I developed ECHO, the Empowered Code for Healthy Outreach because I wanted to honour people who had been victimised so that they could share their stories. Still, I wanted it to be healthy so they could be met and supported to turn within and self-partner and start healing powerfully.
ECHO takes you through a Three-Step Process that shows you how to share information in the best possible way to generate healing.
I know it will help you understand how and why this one shift in sharing your pain can have such a profound difference in how you can heal from abuse and painful relationships.
Video Transcript
Today I want to talk to you about an especially important topic.
It’s called ECHO.
Echo is an interesting “name” in narcissistic abuse communities. You may know of the myth of Narcissus and how Echo fell in love with him. Narcissus is obsessed and in love with his reflection in the water and starves Echo of his love, which causes her to wither away and die.
Today that is not the echo I’m talking about.
The ECHO I want to share with you is the Empowered Code for Healthy Outreach.
Why am I talking about ECHO with you today?
Because understanding ECHO will change how you reach out for help with narcissistic abuse and deliver you powerfully onto the path of your true healing.
As you watch this episode, I promise you’ll understand why.
How Did ECHO Come About?
ECHO was originally the NARP Member’s Forum Code of Conduct. Our beautiful MTE team member Violet channelled this incredible and updated acronym name, which is now being released.
Okay … so now to the history of this Code, launched today as ECHO.
Many years ago, as my narcissistic abuse recovery work expanded, many people from all over the world, who had been narcissistically abused, were meeting in my Forum.
It shocked me how people stuck in so much pain were lashing out not just about what the narcissist had done to them but at other members of the Forum as well.
The Forum environment was incredibly toxic. It was beyond difficult to try to help people heal. When people tried to encourage others to drop the war story and start looking within to heal themselves, they were demonised and attacked.
They were called victim shamers, blamers, and many other things.
This was horrible to witness. How could I sort this out? I wanted to honour people who had been victimised so they could share their stories, but it needed to be healthy so that they could be met and supported to turn within and self-partner and start powerfully healing.
I sat with it one afternoon in deep inner enquiry, and the answer came.
The answer was ECHO.
What is ECHO?
ECHO is a Code to help people heal.
It is many things. I want to share one part of it with you – the Three-Step Process regarding how to share information to generate healing.
Hence why ECHO is called the Empowered Code for Healthy Outreach.
Let me explain this to you, starting with Step 1.
Step 1: Explain the Situation Factually
This is a statement of what your situation is regarding narcissistic abuse.
Often, in victimised pain, you look outwards and are in the war story of what happened to you. Which is completely and utterly understandable. Yet, this ignites cortisol and adrenaline. It accentuates fight and flight, which is trauma.
We know now, from the incredible work of scientists such as Bruce Lipton and Joe Dispenza, that when we are in this state, there is a dire disconnection from calm, power and solution as well as healing and evolution.
You are also cut off from health and well-being in this place of heightened stress. Your immune system and physical, emotional, and spiritual response to disease and threat is reduced … terribly.
Fight and flight are effective when you are physically threatened and must get up a tree away from a predator. However, this state is disastrous in sorting out, healing, and empowering our lives.
Not only does it impact us negatively, but it also triggers other people to catch the disease of victimisation, which ignites peptide addiction, keeps people extremely sick, and in progressive disintegration.
This is not just delaying healing; it makes it impossible.
Of course, venting is completely understandable, but we can grow up to the point where we ask ourselves, “What do I really want to achieve regarding my healing? Do I want to get to the resolution of the trauma and claim my power, freedom and health?”
Of course, you know the answer to that question.
Okay, so rather than expressing what is happening to you in a traumatised, victimised way (which, of course, is very compelling and even addictive to do), if your explanation is calm and factual without using emotionally triggering words and statements, this keeps your Inner Being in a much healthier place.
Also, it doesn’t trigger others into reactivation of trauma and powerlessness.
Please know there is no right or wrong. There is only what does and doesn’t work in relation to what we want to achieve.
So, regarding Step One- Explain the Situation Factually, let me give you an example of what doesn’t work instead of what does to take you towards your healing.
Jane is suffering the trauma of being hooked on her ex, and she can’t stop breaking No Contact.
A victimised way for her to reach out for help in this situation would be something like this …
“I’m losing my mind. Why am I so stupid? Why can’t I stop going back? He keeps hurting me, but I can’t stop loving him.”
At this point, Jane is looking outside at what is happening in her life and has not started to self-partner to connect to her emotions (subconscious programs) to get into her own body where her power really is.
Yet, a small shift in the awareness of how to express what is happening to her can start that process by saying something like this …
Step One: (Explain the Situation Factually) “I have broken No Contact thrice last week. Whenever I contact him, he abuses me, and I get treated worse.”
The shift here is that Jane simply expresses what happened to her factually. This keeps her in her body and not falling into triggered peptide programs.
Now, Jane can move on to Step Two, which is …
Step Two: Claim and Express Your Painful Emotions
This part is initially tricky for people to do. But it is so powerful and 100% necessary to generate true healing.
By ceasing to focus on “the outside” and start coming deeply “inside”, you will awaken to, contact and start to heal your subconscious inner programs that are unconsciously co-generating the pain you are presently experiencing.
Going inside to claim your own feelings is so powerful because you are the only person who has the power to change your life.
So, this means you can start connecting to what you are feeling inside you and name it. This brings you relief and power by putting you back inside your Being – the only place where your power is.
Without you doing Step Two, healing is just not possible.
Let me give you an example of how this works with Jane again.
In her initial powerless statement, she said, “Why am I so stupid? Why can’t I stop going back?”
These are statements of being completely disconnected from self rather than being self-partnered.
Her path to becoming powerfully self-partnered and healing her traumatised feelings began when she said:
Step Two: (Claim and Express Your Painful Emotions) “I feel like losing my mind. I feel powerless, worthless, and broken. I feel like I’ll die without him loving me. I feel like I can’t live without him and that there is no hope for me to be okay alone. This is what makes me contact him.”
By being REAL, about what is going on inside of her, Jane has just opened an incredible truth channel where others now have deep insight into what is really going on inside of Jane and can reflect back to her WHY she is in such a “hooked in” situation.
This is what, as Thrivers, we do for each other. And it is incredibly healing (you will understand why soon).
This orientation and the true solution were impossible until Jane used the ECHO method.
Step Three is also vital.
It is this.
Step Three: Ask For A Solution
When you don’t ask for help and simply post about your suffering, what you are saying to yourself, other people and all of Life is this:
“I’m a victim.”, “I don’t deserve help!”, “I’m not worth helping!”, “There is no support for me!”
This will not shift in your experience until you start showing up and asking for what you need.
This could be as simple as asking, “Please help me with this.”
How often have you heard somebody bang on with ferocity, pain and devastation, and you don’t even know whether they’re asking for help or venting?
Something powerful happens when you set the intention and express that you want a solution and healing. It starts the cogs of life-shifting gears to support you and help bring that to pass.
So, after Step Two and Jane owned her feelings, she posted …
Step Three: (Ask for a Solution) “Please, someone, help me, please help me get strong so I can stay away from him.”
Previously Jane had not asked directly for any help at all.
Now Jane could be met powerfully, truthfully and lovingly in a way that helped her claim, shift and heal the necessary inner traumas to have her Thriver Breakthrough.
When Jane was instructed to shift EXACTLY those traumas she named from her Inner Being with the NARP Healing Modules, she discovered the truth about what was happening.
Somewhere in her past, Jane established wounds of not being worthy of love, of feeling she had to earn it, and she knew the familiarity of “people who love me hurt me, abandon me and don’t want me”.
She had established these beliefs, “If people leave me, I’ll die, I am defenceless on my own”. These were huge young survival programs established in her DNA as a child, and even further back, that Jane had previously felt powerless to overcome.
This was why she had kept returning to being battered repeatedly, even though she wanted the abuse to end.
The same is true for all of us – there is a REASON why we can’t get out of the abuse patterns.
Jane released and re-programmed these wounds with NARP Module work.
She then went free of those traumas and easily held No Contact.
The Shift From Victimisation to ECHO
Let’s just refresh our memory again.
Jane’s victimised post was:
“I’m losing my mind. Why am I so stupid? Why can’t I stop going back? He keeps hurting me, but I can’t stop loving him.”
Now, I want you to feel these words and their energy. What do they feel like in your body? Do they feel messy, traumatised, confused and hard to meet and help?
How do you help somebody who is in this place? It’s very hard to do.
Are they even in a space where they can be helped?
No!
Now let’s go through the ECHO method of expressing yourself and see how it feels in your body.
Step One: (Explain the Situation Factually) “I have broken no contact three times in the last week. Whenever I contact him, he abuses me, and I get treated worse.”
Step Two: (Claim and Express Your Painful Emotions) “I am like losing my mind. I feel powerless, worthless, broken, and like I’ll die without him loving me. I feel like I can’t live life without him and that there is no hope for me to be okay on my own. This is what makes me contact him.”
Step Three: (Ask for a Solution) “Please, someone help me, please help me get strong so I can stay away from him.”
Feel this in your body. I want you to really feel it … inside.
Now pause this video and share in the comments how this ECHO way of reaching out feels in your body.
Okay, so I hope this has brought to light some of what goes on in the NARP community behind the scenes.
There is healing miracle after miracle in there every day. NARP and ECHO combined are powerfully responsible for that – as are the incredible MTE staff of moderators and beautiful, loving Thrivers, ever capable and able to support you with your Thriver healing.
I want you to know that ECHO is not just for the NARP Member’s Forum. It is an empowered and healthy way to conduct your entire life because it allows you to stay in your body and co-generate real solutions and healing.
Those of you NARPers who are Gold members and are not as yet active in the Forum, I encourage you to come into the Forum and receive these magical up-levels and transformations.
And, for those of you who are not as yet NARPers, I can’t recommend enough if you are struggling with recovery or are in toxic environments of victimisation and venting with other people or with yourself, to think seriously about getting involved in this incredible community, as a NARP Member.
You can become a NARP member today by clicking this link.
As always, I look forward to answering your comments and questions below.
I really felt the difference in these 2 different ways of feeling…..thanks so much for this….i will save this email and refer back to it! I have recently finished module 8 and this program has aaved my life! Thanks Melanie and all of your team!!😊😍
Hi Melissa,
that’s brilliant that you did!
Please know how welcome you are, and I love that NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/NARP has helped you so much.
Much love to you from myself and my wonderful team
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank-you Melanie, and welcome ECHO!! The NARP community is my new safe place to be:) This is the first time in my life that I have felt supported in a way that truly promotes my healing.
As a very new Gold Member of the members forum I look forward to: 1. relaying facts about what is going on in my life, 2. claiming and expressing my painful emotions, 3. and asking for help.
Love to all , & we can do this!!!!!!!!
Gen
Hi Gen,
You are so gorgeous!
I love your energy and orientation, it is totally divine.
Thank you for being an inspiration to yourself and others
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Melanie,
This is Wonderful, and absolutely timely. I have been struggling to formulate my question to ask in the Forum, also because of resistance. It feels like EGO blocks. The Mind keeps getting in the way. Also, probably had difficulty asking for help because I feel afraid or stupid, same blocks. This makes self partnering very difficult. Something I was normally very good at, feeling in the body. I feel as though because I have been working Module 1 for over a year, that’s what is making it harder hence causing anxiety when I think about moduling. Previously I had amazing shifts but when another situation arose at work, plus going to court I think I had so much anger, mostly at myself. Victimisation and EGO. Please help? With Love and Gratitude.
Hi Casey,
I’m so pleased that this helps!
It really is so important for you to reach out in the Forum. Now that you understand this process, these are the steps to follow.
Then you will be able to access the solutions and truth regarding the shifts that you need to do.
That is your answer!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you for this. I think this is a very powerful, clear and simple tool for communication that will be useful in any troubling situation in life. Thank you for your guidance and clarity Melanie, your videos are empowering me and I am so grateful to feel understood and supported during a very, very difficult time.
Hi Kathrine,
It is my pleasure I am so pleased it was clear.
Sending you love, strength and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Melanie. Thank you for explaining ECHO in such detailed examples. It is amazing to physically feel such a difference between the two ways of expressing oneself. Reminds me what it sounds like to come from a grounded place and to ask for help. I am grateful for you and all the wonderful guidance you share.
Hi Julie,
it is my pleasure.
I love that you feel the difference in your body!
Many continued blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Melanie,
Thank you very much. I have also just watched a video of yours where you say to take the ‘victimhood’ and ‘foggyness’ to the Source Healing and resolution Module. So I will do that.
Thank You and Love and Gratitude
Kondwani
Hi Kondwani,
You are very welcome.
That’s great that you are going to do that shift with the S H and R Module!
Much love and gratitude to you too sweetheart
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Melanie!
Thank you for this episode! I will hopefully be sharing my story with individuals and groups as a minister and this provides me with a healthy framework for myself and others. I want to come across as a victor and not a victim. I would love to hear more about how to professionally share ones story in order to help others who have similar pasts without feeling like you are reliving the trauma in your body or causing someone else who is listening to experience PTSD symptoms etc. Thank you for all the work you do!
Hi Denise,
that is a brilliant topic, thank you for your suggestion, and I would love to cover it in a Thriver TV episode!
Also Denise I’d love you to know that when you go through the Thriver Healing process with NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp the trauma has either been significantly released, or is completely gone as a result of the Quanta Freedom Healing process.
I can’t recommend NARP enough as a way to heal for real and lead the way for others.
If you want to find out more about NARP please come into my free webinar http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
Keep up the beautiful work and much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thanks Melanie that was so Good, this is probably unrelated but it’s been on my mind for a while now, i was watching a Documentary on lightning strikes and it shows how everything, houses, people, trees, put up like a feeler and as the lighting comes down it’s looking for something to connect too, something to do with some electronic field we all put out, anyway, i just become aware that before doing the NARP programme and Healing, previously if i was single and perhaps walking through a crowd, i would unconsciously be putting out a signal, perhaps that person could love me or maybe that person, anyone regardless of how they might treat me, pretty needy ha, but since doing the NARP programme and healing and thriving, i suddenly became aware that now when i walk through say a shopping centre, im not even aware of those around me as im totally at peace and confident and contented from within, im no longer looking outside myself for Happiness now I’m taking the Happiness with me where ever i go, and it’s so nice, Blessings Col.
What a beautiful picture/description Col.
I can relate to what you are saying.
Thank you for sharing 🌸
Jacqueline
Hi Melanie thank you for this video.
I was feeling despondent as I’ve been through the program but realised there is still a lot of healing I need to do. I know it’s a temporary feeling & despite the fact that I feel like I’ve gone 2 steps back, I realise it’s ok & part of the process.
I am still in the environment & I feel like I’m better equipped to ‘handle the Narc’.
Thank you for what you & the Team do for us – the Narc community.
To healing & thriving 🙏🙏🙏💖
Hi L,
You are very welcome.
Absolutely, please know it is a part of the process. As you start releasing trauma, more will come up to the surface to be released as well. It truly is just a matter of stay loving to yourself, less thinking and more shifting, and I promise you that the sun will burst forth for you from the clouds.
Thank you for your love to all, and we are all sending oodles of love to you
Thrive on Dear Sister!
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Col,
it’s my pleasure!
I totally get what you are saying and I love your analogy.
Life is so much richer, more settled and loving when we can come home and just be in our True Self.
It’s a joy to be a part of your beautiful unfoldment!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Dear Mel. Thank you. Reading this made me realise ai am already doong ECHO…as a result of your NARP program. The program was piwerfully healing. I left the abusive man two years ago and despite all he stole from me, am actually doing really well on my own. I have one severe wound left: he alienated my daughters from me. They all claim to have annextremely horrific “mother wound” and the limited contact is very painful for me. Both because I love and miss them, and am being ostracised and shunned, and because teo of them stonewall, the other spews vile vitriol at me. I can in all honesty accept my responsibility for about 20% of that “mother wound” – the rest is me having had to carry the burden of their father’s mother wound, which he projected on me. The parental alienation was, I believe, severe attachment trauma he could not help but re-enact, with him the “good parent” rescuing the children from me, Bad Mommy, resolving the situation in his mind. Causing his children untold suffering and guilt for having chosen his side…guilt for which I am now being held respondible, too. Can you please write about this topic in future? You are very wise. What do I do?
Hi Jenny,
It is my pleasure.
I love that you are already implementing ECHO as a result of NARP!
Jenny, my highest suggestion is to keep working with NARP, to release any of the traumas and painful feelings that are surfacing. That’s exactly what the power of NARP is. Then you will organically, and powerfully know what to do to unravel all of this and heal it.
If you need help to stay on track, and receive direction and support please come into the NARP members forum http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp
If you are not yet a Gold Member, then you can contact my wonderful support team at [email protected] to get you hooked up.
I hope this helps and much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Hi Mel,
I found in my narcissistic experience when I was terrified, blamed, shamed, powerless and frightened beyond belief I usually in a panic rang the wrong person and gave my power away only to be invalidated, blamed or made wrong for what took place and I was never understood. It was only until I claimed responsibility for all of my feelings and realised that I believed I was worthy of help and validation did that relief come to my side in life. I found a therapist who was all about body work and a detective that immediately identified that my abuser was a sociopath within seconds of hearing my story because I felt safe to be vulnerable. I now have your program and am just a beginner and know I have a lot to clear because it’s been a long hard road coping with peptide addiction and living in victim beliefs and holding so much anguish in my body because it is all I have known. Being in ego has been such a challenge because I have not been conscious of my communication and have ended up traumatising others in my family as a result of not being mindful and have had learn the hardway myself. I don’t think I am a narcissist but my reactions in disconnection have not served me and of course they carry consequences themselves. It’s so true no amount of cognetive coaching, meditations, positive thinking, body work methods can really help us shift trauma and I have finally realised that now and there are not many advanced therapies out there that can shift it because your dead on ‘trauma is bigger than us it has a life of it’s own’. I so want to heal don’t want to be resentful anymore or hand more power over to abusers waiting for them to get it.
Hi Sal,
you are very conscious and that is amazing, well done!
I’m pleased that you have NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp and are dedicated to shifting your internal trauma up and out.
Please know Sal that if you are a Gold Member, there is invaluable resources and support for you in the NARP members forum http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/member
You are so on the right track, and I love your determination and personal orientation.
You’ve got this!
Much love and many blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
This was really useful Mel. I have noticed over the last week that I have been sharing my experiences with other people in a way that has been provoking them to respond in such a way that I feel diminished. Listening to this has helped me to realise that I have been sharing from a victimised stance so no wonder other people have been trying to rescue me and no wonder I have been ending up feeling worse despite my hopes to feel better through sharing. I’m going to have a go at using ECHO instead.
Hi Hilary,
I’m so pleased that it was!
That’s great that ECHO resonates with you deeply.
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Dear Melanie,
I can’t thank you enough for this episode.
It is really difficult to read about the painful situations that people were living in for decades and don’t seem to be hearing the basic instruction to cut off all contact -whatever it takes- especially while they are healing.
I know it is unbelievably difficult. That doesn’t change the fact that it is necessary.
When I was in the confusion and anguish of a narcissistic relationship I had no idea what Narcissism was at all. I somehow had lived my whole life not having discovered this type of person. But when nothing made sense and I began to uncover what I was dealing with, before I fully understood or was convinced that he was a Narcissist, I followed the recommendations I found on all the recovery channels: No contact ever again. AT ALL.
I did it first. Then I understood.
I just did it. It gave me space to recover.
I knew I didn’t have the answers or the experience or the knowledge of how to help myself in this type of case. SO I SHUT UP, LISTENED AND FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS.
I frequently feel like shouting this instruction to people in “I’m a victim” mentality. It’s the only way out. Shut up and listen.
The healing lies in changing. Not rehearsing and repeating.
STOP TALKING. START HEALING.
To rehearse, and repeat, and redo something and then make it someone else’s business to fix the situation is unacceptable. We can not make room for that.
I AM FOREVER GRATEFUL for finding your instructions and following them immediately.
The healing was immediate. My growth was progresssive.
But I ALWAYS knew that I am NOT A VICTIM.
I HAVE NEVER BEEN A VICTIM. I REFUSE TO BE A VICTIM.
I needed help. That didn’t make me a victim.
In total surrender, I accepted help.
Today, I still care more about understanding TRUTH, LOVE , HAPPINESS, PEACE, AND WHOLENESS, than about understanding lies, disease or the intentions of evil as tempting as it is to ruminate and want to understand the incomprehensible.
I discovered goodness matters and I just want that more. So that’s where I’m focused.
He was evil because he was so far from God’s design of proper Being. Without the standard or what IS right, we can not determine when something is wrong. He is a reminder of what not to do!!
So, my study now is to find out more about what it is that IS right for me in a relationship than what was wrong with him.
This is where NARP is the perfect practice.
It is a deeply empowering process of discovering all that is really loving for me to have because I’m paying attention to myself, before someone else or the rest of the world tries to define me for me. Far far far far far from being anyone’s victim!!!
I OWN my life. And I deeply love my Life.
God bless you for all you’re giving and all you did for me.
Hi Iris darling sister,
it is my pleasure!
Love that you chose the Thriver path, rather than the victimised path.
And I love and agree with everything that you have written.
Blessed be beautiful Iris, and much love to you.
Mel 🙏💕💚
Greetings Mel.
Thanks for reaching out and helping not only me but everyone else to be able to express ourselves factually and not emotionally.Also for having ECHO in place help to us.I know I desperately need this as I’m trying to break free from this relationship.I am constantly not holding onto my boundaries.
Thanks.
Hi Mayleen,
You are very welcome, it is truly my pleasure.
I’m so pleased that this is helpful for you.
Love and blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Dearest Melanie
Thank you so much for this it feels great. I so appreciate and am so grateful for you posting this at this time.
Much love to you for all you do and what you have given us.
Love Reena 💔 😚 xxx
Hi Reena hun,
You are very welcome and I’m pleased this feels really good!
It’s beautiful to hear from you, and please know I’m sending my love and blessings to you.
Mel 🙏💕💚
This ECHO way feels like there is HOPE, and also keeps one from getting back on the hamster wheel of obsessive thoughts, regarding what we have been through! A much more positive, calmer approach using factuality, then being mired in the emotional chaos, that had been our prior approach. There are no triggers, hence moving forward positively, focusing on our own healing, instead of staying stuck.
Hi Melody,
I’m so pleased it does, and I really want you to know that there is more than hope.
I strongly recommend to you working with NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp to clear out the traumas within your Inner Being that are responsible for driving the obsessive thoughts. When these are released, the mind follows the body and there are no more traumas to try to wrap your head around.
If you are already working with NARP, then just keep targeting the trauma in your body that is responsible for those thoughts, and keep clearing them. Before you know it you will break free out of that prison, and into wellness.
Also the NARP Members Forum http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp is powerfully supportive to help keep you on track.
I hope this helps and much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
I like the echo method. It feels comfortable and reasonable and more than that- makes logical sense. If I apply this method to situations I will heal and thrive.
It feels great.
Hi Alexis,
I’m so happy that it does. That’s wonderful!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
The ECHO-way feels strong, powerful and most of all: moving forward!
Thanks to Violet, Thank you Mel (and I think the colour of your shirt looks nice, I just have to compliment on that)
Hi Bee,
That’s awesome!
Thank you for your appreciation and your beautiful comment!
Love and blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Yes I felt a difference between the two.
I felt a heavy darkness in the first one. The second one felt lighter more full of possibility.
Thanks!
Yes I felt a difference between the two.
I felt a heavy darkness in the first one. The second one felt lighter more full of possibility.
Thanks!
Scratches and pets to kitty😻🙏❤️
Hi Jennifer,
that’s so awesome. Our body knows the truth!
Tiggy says “purr (thank you)”
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you for this added gift! I’ve now been thru my modules and on my 66-day thriver plan and what a huge difference I see my life slowly blossoming into everything I always wanted. Thank you a million times over and will forever be grateful this came into my life and I was ready and prepared to receive it. I want to help others overcome this too and hope to “pay it forward” one day.
Hi Douglas,
you are very welcome.
That’s so awesome that NARP and the Thriver Plan has helped you so much, it really is a powerful combination.
(If other people want to access this combination you can find it at http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar)
I’m so happy for you Douglas, and thank you for your heart and spirit!
Much love to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Haha, I actually thought that ECHO was a new course.. until I reread this email. Awesome work Melanie. The biggest things I have got out of my healing journey, which you and your channel and therapists and other support has taught me has been to feel the emotion and Express the emotion, which I’ve done for a very long time.. but this inner collaboration with different versions of myself of different ages, and realizing between who I am as a person, as in who I really am.. my true identity. And the things I’m connected too, which are my ethnic heritage, my nationality, my gender, my religious upbringing, my current spiritual understanding my hometown, my accomplishments and my life experiences. These are what I’m connected too, and they all taught me valuable lessons.. but my personal identity is something else. I am a Warrior, Overcomer and Knowledge seeker… that’s what comes to me everyday in my meditation time.
I feel like the last way is warmer. Right now I feel a dense energy is in me. It’s horrible I feel like a leper who is destroying my friends just because I am a tenant in their house. Financially I look like the narc but I’ve emotionally collapsed. Hard to get employed feeling like that. I have been solid on NC but the thoughts are the problem as we are 10 years married.
Hi Melanie,
The n abuse and healing process has taken me about the past 5 years. Then I started to feel “normal” again. I started this year very excited and made many new plans! Then this corona situation started 🙁
Anyways, I enrolled in an online “self-help” course, a typical one which is about goal-setting, dream-achieving stuff.
There was a chance to share and ask questions from the teacher. Long story short, she end up insulting me (I feel) and now I feel bad about myself. Which of course is the opposite why I would enroll in a course like this! Gosh.
I shared about my n abuse history. I also expressed my anger, about many law of attraction “gurus” and especially the book The Secret, which I feel contributed to my suffering in the recent years. She (the course teacher) started to lecture and shame me, how I have a “victim attitude” and should get rid of it asap. But she didn’t listened to to my whole story. She judged me anyways, and I feel bad about it, now I feel bad about MYSELF, and started to question myself, do I really have a victim mode?
That thought does not feel good!
In the middle of the n abuse, I was totally lost, an emotional wreck, feeling awful every day. I think in that kind of a situation a human being searches and does whatever it takes, to find a way out or get some relief to that awful agony. Many law of attraction teachers and their courses that promise somekind of an “instant feel-good” became very appealing to me. I strongly feel I became on top of the n abuse, also manipulated by these “gurus”, whose motive is also to suck money (tempting me to enroll in the courses, buying their materials). I feel I became a “self help addict” and that addiction has been something that I have also needed to heal in addition to the n abuse healing. Sigh :/
I also strongly nowadays resent The Secret book. Some of the advice is dangerous. I felt relief when Melanie I read your old blog post where you agree with this one, so you know what I’m talking about! You know, this “advice” that see only good in others and ignore the bad. That “lovely advice” made me stay +2 or 3 years more with the n, totally unnecessary suffering! I feel they gave very irresponsible advice and have no accountability or responsibility for that. Can I just be honest now: that book has caused me a lot of damage. That is my truth, my experience. Someone else might have a different experience, even a positive one.
Funny thing is, the course teacher says she “loves to empower women”. When I had this huge awakening, eye-opening moment, when I realised I’ve been sort of fooled by the incomplete or even false law of attraction advice and gurus etc. and that does NOT help me to create the dream life I felt such a strong anger…I felt in that moment I was doing exactly that, powerfully empowering myself!! Wasn’t I? Like this realisation that this does not work and then think instead, what does work? Like, what can I do differently from now on. I love with one therapist (Katherine Woodward Thomas actually, and she is a good one!) said that anger is the agent of change. Anger has such a strong energy that it helps to “midwife” change, shift. Isn’t that empowering or what? 🙂
But, the course teacher started to accuse, blame and shame me, lecture me how I am “stuck in victim mode” and “victimized”. Funny, I don’t feel that way. I just wanted to be authentic and share my experience, I thought these courses are the perfect arena and context for that. But now I started to doubt myself, thanks to her 🙁 I was proud of myself and now I feel like sh*t, because I feel she offended me. On top of that, she told me not to write anymore and even removed me from the emailing list, even without asking my permission! Funny attitude from a woman who says she “loves to connect with women” and “loves to empower women”. Maybe that includes only women that are already “house trained” and people-pleasing, but after 40 years being like that, I refuse to be that way anymore! 😀 I think breaking free from childhood trauma patterns is extemely empowering so I really, really cannot understand that woman. It is true, I WAS a victim and victimized, badly, no denying that, but that does not mean that I continue being that way forever.
She had told about her own childhood abuse history…I thought could it be that something in my story triggered something in her…that’s why she couldn’t tolerate me, rejected me, basically told me to “shut up”, excluded me. It’s an interesting thought.
It is annoying, when I finally feel I’m a “woman with a voice”, why I cannot use that voice? That easily triggers the childhood trauma, I need to be nice and good girl, please others…otherwise they don’t like me, punish me and abandon me.
What it is that a woman is not allowed to have opinions, express opinions, have and express anger (and I mean anger, not aggression)?! When I do all that, I’m “owning” and processing stuff, moving forwards…empowering myself, right?
I feel no-thing towards the ex n. Completely neutral nowadays, despite the nasty abuse. And zero contact, zero desire to connect. I’m proud of myself, I’ve come a long way. I also now know, that this all happened THROUGH me and not “to me”. I hardly dwell in any victimization. How could this woman say so? I almost feel she was gashlighting me, because now I start to doubt my own perception about me :/
Melanie, is there (still) something wrong with me? Did I do something wrong? Do I have an “attitude problem”? Do I have a victim mentality? I don’t think so, but…what do you think, based on what I have written here?
Should I confront this woman (nicely) (and generally speaking, anyone that has ever hurt me in some way)? Like hey, what you said was not okay/true/whatever. I feel she “should” apologize. I’m aware she might have triggered something in me and vice versa, but I still feel she was rude and unfair, disrespecting towards me and it hurts. You know, easily comes this strong urge to defend myself, like “what you say about me is not true”. Should I just let all this go? After all, I never have any control over what other people “think” about me anyways. But it’s just annoying what she said to me/about me, I feel offended.
As a child, I always felt my feelings, needs and authenticity was a burden and “too much” to other people. Especially anything controversial and negative, like crying or temper tantrums as a child. I usually always became (physically) punished. It is really, really nasty feeling when this woman actually just “proved” this belief to be “true”, when I wasn’t “the nice girl” and people-pleasing little miss sunshine, she actually berated me and then discarded me. I don’t actually want to be treated like this as an educated, adult woman 🙁 And especially not in a self-development course, which should be a safe and welcoming place to share!
The course in itself was good, but interacting, sharing personally with this woman clearly was a misstake. Thanks for letting me share this. I do feel quite upset and uneasy now, like what the heck just happened? :/ I really do not need this “drama” into my life anymore.
Hi Anna,
I totally understand that you are experiencing these feelings at the moment.
I really want to simplify this for you, to try to help you.
This incident absolutely is happening “for” you, and not “to” you, as it does for all of us, when we get triggered into something painful and uncomfortable.
This does not necessarily mean that you have a victim mentality, at all! What it means is that this woman has hit an unhealed wound within you, that you can now turn inwards to heal. She’s just a catalyst, no more and no less.
Where we can so easily (and understandably) get into Wrongtown, is thinking that the resolution to this will come through confronting her and her apologising to you. That’s not what this is about, and that orientation means that she will just defend her decision about you even more.
Because this is the thing, when we try to get somebody else to change in order to feel better on the inside, they never change. They just supply more of what feels horrible on the inside.
I’m such an advocate for turning inwards to find and release and reprogram what is being triggered within. This is how I live my life personally as a complete and utter life dedication, because I know it’s the only thing that really works.
Then when this-trauma is gone you will know exactly what to do. You will either confront her or not. You may just decide to walk forward with the amazing gift that inadvertently she has given you, the ability to release something that was not your True Self.
Or, maybe this is about boundaries and the necessity to speak up. And without the trauma pulsating inside of you, you will be able to be in the situation of an approach to her where you will be heard and have the ability to be validated. And if she doesn’t, that won’t even bother you. You will just know that this woman, and maybe even this course just isn’t a match for you. And that’s totally okay!
So Anna, the short answer is go within and release and reprogram what is triggered. Then act.
Have you checked out my inner transformational resources to be able to do that? Namely NARP http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/narp
it is a complete life changer!
I hope that this makes sense to you
Mel 🙏💕💚
Thank you Melanie! So nice you took the time to read and answer me! I think this is what we all humans want, to be validated, heard, taken seriously <3
I understand what you are saying, somehow the triggers are about me and not the other person. But it's still slightly "annoying", by focusing only on me and my part, I feel I let the other person "off the hook". Isn't it true, that sometimes other people DO do things that…well, leave a lot to be desired? Even if I had zero triggers and woundings, other people might be hurtful and yep…it hurts 🙁
I do not gather and dwell in past hurts, I definitely do not feel like a victim (at least not anymore nowadays), but you know…on the other day I was just thinking…I was bullied at school, my father was abusive, my mother sometimes makes casual remarks that feel hurtful to me…has any of these people ever apologized, said they are sorry? Nope, never!! Years, decades, have passed and I have never received any apology from them. As a matter of fact, I think they might even FEEL they are sorry now afterwards and even feel guilt (I believe my father does, maybe) but actually articulating, saying the words out loud, it would maybe feel awkward (at least in this culture where I live) so maybe that's why they say nothing.
But it is what it is…Anyways, I feel pretty ok now when I was able to express myself, thank you! 🙂
I am happy for this video tonight. It’s 3:30 a.m. and I cannot sleep.
1. I will try what you said: today I was having a rough day and I’m not sure why exactly. I’m still at home in isolation although things are opening up. It has been a little over four years since my relationship with the narcissist ended. I was betrayed and discarded in a particularly heinous manner that ripped open a horrific, and real, childhood trauma of being literally betrayed and abandoned by my own mother, resulting in me being raped repeatedly at the age of 12. Something I thought I had overcome. The trauma of this near-perfect, and deliberate, reenactment by my ex nearly killed me in 2016. I never thought I could ever recover because the C-PTSD symptoms were so extreme.
2. Today, I felt a LOT of hatred, rage, and anger towards my ex and the woman he replaced me with. I also felt, intuitively, that the anger extended to my mother and all of the people who have hurt me. Next, I was angry at myself for still feeling this RAGE when I am trying to heal. I felt like a failure and like I will always be so damaged that there is no hope for me to ever be accepted or normal, or have a real loving, safe, and reciprocal relationship. I’ve never been loved, ever, by anyone except my grandparents. I’ve only ever known emotional, but not physical, abuse. I have worked for the past two years, specifically, to heal from the crippling shame I’ve carried believing that I was bad, that I was unworthy of love, because of what happened to me. It was a lot of work to release this deep shame that was not my burden to bear.
3. I am trying so hard but I have no support system. I have been furloughed because of COVID-19, and am on unemployment, just when I was putting my life back together financially. I have not bought NARP because I can’t afford it. I have done all my healing so far alone. I have never ever had anyone hold me or give me any safe emotional support, ever, in my entire life. I don’t want to be a “victim” but I was. I really was. I was a child. I need some support. My goal this year was to try to connect with warm, kind, empathetic, caring people who share my core values. I wanted to find my “tribe.” I need support to get to the next level and manifest my true self. I still don’t really believe that anyone exists in the world who cares and will not hurt and abandon me.
I am still venting to myself, as you just said in the video. I bought your book when it was released and have tried to work through so much trauma. I’ve always thought my story makes me sound like some sort of scumbag, but I grew up solidly middle class, in a very nice home. My mother had Hollywood starlet good looks but was severely mentally ill – that’s why she did what she did. She experienced psychosis. I was the first person in my family to attend a private university and I was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. I was a flight attendant for Pan Am, based in London. All of those things were my attempts to prove that I was good enough, as good as other people, but I only ever attracted and was attracted to, narcissists who abused me. I say that because things are not always as they appear on the outside. One never knows what horrors another person has endured. I want to heal. I want community, and I can’t imagine it happening for me, but I would like to be loved. For four decades I never spoke my truth, about my childhood, to ANYONE but I told the narcissist in August of 2015, a month before our five year anniversary, and he made it real for me a few months later. I am not hiding in the shadows anymore. I did nothing wrong. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Elizabeth Smart is my hero. Her story is the closest I’ve ever found to mine. Unlike me, she came back home after her ordeal to a loving family, community, church, and was accepted and held, and reassured. My ordeal lasted months and when I was finally returned home no one ever said anything. No one even cared. How could a 12 year old girl process that?
Hi Chanel,
my heart goes out to you you have been through so much.
Chanel, please know that we do offer sponsorship for in NARP, so that people in need can work with the Program.
I would love to help you heal, you deserve that so much after everything that you’ve been through.
And, we have an incredibly beautiful community here to help you with loving support.
Please email my support team at [email protected] and enquire about in NARP sponsorship, so that we can get this process started for you.
Sending you love and healing
Mel 🙏💕💚
Dear Melanie,
Thank you so much for the beautiful invitation! I look forward to joining the Thriver community – you have been such a source of hope for me these past few years. I’m so grateful!
Chanel
Bless you Chanel hun,
you are SO welcome!
Mel 🙏💕💚
Chanel, I hope you have healed and are living a fabulous life filled with love & community!!
In case you are still around this community… your story, while very different than mine, I related deeply. It touched my heart & made me cry. I send you love & hugs through the ether. 💜
Thank you very much Melanie
Your article expresses very well why I spent so many years practicing a well-known psychotherapy and I did not advance enough.
Although the objectives of this therapy were to heal the traumas of the unconscious through feelings, nevertheless the environment in the group treatment sessions was one of victimization.
The help I received was not to heal but on many occasions to blame and feel shame.
Therefore the second phase claim and express yor painful emotions was the same as in the NARP program
However, the environment did not favor healing, but on the contrary it favored continuing to be a victim.
They also had a hidden agenda related to cultural Marxism.
I think I advance by my own effort rather than by his therapy
Therefore I cannot stop thanking you for your NARP program and it is the first time that I feel more and more relaxed and helped by a therapeutic environment that encourages healing and respects and favors my interests.
Over and over again a thousand thanks Melanie, Violet and the rest of the team
Hi Miguel,
please know how welcome you are.
I am thrilled that the truth and bringing the power back to you, is helping to set you free!
So much love to you
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Hi,
the two ways definitely feel completely different. In my own experience I feel like the step of ‘claim and name your difficult emotions’ is where I am likely to struggle.
Hi Sue,
that’s great it feels different.
It can take some practice … but I promise you with intention and being loving and gentle with yourself, it will come.
Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I have been through the NARP program as a gold member and have also done the self empowerment course. For 53 years of life I lived in narcissistic abuse. Thank God I found your programs, they have truly saved me. I have never joined the forum but am now ready to join. I love the layout of the ECHO format which makes total sense.
The last narcissist in my life I have to yet deal with is my father. I can’t get past God’s commandment of Honor they Mother and Father. My mother has passed in the last month. She was the best mother you could ever ask for. My father, well……
I am looking forward to joining the forum and participating in the Thrive program. Thank you again for saving my life.
Hi Deanna,
that is wonderful that you have come so far!
My deepest condolences for the loss of your Mother, and this is great that you are going to join the Forum.
Please know how welcome you are.
Much Love to you
Mel 🙏💞🦋
New here.
I LOVE THE ECHO METHOD!!
I am super excited to work with you Melanie🤩 and others traveling the same path💕(My schedule is crazy every other week so the recorded sessions are awesome)
Now lets see if I got the ECHO method right…
Step 1) I have joined other groups in the past, several I thought were “my tribe”. Initially it seemed such a perfect & solid fit.
Step 2) I feel scared about joining this group because of past experiences. In the past, some groups I joined, after a short time, I felt disconnected and that my voice was disapproved of. I felt rejected.. the odd man out. Often, I would quit.
Step 3) Someone help me stay connected and heard, so I can follow through and gain the strength and healing I know is here.
And please God, may this be my tribe🙏Amen
Hi Alicia,
Please know that the recorded sessions will be just as powerful for you!
Absolutely we will help you stay connected and hear you and hold you.
You are doing great already!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
This feels a much calmer way of addressing situations, it feels like it would step me towards the life I want to live, rather than whirling around the pity pool of victimisation which I have been doing. The whirling pool, just wastes my time and sucks me back into projecting the perception that I am what he says I am to others – that’s what I need to break free of and this will help.
Hi Mel and others,
After sixty-five odd (and I mean on the outside as well as uneven and unsteady) at last I see the reason and the why to go in and confront these feelings from the damaging relationships I have had since early childhood. Now, rather than be hurt and run away or even worse believe what they indicated about me, I have hope that I will find a purpose I can sustain. I can see now how and what to work on for a worthwhile change. Previously I had tried objectifying how I felt and it worked to stabilise for a bit but without a rationale to build from (and knowledgeable support) I soon slipped back into cut and run or the raw reaction and emotional damage which just fed narcissistic behaviours of my perpetrators.
Thank you for this very exciting pathway and for explaining the why so carefully.
I know it won’t be easy but knowing why and how will be fuel to continue.
Amazing how I came across this so randomly. Gratitude.
This feels like a well balan Ed and grounded way of sharing. We need to first have trust within ourselves to express what is going on..to really SEE the reality of the abuse, and deceptions we experience. Like you say, until we name it and claim it we cannot release it. I also love the idea of asking for help. So often we feel alone in our journey, but my understanding is that this forum is meant to be. A welcoming safe place.
I just joined this forum and the NARP today, after years of trying to figure out how I ended up in a 7 year abusive relationship with a narcissist (who I have gone no contact with for a year now, despite his attempts to Hoover again). On a side note: this toxic relationship was actually a gift from God… It made me realize that I’ve been dealing with narcissistic people for a long time, and bringing him into my life was the start of a better “me”.
For nearly 2 years, I’ve watched probably hundreds of videos from 4-5 wonderful life coaches explaining narcissistic abuse, and while I learned A LOT, none of them gave me the “feeling” that I wanted to work through this with their program’s and I stayed stuck with the rumination and confusion etc. Then your videos suddenly started showing up a couple of weeks ago and I thought, “I’m going to watch her videos… maybe she has something insightful… what do I have to lose at this point”! So, I watched a few of your videos (and read some articles you shared), but listened to one particular healing video you initially shared and I was drawn in and thought “this is it”. You gave me the “AHA” moment I needed. I really felt a powerful shift after that and knew I had to work with your program. Everything you communicated just resonated! I’m so grateful to have found you and this forum and I look forward to this journey of inner work, balance and peace (for all of us), as I begin NARP♥️ THANK YOU
I think the ECHO way leaves me feeling more empowered. That’s because I am exercising my internal locus of control and not giving it away to anyone else. I agree that blaming the narc is so understandable in the beginning. Once I began to focus on me and what I could do for myself, my locus of control went from external (directed at him) to internal (directed at me and how I could take care of myself). Much more powerful…besides, I am the only one over whom I have agency. Focus on my healing and not the narc’s transgressions. ECHO language leads us to this. Thanks so much!
Having echo explained this way I feel there is a more manageable sequence to recognizing the overwhelming cluster and fluster of these powerful and addictive emotions. The emotions themselves are either completely frustrating as in most of the time, to having another extreme where somebody might out of genuine concern ask me about where I am at with it when I sound okay and they are attempting to help me put my issues to bed once and for all, but then I slip straight into a stress response when my body recognizes that I haven’t yet found the answer to it.
I’ve only had a reprieve from recent stress, I haven’t solved anything.
A compartmentalizing of these emotions, and a giving away of my sole need to fight my stress response and knowing that I have a support community onhand that is worth honoring as my community has an opportunity to grow alongside me. I see massive potential in that.