Anyone can rationalize why the past was a lesson and convince themselves that they are happy.
How can you tell if your past (and your narcissist) is haunting you?
Because reality goes deeper than mere logic.
Heres how you to know if youre absolutely free of the narcissist in your past:
1.
You’re no longer interested in anything about them.
“He works at this agency now,” a mutual friend said, and I wasn’t interesting.
It wasnt a dogged “I need to avoid everything about him.”
There was no emotion, yet it wasnt apathy.
The best analogy I can think of is that its like garbage bins lining the sidewalk.
You know theyre around, but you dont really register their presence.
Nor do you want to gravitate toward them.
You allow yourself to receive.
Narcissists prey on over-givers with an inflated sense of responsibility.
And they still feel bad.
I know it intimately because that was who I was fundamentally.
The pain from such people trumped the discomfort of receiving.
So for a year I trained myself, sitting through my internal squirming and protesting head.
Compliments, meals, presents, favors, acts of kindness, smiles.
Time to cash out on the interest."
It is at that moment that theyreallyget it.
You don’t hate them anymore.
First, I must emphasize this: Forgiving your narcissist shouldnt even factor into your list of healing goals.
If it happens, it happens.
I expected myself to hate him forever.
But a year later, I found myself not hating or loving him.
I was liberated, in every sense of the word.
You’re OK with being a rescuer.
For a while, I loathed the word “rescuer.”
My master’s thesis centered on prisoners rights, then I became a psychologist.
My parents raised me to give.
They taught me to repair, rescue, and resuscitate.
Your past stops tarring your self-worth.
Perhaps you may feel that way for a little, as I did.
Know you have the right to let go of that story.
Failing once in a business venture doesnt doom you to demand less from life.
You’re able to own who you are.
So of course, I couldnt trust my hunches about what and who were bad for me.
Then I committed to owning and celebrating the different parts of me.
The light and darkness and everything in between.
I walked out of the black and white, and learned to sail in the gray zone.
Today, I own my past, hunches, and every face of me.
Integrating my lessons means I look back and laugh.
And it is a laughter devoid of bitterness or jadedness.
You trust in your present and future.
We are governed by a set of stories were often unaware of.
This is how a happy-go-lucky person suddenly becomes bitter and hypervigilant.
You arent doggedly forcing yourself to “be grateful” while actually feeling miserable.
And you dance the dialectic with grace.
You have ironclad boundaries.
As a young girl, I was guilted into being nice and turning the other cheek.
Nobody taught me what boundaries were.
Heres what boundaries really are.
Just as standards are the “Hell yes!”
in your life, boundaries are the “Hell no!”
They are the happy zone within which you play.
Boundaries are how we respect ourselves and how we teach others how we feel respected.
And when you develop boundaries, some people will inevitably kick back.
And you will stand firm.
The attraction spell is broken
We are attracted to narcissists because they feel familiar.
This is because there is something about the dynamic that reminds us of something familiar.
And we repeat these scenarios like a tape on loop, until our minds get closure.
I always ask my clients, “How does your body feel around a narcissist?”
Do you find your brain relentlessly justifying why they are good people?
If there were a song that could capture how you feel around a narcissist, what would it be?
Then, how does your body feel around someone decent?
Do you root for different people in the films you used to enjoy?
I found myself cheering for the kindhearted person, not the brooding demon.
Its normal for people to start doing things to show their ex-partner what theyre missing.
Eventually, though, you start to live for yourself.
You reclaim the parts of you he locked away.
You boldly pursue the things you never dared to.
And you take life by the balls.
But youre not just doing it to escape; youre becoming whole.
That happens by sorting out the weak spots through which your narcissist wormed his way in.
Let me explain what healing is.
Healing isnt just talking things away and implanting another mindset.
Trauma is stored within our cells.
You are at peace.
Interested in learning more about narcissists?Here’s what breaking up with a narcissist is actually like.
