BUT STILL, SHE THRIVES | Narcissistic Abuse, Toxic Relationships, Grey Rock Method, Healthy Boundaries, Trauma Healing

Do Narcissists Really Feel? The Truth Will Shock You!

Do Narcissists Really Feel? The Truth Will Shock You!
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TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1: (00:00)In today's episode of, but Still She Thrives. We are gonna talk about do narcissists really have emotions? They have what we see as emotions, but are they true emotions? Stay tuned and find out. Speaker 1: (00:14)Hey, Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawling narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal now, do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted? And mind ed, girl, I see you. I'm Christie. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life, and I wished I could undo the damage. I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So, shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (01:12)All right, let's dive into this. I can say I myself was really wondering about this. When I started to really delve into narcissistic abuse with my own experience with studying it. This was something I was like, oh, I get so confused about this because they can turn on the tears. Or are they real tears? Sometimes it seems so genuine. They have all these different emotions that we can relate to, but there's something that seems off about it, so it makes us wonder. So we're gonna explore. All right. To begin, let's clarify what narcissism is. If you're new here, maybe you don't know. It is narcissistic personality disorder or N p D. It's a mental health condition, really characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, a deep need for admiration and important, very important in this is the lack of empathy for others. So it's not just someone who's like, oh, they're such a narcissist. Speaker 1: (02:08)They're just so cocky, right? It goes a lot deeper. There's a lot of characteristics. You can go binge a bunch of my episodes to find out more, but they often come across as arrogant and self-centered. So I think it's important to know do they have emotions? Do they real emotions? Do they have the same emotions the rest of quote us do? So do they have emotions? The short answer is yes. Like anyone else, they experience a wide range of emotions, happiness, sadness, anger. We know about that. Anger and narcissist, don't we? And even fear, right? However, the way they experience and express their emotions is what's really very different from what we consider typical. So they may have difficulty connecting with and understanding their own emotions. For me, I I really picture them as having these deep, deep buried emotions that they can't even touch on. Speaker 1: (03:06)Occasionally, depending on how much frequency of contact, how long you've known the narcissist, you may get a little glimpse of this vulnerability where you see a true ish emotion. I've experienced that very, very rarely with someone that I have known for decades. Um, I would say twice I feel I've seen what is actually a true emotion. Um, because they, they really don't even understand their own selves. They can't cope with emotions. So they don't really go there. Their intense focus on themselves also often makes it challenging for them to empathize with the emotions of other people. They're always so up their own asses, let's call it what it is that they can't see past it, right? And they, so they just have this block there. And another important aspect to consider is this narcissistic mass. So it's kind of referring to what, what I was talking about there about, you know, there's these emotions buried deep, but they often present a very carefully crafted image to the world. Speaker 1: (04:17)And this conceals all those insecurities, all their vulnerabilities, 'cause they have 'em. So that's another episode. They do have insecurities. A lot of narcissists come off as so cocky, an arrogant, and they know it all. And they are actually completely the opposite. So this mask can make it seem like they lack emotions or are only concerned with their own needs, which honestly, I do believe most of them are only concern concerned with their own needs. But that is where that comes from, is they are, are showing that they are this, oh, look at me, I've done this and I've done that. They brag, they come off as very arrogant. And so it kind of will really highlight that they are not concerned with other people and they have a big, big focus on themselves. But beneath that exterior, narcissists can be very fragile. They may react strongly to perceived slights or criticism. Speaker 1: (05:19)So that's something to look out for. If there is someone who cannot handle being wrong, cannot handle being criticized, even when you come at it in a loving way, even when you use that sandwich mess method and you roll up there and say, oh my God, you're the best. And, but here's this little thing I wish you would do a little differently and not treat me like garbage, but I love you and I hope we can work it out. They still come at you all crazy. They can't handle being just disciplined, or not even disciplined, but just talk, having a healthy conversation about changes that need to be made. Whatever it is, they cannot handle that. So they struggle to understand, like we said, and also more importantly, manage the, the emotions they do have, the emotions it triggers inside of them. So this whole paradox of arrogance and fragility, I think is really what confuses so many of us. Speaker 1: (06:23)And now that we know more about narcissism, narcissism can't even say the word today. Um, now that there's more information out there, it's so helpful because now you can see, okay, I think this person is so arrogant, they're very fragile. But don't let that make you feel, uh, because sometimes, let's be honest, when we see a fragile person or think of someone as fragile, we have empathy, which is great, but not with, they're a, they're a narcissist because narcissist narcissists are generally abusive. So I don't want you to go there and think like, oh, this this poor little hurt cat, I'm gonna help it. No, you don't need to help anybody. You know, my very, very first advice I I will give in a narcissistic situation if you are with a narcissist, is to get out. Not everyone's gonna like that. Not everyone is going to be ready for that. Speaker 1: (07:24)That's fine. No judgment. That's always gonna be my first and foremost advice. However, if you are co-parenting, there's no way around having them totally out of your life in most situations, unless they are abusive to the point that it can be proven and you can, you know, have your children taken from them. Or if you are in a situation where you are very fearful of your life, that is very, very hard to get out of the situation. It's a lot harder when you have that fear. And I understand that, and that's why I always recommend, and I always put the phone number to the domestic abuse hotline in my show notes. So don't hesitate to, they also, I think even on their website, I believe they have like a, a hidden thing where if you go to it, you can hide it. So if your narcissist is, you know, stalking your, they, you can basically have it. Speaker 1: (08:20)So it's hidden. Um, I should probably check into that more to give you the exact details, but I remember when I went to that website, checking it, there was something like that, which is helpful. Um, you can call that phone number, try to make a plan to get out. 'cause I, I do get it. It's hard. But that is just always my first, first and foremost advice is get as far away as a narcissist as you can. Fragile or not. That fragility is very different in narcissists because it comes out usually in abusive behavior. Okay? So if you or someone you know is dealing with narcissistic tendencies, right? If you or yourself, maybe there's a narcissist listening to this out there, probably not. Most narcissists don't want help. Um, but if you are dealing with it yourself, you're in a situation or you know somebody, please direct them to this. Speaker 1: (09:11)You know, go ahead and share this with them. Share whatever information is in my show notes with them. If it is for you, I really beg you to seek help. If you are in a situation with a narcissist, you deserve more. Okay? Therapists, mental health experts, me as a coach can provide guidance and support. However, I will say I work with women who have already gotten out of romantic situations. Um, I don't work with women actively one-on-one with women who are in currently in the situations. That's just a different thing that I, um, you know, I don't work with that sort of situation right now. I have in the past, but right now, that's not my focus. However, like I said, there's the domestic hotline. 'cause really you need to get a plan first and foremost to get out. I work with women who are on the other end of things. Speaker 1: (10:08)Maybe you've just gotten out of the situation. Maybe you're six months, a year, three years out, but you are still healing, which can very much be the case if you have not gotten, um, help. Or maybe you've been to a therapist, like I was a therapist that did not really know about narcissists. And that was not helpful because there you, 'cause they're, you can't treat them like other people. You can't treat the situation like other people. So, um, it's really important if you do get a therapist, make sure they have dealt with narcissism themselves. Uh, that, that is how I found one of my therapists. I really interviewed people and was like, if they wouldn't tell me, then they didn't tell me I'd go to the next one. Then I found a lady, she had a narcissistic person in her life. And I was like, good. Speaker 1: (10:51)This is a great, she knows what it's like. 'cause I felt like very alone. Like no one really got it. So that being said, I am here. If you are on the other side, I would love to work with you one-on-one. We basically, we have like a kickoff call. I'll put that in the show notes where we create a two week plan. So it's on this, this new journey to healing. I like to call it you 2.0. We, we are becoming a queen. You deserve all the joy, all the peace. And just because you've been in this situation does not mean you cannot have that. And so it's super important to realize that, like, don't lose hope. Um, I've been there and I am on the other side of it, and life is grand and amazing. I mean, nobody's life is perfect, but God, the difference is really epic. Speaker 1: (11:37)It's epic man, . So definitely click on that sign up. Um, right now it is, I believe 1 97 for two. So you get two calls with me and you get some email support in between. And then we start our journey. You can come on and do monthly calls. So I have most of my clients do once a week calls with me. And we get you in such a better spot in your life. You get that peace, that calm, you can sleep at night. You don't have these racing thoughts all the time. You don't feel like you're crawling out of your skin and you know what to do if this person contacts you or if you have, you know, these memories or these triggers. Like we work through a lot of those things. I will say it's, it's a quicker process than you think it might be. Speaker 1: (12:27)And we really shift from that into, okay, you're here now, let's do, now let's live out loud. Let's find joy. Let's find peace. Let's find people that lift us up in our lives. Let's do the things that make us happy. Like when you're a kid and you just like have these activities, like you feel like you lost your sparkle, girl, we're gonna get your sparkle back. Okay? You're a queen. You deserve to sparkle. Okay. All right. So yes, in conclusion, 'cause I rambled, narcissists do have emotions, however, their emotional experiences and expressions can be very complex and influenced by their narcissistic tendencies. So understanding is essential for those dealing with narcissists or seeking to help them. So if you also are a mental health specialist, please do as much research as you can. Talk to people who have dealt with it. Talk to narcissists themselves. Speaker 1: (13:29)There are some out there that are actually on YouTube, um, where you can listen to their videos and get an idea of, of really who these people are because it's way more complex than, than often it is made. But at the same time, I'll give you one hint if you haven't heard all my episodes, maybe you haven't heard this, but one thing about narcissists that simplifies it for me is they are always seeking to control their victim or to regain control, like checking if they have that control. If they don't, then they will try to regain it back. So like all of their calculated moves, it's all about control. It's about really nothing else. So that is kind of oversimplifying it, but it's a helpful handy tool when you are like, why is he reaching out? Why is he doing this? Whenever you ask why, your answer is basically right there for control. Speaker 1: (14:25)For control, for control, okay? So anyway, that is it for today's episode. I do want to say, let's do a little, I am a little affirmation action before we leave. Okay? A little empowered. I am okay. Hands to heart. And unless you're driving, nobody needs you shutting your eyes with your hand on your heart and going off the road. Okay, let's take a breath. This was some fast talking tonight. I got a lot of to do tomorrow, so I'm speeding talking , okay? Ah, all right. I am worthy of peace. Say after me. I am worthy of peace. I am worthy of joy. I am gonna get my sparkle back Speaker 2: (15:15)Because Speaker 1: (15:16)I'm a queen . Alright, see you guys in the next episode. Loves these. Don't forget to check the show notes.
 

Affirmations for Healing After Abuse

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The Secret to How My Narcissist Got Me Back and How to Avoid Getting Sucked Back In

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TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1: (00:00)On today's episode of, but Still She Thrives. We are going to talk about the secret of how my narcissist got me back. It probably works on you too. If you're still in this situation or if you're out of the situation, this may be a struggle and you're scared. You don't wanna go back or get re-involved in any way. Sometimes, even if you're a romantic. And then they try to suck you in as like a friend. They can use this tactic and it, it worked pretty well on me. I'm a sucker for it. So stay tuned to find out what it is and how we can say no, like to drugs. Just say no. Speaker 1: (00:39)Hey, Queens, welcome to, but still, she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawling narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal now. Do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted and mind effed? Girl, I see you. I'm Christie. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life. And I wished I could undo the damage. I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So, shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (01:36)All right, so let's dive into the secret to how my narcissist got me back. I mean, there were, you know, several ways, but this is a huge one that I think some of us may oversee. Or if you are an empath, like most narcissistic abuse victims, survivors, whatever you wanna be called, don't, don't yell at me, often have this trait of being empathetic and having big hearts, right? So this is something that narcissists really manipulate and in a calculated way use against us. So for me, one of those really, really hard things to resist is nostalgia slash memories. Anything related to good times, and it doesn't necessarily even had like, have to be with that specific person. And I'm gonna use an example, I'm gonna throw it out there. One of my real life examples that has happened to me in recent years even is that one of the narcissists that I cut out of my life is famous. Speaker 1: (02:42)Not famous, but famous for trying to suck me back in with nostalgia. He knows that's the thing. This is someone who knows me very well, we spent lots of time together and he thinks he is really smart. But I see through it. So now, honestly, it's comical when it would come through in recent years, it would be like, oh my gosh, this is so obvious that, I mean, it's comical, but it's gross too. It's gross behavior. So the nostalgia. So it doesn't necessarily, like I said, it doesn't have to be like, oh, remember when? And those can happen too. The whole, remember when we went to Maui together? I wish actually I went to Maui with anybody. That didn't happen. But you know, going down memory lane in that way is a great fast way to suck people in. Also, another way is just things they know you love. Speaker 1: (03:33)So my narcissist would use examples like, Hey, I just got tickets to blank. You like one of your favorite musicians, I'm saving a ticket for you. I have backstage passes. That's a real thing that happened. So they're trying to pull you in and, and they could totally turn it around, be like, no, I was just trying to be a nice guy. I really was. No, you weren't. You want to gain control. Narcissists want to gain control, and if they don't have it, they will try to get it back, right? And this, I mean, this was not years, maybe a year between the last time I talked to this person, they fell off. So don't expect them to fall off and never come back. I think we know that, but this person had not contacted me. Whatever. It was like good gravy. Then they came back with this probably because it may have sparked a memory of me because yes, I like this musician and they knew that. Speaker 1: (04:36)But it was more about them being feeling rejected and not having control. So they're like, Hmm, how can I get set this up so that this person feels like they either guilted into it, like, oh, I already have a ticket for you. Or throw that nostalgia on and make you feel special. Right? There was wording in it like, you know, you're the only person that would love to see this as much as I would. Right? Which isn't true. I mean, this is a very famous person. These people are famous people. There are hundreds of thousands of people that like them. We're not special, okay? But they are calculated and they use this wording and they try to manipulate so they can get their way and gain control. So I'm pointing all of this out so that if you're in a similar situation, you can look at texts like that, emails, calls, whatever it is, and say, I know what you do. Speaker 1: (05:32)And yeah, yeah. Who sang that song? You remember? I know what maybe she was singing about a narcissist and say, okay, enough of that. 'cause I clearly don't even know the words, but this is super important. Yes, this is kind of like a quick, we're having a quick little episode here, but this is so important to be able to recognize this as a flag. When they bring nostalgia up, it is to gain control of you. And it's about them. It's not about you. We're not special. I mean, we're special, but we're not really special. These people, they do this for control. So we have to recognize that and write this stuff down. A little secret to not taking the bait on this. Something that I do is I literally have for one of the narcissists, 'cause that was the hardest one for me to like separate from, there's a little notebook I have and I just like have these little reminders. Speaker 1: (06:31)So whenever I, I never will like go back to, to being in this person's life. But whenever I have a moment of just feeling like a little guilty, which is very rare now, or I don't know if guilty is the word, but just like, you know, I'm a human with a big heart and it, it's hard sometimes, right? Even for me, I have a little moment and I'll just say, let me look in my little notebook, right? And it makes me feel so much better. So all the things this person has done, write them down in a notebook or locked up in a computer that no one can get access to, whatever somewhere. Especially if you're fresh out the gates. It's helpful. I did it fresh out the gates and looked at it every single day. I wrote all the crap they did and to remind myself. Speaker 1: (07:15)'cause when we're feeling guilty or emotional or nostalgic, we will think of the good things. So a key to not, you know, to avoiding this getting sucked in this way, is to write all the things down. How they made your life miserable. And writing down nostalgia is just about them and their control, not about me. All right, I hope this is helpful and I will see you in the next episode. The Nest episode. I forgot the X in that word. I'm still in summertime, but only a couple more weeks until our fall school semester begins. So that's in my mind when fall begins, basically, when my daughter goes back to school. So a couple more weeks of that, and then I'm gonna be possibly upping to two episodes a week. Again, what do you guys think? You like one or two episodes a week. Speaker 1: (08:03)Let me know what is I, because I know some people can get overwhelmed, especially like after abuse and stuff. So is two episodes a week? Too many? Do you feel like you won't be able to keep up? Let me know. Write me my email's always in the, uh, what do you call the Gmail? The Gmail, the, the podcast notes area and my Gmail email is in there. And also, if you are having trouble with setting boundaries with you, feel like you're getting sucked into toxic behaviors, please either buy My Boundaries course, which is always also listed in there. It's amazing. And it's lifetime access. It's go at your own pace. There's like one week dripped for 10 weeks. So you do it like one about a half hour or less video every week talking about how to set, how to create, how to evaluate what boundaries you need, then how to set them and you know, create them, set them, and then maintain them. Speaker 1: (09:03)How to have any tough conversations you feel like you need to have. And even setting boundaries with yourself. That's a fun one. So it's 10 videos, they drip out for 10 weeks and then after that you can have them forever and ever. Yay. So definitely check that out. If you have trouble setting boundaries or if you wanna work one-on-one with me, there's always that option. Go into the podcast notes for that as well, and I will talk to you soon. Let's do, let's do a couple, uh, affirmations. Shall we shoulder shake? All right. Hands over heart. Unless you're driving. Take a nice deep breath. Ah, okay. I will not get sucked back into any toxicity. Repeat after me. Speaker 2: (09:51)Okay. Speaker 1: (09:53)I want peace, therefore I must protect myself. I know I can be strong because I'm a queen. Yeah. All right, love you. See you. The next one.
 

How to Protect Your Peace at All Costs

Take a ride with me in my car for this special episode! I will share some of my current 'navigating toxic situations' and some important reminders about protecting your peace! Let's dive in!
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TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you want to stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawling narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal now, do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted and mind effed? Girl, I see you. I'm Christie. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life and I wished I could undo the damage. I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace.
(01:00)All right, it's been a while since I have recorded a new episode. I have no idea how long this'll be. Hold on to your bootstraps. I am actually just taking a little drive around the neighborhood. I think I'm going to park. It's a beautiful sunny day out and I think we'll have a little chitty chat. So I was just listening to a podcast myself and in it she was talking about just basically it's her sharing her journey as she goes. And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. I know a lot of podcasts are very like mine, right? It's definitely to help other people. It's to, yes, share things I've gone through, but it's more like using my experience to give tips and tricks, which is very beneficial. But I thought I should sprinkle in some of how I'm still using to this day, even after I have cut a major narcissist out of my life, but how I'm still using it this day to deal with other people.
(02:10)Because I'm not saying everyone's a narcissist. I don't like to throw that word around. But I will say that there are a lot of people that do have some narcissistic traits. And if you do come from a unhealthy family background, which sorry, fam I do, there's a lot of unhealthy stuff that went on, which honestly I feel like there's a lot of families that are like that. But maybe I also feel like that because maybe we tend to feel comfortable around other people and other friends that can relate to what we've gone through. So it's kind of like that attracts like situation. So I would say my husband who comes from a very healthy family background tends to have friends that come from pretty healthy family backgrounds too. Not saying there aren't exceptions. And for me, I tend to have especially older friends, friends I've accumulated in my youth before this journey that may have some family Bs in their little arsenal.
(03:18)But then I also have some people I've met in more recent years that have either healthy families or healthy mindsets where they know how to navigate it and they don't have that drama bond, right? It's like the trauma bond, the drama bond. I dunno, is that a thing that's already out there? I thought I was so clever just now, but I guarantee that's already a thing. Drama bond. So anyway, there's been some drama bonding in my life for sure. If you're listening to this, you probably have drama bonding in your life currently, if you are seeking help or in your past, if you're kind of on this, yeah, I've really worked on myself. I've done the therapy. Now I'm looking to do the somatic healing, which by the way, I will always put the information to sign up. How to contact me by email or sign up for coaching or somatic healing is something I do as well.
(04:11)That's healing through the body. If you dunno, it's freaking amazing. If you want testimonials, let me know. I will send you them. But it's really awesome. So as I travel through my neighborhood, very exciting. We are going to dive into what's going on in my life right now, how I'm dealing with a narcissist. This person, I actually, I dunno why I said a narcissist. This person for sure has some narcissistic tendencies. I think they have another type of mental disorder. I am not going to nay names. I'm not going to throw shade on anyone specifically. I'm just here to tell you how I navigate it in different facets of my life. So maybe I'll sprinkle in more stories, let me know. Definitely sign up for my Facebook page because that's where we can actually chat more. So sign up on that. The link is always in the description of the podcast and it's a great group of mostly women in there.
(05:13)I believe it's all women. I don't know if a man snuck in. I usually check each and every thing before I approve it. So it should be all women and it's a safe place. It's a private Facebook group, but we can chat more in there. So recently I've had a situation, and in this situation there's someone that I am somewhat forced to deal with. I say somewhat because usually we're not really forced in less. It is in a lot of cases. And I know a lot of you have that situation where you have shared custody and you are dealing with a narcissist or a toxic ex or father or mother of your child, which can get very tricky. This is almost similar. There is someone I am somewhat forced to. I say somewhat because I have decided at this point, they have said such nasty things to me. They have done a couple really horrible things to me that has impacted my relationship with someone else that has been absolutely heartbreaking. I'm talking, Christie was losing sleep over it. Really, really tough stuff. And I wish I could go into further detail because I know everyone wants the juice. But for privacy sake of the person that I do have a relationship with, I am not going to disclose that.
(06:46)Yeah, I'll leave that there for now. But the important part is what I realize is there's usually ways around things. So basically this person has been really not kind and made it very difficult to contact this other person that I'm dealing with. So I have made workarounds doing that and I have decided it is more important to me to let that person I have a relationship with know that I love them, I care about them, I want to talk to them directly. And sometimes that's all we can do. We have to protect our peace and our mental health. So there is a time where you have to evaluate for yourself, is this worth my mental anguish? I mean, usually the answer is no for me, but I've taken a while to get here. So I know it's not always overnight and I want to give that grace to you, give you permission to give yourself that grace that you may have setbacks.
(07:54)I have had setbacks in this particular situation through the years where I have said, oh, I'm not going to let such and such talk to me this way. They're never going to get to talk to me again. That is it. And then because of the complex situation, I have been put in a situation where it's like I felt like I had to and my heartstrings are pulled to the point. I was like, well, I have to and it's worth it. I just got to. And then the cycle happens again. Here's something with, I don't want to say narcissist only toxic people. If they're really toxic and it's a pattern, it's going to keep happening. So you can get your heartstrings pulled and then you get sucked back in. The goal is to not keep getting sucked back in. We're human. I gave myself grace and this time feels, sometimes you will just feel it in your heart.
(08:47)This time is different. What this person did this particular time in my situation was past the point of return for me. And I feel it in my body. It feels different. It feels like the exhaustion, that mental anguish that I give up feeling. Not I give up in a weak way, but I give up surrendering my peace to this human who is not kind and is not for me and never will be. And if the collateral is a relationship of somebody else, and that's what happens. I hope it's not and I don't think it will be, but I had to determine knowing I'm choosing to not respond to this person at all and all of their crazy antics and texts and calls and whatever I'm choosing. Not that could impact the relationship of me and the other person. But I have come to a point in my life where you guys know my favorite word is peace.
(09:58)I have a peace bubble around me and my little family. If you don't know, I have a husband that I could not have written up, I could not have created. I didn't know. I always say I did not know they made people this good. I really didn't. And I think, I mean that could be because I grew up in the environment I did and whatever, but I truly am dumbfounded every day that God sent this person to me. I feel, and I'm not one to be like, oh, things are so great, and they're like shit behind closed doors. That's not me. No, I am very real. If you know me in real life, I will spill all the tea even on myself. I just read an old diary, the few diary entry things that were embarrassing as heck on YouTube yesterday. I'm an overshare. And if there's a problem I, I think people need to know, people in the public eye, like me on podcasts and YouTube, whatever, can very much make it a picture of like, oh, this is how things are.
(11:07)And you can be like this rainbows and butterflies. That's not me. Do I have a lens of rainbows and butterflies? Yes. I choose every day to be positive, to find the best in situations, to see the silver lining, to make life full of joy. I create, I initiate. Does bad shit happen? Yes. Have I had arguments with my husband? Of course. But are they toxic and unhealthy? No. We talk them out. We might disagree. He might go step away. That's his thing. He might go step away for five minutes because I'm the type who wants to fix. Now yesterday, let's get this over with, I just want peace. Let's fix it, fix it. Where he's like, I need to process. So nothing's perfect in life. We have different ways we do things, but they're both healthy ways and we don't yell at each other. We don't scream. We don't curse at each other. So I'm just giving you an idea. I have a very nice husband. My daughter I adopted at birth and she is freaking incredible a gift from God.
(12:12)I literally, the other day I was a little upset about this whole situation. It's a tough situation. And I let her see me upset. I mean, I don't wallow in it. I'm not a Waller, but I was like, and she goes, I'm really sorry this is happening. She said, I wish there was something I could do. And I said, child, I said, just be you make my life. You make parenting easy. And that is the best thing in the world right now that on top of this thing that's bothering me, I don't have to worry about you. She's like this little self-sufficient organized girl. She writes in her planner, we have a planning party on Sundays. We plan the week ahead. She's more organized than I am. She makes her own lunch every day. She does her laundry. She asks if she can help. She is sweet and kind and funny.
(13:05)I say all that to say this, I have a very happy life that I will do whatever I need to protect because I didn't have that. And I want to protect her and her peace. I don't want to drag any of the muck outside into my home with her or my husband. And I finally, in my life, and you can relate to this maybe where you used to just, it was kind of what you knew. But now I know I deserve way better than people speaking ugly to me. People talking down to me, people making me feel like I'm not valuable or I grew up, I will say with a sibling that put me down a lot and call me names and stupid. And I think it was beyond sibling stuff. You know how some people know where to jab and they just jab it real hard even in our twenties. And it was stuff that would really hurt.
(14:13)So I want to protect my family from the muck. I want to protect myself from the muck. I don't deserve it. I never did. And you don't deserve it. So when I find a mucky person in my life, I've learned to tolerate so much because of my upbringing. But now that I'm older, do I tolerate more than someone else would? I may a little, but I reached the point, and that's what I'm saying here. I reached the point where I was like, my body is saying no and I'm going to listen to it. And with somatic healing, you learn so well to listen to your what's right and wrong. Like I said, I had a moment a few years ago where I felt like, well, this is a very tough situation. I got to kind of just take this heat for a minute so I can still maintain this relationship with this other person.
(15:12)It was important to me. It's still important to me. But when I listen to my body this time, I am like, I don't have anything left. Can you relate? I know you can. I know we've all done it with the actual narcissist situation, but I want you to be able to use the narcissist situation to also take the temperature of your other relationships or just even not relationships, but people that may come into your life in the office, friends that maybe come into your group and it doesn't feel so great. They're not such good people, very self-absorbed or whatever. Listen to your body, listen to yourself. And I am so sick of the word toxic. I feel like I use it because I don't know what else to call it. I'm so sick of the word, but just people that don't make you feel good.
(16:08)People that don't lift you up and that don't reciprocate. Whatever it is. It doesn't have to be a narcissist, but if someone is hurtful to you and really, you know what energy I'm talking about where you're just like, oh gosh, you don't have to tolerate it. You don't have to. And in my life right now I'm saying this person no more. I just felt it in my body. It was like a zap of lightning was like F this. I cannot do it anymore. I cannot do it. I'm done. I actually did meditation on it to just kind of free up all the muck, get rid of the muck meditation.
(16:52)And then I prayed. I'm a big God person if you don't know. I prayed and said, God, please help me maintain this relationship with the one person, but I need to be freed of this other one. And please help this be as calm and peaceful to navigate as possible. So I've been praying on that, and that's something you can do. Prayer is huge guys. If you're a God person, not everybody is. I don't judge. It is not for me to decide. I just know what I believe about my God and Jesus. I'm Christian and seen the power of prayer in my life is insane. I could do a whole podcast on the stories in my life where prayer has worked and just miracles have happened. So if you're a God person, pray. Pray. And don't be afraid to say no more in your life without the guilt, without the guilt. And that's the thing, I'm human. I still have this little string there. You think, oh, Christie's a badass. Everyone thinks I'm hardcore healed. Look, I'm human. I've come an insane amount of, I've done an insane amount of healing. I've come very far. I am so proud of where I am. I will be honest. Not to toot toot, but man did I let some muck in that I shouldn't have. And I'm finally past that, right?
(18:25)But I let this muck in a little and a few years back, but I let the muck back out. But now it came back and I actually didn't open the door. So that's something to be said here. I didn't really open the door to it. It's so hard to explain without telling the story. But there was an accidental portal that let this person into my life, not into my life, but a conversation that shouldn't have even happened did a, not to my, I didn't willingly go there. Okay, we'll say that, but I had to say, okay, how can I avoid that? It will even happen by accident. That's the difference. So I've come far. I want to protect my own mental wellbeing, my peace, my family at all costs. I read this book called The Best. Yes. And it really changed my life. I've probably mentioned it 40 times on my YouTube and everything else.
(19:36)It's by Lisa and I always forget her last name. LYSI believe you can get on Amazon, I highly recommend it. But if you're a God person especially, but you can also read it and kind of view the God parts as higher self or whatever higher being you believe in. But it is about the best. Yes, what is most important? And it basically your immediate family. Well, God's first always, right? God, your immediate family and yourself. And so it was really helpful in me releasing guilt around putting yourself, your family God first. And that sounds silly, saying it out loud, but when you have all this pressure to be good and be nice and this and that to everybody no matter what, and be even godlike in a way, but God doesn't want us to put up with all that. He doesn't want us to suffer. Yes, help people be there for people, right? Honor your family. Honoring your family does not mean taking abuse. I want to say that again on or ring your family does not mean taking abuse of any kind. Write it down, smoosh it on your mirror. I don't know. Get a tattoo on your forehead. It's serious. Okay, so honoring. I know a lot of us who are Christians look at like, well, it's blood, it's family.
(21:15)And maybe someone can throw me a supporting verse here. I know I've seen them. I'm so bad at remembering Bible verses. I've read the Bible. I know general ideas of that there are supporting verses, but I don't know offhand. I would love to spit one out at you right now. But all I know is honoring your family is not honoring abuse. So whatever form that comes in, just that's a no from us, that's a no. Okay? So I just want to share what I'm going through to kind of personify how it can be, even if it's not specifically like a narcissist, but there are people narcissistic traits. I mean, so this person, I do feel like they only think inside their own heads, which a lot of people do. And especially if there's a high intense situation going on, a stressful, they're having a stressful time in their lives.
(22:26)It is normal, I think, or human, maybe not normal, to really just be all about yourself. Which that part I can understand. I can have grace on that. I have grace with a lot of people who have their heads up their own butts, even my own very close friends, and they have big moments of it sometimes. And I'm like, you know what? It's that kind of world. And I love them. And I try to see past that to their good traits. I have friends with a lot of great traits. So it's like, okay, nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm sure I have my head up my own butt moments. But the difference is if my head's up my own butt or I'm in my own head thinking about what I'm going through, guess what I'm not going to do? I'm not going to yell at someone.
(23:13)I'm not going to call them names. I'm not going to make them feel like a horrible person. I'm not going to curse, raise my voice any of that. That's not going to happen. Am I perfect? Does that happen? If someone comes at me and I defend myself possibly, it is rare. It is very rare. I can think of only two people in my life that it has gotten to that level where I went to a space of what is unhealthy communication. They came at me loud and cursing, and usually I don't get loud. Usually I'll do more of a, and I don't even know about cursing, but I will almost like a condescending kind of tone. I'm like, okay, yep. How's that feel? Does that feel good? Get that out. Okay. Feels delicious, doesn't it? Stuff like that where I should just maybe hang off the phone, right?
(24:13)But I'm like, oh yeah, I don't know. That's my reaction. So we're all working on ourselves, but like I said, that is extremely rare. And not to say anyone can make you act a certain way. I was about to say, well, there's only two people that make me act like that. No, no, no. Back it up, sister. I will tell on myself right now, that's a cop out. I control my emotions or I control how I handle situation. So I've learned, okay, so now I have it in my head. Nope. If that person curses and yells at you, which now this person I don't talk to, I am telling you this is the disconnection. But earlier when they did that, then it's like, okay, now if you hear that, you just hang up the phone. Nobody has any right to talk to you that way.
(25:04)And we tolerated so much because we're used to it. We thought, oh, it's just, that's just, oh, we're Italian or we're this and no man, no. If it feels really bad in your body, I get joking around. I have tough skin, people can pick at me. I have friends that we rag on each other. It's in fun. It's not the same. This is, I'm telling you, someone's being not kind to you on purpose with a purpose to make you feel like crap or it's their own shit and they're just word vomiting because they have to get it out of them. I feel like it's poison sometimes. Some people are like, they're made of poison, right? This person I'm thinking of, they have always been poison. The day I met them, they were poison, right? And so I feel like they just spew out poison and you might be in the wake of it, and you don't have to be, don't put up with poison.
(26:04)Okay, I'm going to get a little bumper sticker. Don't put up with poison. Don't take the bait. That's another one of the things I say all the time, right? Don't take the bait. I took the bait by even opening my mouth to defend myself. You don't have to defend yourself. You don't have to come back with a sassy comment. You just hang up. You just get out, get out of there. Protect your peace Bubble baby bee. Alright, 25. Dang, this bee can roll at the mouth. Is that a thing? I'm just making stuff up now. Anyway, it's been a lovely little car ride around my neighborhood with you. I hope the audio's okay. I'd love you to join my Facebook page. Tell me if you got any little golden nuggets or just feeling comfort that someone out there is also going through what you're going through.
(27:00)This was not so much tips and tricks, but just me sharing a little bit because everyone likes to hear a little share. I think I did when that woman who I was listening to just said she was just going to be sharing her journey as she goes through this transition in her life, whatever. I was like, oh, okay. I'm here for it. I hope you guys are having a fabulous week and definitely share this out to anyone you think it could benefit. Just this podcast as a whole. I know this particular podcast episode may not be the most listened I have, but I don't really care about that. But I do care about reaching more people with this narcissistic abuse podcast. I do feel like I want to start getting into some more episodes. I know I did so many. I felt like, what else do I have to say? There's so much information I put out and I'm very proud of this. But now I'm seeing the listens are starting to quadruple on some episodes. So I'm like, man, this is really a needed thing. What else can I do? So also in the Facebook group, any episodes you'd love me to do, let me know. All right, love you guys. See you in the next episode. Don't forget to follow.

How to Accept a Narcissist’s Behavior

This week, let's talk about Tips on how to accept a narcissist's behavior
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TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1: (00:00)My beauties, how are you? Okay. I have been off. I have been vacationing and I also went to the lake with my group of friends, and I wanted to just slide this in here in the intro. How important it is to find very supportive, upbeat, uplifting people that do not gossip, who aren't negative, who don't bring you down to have in your life. It's so important to surround yourselves with good freaking people. I can't tell you the difference in my life now from 15 years ago. I'm not saying all my friends were negative, but there were some people that I had to walk on eggshells around that brought me down. And now having a solid group of friends that just were there for each other and always positive and not like. Talking other people and doing things and doing fun things and doing good for others, it's just such a game changer. Speaker 1: (01:05)Like relationships are seriously a huge key to healing and to just living an amazing life. So maybe we'll talk about that next week, but for now today, I have gotten this question from multiple people in different ways. It's been said in different ways, but how do you accept that the narcissists are the way they are? How do you, you know, 'cause it's hard. You're like, you don't get it because you're not that way. So it's, it's awful because they're awful, but it's even more awful because we can't even understand how on earth someone could be like that or treat people like that when we're finally like seeing it for what it is, or on the other side, right? Just the thought of how they treat us or other people can give us that visceral reaction. I've been there and it boils your blood. And then they can set you off if you still have to have them in your life. Even if you're like, I know I don't want them. I, let's say you're divorced or they're a family member, but you feel like you can't fully disconnect whatever it is, you still have to have that connection. So you have to see them or hear from them, at least here and there. That visceral reaction when they say or do certain things, will haunt you. So we're gonna talk about some tips that I've done in my own personal life in dealing with this stuff and hopefully can help you. Speaker 1: (02:28)Hey Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawling narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal now. Do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted and mind effed? Girl, I see you. I'm Christy.(02:51). I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life and I wished I could undo the damage. I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So, shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (03:25)Alright, so let's dive in. Accepting that narcissists are the way they are, can be challenging. 'cause again, it's awful, especially if you've had personal experiences with them, which is why you guys are here. So here's some steps to help you navigate the process. Number one, and this helped me in a big way, is educating yourself. So that's what you're doing here. I definitely talk about why narcissists are the way they are or why they do certain things, right? Those are, in some of my episodes, you can dig you. I mean, there's a whole plethora. You can go on TikTok, you can go on Google, you can listen to podcasts, you can read books, right? Just make sure it's from a credible source. But understanding the psychological roots and the traits associated with them can give you a little more insight into first just why they do what they do, right? Speaker 1: (04:14)Because if you just know a narcissist is a certain way, it's like, that's awful. Why would anyone be that way? So you dig into the why's, and if you work with me one-on-one, we can go even further into that. So it depends, you know, people talk to me about all sorts of things, and that is sometimes we really delve into that because it is important that you understand. Number two, recognizing you cannot change them. Let's say that one again. You cannot change a narcissist. You have to accept, you cannot change their behavior or personality. I mean, this should go for most people. I don't wanna change anybody. I don't want to be in a relationship where I really have to change someone. Yes, you might have compromising whatever, but I wanna throw that as a general rule. Let's not try to change people or be changed, right? Speaker 1: (05:00)And narcissists, yes, it'd be great if they changed because they're generally awful. So I'd just letting you know that's not possible. It is not possible. So narcissists typically have deeply ingrained patterns of this thinking of this behavior. That is it. It's just they're set in their way so much, it's so deeply ingrained. They have themselves convinced of all the things we see. Even if we see like a touch of good or good times, that's either a mask or they're in a very vulnerable moment, which is very rare, and they will not stay in that moment for long. I've experienced that. And that's when we can kind of get our heartstrings pulled or, or like pulled back in. Usually it is actually very manipulative and it's calculated on their end if they are seemingly good and have that mask on, right? So they have a tendency to lack empathy, okay? Speaker 1: (05:53)That's not something they have inside of them and self-awareness. So if they're not self-aware, they're not going to change. That's why narcissists are one of the most least likely people that suffer from mental disorder to actually change because the lack of self-awareness and the lack of empathy, right? They're very disconnected. So it's extremely hard to try to get them to change. I would say I, I, I can't, don't quote me on this, but I'd say it's like 0.0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0. I could get all the zeros 0.1% that they can change. Never even worth it to try to get to that. By the time you would get there, it probably wouldn't even happen. But if you did, you'd be 95 and there goes your life. Okay? We don't have time for that. Number three, setting realistic expectations. So adjusting your expectations when interacting with them. You could use the gray rock method for this. Speaker 1: (06:51)Please go search. I will try to remember to link the gray rock method, uh, episode I have, but recognizing that their behavior might not align with the typical social norms and preparing for that. So the first part of this is preparing for that, preparing, knowing they're gonna be self-centered, they're gonna be an. Like we shouldn't be surprised at this point, guys. And what do you do? That's the little I'm adding in a little. What do you do with that? Is the gray rock method? Okay, they're manipulative. Expect all those things. Go and expecting it. Don't go in thinking, well, maybe they're gonna be nice today, they can wear a mask. Sure, but I wouldn't expect it. Never go in expecting it. Number four, establish your boundaries. So establishing and maintaining strong personal boundaries when dealing with narcissists is key. The only thing you can control is yourself and your boundaries. Speaker 1: (07:49)Like you cannot control these people no matter what you say or do. If you have like one minute of control because they're desperate to keep you or something. It's, it's a very short window where they will even wear that mask. They can only do it for so long. So you have to set your boundaries, limit your exposure to them. I mean, if you know me, I'm gonna remind you my number one advice with a narcissist is do not be involved with a narcissist. Period per, if you have to, you need to limit any exposure to them. That is not necessary. That means if you are co-parenting, yes, you're going to have to talk to them at some point. I would document everything, keep it on email, or you can get those apps where you can share it with your, um, attorneys. So they're watching everything that they say. Speaker 1: (08:38)You have to, I think both sign off on that in your paperwork, but limiting your conversations and communications with them and really keeping it very low engagement is so important. That will protect you from the emotional harm. Again, if you have to have contact, there's that gray rock method. Number five, don't take it personally. Guess what? This is never about you. And this is what so many of my clients come in feeling. What did I do wrong? Wrong? Why did this person pick me? Sure, you may have traits that you're a loving, awesome, amazing person, which drew them in, but that's not a fault and that's not something we want to change about you, right? So understand their behavior is not a reflection of your worth or your value. Their actions are honestly driven by their own insecurities. And if you've been studying narcissism or a little more now, you know that. Speaker 1: (09:38)But a lot of people don't think that. A lot of people think narcissists are very confident, no deep, deep down in their black hole of a soul. . If they are highly insecure and they need validation, and that means they need control. And what are narcissists always looking for control or trying to get control back, right? They're, they're checking in, do I have control? If not, how can I get it back? So always remember those things, but do not take it personally. It's never, ever, ever, ever about you. They're gonna behave like to anyone that they get as their closest victim in their relationships. I mean, trust me, if you are involved with the narcissist, you've seen the side and they can put on a great fake face out in society and in their community and they maybe they're charismatic and loved by all, anyone who spends an a good amount of time with them will see that they are. Speaker 1: (10:32)Okay? It's not you honey, it ain't you. Number six, of course, this is the hard one. This is like what we're kind of talking about, managing your emotions. So you actually have to practice emotional self-regulation when you are interacting with them. So they do these attempts to provoke you, right? They want a reaction. Knowing that was part of half my battle. It's like, wait, now I know they actually are looking for a reaction because they want control. They wanna know they're on top. So that almost emboldened me more to be like, mm-hmm. I'm not gonna give you the satisfaction. No, I'm not. So that really did help me to maintain my composure, right? And just, I would count in my head sometimes. I'd like, all right, breathe. He wants control. What are we gonna do? We're not gonna give it to him. We are not gonna give him the satisfaction and it's not gonna be good for me. Speaker 1: (11:23)Because the more you react, the faster that ball of hell just spins, right? And then there's the more engagement. You're taking the bait. What do I always say? Don't take the bait. 'cause the second you take that bait, you get wrapped in that rapid fire hell that that they control. And then you're out of control. So you have to say, do I wanna let this person gain control of me or I, or do I wanna keep my together? Take some breaths. And we've done a lot of episodes here on yoga, meditation, talking about all that. So go binge to find out about the nervous system regulation. There's episodes specifically on that. Um, but managing your emotions during the conversations, it takes practice. But I highly recommend it. Again, if you can have little to no contact, that's the best. Number seven, seeking support. I always talk about this 'cause it's so important. Speaker 1: (12:19)I could not have been where I am without it. So find a therapist who has been through narcissistic abuse themselves. If not, here I am. Here I am. I'm with you. Unfortunately, I've gone through it. I've gone through it and oh, my life is so much better. And this is why I do what I do, because I want people who have gone through this abuse, people who are going through this, that get that visceral reaction that just want to finally gain peace. Gain peace. I want you to have that joy and that freedom and that peace. So if you're ready for that, look in the show notes. Sign up with me for a one-on-one sesh, and let's do this because without help, it is very hard. I'm just gonna be honest with you. It is, it's very difficult. So whether that's a therapist, me talking to friends and family obviously helps, but unless someone's been through it and they're on the other side, it's just not going to get you that much further in your journey. Speaker 1: (13:15)So are you ready? That is the question you have to ask yourself, right? Are you ready? You might have to change your life a little bit. I was right at that point. I'm like, I do. I will do anything to get rid of these feelings and have peace and joy, like give it to me. So I signed up, I did a uh, therapist, and then I worked with a life coach, and I did a lot of my own work. And now I'll be honest, I know I'm a better support than even my therapist was Nothing against her. She was great. So she was great. But what I know and what I've been through is so much more, and I'm either even further along than she is in her journey. And I know that for a fact. Again, it's nothing. We're all on our own timeline, right? Speaker 1: (13:58)But, so I know how helpful I can be in someone's journey and how much I can accelerate your journey. So yes, go, go sign up for that fi first call. Number eight, practice empathy. This one, it's tricky, right? We're talking about all this stuff and like, oh wait, but I, I'm supposed to empathize. I will say this though. This does not mean you have to forgive and forget and have a relationship with this person. Having empathy for me looks like this. I pray for this person. One specifically in my life. I pray for them. I pray that they find peace and healing. I understand their brain was not created in the same way. I don't understand it all. Is it chemical? Is it environmental? Is it both? Maybe all of the above, right? That to me, it's sad. I have empathy for it. It doesn't matter enough for me to say, Hey, that's okay. Speaker 1: (14:52)Well, and give it an excuse. That's not it. You can empathize and say, that really sucks. This person has to live like this every day of their lives. I feel horrible for this person. I do. I look at their life and I'm like, man, what an awful life to live like this every day. To the point, you're that miserable with yourself. You're that in need for validation and control. It's sad. It is sad to watch. It's not my though. So don't be fooled. I'm not going to let that person take advantage of me. I'm not gonna be in a relationship with that person. I do have empathy and I do pray for them. So you can practice your version of empathy if that might help you, right? It doesn't excuse it again, but sometimes it can help you see them as a more complex individual with their own struggles. Speaker 1: (15:40)You know me Number nine is self-care. Self-care. Self-care. Girl queen, queen bee. You have to prioritize your own wellbeing. So engage in activities that bring you joy. Practice mindfulness. You know, I'm all about that yoga, that yin yoga, especially meditation, things that slow you down where you might be uncomfortable at first, but bust through it. It's worth it. Trust me. Exercising and anything honestly that like brings you joy. It's simple singing. Like take a class. I'm gonna start back up actually with voice lessons again, I love to sing and I haven't been practicing as much, so I'm like, Ooh, I really wanna do something again. Like I need, I need another class, but I'm gonna probably join a gym this year. I do different things for exercise and movement, whatever. I'm gonna join a gym. They have a bunch of classes, they have a swimming pool. Speaker 1: (16:36)So excited for that. I'm like, I'm gonna do something else. So I'm gonna do sing voice lessons again too. I love singing. What do you love to do? Do a class, get, get in front of other people. Connect. I'm telling you again, connection relationships are so, so important. And just having support in your life in general and when you've been through abuse, surrounding yourself with loving amazing people is that it's so freaking healing. It's, it's awesome. Number 10, like I said, consider limiting the contact. How do we do that to actually get there? It's more than this episode can take us. So if you work one-on-one with me, we dive deeper into all of these things. I talk about. We, there's a lot of the touching on, oh, what do you do? But like we go deeper into the how. How do we actually do these things, right? Speaker 1: (17:27)That is the stuff that takes some more time. It takes a one-on-one coaching. So if you are ready, if you are ready to get peace in your life and stop feeling how you're feeling, go sign up. Link is in the show notes as always. Let's do that first call and break through and at least get that first stepping stone into your amazing future, future, future. All right? I'm still on vacation. Crazy mode. All right, you guys, thank you so much for listening. Please leave a review if you have not and you're on Apple. Go ahead and leave a review and make me so happy and would help. It will help my podcast get to more people and we wanna help everybody we can. So do that. Sign up for a one-on-one session with me and I will see you in the next step.

The Reason Your Nervous System is Always in Overdrive After Narcissistic Abuse

This week, let's talk about The Reason Your Nervous System is Always in Overdrive After Narcissistic Abuse
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TRANSCRIPT:
Speaker 1: (00:00)Welcome to, but still She Thrivesa with Christy. Okay, today's episode is going to be pretty short, but it's gonna be important. It is important, and it's something I just want to share with you guys because it might seem simple, but it's something that I didn't really get till it just kind of clicked one day of like, this makes sense. So stay tuned to hear the reason that your nervous system is always in overdrive. If you've been through narcissistic abuse, Speaker 2: (00:34)Hey Speaker 1: (00:34)Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawling narcissist? And you find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal now? Do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted? And mind F girl, I see you. I'm Christy. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life, and I wished I could undo the damage. I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (01:32)Okay? So like I said, I've always felt like even after I have cut the narcissist out of my life, I still felt tense. I still felt stressed out, overwhelmed. Like just that my nervous system was so, so out of balance. And I'm like, well, I'm out of the situation. Was there a lot of peace that came from that? Yes, but it felt like this underlying thing and I was like, maybe I was just like born with anxiety, right? Like all these things came through my head. And then as I started to learn more about narcissism myself and go further in my journey, I realized, okay, so even though your body knows when you've left a certain situation, you're out of an abusive situation, toxic situation, whatever you wanna call it, you know you have peace, you can feel a difference. But if you are like me and all of my clients, even after you are out of the situation, you can still feel on edge. Speaker 1: (02:26)You still have this underlying stress, you question yourself. There's all sorts of things that when your body is not in alignment and is dysregulated, when your nervous system has been blown like that, it can totally shift things around in many ways. The thing is, when you're outta the situation, your body has an imprint. Your mind has an imprint, and it doesn't necessarily know that you are safe. It might have an idea you're out of this situation on a surface level, but there is this deep imprint of not feeling safe, even though there's knowledge of it, it's almost like it's stuck in that fear as well of it could come back, right? And, and we have those thoughts even on a more surface level where, oh, I might not trust again or this might happen again, right? Because our bodies are stuck there. So we are stuck in the trauma of our relationship, whether that be romantic, whether it be family, relationships, friendships, whatever it is, our mind, body, and spirit can all be still stuck there in many ways. Speaker 1: (03:37)When I understood that, like I really understood, I am stuck back there, even though I'm here, it helped me get clarity and kind of more motivation to like, okay, I need to dig into all of these three areas of my life, right? The body, I need to do some work on my body. I started doing the yoga, the meditation, right? The mind, we do therapy, talk therapy, affirmations, all, there's all sorts of therapies we can get into, right? And then the mind, the body and the spirit, right? So that for me, that that's some God stuff. Whatever sort of spiritual work. If you're a universe person, a god person, I don't, I don't care who it is, I don't care who your higher power is, it helps to have one. If you don't have one, dismiss this part, it's fine. Um, most important is that whatever parts of your body have been affected, you need to help each and every one of those. Speaker 1: (04:37)Are they related and entangled to a degree? So they affect each other? Yes. But I've noticed I really had to do specific work in each quote section of myself. If you have been following me, you know, I have a lot of episodes on how to help the healing process or start, sorry, start the healing process, right? How to start with the yin yoga with the meditation. And I give you ideas, but I can't say everything. I try to get give you guys as much information as I can, but if you truly want to get the best results and you want the accountability that helps with that, for me, that's what I love. I have a coach now. I had a therapist before. Um, I love to have accountability. It just, it helps me a lot. Most people do better with accountability. So if you're that person, this may be the time. Speaker 1: (05:30)Like if you are feeling dysregulated, if you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, burnt out, tired, questioning yourself, your confidence is. You're wondering if you'll ever be able to feel happy again. Or maybe you never really have felt happy, but you see other people and you want that peace is the goal for us, right? Like, that is my word. And I, I feel like that goes for all of my clients at some point have said, I want peace. And that is what I help you get. I help you gain the tools, keep the accountability, and really do the work in a fun way. This doesn't have to be dark and hard and scary. Are there gonna be moments? It's like, oh, okay. Like, yes, you have to sacrifice a little time, but if you, if you are telling me you wanna prioritize your piece, then you have to prioritize it. Speaker 1: (06:22)That means you have to spend some time on it, right? You can't just take a magic pill. Maybe you can take a, um, pill that masks it, it a little, but then you're also maybe numbing other parts of yourself. I'm not saying I'm anti-medication, I'm just saying doing this work with all of my clients has been epic and I've had multiple clients get off medication after working with me. I'm not saying that's a promise, I'm just saying I, I just see the results. And when you are working with me, we are going to go into all three areas of your life that are dysregulated. Odds are it's all three, and we're going to make it a fun process of healing. So if you're interested, I want you to sign up for my journey to peace Call. We go in, we dive deep, I give a lot. Speaker 1: (07:13)I love you guys. I want you to feel better and find peace and freedom. That's my jam. And I want you to be able to feel like I feel now. It's amazing on the side, and I know how it feels to be on the other side. And that's why I do this, because I want you to grab my hand and say, yes, I am ready. So are you ready to prioritize your piece? Are you just sick of this? If you are, go into my podcast notes, click on that link. Maybe you've been hearing this a couple times and you're like, I don't know. Oh, it's summer, whatever. Go ahead. Sign up for the first call and then we can go from there and really dive in and make your life amazing. Imagine how that would feel if you could feel regulated, if you could feel calmer, if you could have more confidence, more trust in yourself, more trust in other people, or trust in the fact that you can find amazing people to surround yourself with, that you end up knowing that you're a good role model for your kid if you have children. Speaker 1: (08:18)There's so many things that you are probably missing in your life, and life is short. And I, it kills me to watch people put off this healing, put off this journey 'cause it's so worth it. And I make it fun. It's fun. Ask any of my clients. We have fun. Um, so I do, I care about you guys. I want you to heal if you are ready. I want people who are ready, not like half-assed. I want the people that are like, I'm ready to do this. I wanna heal. And I know that I can get peace. I just, I just need help knowing how to get there. And maybe the accountability as well is hard for you. So that's what I'm here for. I'm so excited. I want to help you on your journey. So go click that link and sign up for your first one-on-one call with me. Let's do this.
 

5 Ways to Deal with Self-Doubt and Identity Confusion After Narcissistic Abuse

This week, let's talk about 5 Ways to Deal with Self-Doubt and Identity Confusion After Narcissistic Abuse
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TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1: (00:00)Welcome to, but still she thrives. Today we're talking about the last part of this series, how narcissistic abuse affects your psychological wellbeing. And there's a lot. There's been a lot. This series has gone on and it is the last one. We're ending with a bang here talking about dealing with self doubt, doubt, , and identity confusion. Stay tuned. Speaker 1: (00:28)Hey Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawling narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal Now, do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted? And mind F girl, I see you. I'm Christy. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life. And I wished I could undo the damage I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So, shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (01:26)All right? We're gonna talk about that identity confusion, the self-doubt. We know if you have been a survivor of narcissistic abuse, you can have a lot of self-doubt. Shame, we've touched on that. And the identity confusion is real. What does that mean? Well, this means you start to may not even recognize yourself in a relationship, right? Who you are, your values, your beliefs, even your own thoughts and memories can get foggy. You can feel like you're crazy because of the gaslighting that narcissists have done to you. It can make you question everything. Your self-esteem can plummet. There's a whole lot that goes on with your identity and who you are when you are in a narcissistic relationship. This does not have to be just romantic. This can be a sibling, a parent, it can be someone you're, you know, co-parenting with an ex. This can be a friendship. Speaker 1: (02:22)This can be the mailman if you're real close to him, okay? That'd be a little weird if you're that close with your mailman. But hey, he brings some good. All right, so let's dive in to talk about what can you do to deal with this stuff. If you are suffering from feeling like you don't even know who you are anymore, you come out of a relationship and you're like, now what? Who am I? I don't even know what I want and don't want. I don't know which direction to go. Help. I get this question a lot as a coach, a lot of people come to me and that is the first thing. They're like, okay, what? Now I'm out of this situation or I'm getting out of it and now I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm starting over and I'm scared I'm damaged, I'm scared. Speaker 1: (03:04)I don't know who I am. I don't know how to find that person. So let's touch on it. We're not gonna touch on it. Actually, we're gonna go kind of deep 'cause we're gonna talk about five ways. Number one, self-reflection and introspection. You do have to reflect in order to figure out who you are now, who you became, all that stuff. Because sometimes when you're in a relationship, especially if you're living with the person, it's like you're just trying to make it through. You're just trying to make it through the abuse and walk on those eggshells to make you. Don't make sure you don't rattle the cart, all of that. So when you finally get out or you're getting out, this is the time to start to reflect on what has changed. Start to ask yourself questions like, what did change during this time? Who was I before? Speaker 1: (03:55)If there was a before? Because sometimes, look, if we have a narcissistic parent, there was never a before. So you have to then think, okay, what didn't feel good when I was, you know, in this situation, what were some beliefs that just went against my grain? But I went along with how did I, people please questions like this can direct you to figuring out more and more like who you are and what you do believe and what your, your, you know, value system is. What you want to do. You can say, what are my strengths and weaknesses? What do I value in life? That's a huge one to me. We often think about, well, what do I wanna be? Or what do I think I should be? And for me, every day I wake up and part of my prayer in the morning is, God, please help me find joy and peace today. Speaker 1: (04:47)Those are my two words. I like to have feeling goals. Sure I have some goals for my business and this and that, but really I want to feel peace, especially after going through abuse. We need peace. We need to feel free. So how can we find that peace? What makes you feel peaceful? Ask those questions. If you, if you have a feeling goal, like you wanna feel happy or you wanna feel at peace, well, how do you, everyone's different too. Like for me, I wanna sit and stare at a palm tree. I, I literally made my living room look like it's, I don't know, out of Florida. It's got the palm trees. I got more flowers recently. The artwork is very tropical, tropical colors. Um, in my kitchen I have these long curtains that look almost like tropical vines. The pattern I am all about that beach tropical vibe makes me feel very peaceful. Speaker 1: (05:48)So I incorporate it in my home decor. So that's just an example of, you know, you can bring in certain things that bring you peace, but just showing everyone's different. You might love winter, right? I'm talking about seasons here, but it could be anything. You may love the color, like maybe the color aqua for me, this is true. Bring brings you peace. It brings me peace. Aqua reminds me of like water and the beach and whatever. So I love the color aqua. I surround myself with it. So start digging like what makes you feel whatever feeling goal you wanna feel. So first we'll start with just one this week and you can add to it next week. But this week's homework and I want you to email me, what is your feeling goal? What do you wanna feel? Do you wanna feel peace? You wanna feel happy? Speaker 1: (06:34)You wanna feel excited about life? Maybe you're not there. Maybe you just wanna feel not scared. Maybe you just wanna feel that like contentment, right? There is no wrong answer. So figure out what do I just wanna feel? And from there, and you can write me that fierce mamay at Gmail. My email's always in the show notes, so email me your feeling goal and if you wanna go further, you can explore that. How, how can I get there? What brings me that feeling? And you can either save that for your own little journal or you can share that with me as well. 'cause I love, I love hearing this stuff. So start the reflection process. Number two, obviously support is great. We've talked about that a trillion times almost on every episode about how important support is. This can be your friends, family members, but someone who you trust, right? Speaker 1: (07:32)Not, not the people who you have to walk on eggshells around. Not the people you're just like, I don't know if they're on my side or not. It's a mutual friend of your narcissist. Nah, I'm talking about someone. If you have them who you feel very close and safe with and they always look out for you, that is who you would open up to to seek support from. And talk about these feelings of self-doubt, identity. You could ask them questions like, what do you think my strengths are? You know, to kind of direct you into exploring something that will bring you this quote, new identity, the u two point i that I talk about, right? But sometimes an outside perspective besides someone you know, such as a therapist, a coach like me, someone who is familiar with narcissism is important, can help you see yourself in a different light. Speaker 1: (08:27)I always say the favorite part of my job is when I see that moment, that shift where my clients go from feeling like crap about themselves, lower confidence, not really sure who they are, scared to take the next step when they shift into like seeing them how I see them. And even just starting to see that, I can see that shift. And that is literally why I do this, because I get choked up every freaking time it happens when I see the confidence coming back or maybe they never had the confidence and they're like, oh my gosh, I actually love myself. I, I feel good about myself. Or I know I wanna take this next step and do this. Like, you know, examples, one of my clients started her own business, like a fashion business, right? Another one went back to school. It goes on and on. Speaker 1: (09:22)And seeing that shift, believing in themselves and getting excited about their journey after going through abuse is, it's just so amazing to watch. So I just love that. So that is something that is important. If you want support and have a co someone to coach you through that, I am here. Check out my, um, options to work with me also in the show notes. But I, I just love taking people through that journey. And it's, it's just such a huge shift when you feel like, oh, I actually am seeing myself more clearly. Now I'm getting clarity and I'm feeling amazing. And it is possible for you. That being said, number three, set realistic goals, right? And how we do this is having a bigger goal and breaking it down. I say sparkle by sparkle, right? Break down that larger goal into smaller, achievable steps because our confidence has been knocked down, right? Speaker 1: (10:23)With abuse. So if we are like, yeah, I wanna make a million dollars by the end of this week. I mean, I know that's extreme, but just giving an example and then we don't get there. That can kind of beat up our self-confidence again, right? So we don't want that for you. So we can say a bigger goal. Let's say you want to, um, become a nurse. You decided, oh, I have this and that and I'm great with people and I've always thought about it, but my ex-husband wouldn't let me work or whatever it is. Let's say you're like, yeah, I wanna go be a nurse. That's a large goal. So break it down this week. What can we do sparkle by sparkle? Just what's the first step you can do to take that? Okay? Look at five different, you know, programs and explore them. Speaker 1: (11:05)Call, call one program this week, whatever it is, whatever you think you can handle that week. And then, you know, it's just step by step, sparkle by sparkle. So having realistic goals and then also celebrating those small successes. So at the end of the week saying like, look at me, I move forward and this is what I do with my clients. I walk them through going sparkle by sparkle. And it's so great every week to be like, they get excited to tell me, yes, I talked to this person, I did this and, and there's this excitement and accountability. So it's again, an amazing experience. But I do say it's bite by bite. Like don't just reach and try to swallow the whole thing. 'cause then you can let yourself down, which can lead to the opposite effect that we want, right? We wanna build that self-esteem. Speaker 1: (11:56)Number four, challenge those negative thoughts. So when you are experienced self-doubt specifically, you might have negative thoughts about yourself or your capabilities. This is where that work comes in. The affirmations that turning things around the talk therapy I do with my clients, right? To counteract those negative thoughts. 'cause we don't have time for 'em. Uhuh, we are trying to be us 2.0 and get that new identity and feel good about ourselves. So we don't have the space for these negative ask thoughts. . So consider the alternative to the negative. And we've talked about this, where you're writing more positive perspectives, you're switching, you know, if there's a certain negative thought pattern you have of, let's see, oh, I I, I can't do that. I'm too old to switch careers. I'm too old to switch careers. Uh, right? That comes in your brain, you start writing down the opposite, right? Speaker 1: (12:50)And you, you go find, I, this is what I do. I go find examples. If I have a negative thought pattern, I try to counteract it with finding real life proof that it is not true. So that's a perfect example. I thought I have had this thought myself when I changed careers actually into coaching. I'm like, well, am I too old to change? Maybe I should just go back. I worked into the television production business and I was like, oh, maybe I should just, you know, stick with television, blah, blah, blah. And then I said, you know, I, I knew I sounded negative and I've always been working on improving and growing. So I was like, all right, I know for a fact there's people out there, even celebrities that started what they're doing late in life. So I googled it and oh my gosh, the amount of celebrities alone that started and changed careers or whatever later in life. Speaker 1: (13:42)It's crazy. And then also my mom, that next week or something, she was telling me about someone who was in her master's program. My mom actually was a good example. She went back to school late in life. Um, but there was someone in her master's, I think it was her, no, it was her undergrad, but she was, you know, older, but they were, I mean like 78 years old, something like that, near 80 years old. And how amazing is that? They were going back to school to do something different. And that just, you look for proof, you can find it. There's always gonna be a story of someone doing something that they wanna do, they've decided to do at any age. And that to me is amazing. So you can do the cognitive behavior techniques with therapists. People like me, you can keep a journal, right, of tracking, like if you're having negative thoughts, writing them and then switching them around. Speaker 1: (14:40)And then of course, I'm big on the affirmations. Like every morning, every night have a set of affirmations. You say that back up what you want to feel and what you want to to believe, and you say it as I am, instead of I wanna believe I can. It's like, no, I am capable. I can change careers at 48 years old, or whatever it is. Okay? So that can help you reframe the negative thoughts. Number five, try new experiences. Yay. I love this one. Not everybody is comfortable doing new things outside their comfort zone, especially if you've just gotten out of a situation. But I'm telling you, pushing yourself does help you kind of push past this cage of self-doubt, this cage of feeling like you don't know who you are. You're gonna try the new things and figure out what you like and don't like and listen to your body. Speaker 1: (15:38)That should have been an extra one. Bonus number six, listen to your body. But we'll get there. So engage in activities or hobbies that interest you but you may have not tried before. New experiences can help you discover the aspects of you that you weren't really aware of. So it can provide opportunities to meet new people. I, I have definitely gained friendships through going to different classes. I do art classes, I've done photography classes. I took guitar. I sucked. But it was fun. I actually signed up for six months, so I had to commit to six months. Still did it. Learned a few notes. Played a little Jimi Hendrix. That was fun. It wasn't my jam. Did photography. Took a couple classes, met some really cool people, like-minded people, artsy creatives, right? So explore, like, this world has so many different things you can do and you just explore and that helps you figure out who you are. Speaker 1: (16:36)If you don't try, you're never gonna know. And that little bonus number six that popped in there, don't forget to listen to your body. Listen to your body. I'm serious. Your body will speak to if you get quiet. That's why I am big on meditation and prayer. You get quiet, you empty your head a little bit, shake it out and listen. You will get more and more in touch with your intuition. You will trust yourself more and you'll be like, yeah, I really like this, or I don't, or something just doesn't feel a hundred percent sometimes. I like the saying, if it ain't a hell yes, it's a hell no. Is that true with everything? No. Do I wanna like cook every single night? No. So, but you know what I'm saying, with certain situations where you do have more choices, . 'cause we do have to feed ourselves, and maybe we don't have the money to have a chef or go out out to a restaurant every night. Speaker 1: (17:33)But let's say things like you meet a specific person or you go and try a new activity and you're like, I mean, I kind of like it. Do I continue? I mean, we can really feel unsure of ourselves after abuse. We, if we were codependent, which most of us us are after narcissistic abuse, you can become codependent. You are really starting to think like other people like you may be so codependent that you're taking on what they like to do, or they're telling you what you like to do or should like to do, right? So this is the time to get in touch with your intuition and by, by getting in touch with your body and listening and being still. And when you feel that stress, when it feels like your shoulders go up or your jaw clench is that's your body saying like, this ain't in sis, this is not it. Speaker 1: (18:25)So listen to your body. All right. So all that being said, hopefully those were helpful. Let me know if you want to email me if you're mama C at Gmail, which is the most helpful to you? Or what do you think you might struggle with? I can give you a little feedback. But remember, it's okay to experience these moments of self-doubt and uncertainty. Okay? That is going to happen. So I want you to give yourself grace. They're a natural part of growth and development. And if you've gone through abuse, then it's, it's gonna definitely be in there. So we're working through that process. So be patient with yourself. Give yourself time and space to explore who the you 2.0 is and what makes you unique. And that's beautiful. It's like so amazing to overcome codependency and realize how amazing you are and that you don't need someone else to be amazing or feel amazing. So with persistence, a little self-compassion, you can overcome self-doubt and gain a stronger sense of yourself. That 2.0 you so love you guys. Let's do a couple affirmations before we leave. All right? Hands on heart, unless you're driving. Take a breath, relax it out, repeat after me, okay? Speaker 1: (19:46)I am amazing as I am. I don't need anyone else to be amazing. I am growing and getting better every day. All righty. And know why, because you are a Speaker 2: (20:11)Queen. Speaker 1: (20:12)Alright, I will see you in the next episode. Have a lovely day night, and don't forget to check out my show notes and chat me up and email if you want.

3 Tips to Help You Recover From Social Isolation After Narcissistic Abuse

This week, let's talk about 3 Tips to Help You Recover From Social Isolation After Narcissistic Abuse
Mentioned episodes:
https://ChristyJade.podbean.com/e/ep-20-filling-the-friendship-cup-after-narcissistic-abuse/
https://ChristyJade.podbean.com/e/ep-19-finding-true-friendship-as-an-adult/
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DOMESTIC ABUSE HOTLINE : 800-799-7233
Transcript:
Speaker 1: (00:00)What's up party people? This week we are still on the series talking about psychological effects from narcissistic abuse. We're working through this. We are almost to the end of this series. So also chime in, message me, email me, let me know what topics you want me to cover. You can always check my show notes and my email address, which is fierce mama c gmail is there. So you can write me and be like, Hey, I want you to talk about this. I have a little list going, so add to it. All right, so today we are going to dive into social isolation. It's a big one. Narcissists do this to their victims. They socially isolate them, which actually has an effect. So let's talk about it. Speaker 1: (00:49)Hey Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawly narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal. Now, do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted? girl, I see you. I'm Christy. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life. And I wished I could undo the damage. I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (01:46)So if you've been following me, you know that there are tons of effects from narcissistic abuse and they can be psychological and this sucks and we hate it. So we're gonna talk about how to undo it, reverse it, slip or down. Reverse it. Name that tune. Um, so this week we are talking about social isolation. So if you were not familiar with this, narcissists will isolate you socially. There's all sorts of things they do, but this is what we're talking about today, specifically social isolation, where they will try to isolate you from your family, from your friends, and they can do it subtly. They can do it slowly. They can do it in a way where they will turn you against people who actually love and care for you. And they start to mess with your mind trying to convince you that those people are not good for you or don't want the best for you and they're just protecting you. Speaker 1: (02:41)It's a whole gross ucky, yicky, all those key words. Okay? So today we are gonna talk about three ways you can help heal and work on that social isolation effect. Because when you've been in that relationship, especially if you've been in it for a long time, you may have lost friends, you may have lost family, you may have forgotten how to be social because you've been so codependent on your narcissist. So we don't want that anymore. We are gonna flip it into you 2.0 and we are going to gain back that confidence, that social relaxation where you feel better going into friendships. We actually have, I have some podcast episodes on friendships I can link and just in general kind of undoing what has happened, even if you never, maybe you grew up under the thumb of a narcissist. So you were always dependent on a parent or a sibling and you'd never develop those skills. Speaker 1: (03:43)Some of these things will help you with that as well. So let's dive in. Number one, seeking support from understanding individuals. So this is where, let's say before your narcissistic situation, you had friends, you had family, you had people that were close to you. Maybe you feel awkward now trying to get back to them. I'm telling you a lot of the times if you go in with love and you just say, look, I have gone through a lot and I miss you and I don't know how to get this back, but I really am asking for you. And you could even say forgiveness. People feel can feel slighted when you've cut them out of your life because of a narcissist. They can view it as you rejected them, when really we know how it all works. Like you are just this puppet of this narcissist at times, right? Speaker 1: (04:39)Like you're not even making your own decisions half the time, but their perspective may be different. So you can say, you know, I'm sorry about the situation. I'm realizing now what I've gone through and part of me healing and working through this is trying to reach out, apologize, and hopefully mend some of the relationships that I have lost in my life. Now, this is something me and my one-on-one clients work on. Um, because it can get kind of specific and you might need customized coaching. So if you want just like a one-off call to figure out how to have a conversation with a specific person, look at my show notes. And there there are power calls we can do the, um, journey to peace call. That is if you just want like one call, bing bang, let's figure the strategy out. That's a perfect way. Speaker 1: (05:32)Or if you wanna see, if you wanna do ongoing coaching with me, it's a great way to test it out. So go into my show notes if you're looking for some support in this. Anyway, so this could be also support group. So if you don't have those friends or family already, or you don't have past friends or family, maybe you just didn't have great relationships your entire life. There are support groups comprised of people who have experienced similar situations to you. And you can find this maybe locally, there's codependency anonymous, which if you've been isolated, you're probably codependent. Sorry, spoiler alert. So there are, I believe there's in-person, and I know there's online classes for codependency. Um, you can look on Facebook or whatever other social media platforms that have groups. I don't know them all. I usually use Facebook for things like that. But there are are all also, you know, domestic violence or abuse related groups that have local chapters. Speaker 1: (06:35)So you can do some Googling, thank God for Google and try to find something specific. If you want my help to find a group, please reach out. Email me. I love researching and helping with this stuff. So, um, cause I know some people get very overwhelmed, especially when you've been through abuse. I get it. It's also overwhelming sometimes we don't know where to start. So for me, it's, it's an easy thing I can help you with. All right, number two, rebuilding those social connections gradually. So, like I said, you know, reaching out might be hard, but try give yourself a little push. Say, coach Christy said it's okay. Believe in me. Do some affirmations around that. But gradually reconnecting with the people who were part of your social circle before. The abuse is something that I think is really good. If they were healthy people, of course you wanna evaluate, are these people good for me? Speaker 1: (07:28)Were they good to me back then before I got into this situation, did, was it people who were checking in and trying and really wanting to nurture a relationship with you? Those are the type of people that you want in your life. So reach out to those people who have showed understanding and caring or if, if you don't have those people, pay attention when you're out and about. Find a reason to just chat someone up at the grocery store. Dang, girl, look at that shiny apple. I don't know. Put yourself out there a little bit and see if you can build relationships and grow some trusting relationships that you deserve. Again, there are some more tips on that in my friendship based episodes, I will link. Um, but consider participating in group activities, hobby clubs, volunteering, those type of things. They might be like the, the sharing tips on apples in the grocery store. Speaker 1: (08:28)Okay, no, but joining those type of things where you have similar interests and it's a place that people are kind of expected to meet each other. That is a place you can start finding new relationships. Doesn't mean you have to be BFFs, but just being able to build that little social muscle again is a great thing. Number three, of course, we're not gonna get away from this episode with a little self-care chat. Yes, focusing on your self-care and your personal development, which you're doing. If you're listening to this podcast, good job. You've got a good start. Can help restore your emotional wellbeing and build that resilience up again. Like taking care of yourself after you have been isolated is very, very important. As important as the social aspect of actually meeting people. Take care of you. Take care of yourself. Build that confidence. Do those affirmations, all that energy moving work like I do the yoga. Speaker 1: (09:26)If you wanna do a reiki session with me, look in the show notes for that. Um, anything that will help your mind, body, and soul get back. Rebalanced is very, very crucial to this healing process and it helps everything together, right? It's like a well-oiled machine working together where you have yes, building your own confidence, which can in turn attract better people into your life that you can trust and build relationships with. So maybe you don't feel confident enough to even join one of those classes, one of those hobby clubs, activity type things, right? Maybe you don't feel comfortable enough. So once you start doing this self-care and self-confidence building, you will start to get more and more confident, have more assertiveness, and you can then say, mm, uh, I'm, I'm getting there, boo boo. I was calling myself boo boo. And then you can be like, let's go do this. Speaker 1: (10:25)Let's go rock out. Meet some people and trust again. It's hard. I get it, I've been there. But you know what? You really miss out when you don't push yourself a little bit, you know, nothing too crazy. But sometimes we need to stretch a little outside of our comfort zone. And what will help with that is building that self-confidence. So as you grow and develop in these ways, your confidence and sense of self will increase. Making it easier to reconnect with new people or even getting back to those old friendships that you had before the abuse started. Remember healing from abuse takes time. But be patient with yourself, have grace. Seek professional help if needed. Come jump into my show notes. There's plenty of ways to work with me. If you're just like, I wanna customize package, here's what I can afford. Help me out, email me. Speaker 1: (11:21)We'll figure something out. I love to help and I'm going to help you if you need help in some way. So hit me up, queen, hit me up. I will tailor something to your specific needs and we are going to get you back to good feeling, good, peace, freedom, all that jazz, all hands to heart. It's that time, let me say not if you're driving, nobody needs you not holding that wheel unless you're in a Tesla. Okay? Ah, so today's theme was getting back from isolation, right? Dealing with social isolation after the abuse. So hands to heart, you repeat after me. I am deserving of community, okay? I am an amazing human and deserve amazing people in my life. And finally, I do not blame myself for the isolation I went through because I'm a queen. Yes, there it is. All right, love you guys. See you in the next episode. Have a beautiful day or night, wherever you are, whenever you are. Dos and smooches.

How to Set Boundaries as a People Pleaser

This week, let's talk about 5 Ways to Set Boundaries as a People Pleaser
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I am Christy Jade, adoring wife, adoptive mama and narcissistic abuse survivor. I now help other women who have gone through abuse (or are going through it) find confidence, power and peace.
DOMESTIC ABUSE HOTLINE : 800-799-7233
Transcript:
Speaker 1: (00:00)In today's episode, we're gonna talk about one of my favorite things to talk about boundaries. This is especially for you, all the people pleasers of the world. Some of us though, I'm throwing myself into this bucket. Our people pleasers only with certain people in certain situations. Hmm, abusive situations or just, it could be in your work environment, you're like that. Maybe it's just with family because there's history there, or you have fears or have to walk on eggshell so you become maybe more of a PE people pleaser in certain areas of life. Either way, this podcast is for you. Speaker 1: (00:40)Hey Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawly narcissist? Do you find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal now? Do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted? And mind ed, girl, I see you. I'm Kristy. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life and I wished I could undo the damage I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and free. So shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (01:37)All right, queen bees, you're ready. Let's dive into the four ways to help you scooch along in your little boundary journey. Boundaries is such, it feels like such a harsh word. It doesn't have to be, to me, boundaries are a way. You are protecting your peace. You're not like doing wrong to anybody. You are doing good things for yourself and your life. Keeping in alignment with what you want in your life and what you deserve in your life. So you should never feel bad or have guilt around boundaries. And there are beautiful ways to express your boundaries. You don't have to be harsh but firm. Yes, that doesn't always mean you have to be like aggressive or harsh, but you wanna hold those boundaries in a solid firm way so that you stick to them. And the more you stick to your boundaries, the more people expect you to have and hold boundaries, which we love. Speaker 1: (02:31)By the way, if you don't know I have a Boundaries course, I will put the link in my show notes, aka podcast description. It is 10 whole exciting videos that you can do at your pace. They basically like drip out every week and then you can, you know, listen to them as you please. I try not to put them all in cuz nobody needs to listen to 10 boundary videos in one week, but they drop out every week, drip, drop, whatever word you wanna use. They Dr. Itty drop out every week and then after that you have them for a lifetime. Isn't that exciting? So if you really wanna go deeper on boundaries, then check that out. It is a, ugh, it's just an awesome, awesome course. I highly recommend it. I may be biased. All right, let's dive in. So as a people pleaser, setting firm boundaries can be challenging, right? Speaker 1: (03:25)We wanna please everybody or maybe, like I said, it's just certain people in your life. That was my case. I wasn't really a people pleaser to every single person that I ever met in my life, but certain people in my family, certain relationships, like romantic relationship, one of them I had, I was a super people pleaser in that one. Um, so it depends on the situation, right? But as a people pleaser in whatever way, it can be challenging to set boundaries with the person that you are people pleaser ring to. Is that a word? But you need to set these boundaries because we're trying to have peace and joy here. And you with, let me just back up. That's me re rewinding. If you do not have firm strong boundaries in your life, in alignment with what you want out of life, you are no not going to be able to get or maintain the things you want in life. Speaker 1: (04:20)And for us, that's peace, that's joy, that's freedom. All the things that we really truly desire and want after narcissistic abuse or any type of abuse or what we all deserve, right? So we wanna be shiny happy people. So here are four strategies to help you do that. Number one, recognize and prioritize your own needs. So you need to sit down with yourself. You need to set some time aside. This is a priority. This is the number one thing with boundaries that I actually do with my clients. You sit down and I call it a hell yes, hell no list. But you need to think about what you want out of your life. What is in alignment? What's not in alignment? So the hell yes is like, what is working right now? What are the needs that I have that I need to fill? What do, so the ones you already have, that's great, right? Speaker 1: (05:15)Or maybe you wanna put on that list too. What would I like to have? What? How would I like to feel? Let's say you are like, I just wanna feel peace. I wanna get away from drama. Write it all down. There's no like wrong or right answers. Here, go with your intuition. This is a brain dump. And then on the hell no side, that's what is not working. Or also what you do not want in your life. Let's say you got out of a an abusive relationship of any kind, okay? Whether it's romantic friendships, family ships, whatever it is, you know, there's something in that relationship that did not work for you and is not okay. You could get really specific with what type of abuse or what. Maybe there were some red flags you ignored, write them down. So you do this brain dump, and this is a whole exercise I do with my clients. Speaker 1: (06:09)So if you want to do one-on-one coaching, my link is always there in the show notes too. But understand, it's not selfish to prioritize this, right? Like to look at those priorities and say, I deserve to have all of this. I'm telling you, you're a queen, so you're up in this queendom, you deserve it. Take time to reflect on what it is. So this isn't like you're gonna do it in two minutes, but if you truly want to prioritize your mental health and your wellbeing and feeling good, you need to carve out time to do this stuff, guys. All right, coach Christy's getting sassy. So you require to be balanced and fulfilled. That's a requirement. Now, okay, so what do you have to do? A little work. You gotta do your hell yes and your hell no list. And then we start to build boundaries around those things. Speaker 1: (06:58)How do you get from a hell no to a hell yes. You start creating boundaries around that. Hell no. Let's, let's do example time with Kristy. Let's say a hell no in your life is that you live with a relative. Let's say it's an aunt and she is really horrible to you and you feel like you just have to deal with it. I call that's big. Nope, you don't have to deal with it. We can talk about all the ways to not do that, but we're just going from like a zoomed out lens here. So a hell no is your aunt is really mistreating you and horrible and makes fun of you, X, Y, Z. Okay? Every day you've got this strife in your life in order to make that a hell yes. What would that look like? Maybe it would be having a sit down talk to start, which maybe if you're a people pleaser, you have not wanted to even do that because you wanna respect your elders. Speaker 1: (07:54)I don't know. There's all these different reasons we give ourselves to not have talks with people or it could look like I really want her out, but I don't know how to do that. And then we can go there, right? This is when you work with therapists or coaches to achieve these things. But we're just talking zoomed out what a boundary may look like. It's something you wanna set, it's a goal of a boundary. And then we can take those little sparkle steps to actually get to that boundary where you actually can place the boundary and go from there. Again, my boundary course goes through all of this and the conversations you have with people. So the first thing is really getting all of that out though, really getting, what do you prioritize? What do you want? What are the hell yeses? What are the hell nos? Speaker 1: (08:38)And you wanna make those hell nos hell yeses one at a time. You can't do it all at once. It's too overwhelming. But you can do it quicker than you think. Sparkle by sparkle. Take one of those hell nos and think, how could I get this to feel better? How could I get closer to setting a real boundary around this so that I can live more peacefully? Ladies and gents, I'm talking today, it is like eight minutes in and we're only on number one. All right, I'll talk faster, fast forward. All right. Number two, you have to communicate a assertively. This does not mean mean, or you're an or you're a, okay? It doesn't, I mean, we can do that too, but you don't have to practice assertive communication when expressing your boundaries. So you wanna be clear and direct, okay, all the fluff. Speaker 1: (09:26)And I get there's, there's something to be said for the sandwiching of like starting in with, you know, I really appreciate our relationship. And then you go into the meat of the boundary and then you end it with, I hope that we can work this out, right? That's okay, but trying to give all these excuses and details and fluffy language, no, we gotta be real direct. So an example of this would be, I really love the fun we have together. I think we have a great friendship, okay? There's sandwich, bread, bread piece number one. It's all fluffy and happy. Meet and boundaries is, I really, you have to be very specific too. I do not appreciate you talking down to me or yelling at me. Um, I, I really need that to stop in order for us to have a relationship. And then the fluffy end of the other sandwich. Speaker 1: (10:15)I hope that we can work this out because like I said, I really do enjoy the fun times with you, but this is something that I need for us to maintain our relationship. Get it? So you sweeten you get direct very specific. So it's not like they're wondering what does she mean? Like, don't be mean to me. Well that's, that can be perspective in a way, right? So it's like, what specifically, don't yell at me or don't talk down to me, or don't call me names, whatever. I mean, should we be friends with these people? Anyway? I don't know. I'm just giving examples here. I, I like to give people a chance to make things right? I like to think people don't always see what they do, right? So I know like I had a friend, you know, maybe she was just extra loud, maybe she yelled, you know, it's just part of who she was. Speaker 1: (11:05)But the intention behind it started to, to me off. And it felt very like she was putting me down and talking down to me and like condescending and, and yelling. And I was just like, you know what? I'm like 30 something years old. I don't need. So I had to talk with her. Did it end well, maybe not, but it could have with somebody else. Maybe there's somebody who would've said, you know what? You're right. I'm gonna work on that because I love you and I want our relationship to last, right? So that's just an example of how you can communicate assertively and directly without having to feel like you're an. Another example is if someone's kind of smothering or just being a little much, and look, we all go through our. Let's say you feel like you just need a little space. Speaker 1: (11:47)You can say, I love spending time with you, but tonight I really need some space to recharge. Instead of saying, you never give me any space, or you're always up my, right? Saying those I need or I want is so much better than pointing a finger and saying, you, this is really beneficial in conversations like this. That being said, side note, if someone is really abusive, I mean the, it takes the cake, right? I'm talking about, let's say you're out of a, an abusive situation. You're looking for new friendships, new romantic ships, , new family ships, all the ships. You can really start to know how to have these, um, conversations, healthy conversations. If you, if you are still with someone who is very abusive to you, my advice is always to get out of those situations. It is going no contact. Uh, if you have to co-parent, then it's gray rock method. Speaker 1: (12:43)There are go, go search and binge my episodes about those. There's no contact and gray, gray rock method, um, episodes if you need that. But most of you here listening are from abusive situations that you are almost out of or out of. And this is especially for you preparing for moving forward. So you don't attract or not attract, but you don't end up in situations like you did in the past. In order to not end up in those relationships, we need to have firm boundaries. Number three, just say no. Saying no can be hard too for you people pleasers, I know it. Um, especially with certain dominant personalities, you might feel even worse saying, no, you're scared. We don't wanna be scared of people. First of all, if there's certain people who feel really like walking on eggs, shellies and nervous, you're gonna upset them. Speaker 1: (13:38)Evaluate those uh, ships if you will. But to establish boundaries, you have to learn to say no and it's okay. Don't feel guilty. It's okay to decline requests or invitations that do not align with your priorities or your values, right? This is what we're trying to create a life of joy, peace, freedom. If something comes into your life that you have a choice, whether you feel like it or not, you do, okay? But you have a choice to say yes to something or no, we need to practice saying more nos to things that just don't feel right or good to us. Okay? I'm giving you full permission. Tell 'em say, oh yeah, coach Kristy gave me permission. All right? So go talk to her about it. Tell 'em give 'em my email address. I'm all ears and I want you to hear me out, okay? Speaker 1: (14:33)I want, if nothing else from this podcast hits you in your heart, I want it to be this no is not a rejection of others, okay? It is a way of honoring yourself. I'm gonna say it one more time for the people in the back. Get ready. I'm gonna get louder. Remember just kidding. Remember saying no is not a rejection of others. It is a way of honoring you. So practice by saying it kind and respectful. Do your little sandwich if do, if you have to offer alternatives if possible. Like, no, I don't wanna take care of your dog for five days, but I would love to send you a package of biscuits for him. I don't know, that was a horrible one, but that's all I got right now. Okay, here's a real one that I've done. I had to choose one engagement over another, not like marriage engagement, but an event over another. Speaker 1: (15:31)And so I said to the one person that I did not choose, I said, I cannot come to your birthday party, but I would love to take you out for a birthday cocktail or dinner next week. Boom. Okay, so you, you get it. Or if you didn't wanna spend that time and energy, maybe on that person could say, thank you so much for the invite and here's a picture of me in my that, I mean, that's nice. I'm joking, I'm joking. This one I love so much. And actually there's a book called The Best Yes, by somebody , I'm always so helpful, aren't I? It's like Lisa k, that's not it. But if you look up on Amazon the best, yes, Lisa or Lisa, I think it's spelled with a y, something with a K at the end, I don't know. It's a Lisa and she has a best yes to talk about and it's a little religious, so if you're not into that, you're not into it but you can overlook it and get a lot from the book anyway. Speaker 1: (16:28)But it's really about saying yes to yourself and I just freaking love this book. It helped me set limits on my availability. That is number four. Setting limits on your availability. So defining clear limits on your time. This is like, I feel like this is one of those self boundaries too because if you don't, it's like, it's like it's not other people's fault if you are not even managing your time and you're not even valuing your own time. You know what I mean? You gotta be like having my own business. I gotta set my own hours. I do make exceptions occasionally and I feel good doing that. But there's some people that'll, you know, have their own business and they just work around the clock and around the clock and people expect them to answer emails in the middle of the night or whatever. So that's just an example of a business owner. Speaker 1: (17:15)But there's so many things like that where you become available to everybody and you need to set more realistic expectations with others about when you can or want to be available. So do this around your work hours, your social engagement and obviously the personal time. So this is another protection bubble, like this is really important and it was a game changer for me in my business. I struggled in the beginning cuz I'm like, oh well you know, you wanna get those clients and you want this and that. So sometimes with certain situations I think it's okay to occasionally, I don't wanna say break a boundary, but do something that feels right. Like there were certain clients I really wanted to work with that I loved and they were in totally different, different time zone. So I'm like, well I'll make one exception where I'll work one evening a week at five instead of ending at five, right? Speaker 1: (18:11)And pushed it a little like that's a real thing that happened. So you know, you have to listen your own intuition, but you can't get it. Let it get outta hand. So protect your time. And this is essential for self-care. We have all the self-care talk in like so many episodes and this is just an another way of caring for yourself, like carving out the time. I'm gonna do a whole other um, episode on intentional planning because when you actually sit there and block out time like a boss, like a boss's boss's boss with a queen boss, when you block out time for like, this is my work hours, this is my 30 minutes a day, I'm going to read a trashy novel. This is my 20 minutes at night, I'm going to sit in that lavender bath and blow bubbles and sing at the top of my lungs. Speaker 1: (19:03)Like you have to carve out the time. And when you do that so intentionally, you know when you're not doing that, right? So you're not gonna answer the phone when you know, this is my block plan, this is my block plan, I can't speak, this is my plan for this block of time, right? So I'll go into all of that in like I said another episode. But that's showing that intention of setting limits. And that's part of it is by planning. I love, I love a good planner. Anyone else? I want you guys to email me, okay? Fierce mama. See gmail.com. It's always in my show notes. I want you to tell me, do you prefer a paper planner where you can like touch it and hold it and put stickers all over it? And do, do, do, I dunno what that last part was. Speaker 1: (19:50)Or do you like a digital planner where it's all synced up to your phone and your laptop and your cousin's toe? Okay, I want you to tell me that in your email. I'd just like to know. And speaking of that, I think I'm gonna have an upcoming episode. All these episode ideas coming on planning because I have discovered a very exciting new, uh, it's a new way of planning that's like kind of like paper planner meets digital planner. I think I found, I think I finally found my planner love. I created my own planners by the way. So if you like paper planners, which I do, I use my own planner every day in my show notes. God, a lot of show notes calling out, look at me, I'm just promoting the outta myself today. But hey, I got some good. So I have a journal, but I also have a planner pad that has a to-do list. Speaker 1: (20:44)So it's got the top three priorities, it's got the to-dos for the day, then it's got a little block for gratitude and then it's got a little other dreams and plans block. I'm looking at it right now. I'm like reading down the list. My a d d doesn't let me remember all this. Um, and on the front, that's the back, the front has an hourly schedule that goes down the left side of the page and then it's broken out across horizontally. I have my dad's New York accent for a second horizontally. I got it horizontally where you, I have like my schedule is the first one. Then I have like my daughter's schedule, my husband's schedule. And this is great if you have multiple kids, you can see where everyone is like all at once. I freaking love it. I designed it and I love it. Speaker 1: (21:30)And then you have a little block for your self-care that you have to write in every day at the top of the page. What's your self-care for the day? So there that is. I think that's enough. Babbles. This is a good one. This is a long one. I hope you enjoy it because I did skip last the last two Thursdays. So you have time, you have time to listen to this whole binge of a show today and next week. Next week I think I'll be able to do two. This is my zero F summer, so I'm doing exactly what I wanna do when I wanna do it. And it's beautiful. You should try it. So fun. All right, I hope you guys are wonderful before we go. You know what time it is hand to heart. Okay, let's see. Ah, let's think about those boundaries. Yes. Number one, I am worthy of boundaries. Repeat it sister. Speaker 2: (22:17)I am worthy of boundaries. Speaker 1: (22:21)Second one, I'm going to start creating boundaries. Now Speaker 2: (22:26)I am gonna start creating boundaries. Now Speaker 1: (22:31)My third's gonna be, I'm gonna stop creepily whispering along with you. I'm gonna stop. I never listen to myself. Last one. I am not a people pleaser. I want us to not attach that to our names anymore. Okay? I wanna let go of that identity. I am not a people pleaser anymore. We can be loving, but we're not gonna please all the people but us. We stop that. Now can I get an amen? Thank you. All right, smooches and Oches and all that jazz. And I'll see you in the next episode.
 
 

Ways to Help Release Guilt and Self Blame After Narcissistic Abuse

This week, let's talk about 5 Ways to Help Release Guilt and Self Blame After Narcissistic Abuse 
 
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TRANSCRIPT:
Speaker 1: (00:00)Hello, beauties. Hope everyone is having a fabulous summer so far, or winter if you're across the world. For me, I'm in summer mode. I'm in vacay mode. Life is good. And it just makes me realize that we truly can create a life we want, even when we've been through some. So today we're gonna talk about five ways to stop self blame and guilt after narcissistic abuse. And I'm doing a second podcast about this because it's come up a lot lately with my clients. Some followers have messaged me about the self-blame and just feeling like ashamed and beating themselves up. And we don't have time for that. So we're gonna get into it this episode. Speaker 1: (00:50)Hey, Queens, welcome to, but still she thrives. Do you wanna stop getting caught up in that wicked web of a creepy crawly narcissist? You find yourself up late at night replaying the abuse you put up with and wondering how you can heal Now, do you wake up hoping for healthy relationships and peace only to feel totally exhausted? And mind ed, girl, I see you. I'm Christy. I too had to disconnect from toxic people in my life. And I wished I could undo the damage I felt ashamed, lonely, and kind of lost. But I'm a stubborn Italian and I refuse to give up. I found ways to recalibrate my mind and body more quickly than I thought and can now share them with you. In this podcast, you will find coping tools, healing methods, and confidence boosters so you can trust yourself and find peace and freedom. So shields up ladies, let's go protect our peace. Speaker 1: (01:48)All right, so as we know, recovering from narcissistic abuse can be very challenging, right? And overcoming the self-blame, the guilt that just, oh, you feel like, how did I let this happen? All of those thoughts can really kind of stunt your healing. So we have to kind of break through this in order to move forward. So here are five ways to help stop all those things that we just, like I said, we don't have time for. Let's move, let's move forward. And shimmy, shake, come on. The first one, really educating yourself about narcissistic abuse. Obviously in my journey I have gone very, very, very deep in understanding the dynamics of narcissistic abuse, right? It was part of my healing journey. It's how I'm here now, helping you, giving you information. But it was really essential for me to get through the guilt and everything. Like once I realized, wow, these are actually a specific type of people that do X, Y, Z, it's almost like a science. Speaker 1: (02:54)It becomes almost predictable. I say almost, cuz not every little nuance is always predictable, but when you really start understanding narcissists, they become pretty predictable and you kind of know they're next to move and you start to see it in a more logical slash technical way rather than an emotional way. And that is helpful for our journey in healing. So listening to podcasts like this, watching YouTube videos, there's a million TikTok videos you can watch. There's just so much information out there now, thank goodness about narcissistic abuse. That being said, some of it, you know, check your resource if there's accurate information. Sometimes people just throw stuff there, stuff out there. So if you really want to understand, it is helpful to work with a therapist or a coach like myself that has been through it and truly knows what's going on, the ins and outs of narcissism and the abuse that they cause, right? Speaker 1: (03:55)But understanding those dynamics can help you recognize the abuser's actions. Were not your fault. And until you really get how it all works, it's kind of hard to not feel like you had some hand in it and you didn't. So learning about the personality disorder, which is a real thing, a personality disorder that is very, I'd like to call it calculated. It's very, it's a manipulative type of abuse. Learning all of that can help provide clarity and validation to your experience. For us, I've been there, I get it. Needing that validation is essential, essential in our journey. And you, you can really get that through understanding how it all works, how they work. Number two, seeking support from a trusted network. Hopefully you have a person or two you can trust in your life. If not seeking out, like I said, a therapist or coach who truly gets it, who can validate your feelings. Speaker 1: (05:05)Part of what I love about my work is when I'm sitting there with a new client and they're explaining their story and talking about their history and their abuse, and when I get to tell them how it works, explain that it's not their fault. And usually in the first session or two, there's some relief that comes out of them just hearing, just feeling validated. But hearing like this isn't your fault. And sometimes it takes a little longer, honestly, for victims, survivors of narcissistic abuse to really accept that it's not their fault. That can be a journey on its own. But just having someone say it to them who's been through it and knows like, this is not your fault. You are not crazy. I know your truth. I believe you and I validate your feelings is one of the best things in my job. Because seeing that relief on someone's face and knowing what that felt like when I heard it the first time, I, oh, I might get a little emotional right now. Speaker 1: (06:18)It's just, it's just such a relief because you feel like you are batshit crazy or you did this somehow and it's your fault and, and you wrecked your own life. Maybe you wrecked your kids life, like all these awful thoughts that aren't true. And you get even just a little bit of relief in the first couple of calls. And then as we do more and more work, you're gonna by the end of it, be like, I'm a badass queen. I didn't do. This Emma Effa is a crazy person who made me believe all this stuff. But it's not true. And you see the real truth, and I love that journey. So yes, it's super helpful to have someone close to you that you can trust and talk about to it about it too, like friends or family and or a therapist or coach. Speaker 1: (07:02)Number three, and this is hard for some of us because of the dynamic that has been placed upon us by such narcissist practicing self-compassion. So be kind to yourself. Acknowledge, first of all, nobody's perfect. We were not handed a handbook on anything when we were born. Okay? Like, I mean, let's throw parenthood in there. Let's throw how to navigate relationships in general, whether you're with a narcissist or not. We have to learn and grow. It's part of life. Like nobody's born just knowing everything. And especially with these jacked up, crazy narcissistic, abusive dynamics, there's no handbook. And that would be a hell, hell of a long, crazy wild ride of a handbook if there was one. So be kind yourself. You didn't know how to navigate this. Nobody knows how to navigate a narcissistic abuse situation. Nobody, right? But what we can do is once we realize it, once we're aware enough, it's pulling yourself out of it that counts. Speaker 1: (08:08)And then it's saying, I want to create a different life. I see what happened. It sucked. It's not my fault. And now I'm gonna be me 2.0 and I'm gonna be a queen and I'm gonna get through this and I'm gonna heal and everything is gonna be okay. If you have to do some affirmations, you know, I'm a big affirmation person. I might mention them like every other podcast episode for a reason. Take some of those self-blaming thoughts. I want you to write 'em down. This is your homework. I want you to write three self-blaming thoughts, okay? And I then want you to flip 'em to the opposite. Okay? So if you say, let's, let's give an example. It's example time with CHristy. Okay? Let's say I stayed with someone who was abusive and that was so stupid. I'm so stupid. I want you to change that too. Speaker 1: (09:08)Someone was abusive to me and I'm smart enough to be trying to get out of it. If you're there or getting out of it, or I, I'm smart enough to have gotten out of the situation, give yourself props. You're not stupid. I want you to switch it around to the opposite. You are smart, you are strong. That's why you're listening to this, okay? I want you to do three of those affirmations. Write 'em down, flip the negative to the positive, stick 'em on your mirror. Say 'em every day when you wake up, say 'em every night while you're brushing your two. And tell me how it feels. So that kind of leads me to the next one, which is setting boundaries. So we've gotta build up that confidence and know we're worthy, we're okay, we went through hell, we're trying to work through it, or we're on the other side of it. Speaker 1: (09:59)We are climbing through the mud, but we're gonna, we're gonna do this and we're gonna start by setting boundaries with our new relationships or maybe some old relationships or family or friends that maybe are used to you being a certain way, but she's not here anymore and she has new plans and she's got plans with boundaries in 'em. , right? Like, we're not here to be taken advantage of or taken for granted anymore. So you have to prioritize your wellbeing, set those clear boundaries, and move forward and regain a sense of control over your life. You're here because your life got outta control and you don't want it outta control anymore, right? So let's take your power back, let's take your control back. And the first step of that is creating boundaries. I have a 10 part boundaries course, it's epic. And it is in my show notes. Speaker 1: (10:55)There is a link for it. It is extremely reasonably priced for all the content in there. And I did that for a reason because I want it to be attainable for people who can't work, uh, one-on-one with me for an extended period of time. I want you to be able to build your boundaries and it's self-paced. One will leak out, leak out, that sounds weird. One will drop every week and you have, you know, lifetime access to these videos. And it will help you learn how to evaluate what boundaries you need to set, what to do while setting those boundaries. Who to set them with all of that fun and how to have the hard conversations and what to do with those conversations don't go well. Everything about boundaries is in this course. So check it out. Go check the link after you listen to the rest of this podcast. Speaker 1: (11:45)So you got your boundaries set, you're ready to go. And then number five, you focus on those personal growth and healing aspects. Engage in activities that promote your healing, your personal growth. That could be, if you're into reading and journaling, do that. If you're just wanting to take a new course, do something new for yourself. Like what is something you have not done that you want to do? There's gotta be one thing. Do that thing you need. You might need to distract yourself while you're healing. That's okay. I hear all this. I'm sorry. This may be different from other things you've been told. I hear often, like you don't wanna distract yourself from healing. You have to dive in and go deep and, and don't just distract yourself. I, I call on that. I did some distracting, I don't think of it as distracting. Speaker 1: (12:37)I think of it as part of the healing. I think doing something that lights you up in the midst of some hard stuff is absolutely necessary. So if I wanna go pursue a new hobby, take an art class, take a photography class, go dancing my butt off, I'm gonna do that. I don't think it's escaping. I think it is a part of growing as a person and that's part of healing. Discovering the new you, this new identity. Figuring out what do I like as this new person? Who am I now besides a bombass queen? Okay, so by investing in your personal development, any and all of that things, there's a lot of free resources out there too. But investing that time, maybe some of it is money, maybe it takes some money to take some courses, whatever it is. But you can rebuild that self-esteem and sense of self-worth. Speaker 1: (13:28)And that, I'm sorry, is huge in the healing process. So don't listen to those people who tell you don't distract yourself. You gotta dive in and Uhuh, we don't need to sit crying on a couch 12 hours a day. We need to shine a light on what needs to be healed, work on the healing, not obsess over the healing and live our lives and discover who we are and enjoy life. Right? Right. Yeah, that sounds so much better than like the deep dark healing and the shadow work and oh, it's all too much. That's too much. Mm-hmm. Positive vibes. And I'm not saying, what's the whole word they say like bypassing now, I can't think of it, but like bypassing healing and just kind of like, oh, yay. Life is butterflies and flowers only. I'm not saying that, but I am saying again, we highlight the things we need to work on. Speaker 1: (14:20)We work on them in a reasonable amount of time in our weekly schedule. We do, it's good to focus on the meditation or the therapy, but also there's a hell of a beautiful, joyful life out there that has a peaceful aspect, joyful happiness, all those things. I know you wanna feel, you can feel them in parallel to doing the work. So I'm, I'm just not all about that life where you dive into the dark and you spend seven months straight really, you know, taken that shovel and digging and digging and, and everything's so dark and at the end you're gonna have this bright light. That's not how I do things. If you're here with me, you probably are like-minded to me. You have to do what's right for you. If you wanna go dig and get deep and dark for a couple months and really do all that stuff that and that feels like you, that's your prerogative. Speaker 1: (15:13)Cool. I'm here to tell you my experience, what worked for me and what seems to work for my clients, right? So there's a balance and we mostly like to lean on the positive side and the growth side and the discovering who the f we are after abuse side. I'm all about that. So remember, healing from this abuse is a process that takes time, but that process can still be enjoyable. And that's what I want you guys to get. And I think so many people are scared of healing or just like, oh, I have to do this and that and it feels heavy. I'm not here for you guys to have to feel heavy. I want to lift you up and make your lives brighter. And that's what I've done with my clients. I would love to do it with you. There is also, besides my boundaries course, if you wanna work one-on-one with me, I have different options. Go click on the little linky link in my show notes if you wanna do one-on-one coaching sessions. I love doing them. They are my jam. So go sign up and let's chat and I will see you. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Are we forgetting something? Are we forgetting? Little affirmation. Action. All right. Hands to heart. Not if you're driving. Okay, let's see. What's a good theme for today? Hmm. The guilt, right? Okay, let's take a deep breath. Hands on heart. Speaker 1: (16:38)I am releasing my guilt. My abuse was not my fault. I am ready to have peace cause I'm a queen. Yeah, you are. Yes you are. I will see you in the next episode. Smooches and Oches and all that stuff. Love you. Talk to you soon.