Today’s email is going to help empower you immensely, as I share with you the eight ways narcissists target your weaknesses to manipulate and punish you.
This email, absolutely, is for the individuals in our wonderful community who don’t just want to survive narcissistic abuse, but actually and utterly Thrive. In my humble opinion there is only one way for any of us to be able to achieve that, and that is to deeply change our own Inner Being, so as to dramatically and spectacularly change our life.
That’s what Thriver Healing is all about.
What, I believe, is going to be beautiful about today’s email lesson, is that you will realise you can still be a decent, giving, caring person with an open heart, yet (and this is so important) you will understand how you may have been unconsciously handing power away and leaving yourself open to narcissistic predators, as well as continuing to sign up for this person to carry on punishing you.
How about we put an end to the suffering of narcissistic torment?
I know that if you want to break free, have an incredible life and Thrive that’s exactly what you want to achieve.
So, let’s get down to this deep, honest and incredibly powerful understanding of what’s really been going on, so that you can heal, up-level and start experiencing respectful, fulfilling, safe and truly loving relationships.
Number One – Not Wanting To Rock The Boat
This is probably the most obvious way that a narcissist can target you for manipulation.
I know that you may have been brought up to be a nice guy or girl, and thought that keeping the peace was the best way to live your life. I concur, I used to think like this too!
I remember years ago I heard somebody say, “if you try not to piss off other people, you are going to piss yourself off”.
How true! Going along with other people’s version of life, could easily mean the forgoing of your own values and truths. Especially when people don’t have your best interests at heart – which narcissists certainly don’t.
Trying to keep the peace means that you will say “yes” when you are really feeling “no”. Narcissists are very attuned to know who is going to be agreeable, whose boundaries they can push, and what they can get away with. People who are overly nice, who won’t speak up for themselves and lay boundaries make very easy targets for narcissists.
There is another very wise saying, “Whatever you accept is what you will get”.
This is why being dedicated to the development of your ability to be able to identify your values and truths, speak up and lay solid boundaries is not just essential for a great life, it’s the only actual defence you have to not be abused.
We will talk about how to do this later in this article!
Number Two – Not Doing Due Diligence
Just as wanting to keep the peace can be dire in regard to being drawn into a relationship with a narcissist, so can (I want to be really straight with you here) being too distracted, busy or lazy to do your due diligence.
Or choosing to believe only the narcissist’s version of things, because being open to “another dialogue” would be uncomfortable for you, and maybe not deliver the version of things that you want to be the truth.
All of us, at the beginning stages with a narcissist had our doubts. There was something that he or she said, or did, or stories that didn’t match up, or someone from the past that came forward to warn us. Or maybe it was just a weird “off feeling” that we experienced.
For most of us, absolutely something showed up to warn us. I had it happen in both narcissistic relationships. Massive neon lights. But I dismissed them, I didn’t question, investigate or do the research in regard to the “where there is smoke there could be fire” evidence.
Which, in nearly every case, turned out to be true.
After undergoing my deep inner Thriver development, the only time that I have been taken in by a narcissist, was when I was too busy, tired or quite frankly lazy to follow up on my gut feelings that something wasn’t right.
I only walked into a trap when I didn’t do the necessary due diligence to honour myself.
In regard to my intimate narcissistic relationships, refusing to have Emotional and Intellectual Integrity (listen to my gut, investigate and be open to alternative information) nearly cost me my life.
This is something as Thrivers we all need to wake up to, and be prepared to do.
If the person standing in front of you has integrity and is a good person, they would expect you to exercise your human right to do your due diligence, and would have absolutely nothing to fear or cover up.
It’s only people who have something to hide who do NOT welcome and participate in healthy open debate – which is the search for the truth.
Number Three – Bypassing The Healing Of Your Wounds
The third way that a narcissist can target you to manipulate as well as cruelly punish you, is if you have not done the inner work to heal your own wounds.
I want you to think of the narcissistic individual as you would a predator in the wild – who looks for a wounded animal at the edge of the pack, because this is the easiest one for the lion to take down.
Many people believe that narcissists go after empowered, shining, emotionally healthy people. When I was stuck in my victimhood I used to completely and utterly have this belief as well. It wasn’t until deeply going inwards to heal my wounds, as well as being connected to thousands of people over the last 10+ years helping them recover from narcissistic abuse, that I knew an absolute and deeper truth.
This … narcissistic people match our unhealed wounds. They are the deliverer of more of these wounds. They work out very quickly what our wounds are and then profess to be the saviour of them, which they are not. They are in fact the messenger of them, in more brutal ways that maybe we have ever experienced.
Narcissist are very good at getting you to trust them quickly, they act attentive and caring and supremely interested in your life. If you were to share with them the trauma of being cheated on, or abandoned or financially abused by somebody in the past, then all they have to do is look you deeply in the eyes and tell you how honest and caring they are and how they would never do that to anybody, let alone you.
A deep unhealthy dependency bonding occurs when we believe that somebody is the saviour of our wounds. Then, as time goes on, we discover that this person starts delivering more of our unhealed wounds. It could be the infidelity that still haunts us from the past. Or, feeling disrespected, abused, invalidated, abandoned or even annihilated. More of the same unhealed wounds that we had from our past.
It’s not until you detach from deep intimate personal relationships, and heal the deep intimate relationship with self (which means releasing and reprogramming the trauma that is still affecting you) that you will become your own saviour and stop seeking other people to rescue you from the pain, who ironically only bring you more of it.
Number Four – Connecting To Someone To Get Your Life
Narcissists are so good at hijacking and monopolising your life, especially if you don’t have much of a life.
Many of us have had the belief that we may be nothing without someone else, and haven’t yet loved being in our own bodies and being in life and having the confidence and power to explore, expand and create a life for ourselves.
It’s so important, in regard to potential predators, to have a beautiful and full life that is established. You don’t just drop everything for any person that comes along. You always honour your truth, values and interests. You get to know people over a period of time, to assess their character and who this person really is before opening up your bed, body, Soul, and home to them. (Remember how important it is to do the due diligence?)
If you are feeling empty and lonely it’s very easy for a narcissist to target you and start providing you with some “glitzy amazing life”, or “energy” or “relief from the painful loneliness” that you never want to live without again. So when the abuse starts, you may sacrifice your Soul to stay connected to this person.
I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to heal up and date yourself and mate your own Soul, before considering being in a relationship with anybody else. The most successful and healthy relationships are always people getting together to share their already established wholeness.
Number Five – The Fears Of C.R.A.P.
This one is a deeper look into “wanting to keep the peace”.
The fears of Criticism, Rejection, Abandonment and Punishment are hangovers from our unhealed childhood. As little children we went along with others, to avoid these painful feelings and confrontations, and didn’t know how to live our life according to what was true for our own Soul.
This not only leads to a difficulty in laying boundaries, and being able to “lose it all to get it all” (which is discussed later in this article), but also means that you could be prone to lecturing and prescribing, trying to change somebody else’s mind about you, rather than having your own mind about you, regardless of what somebody else thinks, says or does.
As a result of Thriver Healing, it is such a relief when you no longer have to engage with somebody else’s abusive and insane behaviour and can just pull away knowing the truth about you, and that they are simply not a match for you.
The fears of C.R.A.P. create awful trauma bonds with exactly the people who do criticise, reject, abandon and punish … namely narcissists.
What you fear, and what is still an unhealed trauma within you, is exactly what keeps coming, because you haven’t graduated beyond this yet.
(This will come into closer focus further on in this article!)
Number Six – Needing Accountability And Reform
Boy this is big! It used to hook me in so hard, and was one of the deepest things that I had to work on to free myself, and I know it is a huge one for many others as well.
Really this comes from the unhealed belief, “I have to fix you in order for me to be safe”.
Maybe for some people in this community, as a child this was absolutely the truth, because there were no other options. However, as an adult, there certainly are.
You can’t change insanity into sanity.
You can’t make somebody who does not have either the desire or the capacity to “get it” to even admit that they need to reform, let alone commit to doing so.
Narcissists love it if you stay hooked to them, because it hands them A-grade narcissistic supply – meaning your intense emotional attention. To the narcissist this means, “I must be so significant and superior because I can affect you so dramatically”.
It also gives the narcissist a perfect opportunity to line you up and deliver malicious blows to your Soul, at exactly the place that is going to hurt you the most.
“How dare you try to change me!” is the narcissist’s credo.
That part is right – you have no power and not even any right to try and change somebody else. What is needed is for you to deeply change yourself, to be able to let go, get away, HEAL, recover your Soul and never participate in such madness again.
Number Seven – Not Holding Boundaries
Many of us before Thriver Recovery had very little knowledge about healthy boundaries, let alone how to place them and hold them.
I personally, not unlike many of you, used to believe that my boundary meant speaking up and telling somebody how I felt.
Please know that is only the very bare beginning of a boundary!
When placing a boundary in ONLY that way, we hope that somebody hears us, validates us and gets the boundary.
Boundaries never go that way with a narcissist. This kind of attempt of a boundary with a narcissist will just get thrown back in your face, twisted into a three-ring circus and you will feel even more invalidated and abused than before you spoke up.
This is why many people believe that boundaries don’t work with narcissist.
I can assure you that they do! But, you need to understand what a true boundary is. Nobody needs to get your boundary, only you need to get it.
Words are cheap whereas a true boundary is backed up by action. A true boundary is you stating your values and truths, and what you will and won’t accept. Then walking the truth of that statement.
The true boundary is something like, “I will only accept honesty, truth, solution building and kindness in my life. If that’s not what you want, that’s okay, but we are no longer a match”.
And then if you get twists, turns, ridiculousness, things brought up from the past or insults (or any of the other numerous defence mechanisms that a narcissist has in their bag of tricks) then you have your answer.
What does this mean for you?
You’re done, you need to separate. You need to heal so that you stay away, hold your boundary and MEAN it. And if you don’t, then the real truth is you are only abusing yourself.
Maybe you want to do modified contact with a narcissistic family member? You can let them know in an email what you will accept and what you won’t accept, and if they do what you won’t accept, then you will leave the premises or hang up on them.
Of course they won’t agree with your boundary!
At the next family gathering you exercise your right to live your truth, regardless of what they are doing. I promise you I know of many a narcissistic family member who learned (just as a small child or an animal would) what they can and can’t get away with when Thrivers set their boundaries. At this point the toxic family member often stops their terrible behaviour.
Naturally working your way up to powerful boundary setting can take a lot of inner personal development and healing – and it is so worth it!
Number Eight – Not Being Willing To Lose It All To Get It All
Your life is shaped by a series of choices, and sometimes to shape your life healthily, you have to make some very hard choices.
Please know whatever you choose is whatever will be in your life. If you choose to stay, if you choose to continue. If you choose to try to fix. If you choose to hope for some miracle to come along to change things for you, such as to have God / Source / Creation intervene … Then you are not being the powerful Creator of your own life – which HAS to be your job.
God / Source / Creation helps those who help themselves, and this all comes down to YOUR choices.
Whenever you decide, “This is not a match for me and it’s not my truth, and I am no longer choosing or participating in that” then you send out a massive message to the infinite universal store of resources, who can then start to generate and create for you what is a match for you.
For all of us to Thrive, means letting go of the old life to make way for what is your truth, and then no longer choosing crumbs and trying to turn them into cookies.
This time, when you get it right within yourself, you know that you are full, confident and strong enough to hold out for the whole cake.
You also know that if what you think is “a cake” starts to crumble in front of your eyes and turns into a crummy reality, that you will let go and walk away – because it is NOT your truth.
Narcissists love to hang on to and mess with people who are not willing to lose it all to get it all. And of course, initially this is so hard to do, when you are trauma bonded, and stripped of your self-esteem, and stand to lose everything that you thought was your life.
Really, the ability to lose it all to get it all means this, “I choose me over you. I choose life over you, and I will not waver.” When you reach this level of development just wait and see how your life forms to nourish and flourish in ways that you couldn’t even imagine.
Powerfully.
Quickly.
In Conclusion
I hope that this article has been insightful for you. I know that everything I’m saying here is so much easier said than done, yet the experience of narcissistic abuse pushes us to new and higher levels of development.
Not just because we would like to have more confidence and power, but really and quite frankly because if we don’t, we can’t escape the trauma, the terrible symptoms of abuse and the feelings of powerlessness and helplessness that ensure that we stay victimised and abused.
History has proven over and over again with incredible people, that they didn’t just wake up one morning into magnificence. They were granted the grist, as a painful life, that was needed for them to claim and actualise their incredible evolutions.
I know that the same opportunity is there for you too.
If you know that rising out of fear and pain and into your power and truth is something that you dearly want, I’m inviting you to take on this journey, with me holding your hand and heart, just as myself and thousands of other Thrivers have.
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