Have you noticed that some relationships just gorgeously flow and organically evolve, whereas others seem to take up all your time, emotional energy and mental load – yet never improve?
Today’s Thriver TV episode is all about those relationships where we find ourselves endlessly explaining, arguing, lecturing and prescribing – desperately doing everything we can to get the other person to understand how they are hurting us.
Yet somehow things never get resolved – and we even end feeling like we are to blame and are in the wrong!
This is what happens when you are dealing with a toxic person, or a narcissist. If you ask for them to co-operate, take you into consideration and problem-solve to a win-win resolution, then they will only double down on their justifications, excuses, invalidation and blame-shifting.
Whether you are experiencing this with a partner, a friend, a relative or in the workplace, today I explain to you how to get out of this three-ring circus, and make the shift into relationships of kindness, integrity, unity consciousness and teamwork.
Video Transcript
Hey there, thrivers! Welcome to Thriver TV, where I’m teaching you not just about narcissists and narcissistic abuse, but how to heal for real from these toxic relationships.
So before we get started, if you haven’t yet subscribed to my YouTube channel, please do, and also like and share this video with people who you believe it could help. And make sure you hit the notification button.
Okay, so how do you change a toxic person?
Healthy People
First of all, we really need to decide if we are dealing with a toxic person, before beginning to think about how how we can change a toxic person.
In our normal human interactions and healthy relationships, someone may metaphorically step on our toes and cause us to go “ouch”. They may do something thoughtless, neglectful, or even a little bit abusive and we might say to them, “Could you please not do that” or “could I have this another way?”
If you’re a reasonable person who doesn’t moan and groan about anything and everything, and if this person is a decent person, they will hear you. They will have enough care, kindness and unity consciousness of ‘I see you as well as myself, so if you are hurting, I’m hurting,’ to be able to say to you, “Look, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that and I won’t do that again. I realize that what I did hurt you.”
In these types of healthy relationships, you will then see an uplevel and changed behaviour, because the desire is for teamwork and unity consciousness. We can have people like that in our life, where it just works.
Toxic People
But that’s not the people we are talking about here. We’re talking about people who are toxic, who when you say “ouch,” refuse to take any personal responsibility.
They’ll twist and turn it back on you. They have every excuse and justification for what they did. They won’t validate you and they’ll make it your fault. Then you find yourself lecturing and prescribing, and trying to force them to get it, in the hopes that they will finally wake up, change, and not do that behavior anymore.
Nobody likes being told that they’ve done something wrong. It takes humility, maturity, a desire to evolve and a desire for unity consciousness, to know that life works better if you’re cooperative.
If a person lacks maturity, humility, the ability to be wrong and the ability to be sorry, then they don’t have unity consciousness. What you’re dealing with is a narcissist, a toxic person, or a deeply wounded person who is not doing that inner transformational work. They are probably going through the same patterns in their life over and over, and nothing is changing for them.
You Cannot Change A Toxic Person
So how do you change a toxic person? A toxic person is never going to change for you.
It doesn’t matter how many times you say, “You hurt me,” “I need this from you,” “could you please?” “this is what I’m going through as a result of the behavior that you’re doing” and so on and so forth. They are never, ever, going to change for you. They will only ever change for themselves – if they have the capacity and the desire to change.
This never happens by you saying to them, “Well, this is what I need and want from you,” because they’re still going to justify and explain away their actions. They will blame-shift, make excuses and take you into word salad and the narcissistic three-ring circus, which just goes around and around and around with no resolution.
So this is where we have to get very clear about our self-definition.
What are your values and what is your truth? What is the life that you want to live? What is it that you will accept, and what is it that you won’t accept? What in your life feels healthy, safe and sane in your body – in your emotional self – and what doesn’t?
You Can Change Yourself
It can be really confusing when you’re doing this dance with somebody who’s toxic. If you try to get them to change, you can only ever get confused, gas-lit, triggered and traumatized.
So we have to pull away and we have to change ourselves. Stop trying to change somebody else and change yourself instead – because that’s where your only power is.
To change ourselves, we have to change the conversation from, “You are or you aren’t” or “you do or you don’t,” to, “This is who I am and this is what I will accept.”
We then have that bar and that truth that we are living by. That’s what’s known as coherence. It’s integrity. It’s the definition of self.
When we get to that place, it really is a case of, “If you would like to work with teamwork, care, kindness and unity consciousness, come with me. And if you’re not interested in that and that’s not you, that’s okay. Then we’re not a match – because I’m not going to lower my vibration to be in a relationship that is not my truth, which is confusing and yucky to my inner self, and doesn’t make sense to my emotional truth and my alignment. It just doesn’t.”
If you are willing to lose it all to gain it all, and if you really mean it when you say, “This is where I am, this is who I am, and this is how it is, ” then that other individual has a choice. You’re not getting them to choose for you – you’re getting them to choose for themselves. Their choice is, “Do I want a life with this person or don’t I?”
It’s back on them now.
Of course, people can say anything. When we choose our own soul and our own truth, we do it knowing that actions are what’s real. Words are nothing and excuses, justifications, word salads, and twists and turns don’t cut it anymore.
The action has to be real. It has to be clear. It has to be true, and it has to be what you are looking for. Kindness, care, integrity, unity consciousness, team – because that’s what relationship is, it’s team.
The truth is that a narcissist or a toxic person who doesn’t want to evolve into a unity consciousness, is always doing a relationship by themselves. They are always single no matter who they’re in relationship with because they don’t do team.
In Conclusion
I hope that this makes sense. I hope that this speaks to you.
Please know that if you want team, unity consciousness and true relationship, it starts with you being true to you, and getting very clear on how those things are a necessity in your life. “I won’t accept less because if I accept less, I’m choosing you at the expense of me, and that’s never a healthy relationship”.
To do this authentically, you need to be really solid in your values, truths and self-partnering. There was a time when I would not have been able to show up in this way, and that is why I created the Quanta Freedom Healing modules of the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program (NARP). This is how I stepped up to become true to myself – so I know it can bring you to that same empowered place!
I so look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments below!
Absolutely that’s me and Christ 😆 we organically flow and it’s healthy and genuine. When a narc gets involved in your life, everything becomes tainted with their manipulations, games, power plays and other malevolent crap. At least I know I’m not a piece of shit. 😘
This was one of the best posts for me… I am tired of banging my head against the wall and trying to give them one more chance to be that person I saw ten years ago… they take no responsibility and always throw it back on us…. it’s exhausting and hurts my heart to be disappointed over and over and to be angry at both of us
Hi Nicole,
Im so pleased that this has helped!
Sending you love and breakthroughs!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
That’s exactly how I feel. I have been drained of energy, being pulled down below the soul level I want to remain at, but now it’s all clear thanks to wonderful authors and healers like Melanie, like Dr Ramani and others. Melanie is right, it helps when we get familiar with quantum science, which I have been reading about for a few years now. I hope more and more of us heal asap.
Hi Melanie!
Thank you for another really intriguing and important article!!! 🙌 Wow, you’ve really been coming up with some great stuff for us lately! 💥
Anyway, the first thing or the first word I thought of when I started listening to you was the word Metanoia!
Metanoia is a term used in Christian and Hebrew theology and some parts of Greek mythology representing change! The “change” that comes, as it is described, that happens usually a result of spiritual practice and deep inner work! Which is precisely, as I understand it, what you teach us in NARP to do, i.e., the inner work in accordance with NARP guidelines and principles…
I found it very interesting that you intimate that it is extremely difficult for a narcissist to change…I’ve been told by some people I respect very much that NPD is a fixed disorder…
But, in reality, none of that matters! It might be nice to understand that NPD is a fixed disorder and that narcissists really don’t change….
However, the truth is if we do not change, or I do not change, none of the philosophy, understanding the psychological makeup of a narcissist etc., is worth much, as you have so often said, Melanie! Which is so important for me to understand! (Stinking thinking! ❌ Rather than doing the inner work! 😌)
I hope to be able, 🙏 so thankfully, to be continually motivated by your teachings and guidance to dig deeper and deeper within and to do the inner work which means practicing all that you are teaching us every single day of your life! ❤️🦋❤️
(And that is precisely why NARP works for us and me because it bypasses all the other nonsense that we might engage in trying to salvage our lives from narcissistic abuse.)
What I’m trying to say with these comments is how much I appreciate the amazing work that you are doing here on this earth and how your teachings impact me and help me to become a better human being!
And, also, that each effort that I make to follow the guidelines of NARP I “change”….I don’t think anything else matters more than my inner growth or spiritual growth which is what I have learned from NARP, especially after so much past trauma in my life….
Well, thank you again, Melanie, for another truly enlightening and emotionally helpful article that gives me hope and inspiration! Sending much love to you!
❤️🦋❤️
Hi Peter,
it is so true – the inner change is the only change that matters!
Thank you again Peter for your thoughtful and kind response.
Much Love and inspiration to you!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
Thanks… I have already learned so much by just knowing that the narcissist in my life will not change!
Hi Tabra,
you are very welcome! Sadly, that is so true!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I just watched your FB video on the word salad. Never was this phenomenon so truly and accurately described! Ye gods and little fishies – most of my time with a narcissist was spent wading through word salad. They wield words like weapons when it comes to other people, leading to no end of havoc. I was labelled “twisty turny” when I tried to pin them down to accountability or to negotiate something. It’s even worse with an altruistic narcissist, where there’s a word salad of new age-y language and where there is self righteousness when others don’t measure up to their standards.
Thank you Melanie. Each of your posts brings me closer and closer to my own solid truth. I was raised by a single-mom narcissist, married a narcissist, and my oldest daughter is a narcissist. I’ve been gaslighted my whole life, even as a small child. Realizing, now that I’m 65 and have developed a low tolerance for this Narcissist behavior, I finally really know that I’m a caring and decent person, and that I’ve always been. Enough. These toxic people do not get me to be in their lives any longer. I’m doing just fine. Reading your posts help me become more solid by the day. Thank you again. The only supply I’m providing is my own.
Hello Susan, I’m also sixty five and have been living with narcissists all of my life. First my mother and then girlfriends and finally my first and only wife of twenty one years. I’ve lost most every bit of confidence I have developed, for long periods of time. I do have loving brothers and a sister who are now involved and doing a great job helping me to move on with my life. They have helped me retain a lawyer and I’ve filed for divorce. Currently, I’m in my downstairs bedroom waiting for the mail carrier to deliver the paperwork to her. This, and one loss in particular (my time with my grandson) have me fighting off depression. I’m working hard at taking care of myself physically and I’m in the best shape of my adult life. But mentally I’m on a road of straightaways and valleys.
My tolerance for the narcissistic behavior is also low and perhaps non-existent but taking care of myself emotionally is my current challenge. I’m writing this response in hopes that it shakes me from the tree I’ve climbed (metaphorically) and helps me plant my feet on the ground to continue the process I’ve made thus far. I congratulate you on your healthy independence.
I need to clean up the backyard from recent wind and rain, continue my job search, and on the advice of council find a professional to talk to. The latter being to show the judge my efforts to heal. I don’t like it but they’re not my rules. Only the advice of the legal system.
I hope you are thriving. 🙂
Steve
Thanks++++ Melanie, “word salad” is so appropriate for what I heard yesterday, and many other times too. Love that you said they’re always single because they don’t do team. Also if I’m choosing less than my standards then I’m choosing that person’s life practice instead of mine. These clearly stated pieces of wisdom are so powerful and helpful, they give me strength in setting my direction.
Hi Therese,
I love the words and wisdom that you wrote!
Mel 🙏💞🦋
I have learned so much so far. I was almost completely destroyed when I found this recovery program. It’s been a slow process, but I have started to get my own voice back slowly but surely. I am always and forever thankful for this program. For me it has been a literal lifesaver.
This article came at an ideal time .I am going through this with my daughter and finally getting tbe strength to stand up in my truth and love.
You are right what is happening in my relationship with her feels yucky to my inner being .I feel violated by the lack of care and kindness and I know I deserve better.
So I will stand and bear the holocaust that is before me rather than sacrifice one moment of my peace .
Love always
Rosemarie
Hi Rosemarie,
it takes great courage to choose your own soul and integrity.
This is not only the best thing for you – it also is for her.
Much Love
Mel 🙏💞🦋
This describes the daily rubbish of life with a narc, first my mum, now my partner. I tried to live their way, after all I thought that’s what i had to do, my Mum said at every opportunity how mean, selfish and nasty I was, with no time, empathy, warmth or feeling for anyone, that i must give a little more, be less fussy, do more. I just became angrier and angrier. I now constantly lecture, explain, prescribe…because i could never get thru and now i know, you can’t!!! Now I need learn to undo my default way of being which is to over explain, lecture,make everything a story, not be your self etc. i find b4 i know it I’m explaining to a young child (who is naturally demanding), how did I become so messed up?!?! Years with narc’s, everything you’ve described and talked about has been said to me about me by my mother and partner – every single thing and the word salad. This post nails it to a T re narc’s