Recently I was asked, via a comment on my YouTube channel, to explain what self-partnering is. It is a term I often use as the foundation of healing from narcissistic abuse.

It would seem that this term is self-explanatory – but is it really?

Why would it be when we have not been living in a world that has explained, encouraged or taught self-partnering?

In this article,  you will learn how not being self-partnered was the number one reason we were narcissistically abused and why it is impossible to heal from narcissistic abuse if we don’t come home to ‘meeting ourselves’.

You will also discover exactly what self-partnering is, what you can achieve by being self-partnered, and how it is a template to not only heal ourselves but also to heal our world.

Truly, this is one of the most important recovery articles I have ever written, and I hope it inspires you to know there is a way out of the hellish pain and into love, freedom and a healthy life.

 

What Does Self-Partnering Mean?

In Western developed societies, self-partnering is barely recognised.

Even if we have some concept of what it might be, do we know how to do it?

Possibly not…

Self-partnering is a huge determinant within this Thriver Community, and recovering from narcissistic abuse depends on this one essential ingredient: “Am I willing to self-partner with myself or not?”

Also, am I willing to understand this: “My relationship with narcissists reflects back to me how I am not as yet self-partnered and how I can be affected in terrible ways because of this.”

Our unfortunate programming – the turning away from self-partnering – is the biggest reason we were narcissistically abused… truly.

So I really hope this article can help you if you feel confused about self-partnering, and that you will be inspired to understand how everything in your life is determined by how self-partnered you are or are not.

 

The Irony of Partnering

The truth is virtually every adult wants to love and be loved; desiring the companionship of a partner is a normal and healthy life goal.

This only becomes an issue when we believe a partner can make us happy, fulfilled, or feel worthy of being loved.

This is a grand illusion, which has not only made people very unhappy to spend time and be by themselves,  but has also caused them to put a great deal of strain on any prospective partner by assuming that it is their partner’s job to provide them with the relationship and happiness that they have not yet established within themselves.

This is the standard ‘outside-in’ orientation that, sadly, most relationships are based on.

I used to live it terribly, as most co-dependents at some stage of their journey do…

What this means is expectations. We believe that people are supposed to behave and do certain things for us to feel happy, loved and whole. This is the dynamic that co-dependents play with other co-dependents and/or narcissists.

It means the two people involved cannot live healthily with ‘space’ between them. Both people are looking at each other, needing some type of attention to continually confirm “This person loves me”, “I am worthy of love”, “I can feel okay about my life now,” or “This person is not going to do the wrong thing by me”.

Past the honeymoon period, this leads to trouble. Real-life demands start taking people’s attention away and off each other. The mask cracks for all concerned, and the real person starts showing up – not the ‘Hollywood version’ on their best behaviour.

There is enmeshment. Suppose someone does not do ‘enough’ for the other to feel whole and healthy. This brings on reactions such as passive-aggressive behaviour, sulking, ‘tit for tat’ behaviour, or anxious clinging, pleading, ‘giving to get’, or demanding. None of this generates a healthy relationship.

Why does this happen?

For a very simple reason – this is the profile of a relationship of two wounded children in adult bodies trying to have an adult relationship.

These people have never self-partnered and healed their wounds but instead are looking to the other person to do it for them.

Reading this may be a huge shock to you and very confronting. But I promise you that this is exactly what you have been doing if you are not yet self-partnered. I did it too.

We all did it and thought it was ‘normal’ because we knew nothing better. It may sadly be normal,  because of the wounds we have all been unconsciously carrying, but I promise you it is far from ‘natural’ or ‘healthy’.

When we are not self-partnered, “awake”, and healing our own wounds, we are still emotionally regressing back to our childhood wounds, seeking a ‘parent’ to take away our emotional pain.

The people we unconsciously seek represent our young emotional gaps … where we felt that we weren’t loved, approved of and secure. These people present themselves as the healer of these gaps –“Finally, I have met someone who genuinely loves and accepts me!” Yet in fact this person turns out to be the messenger of these gapsthe person who shows up bringing you even more pain regarding not feeling loved, secure or approved of.

The unconscious plight of being attracted and attractive to people who represent our original wounds and the unconscious hope that “this time, Mum / Dad, you will do it better” is doomed to fail.

Only when we self-partner and heal our own wounds can we enter a relationship as a whole adult, able to partner with another person who is also an adult.

 

You Can’t ‘Have’ Love if You Are Not Love to Yourself

How does someone who is not happy within themselves behave?

The answer is simple – not happy with others.

They will need help to be grateful for what someone else does for them, they will have difficulty believing acts of love are genuine, and rather than being authentically generous, they will be giving to get and keeping score.

This person will also be hyper-vigilant and on the look-out for ‘bad’ behaviour, because they have an inner belief system of “I am not lovable”.

Their relationships either don’t last or are very unhappy when they do. They will frantically search for an outer relationship whenever they are single, because society tells them this is the ‘remedy’ – rather than creating the most essential relationship of their life.

The ONLY one that will establish a healthy future relationship is the inner one with themselves.

In fact, they may feel like a social leper and worthless without a relationship – as if they don’t have any identity as a single person. At this point, maybe they don’t.

I totally relate. I used to feel like this, and maybe if you are single and honest with yourself, you can admit you feel like this too.

We can blame our disastrous narcissistic relationships for unhappy singledom if we want to stay a victim, or we can start understanding deeper, wider truths – that we have been the common denominator in our painful relationships and that they are teaching us something.

If we are needy for relationships yet don’t feel happy in our bodies, emotions and life, we must understand that seeking False Substitutes equals ‘how to lose’. We will not find people that will take our pain away. Rather we will connect with people who represent where and how we are not yet self-partnered and loving ourselves.

Generally, the people who want a relationship the most are the least self-partnered because they want someone else to do the job of loving them, that only they can do.

A relationship is an addition to the love you already have for yourself and are being.

 It cannot and will never give you love, happiness and wholeness.

 

The Reflection Back as a Result of Lacking Self-Partnering

If we don’t know ourselves, love ourselves and accept ourselves, we will seek and take up with False Substitutes who will treat us identically to how we treat ourselves.

This is an incredible truth that I talk about in my free 16-Day Recovery Course.

The following is about my profound realisation after being narcissistically abused – finally – when I had my ‘awakening’ about why I had unconsciously set myself up for abuse.

It was a life-saving realisation because it handed the power back to me to make the only changes that were ever possible – the ones within myself.

This began an incredible journey of intense self-partnering, which to this day is firmly in place and continues as my total life orientation. This prevented my almost self-demise and granted me the most incredible, expansive life I could imagine.

At this time of awakening, when the lampshade was metaphorically ripped off my head, I saw what the narcissist was reflecting back to me.

Such as how I thought about myself – that I was never good enough, how I demanded more and more self-perfection, and how I spoke to myself was identical to how the narcissist had treated me.

I realised the harsh conditional love I treated myself with: “I will like you, Melanie (not even love me, that was too great a stretch) if you get this done or achieve that”. It EXACTLY matched the relentless conditional demands I experienced with the narcissist.

I realised the lack of time spent getting to deeply know, connect, soothe, heal or build trust and love with myself COMPLETELY matched the absolute emotional abandonment and insane allegations I experienced with the narcissist – which had me screaming at him SO many times “You don’t even KNOW who I am!”

WHO really didn’t know who I was?

The narcissist was, in all cases, treating me identically to how I had been treating myself.  But he had, at least, given me some reprieve… whereas I had given myself none.

At least at times, he left the house, whereas I was with myself 24/7 saying disparaging remarks, placing insane demands on and attacking myself with loathsome comments.

I was the most abusive person in my life!

It didn’t matter which realisation exploded into my awareness after my ‘awakening’; it all led to the same truth, “People can only love, connect to and treat us at the level we love, connect to and treat ourselves”.

This doesn’t mean we are BAD people – it means we can be really BAD to ourselves.

And why are we? The answer is simple: our world and role models have taught us that we are the LAST person to whom we should give our love, devotion and attention.

This journey taught me profoundly how totally screwed up that is.

 

What is Self-Partnering?

I’ll give you the simplest, most straightforward answer I can:

Being with ourselves (our emotions) unconditionally – warts and all.

That answer could start rattling you – and understandably so.

You have been taught to turn away from your negative emotions.

Because they are just horrible…

Or they could take you out…

Somehow, if you go to and get stuck in your negative emotions, it will mean you are defective and unlovable. You won’t be able to fight to survive or whatever other nonsense has been programmed into us by our world – the ridiculous falsities that have caused us to be so disconnected from ourselves, incredibly sick, totally outer-seeking and very dysfunctional in relationships.

So it has been passed on from generation to generation.

Our parents bought these lies from their parents, who didn’t know they were lies. The system was set to “practical survival”, and “emotional health” was a shallow consideration.

Also, the world was positioned to be a consumerist society that would benefit the elite and pharmaceutical and war industries.

This is how those setups went:

“Let’s keep people in inner pain (because they don’t know how to self-partner) needing the next lover and the newest car or home, or dress, or suit (to attract the next lover) to try to get relief.”

“Let’s also keep them disconnected from their own ability to heal themselves (because they don’t know how to self-partner) and alive, sick and dependent on medication.”

“While we are at it, let’s also keep them at war with their own emotions (because they don’t know how to self-partner), which will cause them to blame others for the way they feel and declare war on each other, rather than pursuing resolution, sharing and harmony.”

That, in a nutshell, is the human experience of egoic sickness and madness; ignore one’s own emotional state, do not self-partner and heal, and then look outwards to try to get all sorts of things to take away the emotional anxiety and depression that stays trapped inside – unattended to.

If that doesn’t work, try to force things and people to change, hoping that will take away the pain.

Yet, no matter what is acquired or battled for, the relief is only temporary and ‘something else’ is always needed again.

Getting or trying to change stuff and people became the norm to ‘get self-relief’. But it’s always only the self-medication of temporary relief.

It’s all about attempts to make the symptoms disappear without addressing the true cause.

The true cause could only ever be addressed at its core using self-partnering.

 

Our Inner Being is a Wounded Child Needing Our Love – It is Not a Dragon!

It is really important to understand the following:

The topics in our life where we are solid, healthy and sound are where we are showing up emotionally as whole and healthy adults.

The topics that trigger, derail and make us hand our power away are where we show up emotionally as a wounded, unhealed, underdeveloped child.

Let me give you a personal example.

One of my greatest wounds in a relationship was the ‘fear of abandonment’.

When narcissists used to hit that trigger, I would panic and act out in the most childish of ways in a vain attempt to control the situation – such as pleading, begging and throwing myself on car bonnets. I would even hyperventilate and vomit.

Was this an adult woman in charge of me emotionally? No!

Was this a three-year-old unhealed wounded child inside me at the helm? Yes!

Was I self-partnered and taking care of myself on being “left”? No!

Was I completely self-abandoning in these times and trying to force someone else to take care of that unhealed trauma for me? Yes!

Since self-partnering myself and healing that trauma, as well as countless others that used to attract and co-generate incredible repeat trauma (the matches for the wounds), my life has changed beyond recognition – as yours will too – if you take up self-partnering.

There is no other way …

Self-partnering is NOT for the faint-hearted; most people don’t do it because it means meeting yourself. It means no longer avoiding your painful emotional and inner traumas and going directly to them.

Why is this such an issue?

Because negative emotions have been demonised. We were taught to avoid them at all costs. That’s insanity!

We were taught to believe, “Why on earth would we want to look at our painful emotions as the signals of our defects? Surely that would mean we have them, and in NO way do we want to admit that!”

Imagine if we treated our cars or our homes like that. “I don’t want to listen to that weird noise in the engine as a pointer to a defect”; “I don’t want to hear the water dripping through the ceiling as a possible defect in the roof!”

Ignorance is not bliss … of course, the engine will cease, and the roof will cave in – and then HOPEFULLY, the ‘defects’ have our attention enough to fix them!

There have also been systems such as the ‘Law of Attraction’ that encourage us to ignore painful inner emotions by simply getting ‘positive’ and overriding them that way.

I want you to really get this – imagine if you had a young daughter or son (somewhere between 3 and 7 years of age) who was feeling the age-appropriate insecurities of not being good enough, not worthy, feeling abandoned or criticised, and he or she came up and said “Mum, Dad I feel foolish, ugly and dumb”, and you said, “Shut up I’m not listening to you – this cigarette, piece of chocolate cake, Facebook, TV or hooking up with this abusive person again is so much more important than you.”

Or if you went all Law of Attraction with this child and simply ignored how they were feeling, saying, “No, your negative feelings are not okay; let’s just think positive instead!”

This is precisely what we have been doing to the inner wounded parts of ourselves. We have been ignoring them and trying to self-medicate them away with additions and distractions – or whipping them into line with ‘positivity’.

How do you think a child would end up emotionally due to this treatment? Manic, of course!

Then this manic child is going to keep screaming out for us.

The pain gets worse, physical symptoms may need to manifest to get our attention – and in amongst it all, we just take another ‘pill’ (self-medication choice) to try to shut up the screams or ignore the traumas with ‘positivity’ where the Child Within feels totally invalidated and not heard or held and not loved back to solidness on these topics.

We have been doing this to our Inner Beings, wondering why we have turned out so sick and traumatised.

Then because we are not showing up for ourselves, our Child Within needs to manifest people to come to us to show us these wounds that we are ignoring.

If we stay unconscious, we still don’t get it, and then we blame and focus on other people “doing this to us” and get more damaged trying to force them to do it better.

See the mess? It’s a cycle of self-destruction with no way out!

Wouldn’t going inwards to our wounds and healing them be a much better choice?

People say to me often, “I am having this or that drug, treatment or supplement to try to deal with the Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) that was caused by narcissistic abuse.”

Yet that is NOT the truth.

We think the inner anxiety, depression and adrenal malfunction are a “dragon” – something horrible that happened to us via someone else.

Yet it ISN’T. What these symptoms are is our Inner Child Screaming to us, for us to come and love, hold and heal her or him. And the screams WON’T stop until we do.

Do you realise that all our choices to self-medicate, ignore and numb our inner pain made our Inner Child increasingly panicked, abandoned and unhealthy?

Hello C-PTSD – that is what it is … not what someone did to you! It’s really about not self-partnering and attending to our inner wounds.

I promise you, I had “untreatable, apparently never to be healed C-PTSD”, which is now NOT there in any form.

Unlike that diagnosis, I live the opposite experience because of profound self-partnering. I am more extended in life, free and radiant and fearless than I could ever imagine being in my wildest dreams, and this is because I met and attended to all of my original woundings regarding “I am not safe in life”.

These terrifying beliefs had origins and original traumas that existed LONG before the narcissist. It was wounding that the narcissist ignited for me to look at and heal.

He was ONLY a catalyst providing more of it! He was a “symptom”, not the “cause”.

So what is the true cause of inner anxiety, fear, emptiness and depression? The answer is this – NOT being self-partnered. Not having come home to love and heal one’s own Inner Being (emotional self).

How did the inner anxiety, emptiness and depression get there in the first place? A lack of emotional intelligence and unhealthy parenting. Also, this is a profound reason because of the trauma in our generational DNAs.

Look at human history – it is brutal. Epigenetics is now proving that trauma victims give birth to trauma victims even if there is no longer any trauma in the environment.

The damage from trauma is passed on from generation to generation until someone in the family line heals it – then future generations are spared of those inherited legacies.

If you are furious with your parents because of the damage they did to you, I would like you to consider this. This was not our parent’s fault – they had no training or healthy role models regarding emotional intelligence, and they were carrying their own unresolved emotional wounds.

Hurt people hurt people because they are unconscious and don’t have the resources to do any better.

We are all in this together … world unconsciousness … perpetrators and victims alike.

This lack of emotionally healthy parenting meant the average child did not feel loved simply because they existed.

Love was conditional, and therefore the child felt they were unlovable ‘as themselves’ and hence love and approval had to be earned.

Additionally, a child may have been brought up with criticism as a motivator, which shamed and damaged their Inner Being. Or the child may have suffered abuse, neglect or engulfment that severely triggered a child’s fears of life, others and survival.

If a child’s Inner Self became fractured and underdeveloped, this meant continued issues as an adult, simply because this person could not progress successfully through the stages of co-dependency and being reliant on an adult, to become an independent, healthy sense of self.

This meant that in times of emotional distress, this person would not be self-partnered, be unable to self-soother, and would instead self-abandon and try to precariously rely on something or someone outside of themselves for emotional relief.

This, in itself, was the recipe for all of us who suffered narcissistic abuse.

There is only one remedy for it – how to self-partner to heal these fractures and develop our Inner Being to solidness. So that we can grow ourselves up to show up in life as a healthy, mature emotional self.

 

The Danger of Not Being Self-Partnered

There is a beautiful story that Don Miguel Ruiz writes about in The Mastery Of Love, which comes to mind.

It’s one of my favourite stories, which is accurate regarding the deadly dance between the narcissist and the co-dependent.

People will argue it isn’t because they say, “It did not start off this way”, but I promise you, I have met umpteen people who did walk away the minute the mask dropped.

These people were not carrying the young inner wounds that hardened us into abuse. They were able to show up authentically, stand their ground and speak up, and they saw the narcissist unravel before their eyes and then leave.

Ok … so here is this beautiful story …

“Imagine that you have a magical kitchen in your home. In that magical kitchen, you can have any food you want from any place in the world in any quantity. You never worry about what to eat, because you can make whatever you wish for. You are very generous with your food; you give it unconditionally to others, not because you want something in return. Whoever comes to your home, you feed them just for the pleasure of sharing your food, and your house is always full of people who come to eat the food from your magical kitchen.

Then one day, someone knocks at your door with a pizza. You open the door, and the person looks at you and says, ‘Hey, do you see this pizza? I’ll give you this pizza if you let me control your life and  if you do whatever I want. You are never going to starve because I can bring pizza every day. You just have to be good to me.’

Can you imagine your reaction? In your kitchen, you can have the same pizza but even better. Yet this person comes to you and offers you food only if you do whatever he wants. You are going to laugh and say, “No, thank you! I don’t need your food; I have plenty of food!”

Now imagine the exact opposite. you have no such kitchen. Several weeks have gone by, and you haven’t eaten. You are starving and you have no money in your pocket to buy food. The person comes with the pizza and says, “Hey, there’s food here. You can have this food if you just do what I want.” You can smell the food, and you are starving. You decide to accept the food and do whatever the person asks. You eat some food, and he says, “If you want more, you can have more, but you have to keep doing what I want you to do.”

You have food today, but tomorrow you may not, so you agree to do whatever you can for food. You have become a slave because of food. You need food because you don’t have it.”

Don Miguel Ruiz’s story has a profound message for all of us when we substitute the word ‘food’ with the word ‘love’.

If you haven’t yet self-partnered and come home to loving yourself, and you do not know how to connect with love to others and life healthily – then you will be a “love junkie” paying a horrible price to try to get some love.

That is the terrible process we played out in narcissistic abuse.

 

How Do We Self-Partner and Love Ourselves?

Now here is the BIG question … How do we love ourselves?”

I created a YouTube Thriver TV episode on this topic called: “What Is Self Love”, which may help you understand what Self Love really is.

You can watch it here.

Let’s look at the goal of Self Love and what it would look like.

You would:

  • Love spending time with yourself
  • Be capable of fun and enjoyment on your own
  • Love being in life, and be extended and radiant in life
  • Be your own greatest supporter
  • Speak to yourself lovingly
  • Validate and be with your own feelings in times of need
  • Dedicate time to being with and listening to yourself
  • Step up and be your own soother and healer when necessary
  • Be your own best friend, companion and lover
  • Make yourself a high priority with devotion

None of these states is possible if you are not prepared to self-partner.

In stark contrast, you will:

  • Dislike spending time alone
  • Not feel joyful when alone
  • Feel scared to connect to and be out in life
  • Demand more of yourself
  • Criticise and shame yourself
  • Seek self-medication choices to avoid painful feelings
  • Seek outer stimulation and people to try to feel better
  • Self-abandon in times of emotional distress
  • Be your own worst enemy
  • Dismiss and not take care of your own wellbeing

 

We can see these orientations are worlds apart. The first is a life that starts to feel sane, whole, and healthy and generates identical results in your environment with healthy choices and alignments.

The second orientation is a life of chasing your tail – trying to escape unresolved inner trauma and only adding more to them with poor choices and alignments – leading to greater and more exhausting efforts of trying to survive yourself and believing it is everything and everyone else around you.

Sadly, our world is modelled on making people avoid themselves. Even some structured religions demonised ‘people loving themselves’, stating that self-partnering is unholy and sinful.

Which is complete and utter insanity.

How are self-partnered and whole people apt to behave, and what would they create?

Healthier partnering and wholeness with others and Life!

This is the truth – you will never accept levels of love less than your love for yourself – period. And this is why there is only one solution to a painful life trajectory.

This…

Self-partner – come home, meet yourself, and clean up the original traumas that have been unconsciously generating more of the same pain … So you can finally love yourself.

So, the bottom line is we have to meet our wounds. We must walk up to the “dragon in the cave” with full humility, ownership, love and openness and be prepared to meet our vulnerable, wounded inner child who needs our love and healing.

We must face all the parts of ourselves that we have been taught to avoid.

Naturally, narcissists are never going to do this. They are perpetual victims who are totally invested in the story of “someone else is to blame for the way I am” and they would rather die than lay down their defences and be genuinely vulnerable.

Self-partnering to heal and be whole necessitates this understanding, “If the wounds are inside me, they are mine. Only I can heal them REGARDLESS of how they got there. As a child, I was powerless, but as an adult, I am not. If I want to get out of hell and start living my birthright of ‘heaven on earth’, that’s what I need to do”.

To hold someone else responsible and refuse to do this work means only one thing – the wounds will continue to live inside you, play out and hurt you whilst you wait for a “repentance” from someone else that is never coming.

Self-partnering is the ONLY orientation that delivers individuals from a living hell and it creates a ripple effect that will heal our world… one person at a time.

How we self-partner is this: we stop looking outside ourselves for answers. Regarding narcissistic abuse, we stop researching and blaming narcissists, and we come inside our body to find and heal the original traumas that unconsciously allowed the narcissist into our life and have kept us hooked up in the pain of what they deliver.

If you were born into a narcissistic family, you also choose to do this if you want to heal. Having a narcissistic parent was not something you consciously chose any more than you consciously chose tohook up with narcissistic partners as a wounded child in an adult’s body.

Powerlessness and trauma happen from an inner unhealed emotional child container – as children AND adults.

As adults determined to become conscious, all of us can heal this pattern … even if abuse is all we have ever known.

We get better when we meet our inner wounds with love and the right tools to claim and shift these energetic/emotional traumas out of our being and replace them with Source Healing.

We evolve ourselves; we up-level and heal one wound at a time. We organically become less and less of our wounded selves and emerge from who we were into our True Selves.

Our True Self knows organically how to do life in a conscious, self-loving, connected, flowing love, healthy and radiant way. Authentically, shows honesty, speaks up lovingly and directly and is no longer snagged by young insecurities and defences causing a maladapted self.

This is lifetime work … truly … it is not a quick fix.

People who start this journey often say, “When will I arrive?” I used to do the same thing … until I realised that self-love is NOT a destination – it is an ongoing joyous growth process.

What is a complete NOW process, however, is self-partnering – and if you are prepared to self-partner and take up the life orientation of meeting, being with yourself and becoming your own profound healer … then you are self-partnered – regardless of how many wounds you still have to shift out of your being.

This means no longer will you hand power away whilst trying to force other people to be responsible for your painful triggers. No longer will you dangerously self-abandon yourself in times of need, and no longer will you cling to people and situations that hurt you rather than letting go and taking essential emotional care of yourself.

It also means that your life incrementally will get happier, healthier, and more filled with joy, and will start generating love, growth and inspiration.

You will be freed piece by piece from trying to cope with yourself (being stuck in Survival) into the interests, loves and life missions that you truly desire (activating Creation).

These states are all the good stuff that is ‘life’ when we start living free of the traumas blocking this organic state of Lifeforce and well-being.

Self-partnering is the MOST essential path for any abuse victim to take, and it is the only one that provides true freedom and healing. The exact Thriver Model has created unprecedented healing within this Community because NO outer substitute can ever make up for your Inner Being’s screams for you.

Yes, you are the person that no one else was ever meant to replace or could ever replace.

It has to be you that goes inwards.

Then you will see how life and other healthy people start reflecting True Life and Love back to you.

I truly hope this article has helped clarify what self-partnering is, why it is one of the most essential parts of your recovery and how you can start self-partnering to start making leaps and bounds towards your Thriver Recovery.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this article or any questions you have in the comments below; I will respond to all of them.

 

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Commments (57) + Leave a comments

57 thoughts on “What Is Self-Partnering?

  1. What religions demonize self-love? I find that particular statement very peculiar.

    Being others-focused is essential to developing empathy and showing grace and mercy and understanding and respect. Of course knowing your own worth is important to be able to know/show the worth of others.

    Is it the Buddhists who emphasize abolishing all cravings (for stuff, accomplishment, love, worth, etc)? Or the Hindus who place people in castes based on varying degrees of worth? Or is it Christianity which elevates the selfless servant of all? Or Islam which says that God is the only one worthy of all?

    Being others-focused actually helps us to empathize and to give and receive love and grace and mercy and understanding and respect etc. Of course, knowing our own worth helps us to know everyone else’s worth. I agree with you that this is a most important place to start. Whether God (Allah, Yahweh/Jesus, Brahman, Buddha) is the source of your love and worth or you alone are is semantics.

    The point is love and worth, right?

    Your rhetoric is fine, but its just different language for the same stuff that most world religions communicate and hold dear. No need to knock religions. Please only call out the lies and untruths and distortions that cause us to be lost or blind. Those happen “in” every religion (or should I say they can happen to any person regardless of which religion they adhere to or are surrounded by).

    1. Hi Sandra,

      I have had many Christians come at me with it …

      Please know I have many friends, even best friends who are Christians, where we believe very much the same core beliefs in religion / spirituality.

      Have a look at this video … and especially Timothy’s scripture regarding “loving self” … that is what I have had quoted to me regarding my work quite a few times.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0oTBpo2EkQ

      I totally agree with you re misinterpretations, and the core of love that is through every religion.

      Mel xo

      1. Well that’s ironic since the love of self talked about in that verse is the egoic, greedy, unhealthy form that is more like what narcissists display. It is not the healthy self-worth that you are purporting as you help people grow their souls.

        Cheers. You are living into a good good truth!

      2. I’m very frightened by this video. I was brought up to believe that if you were enjoying yourself you were probably sinning. It made me terrified to trust my intuition and be terrified of anything except the most frugal, minimalist pleasures of life. This kind of attitude as well as always having to put others first, turned me into a total doormat and stay with horrible partners because of the idea that life is not for earthly pleasures so it was OKto be uunhappy, & selfish to want better or not put him first. It’s confused me a lot. I know the consumer, selfie culture is not good either, but this video gives only a fearful warning, & no actual help about how someone can lead any kind of ‘normal’ life – I mean I think I have to don sack cloth & live in a convent now, or I’ll be punished for wanting earthly things. I thought the self partnering sounded good, & lately I thought I’d managed to have some healthy boundaries with my partner, but now I’m afraid of enjoying it incase it’s not God’s will (like it says in that clip). I’m also feeling really burned out from giving so much at work in my caring role, I’m afraid if I take a break & enjoy myself it’s self indulgent. I’m so confused why you put that scary clip on Mel, I’m so confused…

    2. In the Christian fundamentalist religion I was brought up in we were taught that we were born sinful, and that the only way to not go to hell was to believe that Jesus would save you. If you didn’t do this you were shamed and rejected – which I was. God’s love, my mother’s love, was all conditional – all based on this condition. It was definitely NOT the unconditional love that a healthy parent normally has for their children. Thank heaven that my Dad really did love me, and demonstrated that he did.

      It seems to me that all fundamentalists are at risk for damaging their children’s psyche in this way. Coercive dogma such as this places a child in an impossible situation, especially if the religion touts itself as based on love, but in reality is based on extreme condemnation of that child JUST FOR BEING ALIVE.

  2. “…NO outer substitute can ever make up for your Inner Being’s screams for you.” Stopped. Me. In. My. Tracks!! So profound; your whole post was profound. I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about this, and healing thyself. I see the answer lies completely within us, and isn’t beholden to any external substitute. I’ve learned so much, in such a short amount of time; I can’t wait to get your next message and continue the journey forward to self-love and acceptance.

    1. Hi Jules,

      I am so pleased this resonated with you …

      I agree, that this is SO under our nose, yet it is not being talked about!

      It’s so lovely Jules you are now on this path back home to you.

      Mel xo

  3. Hi Mel!

    Thank you so much for this article. It is exactly what I needed to read at this point in my life. I broke up with the narc about two years ago, completed NARP, and just decided to start dating again. And, whoa! My “stuff” has been coming up. I just feel so insecure if the guy I’m seeing doesn’t call me multiple times a day. The thing is that he’s a super nice, consistent guy who calls me at least once a day. But, there’s just something on the inside of me that always saying “no, he needs to do more to prove his love.” And after reading this article, I now know it’s just my inner child feeling unworthy of love and needing a man to prove it by jumping through hoops for me. And even when he does jump through hoops for me, it’s still not enough for me to “feel loved.” Now, I get it. I’m not able to fully accept and appreciate his love because I haven’t given that love to myself first.

    What do you suggest that I do to continue to clear the old wounds of feeling unlovable and unworthy of love? Should I re-work NARP or do you have another program?

    Thank you for all that you do.

    1. Hi Janae,

      it’s my pleasure! I am so pleased this article has helped you, and allowed you to understand the truth of what is playing out in your relationship.

      One suggestion would be to work with the Goal Setting Module in NARP – and set up the goal “I am my own Source of love, support and approval” and then clear all resistance until you get to a 10/10 on that goal.

      I sense there will be some other big things come up for you as resistance – that may need their own Goal Set on … you can work out what the “goal” for those will be – or you can set the goal as “the healing and resolution for this” … and that will work.

      Ultimately the Empowered Self Course is a profound journey of “self” development … specifically focusing on healing one’s Core Identity and empowering it.

      In your case I would definitely suggest it …

      https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/services/empoweredself-course.html

      I hope this helps.

      Mel xo

  4. Hi Melanie,

    A question that keeps popping up in my mind is that yes i know i am not self partnered and thus i suffered a narcissistic relationship with my ex boyfriend but what if he was actually just another not self partnered person just like me, and that he was just acting out his wounds and projecting his unhappiness on me and being unreasonable in his words and behaviors and actions but not really a narcissist. But because i was not happy too and he was not thus our relationship was miserable. Could it be the reason? How would i know? It makes me wonder if i was wrong in judging him rightly.

    1. Hi Syra,

      so many of us thought this, were confused about it and struggled with it.

      Generally when we were still hooked on trying to get someone else to give us “ourselves” from an unhealed childhood emotional container.

      NPD behaviours are these – they go way beyond “just not being self-partnered”

      https://blog.melanietoniaevans.com/are-you-with-a-narcissist/

      Was he ever REALLY prepared to admit he had wounds and diligently work on them? The bottom line unless that is in place with ANYONE who is playing out dysfunctional relationship – there is no way he – or any relationship he is in – can be healthy.

      The truth is Syra regardless of what he is or isn’t we can only ever work on healing ourselves – then other “whole” people will be standing beside us if they are supposed to … life has a way of making that happen.

      Or if that person was a messenger of our wounds and not a life-partner, I promise you after working diligently on ourselves we have no inclination to go back there – we are firmly catapulted forward.

      I hope this helps.

      Mel xo

  5. Hi Melanie ,

    So true ! Your message touched my soul and my inner child sent me the tears of relief and gratitude
    to opportunity to be a whole . From April this year l have chosen to be literally alone ,l cut my social life and contact with many people from my previous life . In this voluntary isolation l feel so good even with phases of emotional pain which makes me more aware about myself . Thank you for sending me a friend in the form of your blogs,Youtube videos and NARP .
    Be blessed

    Jelena

    1. Hi Jelena,

      this is so wonderful you have come home to self-partnering, and truly when you have many of your beliefs healed to free you into connection and radiance, you will discover there is such a beautiful expansion and extension when you get out there again.

      And your voluntary hiatus will have been sooo worth it!

      Mel xo

  6. Melanie…I am 40 years old and have life as if stuck in a bad dream…stoo many pains and horrible things locked up in my consciousness until I met the last ex who triggered it all to come flying out. I am soooo greatful to you for this work you have created and thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. I read this article and just cried and cried. Just reading your writing is enough to trigger the healing..God has empowered you.
    Thank you for teaching me how to self partner…

  7. Having been self-partnering for many years now, I have become very practiced at it. Whenever more wounds are uncovered, and I do the inner work, I can then self-partner even better.

    I first began to learn the importance of self-partnering after the birth of my daughter. My ex is a narcissist and at that time, I did not realise what sort of person I was involved with. It was a very destructive relationship and at that time, there was no mention of narcissism, and no knowledge of energetic healing. I was simply in a lot of pain and all this pain related to my childhood. At that point I had no awareness about this.

    Fortunately, I was able to enter a very special therapeutic hospital with skilled staff including my psychiatrist, who were able to work with me. It was at that time I discovered that I had a very destructive childhood that had left me with many wounds. I began to use a number of healing modalities that included psychodrama, individual work with my psychiatrist, an art therapist and others, and began to uncover those early wounds and heal them. This was a successful but rather lengthy process and the results were permanent. I was able to go on to a much more healed and happy life. I learned that in order to care for my baby, I also needed to be able to care well for me. If I could not nurture me, then how could I possibly nurture a baby well. It is still the same! In order for me to care for anyone outside myself, I need to be well-nourished so I have enough to give to myself and have some to share with others without feeling put-upon or resentful. Giving or loving from a nourished space inside myself, feels very different from the kind of giving where we feel we must give in order to get back something, or give because we have been taught that this is what we should do in order to be a loving person. However, if we are giving from any other place than one that is unconditional, then the giving tends to be tainted, especially if our giving is done and we feel resentful, or if we are giving out of fear of being judged by others as being selfish. That is not giving from a free place within ourselves.

    I thought that I had done all my inner work. Alas, not so. When my daughter was growing up, I did not have relationships with any men. I needed all my energy to raise my daughter, go to uni and then work and romantic relationships had to go on the back-burner.

    When she was grown, I embarked on the romantic relationship path and lo and behold, I met and fell in love with a sociopathic man who was very narcissistic. It was adventurous and exciting in the beginning and it was also a lot of fun. It was fun, because I could look after myself well and the inner wounds related to this man, had not yet made themselves apparent. Over time, I began to become tired and sick and lacked energy. I had sufficient resources to share with him and cared for him. What I noticed is that I had healed enough to self-partner in many ways, but here was new territory that was unhealed and I was unaware. I quickly became aware and my negative feelings gave me the clues. I felt tired, resentful, jealous, unlovable, frightened of abandonment and rejection and this person was not respecting any boundaries I set. I was confused and sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was also feeling as if I was becoming unhinged.

    I discovered out of desperation, that I had become involved with a narcissist/sociopath and was trapped. I discovered your site Mel and joined up and bought the NARP programme and also began to see a kinesiologist. Bit by bit, I unravelled all the unhealed wounds within me and worked very hard to get free. As I began to heal the wounds, I eventually saw the N for who he was and also became very resentful of the ways in which I was allowing him to use me. I healed more wounds and more wounds and finally found the link that had allowed me to keep this person in my life and was able to remove him for good.

    Over the time I was undergoing this new healing process, I also used all that the N showed me, to heal more of me. I also learned to self-partner and set boundaries that held. As I learned to value me more and care for me better, and to self-partner better, I began to remove those people and situations from my life that did not support me. A process that had begun many years ago was now bearing more and more rich and healthy fruit and is continuing to do so. Life has never looked better! I am not in any relationship with a man at present and that is fine. My life is wonderful in all ways and although I am open to a relationship, because I think we are wired for relating to someone special, I am not going into any relationship that does not match my care for myself. That is paramount!

    1. Hi Suzanne,

      you have done such a wonderful job o self-partnering, and your level of self-care and self-love is truly amazing!

      You are a lovely example to others in this community.

      It is so true that when we take full responsibility for our wounds, and know how to work on them, our inner connection with ourself just gets stronger and stronger.

      It was wonderful that you came across that very “meant to be” path, right from the beginning of your journey Suzanne … it could have been a very different outcome if you hadn’t!

      Isn’t that such a powerful lesson … as you say …. “I need to be well-nourished so I have enough to give to myself and have some to share with others without feeling put-upon or resentful. Giving or loving from a nourished space inside myself, feels very different from the kind of giving where we feel we must give in order to get back something, or give because we have been taught that this is what we should do in order to be a loving person.”?

      It is so, so true that authentic giving, as an outpour of loving and filling self, is something that most of us do not step into until we have undergone profound self-healing journeys.

      Suzanne, so many of us could relate to having done so much personal development, as you did too … being flabbergasted by ending up back in abuse and pain again – and thank goodness there are energetic healing tools to get deeper in … to clean up the unconscious programs that were still driving our lives.

      It has been such a joy seeing you blossom into the incredible radiant woman that you are today!

      This community is sooo grateful for you Suzanne!

      Mel xo

  8. Thank you for this article. Only in the last month have I felt that I went from no inner solidity. or substance, to feeling like I have a lightweight framework inside. For the first time in my four decades.

    I was in an 8 year marriage with a Narcissist, and have had many N friends and boyfriends since then. I have a hard time accepting love, and being accepting of others. And I look for someone to verbally affirm me. Or hold me. Both make me feel safe and loved. I’m not sure what age my inner child is, probably 5, and maybe also an infant. But I look to men to take care of that little-me. I just want to rest and feel safe.

    I’m scared to explore this or spend too much time with my inner child, because I think she will come out swinging. I’m scared she will make a big scene, and be destructive. (Hmm…too late for that, I suspect. 😉 I’m also scared of owning my own power.

    I’ve made much progress in the years since my divorce, (I was near suicidal, and had completely lost touch with my worth, and was very enmeshed, and out of touch with my body) but I still carry around a lot of pain (even after many hours of meditation, and visualizations, and energy-shifting exercises.)

    I will keep going, because the thought of being free and strong, and bright looks good. And sometimes that thought makes me want to crawl into bed. Anyway, thank you – your work has been a reference point and a lighthouse for me.

    I wonder what your thoughts are on working with the body, as a way releasing and healing energetically. And as a way to fully come home to the body. I have dabbled in it, (and religiously avoided it) knowing that for me, motion and stretching makes some really dramatic changes in my whole being.

    1. Hi Kerri,

      you are so welcome.

      That is wonderful that your are starting to feel a solidness inside.

      So many of us can relate to wanting a “protector” .. that was enormous for me too. And what we discover with these inner beliefs, that we don’t get “rocks” … instead we get “hammers” the people who smash upon our greatest fears.

      I promise you Kerri, we have to become that Source to ourselves, and then people start filling our lives who represent “more” of that – there is no other way.

      Body-work is essential – we have to get into the subconscious to make the shifts there.

      My interpretation of “body work” is anything that accesses us cellularly on the inside to release and or reprogram trauma dn self-destructive belief systems.

      Things like yoga, kinesiology, even great deep tissue massage can help immensely. I am a little bias (of course) but I have found the most powerful way to access inner body subconscious programs and reprograms them is my modality Quanta Freedom Healing (NARP Program) – it freed me where other things helped but didn’t completely do it.

      I hope this helps Kerri, hugs and healing.

      Mel xo

  9. Thank you again Melanie. Everything you say is so true.the truth that changed me and my life from the state of fear ,insecurity depression to peace ,love and growth god bless you.

  10. Hi Melanie,

    I have read a lot of your material–I can’t say “all” because I don’t know much there is. Thank you for writing and sharing so generously.

    The most important thing I picked up on almost immediately is that you are all about focusing on healing and not the problem. After three years of reading, listening, and talking I UNDERSTOOD narcissistic abuse. Unfortunately, it had done nothing to help me move forward toward healing my own challenges.

    I had heard of self-love but did not understand the concept, implications or how to have it. I confess it is still an idea that is just beyond my reach. I grew up in church that taught me well that EVERYONE was more important than me and did I ever learn the lesson well.

    I wonder now how after all these years (I am 74) I can change. I desperately want to be whole. Where do I start? What do I do?

    1. Hi Glen,

      you are very welcome.

      Yes, my entire orientation is about taking the power back to inside us, because that is the only place it exists.

      It is very true that most people go wrong (initially at least) thinking that learning all about narcissists will heal them. Yet, how can learning all about someone else heal our own shattered traumatized inner beings?

      It cant!

      Only healing ourselves can heal us! It’s crazy to think anything else COULD work!

      I promise you Glen there are people in this community at your age who have come home to themselves – it is never too late if your desire is there – and that is in droves!

      A great place for you to start would be to join me in my first webinar in 2016, and also to come into the connected Facebook Group. We would love to have you!

      Truly it is YOUR time.

      the details are here: https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar

      Mel xo

  11. I’ve been reading your blog and watching your videos for over a year now, and it never fails how impeccable your timing is. I needed this article so badly, especially since I have been self-medicating a lot recently instead of facing what I was avoiding within myself. I needed this truth (which popped me on the back of my head a little!). I’ve known narcissistic abuse my whole life, but only recognized it about the time I started reading your blog. I went through the stage of vigilant research and wound up on your blog and you offer so much more than anyone else out there as far as healing. I don’t just want to know what or why, I want to know how as well. You’ve helped me grow and learn and help share the messages of love to people that need it. I’ve been reluctant to try the NARP program, but now it’s a must for the upcoming new year. Thank you for all of the time you dedicate to this and your passion to share your message.

    1. Hi Bri33,

      I am so pleased this article was timely for you.

      It’s great that you realise that you have been self-avoiding and it’s time to self-partner to evolve something from within.

      It’s great that you feel drawn to NARP now, it takes your healing to a powerful and direct level, as you have the tool to profoundly re-program and heal.

      You are ready for this now.

      Mel xo

  12. ilearned to value myself and love myself during 12 years of therapy. My mother has borderline personality traits. It was hard work and just when I had more or less recuperated I met my ex. I was 34 and desperately wanted a child, time was ticking away and he seemed so normal. This suddenly changed when I got pregnant, then his mask came down. I stayed in the relationship for another 18 months, but once he used phisical violence I filed for divorce immediately. Sadly, my daughter is still with him, I had Post-partum depression and couldn’t (or thought so) take her with me. I have no feelings left for my ex, neither positive or negative. He just leaves me cold. He does go to court for sole custody every year so he is still pestering me, or trying to, but I don’t allow it to ruin my life. It is a lot of hassle though, he just won’t leave me alone and I practise strict NC. All communication is through our lawyers. Going NC has greatly improved my life and hell, did I suffer before that. Now after ten years of being single I can say I ‘m happy, I enjoy life, love my friends and be loved by them. But I had to go rock bottom for the second time in my life. Cradling my inner child and securing a safe space within myself as I had learned in therapy was very important for a long time. By now, it is a second nature. It’s the mother in me who is suffering, time to move on and be an adult. And cradle my daughter’s happiness and well-being. In the meantime, there is nothing I can do except growing and improvngi the quality of my life. So my daughter will have a healthy, happy, thriving mother. I picked up on my career again and am loving that. Keeps me from worrying about my daughter. As far as men are involved, I’m critical. I asses them in great detail. Still I’m not very succesfull, the last one turned out to be an ex-cocaine addict. But I do feel I’m ready to be with someone now, even though Ihave huge trust-issues that need to be rooted out by nobody else but me. I do expect some patience and understanding with this from a new partner, but it is my problem which only I can solve. And I will, I can, I’m sure. I got over s many insecurities and plain paranoia in all other areas of my life, also socially, this is the last step toward complete recovery. I did confront the pain, the hurt, the trauma’s, just like you say. This is not something you can just get over, you must go through it and it is hard work. But it can be done. Thank you for this beautiful piece, I hope it will help and inspire many others. My motto has become to be always and in every circumstance (with) myself. And it works! Sending happy thoughts, Lotte

    1. Hi Lotte,

      you have had a painful journey, and it so wonderful that within it you found the way to connect to your Inner Being, and have been able to create a happy life for yourself.

      It’s great that you realise that (understandably) you still have trust issues … it is very normal to have fear on board after significant abuse, and it does take inner work to release it so that we can show up radiant, empowered and authentic (which is a powerful and effective defense against abuse).

      Absolutely our healing can be done, no matter what we have suffered, and that is gorgeous that you are always stepping in for you Lotte.

      Thank you for your lovely comments about this article, and I too hope that more of our world can catch on … it needs to!

      Bless you dear lady!

      Mel xo

  13. I would very much like to add two things to “self partner”:

    1) I have been learning with a mentor how yo care about myself…this to me is the best one:

    Maka list, which is is HARD in the beginng….of all the things you LIKE about yourself…ex. the thgs you can do, your work, the color of your eyes, the fact that you are kind to others, you volunteer, you help in some way…

    2) You tell yourself yourself everyday two things as small as they were, that made you smile…

    3) I will add a third thing: Be grateful for what you have.

  14. Hello Mel,

    I have a question about self-partnering; how can it be done when feelings are shut down and repressed? I’ve been abused by Narcs several times and I suffer depression so severe that I’m not able to feel and cry anymore, and I also can’t answer the questions about where is the pain in my body, how old is it etc. Is there a way to awake those emotions?

    Love xo

    1. Hi Ananda,

      you poor thing – it is terrible when we go numb, and are shut down to that level.

      However, please know it is reversible.

      I would love you to come into my next Webinar Group – because we do a great deal of workshopping on self-partnering and I promise you, each time there is many people who feel exactly like you do.

      The environment within these Groups is very nurturing an supportive, as well as being positioned to facilitate great breakthrough, and it may be just what you need to be able to start connecting to yourself in safe and self-liberating ways.

      https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar

      Mel xo

      1. Thank you Mel, I’ll consider Webinar for sure. I’ve already purchased NARP but I’m having trouble doing it because of that numbness. I’ve red many of your articles and tried to apply it, I’ve stopped eating junk food and think obsessively and tried to feel my body and be present as much as I can, and I feel better but still don’t have access to my emotions. And I know there’s a little girl iniside that could cry for days.
        Is there another way to reach burried feelings? Goal setting module perhaps?

        1. Also, I tried to talk to the inner child, but still nothing. I can do no more than 1 shif in a Module. Maybe I’m just impatient. Any advice appreciated.

          Much love xo

  15. hi Mel,
    Thank you for this deep post. u talked about self partner and that we should go deep in ourselves and meet our wounds but how? how can i do this? I am not able to remember anything from my childhood. I am following your NARP program and did some of your modules but I am not recalling anything from my wounds. and i guess i have plenty. i just broke up with me second narc. I am tiered. how can i face my negative emotions and my deep childhood wounds? i know i fear abandonment but i dunno why.

    1. Hi Amy,

      you are so welcome.

      Okay …many people don’t logically remember anything from their childhoods, yet I promise you that the information (trauma / block) is known completely by the subconscious and can be accessed, when we learn how to drop into theta brainwave, open our body and connect.

      It can just take learning how to open up and do that.

      Because you are on NARP, are you giving the Module Work your full and open attention? Have you gone through the instructions and the Tips Module to understand how to do this?

      There may just be a slight shift in something that you are doing that may open up the information for you.

      Or … you may need some guidance with this …. as I suggested to Ananda above it would be a really good idea to come into my next Webinar Group https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar to get help in the Group with self-partnering.

      Also you may want to consider being a part of the NARP Forum https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/member/ because there is so much wonderful guidance and support there, as well as people sharing with you how they broke through and were able to self-partner.

      I hope this helps you Amy.

      Mel xo

  16. So my thing is I have done all this work, I am a happy person. I love myself, a lot. I have worked hard to be happy in my skin. Love my own time alone. Gift myself. Take care of myself. I don’t understand how he did this if I have been doing this work. Can a drug addict, show signs of Narc. if they are using behind your back and you don’t know about it? I am so confused right now.

  17. Thank you for your blog. I started my healing journey four years ago and info like this (inside out) is hard to find. I read “the mastery of love” a few years ago along with Lester Levenson and Dr. Hawkins works. There is one Americian that resonates with me just as you do and says many of the same things you do in different ways. His website and book are “Why is this happening to me again” and whyagain.org. I’m curious to see if you have looked through his stuff. It comes from a religious perspective but probably not like you would think. The only thing I haven’t liked is all the narc/victim talk because it keeps the cycle of blame going. Thank you for your work and I look forward to reading more of your blogs

    1. Hi Mel,

      Your material has been so helpful and finally come to understand more about life. For some like me, it is enough validation to just know that there was nothing wrong with me all the thirty something years i suffered serious narcissistic abuse from siblings. i still have serious addictions to fight, like alcohol and cigarettes and procrastination. But something tells me that just by getting insight to the realities you so systematically put forward, its all going to be much easier. Thanks. May I just ask something, could you say something about mobbing and scapegoating and projection. Thanks a lot Mel.

      Sam,
      Nairobi Kenya.

  18. Hello, I wonder, what can I do, if chronic disease Cfs before and after cancer forced me to remain isolated for a decade or longer, withdraw completely from my precessional work and contacts as from all friends, who are busy into their careers meanwhile..
    therapy has made me realize that of course, Cfs was also a way to survive by not living – paradoxically… I can now admit much better, how much I long for being with friends ( again), and beiing alone to the cinema feels quite sad, not very self partnering, i have to say…
    Still my body needs a lot of recovery too…, so I cannot make easy appointments in advance, but only the very day… Often have to quit because of insomnia or alike.
    Also I feel still ashamed about being so broken, and yes, in a way, also socially “needy”…Not necessarily for another partner, though I wouldn’t mind such a development in a longer ( slow;) run, – but for a good close friend to chat with, empathic, not as extremly nonempathic as my narcisstic partner ( with whom I don’t live, and never did, but we still fone and rarely meet for a tea… He is a good heart, but he is the absolute loner, lucky Luke prototype.:/. Took me 3 years of therapy to realize how much that weakens me, but I am not yet ready to make a dramatic move, rather prefer to continue therapy and walk slowly into a better dimension with/in myself..:))
    But not socially isolated.
    How does that go together with “self partnering”?
    ( I grew up in a severe narcisstic abuse and was an isolated kid for very long, so it doesn’t taste very nice.. even though I always loved to spent time alone walking and reading and writing – now I want to be with people really..:)))
    I wiI’ll be glad for some inspiration..
    Thanks for the supportive pages!

  19. “This is exactly what we have been doing to the inner wounded parts of ourselves. We have been ignoring them and trying to self-medicate them away with additions and distractions … or trying to whip them into line with “positivity”.

    Moment of truth. I’ve been doing this so long under the guise of “positivity.” I’ve recently tried being more compassionate toward myself and it had been a long, hard road….

  20. Samuel
    April 10, 2017

    Hi Mel,

    Your material has been so helpful and finally come to understand more about life. For some like me, it is enough validation to just know that there was nothing wrong with me all the thirty something years i suffered serious narcissistic abuse from siblings. i still have serious addictions to fight, like alcohol and cigarettes and procrastination. But something tells me that just by getting insight to the realities you so systematically put forward, its all going to be much easier. Thanks. May I just ask something, could you say something about mobbing and scapegoating and projection. Thanks a lot Mel.

    Sam,
    Nairobi Kenya.

  21. I have no idea how to do any of this. I’m English. We don’t do emotions. We would rather put up with decades of emotional pain than ‘scream it out’. I get everything you’re saying. I loved my narcissistic mother and can see that we were both self-haters who blamed others for our pain. Two peas in a pod. Now I’m alone, instead of feeling free, the pain just gets worse. I know I have to deal with it, but I truly loathe all this meditation and breathing stuff – it just makes me feel empty and depressed. My body is so wracked with fibro and arthritis that I can’t ‘let emotions out’ without ending up in even more pain and with more physical symptoms – or flat on my back wth a fever. I think I need a more gradual, baby-steps approach. I feel so fragile. I really don’t understand how to ‘love’ myself. To me, love is a word that has no meaning whatsoever. I just wish there was something practical I could do.

  22. Melanie-Your videos and articles have been invaluable to me during a time of pain and confusion as I unravel from a narc abusive relationship

    I am just now trying to figure out me, my values, likes and dislikes, my strengths and weaknesses. Childhood involved making my parents happy . I was. not allowed or encouraged to acknowledge my feelings, let alone address them. As I enter a journey of self partnering, how does one work on self when constantly barraged by societal values? ,ie. that wealth/status = happiness and fulfillment when you know in your heart it does not. I am more aware that I really disagree with this. Is this a value or a self discovery about myself? I don’t k how to address this with friends.or stay mum?

    1. Hi Renee,

      I am so pleased I have been able to help!

      I just did a little video on my Facebook Page which is all about “trying to figure it out”.

      You can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/Melanie-Tonia-Evans-137377772251/

      There truly Renee is an easier way – and you can experience this in my free workshop – https://www.melanietoniaevans.com/freewebinar

      All of the “how to” is in that time together, where I promise I will show you “how”.

      I hope this helps.

      Mel xo

  23. Melanie,
    I realize I need to stand up for myself, i realize I have been gaslighted, emotionally tortured, drained of all finances and self respect, but how do I move forward?? I hate myself for allowing this to happen and have buried my head in the sand for so long that i sound unbelievable even to myself..it is nice to believe in yourself and not care what others think, but what about when you need them to? What if it is family and your children and legal and medical personnel that you need to convince for your future and the lives of your children and your career? What if you have been made to seem so lacking in morals and virtue and mentally unstable that your story is unbelievable, yet you know it to be true but you buried your head in denial for years, heartbroken and devastated that your withdraw seems to the public as guilt? What if your narc is above the law in the community? What if any evidence to prove your innocence and sanity Has been altered and irradicated…what then? I bet that you are even questioning my sanity, i would….thanks for listening, i am stuck, afraid of worse to come, it always does. I was never strong, a people pleaser. I know my weaknesses, i know my faults, yet cant seem to do a thing without further damage

    1. Hi Kay..

      I know exactly how you feel as I am in the identical position as you…hard to believe that I allowed this to go on for so many years. i trusted this so called ‘Christian’ man who has become a nightmare to live with.. i have left but now I have to heal and focus on me. He has been and always will be a porn addict. His arrogance and mocking attitude are contrary to what he preaches to others….A hypocrite through and through who will maintain his image above all else..

      He thinks he is fooling everyone but the truth does have a way of coming out. All I can do now is live for me each day. I am getting more education and moving forward, something I should have done years ago.

      Take care
      Gail – Thanks to Mel for providing support and common sense to so many..

  24. thank you so much from deep of my heart!

    can you please talk more about how we could heal and deal with the child inside us (steps) ? and when we could say that we are done? the signs that tell that we are completely recover ,heal and attend that great authentic level of living and wellbeing ?

    thank you super much again i am so grateful and blessed because i found you just now and i am totally ready for self partnering ! .. i just need to be more educated about it from you because you really made me feel better in a simple understood and a clair way ! i am glad i read this article I LOVE YOU

    big hug to you all

  25. I am speechless. I read your article several times and finally The Light came in. IT s the 5th year I am struggling in a narcissistic relationship trying for years to find the answers in his childhood trying constantly to understand why is he treating me so horrible why do I forgive everything why do I Seek for his love when cheating lying hurting punishing ME controlling me manipulating me is going on for years. I got to the point to understand his behaviour but never understood mine. Why do i forgive always and why do i go Back everytime. And then I found your article and realised at 43 years old having 2 children from a previous marriage how damaged i am from my childhood. How many wounds i have from a narcissistic father and never realised IT untill today. I don t know how to heal them i really believe i need help and guidance. I am from a small village from Romania no therapists for this so please guide me with more articles or videos on self partnering The steps i should take to help myself heal and get The Power to leave him definetely. Thank you so much…

  26. Bangla Diary is a place where we’ll tell the stories of History, Culture, Sports, Biography, Entertainment and many more… Everyone is invited to this fascinating world of fun facts and stories.

  27. Thank you so much for these life-changing insights. I am truly truly grateful. I was wondering if it is possible to work on self partnering when you are with the partner a) who is not doing this work. b) who is doing this work on himself too.

  28. thank you so much from deep of my heart!

    can you please talk more about how we could heal and deal with the child inside us (steps) ? and when we could say that we are done? the signs that tell that we are completely recover ,heal and attend that great authentic level of living and wellbeing ?

    thank you super much again i am so grateful and blessed because i found you just now and i am totally ready for self partnering ! .. i just need to be more educated about it from you because you really made me feel better in a simple understood and a clair way ! i am glad i read this article I LOVE YOU
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