I was mucking the goat shed one day when it hit me, “She is a narcissist; you know that. Your response to her energy is your own; you know that. Why are you giving her your valuable energy?” The truth was… I had stayed on this property and taken her shit because I was tired of dealing with narcissistic personality disorder and I knew the answer to ridding myself of this albatross was inside me. So I stayed in the presence of her bad behavior while I did the inner inquiry work with the goal of finding the attachment to narcissist behavior patterns I seemed to carry around with me. It took about 6 months—give or take—but I found what inside of me hooked that behavior and I revoked narcissistic energy from my life… finally!
If you are involved with someone who presents with strong narcissist tendencies and have spoken to anyone about it they might say, “Why do you let them affect you? Let it go.” Aside from that being a shitty thing to say to someone struggling, there is a reason they are not affected and you are. There is a reason they don’t get what you are going through. Find some gratitude for their not knowing and find someone who does. If you are really desiring to revoke the narcissist energy; you need a team that gets where you are at.
*Do be careful of support groups though. There are a lot of people who might have left a narcissist partner, but then find themselves caught in their own victim archetype. Believe me, the victim archetype is equally draining.
The reason you are challenged to let it go is that somewhere in your body—because, as you know, emotion and memory are stored in the body—you have a hook around narcissist behavior. Somewhere in the subconscious of your mind; there is a fear or an anger or a deep sadness pertaining to some aspect of this personality trait. This grief/sadness/anger is represented as the hook in the below story…
Imagine yourself standing on a sunny riverbank, water flowing effortlessly over the rocks creating a cacophony of sound ever so pleasant to your ears. You have heard this river is polluted and that great shining fish that were known to be dangerous swam the waters, but it appeared so beautiful in the light of the sun. You have a fishing pole in hand, a hook and a container full of the fattest juiciest worms. You load your hook, raise your pole and zippppp… out into the water it goes, landing just where you wanted it to.
A great shining scaled fish swims by and takes your hook into its mouth. You’re so excited! It starts to pull you downstream. That’s ok, it’s a gorgeous day and the path along the river is glorious. You follow the path on the edge of the stream, slowly reeling in what is certainly the most amazing fish. The fish comes a little closer and you become hopeful to get it onto land soon. On and on this goes, you slowly reeling in the mystery fish. The fish is so close! Its beautiful large tail is swimming so hard it pushes a rock from the stream into your path. In your excitement, you miss the rock and with a monstrous splash, you land ass over teakettle in the water… but check you out! You continue to hold onto the rod!
So here you are being dragged along, water in your eyes, banging up against rocks and bouncing off debris. It would be wise to let go of the pole. Maybe you don’t want to have wasted the time it took to get here, maybe you think it’s just going to take a little more work and you’ll land this fish. You stubbornly refuse to let go of the pole.
AND THAT is where the work starts. Because the truth about you is you do have the power to stop being dragged along by this. The action of letting go doesn’t start at the point of disengaging from the fish or even releasing the pole you have gripped so firmly. It starts when you ask yourself, “Why did I have a hook in the water I knew was polluted to begin with?”
Are you following me? If you aren’t, it’s ok. You can come back to this next part another time when you are more open to receiving. But if you are really F*ing DONE with narcissist behavior patterns affecting your life, if you are done with the lies and the demeaning and the gaslighting and your shame affect thumping like a migraine in your solar plexus… put down the defensiveness, open your mind and continue to read.
I am a huge fan of bullet points so here are some pointers on revoking the energy of a narc.
- Do some inquiry work around why you were fishing in a polluted river known to contain dangerous fish to begin with. Write it down. Look at it. Examine it on all sides.
- Imagine the kind of river you would like to be fishing in. Or even better, how to get good clean fishes to jump right into your basket at the shore.
- Laugh with yourself when you realize you ever thought you should consume dirty fish.
- Let go of the pole and get out of the water.
- Walk to a clean river.
It is that simple, but each step is based on your willingness to ask for support and do the deep inner work of finding the hook inside you. As it turns out, my hook was my grandfather. My grandfather who had incested me as a child had strong narcissist tendencies. In all of the work I’ve done around my grandfather and incest, it never even occurred to me that he might have been a narc. It seems so obvious now! It honestly made me laugh when I truly grokked the core of the issue.
How did I get to this realization? When doing inner work I spend a lot of time in prayer (asking) and meditation (listening). I express my desire to Source/God to heal, being as specific as I can and I listen for the answer. I also reach out to friends and support groups that I trust to be straight up and give me real-life answers. But you do you. What works for you when working on clearing a hook?
The answers are everywhere; you only must be willing to see them. I lifted a pallet to get the goat poop when I was able to allow the answer in. How did goat shit help you might ask? Here is the deal… you dont necessarily see the poop in a pen without lifting the pallet. Humans are like that too. We present as one way when actually, there is a lot of shit hiding out.
It’s not meant to be like that. Humans all over the world were conditioned to believe we had to present as always pleasant and hide our pain; It’s a lie. That conditioning is also a HUGE factor in attracting narc behavior and sadly, how narcissistic behavior came to be. Someone didn’t get heard long enough that it putrified in their system and they became toxic to themselves and others.
So, I look under this pallet and there I find shit and shit-eating bugs galore. That is when it hit me, “You are allowing her to take your energy. She is a narcissist. Clean this up.” It didn’t happen like “POOF”, though it does often feel that way when a new neural pathway is forming in the brain, Suddenly things that looked insurmountable become sensible, “This isn’t my shit to deal with; so why am I dealing with it?”
As you do the work, those hooks take on a characteristic more like velcro. What this means is rather than latching on and being hard to get off, it just kinda sticks to you but is easily removed. Celebrate doing the work. Celebrate when a hook becomes velcro. You are heading in the right direction.
Another key to this is not to beat yourself up for having those hooks to begin with but to celebrate that you are willing to look at them now and clean them up. ALL humans have hooks someplace; it’s a part of being human. Call bullshit on your mind when it tries to tell you you are the only person who ever had a hook. There are a hundred million thousand support groups in the world; trust me a lot of people have hooks. In a world where victimization is the popularly acceptable narrative around the watering hole, be careful not to get sucked in. You are not alone.
You have got to accept facts; You cannot change a narc. Whatever programmed them to turn to the dark side is not even something you can conceive of. Be grateful that you will never understand the darkness they allowed to consume them. Once a once fabulous human is consumed by the darkness they allowed to eat their soul; they cannot see the light, they can only consume it in service of their sickness.
Get out of their way.
Remember: Darkness cannot survive without light. Feeding it only empowers it to create more pain. In Florida, there are signs that say, “Dont feed or molest the alligators”. I’ve always laughed at that because who would actually want to molest an alligator? Yet we do it every time we engage and allow narcissistic behavior into our lives.
If you would like to work with me on your journey towards revoking the energy of a narcissist I’d be thrilled to work with you.
Here are a couple reminders to assist as you start your journey…
- Don’t expect a Narc to change for you; don’t go into the magical thinking that YOU can change them.
- Don’t get surprised when after a time of peace and harmony, they resort back to their old behavior. Wishing that the good behavior will stick in a narcissistic is like thinking, “The sky is blue! Dammit! Why is the sky suddenly blue on this clear sunny day? I was enjoying the most beautiful sunrise with all sorts of color and I want that back.”
- After leaving narcissist energy refrain from constantly bring to mind the narcissists behavior of past. A trick I use for that—and a lot of other useless thoughts is a technique from Mel Robbins to count backwards from 5-1. It works! When your thinking thoughts that don’t produce healthy emotions, break the mental muddle by counting backwards and think a new thought!
- A certain amount of grieving is important, Please find a grief coach or a good friend to lean on for grief, but more important is changing the behavior that allowed the narc behavior to find its way into your head space to begin. Playing the victim archetype doesn’t support healing.
There is so much more I could share on this topic! If you got this far… Thank you. If you would like support in working to unhook from narcissist energy please reach out! I’d love to work with you.
One of my favorite Zen Buddhism parables…
Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung. He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell in. The monk saved the scorpion and was again stung. The other monk asked him, “Friend, why do you continue to save the scorpion when you know its nature is to sting?” “Because,” the monk replied, “to save it is my nature.”
Zen Buddhism Parable
I relate to it so much because it is also my nature to save. HOWEVER. I had to learn, over and over again, that you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. It will suck, for you, every time.
Benefit of Trauma 