If we wish to Thrive after narcissistic abuse, there is ONE thing that will start that journey.
Turning our focus inwards …
To heal the only person we can heal to heal our life – ourselves.
But … what is it that we need to heal?
And … how do we discover exactly what it is?
We may not have realised (I certainly didn’t initially and no-one was talking about this) that the answers are RIGHT in our FACE.
The narcissist is, in fact, a mirror, holding up for us and reflecting on to us those unhealed, unconscious parts of us that need our healing attention.
It’s SO ironic that the person abusing us also hands us the key to liberate us … if we know how and where to look.
This Thriver TV episode is about the make or break experience we have after narcissistic abuse – whether we regress into victimhood or evolve.
So … how can we awaken to not only recover from the trauma and the pain of what happened to us but also be freed to experience much higher, pleasant and wholesome relationships in the future?
Watch this episode to find out!
Video Transcript
Many people get really upset with the premise of so within, so without, feeling quite miffed about what we may need to look at and heal within ourselves as a result of being in a relationship with a narcissist.
And, of course, things can get even more confronting when we look at ‘the narcissist as our mirror’. This does not necessarily mean that we are the same as the person, such as a pathological liar and conscienceless, but what it does mean is that the narcissist’s behaviour and the things that they have hurt us with, as well as hooked us in with, are the things that are reflecting back to us our necessary soul messages and lessons to learn and evolve from.
Our painful relationships have a purpose to them. They are impactful. They affect us in significant ways and we have a choice as to whether we are going to go within to realise and then take our inner gifts forward, in order to have much more pleasant and rewarding experiences in the future, or whether we are going to regress into victimhood and be forever scarred, defensive and limited going forward.
The Narcissist Shows Us Who We Want to Be
One of the first ways that narcissists provide a mirror reflecting back to us our vital healing lessons is when we first meet them. If we have an incredibly powerful pull, the feeling like we have met our soul mate, this relates to them ‘being’ all the things that we think our perfect mate needs to be.
Things like attractive, attentive, interested in us, supportive, successful, nourishing and like-minded. If we find ourselves swept up very quickly into heady feelings of love, without getting to know a person for real, this is often an indication that we have entered obsession and enmeshment rather than healthy feelings of connection.
What this really equates to is believing: ‘I think this person is the one’.
But here is the thing, narcissists know how to appear and position themselves to be your everything and we fall for it, and later down the track we keep projecting onto this person who we ‘want’ them to be, rather than accepting ‘who they really are’ and we pay a terrible price for not facing reality.
And, even if this is a healthy person that you have met that has got it going on for real, when we decide to ‘love’ someone because of their attributes, especially aesthetic and accomplishments, rather than what their values are and who they really are on the inside, then we are unconsciously seeking the things that we don’t feel anchored in within ourselves.
Our emptiness inside causes an inability to connect to another person’s true ‘inside’ and gauge a relationship from that real place.
Our best inoculation against false-selves is to be a whole self. Our best way to make relationships work with a whole self is to enter the relationship as one ourselves.
The Four Internal Deficits
Let’s look at what we may be seeking through another. To me, this always fits into four categories, love, approval, security and survival.
If we don’t love ourselves and feel love and bliss through our veins as our own identity, whilst loving life and loving being alive (which are all normal and organic feelings when we start to lovingly self-partner, go within and release ourselves from trauma to be our True Self) we will frenetically need to be in a relationship to have someone else ‘loving us’.
This leads to deficient self-approval. When we are devoid of love flowing through us as us, then our approval of self is conditional too. It goes like this: ‘When I have a partner I will be whole. When I have this in place, or when I have reached this milestone, or when I get these things or states, then I can approve of myself.’
We think approval is about other people believing we are good enough, but its actually always to do with ourselves. And the irony is if we don’t approve of ourselves and instead try to have other people supply us with what we believe is necessary to feel worthy, such as attractiveness, lifestyle, wealth or acquisitions, we will be left without them. We inevitably come back to that same place of necessary healing within us what we have been seeking from outside of ourselves.
Ironically our healing is never about getting the stuff. It is actually about loving and approving of ourselves as we are.
And isn’t it strange (not!) that until we make this journey of self-healing, we will never love people for themselves. We may only place value on them for how they look or what they have to offer. Narcissists are more comfortable about being objectified and sexualised because their egos love that level of ego feed (even though a relationship will never work with a narcissist because enough will never be enough), but real people will dislike it and be turned off by it immensely.
Naturally, the missing feelings of security and survival also fit into the categories of trying to source from outside ourselves the acquisitions, success and lifestyles that may make us feel secure, but really this goes much deeper.
The Need For Survival
Our survival terrors are about deep primal survival programs, and often these are highly involved when we are in narcissistic relationships.
Maybe we have always felt unsafe and even had an insidious inner fear of being abandoned, annihilated and cast out. Maybe in times of confrontation, we have handed our power away and found ourselves automatically freezing, tongue-tied, not honouring ourselves and trying to keep the peace to avoid C.R.A.P. (criticism, rejection, abandonment and punishment).
Or maybe we overreact and hook right into situations with unhealthy pathological people, who are abusing us, despite the insanity and simply can’t pull away to look after ourselves, even when we know we need to.
Those survival programs go like this: ‘If I don’t stay attached and fix this, I’m dead.’
If you have never as yet delved deeply into past life and epigenetic generational traumas, please take it from me, they are responsible for so much of our unconscious behaviour that simply does not serve us, and they can be WAY too huge to overcome until we go inwards and find them and resolve them.
I personally would not be alive, let alone Thriving if I hadn’t sorted out mine.
Becoming What We Wish to Receive
We don’t need to match potential partners, to receive the goodies that they may share in relationships with us, but we do need to be clear of trying to seek out what we feel is missing. The reason is very clear, it’s because of Quantum Law, ‘so within, so without’.
Whatever we feel is missing stays missing. We either get with a narcissist where that ‘thing’ was never for real anyway or in a relationship with someone who is not a narcissist where we will lose that commodity by losing that person because it was never their job to fill our deficits in the first place. It’s our own.
All relationships are powerful mirrors reflecting back our unhealed parts so that the unconscious can become conscious and we can heal them if we choose to wake up and go within. Yet, narcissistic relationships magnify that mirror dramatically in a way that we can’t avoid the lesson, because not only are we back at square one without that thing we unconsciously tried to seek through another, we are even further behind now than when we started.
Life and our souls ingeniously turn up the impact of the lesson until we get it.
Discovering The Area Which Require Healing
So, let’s jump straight into a self-exploratory session with the mirror that was being held up to you. And I really suggest pausing this video and working with a journal through this stuff.
What were the things that you idolised about with this person that you may still be struggling to let go of?
Write them down.
Now… which of these things don’t you believe, cogenerating with life, you can provide for yourself?
Do you feel you need another person to do this? If that’s how you feel you are in ‘Wrong Town’. It won’t work. If you don’t understand this, you aren’t healing and getting the lesson.
When you do accept this lesson, you know there is the necessity to apply one of these two healing solutions, either healing your own blocks and limitations in order to become a whole source of that thing to yourself, non-reliant on another providing it for you or letting go of the need of it in your life, which means healing the conditional self-approval that you have been applying to yourself regarding it.
Now, either way, there is the space and the freedom for what you are already being, ‘wholeness’, to come into your life and add more to what already exists.
Now, let’s check out the survival programs, the reasons that you stayed attached despite unhappiness and even severe abuse.
List the times when you stayed attached, made excuses, chose to forgive unforgivable behaviour and did not leave the relationship and/or break all contact with an abusive person. And check into why you still may obsess and ‘want’ them, after leaving, or being left, even though you know that is logically ridiculous.
There is only one way to recognise and embrace what it is that this person was teaching you.
Go within, and ask your inner being, ‘Why is it in that situation I didn’t leave?’ And, ‘Why can’t I accept that this person is no good for me and move on?’
I want you to get really real and vulnerable with yourself, because that small still inner voice within will grant you feelings and information like ‘I felt like I was going to die’, “I feel like I would never have love again’, ‘I felt like my life would be finished’ and, ‘I would never cope alone’ or ‘I felt like I would never survive on my own’. Whatever it is.
Record what you receive in your journal.
I promise you that these are beliefs and traumas that you have in your energy field that once addressed will not feel like this. In fact, when you do address and heal them, not only will these terrible feelings of conditional enmeshment and addiction dissolve, you will also feel more liberated, free, expanded and joyous than you ever did even before you were in this relationship with this person.
Why? Because they were a mirror reflecting back to you. If you go within, what you needed to heal in order to become the next highest and most expanded version of your true self, without exception.
Does that make sense?
I hope this episode has been big food for thought for you and helped you turn inwards to heal the only person you can heal. To heal your life yourself.
And if you’d like to learn more about how to powerfully heal this stuff for real, you can sign up to my free 16-day recovery course, which includes an invitation to a healing workshop with me, a set of eBooks and lots more.
So, until next time… keep smiling, keep healing and keep thriving because there’s nothing else to do.
When my ex-husband finally agreed to leave it was the best day of my life! I was leaping tall buildings with a single bound as I started my healing and grieving of our failing marriage 2 years before he agreed their was nothing left. I am very grateful for the inner work I did attending Al-Anon that started my healing journey and then became a Reiki Master then took hypnosis to heal the inner wounds that I feel were born of generational traumas. He did however continue to use our 3 children as pawns, controlling them and turning them against me. My son came back after 4 years with his father who would buy him anything, of course none of which was actually good for him. I’ve been self-partnering for 16 years and loving it. Have dated here and there, however I find many people both men and women are affected by this type of abuse and often they spend too much time pointing fingers rather than taking responsibility for their part and heal that. I’m being very well until another whole human crosses my path as life is just too beautiful being with a fake human. Melanie , your work here painting the picture of this abuse is splendid, I am so grateful for being wise enough to take full responsibility for my on healing 16 years ago and finding your material so accurately and precisely explained can only make others realize what real living is all about!
Blessings for contributing to an abundant consciousness on this beautiful planet
Hi Kim,
That is so beautiful that you too are an advocate for the inner work.
You are so welcome and thank you for your consciousness too.
Our world can awaken and in many ways is, because of us understanding this.
Many continued blessings to you
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This does make sense. I always thought he was the smartest man but I’m smart too! I always thought he was the one who could make all the money and I just couldn’t. Well I’m about to burst with exciting new ideas for a future for my boys and myself. I’m plugging away. Something great will come out of this!
Thanks Mel
💕
Hi Andrea,
I love that are excited about bursting into your own power!
Thrive on!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Melanie, really interesting video today! I can honestly say, the narcissist I was involved with was definitely a mirror for me. A big wake up call. My story (and ….I sometimes still shudder at this story, but, it’s true), I met my narcissist over 25 years ago. Of course I was young and unaware of anything. We were involved, but it didn’t last long (a few months) because he just disappeared. Since I was young,it didn’t really bother me much. It wasn’t a close dating relationship, and the only thing I do remember about him was that he was very distant. So, he disappeared, and I simply moved on.
Fast forward a few years later, eventually I met someone and got married. Sadly, the marriage ended after 15 years (that was not an abusive relationship) but we both decided it was the best thing for both of us, so we parted amicably.
I gave myself a little over a year to start dating again after my divorce. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone so quickly and wanted to give myself some “me” time to start over. Eventually, I decided to get back out there, so of course, I try out the online dating scene. The very first person I met online, I was immediately attracted to him. Although he had only 1 photo, and it was blurry, we eventually exchanged phone numbers and spoke on the phone. To my shock, it was him! The man I briefly dated many years ago! I actually believed this was the ultimate true love story. What I didn’t know is that this was far from it. Turned into a complete nightmare. I can go on and on of all the red flags that I ignored. I can go and on about how my boundaries were weak, my self-esteem and self value not at the level they should be. I can go and on about my childhood wounds and traumas.
This man…by accident (which was no accident) was brought back into my life for a reason. And it was to learn what I didn’t learn 25 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 5 years ago. Until now.
It’s funny, I remember Katherine Woodward Thomas’ story of how she met her husband. My story is pretty much identical, only the complete opposite of the end result.
Eventually after 2 years, I ended the relationship with the narc after I realized what was going on and feeling that my over-all well being was in danger. I got out. But not after 2 years! If there was a hard core lesson in the waiting, the universe telling me that I didn’t get it the first time, didn’t get it the 2nd time but would on the 3rd, this is it! There’s no doubt this is exactly how it was suppose to go in order for me to learn. Wake up. Change. Make the changes within.
Just wanted to share my story. My mirror now is me. When I look into it, I am more comfortable in who I am and the direction I am going. But what a way to learn this very important lesson. Also, I am here, in a much better place because of you. So a million thanks for everything you do.
Hi Linda,
Wow!
What an incredible story of this soul contract.
That is so wonderful Dear Lady that you awakened and have finished it.
So much power, healing and love to you.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you, Mel!!!
Your teachings have helped me immensely!
I will put serious thought into what you spoke about in this lecture.
I’m going on about the 40th day of no contact after finally fleeing from my abusive ex narc after 8 years together.
Don’t know if I would’ve been able to get through it if it weren’t for your teachings.
I’m not thriving yet, but I’m definitely surviving.
Thank you so much
Hi Jason,
It’s my pleasure and that’s so wonderful that you are coming out the other side!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This was a powerful exercise for me. I suddenly viscerally connected with myself at the time I was a baby. With all my being I felt that I needed my mom to turn towards me, see me, hug me, connect with me and bond with me in order to survive. It was a feeling of desperately striving for something that wasn’t there. I felt that the world was cold and gray and disconnected, and I would be ok if only I could be loved. My mom is a narc and I’ve had several narc boyfriends and a narc ex husband. I just realized in those relationships a big draw was the craving to be seen and a sort of magnetic physical craving to be hugged.
Melanie, I have a question. I’ve gone no contact with those exes that I can, but I still wonder this: do we ever see a glimmer of the true self in the narc that we genuinely love, even though that love can never exist in this lifetime in a healthy way, or is our love for the person founded entirely on a mirage / false self, and therefore not founded on reality at all?
Great question! I’d love to hear the answer to that myself!
Hi Kristina,
This is wonderful that you experienced a deep connection and understanding of a core wound.
This grants you such an opportunity to meet and heal this.
I truly believe in the case of narcissism that the True Self isn’t functioning and there isn’t available.
At soul level the contract to help us heal and evolve was all about love.
Because at true Ultinate Reality level that is all that exists.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
I’m feeding overwhelmed in my marriage. I’m afraid to leave my husband, I’m a stay at home mom of two kids and I’m not close to my parents or sibling because of past abuse. I believe my husband has a personality disorder and it’s hard to live with it. I want my family to stay together and at the same time, I’m sad and lost. I feel so alone, I have my faith in God to inspire me, I would like a community of people to talk to that understands. I’m grateful for this resource. I need help.
Hi Michelle,
I’d love to help you connect to the safety and support of this incredible community.
My highest suggestion to you is to connect to my free inner transformational resources. http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freecourse
I so hope this helps.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
I want to get it. I really do but I don’t! He was my mirror? I remember the early days, feeling he loved me so deeply and all those things…… how wonderful he seemed…… how good it all felt way too fast. I remember the slow progression to more and more episodes of awful over years. They grew closer together until it all felt bad and I was an insecure mess in the end. Still am in regard to him. I very much want to let go of all he triggers in me. But I do not grasp the concept. So times I can think of (too many to count) where he was awful and I felt traumatized, he was my mirror? Showing me what needed to be healed? He did “this” and I felt “that”…… you mean whatever it was I felt was what I need to heal? I can’t find a word for what I would feel except devastated during those times. Hurt. Lonely in that pain. But I can’t think of a word. I was afraid a lot. I just don’t get it but I want to.
Hi Macy,
I’d love to invite you into a deeper dive into these concepts do that you can gain a better understanding and embodiment as well as how to heal and experience relief.
My free workshop is a way to do that: http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
I so hope this can help.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Macy, I tend to agree with you. This is the only person in my life that I have come across that is so full of himself that he made my 31 1/2 year marriage intolerable. I am still married but am taking steps to not be. I know who I am, I always have. I approve of myself although there are times when I disapprove of the stupid things I do. I am good on my own. I do not need him to validate who I am. That is part of the big rub against him. He has tried diligently all these years by “gas-lighting” to cause me to see myself as a failure. He even called me a “bad mom” and a “bad wife” out of the blue! I KNOW I am neither!
His character at the time I met him is what attracted me to him, not anything physical or $$. It was his “outgoing” personality…his “love for God” and his service to God at the time. I has always desired a “godly” man as a partner and mate. He presented that picture quite clearly…until after we were married! Then I began to see the “real” him. He is still trying to fake his spirituality but people see through him including the pastor.
I did have a fear of abandonment but not anymore. He used that fear against me because he knew of the various ways I has been abandoned.
I never “idolized” him but I was impressed with what appeared to be “unselfish” giving of $$ to help people. I discovered years later that his”giving” was to make himself look good because he complained all the time to me behind those he gave to about how ungrateful they were. I discovered that he need “adulation” and it is an insatiable need. Since I didn’t grovel at his feet in appreciation when I was given a “gift” or he did something nice for me, I was in his eyes, ungrateful. I am not a “gusher” and it would be fake of ne to gush at him. Therefore, I am a “bad wife”.
He proved to be a “spiritual NARC”.
I have “let go” of any “expectations of his heart changing yet he has accused me of “never going to change”. I have but not the ways he wants or likes because I won’t cower to him anymore.
I stayed “attached” for 31 years for the $$ security and that I made vows before God to stay in all circumstances. However, I can no longer stay. It isn’t worth the pain. I will trust that God will provide. The biggest fear is that he WILL try to take everything from me…he tried it three years ago when he filed for divorce and then called it off a few weeks later. He did not want to be accountable for anything.
I never felt like I would “die” without him. Or that I am unlovable..in fact I know I am! He just can’t accept love. At 67 I am going to stay unattached. I am fine with who I am and living alone. I do not need a man to complete me. I can survive on my own!
I have been in “counseling” for myself about 5 years. There has NEVER been any situation in my life where I had needed outside help. This man has been diagnosed by my counselor as the worst she had ever seen in over 20 years of being a counselor. We did go to “marriage” counseling three or four different times and with her for 2 years. She advises that since he is so far gone that my leaving is the best thing for my sanity.
Stay strong. If you have any type of faith in God, please take advantage of your pastor’s “spiritual” advice and then find a really good counselor.
♥️ This brought tears to my eyes I’m 27 and I could’ve wrote this. Been with this monster for 11 years and I won’t out!!
Beautiful article.
Hi Nicoleta,
Thank you!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This is beautiful!!
Thank you for these instructive exercises, and your continual encouragement to stay on this path.
It’s Groups like this that have helped me to stay alive & maintain a “Bulldog Tenacity” to not back down.
Even though its been extremely painful, I know that it’s the best thing that could have ever happened to me!
Otherwise, I would have never known about the reality of Narcissism, and the seriousness of survivng its’ incidious abuse even existed!
Today, I no longer have to be in the dark to the “lifetime patterns that even began in my mother’s womb” that marked me as a target for
destruction because of my childhood programming. By the Grace of God I can truly allow Him to help me totally reprogram my subconscious
mind…and become the person I never dreamed to be!
Love to all!
Hi Aneas,
You are very welcome. I love that you are taking the blessing of your experience.
Cheers and power to you for your purposeful emancipation and incredible life from this.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Thank you Mel,
I have always felt more about obtaining a lifestyle, achievements, maturity, experiences in travel and education along with a good working history that make up a solid sense of identity and funny enough all of that has gone in my life as part of my own wake up call. Had two narcissists in my life first one was a lucky escape but that trauma then played out again with a high level sociopath that was severely disordered and those survival programs that you spoke about really came to the surface for me because I felt like I just could not leave the dread and shock in my body was just too severe. Had anxious attachment with both parents and always felt unsafe as a child had a trauma family of origin right from the get go and suffered a lot of adversity from a young age so really it’s no wonder. Rather than trying to use my own mind to connect the dots and find these patterns and think ‘okay well I see that and I realize that so now I will be better prepared for life’ and then grief my way through emotions does not seem to work because I still have so many scars and deep wounds plus all those fabulous complex symptoms of trauma. Tried positive focus, bush flowers, bowen therapy and some other forms of body work just to keep me going but there is seriously something wrong here just not sure what the antidote maybe?
Cheers,
Elaine
Hi Elaine,
It certainly is one thing to understand the deep patterns and another to complete eradicate the trauma from inside of us in order to get onto another life trajectory.
I’d love you to try Qunata Freedom Healing, it was the key for me and so many others in this community.
You can connect to this information and a free QFH healing with me here:
http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
Mel 🙏💕❤️
The narcissist and mirroring was eye opening and enlightening. In the last 3 months I have had to walk away from my mother and sister. (Narcissistic mother and narcissistic sibling). It has been liberating, freeing and like someone woke me up. Both these relationships have been toxic for me for 60yrs and I have spent 60yrs trying to fit in and be loved and liked by them only for them to pick on everything about me; they have a negative comment to make about something every time they see me. Now for 3 months I have not had the stress of their behaviour and I can finally start to be me. It’s been such a wake up call. And it’s been the best thing I have done in a long time. This video confirmed I have finally made the right decision. I am not prepared to live the last third of my life kidnapped by a narcissist.
I was deeply encouraged by the two options you gave for healing. Non-conditional self approval is what I really feel called to give to myself right now. I’ve been plugging away at the first option but not quick enough to feel a major breakthrough. I really feel this self acceptance will help me take the pressure off myself and my healing journey.
Hi SP,
I’m so glad this resonated with you and feels right for you right now.
Bless!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Question 1. What were the things that you idolised about with this person that you may still be struggling to let go of?
My answer; Being loved
Question 2. Now, let’s check out the survival programs, the reasons that you stayed attached despite unhappiness and even severe abuse
My answer; Being lonely
Seeing it written down as “simple” as that certainly made me look into myself. Firstly I need to love myself, (which I never really have) and secondly I was always lonely with him, always on edge wondering what he was doing and who with, I am not lonely anymore as I do not have that horrible feeling in my gut.
Hi Karen,
This is great that this has helped you turn inwards to help you heal.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This is valid only when you meet the narcissist later in life. As a child, being born out of crazy parents (narcissist and co-dependent), you are a pure victim, they force their madness into you and create a new narcissist or codependent or a mix of the two. If you are not lucky to realize this and struggle to heal the madness, you continue the madness line, passing it on to your children.
Hi Laura,
It is so true as children, there was no choice.
Yet as adults, we can release trauma and heal.
For all of narcissric parents or not a great deal of trauma, unconsciousness and deficient boundaries and self-love impacted us.
Much of our work is on these core wounds to free us today.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
I think so too my answer to the questions regarding my narcissistic mom and my enabling father are:
Quiestion 1
My mother was my world and my whole universe, I admired her over everything, and I didn´t knew any other reality. She made me believe that she loved me and she said she did. She used to say I was the most important thing in her life. I didn’t realize she was abusing me and that I was actually the hostage. In my eyes she knew better, and she made me believe so too.
The reason I stayed attached to her was because she was my mother and I was blind I didn´t knew that I was getting abused it was normal. My entire life was like that.
This isn’t true I was born out of this duo. And ended up with many abusive people(partners and friends) it was my current partner that held up that mirror and I saw what all my wounds bloody and bruised. I even said to him I hate that you have brought me face to face with my trauma to the point that I can’t do anything but heal myself. And at 28 I’m doing that, you can too. I also went no contact with my family. So I have no one so I have a self to build and plenty of time to heal.
Fantastic article, so very helpful in our healing journeys, thanks very much Melanie!
I wonder what you think about the concept of us also being the mirror for the narcissists?? Do we not also have the qualities that they secretly wish they had, secretly admire etc? They would not admit it to us or themselves of course…..what are your thoughts on that Melanie??
@Linda, I know you addressed your question to Melanie, but I was going to write this anyway, so I might as well do it here and offer you the insights I’ve gained over the last several weeks. Apologies if I stepped on anyone’s toes.
My history: I was in a marriage for 18 years. Non narc, we parted amicably. As soon as I was out, I met an online narc. A year and a half in, I knew something was very wrong and ended it by ghosting him. Not one word, not one keystroke has followed since. Hard on the heels of that, I met and became involved with another narc. Not that I knew it then. He presented himself as a shaman and spiritual healer, which ultimately gave him an excuse for all sorts of dysfunctional behavior, including silent treatments, gaslighting, re-writing history, sexual dysfunction, total disrespect of boundaries, blame shifting, and the kingpin, goal-post moving. Innumerable red flags – there was always a Word Salad of “explanations” to go along with the helping heaping of misery. Long story short, I ghosted him, too – left without a word and moved out 2 months ago yesterday. At that time, I was physically ill from being with him, and I honestly believe that escaping from him saved my life.
In my efforts to understand and heal, doing lots of reading, I realized something: The narc doesn’t have an identity, so he mirrors that of the empath/victim to make the victim fall in love with him and so solidify the enmeshment and begin the fuel supply which feeds his false self. What the empath does is to mirror the narc (CREATING a false self with endless people pleasing, changing your true self to conform with what you believe the narc wants, etc), and make the narc fall in love with them, and so gain love, approval, or whatever other need the empath is lacking in themselves. Two sides of the same coin. The love you want and need exists, it is IN YOU, else there would be nothing for the narc to mirror. The good news is that because it’s in you, the one who can love you best, correctly for you, is YOU. The bad news is that the mirror the narc holds up to you reflects only a shadow – not the reality. If you examine what you thought you saw (love, approval, etc), then you know what you’re missing and can do the work needed to heal the wounds. It’s not pretty, but it is SO worth it.
I hope this makes sense. Sorry it’s so long. Melanie, do you have any resources on the guru/spiritual narc? thank you!
Hi Kelly,
What you have written is 100 percent accurate.
I wrote about this here https://blog.melanietoniaevans.com/the-narcissist-and-co-dependent-two-sides-of-the-same-coin/
Please find this resource on the spiritual narcissist https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Brfhu2ejmdQ
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hi Linda,
Thank you Linda, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Absolutely people who struggle to be their own light (catatonic true Self) seek lifeforce and light from those who have it. And especially those with boundaries that are used to being violated.
Mel ❤️💕🙏
Thank you Melanie and Kelly. Yes, I relate as I’ve healed too several years ago from two former narcs (my ex husband and ex fiance), after doing the necessary healing work and understanding both NPD and codependency. It’s like being re-born. Happiness and health to you both, and to all on their healing journeys xxxx
Hi Melanie
I broke up with my narcissist a year ago. The pain was so severe it took me a long time to get over it. I never would have thought that I would be in a better place then, but I am. One thing he didn’t count on was my inner strength. I don’t have the pain anymore and consider myself well on my way to healing . If I had of done the Mirror exercise then, it just wouldn’t have worked. However, now that I have survived my first year with the help of so many good and supportive friends. The mirror exercise makes sense. I was all of the things you said. I am aware of what I need to do . I have come a long way and think I’m okay but the reality is I’m not there yet. I am so thankful I have reached out to you and listen to your videos. They are a life line and help me stay on track.
Many thanks to all that you do. Namaste.
Nancy.
Hi Nancy,
That is so wonderful you are now surviving and able to take the step into your evolution and Thriving!
Many continued blessings to you!
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Hello and thank you for all that you do and for sharing so much.
I read this article a few times. In my case, my daughter is the narcissist in my life and holds my grandchildren hostage. I honestly don’t think she wants anything from me other than to shoot missiles at me. This seems to give her great pleasure. I haven’t seen my grandchildren since this past May and before that it was in August 2017. This whole estrangement thing started 3 years ago.
I’ve dealt with this in a variety of ways………nothing I did really changed anything. Everything I did always made me feel bad about my choice or reason for doing it because of her bs. Last week I just decided I was tired of it and let her have it full blast which made her nuts. She was sputtering all over herself via email trying to turn things around on me. I didn’t allow it but what I have realized is that I allowed her to take me to the same place that she is. I don’t want to be that person. I’m not that person.
I could let my daughter go without contact after all she has done, but I love and miss my 5 and 8 year old grandchildren who, prior to the estrangement, I practically raised. So, I always take the bait. Even though I think I’m in control I’m not. I send the kids small gifts and cards every month just so they know I am thinking of them. I have no idea what she tells them. I don’t say anything wrong in the letters to them because I don’t think they need to be involved in this. Sooner or later they are going to want answers if they don’t already. I know I can’t control what she says to them. This is the part that I struggle with. Walk away? Don’t walk away? How do you keep one foot in the door without getting your heart crushed? How do I save myself without them thinking I abandoned them. Is there even an answer for this?
Thank you,
Dana
Hi Dana,
I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that must be for you.
Dana please google my name and ‘our children’ as well as ‘narcissistic children’ and you will find my resources that can help you.
My work totally advocates ‘so within so wirhout’ Meaning to do the healing work inside us so that the trauma decreases and our empowered and clear boundaries can emerge.
There have been people within this community, who as a result of working on the NARP program, have been able to turn things around with narcissistic children and gain better and healthier access with their grandchildren.
The shift always has to come within, because we certainly can’t get any change – and we only receive more trauma – by trying to get a pathological person to act decently and reasonably.
I hope something in this can help you.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Excellent article. It works with groups, too. I think a museum is my mirror right now! I left journalism with a swag of untold stories, mainly historical, I think I joined this group hoping I would find approval, a prod, confidence, the Authority to publish for myself. What did I find? A bloody narcissist! Haha, gave her the flick in short time, but of course there are always enablers ……….
I’ve waited so long to figure what this is telling me and I think you have nailed it. Her enablers have been showing me all the little blocks to anchoring into my own Authority. Clever you.
Why doesn’t ‘God’ just give us a puzzle book and mark us pass or fail when we hand it in. Life is just drawn-out and agonising the way it is designed.
Hi Lucy,
You are so right. Life is always reflectung back to us where we are while (what works and flows) and where we are not (where we keep coming up empty).
Life is that instruction book and our emotional feelings are the answers. The inner work is the key to change the code.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Excellent. I love your work because it does not promise miracle cures from taking a pill or a mental trick. It brings us back to the only source of recovery and discovery, our deep inner selves. Since I was born with serious mental disorder which would cause me to lose control, I always thought I needed someone external to take care of me during these rough times. That’s is not feasible nor is it fair to ask that of another.
Having done awareness medication for 20 years daily, I have developed some amazing tools and powers to visit emotional places closely that previously were too scary. I’ve done years of meditative regression analysis and the weaknesses in my life come back to 3 “perceived” traumas before ages 7-8. And these are the same places I go to when I do my inner work as you so beautifully describe.
For me though, it’s still not easy to go visit those places closely and try to transform them. I thought that visiting them and becoming somewhat comfortable with them was all I needed to do. You have so helped me to realize that those are 2 of the 3 steps required for true freedom and healthiness. I need to transform those spiritually at the core level. And as much self work as I have done in my lifetime, ‘ the “transform” piece still scares me because I am alone unless I go into that meditation focusing on my eternal universal connectedness to all. Without that connectedness, the old “I can’t take care of myself and will ultimately be abandoned to die alone in misery,” takes control. I must have connection with the higher spiritual powers. You guided me so well here. Amazing!
Thank you so much. I love your work.
-Dan
Hi Dan,
I am so pleased this has made sense to you.
I am such a fan of not having to live with our trauma, and instead to full release it and replace it with Source, so that we get the shift from our damaged self into our True Self.
That is what Quanta Freedom Healing performs as well as a deep inner inventory, self partnering and love and healing of ourselves (it’s not gimmicky at all) and I’d love you to experience it with me in my free seminar http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar
The process is very loving and supportive.
We all deserve to be trauma free.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
Melanie, one other question: do you believe that the apparent proliferation of narcissists in the world today (assuming I’m not gun shy and seeing a narc behind every bush!) is as a result of an accelerated energetic push towards human spiritual evolution? I was very interested to read your LBL experience.
Thanks!
Hi Melanie,
Yes, this really challenged me…
‘Why is it in that situation I didn’t leave?’ Hmm, I was abused mentally and physically as a child at home and bullied at school. What a child can do? We have obligation to go to school and as a child, we are completely depending on our parents. We can’t survive without them, as children we don’t have own money, home, resources, nothing. So I had no choice but to stay in that situation and adapt/survive. I think that’s why n abuse felt somehow (horrible to say), “normal” to me. Maybe on some level I believed I deserve to be treated badly. I have unconsciously learned to “disconnect” and “disassociate”, almost like not being present/in my body.
Even now, when I think about the n, I think “it really wasn’t that bad”, when it really was!! It almost caused my suicide. I don’t know if it’s some mechanism that my mind wants to protect me, and that’s why I tend to think “it wasn’t so bad” and belittle the experience.
“Now… which of these things don’t you believe, cogenerating with life, you can provide for yourself? Do you feel you need another person to do this?”
Now when I think, the n made me feel (at the beginning, when he was still seemingly normal) myself: alive, radiant, happy, connected to myself, to him, to life, to my body, being present in this moment, connected to my sexuality, femininity, beautiful…in other words, the very best version of me. Aww. Now your question makes me smile, yes, I think I could provide these things for myself, even without a n in my life 🙂 I have actually never thought this before, this way.
‘Why can’t I accept that this person is no good for me and move on?’
Now I feel the silliest person on planet…But I thought I understood the concept of law of attraction etc. I had “set” a firm intention to find “the one”. When this one (n) appeared, I thought, yay, this must be the one! Of course he played that role perfectly. (I’m actually annoyed with all the incomplete law of attraction advice out there…when applied/understood this way incorrectly, it’s just bloody dangerous!)
I couldn’t let go of the dream…admit my failure…that actually he isn’t the one, soulmate. I wanted desperately, that I could return being “the best version of me” and he would return to “the best version of him”, like we were in the beginning. We all want to find love, that special someone, he was actually my first “real” boyfriend, he became closer to me than anyone ever (physically). Yes, it was hard to let go of all that wonderful stuff, and that’s why I could’t/didn’t want to see the reality, his dark side…yep, this is my answer to the question.
By the way, sorry if I’ve understood you wrong (hopefully I am!), but sometimes I feel like you are almost “anti-relationships”, and it irritates me. Like the goal of healing and self-partnering would be to become islands, hermits, never need anyone for anything. If we want and need and long to have a man/partner…I think it’s normal. Come on, doesn’t everyone want it? I mean not like obsessively, and I certainly didn’t want any men for anything after the n abuse…but I don’t want to be the rest of my life alone. It breaks my heart, but the things I most enjoyed with the n (or any partner, friend( was to share very ordinary things, going to super market, having lunch, walking outside. Sure, I can do those things alone, but other persons presence makes it all so much more nicer <3 Is it somehow wrong to want things, if no other reason that they are simply nice? 🙂
I don't like this one: "non-reliant on another providing it for you or letting go of the need of it in your life". For me that sounds almost like letting go of…humaneness! 🙁 Now I joke, but what's the point of sexy underwear, if there's no boyfriend to see them? How I am supposed to have sex with myself, alone? I can't have a family and become pregnant without a man contributing to it…sometimes we just need other people, and I think that's perfectly human, normal, life! I love what Katherine Woodward Thomas has said: your longing (to have a partner) is normal and good for you; it's a healthy, wholesome, holy longing. We need other people to become to the fullness who we are and what we have to offer. I agree with her profoundly <3
Loved this. Thank you. I appreciate that you keep calling us all to our higher selves, to a strong vibration, and to a more engaged life.
Hi Lee,
I’m so glad this resonated with you.
Thank you and please know you are very welcome.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
I think so too my answer to the questions regarding my narcissistic mom and my enabling father are:
Quiestion 1
My mother was my world and my whole universe, I admired her over everything, and I didn´t knew any other reality. She made me believe that she loved me and she said she did. She used to say I was the most important thing in her life. I didn’t realize she was abusing me and that I was actually the hostage. In my eyes she knew better, and she made me believe so too.
Question 2
The reason I stayed attached to her was because she was my mother and I was blind I didn´t knew that I was getting abused it was normal. My entire life was like that.
Hi Melanie.
Ow! Despite the fact I’ve been actively doing NARP since February, this episode cut like a knife. I was okay with looking at the level of what I idolised in my latest narcissist. It wasn’t a problem to admit things on the level that I want the affirmation of being found attractive because I don’t feel attractive or that I want entertaining because I don’t take responsibility for my experience in life. I know those things are operating already. When it got really hard was when I started asking myself why I have chosen to connect with a series of sexual narcissists over the last 18 months and how their behaviours might be mirroring me. I can hardly bear to share because I feel such shame. What I have increasingly been seeing, is that I have turned exchanges with men into sexual ones. I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I always blamed the men for it. I have had sex with more men than I even want to remember with absolutely no regard to my feelings about it or whether I actually wanted to. On top of that, I have encouraged men to think of me in terms that debase or abuse me. Partly it manifests a deep desire to punish myself for being sexual. What I have ignored is the little girl that lives on inside who is crying in pain at the prospect. The thing that really strikes me is my belief that I am worthless. I have put myself through repeated experiences that have reinforced this false belief. No wonder I am still interacting with a man who asks about the number of men I have slept with repeatedly causing me great discomfort…..I do the same thing myself. I am obsessed with judging my sexual behaviour, punishing myself for it and generating self-hatred. I could cry.
Hi Hilary,
Your honesty and owning this is such a healing in itself Dear Lady.
It’s so powerful, and I know 100 percent that when you go inwards to shift this trauma, your transformation into even greater light, love and truth will be spectacular.
You’ve got this and we have all got you.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
This spoke volumes to me. I HAVE grown from this person in my life and i am in a much better place. I believe he came into my life to help me heal. It’s been quite painful but well worth it. Now for completely letting go. Thank you for your videos. They have been instrumental in understanding this situation in my life.
Hi Leti,
That is so beautiful that you have embraced the truth and are reaping the rewards.
Wishing you many continued blessings.
Mel 🙏💕❤️
My mom was codependent and father is still a narcissist. I went through a lot of abuse before my spirit stepped into the forefront and said enough is enough. It I told him about my past traumas, big mistake. I told him how when I was 10, my father made fun of me when the old man down the road tried to rape me and force me into his van. One day while I was telling a story to the narcissist, he said the name of that man as if it were a joke. It triggered in me and I felt the way I did when I a child when my family made fun of me being nearly raped several times.
I’m at a place in my life where I don’t really anyone. I love and prefer my own company. Things could go well and he’ll out the blue say something hurtful to get a rise out me. I used to reacted and I know thats what he wanted. Now I just think to myself you know why he’s doing this. And he’ll keep going and I still Grey rock. I’m stuck because he moved me to Australia from the US. And I don’t have financial security. But I’m working on a few things, planning my escape. I gave myself a little over a year to go.
I tried to join the course but it said ‘something went wrong’ fyi