hi…u say that most people will only do what u allow them to do and they probably have also been abused, but what about the person u were responding to whose mom tried to help her and wasnt ignoring her feelings? what about her? what made her so different that she chose to be try and be loving instead of ignoring and not validating her feelings? was it because the mother wasnt abused? how about if people just are selfish and just go along w/ the flow and abuse someone because it “feels natural” because the other person’s aura is damaged and they feel that damage and just go along w/it. do they think its right or can they reflect and think to themselves, “why did i treat that person so bad?” do people not have a choice in how they act or is it all just by how they feel towards a person? i understand that most people wont give a damn and treat u how u treat urself…but its just not right. like homeless people for example…most people ignore them and of course they feel abysmal about themselves thats why they live such a terrible life..but is it justified that most of us ignore and look down on them because they do it to themselves?

i know that u are here to help of course but i feel like its blaming the victim in a way…maybe i havent read enough of ur stuff, but im confused and hurt to take on even MORE blame….

I can’t wait to feel the warmth and security of unconditional love from myself!

Hi Anna,

I am so glad this article resonated deeply with you.

Struggling with vulnerability is an enormous issue amongst abusers and the abused.

I believe affirmations are the purpose of ‘granting ourselves the love and affirming of what we need to feel and know about ourselves and life in order to be healthy and whole’.

Now IF we can’t say these things to ourselves THEN we have belief systems that are faulty that are blocking us accepting these affirmations.

Therefore if you can’t ‘accept’ belief systems such as ‘I love you with all my heart’, then you have something within you rejecting that statement which requires shifting.

Personally, as I described in the article above – I needed to shift certainly beliefs within my subconscious programming in order to state and accept these beliefs. Once I found and shifted these beliefs, instantly I could.

All of this is about bypassing the logical brain, which truly is the self-saboteur.

I hope that adequately answers your question.

Mel xo

I’ve been so lucky in the last week to come across two books which have helped immensely with this which I wanted to share with anyone who felt like they might want something to say to themselves as a springboard/roadmap for self-soothing throughout the day. It’s like a POSITIVE OVERRIDE to combat the negative. 🙂

The first one is LOVE YOURSELF and Let the Other Person Have it Your Way, By Lawrence Crane. The author talks about unconditional love as giving approval- to self, others, everyone, to your own negativity even. Giving approval is indeed very natural, having a natural acceptance, immediate acceptance of all that is. The words this author uses, repetitively, helped me develop a much better override system in less than a week. Actually, I worried giving approval to the narc using this simple idea would mess me up- but to my awe it really helped in creating a feeling of benign distance.

The other book is The Sedona Method, by Hale Dwoskin who just has a wonderful way of speaking about others’ pain- very compassionate, and solution oriented. The exercises added to my QFH experience and suddenly, after months of struggle, nothing felt much like a struggle anymore- the exercises in this book have been real miracles- I got rid of a daily chronic cough, identical to my codependent father’s and codependent uncles- we all had narc parents- and through this method I realized the cough was directly related to feelings of having to stifle truth. In the book there are some great habit-breaking exercises- and when I decided to understand the cough was just a habit I “used to believe I had” and used the formula, I felt something change completely, and I’ve been completely free of this, and three other significant addictions in just a week, so much improvement I feel like a different person…

So please do check these out if you are looking for more salt or pepper to add to your regimens!

To Anita- yes, I TOTALLY AGREE we need to change society awareness about what happens when fragile children are pushed away when in pain. I suspect that the ratio of Narc men to Narc women somewhat reflects our society’s tough love and ‘don’t cry’ mentality towards young boys.

Warning: the following are some ideas about all of this distilled from Melanie and others for my own clarification- I print in case this might be useful. It’s a lil disorganized too.

Re: Narcs have it all. If you are thinking this way, you are not seeing with all of yourself. I literally just got out of the illusion tonight, and all of a sudden I understand the depth of the illusion and how deeply this illusion permeates American culture, and how deeply it permeated so much of my own mind. But it is an illusion, and there is part of yourself that the illusion can not, will never touch. There is part of you that knows that you are so much more than even the grandest things the narcissist may have promised you, may have said, with all the power of his own deluded convictions. There is part of you that remembers how much more powerful you felt before you ever tried on any of the cheap goods the narcissists tried to sell… Narcissists sell items which glitter and are not gold- temporary fixes, temporary “love”, schemes and fame and lottery tickets, with the promise that everlasting happiness and love will be the reward. They know they are charlatans, because they know their spirits have only brought unhappiness to themselves- they know their product doesn’t work. They are looking in desperation for others to prove that their entrenched way is right, because they have already proven themselves wrong.
And if you think you failed at anything with the narc, it’s likely, that you actually succeeded. Why? because the best part of you, the part you may have willfully forgotten, wanted that story to end dramatically enough that you would never play at happiness again, but have the real thing.
Because anything you would-have should-have created with them would have been subject to the same laws of TEMPORARY you’ve been circling in and out of all your life. You, like they themselves, would have been tiptoeing on the high wire with two broken ankles hoping the audience wouldn’t notice.
The spirits of forcing, ignoring, hiding, opposing, controlling are all one. And you can only create a temporary peace with force.
If you ever believed in a narcissist, you know that belief was frought with doubt- with disapproval, non-acceptance. You were fighting yourself, so it would always be temporary.

They are in permanent fight with themselves, so there will never be peace. You felt that energy, and you excused it as “exciting” or “special” or whatever your excuse was.

You can have everything too. But when we are whole we do not NEED IT.

A lot of Narcissists are successful because that’s all they can be- they will never have the ultimate power of love, so they can be needed and controlling instead.

The energy of the N is the energy of violence- the energy we reach for when we need to control something fast.

But we do not need anything. Then we can choose.

There is this old english word, “wanting” meaning “lacking” and it is so great, so true- when you feel you need something, you will remain without it.

Ns are need, want, lack. No matter how it looks to anyone, you know this, because you felt it. If you cut away your dreams of future, and your fears from past, you will see that the NOW of narcissism was ALWAYS violent.

If any part of you believes the N was pretty great, you are still trying to escape yourself, but there is nothing to escape- you are beautiful just as you are, before you have acquired anything at all. The fact that our parents may not have seen this doesn’t mean you have to perpetuate the non-seeing, the hate.

We all deserve more than what the narc could give. Attachment to a narc is just need, it really is. Please don’t beat yourself up, for anything. Once you understand the whole truth you will realize how much you were up against.

Don’t think your susceptibilities to abuse make you less than in any way- they are the the same susceptibilities which are the susceptibilities to love, music, beauty- you wanted to have these things faster than they came, you imagined you had them- it was a susceptibility of imagination- one of the greatest assets on the planet.

So don’t punish yourself as I did if at all possible- use your imagination in a new way to believe that you will have everything in its own time, exactly as it is supposed to be.

It is no less true than the familiarity of lack, even if you don’t feel it yet.

xoxo.

Hello Anna. I thought I would share with you some things that I have learned about my own vulnerability. It is not something that a person has to do anything about, but to just stay with and to feel the feelings and not necessarily DO anything except feel them. If you are sad, then just feel how sad you feel. You can carry on an inner dialogue with your inner child and talk about what is making her sad or angry or hurt or lonely; no matter what the feeling is, it is important to stay with it until it shifts. If you can learn to stay with your inner child as she feels all these feelings and support her as she feels them, then you become the safe container who affirms her, truly sees and hears her so she learns to trust that you will always be there for her to protect her and keep her safe. Journalling is also very useful and doing dreamwork. I have always found those tools very helpful. When I first discovered my inner child, she was extremely demanding and she wanted dolls and books and she wanted them from this particular doll and particular book shop. I still have the dolls and the books but have now moved on lol. Once she knew that I cared enough to get her these things that she had felt deprived from having, she settled down and for her these days, it is fine to mostly dialogue constantly and we have these mostly silent (to others) conversations all the time. Sometimes she want ice-cream or a particular meal, or candles or new bedlinen. All of the things she wants are reasonable and I have a happy little inner child who mostly feels safe (EXCEPT WHEN I GET INVOLVED WITH NARCISSISTIC BOYFRIENDS). There was obviously more internal work to do and he is no longer in my life. Anyway, that is just my take on it for what it’s worth.

Melanie, you are right. Thanks for your timely reminder. I guess that a long time ago I learned to journal and to go within due to the wisdom of my doctor in a psychiatric unit in which I was an in-patient for 6 years. He did not believe in drugs and encouraged us to fully feel our deep feelings and to stay with them until they shifted. It was scary and painful work ,but it paid off. It is a long-standing habit now to stay with and reflect on my deep feelings. Although I healed a lot of childhood wounds at that time, there was more to do, hence I attracted my most recent N ex-boyfriend. Since I terminated my relationship with him and committed to my healing and living in my integrity, I am sure that I have changed a lot energetically and will change even more. What came up the other day is my fear that I will miss out if I don’t engage in all that life has to offer, if I don’t engage in all opportunities that come my way. I am the sort of person who has two speeds; very fast and stop. I have encountered the part of me that strives and is frightened to allow life to simply unfold like flowers do. They don’t strive but they eventually open from buds and in their own good time, they blossom, without expending undue energy. they just unfold! I think that the next part of my journey is to allow myself to relax and know intimately that my life is unfolding as it should and I can relax, knowing that I am safe and loved deeply. That should deal with the need to strive. I already feel more relaxed and on Sunday I stayed in bed all day, not wanting to do anything or go anywhere, or even to connect with any of my friends. It was a lovely day really. I often wonder what I should be doing, but perhaps if I just relax, continue to heal and do QFH sessions and meditate, then my future will continue to open very naturally with no pushing or angst from me. I don’t have to strive and make things happen or panic and think that all that is left is that I will now die and that life will not support me. That is my fear talking. It is really about learning and trusting the process of my life and knowing that I am truly safe and cared for. That is my big fear; that somehow my life will not work out unless I cause something to happen. What that something is, I do not have a clue, but I strive anyway and it is not helpful to live like this. I was planning to go dancing tonight, but am still not quite over the flu and decided to stay at home. I always get quite conflicted when wondering what I should do. However, I think that taking good care of myself and choosing to stay at home was the right decision. I can never tell. What I do know is that I have enjoyed a very lovely evening at home without going out into the cold night. I am leaving for Bali on Thursday to dance with my dance company for 4 days, and am opening myself to a new experience. I guess that I am beginning to trust that there are lots of good things to still happen in my life without striving for anything. Another thing that I have done is remove myself from all dating sites. For some reason I am finding them wearisome and none of the men on the sites is any kind of soul match for me so cannot see the point. I have not met my match yet and think that if I let well enough alone and just concentrate on making every day beautiful for me, that one day, the right man will just appear; so that striving for a life-partner has now simply vanished into the ether. Perhaps I will too lol. I am beginning to see myself as wonderful and unique; someone who has every right to exist in my own form and someone who is very deserving of all the good things that life has to offer. It’s a bit scary to give up the striving thing. I never realised how much it was in me. It takes a lot of energy to continually strive and I think that it is more about externals than nurturing my insides. So, I am learning to let go and to trust that I will still stay alive if I let go. I think that I am worried that if I let go the striving and don’t engage with all that comes my way, I will die because unless I stay on top of things and control the outcome of my life, my life will fall apart. These are the thoughts that have been unconscious until now, but have resulted in my need to strive so I can stay alive. I am not sure if any of this makes sense, but it is a real risk to let go and trust. Does this mean I am growing perhaps? If I continue to stay alive, then there must be a force keeping me alive. So thanks Mel for your encouragement and wise words. You are right. I have all my QFH modules to continue with and need to keep uncovering what is there until it comes out.

This is a great reason for parents in this community to ditch the emotional abandonement child training technqiues such as controoled crying, crying it out, ignoring tantrums and time outs that are so heavily advocated for in our modern western parenting sphere. They merely produce codependent fodder. When kids act out its code for “i have some really difficult feelings that need soothing and understanding”, not abandonement and punishment

I was trained to be independent and tough with all these emotional abandonement technqiues and it certainly looked like it all “worked” (good girl, high academic achiever) until it all came crashing down with an abusive relationship. Now I realise the gaping emotional holes I had underneath the well trained good girl facade. So cuddle and soothe all those babies out there (….look out, here comes the fixer side of me!)

Thanks for showing me the way forward with the importance of loving self talk.

Anita xx

This article came to me when most needed. I’ve recognized some time ago that I have a problem allowing myself to be vulnerable, and learned that being vulnerable and feeling emotions such as saddness, sorrow etc. is permitable.
However, this is still very much on the logical level and in truth I don’t know how to feel vulnerable, how to feel those feelings, whilst knowing that they are there. How do I behave with them? How do I address them? The afirmations I can see that they can be a great help, as well as the inner belief shifts, but is this all?
Btw, I’d love you to give us some more affirmation examples, I’ve tried to do my own, but somehow for the moment they don’t seem to have a similar effect to yours.
Thank you for this valuable article.
Warm thoughts to everybody,

Hi Deb,

it is early days for you – and truly it is a matter of surrendering into the emotions without judgement, feeling them fully and shifting them out with healing modules.

That is the true path to healing.

Avoiding our feelings and emotions only keeps us stuck in the pain…so it is great that you are committed. Know it is a journey, and not one that will happen overnight. The surrendering into the process is however, what will grant you relief and freedom more quickly than anything else.

Wonderful that you realise that true healing is about committing 100% to yourself – and that it isn’t anyone else’s job!

You are so welcome, and truly you are on the right track Deb – much love and hugs.

Mel xo