Toxic Relationships: Breaking Free From The Narcissistic Relationship

Embark with us on a transformative expedition toward self-emancipation from the clutches of toxic relationships and narcissistic entanglements. We unravel the heavy cloak of pleasing and appeasing, guiding you to the lightness of being your true self. Through intimate conversation, we lay bare the urgent need to detach from the narcissist's control, helping you to rediscover and celebrate your personal identity. We promise a heart-to-heart discussion on the essential steps to reclaim your life, shining a spotlight on the power of self-recognition and the courage to choose joy over judgment in your pursuit of happiness.

The journey doesn't end with breaking free; it's about cultivating a loving relationship with oneself. In this episode, we invite you to join our Heal to Thrive program, offering a sanctuary for those ready to heal from trauma and learn the art of self-love. We share insights on transforming fear into freedom, highlighting the necessity of nurturing a compassionate inner dialogue. Our candid revelations will leave you equipped with the resilience to rise above past pains and embrace a future full of self-acceptance, joy, and fulfillment. Join us for an episode that's not just about survival but about thriving in the aftermath of adversity.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

and each week we will bring you an important message as we explore how to detox toxic relationships.

Speaker 1: 0:07

The aim of this podcast is for you to unlock your own inner knowing, your own inner greatness, so you can know how to heal from the impact of a toxic relationship, so you can get your life back on track and live your best life. After all, we are all worthy of loving our life. Today, we're going to be looking at something that lots of people talk to me about. I just want to feel free. I want to feel free. How do we feel free after a toxic relationship, or even whilst you're in the relationship, so you can get out? So we're really going to look into this in a deeper level. What is it exactly that you're feeling now that you weren't feeling before you were in a toxic relationship? We all want to feel free in general in life, but this heightens when we've been in a toxic relationship. But before we look into this, I really want to ask you, please if there's anything at all that you found useful in this podcast. Please, can you like, subscribe, share, maybe even rate this podcast? Only because we can get the message out, and it is really about a community. I myself on my own cannot get across to the people that we need to. It's a joint effort. We all need to help. Lots of us need to help in getting out of toxic relationships and helping people understand the impact of narcissism in society. It really is something that we all need to work towards. So if there is a possibility that you can do that, that'd be great, because you can potentially help somebody else find this podcast Okay. So let's get down to what is it that we really want to talk about today? Freedom, your freedom. What does it mean? What is freedom? I believe that what we're really looking for is the ability to be yourself, that feeling of being authentically you, so you can express who you truly are, and what you want is to be able to experience that again, that little sense of being free to be you.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Unfortunately, when you've been in a toxic relationship, we feel worried about what we're saying. We watch what we're saying all the time. We're worried about the other person's reaction to what we're saying and we're walking on eggshells. This is a common saying, and what walking on eggshells really means is you're not able to be who you truly are, you're not able to be free to be you. You're not able to express what you want to say, what's really going on in your mind, which is hey, you're behaving a little bit strange here, or even the fact that some of the things that they're saying is just not true but you're not able to say and be who you truly are authentically.

Speaker 1: 3:28

You Imagine that you know life as a whole. We are all pieces of a puzzle, of a puzzle. Right, there's all of us together and each of us is a unique, shaped puzzle piece. In order to be who we truly are, we have to be the shape that we were meant to be, to feel like we fit in and we can express who we meant to be and feel free to be asked. What the narcissist is pretty much doing is making us change our shape. They're actually controlling us to be someone that we're really not authentically and when they're making us feel bad about the true, authentic shape or who you really are.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Yeah, so what we're trying to do is actually please somebody else's ego, because narcissism is basically the ego, but a bigger is is a. It's a stronger form of an ego, and what we're doing is we're changing who we are, our shape, our way of expressing who we are to feed that ego so that they can the ego can get bigger and bigger and bigger. So wanting to feel free is that feeling of wanting to be you so you don't feel the pressure of somebody's else's ego putting on you. It's basically like this invisible force that makes you feel like you have to change who you are fundamentally and lose who you are. Not know who you are, where you feel like You're constricted. A lot of the time people don't feel like they can breathe when they're with a narcissist. Is that invisible? Is that invisible Pressure? Now, what is that exactly? It's fear. Everything to do with the ego is fear.

Speaker 1: 5:34

So when the narcissist is around you, they, what they're doing is putting their fear of who you should be, putting fear on you and generating fear on in inside of you so that you feel imprisoned by fear. That is what's happening is we feel imprisoned to not be who we want to be and it stops us from literally moving forward in life. We feel fearful and the feeling of being free starts, starts to be something that we want to feel, but we don't know how to feel free again. We don't even know the steps to it. Being free starts within our self. So one aspect is that, yes, we need to create space From the narcissist who's putting all this fear on top of us, but then we have to get the space to think and feel the way we want to, without the fear that we have to feel and think a certain way.

Speaker 1: 6:41

The feelings that they generate within us is this fear of moving forward, fear and doubt. You know what is doubt, what is self doubt, anyway, is fear. What is procrastination is an underlying fear, and one of the wake up calls is to realize that we've been conditioned and trained to believe that our happiness lies within the narcissist and that if we, only we have to do what the narcissist wants us to do, otherwise this huge amount of fear comes in and steps in the way of us actually being who we want to do, we want to be, we want to be. One of the most important steps is knowing that we cannot change the narcissist. Okay, we can't stop them creating fear, we can't stop them generating that. So what does that mean exactly then? What do we do? We can't stop the other person From being who they are and creating the fear in our life.

Speaker 1: 7:46

We have to recognize and take a moment. Okay, what kind of emotions do they create me? What kind of thinking are they creating within me? Yeah, because ultimately, the thing that we want to change is how we think and how we feel around the narcissist, how they make us feel and how what they make us think. So what do we do if we can't change the narcissist? What can we do? We have to change something right. We change the person that is around us. So we decide we're not going to be around them. Or we have to change, stick with it and say, okay, I can't change anything, I'm going to stay here, but know that that is even going to create change. It's going to create more fear in you and is that something that you really want? Or you change within yourself and go okay, I'm going to have to change this and get out of this and start healing within myself, and this is one of the most important things. We can create support for us, a support network around us. You need to get some way of getting energy and start breaking down that fear that they've created. You need to start to rebuild your self worth, and the way to do that is to actually look at okay, what are they saying to me? Is this really true. We have to start letting go of the narcissist In our own mind. Okay, it's like what you know. We have to start tackling the rumination.

Speaker 1: 9:27

What is rumination? It's when we are actually ruminating and telling the story over and over and over again in our head. Sometimes we're talking about it in our head and then they said this, and we're having this imaginary conversation with somebody that's not around, but it's going over in our head and we're defending ourselves, we're explaining ourselves, we're excusing ourselves and what they did, and we're trying to point out where they actually what they did, was wrong. We have to pull ourselves out of rumination, because that is all negative thinking and sometimes we think, okay, I'll just be positive, today, I won't think about them, I won't talk about them. But when we feel sad or when somebody triggers us, we can feel helpless and hopeless and then it's like they are in charge once more. We're back in the loop. We're going round and round and we feel like, okay, every single time I try and pick myself up and I'm trying to get myself back, something happens outside of me and then that triggers the pain inside me and then, because I can't deal with the emotional pain, my brain starts. My thinking keeps going round and round and round.

Speaker 1: 10:48

We have pain, there's no doubt. When we've been in a toxic relationship, there is trauma there is no doubt about that and they have hurt us and we sometimes feel this deep pain that maybe I'm not worthy of love. That's the biggest issue here. Is that somewhere along the lines maybe we thought we weren't worthy of love and that really, really, really hurts. And then we start going into explain mode of why we are worthy of love and why we should be getting out of this and why, deep down, these feelings aren't supported. That is the narcissist, it's not you. So you go into overthinking.

Speaker 1: 11:38

The only way of dealing with those feelings is actually processing them. If we don't process or learn how to manage our own emotions, they get trapped. That's what trauma is these emotions that are unprocessed. They were too overwhelming and now they've got trapped in our body. So until you release them, they are still there. Until you go there and feel them, they are still there. If we start to ruminate, it could be that we're trying to make sense of our feelings.

Speaker 1: 12:11

Feelings and our thinking are two separate things. You cannot explain how you feel using words. You have to process, the emotion, the trauma. So you can't work out what they did, why they hurt you and you can't change them. And nor can you prove that you are worthy of love by over giving, by explaining, by explaining to yourself, by defending, by defending to others, by talking. It is one of the most exhausting things that you can do is go round and round and round, and the thinking is so exhausting, it takes up so much energy and that's why we feel so drained all the time.

Speaker 1: 12:58

We, if we want to feel freedom, we have to free our mind. That's the way to feel peace. We have to let go of it, otherwise this feeling and these thinking patterns will pull us down into feeling more and more trapped in fear. Because all these, all the the only reason why you're ruminating is because you're feeling fearful of what other people will think or having to explain and defend yourself. That's what the rumination is about, and that is just going to pull you down into more and more fear. Because you're going to go oh okay, they could say that or they could say this, and what about this? And then you go off in another tangent and you're ruminating, going round and round and round in your thinking patterns, which are all fear based. Under underlying it all is this fear of what? If other people think this is true? What the narcissist is saying, and that is, if you go down that track, I promise you it will pull you down because the injustice of what's happened to you will eat you up. It's like, oh my gosh, it's the worst thing that can happen to us.

Speaker 1: 14:16

We get to a space of where we can become really bitter about what's happened. The truth of the matter is there's only two choices that we have after narcissistic trauma we can either become bitter or we become better. We either learn to believe in our self or we doubt. We either go down the fear route, and that just gets bigger and bigger and bigger, or we learn to love, love our self, love life again. Facts are, the fact is that you are in this situation and you have to accept that. This is where I am. And to leave a relationship, we have to learn not only to leave it physically, but to leave it mentally and emotionally. That is where you become free. That is where you get real freedom to be able to move forward and really express who you are and really live a life that's, you know, one that you love living. Otherwise we can get into the same kind of relationship. It's just a different person but the same relationship. But once you've healed, normally you will have to probably say no to something that you no longer want. That's normal. You know, before you get the relationship that you want Basically, if you've made a new commitment to yourself that you're never going to get into a narcissistic relationship, there is a process that you have to go through.

Speaker 1: 15:49

First, with anything, we have to have hope. Where we feel hopeless, we have to have hope that, yes, I can heal. Then that hope can lead us to faith and that faith actually having faith in something wholeheartedly can lead us to bring that into reality. And I just want you to think about anything that you've achieved in your life. First you might have hoped for it, that it's possible. Then you go OK, I know I can do this. And then you bring it into reality.

Speaker 1: 16:25

When we get down to the faith part, we need to knuckle down and say, yes, I am totally committed to this new way of being. Do you have the faith in your truth? That is the only thing we have with the narcissist. Is your faith in your truth? So, for instance, if you pray for courage, say, then life will give us an opportunity to show that we have courage. You will be given a lesson or something will come up so that you can see the courage and the strength that you have. If we pray for love, we will be given an opportunity to choose love, and sometimes that is saying no to what we no longer want before it will show up in our life.

Speaker 1: 17:15

So if you want to heal, you have to choose to say no to what you're thinking and you're feeling right now. You have to categorically say no more. I will do whatever it takes to stop feeling like this and stop thinking like this. You have to make that choice. You have to say no longer do I want to feel like this anymore. That is part of the process of healing.

Speaker 1: 17:45

If you have to choose to heal, you have to choose to feel better than staying connected to the bitterness, choosing no to the current thoughts and the feelings. That is the first step. You have to choose to let go. Remember you are in the situation that you're in. You can't change that. You've got to let other people be who they are. You can't change them. You cannot change your narcissist. It's not possible, but you can start by actually learning to connect with yourself, learning to understand that, okay, the narcissist is all about fear.

Speaker 1: 18:33

They have given me thoughts and feelings that make me feel scared scared that my life, as I thought it was, is going to be over if it's not with what the narcissist is telling me. We feel imprisoned by the narcissist that we have to be doing whatever they want, otherwise we feel fearful. That is how they keep us in their control through using fear. We have to start to want to engage in knowing who the narcissist is and seeing that fear never works. Fear never works. Fear can't get you what you want. Fear is the opposite of getting you what you want. The only way to actually move forward is to heal the fear that has naturally accumulated in the way you think and in the way you feel. You have to heal yourself.

Speaker 1: 19:35

At times it feels like there's no way out. Because of the amount of fear that they put us in, our whole life is over. We just keep ruminating over the injustice and that literally pours poison into our body. It's so painful, the amount of cortisol it can physically hurt, at times Genuinely. I think if you've been through this you will understand. It can physically hurt. It can lead us to stop trusting ourselves, to stop trusting other people. We can become quite cynical as well, because we've been betrayed. We tell ourselves that no one's ever going to make me feel this way and I'm going to just put a looker, I'm going to imprison myself in something where nobody can get to me. We lose joy that is available to us and we start to perceive life in a completely different way.

Speaker 1: 20:36

There's an experiment that was done. People were told that they were going to have a scar on their face and the whole point of the experiment was to see whether people are prejudiced towards people if they've got some scar on their face in interviews. What they did is they put a scar on their face using makeup, showed the people and said the participants and said okay, you're going to go to the interview now and let's see if the interviewer is prejudiced towards you. Then, without the participant knowing, they covered the scar. It was really interesting because the people came back and they said yes, they were so prejudiced towards me. They said this and they actually gave lots of reasons why they were being treated in a biased way.

Speaker 1: 21:40

What this shows is sometimes, if we perceive that we're going to be treated badly by someone and we project that onto the person that we're dealing with. Unfortunately, the way we have been treated by a narcissist means that our perception of life has changed. Because of that, the way we look at ourself, our own identity, has changed. They have made us feel different about who we are than we used to. We need to change how we perceive ourself so that we can be the best version of ourself. Regardless of this experience, and until you can heal those scars, you're going to carry them wherever you go.

Speaker 1: 22:35

So if someone else is, say, for instance, siding with a narcissist and saying how you're the problem, if we go into these scenarios thinking that they are going to side with a narcissist, we will trigger our own trauma. We'll go into flight fright freeze-form mode if we don't heal our own trauma and then they will side more with a narcissist. What we should do is really heal our trauma, heal our emotional pain, so that if we do need to deal with them, we listen to them and we go back to the truth, to the facts, and we stay firm in our own truth. And if we know that we are telling the truth, they are more likely to believe our truth and be able to break through the illusion that the narcissist creates. Always, always, go back to the truth Somehow. If you keep doing this, the truth will always come out. Put your belief in the truth and know that the narcissist then has the opportunity to hang themselves.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Don't give the narcissist supply which is feeling vulnerable, feeling like you're less, than feeling like you won't be believed. If you find out that other people are believing them, let them. Don't allow it to trigger your own trauma. Heal your trauma. Otherwise, what happens is every time you try and get up and get on with your life, something will keep knocking you down over and over again. That is your sign that you need to heal trauma within you. You need to heal the emotions. You need to heal your thinking patterns that are causing doubt, because the experience with the narcissist then is actually still controlling your feelings and your thoughts, because you haven't allowed yourself the time to heal that. Now time doesn't heal. You have to actually do the trauma therapy to actually heal those thoughts, those feelings, to free yourself, so you no longer need to carry the pain, you can go into almost the darkness and then you can connect with that choice that I was talking about earlier, then when you see that, okay, this is the pain I'm carrying, but I choose the light, I choose to let it all go. I choose to let this pain go so it no longer pulls me down anymore, I can actually move forward.

Speaker 1: 25:23

All you can do is control how you respond in life. You cannot control other people and you definitely cannot reason with the narcissist and get them to understand the impact that they've had on you. If you're responding in a way that is a trauma response, then choose to heal your trauma. That is something you can do so you can get to know who you truly are again. You have to release the old identity that the narcissist has created around fear, the fear-based identity that you can't do this, maybe you'll make a mistake, otherwise you'll carry this around with you forever, just like the scars.

Speaker 1: 26:05

The trauma healing has to be done so you can free your mind and free yourself, so you can feel what you want to feel. If this is something that you want to do, you can choose to transform your life. Then download the free masterclass and if you align I have limited spots in the Heal to Five program If we align, we can work together and you can start to heal your trauma and your thinking patterns so that you can live your best life moving forward. Look, whatever happens, one of the most greatest ways of healing fear is love. Cultivate a practice of self-love, no matter what anyone's doing, no matter what the narcissist does, give yourself permission to be compassionate, understanding and loving towards yourself. That is the most important thing that you should do, regardless of everything else. Cultivate self-love so that you can release all that fear and so you can transform the fear into a life that you love. And it is definitely possible. So look, till next time, keep loving yourself.