7 CRITICAL areas of recovery after a narcissistic relationship

0:00 Hey everyone in our YouTube community, I'm giving you exclusive access to a favorite healing program workshop called the seven healing spaces. Listen, narcissistic abuse can affect every aspect of your life. And this workshop talks about seven critical areas where recovery happens and how to begin reclaiming each one. I hope you find it helpful. Let's talk about what these seven spaces are. Traditionally, when I've taught undergraduates about mental health and undergraduate students over the years, I really sort of focused on the behaving part, the thinking part, the social part, and the cultural part. But the fact is is that these spaces are a lot more robust. I'm going to give you a personal example that this morning as I was getting ready, I put my hair up in a ponytail for mostly because I I'm not

0:47 very good at fixing my own hair. I didn't have time to get the thing that makes it straight. And I pulled it back and this has happened a couple of times. and I have all these sorts of these hairs that are quite they're not as long as the rest of my hair. So, they have to sort of plaster them back. It was such an interesting moment of a physical trigger for me because I have to remember where those sorts of hairs that are getting longer all the time but don't quite pull back in the ponytail come from. And some years back, it's been a while, I was going through some pretty severe narcissistic abuse. And so much so that I really stopped taking care of my physical health. I also started losing most of my hair. Like I really became quite significantly like it became very thin. My fingernails started getting so um damaged that they started getting at risk of falling off.

1:33 My skin be I really my health went to hell. It all culminated in very very severe anemia that almost required a transfusion. But what the real issue was though was what this was doing to me. The hair falling out. The doctor said this could be as much stress as the anemia. But I had fallen apart. And because so much hair had fallen out, ultimately I was able to get distance from that narcissistic relationship, do the healing work, and the hair started to grow back. But the fact that it still won't pull back into a ponytail is a living legacy because those hairs had to start from ground, you know, ground zero. They had to start from 0.1. And the fact that the hair still won't pull pull back in a ponytail really made me reflect on the physical healing part of it. It's this constant reminder for me of how much I got damaged by a relationship that it really took my health on a nose dive. So that's why I'm

2:19 saying each one of these spaces, we manage them in different ways. Sometimes we don't even think of them as healing spaces. It's no coincidence there's seven. You can almost assign one of these to a day if you want, like, okay, Sunday's my behavioral touchbased day and Monday's my cognitive. But in a more ideal world, these become little touchston that you think about every day. And also, some of you are going to find that some of these spaces that you're actually much more sort of wired in. Some of you might say, "I've got a great physical like health system set up. I get up. I take a walk. I drink healthy things. I eat healthy things." Like, you might have that piece wired, but you may feel like, "And I'm stuck endlessly in rumination loops." So, some of these things we're better at than

3:06 others. That's going to be incredibly individual. So, you're hoping everyone's ready to sort of go on this journey through these healing spaces. We're going to start where I think most survivors struggle the most, asking the question of how do you feel? And I mean, how do you feel? Like sad, happy, feeling, not just a headache. We're going to get to the headache soon enough, but how do you feel? So, let's reflect on what narcissistic relationships do to how we feel, to our emotional worlds. A lot of this is negative mood states like depression and anxiety. We don't feel motivated to do stuff. So, then we we feel even worse. There's a lot of this kind of hypervigilance. We never feel like we can sit still, right? Is the narcissistic person going to blow up today? A client recently said it to me

3:52 so well. They said, "I live my life waiting for the explosions even when we're having a good day." And I thought that was very telling, which means your system's always on alert for the explosions. There can be a lot of anger. Anger is a very prevailing emotion for a lot of survivors, as well as frustration. Sadness, and you might be wondering, what's the difference between sadness and depression? Depression takes us out more, right? It affects our affects our day-to-day life. We may not even be able to sort of get out of work, get out of bed and go to work or take care of responsibilities that we have. Sadness is just sort of this lingering art. We someone will even tell us something funny and we might even chuckle a little but it's not the big belly laugh that we once might have had. And then of course

4:38 there's always grief. Like I said it's going to be its own month in this program. The grief of narcissistic abuse, it goes beyond just sadness. It goes beyond depression. It's loss. Every day it's loss and it's reminder of loss. So all of those things comprise a lot of the standard emotional reactions people have to narcissistic abuse. Also, if a person's already living with mental health issues, they have a history of depression or generalized anxiety or any number of mental health issues, narcissistic abuse takes that existing mental health issue and really blows it up and makes it significantly significantly worse. And a lot of times people go into therapy and instead of a therapist saying like, "Oh, wow. The narcissistic abuse is making your anxiety worse," they just say, "Wow, you

5:25 have really severe anxiety." And honestly, if we pulled the narcissistic abuse out of that person's life, they may may still have generalized anxiety disorder, but it wouldn't be as severe. So, when we're talking about emotional healing, where do we sort of take this space? First of all, I want you to express these feelings, which for survivors is already a very fraught space. How do we express these things safely? What are our safe spaces? So, first step then, I should have probably put this ahead, is you got to find your safe places, safe places to cry, safe places to be angry, and safe places to be anxious. And by means of an exercise, I would love for all of you right now in the chat, share what are your safe

6:10 crying spaces, what are your safe angry places, and what are your safe anxious places. Because those are going to be different for different people. Personally, I'm going to be honest with you, my best crying places, and I've got two of them. The car when I'm alone and the shower. And when I feel the cry coming up, I am honestly the cleanest person in the world. I've been crying a lot lately. take a shower, take a shower, and when I can take a drive. So that that's a place where I can be alone and I can sort of let it rip. But for all of you, what is that crying place? I actually find it quite soothing to know that those places exist for me. So if I really need it, I've got them. The other places, again, the angry places can also be a little bit tricky because we might

6:55 say, I it's not safe for me to be angry. I'll either get push back or I'll get criticism if I'm angry. But do you have those safe angry places? And if not, to start thinking about what those might look like for people who don't anywhere they can take it, not even friends. Sometimes writing the anger out can help. And then those anxious places. Again, anxious places have to be safe places because if you take your worry to someone and they invalidate it, oh, you're being ridiculous. What is wrong with you? You're a baby. That's very, very different than someone who says it's okay. Example I'll give recently. Again, I'm going to give a personal example is I one of the legacies of narcissistic abuse for me is I have symptoms that almost look obsessivecompulsive. I do a lot of second-guing. And where that's most

7:41 pronounced for me is when I'm about to travel, like I'm about to get on an airplane. And no matter how many times I check, every time I leave the house on the way to the airport, and I don't tend to do this with Ubers, but I have, but when if someone's driving me or I'm driving myself in invariably I'll pull over to the side of the road and have to check for something that I've checked a thousand times. That is to me that obsessivempulsive checking is very much a legacy of being gaslighted where you were constantly saying, did I say that? Did I do that? Did I move that? And that was something that had been happening for me since childhood. So I do it and I had to do it recently about a week ago and it was a very emotional trip too and the people who were with me when I said I have to pull over and it wasn't even a great place to pull over. I had to actually get off the road for a little

8:27 while. They said you do what you need to do. It's all good. And that understanding it literally took what would in in the past when I've said I need to go check for this thing I would be what is wrong with you? Why don't you prepare better? Why don't you pack better? Those folks in that car understood that this was beyond me packing better. That my bag is practically alphabetized. Right? It's not that it's disorganized. It's that I have that anxiety. Those people in that car that day were a safe anxious place. So that's what I mean about having those spaces. Some of us don't have those at all. So to be aware of how can you create those sometimes within yourself. Journaling your feelings also helps a lot. But sometimes even on a daily basis sharing writing that down for yourself. There are mood trackers out there and

9:13 it's literally like not even a second it pops up. What's your mood today? And you you hit it. And having that data, you can even do that multiple times a day over time can also help you see those es and flows. But if above all else in healing from narcissistic abuse, you can't judge your feelings. That's one of the biggest problems I see is that people judge their feelings, right? They say, "I have no right to be sad right now. So many things are going right in my life. My children are healthy. I have no right to be sad. The hell you don't. If you're sad, you're sad. Your kids could be the healthiest people in the world. You're still having a feeling. And when we don't judge our feelings, they have the opportunity to pass through us because that's what feelings do. They pass through. It's almost like food. We eat it, we taste it, we digest

9:59 it, and then we get we we excrete it. Right? Feelings are the same. But when we block them by judging them, they do get stopped up. It's like feeling constipation, right? And they back up. But the problem with constipation is we feel bloated and gross. When we're constipated with our feelings, we actually can make ourselves quite sick because it comes out in other ways that can be damaging to us. Again, I gave this idea of mood trackers. It's not a bad thing to do because you can really sometimes say like, "Wow, I had four good days. Oh, interesting. those four days I didn't talk to this toxic person or it was a 4-day weekend from work or the person was on a business trip or something. However, when it comes to emotion, if you find that your feelings are are rolling in a way that your emo

10:46 emotions, particularly things like anxiety and depression, but even anger are getting in the way of your life, causing problems for you with work, caregiving, self-care, definitely you do need to consider therapy or other intervention because you you you don't want this to get in the way of your life so much that then it can be harder and harder to kind of get out of that space. Okay. So now let's go to space two which is physical. These are in no particular order by the way. I think it's honestly where my mood was as I was putting together you know the these thoughts on this. So how does your body feel? I recently put out a video. Somebody had once asked me Dr. Romney please tell me how I can identify a narcissist as quickly as possible. They want the questions to ask. Right. Well that I mean on short of you asking someone are you a narcissist which I don't think

11:32 you're going to get a great answer to. Um how do you do it? And yeah, you can look for the red flags, but honestly folks, and drop this one in the chat and discuss amongst yourselves. It's how you physically feel in their presence. You feel it. And there's and for some folks, like I said in the video, you feel it in your diaphragm. Sometimes you feel it as a heaviness in your chest. Sometimes you feel those hairs stand up on the back of your neck or a dryness in your mouth. But you feel it. I I sometimes feel as the air getting sucked out of me. And when you feel that, pay attention to that because think about that. That was already your body saying,"I don't like the feel of this." Narcissistic abuse survivors tend to doubt themselves and saying, "Oh, you're being silly. Push through it." Your body is in many ways smarter than your brain. In the video, I

12:18 talk about how the brain gaslights the body a lot. Like, "Oh, go on now. You're being silly." Pay attention to the feeling. But that feeling that we often have in the beginning or early on or once we identify someone's toxic patterns, when that feeling sticks around, it harms our bodies. I have never once, never once in my career, and I've been doing this for decades, worked with a survivor of narcissistic abuse where they did not experience some relatively significant health fallout. Like I said, even things like I was sharing with you, anemia, a worsening of a chronic condition like diabetes, a worsening of autoimmune conditions, the onset of a health problem they didn't have genetic um risk for, chronic migraines or headaches. Pick a problem. Okay. But that exacerbation, so a person

13:06 may already have a problem. I know for me, I'm a migraine sufferer. When I'm around a lot of narcissistic abuse, the frequency of the migraines really starts to pop. We also see that when we're exposed to long-term stress, because when it's brought down to brass tax, narcissistic abuse is a form of stress. I would argue it's a unique form of stress because everyone's like, "Well, do stress management. You can cope." And what? There is no freaking list or organization app in the world that is going to help you have less stress from a narcissistic relationship. By definition, they're stressful. That ongoing long-term stress whoops. That ongoing goinging long-term stress which results in the release of stress hormones, corticosteroids most

13:53 prominently leads to all kinds of health issues like inflammation throughout the body, headaches, muscular tension. We feel sick. Okay, we feel sick when we're exposed to long-term stress, whatever the origin of it is. But there's a lot of good research showing that in particular interpersonal stress and workplace stress especially workplace interpersonal stress result in a unique form of helplessness and powerlessness in the face of that stress that can result in even more health issues. There's great work out there in the field of psychonuroimmunology that shows that long-term for example marital stress results in pretty significant hits to the immune system. So you get sick more often. People who

14:38 are in narcissistic relationships don't take good care of their health, right? That part of it is because you're spending all your damn time running around in circles trying to manage the narcissist, right? So, you forget to take your medication or you may not even eat as well or meal times become so fraught that you're sort of picking at your dinner and then eating something badly later on. We you may self soothe with food, with drugs, with alcohol. But all of that means we don't take good care of our health. We may times people in narcissistically abusive relationships won't have a won't have a ride to a doctor's appointment and so you don't even get to do that preventative health stuff. It's a whole range of issues. But that self-care that adherence by self-care I don't mean going to the spa. I mean taking your damn vitamins. Okay? When that starts to

15:24 slip over time and especially if it's a long-term relationship it can take a toll on you. Your illness. Now this point I want to make this one is a source of a lot of grief to people. Many people have stayed in long-term close relationships with narcissists, saying, "I'm getting older. I might get sick, and I'm going to want someone around when I get sick." I am willing to promise you, this narcissistic person will not take care of you when you're sick. If you think that this is the person who's going to gently put your adult diaper on you, absolutely not. Narcissistic people don't like sick people. They don't like hospitals. They don't like having their routines interrupted, especially as they get older. So, if you think if you get sick ahead of the narcissistic person, and

16:09 I'm willing to bet you will get sick sooner than they do because they've been doing a great job with their own health, and the research shows that, too, that you will be viewed as a massive inconvenience to them. And some people have stayed in these relationships, not sometimes even younger people get sick, but I'm even see people in their 60s and 70s, 80s who stuck around thinking like, well, at this point, they got to step up. They got to see I'm sick. And the grief of that on top of the stress of the illness can actually make health outcomes worse. Keep that in mind. If you're viewing them as a long-term care policy, you're going to be really sorely and actually dangerously disappointed. Sleep and nutrition are affected. All survivors of narcissistic abuse struggle with sleep. When we don't get good sleep, we get sick. Our bodies need good

16:55 sleep as well as decent nutrition. And then there are other physical sort of experiences we have. Apathy and energia are sort of the ones that jump out at me most pointedly. Enuria is just low energy or not having any energy. That sort of fatigue and exhaustion is such a classical part of narcissistic abuse. It's sort of why is this my life? I don't even feel like getting out of bed is this idea of most survivors will wake up in the morning and saying I really have to do this again and yeah you do or how long until I have to talk to them or how long before the shoe drops today it really can lead to an apathy which is that you you sort of don't feel like doing anything like you just sort of like eh I don't care it's a lot of I don't care right so this really these really take us out physically

17:42 from a physical healing standpoint I want to make sure that you all of you do get some kind of baseline health assessment. Like I'd be curious how long it's been since a lot of you got a a a physical, basic lab work, all of that. You do need that because at a minimum, it would be nice to have that baseline to see how that changes over time. Okay? So, it's at if you can get one, get one. Building in some form of of moderate exercise. I'm guilty of not doing it enough. And we we often are because we're sort of all running around in circles with all this additional stress of toxic relationships, nutrition, sleep. I mean, this here you already know the answers. But if you you really do want to have some form of sleep ritual, whatever it is, because narcissistic relationships can really

18:28 get stuck in your head, wake you up in the middle of the night, make it difficult to fall asleep. You also want to be more tuned in to your body. Your body is telling you the truth. And when it's telling you the truth, it might mean telling you, "Take a break. You've been around toxic people all day. Take your signals. Excuse me. Take your signals from it because your head has been so gaslighted and messed up by this relationship." Some of the fears you may want to explore. Some people have fears of what I get sick and what if I'm going to be alone? Very real fears. You, as long as you're with a narcissistic person and you're viewing them as a primary caregiver, you probably will be alone. if you're sick. So, you may want to start working on a plan B. Honestly, as I say to many survivors, anything you do that's good

19:13 for you, you almost need to think of it as an act of defiance. Like, huh, I'm going to do what's good for me. And don't make an announcement. Never ever ever ever go up to the toxic person or people in your life and say, "Hey everyone, you're not going to get me down. I'm going to take care of my health." That is just open season on you then. Absolutely not. silent acts of defiance. I'm going to start doing things for my health and I'm not going to tell anyone. Whether it's when I go to work, I'm going to take the four flights of stairs every day instead of taking the elevator. I'm going to park in the farthest spot so I get a long walk. I'm going to build something into what I eat each day that I'm not going to tell them about. Making that that your own health, a silent act of defiance, not only gives you the added hm of my little rebellion, it'll pay it

19:59 forward on your health, but always that reminder they were never going to take care of you. But I can promise you this, they were expecting that you will take care and are expecting that you'll take care of them. So, let's talk about the cognitive cognitive healing. The cognitive healing space gets at the issue of what do you think and what do you believe? Many of you have heard about cognitive behavioral therapy. You may have even been in cognitive behavioral therapy. It's probably one of the most frequently used forms of therapy, not only in the United States and around the world. It's shown to be really good in the treatment of depression, but it often comes up a little bit short with survivors of narcissistic abuse who are told, "You just need to change how you think." I'm like, "How is a person supposed to

20:45 change?" like um I'm being abused and it's it's okay or I'm being abused and it's not going to bother me or maybe even worse gaslight yourself and saying I'm not being abused. When it's something like that is happening to you day in and day out, it can be really hard to change how you think. And that's where a lot of CBT therapists often get stymied working with survivors of narcissistic abuse. But thinking can affect or [snorts] cognit you know thinking and cognition can be affected by narcissistic relationships in a lot of ways can impact the existing core beliefs we have classical core belief of a survivor is I'm not good enough and that is likely a belief that's been going for a person since childhood or I'm not worthy

21:31 or I don't deserve I don't deserve to be happy I don't deserve good things I don't deserve love well if we believe these things we live in accordance with our beliefs. There's no two ways about it. If you feel like I'm not good enough, we're never going to exert put ourselves out there as though we are. And that those core beliefs also make people prime targets for narcissistic individuals who then capitalize on that vulnerability. It's cruel, but it's true. Hopelessness, helplessness, and powerlessness are three core beliefs that are often held by narcissistically abused people. And for good reason because you're in a situation that cannot change because they won't change. The only thing you can change is things we've always talked about radical acceptance, realistic expectations, um

22:19 all you know all of those things, not personalizing the issues where you're like this is never going to change and it's not me. That's really the two core the two core elements of being able to survive a narcissistic relationship. But if you say damn it, I want this I want my marriage to work out. I want to be close to my parents. And you recognize that they're not going to change. It's not like like woohoo radical acceptance. It's a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. And that can then lead to emotional reactions. Rumination. Aha. If I found if I could create a rumination pill, an anti-rumination pill, I'd be your billion-dollar girl. I'm telling you that right now because that's what really hamstring survivors of narcissistic abuse. We'll talk about some tips about that in a moment. Having

23:05 negative thoughts about yourself again, not only then I'm not good enough, but no one's ever going to love me or no one's ever going to love me again. That can keep people stuck. Self-lame. I put it in the middle for a reason because it's what everything else circles around in the narcissistically abusive relationship. This was my fault. I could do better. There's another way I can say this. No, there's not. They're going to blow up at you because that's what they do. Just like the scorpion stings. And there's no gentle words. There is no validation. There is no compliment you can give the scorpion to keep it from stinging you. It's exactly the same thing here. You can only fluff so long and at some point you won't even fluff them. Right. Right. And you'll not have commented on the thing that they wanted

23:51 commented on. Boom. And then you're back in rage city. Cognitively also survivors have a lot of trouble with self-doubt. I don't know what should I do. I don't know. I don't know. because if you've been gas-sighted enough, you just don't trust your decision-making capabilities. The the two go together. It's not that you have a decision-making deficit. It's that when you have made decisions, you've been h you've been hit with you sure about that or do you know what you're doing or I don't know your mind doesn't seem right. How are you going to be confident about your decisions? Especially if it's been happening to you since you were a child. And then there are the other cognitive patterns of shame. There could be some debate on whether shame's an emotional issue or a cognitive issue, but shame is often an

24:36 interpretation that I've done a bad thing. I'm doing a bad thing. Think of all the survivors and I'm sure that's some of you. Drop it in the chat if it is, which is I'm staying in this relationship. Maybe that's a statement on me. Maybe there's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm the sort of broken codependent person. People stay for a variety of reasons. But feeling the shame over staying in something can lead them to be isolated. Understand your reasons for staying because some of them many of them are quite valid. But that shame pushes people into the shadows. We also will see sense of guilt and worthlessness that people have not just from being in the relationship and being told literally you're worthless but also then feeling that sense of that that that experience of being staying in the

25:23 relationship or why I keep going back. I keep going back. It's me. There's got to be something wrong with me. No, let me remind you. We all go back over and over and over again. And it often takes something catastrophic for us to stop going back. some some pushback strategies on rumination. Keep keep track of how when your rumination comes up. Are there times of day? Are you a morning ruminator? Are you a when I'm alone ruminator? Are you a um uh when I'm cooking dinner ruminator? Are you a when I'm falling asleep ruminator? Pay attention to that and start sort of seeing what you can do to shape those times. Like if you're that if you're ruminating like that when you're cooking dinner, maybe throw on a podcast while you're preparing dinner. something to sort of sort of switch your mind kind of

26:10 over from those times. Distract. I know it sounds so simple and benol, but it's a fact. When we're room when we're ruminating, the best way to do it, it's like your phone. You know, when your phone freezes, you push those two little buttons. This is the two little button push on you. [snorts] Have I What I'd love to have you do, I used to back in the day, I used to do this with clients. I'd have them make a whole list of things that distract them and write them on index cards or little pieces of paper and sort of drop them in a little bowl or envelope or something on their desk and when they find themselves ruminating, pick a little piece out of there and they're like 10-minute like distractions. It could be like watch 10 minutes of a Netflix show or if these are things you can do at the moment, take a quick walk outside the house, uh pet the dog, pet the cat, walk the dog, um make a smoothie, uh listen to your

26:58 listen to a favorite song, but distract. Getting outside also is a great way to do that. Somehow the sky above your head and even the temperature change, hot, cold, whatever it is, can just sort of it's it just sort of snaps you out. taking a shower or a bath. Like if you can strip somehow being naked and being in water, it's a very primal rebooting experience. We're going to talk about playlist and music and all these other things in a second. Make a weird little to-do list. And by weird, I mean like your to-do list can't be like I'm going to go and like paint my bedroom. It's like clean the sock drawer or cut the carrots for dinner or water the plants. That little list, it's a little bit like distract, but you get this little payback from it, too, of you got something done, right? So, one of my

27:45 pandemic obsessions became all these plants, right? And it takes me a good 15 minutes to do the rotation, but then they're watered. I can't do it every day, of course, but I have that little list. I'm like, "Okay, I can't get out of my head right now. Let me go water the plants. Let me change the cat litter. Let me go um do this one thing." you know, silly, mindless, low stakes thing like wash a dish. Have that at the ready because you get the added bonus of getting something done and you probably will get distracted off the rumination a little bit. Call or text a friend. Even if it's not a big back and forth, it could even be, "Hey, I was just thinking about you or I remember you telling me that you had an interview today." Getting out of your head and into someone else's life can also be a great rumination breaker. Write a good old

28:30 letter. remember those with a stamp and the this and the envelope. It's such a joy. Like you my mail is usually bills and tax and this and that. So when I sometimes get a card like, "Hey Romney, was just thinking about you. I miss you." And like what I I'll feel like I'm seven years old and it's my birthday because nobody does it anymore. Make cards, buy cards, send postcards from your town, but people love getting them. Again, the act of doing that will distract you. take a page out of acceptance and commitment therapy and instead of saying I am never going to have a normal life because of this narcissistic relationship or I am so angry add this phrase in front of it. I have the thought that my life is never

29:15 going to be normal. I have the thought that I'm too angry to get through this day. By adding that little phrase, it almost creates some distance from my life is never going to be okay. That becomes a factual statement of two. I have the thought that my life's never going to be okay. It pulls you back. It gives you some distance. I know you're thinking, "Oh, come on." It actually works. Give it a shot. Put it in your rumination push back strategy toolbox. Use whatever social groups you have that allow you to push back on rumination by hearing other people's sort of pain. Core beliefs are a part of the cognitive structure here. I'm not going to belabor this, but to say when you think about core beliefs, what are the core beliefs you got from your family of origin? And

30:02 a lot of those have to do with your identity. What are the core beliefs you developed in your close relationships? And how did your core beliefs from childhood impact the kinds of close relationships you got in adulthood? For example, how your core beliefs in childhood may have led to how you ch you chose a a long-term committed partner in adulthood. And then the same thing around workplace. How has your how have your core beliefs impacted what you've done in the workplace or even how you've held yourself back in in a workplace? So again, those are more of the thinking kinds of issues. And then these are examples these are examples of the core beliefs that put people at risk for getting into narcissistic relationships of all kinds. Things like I'm not enough. My standards are too high. I'm

30:49 asking too much. Uh, everybody has some good in them, maybe. But I would say that with a narcissistic person, it's like trying to find like one Tic Tac in a messy purse. Yeah, maybe. But do you really want to spend your whole night looking for that Tic Tac? I don't think so. Um, and that nobody can be trusted. Okay, I get that because I live in that world. But then you never expect trust from anyone. So all of these things can put us at risk for getting into and staying in narcissistic relationships as well as things like I'm an impostor. Imposttor syndrome cuts across all narcissistic abuse survivors. It's a cognitive symptom. Basically, you've internalized the gaslighting in such a way that you really believe that you're you're not good enough. You don't know

31:34 or actually even your mind isn't that good. Core beliefs are very inherent to us. They're so built into us that we almost don't know that they're they can be untrue like I'm not enough. They fit us. They're they're comfy. So, we don't get rid of them. But I want you to start getting into this habit of when you feel like you're not enough. That let's use that as a classical maladaptive core belief. Force an alternative belief even if it doesn't feel right. So, if I'm thinking, um, I'm not good enough, so I'm not going to get through all my deadlines today, then I can force the alternative belief of, well, you have the ability to just put your head down and get it done. So, just do it. And so, sorry about the cat. Um, but you can force that alternative belief. Find a

32:21 different way to put it even if you don't believe it. And say, "Okay, well, I'm really smart and good, so I'm going to get everything done today. I could roll my eyes and mock myself, but maybe if I said that a few times, I'll actually lean in today and get it all done. Right? If your positive core beliefs about yourself have shifted though, continue to try to hold some space for them, even if it feels too risky, even if you just have to write them down, you need to hold on to those. The next healing space is around behavior, which is what do you do? All right. What are the behaviors that narcissistic abuse survivors engage in? All of these. We appease. We always feel the need to reassure other people. Probably because we wish we could have some reassurance. We apologize. Remember I told you my

33:08 dream app would be a an app that picks up every time you say, "I'm sorry." So, you could see how many times during the day you say, "I'm sorry for things you didn't do wrong." We're constantly apologizing when we're survivors. We avoid things. And sometimes those things were bad things to avoid because they could have been new opportunities or things we didn't feel like we'd be able to do. So we avoid them. We engage in negative self-t talk like, "Oh, don't don't count on me. I'm an idiot." Or, "I'm so disorganized. You don't want me doing that." We sometimes are in a state of behavioral agitation. We don't sit still. We're like, "Okay, okay, okay. No, no. I I got no worry. I got this. I got this." That anxiety, it comes out of us. Why? because the the the

33:53 narcissistic people in our midst always have us on edge, the thing we left out of place, the thing we didn't do. And then the rage, the demeaning, and the gaslighting that comes out of that. Survivors also socially withdraw many times out of shame. I don't want people to know what I'm in. I'm embarrassed. Um sometimes, you know what often keeps people so keeps people in the social withdrawal loop is grief. It can be painful to see how seemingly normal the lives of others are or to see people who are in happy marriages or come from happy families. Some people will say that it's actually triggering to be amongst people who kind of feel like they have it all figured out so they'll withdraw even further. And then behavioral inhibition, that's where you hold back. You don't it's it it goes

34:41 beyond avoidance. like you will you don't just is avoidance is almost like a little bit more intentional behavioral inhibition is the holding back in the moment it can feel a little bit socially anxious but you just don't do like come on join in I'll tell you one of the most classical examples of behavioral inhibition for so many narcissistic abusive survivors present company guilty is dancing d when I watch people dance with abandon I get tears in my eyes because I'm so jealous of them that they're so sure of themselves and they're So there's a joy in them. I I could watch people dance all day, all night. If I'm at a wedding or in any place I I could watch it and it yet it brings up this deep envy and grief because I feel I'm going to be scrutinized. I'm going to made fun of and who the hell do I think I am to get on that dance floor? And so to me that's

35:28 it's such that's such an interesting place and I know what the origins of that are. So we hold ourselves back in what could be a rather beautiful moment. So, there's a lots of behaviors that we do, whether it's trying to fix or avoiding quite prominently, that characterize narcissistic abuse. Some forms of behavioral healing include things like, "Catch your apology." Before you want to say, "I'm sorry," you might say things like, "Excuse me." Like, I'll always say, this woman was actually telling me this too, and this happened to me recently. She was telling me about and this was a survivor about how when she walks through a door that somebody holds open for her. She was giving the example of walking their business into a business like a coffee shop or something. She says I'm sorry. They're holding the door open for her

36:14 like what are you sorry for. It could be thank you or excuse me or I appreciate it. But she recognized that saying I'm sorry at those moments was as though she didn't even deserve the stranger rather appropriately holding the door open for her. she felt as though she was an inconvenience. Another form of behavioral healing is to really breathe some of that 478 breathing I talked about in last month's guided meditation and move a little bit more slowly and intentionally rather than that herkyjerky way that survivors often move is a way to sort of avoid the rage and the fallout of narcissistic abuse. when you're able to talk to yourself differently instead of the I'm not

37:00 enough or I'm so stupid or I don't know what I'm doing to really step up and say no I do or I can ask for help but I'm not stupid I may just not know how to do this. What survivors are often trying to do is they're trying to get ahead of the gaslighting. They're trying to get ahead of the hurtful words. If I say the hurtful words about myself, then they're not going to be able to hurt me as much. But that's it's it's bad math on that. It doesn't quite work that way because those bad things you keep saying to yourself perhaps to get ahead of what the narcissist will say slowly and but surely becomes your reflexive self-t talk. The next healing space is the spiritual healing space which is this idea of how

37:46 do you connect with something bigger than you and with the world at large. It doesn't just mean going to church or temple. It's that connection with something outside of you that's bigger with you and with the natural world. Everyone in this healing community and in the world at large has different spiritual spaces. People who don't concerns me a little bit because I'm not talking about organized religion though that may be your spiritual space. For some folks it's daily prayer. For others it's merely connection with nature. It's that it's just connection with nature. For others, it's daily practices, meaning and purpose, and healing communities, not just like this, but other ways you come together with people where you have some sort sort of shared sense of purpose. And that that coming

38:33 together with those people fortifies your growth spiritually. Narcissism erodess not only our sense of faith, and many people will say narcissistic abuse led them to question their faith in God or any other benevolent good power in the universe. And it also erodess a sense of meaning and purpose because narcissistic relationships really feel purposeless and meaningless. It can also narcissistic abuse can also leave our lives feeling more futile, right? It makes us feel like this this is all very pointless. And and I bet all of you can resonate with this. We lose faith in everybody. In fact, it's always a shocker to us when someone does something really kind like you almost feel suspicious. the on on Thursday

39:19 someone did a very very kind beautiful gesture for me and it was I I I got tears in my eyes. I was so overwhelmed by it. The gesture in and of itself wasn't overwhelming but in a world where because of what I do I view things through this lens which is a little bit too jaundest and unhealthy. her very simple kind gesture. It felt so big and I thought, well, I'm glad I'm grateful to her. But I almost I've I've lost faith in people. And I think that that really does take a toll on us. People say, "Oh my god, meaning and purpose. I can barely get out of bed. What do you want me to do? Write the great American novel?" No, I don't. All meaning and purpose means is that you have a greater intentionality in your day-to-day life. that all gestures you engage in are a

40:06 part of you being in this world. You can brush your teeth with intention. You can pour your tea with intention. You can find meaning in that moment. I'm here. I'm I'm breathing in and out. I'm drinking my tea. You can find meaning and purpose in those moments. You can be present again with those very simple mundane things you do. I'm also a big fi fan of tiny goals to a larger goal. So tiny things you do can take you to the bigger goal of whatever it may be. And so that small thing doesn't have to be you don't have to make a 10 course meal but each day if I could get that maybe inside of a year I will have actually taken in those recipes and it helps me heal from some legacy patterns I have.

40:53 But also every day, every day all of us, all of you can be grappling with the questions of who am I? What do I stand for? And what do I care about? These will be coming in as part of the prompts for this month. But I want you to ask yourself that question every day. What do you stand for? Because we are so often running a defense on the narcissistic abuse piece of our lives that we start to forget that you stand for more than you think. You may simply stand for I just want to be a compassionate person in the world. Fantastic. That is an incredibly purposeful and meaningful thing to do. Keep doing it because you know what? Some people are going to make that hard for you. So make that make that your

41:39 your crusade that you're I'm bringing kindness into the world. And what matters to you? I want you to grapple with those questions each and every day. And then all of us are going to commit to a silent act of rebellion. What is that? What I mean is don't tell say don't say to the narcissist, you know what, you're not putting me down. You're not keeping me down. I'm going to grad school. Hell no. You are not doing that. You may very quietly find the online program or start doing the application process in silence. They are not to know. You might say, well, at some point they may need to know. Maybe after you get admitted or you figure out the scheduling, but a lot of people get thwarted in the things that they want to do that are bigger than them because they actually think that the narcissistic person wants to share in

42:26 that with them. No, they might want to bring you down because the last thing they want for you is to soar, leaving them feeling inadequate and shamed. They're going to pull you right back down to earth. So, you're like a tiny little balloon that's going to start floating upwards imperceptibly. But this is something that has worked for many individuals I have worked with over the years. I'm also a big fan of shrines as a and rituals as a place of healing. And I'm not telling you to build a temple in the middle of your living room. Put something somewhere in your house on a shelf in a cabinet in a corner that you look at that's your touchstone. It could be honestly it could be a gray rock. just put it there where it

43:12 probably would never get noticed and you notice it and sometimes you can just fix eyes with that thing and it's just enough for you to say, "Okay, I can do this." I you've got it's that those those little spaces you create for you. For some people, it may be more robust. It may be actually more of a meaningful shrine, but something in your house that you can see or that you know is there that allows you to have that touchstone to let you know you're fighting the good fight. That three-step routine I've talked about repeatedly. Three things you do in order every morning. Get up, boom, boom, boom. Whatever it is, because it gets you out of bed and then you're like, "Okay, I can start." Order mine. Some of you know because I've shared it with you so many times. Feed the cat. Make the green tea. Check on the hummingbird feeders. Once

43:58 that's done, I have to come downstairs to see the hummingbird feeders. Now I'm out of bed and we're off to the races. Keep track of sunrise and sunset. Why? Because it's a way to connect to the natural world. Sometimes it's on your phone. You can actually if you have a I know if you have an iPhone, I'm sure if you have an Android, too, it's labeled something about those moments. Even if all you do is it's 522 478 that just say, "Okay, I'm touching base. This day has begun." Some of you may not be up at sunrise. At least you can grab that sunset. But there's moonsets, too. And there's moon phases. In fact, I don't know if you can see, you can't see my Apple Watch, but I have the moon phases on. That's my my face on my phone. There's something about it that if I hang around long enough, that full moon is coming. So, even when

44:44 there's no moon to be seen, she's coming back. And I think that if you can orient yourself to some of those natural rhythms, you're tied into something that's bigger than you. You might even have a tiny ritual at certain times of day. Full moons, new moons, half moons, whatever floats your boat. Solstes and solstice solsticees. Yes. And equinoxes matter, too. And I'm not telling you you need to go out there and become sort of some pagan, you know, pagan person, which if you want to, fantastic. But these natural rhythms, I'm pretty convinced they do impact us, right? The earth is on a tilt. The earth is flat. But they become moments four times a year for you maybe to even do some extra journaling. Remember this is March. March 21st is the spring equinox. The earth will be in balance. And we'll definitely put try to put out something

45:30 to our community that day to remind you this is the earth in balance. It's a day for you to be in balance. It's a day to take stock four times a year. Really take stock of how your healing is going and let the natural rhythms guide you to that place. And I love me some eclipses. You can get a little app that goes on your calendar and tells you through the New York Times. It's New York Times astronomy app. Tells me every time, even if it's an eclipse in Chile, I'm happy to know that sometimes the sun blocks the moon and the moon does what it does with the sun. It's kind of a relationship there. And I think that when we link into these bigger rhythms, doesn't have to just be organized religion, there's something bigger and we can use those as maybe more amped up journaling or self-reflective times in our lives. Social healing spaces. Okay,

46:17 our social healing spaces ask the question, who are your healthy people in commun and who are your healthy communities? Narcissism destroys our social worlds. Not only do the narcissists themselves hurt our social worlds, but it isolates us. Triangulation can harm existing social relationships we have. Enablers can leave us questioning ourselves. We we struggle with trust. We can feel shame and isolate ourselves. Smear campaigns can destroy social networks we believed we had. The experience of estrangement from a family or a system we thought was always going to be there for us can be devastating. And I know something that many survivors have gone through. Our social supports, our friends, whoever, sometimes lose patience with our situations. They're like, "Oh my gosh,

47:04 you're going to complain about this again." And at some level, you might have empathy like, "Yeah, I keep saying the same thing." But at another, it really hurts because then we feel like there's nowhere we can take, no social spaces where we can take this. Sociality, our social connection is critical to healing. Why? It's a place of validation when it's healthy. It's a safe space. It's an accurate mirror. It's the place where we're supposed to experience the healthy ingredients of a healthy relationship like respect, compassion, kindness. Narcissistic abuse survivors always remind me of people who only live on fast food. And in that case, it's just sort of invalidation and gaslighting. But the fruits and vegetables and whole grains are the

47:50 respect, compassion, and kindness. And we're often starving for that. And above all, connection, that sense, whether with a new person or someone we've known for a long time. When we have that, we learn and we become better at soothing ourselves. So, as part of your healing, how do you create some social spaces? If we take a page out of 12step on this one, the idea of making amends, it's a little different because you didn't do anything wrong. In most cases, you're not making amends, but you may have cut people out of your life. Maybe there was a time you were still defending a narcissistic partner or a family member, and other people are like, you know, I can't hang around for this. It's very risky, but some people say, you know, I want to reach back out to some people because I think they were

48:36 actually good people for me. Not all of them will respond the way you want, and you can only do that if you feel ready for that. But in many cases, they'll say, "Sweetheart, welcome back. I missed you. And be that to someone else. If there's someone that you felt you had to set that boundary for, but you might feel like you're ready to reach out to them, do that as well. But have realistic expectations about those former relationships, which may or may not. You're also stronger, too. So, you may have also grown out of some of those relationships as well. I want you to take the sort of fellow traveler model that it it's often used as part of sort of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey work. But the idea of a fellow traveler is as we go through this journey of our lives and we're going to have a month on the hero heroins hero person's journey

49:23 as part of this healing program. But the fellow traveler is somebody who walked aside us for a part of our heroic journey and they were important to us. But there's a point in the path where we part ways. could be a therapist you're no longer going to see. They were your fellow traveler for a while, but we do part ways at the end. We do go out of this journey alone, right? So those fellow travelers, it's not about abandonment. It sometimes it's if we can think of it that way that they were with me for this part of the journey, but now it's time for me to move on to other fellow travelers and do some of this alone can sometimes help us understand that those people perhaps we've grown out of were part of that fellow traveler model. There are also support groups. If this platform is useful, great. If not, some people might find actually group therapy or support groups to be very

50:09 useful. Um, be careful with social media. It can be a fraught space, especially if you go into groups that aren't well moderated. Just be aware of that, but sometimes people will find support there. Just block the people who are not good for you. And also being okay with solitude. part of this healing program. We're actually going to have a month on solitude as well because that actually is a path to being more sort of social. And as we're coming to the close here, this seventh healing space is a space not within us, but it's a space all around us, the sort of macro system around us. What are your roles in the world? And how are you affected by the narcissism of the world at large? The world is a narcissistic place. And if ever we can't say can say that now more

50:54 than ever, right? The way the world has fallen apart in many ways, the way it has become so polarized, the headlines we read, there are stories and cases we see all the time of where narcissistic abuse gets so intense. There was just a case here in California, a very messed up custody case and domestic violence case. Um, and I read it and it it it it destroyed my day because it's what I and others I work with in the field work on. And I'm like, and I'm not going to curse, but you know, I want to curse right now. God effing damn it, that why do these people keep getting it so clearly narcissism was so clear that this woman was going through narcissistic abuse and these damned tragic kinds of endings to these

51:40 stories, they take a toll on us. like I'll find myself for a day lost in it and feeling very depleted. These structures that that exist in our society that basically perpetuate societal level narcissistic abuse and the biases and discrimination people feel face face and the invalidation they get not just from individuals but by entire systems can really make healing hard because a person will say I figured it out and I stepped away from this relationship and I set boundaries here and I'm doing healthy things and then boom they interact with a narcissistic structure. Many people are gaslighted by the world at large. Their experiences are denied by people in the world. This can happen by institutions like the justice system,

52:26 like places you work, can happen collectively by entire groups of people, people at a workplace, people in your family. It can happen by leadership that denies the experiences of people in the world. And it can happen by the media who give us very distorted versions of what are h what is happening in the world sometimes just to get clicks and people looking at their news. Structural issues impact healing. Being in the midst of injustice holds back our healing. There's no two ways about it. Narcissistic abuse survivors have gone through so much injustice. To see it reperpetuated in the world actually holds us back those days. Right? It's like people who when they feel the change in the barometric pressure or the temperature and they feel more pain in

53:11 their joints. It's that but worse. And I've told many of my survivors I've said, "You've got to turn off some of these news feeds." Again, like I said, my apologies even of bringing up a piece of bad news that had affected me because just reading that, I turned to people who are my supports in my community and I reached out to them and I said, "I'm having trouble with this." And they they supported me back. They said, "We're all struggling with this." I felt validated. I felt heard. And we all felt a sense of grief. So when you're being invalidated by systems, it will take a toll on you. When you feel gaslighted by systems, it will take a toll on you. And when you feel not supported by systems, it will take a toll on you. What I want to remind you of is this not in your head. And this could be anything. This could also be isms you're facing. Racism,

53:56 genderism heterosexism um, aism, ability status ism, all those isms, those biases. It's not in your head. This is all happening in the world, but the way people can hold control is like, "Oh, you're being too sensitive about that. Don't make everything about race or something else." It's not all in your head. It's happening. You may not be able to fix it, but at least you can validate it for yourself or others. Stop watching the news so much. That's a promise I've made to myself. I've had to shut it way down. And when I did slip and read it, it threw me back for a couple of days. Monitor your social media. You social media is not good for us. It's really not. When we look at these images of unreal lives, people who are all trying to be enough, leaving the everyone else feeling like not enough, not always good for you, take your power back. A lot of

54:44 policies, it's not about even your congressperson or your senator. It's often about your local legislators. I'll give you an example. The coercive control law we now have in California, we're the only state that has it. It's the first time that psychological abuse, particularly in family court, coercive control only now it's being used in the family court system can be used, psychological abuse can be acknowledged as part of a process of abuse and that and the courts then can bring that into decision-making. It's brand new legislation in California September of 2020. There's no reason you can't work with your state lawmakers, the ones who are your state representatives in your state or province or however your governments are organized wherever you are. Talk to them. Go online, find the California coercive control statute and put it in front of your lawmakers. The

55:30 UK was the was the forerunner on this. They did it first. Figure out ways you might be able to make local change and think if you can take your power back that way. May or may not work, but at least you feel like you've done something. When you see someone being gaslighted, validate them. You may not safely be able to do it in real time, but you may be able to do it afterwards and say, "I saw what just happened. I heard you. You did say what you said." That one experience is enough for many survivors to say the narcissist is still the narcissist who gaslighted them, but that they may feel more wedded to their instincts. To be that for someone else, helps you feel stronger, too. Be a voice for someone who may not have one. All of us have certain privileges that allow us to speak for others and advocate for others, I should say, that don't have

56:16 that voice. Be that and work towards thriving. I have to I mean I'm going to sound a little bit paranoid when I say this and I don't mean to, but I do think at some level the systems want people who are going through narcissistic abuse to just keep their mouths shut. I'm not down with that. I think we need to keep making noise about this. And the therapy world has often viewed me as some sort of crazed person bringing this up. Now, now I'm actually getting to speak to professional audiences. It was a long time coming. I had to keep fighting that fight. And I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people saying, "No, we're not really interested in that. That's not really the tone we're trying to set." So, you keep knocking on doors until somebody lets you in. Whatever that thriving looks like for you. But in each of these spaces, you can commit to a change. In your emotional spaces,

57:03 don't invalidate your own emotions. In your cognitive spaces, challenge your beliefs that you're to blame for everything that's happening. And again, that don't personalize part of deep. In the behavioral, break some bad habits from your relationship. In the physical, commit to one new health practice. And spiritually, build in one daily practice. Even if it's like, "All right, I'm set and I'm going to have the I'm going to get an app that lets me know every day when the sun's going to set and I'm going to stop and I'm going to say something self-affirming to myself." Even if you're in traffic, but don't close your eyes if you're in traffic when that happens. Promise me that. socially commit to cultivating one safe, not new, not old, safe relationship and structurally turn off your news. See you all. So again, I thank you. It's it's

57:48 it's the joy of my month when I get to talk to all of you about these and really to and I have to tell you, you have all propelled me on even quadrupling down on my own healing journey as I think and prepare and research for each of these programs. I have to tell you, I myself am finding what an impact it's making on me. If it's even having a a small impact on you, I will be incredibly grateful. Thanks so much for tuning in. What you watch today is just one workshop from our full and massive healing program library. If you're ready for deeper understanding and more support on your healing journey, the program gives you access to an entire vault of workshops and resources designed to help you make sense of narcissistic relationships, rebuild your sense of self, and move

58:35 forward with greater clarity and confidence. Members of the healing program also receive new monthly workshops every month, guided meditations, live Q&A sessions, and access to a private support community where you can connect with survivors who truly understand this journey. So me, many people want support. Here's where you can get it. So click the link in the

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