Firstly I would like to say thank you so much for the overwhelming responses and suggestions regarding what you would like Empowered Life and Love newsletter to provide for you.
I was thrilled with the response!
My suggested topics were highly requested:
1. Creating boundaries advice and practical exercises
2. Breaking free from co-dependency.
3. Creating real love with an authentic love partner
4 Achieving success in all areas of your life
But also I had some other fabulous requests:
5. How to build self-esteem and self-worth
6. How to master your emotions
7. How to speak your truth and hold your power with others
8. How to find an authentic love partner and how to tell a healthy person from a disordered one.
9. Learning to trust new potential love partners
Ask and you shall receive!
As such I am going to be emailing Empowered Life and Love members with new articles every two weeks on these topics from now on.
Please know that if you were one of the people who wrote back in regard to Narcissistic Abuse – truly healing from Narcissistic Abuse is the first step you must take before creating your empowered self.
When we want to go forward in our life, we need to clean up the old ‘wreck’ in our garage before we can start driving the shiny new car in.
It is virtually impossible to create your True Self when you still have the old abused self still existing. If you are in this position, please make sure your foundations are correct before trying to build on that.
Don’t try to cover up you pain and fear by simply moving forward.
Your Inner Identity is not going to let you get away with that trick. Healing your unhealed parts regarding abuse and painful relationships is imperative to have a clean slate to build on.
If you have not as yet watched my videos regarding how your Inner Identity and peptide addiction keeps you stuck you can do so here: Narcissistic Abuse – How It Occurs and How You Can Overcome It
If you are still struggling with narcissistic abuse it is really important that you focus on your recovery with the help of my New Life material and healing resources.
You can read the inspiring stories of others who have recovered from narcissistic abuse here.
These stories are incredible, powerful and incredibly inspirational and surpassed even my wildest expectations.
You too can experience this level of relief.
If you have not yet subscribed to New Life newsletter you can do so here: New Life Newsletter
For those of you that are ready to move forward from narcissistic abuse – these are the defining points:
- You are no longer feeling the obsessions and the pain.
- You will have boundaries and No Contact and / or Modified Contact in place, and you are starting to feel relief, space and freedom within yourself.
- You are ready to open up, expand and create your great life.
This is truly what this newsletter, Empowered Life and Love is going to focus on.
If you are not yet at this stage after narcissistic abuse, and you are struggling with your recovery the Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Program guides you through your recovery so that you will be ready to create your new empowered self.
This powerful Program focuses on healing you deeply and directly at your Inner Identity level, and this is why it consistently produces very powerful and very real results.
Now to expand further after coming out the other side from narcissistic abuse…
Why Almost All Humans Suffer From Co-dependency
Many people take offence to the term co-dependency, and there are many contemporary psychologists and counsellors who either veer away from this word, or state that people are simply trying to ‘label you’…or that because you weren’t in an alcoholic or substance abusing family that the term does not fit.
First I would like to address ‘shame with labels’. I truly do not subscribe to ‘shame’. I believe it is a futile emotion that takes us away from empowering ourself and not toward it.
I have discovered during my time as a healer, it is the people who are resistance to ‘labels’ who suffer the greatest ‘shame’ and resistance to accepting themselves unconditionally. These people often make the slowest progress, or no progress in breaking through to personal empowerment and their own emotional mastery.
I promise you I feel no ‘shame’ in declaring myself as a person who was severely co-dependent.
And I still have aspects of co-dependency that I continually work on to improve myself.
Why do I need to? Because I am human.
And the normal human state of unconsciousness is not growth and empowerment.
I much prefer to work on myself to break free from the normal human illusions that hurt – in order to be a creative and healthy conscious being.
And I know many of you are also committed with all of your heart! (Many of your reply emails supplied me great joy in realising this!)
Please understand my definition of co-dependency is spiritual – it is not clinical.
I believe co-dependency is a very effective term that describes Not being a True Self Source to ourself.
Here is my definition of co-dependency.
Co-dependency means we have been reliant on outside sources, people, things and approval to feel ‘okay’ and to feel ‘whole’.
For this reason I believe it is a standard human condition to be co-dependent, because none of us were taught ‘self’ – we were not taught to unconditionally love ourselves, accept ourselves, emotionally master or support ourselves, and we were all rendered powerless to have no option other than to seek support, comfort, love, stability, approval and validation from the ‘outside’.
We had no idea that we could ‘be’ and ‘create’ our own emotional state and ‘self’ – and then manifest the results in our life from within.
We were all conditioned to believe that we were powerless to control and create our own emotional state, and that it relied on results which happened in our life and what other people were or weren’t doing.
The Futility of These Beliefs
If you read my blog you will know I am a firm believer in Energetic Law and Law of Attraction.
When we understand Energetic Law we become aware of energy and how it creates real realities in our life.
We understand that everything we create as our experience in life comes from deep within us – at the levels of our belief systems and our emotional feelings that relate to anything in our life.
If we have defunct beliefs about ourself, life, love and others – then we create unfortunate realities that are aligned with those beliefs. We feel empty, afraid and insecure and then try to gain this fullness, safety and wholeness from ‘the outside’.
Inevitably this sets us up for dissatisfaction because when the outside stops providing us with the love, safety and fullness we require, we feel empty and ‘less than’.
We try to get great full, healthy, safe and whole results from an energetic manufacturing centre of fear, pain and emptiness. The only results we can ‘get’ are exactly the results of how we really felt about ourself, life, love and others.
We try to make other people define us – instead of defining ourself.
What I have discovered is, the people who embrace the true meaning of co-dependency and have no shame in admitting it (because truly I believe we all are), are the people who find the relief to realise why life has not been working for them , and make their recovery a true mission.
The true mission is – becoming a True Source to self.
What Is Our True Self
I’ll grant you my take on this –and I have seen the ‘truth’ of what I am about to state – time and time again.
And this is a deeply spiritual truth.
I believe – in fact I know your True Self already exists. It is already within you, and is simply waiting for you to uncover it.
I have seen countless times that when people clear away the pain, the false beliefs, and the illusions of life that have been hurting them – the result is always the same – they uncover the jewel which already exists inside them.
All of us have a natural state that just is. This just is part of ourselves knows how to love and accept ourself, define and create who we really are, be at peace, operate healthily, set boundaries, be whole and feel complete.
This is our goal. To uncover the ‘jewel’, the infinite part of ourself that is True Self – that is connected to life, source, love and wholeness. It is the part of us that feels ‘at one with ourself and at one with life’.
It is the part of us that is unconditional love, support and wisdom to ourself. It is the part that can say ‘no’ to what isn’t our truth, and know that we are unlimited enough to attract, create and wait for our truth – and feel whole in the meantime.
Everything you need is within you, you just need to clear away what is blocking you from remembering that.
Information Assists but What is the True Answer?
It really does all come back to ‘we can’t park a Ferrari over the top of a rusty old wreck’.
The greatest danger is to believe that you are an intellectual being and not an emotional / vibrational being.
Some of the most intellectual people in the world are highly co-dependent.
I know because I meet them all the time – and truly I was one of them also.
You cannot heal your fear and clear your false beliefs intellectually.
You cannot cover over the previous pain and just decide to learn and ‘do’ differently.
I believe it is impossible to merely reason yourself out of pain and false belief systems.
Last week’s article How To Change Your Behaviour Without Slipping Back Into Old Habits explains exactly why this doesn’t work.
You are a human ‘being’ – you are not a human ‘doing’.
Trying to just ‘do’ without working on your ‘being’ is self-defeating. Your inner being is still pointed in a direction of pain and fear and your mind is wrestling with your Inner Identity trying to make it ‘do’ something different.
The truth is it can’t.
This is why there is an enormous difference between reading information, and applying the information to yourself by doing the inner work.
I have met countless people (and again I was one of them) who read copious amounts of information, and even went to seminar upon seminar, but never applied this information to working on self.
These are the people who think that information alone makes the difference. It doesn’t. Information is simply knowledge. Information applied becomes much deeper than just knowledge – it becomes a part of you.
Information is simply information. Information applied becomes an experience of our being.
4 Steps to Overcoming Co-dependency and Becoming A True Source To Yourself
Step 1: Acknowledge you wish your life to be better, and the only way it will be is if you create yourself as ‘better’.
Step 2: Acknowledge that your previous beliefs about self, life, love and others could do with transformation – because they have not served you in relation to how you want to feel, who you wish to be, and the results you would like to produce in your life.
Acknowledge that you have been programmed or conditioned to believe your fullness had to come ‘from the outside’ and that you need to learn how to create it ‘from the inside’.
You may wish to acknowledge that this previous state you were living by – call it co-dependency, or any other ‘label’ you wish has not been working for you. Have absolutely no shame in this…
By accepting that you have had insecure, painful, broken and unhealed parts (which caused you to seek your self-definition from outside of you) you now can target and heal and transform them.
Step 3: Realise you need to get out of your intellect and stop merely seeking information without applying it. Accept that you need to find ways to go within yourself to heal and release the scared, insecure and broken parts of yourself. Know that you need to find the processes that will assist you with this. Steer clear of ‘information only’ processes that don’t go deep within you and address your being.
Step 4: Commit to changing your life by transforming yourself, and decide that you wish to feel whole, secure, safe and empowered regardless of what life and other people are or aren’t doing.
Please know that the articles that are going to now emerge in Empowered Life and Love are all about this – the serious and direct journey to becoming a Source to yourself, of breaking out of co-dependency, creating great boundaries and becoming the emotional master and creator of your great life.
I’d love you to share with me your thoughts, questions or comments about co-dependency.
Melanie, I am currently in No Contact with both my parents. It has been very helpful to me to separate from both of them. My father is the N and my mother is co-dependent. I want to uncover the ‘jewel’ within me that you refer to, I know she is there!! What are the best steps for me to take to accomplish that? I appreciate your information, it has helped me to understand tremendously and I sincerely thank you for your guidance and help!! Is there a ‘best practice’ for going through your program? Thanks in advance!! ~Laura
Hi Laura,
thank you for your post, and I am so glad my information is helping!
You have taken the first important step which is No Contact. The next one is to do the work on the ‘inner’.
That is great you are inspired to uncover your True Self. The Program comes with full instructions, and you also have me as your personal guide to answer and emails you send with questions.
The process in NARP ‘just is’, and it works, and if you follow it you will powerfully and quickly start clearing the ‘stuff’ to find the real you.
Mel xo
I have been in a relationship with firstly a psychopath and then a passive aggressive masochist. The discomfort of being in a relationship with both of them took quite a lot of time to reach a point where I knew something was seriously wrong! By the time you begin to see the problem you have invested so much of yourself that you simply can’t admit that you can’t fix this problem. All of that time, energy, devotion and commitment that you have put into the relationship anchors you because like most people pleasers you just can’t give up and recognize that you have made a seriously bad investment!
My biggest asset became my biggest liability. My integrity!
I simply had NO CLUE I had an option to back out of the situation because I am so true to my word. I thought if my actions didn’t match my feelings and words then I WAS THE HYPOCRITE and as cowardly as them.
This kept me stuck in the cycle if self destruction indefinitely…. And to my own demise.
I obsessively overanalysed every gut feeling until I had eradicated it. Now I know that my feeling is ENOUGH. If it feels wrong I am going to make myself walk in the other direction. I need to learn to trust myself and make my own life my way.
It is very difficult. It is a struggle for me to assert myself. Childhood abuse and a dysfunctional family have unconsciously wired me to feel comfortable with dysfunctional adults. It is a battle I fight daily… To consciously reject it!
Wow Belinda what you have said just sums me up, and with such clarity! It’s only in the last 6 months that I have come to realise this about myself – just as you stated: “Childhood abuse and a dysfunctional family have unconsciously wired me to feel comfortable with dysfunctional adults.”
Hi Belinda,…hope you don’t mind my input and saying hi 🙂 Rather than battle daily with yourself and what has happened, I suggest NARP. I too was involved with firstly an OCD, Narcissist then 2 months after breaking it off with him, was swept off my feet by a high level NARC. Plus my pain goes way back to when I was 1 years old, as my father was a very high level Narc, so unconsciously attracted the same type of man into my life. Luckily my mother left him when I was 2, as she listened to her instincts and advice from a psychiatrist who said he could not be helped.
NARP has proven to me, just how quickly we can shift the pain, clear it from our cells and not battle every day. Rejecting it and putting it aside, will no make it go away. We can rewire our conscience and the answer is there, within us, that when you start to feel the shifts, and clearing the stuff out, you will finally get to meet you. It is like stepping out of your body for a moment, shaking yourself out, clearing out all the toxic junk, then stepping back into yourself, feeling clear, clean and open to be able to absorb the nourishment of true self and life. That is one way to describe it, and you feel lighter after a shift has taken place. Melanie really knows her stuff and has the personal experience to back it up. I am truly greatful to her. Jac x
Hi Belinda,
thank you for your post.
That is so true, how attached we get to trying to fix someone else after we have put so much of ‘us’ in there. This is totally the pattern for everyone who gets hooked into abusive relationships.
So true too – you nailed it! Integrity is not serving us if we put that above emotional self-support and truth.
That is great that you are at the point of ‘enough is enough’.
Once you get to work on healing your unhealed parts (your inner self) truly you will know how to assert, you will know how to back yourself, and it will be a natural part of your being – rather than the ‘struggle of knowing what you need to do – but having inner belief systems that are still hooking you into your old tapes and programs.
This is why the inner work is a much more direct and easier way and true way to break out of all of this.
Mel xo
Melanie, Good day. I’m a codependent narcissist that has greatly benefited from your teachings. I’m grateful.
As per previous correspondence with you, my girlfriend at the time forwarded your N information to me and I had that moment of clarity in June of this year. Through the grace of God my N facade was shattered. I had know and FELT for over 40 yrs that something was wrong with me, I just didn’t know what. I was filled with tremendous guilt and remorse realizing how I had treated my girlfriend and many other women before her. But after a few days I began to feel relief that I was finally myself,
just myself and Mr Big Shot was gone for good. I am growing more comfortable everyday with myself. I extended myself to my girlfriend of 4 yrs. I really wanted to mend our relationship and be authentic partners, but she had had enough and we have parted. Very sad for me, but this time has given me the opportunity to heal from the hurt and recover from the pain and reflect on my life and the past women in my life.
I was told many years ago by a counselor “Don’t be a victim of your own games”. That has applied to me my whole life and I have had a continuous string of unsuccessful marriages and affairs all ending in pain and confusion.
Dear Abby says life is a series of lessons and a lesson keeps getting harder until one learns it, then we go to the next lesson.
I know I closed off and build a wall at the age of 7 when my mother refused to take me to a missed kindergarten class. FIFTY YEARS later the wall came down…I’m not making this up.
I’m healthy, look good, don’t drink or smoke and have a successful business.
I understand that we are all connected to the energy of the universe. I have felt it and it is marvelous. I am presently reading The Secret that professes the same knowledge that you know and teach Melanie. I am encouraged and excited to create the most magnificent version of myself each day.
Thank you for your insight and the work you do helping mankind.
Brinton
Hi Mel and everyone,
Co-dependency was a big one for me and I have written a list of my own personal co-dependent issues, which I am happily clearing with NARP, step by step. I know people who rely on Alcohol, drugs or medication to make themselves feel better. I used to live that life too and know now, how it would have lead to my demise eventually.
A verse I found from an artist, which explains about reflection and illusion is worth sharing.
‘ reflection. n. …the action or process by which the mind takes cognizance of its own operations; continued consideration, thought, meditation;….’
( 1982 ) The Concise English Dictionary. Omega.
‘ But most of us do not want to wake up, and so we live in illusion. With the dissolution of conflict, there is tranquillity and then only can reality come into being. Masters, saviours and gurus are unimportant, but what is essential is to understand the increasing conflict of desire; and this understanding comes only through self-knowledge and constant awareness of the movement of the self.’
J. Krishnamurti ( 1997 ) Commentaries on Living. 1st series. Quest Books.
I think this relates to co-dependency too, where we live in our illusions to avoid taking responsibility for self, so cling to experiences on the outside to make us feel safe. Being true to self is so much easier than living in illusions. x
Melanie
I discovered your site through my sister who mentioned the term “gaslighting” to me from here I came across the narcisstic abuse for the first time. I watched your youtube videos before reading your articles which have enlightened me so much and I now see with such clarity my strong pattern of codependency with narcisstic men and women too.
1 recognise my abuse started with my father at such an early age. He made me his golden girl and hooked me only to lie, manipulate and continually break his promises to me.
I later went on to marry a very damaging man who almost destroyed me. I was rescued by an amazing man but I was so damaged I sabotaged this relationship to have an affair with another narcissist who took so much from me. My partner tried to forgive me and I just felt so damaged I walked into another relationship with another narcissist. For 7 years I played a cat and mouse game with this man. I would end the relationship and try and break away and he would come back stronger and stronger with more and more promises. I ended the relationship 2 years ago this month but didn’t do the no contact and we continued to see each other until he met someone new and cut me off refusing to talk to me, speak to me, meet with me. I went to his home and he would look at me with cold reptile eyes and tell me to go away.
I am a strong independent woman with my own business, a son I support and love. I’m surrounded by amazing and healthy friends yet I became a psychotic wreck and one night tried to end my life. I thought I was loosing everything. My ex told people that I needed professional help, he claimed I was crazy, depressed and dangerous. He fabricated stories and lied to some of my friends about my outrageous behaviour. I just didn’t get how a man who proclaimed to the world how much he loved me could treat me like this. I do now understand and you have helped me to clearly see this.
I have a long way to go but I feel a shift. 4 men and 4 very very damaging relationships with narcs has left me stripped me of my sense of self and self worth.
I have never posted on a blog before and perhaps I’ve gone on too long here. I did meet someone a few months ago and recognised very early on those instinctive gut feelings that things weren’t right. At first I put it down to me and “my issues” but then actually stopped the relationship as it was triggering the same feelings. This was liberating for me but its also made me scared and vulnerable at the same time. I realise I have so much healing to do and by now recognising and taking responsibility for my unhealthy pattern with me. I need to love me and change on that energtic level as I do know this approach works. I have been working with the law of attraction approach on other areas in my life and it does work.
When a close friend asked me why I tried to end my life I described how I felt. I described how for so many years I was slowly falling down a well, every now and then I would find a ledge or crevice and rest and feel safe only to fall again, and again, and again until I reached the bottom where there was no light, just a numb emptiness that I couldn’t live with anymore.
I will look at your recovery plan and I’m now so determined to have the life I deserve. I have days of feeling such joy and excitement and they are the feelings that make me feel so grateful to be here still. Melanie thank you so much for this amazing resource.
Ingrid
Thanks Melanie for making a difference in my life.I’m getting there. The jewel that is ME is shining. We will all make it!
Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,you are already that.
~ Rumi
Hi Melanie,
Last night I awoke as I do many nights and my thoughts turn to the devastating effects Nism has had on my life and those of my siblings. Only last night I could actually feel the peptides being released in my body and recognized it. The point is I have been shown that the energy comes from within me, that noone can change it for me, no belief, blame or judgment will ever fix it. Melanie, I am grateful to you for your resources as I continue to maintain no contact and work the recovery tapes. With the holidays arriving her in the U.S. I have reviewed the Narcissism and No Contact e-book and audio as a kind of insurance against possible “holiday hooks” and breaking no contact.
Dear Mel, I am on unit 3 of Quantum healing. I am having a hard time releasing my rage at the narcissist. I lost the house, all of my money and at 67 am having a hard time rebuilding. I don’t miss him but I miss may garden and feel very ripped off/ like a bank that has been robbed.