giving another person the power to hurt you while trusting them not to. And they will never give another person that kind of power over them. Being a narcissist isn't a choice, but staying a narcissist and acting like a narcissist is. They are in control of their choices. Um and for them to act better with someone else, it would mean that the problem is you. And the problem is not you. No matter how hard they try to convince you, they make you feel wanted without ever making you feel loved. And this is confusing and it's very strong bait for empaths. Um because normally feeling wanted and feeling love coexist in normal people. They see you as a possession. They love you like a favorite toy. Um so you you might be their favorite toy, but you're never going to be their only toy. if you stop working, they're going to throw you out. They love you at first um because they think they finally found a perfect person because you're in the honeymoon phase, but as soon as you make a mistake, as soon as they see you as imperfect, okay, it becomes a game. It's not about you. They're color colorblind. Their model for love looks like abuse and they only show you affection when they're getting what they want. Um, it's confusing because we're like, "Oh, I feel loved sometimes. I feel like they do care sometimes." But it's usually because they're getting what they want in that moment. It's about control.
Beyond trying to control other people, they are also trying to control reality. They are trying to control universal laws. They're trying to control karma, the natural consequences of good and evil. they try to rewrite history, even their bodies kind of um rage against them because their bodies will feel things that they refuse to acknowledge or accept. Um, they're too lost to notice how all of this only makes their life worse.
So, how do you love a narcissist? Imagine that they have conspired to challenge you in this lifetime and look for the lesson that they are trying to teach you. To learn the lesson and to leave is to honor their purpose and to render them obsolete. Challenging channeling feeling emotions empathy is normally your superpower. And when we're stressed, we try to lean on our strengths harder. We try to lean on our empathy harder. But the strategy with narcissists is to empty your mind of feeling and just focus on the facts. Empathy, vulnerability, emotional intelligence are qualities to be proud of. But when it comes to narcissists, they make you a target.
Leaving these people is like recovering from addiction because at certain point they showed you your soulmate and then they started withholding it from you. And in doing that, they have doomed you to searching for that unreachable high, always craving that high that you once felt with them. Um, when they finally do discard you, it's easy to internalize this, but it's like getting put in rehab by heroin, okay? You're too much trouble for them in a good way. They can no longer manipulate or control you. That is why they've discarded you. It's not because you're unworthy of love. An empath's shadow is a narcissist. A narcissist's shadow is an empath. Their shadow is what you're actually falling in love with. These relationships will only last as long as you're willing to put yourself last. These relationships can become very addictive. I was addicted in my relationship because it forced me to be present. It forced me. I wasn't able to think about the past or the future. I had to live by instincts all the time. Every cell of my being was focused on the here and now and on surviving. It jars you into presence which can be a good thing. It can also be an addictive thing because pain makes you feel more alive.
Um, they don't feel shame except in their body and they will blame you for it or even kill you for it. Okay, you remind them of you're a reminder of their shame. It can be dangerous. The dangerous ones, there's a 10% chance they get better and a 75% chance they will kill you. And if you're going to leave, you need a plan. If you're going to need a dangerous one, you need to be really good with your plan because that's when they're the most dangerous. We attract them because we're amazing, magical, beautiful people. And being around that energy is good for their ego. Um, we don't just they don't just like see a target on us and know that we're an empath, okay? They try everyone. They target us because they try everyone. We're just the ones who let them stay. We let them stay because there's a magnetic familiarity. They're showing us those missing pieces of ourselves, the parts that we're repressing. Um, we're two sides of the same coin. We're both living cost, we're both wearing costumes for different reasons. We're both living on the fringes of society. Um, we're both living on the fringes of society. We're both codependent. But we betray ourselves. They're betraying everyone else. We doors slam. They discard. We manipulate um by betraying ourselves to get people to like us. They manipulate through fear, coercion, and control. A lot of the times this magnetic pull is because pull is because we have trauma in our past we're not looking at because we're future oriented people. We have trouble remembering the past. They help us relive the past. Um, we seek out unconsciously all humans seek out past trauma in an attempt to resolve it. So, if you can't get away from these people, look at your past trauma.
Um, we've learned that the best way to get by is by meeting other people's needs. We had emotionally immature parents who modeled codependency. We were not taught boundaries. Boundaries were not respected. We had needs that went unmet. It's not always what did happen to us, but what didn't happen. We had parents who did not attune to us or meet our emotional needs, even if they weren't abusive. We were not given the freedom to make mistakes. Our trust radar is broken. We never had parents who trusted us to make our own decisions, and now we can't trust ourselves. Um, we're slow processors, so we take a long time to give up on them. By the time we are ready to give up on them, we're trauma bonded. We're addicted. It's even harder to break free. We have abandonment wounds. We were abandoned physically or emotionally. And so we don't want to give up on other people. We are trying to give them the love that we needed. But they don't need love. They need consequences. We care more about why someone is hurting us. And if they're hurting us because of trauma, we have a lot of sympathy for that. We want to be deeply seen and known, but we also don't want to let anyone in. And narcs push their way in. And they do deeply see us because they're always looking for ways to manipulate people. We believe that love has the power to heal and they are genuinely suffering and we do feel that, but it is their fault that they're suffering. We see abuse as a sign that we're doing something wrong and we need to do more. And we have a deep capacity for all emotions including pain. We have a high emotional pain tolerance. No one can give us everything we need but they have they pretend to have the potential to be able to give us everything we need because they have multiple personalities. Um, so, so we get hooked on the potential of, of finally having someone who can meet our needs. We are open-minded. We like people who don't hide their darkness. Um, and we don't care where someone is at. We care what they're doing about it. And they're good at fooling us into thinking they are doing something about it. We're addicted to a good story. Okay? They make for good stories. um we are missing things because that's what intuitives do. We try to fill in the blanks. We try to look for everything that's unseen and unsaid. And because of this, we're missing things that are seen and that are said, facts that would help us realize that we need to leave. We don't focus on what's observable. Um so there are things that we're missing and that leads us to getting blindsided. We try to narrow people down. So we might experience a violent narcissist. We create a model for that in our mind and then we fall trapped to a different narcissist, okay, who's more passive aggressive because they haven't fit the model that we've created. Um, we do see straight through them on some level. We just can't comprehend that they're capable of such cruelty. And we also see how insecure they are. And so we also have to pick and choose our battles because we're trying to not trigger their insecurity. We're not as naive as they think. We are picking our battles and conserving our energy while they are mistaking our kindness for weakness. These highs and lows that these people create also release cortisol and adrenaline which become addictive and create trauma bonds. Um and a lot of us did not get to have childhoods. They're immature. They are still like children and so we are living vicariously through them.
Um so what can we do about it? Give up on the dream. Give up on the potential. see them as pathetic instead of a diamond in the rough. Focus on their flaws. At a certain point, it doesn't matter if they can get better. At a certain point, they don't deserve a chance to hurt you again, no matter what. Um, and if you can't love yourself enough to leave, see leaving as an act of love for them because they need consequences. They didn't have consequences. They had parents who did not care enough to give them consequences. And so you have to see it as an act of love for them. Toxic people don't change because other people are suffering. They change because they're suffering. And as long as they have supply, attention, enablers, emotional reactions, they're not suffering. They do what they do because it works. It helps to have a support system. The the better support system you have, the better you will dilute them. It's important that your support system does not demonize them, okay? Because we don't see things as black and white. If our support system is treating things like it's black and white, we're not going to be able to trust them. So, your support system needs to be focused on your well-being and not whether they're a bad person. Remember that you are reliving your trauma in an attempt to heal it. There's something unsolved you are trying to answer. So what is unsolved? Look for what's unsolved. The narcissist facade shows you who you want to be. The revenge is to go be it. The revenge is to integrate your shadow. Embrace your own darkness. Um and you have to stop thinking that if they loved you enough, they would change. That you need to earn love. That they change. It is proof that you are lovable. Okay? You cannot fix brain damage. The part of their brain that's responsible for empathy is undeveloped or not there. Um, it has nothing to do with whether you deserve love. You have to grieve. You have to get angry. You have to get selfish. Look for meaning. Look for clues. If you're desperately trying to heal a narcissist, you probably are meant to heal people. You're just not meant to heal them. That energy needs to go somewhere. that healing energy is trying to go somewhere. Look for the unmet need and look for other ways to meet that need. Um, narcissists are just takers. Go find givers to give to. The ones who need your help are the ones who are going unnoticed, not the ones who are demanding your attention and manipulating you. There is an opportunity to treat all of this as baptism by fire. See them as teachers, as antagonists, as souls who conspired to challenge you in this lifetime. Look for the lesson and master it. The lesson is not compliance. Okay. Um the lesson is not to give them unconditional love. Um, to learn the lesson is to honor their purpose and to render them obsolete.
So, how to remove their need to teach you lessons is to heal your self-worth. Practice boundaries. They will stop showing up when you stop enabling or supplying them. Give all of their problems back to them. Picture yourself putting all of this into a nice ball of energy and giving it back to them. This is their burden, okay? They are adults and this is their burden burden. Let them experience maximum consequences because they will only change for selfish reasons if they change at all. Your homework, okay, is to think about this concept that the narcissist's facade shows you who you want to be. The things that you love about them are showing you what you want to be and the revenge is to go be it. So, what did you love about them? What little darknesses did you love about them? And how can you allow yourself to be more of that without becoming evil, without losing your empathy?
Okay, that's everything I have for today, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Please like, share, subscribe, comment, and if you want more information, there's links in the description.