Narcissists Tell You It's All in Your Head

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa A Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough podcast.

How you can take control over your life even though you may have been raised by or loved a narcissist.

Narcissists are people amongst us that have a predator type personality.

Generally speaking,

These are people who lack empathy.

They feel entitled to exploit other people emotionally,

Financially,

Spiritually,

Physically,

And even sexually.

We don't learn about narcissism to beat someone over the head with it and to point our finger at them and tell them what a horrible person they are.

We learn about narcissism just like we would learn about why we should look both ways before we cross the street because they exist.

We aren't routinely taught in our society about the dangers of particular personality traits.

We aren't even taught to look at ourselves and to figure out what kind of personality traits do I carry?

What aspects of my personality should I be paying attention to and looking to fix or to change?

What about me is preventing my emotional,

Physical,

Financial,

And spiritual growth?

For someone who's struggling with narcissism who has high narcissistic traits has to first identify that they have high narcissistic traits and then they have to be willing to understand the consequences their traits have on others as well as themselves and they have to want to change.

By definition,

Narcissists really don't see any problem with the way that they are and if they think or if they have an inkling that what they're doing is wrong,

Well it's quickly dismissed by entitlement,

By a lack of empathy,

And by really feeling like people that they speak to in a condescending way deserved it because they're less than them.

So your experience of the narcissist is really not all that important so you will be dismissed.

Even if it's obvious they've done something wrong,

You will be dismissed.

They will ignore you.

They won't talk to you.

They will play the one-up game and when you do talk to them they'll pull the victim card or they'll say,

Oh you're judging me that's why we're having this conversation and basically you know just eradicate any opportunity to have a clear fair conversation with them about something that they've done so it doesn't work.

Someone who is codependent,

Fortunately we are people who at least I've in my line of work both personally and professionally,

Codependents are people who once they see it they are devastated and they want to change it because they see that their childhoods have affected them and they understand the consequences that has on them and they don't want to continue this with their children so they do everything they can to change.

So bravo to anybody out there who is recognizing unhealthy traits in themselves and is doing everything they can to break the cycle of codependency in their life.

And when you live with a narcissist who is domineering,

Who is controlling,

Who is scrambling your brain,

If you're living with a narcissist who gaslights you and convinces you that what is happening really isn't happening or what happened didn't happen at all,

You see a text message on your boyfriend's phone and it's from his ex-girlfriend but he tells you you didn't see the text or you go out with your girlfriend who you think has high narcissistic traits and you see that she's flirting with the waiter behind the bar and she tells you she doesn't know what you're talking about,

That she doesn't know this person,

That it's all in your head,

You're just too sensitive,

You're too insecure.

If you were a real man then your girlfriend walking to the bar to get a couple of beers wouldn't make you feel so insecure.

So everything that you've noticed,

The exchanging of the numbers,

A little kiss on the cheek,

She tells you it didn't happen,

It's all in your head.

And it can go into even deeper extremes where you have a narcissist who forges your signature on some paperwork and suddenly you're the owner of some property and you're responsible for that property and you don't know how this happened and you start getting tax bills or liens on your house and when you confront the narcissist and you say the only person that could have done this is you,

They deny it.

So you're left feeling crazy like did I do this?

Did I take out this loan?

Like what's happening?

It's just a ball of confusion.

So healthy relationships don't roll this way.

When you're in a healthy relationship you feel seen,

You feel heard,

Your partner wants your spirit to feel fulfilled.

Imagine that dear ones.

Imagine living with someone who is your friend when things go wrong and they're your friends when things go right.

I mean that is the essence of what it means to like be truly loved.

When you are with someone who is a high conflict personality or someone who lacks empathy then your boo-boos or your failures are exploited,

They're hung over your head.

When you succeeded something,

Well they don't like that you succeed because you might not need them and you might get full of yourself and realize that you don't need them and leave them.

So the narcissist has to poo-poo your successes too.

So they'll diminish your successes.

It's your birthday,

You planned a great party for yourself,

Well narcissist is going to ruin that too.

Maybe they'll cause a fight with you or maybe they'll say something rude to one of your friends or maybe they'll come home drunk so you can't have the party at your house.

Narcissist is going to dim your light and dim your spirit and make it super difficult for you to be who you really are.

Now with narcissists what ends up happening and we don't even realize it's happening is that we are not paying attention to ourselves anymore.

We're not paying attention to the I.

What do I think?

What do I feel?

What do I need?

We are completely enmeshed with the narcissistic personality and it makes sense right?

So if you're like a kind person,

An empathic person and you're living with someone who's got this rage issue,

Living with someone who's always complaining,

Living with someone who's blaming you for everything,

Then sure you're going to be hyper vigilant.

You're going to be looking outside of yourself.

You're going to be looking through the eyes of trauma,

Not through the eyes of source,

Not through the eyes of spirit.

And this happens because we're human beings,

Because we have an amygdala and we have a hippocampus and we have memories associated to being treated this way as children.

We're trying to control our anxiety by staying hyper focused.

We're trying to avoid the next shoe from falling.

And so if you're in a narcissistic relationship you have to detach from the self because you have to pay attention to what's happening outside of you.

At least that's what you think because it's all below the veil of consciousness.

You're coming at this from trauma.

So you think that the goal is to pay attention to what this narcissist is doing.

Why?

Pain versus pleasure.

Well I don't want this person to get mad.

Why?

Because when this person gets mad he or she gets super abusive.

Why is that bad?

Because that's going to hurt my feelings.

They might leave me.

They might judge me.

They might tell me that I'm wrong.

They might put me down.

I don't want to be criticized like this.

And so your brain is trying to avoid all this pain and all this fear.

What you don't realize,

Dear one,

Is that spiritually healthy people are really looking for pleasure.

Pleasure by way of joy.

Pleasure by way of love.

Pleasure by way of succeeding in life.

Pleasure by way of feeling fulfilled in life.

By being creative.

By creating businesses in their life.

By creating opportunities for themselves.

By breaking old patterns for their children.

What happens when you're living with a narcissist?

The pain versus pleasure principle?

It becomes arrested.

So your source of pleasure is just avoiding pain.

That's not the same as seeking joy and seeking love.

That's a true spiritual consequence.

If you're in a relationship with a narcissist,

They are spiritually bound as well.

But they don't know it because they're trading spirituality for ego.

They're attached to the ego world.

They have ego attachments.

They're attached to their ego defense mechanisms.

They're not attached to this spirit.

They have no clue what their spirit is.

And so they're bound.

And they need to play with people who are also bound.

You might not have been spiritually bound or in spiritual bondage when you met the narcissist.

Or maybe you were.

If you stay in a relationship long enough with a narcissist,

You will undoubtedly experience spiritual bondage.

You have to.

Because the only way to survive and avoid pain is to pay attention to what this big mouth,

This giant two-year-old,

This rageaholic,

This control freak,

This domineering person,

The only way to stay safe is to figure out what they want,

What they need,

And then to give it to them so you can avoid their wrath.

But that's not spiritual growth.

So my hope is that once you see the hole in the wall,

Then maybe you can fix it.

When I realized in my life that I was in a spiritually bonded relationship,

And codependency is spiritual bondage.

Being in a relationship with a narcissist is spiritual bondage.

Being in a trauma bond is bondage.

What is bondage?

It's the inability to move.

It's the inability to leave.

It's like the crazy glue of relationships.

It's like gorilla glue.

We're not so easy to leave.

We don't know how to leave.

We don't have the life skills to leave.

We don't have the self-esteem to leave.

We don't have the boundary ability to leave.

We don't know what a boundary is.

We have been completely enmeshed,

Psychologically enmeshed,

Physically,

Financially enmeshed.

It's not easy to leave.

And so I think it's important that if we're going to heal from these relationships with narcissists,

We first have to identify what the heck is wrong.

Perhaps when you hear this message of spiritual bondage,

It might resonate with you.

You might realize,

Wow,

I really have lost myself.

I do only focus on what he wants or what she wants.

My mind races with what he is going to say or what she's going to say.

My mind races with what upsets him or what upsets her or what I think he needs or what I think she needs.

If you listen to yourself objectively,

Dear one,

What you will notice is there's no I.

What do I think?

What do I feel?

What do I need?

And without seeing that,

You can't fix it.

One of my favorite sayings is you can't fix a hole in the wall that you don't see.

A big part of healing from codependency is understanding the hole in the wall.

A big part of escaping a narcissistic relationship is getting a clear idea of what's wrong.

And I just hope that this idea of spiritual bondage is resonating with somebody out there who might need to hear that message.

Your spirit is not free if you are in a relationship with a narcissist.

As a very logical thinker,

I recognize that I couldn't solve a problem until I identified it.

You cannot solve a problem until you first identify it.

Action steps don't come first.

They come after.

So I hope that this session resonates with someone out there who's struggling inside an unhealthy,

Toxic,

Dysfunctional relationship with someone who has high narcissistic traits,

Who needs to berate them,

Who needs to control them,

Who needs to dominate them,

Who needs to turn their children against them,

Who needs to turn their family against them,

Who's playing for it all.

In other words,

When you're dealing with a narcissist,

They're not happy unless they're obliterating you on every level.

They go after you financially.

They go after you spiritually.

So if you're in a church,

Expect a narcissist to triangulate and talk some crap about you.

To convince the church-goers that you're mentally ill or that you have an issue and that they feel sorry for you and they're worried about you.

It happens.

And expect sometimes that even in a church situation or a synagogue situation,

People that you thought were your partners in life,

They turn on you.

The people that you love don't always recognize that they're dealing with a narcissist.

And if you're a true narcissistic survivor,

If you're a true codependent,

Oftentimes you don't talk about your partner.

You're embarrassed to or you don't want to hurt their feelings or you think it's you,

So you don't air your dirty laundry.

But a narcissist does Narcissist is hedging their bets.

In case you ever smarten up,

In case you ever find your true self,

In case you ever get in touch with your spirit and you get the confidence and the clarity and ownership over your life to say,

Hey,

I know what's up and I'm out of here.

They're hedging their bets.

That's why they triangulate.

My mother was a passive,

Emotionally unavailable person.

She was not present for me whatsoever.

And I learned to stay.

I learned to tone myself down.

I felt stuck.

My mother taught me that things don't ever get resolved,

So why bother?

Just deal with it,

Right?

Just try to figure out what the man wants and become that.

That's what I was downloaded to do and that's why I stayed for 12 years when I knew I should have left.

So I was downloaded to believe this.

I was downloaded to think like a codependent woman.

And like all codependent moms,

What did I do?

I modeled codependency for the first 12 years of my son's life.

And what did he do?

As a young man,

He married a narcissist.

That's what he did.

And thankfully,

Which I'm very proud of,

He was able to end the relationship.

When I was going through my divorce process,

I told myself that I had to give my children the tools to leave,

The strength to leave,

The courage to leave.

And I did.

And so when my son finally came out from below the veil,

When the fantasy started to disintegrate,

When he realized what he was dealing with,

He also had the ability to set boundaries,

To set a course,

And to get a divorce.

And for that,

I'm very thankful.

And so I'm here to tell you as a recovering codependent mother that what you don't heal in your lifetime,

You will pass down to your children.

And it doesn't have to be that way.

Namaste,

Everybody.

Until next time.

And please remember,

You are enough.

In fact,

Dear one,

You were born enough.

And you've got nothing to prove.

Who knew?

Namaste.

Until next time.