Toxic Relationships: Reclaiming Yourself and Breaking the Cycle of Narcissistic Trauma

Have you ever felt like you were left to pick up the emotional debris after a relationship with a narcissist? This episode is a deep dive into the heartache and the hopeful journey of rebuilding oneself. We tackle the insidious nature of narcissistic trauma, guiding you through the necessary steps to heal while balancing the demands of life, including parenting and work. I share powerful, practical tools for integrating therapy into your daily routine, ensuring that healing becomes as natural as breathing. Discover how to manage and release emotions on the spot, transforming therapy from a daunting task into a seamless part of your existence.

Parenting with a narcissistic partner can feel like a dance on thin ice, but it doesn't have to be a legacy you pass down. This conversation is a beacon of hope, illuminating the path to break free from generational cycles of pain. We explore transforming fear into love, and pain into strength, all while emphasizing the importance of self-worth and boundary-setting. The wisdom shared here promises not just to shift your own life but to ripple through the generations, fostering resilience and joy that our children can inherit.

Finally, we face the elephant in the room: the stark reality that we cannot change a narcissist. Instead, we focus on cultivating wisdom and resilience within ourselves and teaching our children to recognize and handle empathy-lacking individuals. This episode is a testament to the power of personal transformation and the courage to practice emotional responsibility. Join us as we celebrate the act of compassion towards oneself, championing it as the cornerstone of wellness and true freedom.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today we're going to deal with. Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard dealing with the aftermath or even whilst you're in the narcissistic relationship? It's just crazy how much you're dealing with. But before we go into this, I thank you so much for joining me today. It's so important. Hopefully you get more insights from me into healing. If it is that you're finding the useful, please do subscribe If you want to be part of helping more people understand the impacts of narcissistic trauma. Share, review, rate this podcast and as a community, we can help people understand so that we can make a change, moving forward, and so, as a society, we can support more people who have experienced narcissism, so that we're not alone. It's worth it. Okay, let's get back to what we want to speak to about today. Why is it so hard to move forward and heal If you've got, say, kids maybe you've got three kids, two kids, I don't know how many children you have and you've got responsibilities, you've got a job, you're stressed and you don't have time to deal with all of this, and then, on top of that, you've got a narcissist that is causing so much trauma and drama and you're constantly dealing with the consequences of everything that they create.

Speaker 1: 1:31

So remember what a narcissist does is like imagine they go in, they pop off a bomb and they walk away and leave you to clear up the mess. That's what it is, where you're dealing with trauma and you're carrying on and you're so exhausted you might think you have no time to do anything else like therapy work, and sometimes it can feel like there's so many different weights on top of you, especially after dealing with a narcissist, and I'll be honest, you won't want to deal with the trauma after. I mean, who wants to deal with difficult emotions? Really, nobody wants to go towards pain. We're not made that way. So it can feel like healing is just impossible in considering everything that you're doing today. But I want to give you hope today.

Speaker 1: 2:19

My whole thing this year is help one person every day, so it's H-O-P-E. Help one person every day, so it's all about hope. It isn't impossible. It's really doable, because the work requires for you to use what is happening in your life right now and incorporate the actual therapy into your daily life. So it shouldn't be extra work. You shouldn't be using your energy to suppress those thoughts, those feelings that keep coming up when things go wrong.

Speaker 1: 2:52

What you want to do is use different techniques. So it's not about talking, because talking isn't going to make a difference. It's about using techniques so that you learn how to cope with and let go and release all the emotions as and when they come up. That is when you do your best work. So it's not a task, it's not something that's separate from the rest of your life. It's actually something that you do that is accessible and practical for what you need right now. And the reason why I think it's important to do it that way is because, whatever trauma you're feeling right now, normally there's emotions, maybe that have occurred before, and what you need to do is also heal what's happening right now, but also go back to the original trauma and heal that at the same time. So it's about letting life, whatever is thrown up, help you heal so that you can move forward and work through whatever is and then move through it.

Speaker 1: 3:53

And I think trauma therapy needs to be accessible to anyone at any time, because otherwise, how are you going to do that? You know you'll numb yourself otherwise. So I believe that people need to do the work, what works for them, and so it's got to be as easy as possible for you to have as many different techniques at different times in different situations, so you can even respond to small things but also huge things, and over time you know you'll make a huge difference because it's incorporated into your life. It's a new way of living. So it's not so much therapy, it's learning how to manage your emotions and let go of things that you no longer want. So it's about learning to cope with daily life, but processing it so that you can then move on and feel happy.

Speaker 1: 4:50

So neuroscience is telling us it takes approximately three to 400 repetitions of any sort of nervous system restoration practice or body memory to start shifting, and trauma is actually somatic, is in the body. So you need to practice it over a longer period of time, and the more you do it, the more it's integrated into your life. So you've got all these tools that you use on a daily basis. Even if you use something for five minutes a day and you're thinking something different, you're doing something different. It's the compounding impact that we're doing here. It's you will continually see the benefits over time. It compounds on everything else that you've worked on. It's literally you're creating a foundation of how to live and you start to see that you react to things differently than you did before. You're not as down and if you do get down, you bounce back quicker.

Speaker 1: 5:51

It's like your nervous system is actually experiencing a lot more ease, a lot more calm than it was experiencing before and it takes a lot more to get you to get triggered than you did before, say 12 months ago or six months ago, and you start to show up differently. You glow, you just seem different and everyone knows it as well, because when we're pretending that we're OK and we're not OK, everyone kind of knows they can pick it up. When you feel joy from within, people know it's almost instantaneous. They know and people especially that are closest to us, especially if you're living with people children, they children. They can pick up very easily on nonverbal clues, especially young children. When they can sense there's not calm, they will pick up your nervous system. So if you are feeling trauma, you can pretend you're OK, you can have this, you know you can attend, you're okay, but actually they will pick it up and adults sometimes can be preoccupied and get angry or not have as much time.

Speaker 1: 7:08

This is all your nervous system, that the child is picking up, that you're feeling more stressed than normal and we need to know that people look. At the end of the day, we're all energy. You know the science is revealing we're all energy. Frequency and vibration is the thing. So we as people can pick up energy. And if, when we start to heal, we'll pick up on other people's energy and that will make sure that we don't get into another toxic relationship, which will be great. So maybe you can offer more motivation for other people to heal as well. This bit I love. When you start to heal your trauma and your nervous system starts to calm down and you feel calmer, you will be an inspiration, not just to your children but to so many other people around you, because healing is giving other people hope. Hope is the thing today. Right, we're looking at hope. How do we give each other hope?

Speaker 1: 8:07

So if you're a parent and you're listening and watching and you're thinking, oh, my goodness, I have had a huge effect on my children. I'm not a good parent. Blah, blah, blah you, because you've been stressed. Honestly, they have had to deal with trauma. Just being around the narcissist has probably had an effect on them. But the way you can start breaking the cycle, for them and for you is to know that one. They have a developing brain, so they still have time. It depends on how old they are, but if you can teach them how to talk about emotions, you will help them not repeat that cycle.

Speaker 1: 8:47

Because the big thing here is, when we've been in a toxic relationship, we don't allow ourselves to feel our emotions. So it's important for parents to really understand if you didn't know better, how could you do better? So please don't give yourself a hard time. You didn't wake up one morning and go oh yes, I am going to be a bad parent today. You never decided to be a bad parent. You're doing the best you can and you are doing amazingly. Given the fact that you have got some narcissistic person in your life or did have, and you're dealing with trauma. You are doing so amazingly If everything you're doing is incredible.

Speaker 1: 9:28

So if you're struggling, say, with generational trauma, or if you yourself have seen toxic relationship cycles, or your child then is also seeing that in their life, they will absorb it. You absorbed it. It's the normal thing that happens. We're all going to pass on some trauma to our children. It's normal. But if we can heal some of it and if we can help them manage their emotions, then they will learn what to do about it, because they're going to have trauma in their life as well, not just from you, but from life itself but then they need the tools to be able to move through it. That's important. If you know better now, you can take action. You can decide today. I am going to do something with the information I have and I'm going to disrupt the pattern so that I can shift things for the next generation. That decision and choice is really where you can make a step in the right direction, especially when it comes to children. It's important to understand that children will also engage in the healing process.

Speaker 1: 10:39

There's lots of age-appropriate ways to integrate healing for children. Children can meditate, can do breathwork, just like you can. Children can talk about their emotions, like you can, only when your nervous system is okay to do that. Children can do dance parties at home if you want. They're moving and they're letting go of emotions and the stress and tension of the day. All of these are good things that we need to learn. If you look at a deer that's been chased by a lion, for instance, what they do is they shake it off. They shake off that nervous energy. We need to shake things off. Sometimes we have to learn how to manage ourselves so that we don't hold everything in an age-appropriate way. If we can teach them from a younger age, that's amazing. It doesn't matter what age you start. It's about learning how to deal with things now so that you can have a better life moving forward, not just for yourself, but for the people around you as well, for the rest of your life. You can do something now to help them heal and incorporate that into your family life. It's part of your way of being. There's so many different ways of doing this. You can go for a walk. Being in nature is so calming. That's a really good way of helping people restore their nervous system.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Now I want to really bring something else up Humming. There's so much research on humming. Singing, dancing is very, very calming. It can actually help you feel calmer. There's science backing up that. Lots of people have heard the sound omm. It's like humming. At the same time, it's like an ancient spiritual leader. Omm is, I think it means God, or the source, the creator. You're connecting to God. Breathing All these things. You're helping your whole nervous system slow down because there's different branches of the nervous system. What we're trying to do through humming is stimulating the ventral vagal nerve. When we're doing the omm we're actually doing that. If your child is struggling, pick a song that they like, that's age-appropriate, and help them hum it. Just something like that Also for you, if you're struggling with rumination and you're going around the story over and over in your head, start humming.

Speaker 1: 13:31

You know you can break that cycle. Do whatever you need to do and integrate the practices that feel good to you to restore your nervous system. And we can do it in ways that we're not shoving mental health down people's throats in a way where it feels like it's really stressful, like you know talking, and it's heavy. But what you will do is your integrate different things that feel comfortable to you into your daily life. That's what you want. You want to use practical skills that help you make life easier. You know, make make life better, make life happier.

Speaker 1: 14:12

If we are ruminating and telling that story in your head, start humming. It's not going to release the trauma, but what it will do is it will stop the trauma from getting worse, because every time you tell the story you're numbing yourself and you're retraumatizing yourself. At least you're calming the nervous system down so you don't have all these thoughts that just won't go away. And then your role modeling to your children you know, I'm just calming myself down and then they have another tool. So as the children get older, they have more and more tools and they will become the generation of cycle breakers as well. So if you've gone through something, then it becomes a. It can be potentially a repeating pattern for your children so they can then break that pattern so they don't pass it on the trauma on.

Speaker 1: 15:04

So you yourself, using the tools, you're stopping that trauma going forward, but also your children or your the next generation or people around you. And also you can go back to your parents. I mean, I don't know how I've been minded they are but you know, sometimes even the older generation need tools to help them feel calmer, feel more at peace every day. And you know, if the truth is when we've been in a situation where we're parenting with a toxic person who's high in their ego mind and you're wanting to heal and they don't want to heal, they want to call suffering and pains because that's the way they get supply and they're going to be unwilling to break their own cycle that they're not going to come in on this, by the way, they're not going to want to help you heal and change the cycle and not want to Because they have no empathy, so they don't have empathy for children either. It is going to be so hard doing all of this is going to be so tough. So one I really want to empathize with you that it's going to be tough, but you will need more tools To get through.

Speaker 1: 16:19

Okay, to keep your nervous system calm, because you have lived, maybe, in this environment and when you've got, the source of your pain has been at home. That is the ultimate place we go to, to feel safe. Right, that's supposed to be our safe haven, our home. To feel safe physically, you know, emotionally, psychologically, and to feel spiritually connected, and to have that all compromised Is is tough, right, you know. So your nervous system hasn't had anywhere, you've not had anywhere to go, so you have to, you know, show up as your healed version of yourself for yourself, you know, do it for yourself because you know it will help your children. It's, you know, it doesn't matter where it's come from. It could be your parents, it could be your partner, it could be your friends, it could be your work colleagues, it could even be a stranger that you've you've, you've had an interaction which which has caused a lot of trauma, but you want to get to a space where you want to live your life, where you've transformed yourself.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Ultimately, all the narcissists is about is devaluation, that's the ego mind, which is all about limiting you and instilling fear based responses in you, so that you start limiting yourself, so you don't push yourself forward, so you start to doubt yourself. What we want to do is transmute the fear into love, so you start loving your life instead of fearing it every day. We want to live a life that we love. So how do we do that? How do we model showing up differently? We want we don't want to feed the cycles, we want to break these cycles down. We want to break down these patterns, not feed them. So we don't want to feel more like our nervous system is feeding them all the time, so we're more, even fearful. We want to radiate love and live our life full of joy and happiness. And there might be.

Speaker 1: 18:33

You know that there's so many challenges with the narcissist and maybe other people pop up and try and hold you back, because you know the truth is, narcissists always have enablers, let's face it, and they are fantastic. You know being the victim and and there's so much better, everything like that then then we are. So we have to keep showing up as our healed person, where it doesn't touch us anymore. And in order to process someone else's reaction or to process when someone crosses your boundary, you've got to keep processing that and still keep those boundaries in place. If it's a challenging thing to do, it really is, but after a while it's so rewarding because what you're really doing genuinely is your overcoming your own internal barriers, your own internal fears, and that is the biggest challenge of all, because the fear that they've planted within us is the hardest to release because we're not aware of it a lot of the times. We're more aware of what they're doing externally, but we're no longer aware of our own internal fear, of how they've impacted us, and that is one of the biggest fears, that the biggest barriers is To people continuing to heal and break the cycle and the generational cycle. It's so easy to not look at breaking your pattern or breaking the generational cycle and loads of people before us have done that right. Where you go to spaces that you know you just don't feel comfortable Going where no one else could go before. If it was easy they would have done it. You know it's really tough to heal with generation.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Deal with generational trauma, let's face it or repeating patterns. It's such a measure of strength, like how much trauma are you carrying like seriously and how much have you suffered? It's so challenging and you have so much tolerance higher than most right, because the trauma work is about processing the guilt and the shame and all the other horrible, yucky emotions that we no longer want to carry, and to do that we have to be honest with ourselves. But we also have to be honest that we have a high level of level of Tolerance for these type of emotions Because you've been around someone who's projected their shame and guilt onto you every time they abused you, they did something wrong. That's what a narcissist done shame and guilt you whilst they're abusing you. So in a weird kind of way, you've been primed to be able to do the trauma work because you're stronger than the average person to be able to Process these emotions and still get up and keep getting Carrying on. It's just that you don't know how to tools, maybe right now, to be able to heal that. So the one thing that will heal, stop you from healing, is self-worth, honestly, you know, because if you think about devaluation, they've been devaluing you and your level of self-worth isn't going to be the same it used to be. You might question am I worth investing in? Because there is a degree of programming that you have had from the narcissist and then you've got the trauma bond, the guilt, the fear that comes along with no longer being in control and maybe not wanting to heal. But the greatest revenge in your healing from a narcissist, and the only way to really get justice Is to heal.

Speaker 1: 22:32

If you have experienced childhood abuse from a narcissistic parent, it is so tough on top of everything else, because we start to believe that this trauma is a part of us. We identify with the trauma. The trauma isn't you. I just want you to take a moment. Your emotions and thoughts are not you. This has been talked about in so many spiritual texts and set by so many mystics, but I really want you to think about this.

Speaker 1: 23:02

Your emotions have changed over the years and and sometimes your emotions change day by day. One minute you're feeling good, next minute you might be feeling sad. That means the emotion isn't you, because if your emotions are you, that means that your emotions shouldn't change. Because who are you? When your emotions change, then your thoughts and your thinking patterns have changed. You've changed your mind about people and things. You've changed your mind about the narcissist, so your thoughts are not you. So we shouldn't identify with our thoughts and our feelings there. Yet we might have thoughts, we might have feelings, we might experience thoughts, we might experience feelings, but that is not you. So we shouldn't identify with our trauma either.

Speaker 1: 23:54

All trauma is is an overwhelming experience from something that's happened. Maybe it's from a trusted person, and we can't let go of the thoughts, the emotions that are associated with it, because it's too overwhelming and we just need a way of doing it, and if you knew a way, you would have done it by now. Once we have trauma, it does affect every part of our life and we do tend to compartmentalize it. So we go okay, that's my home life, I'm going to pretend I'm okay and going to work and pretend I'm happy. But it's important to know when, where there is big triggers. There is work to be done. If you're finding that you're getting triggered by the narcissist and it's showing up in your body. Those thoughts and feelings should not be pushed down. You know, even if they have trained us to, we need to know that on the other side of this, you can live an abundant life. Once you start doing the work, the parts that trigger us is coming up so that we can create a different life, moving forward.

Speaker 1: 24:59

Imagine that you're you're going on holiday but you're trying to take your time. You're you're going on holiday but you're trying to take your kitchen sink and everything else with you. You know you want to move forward. You've got to let go of the old Person that you were. You've got to let go of this, otherwise you're holding on to that version of you that's going to attract more of the same.

Speaker 1: 25:21

So in any kind of trauma that you know, there's two types of responses, only two you either get bitter or you get better. And I really, really resonated with this because I had to tell myself often, and I would question myself often I mean, do you want to get bitter or do you want to get better? Choose, because that's the only option that you have. And really, when we look at any TV show or anything we see, you know people can either use pain to create pain in others. So you get your, your evil people you know the, the baddies, if you like in in TV shows and stuff, or films or movies. Or you can get those that transmute their pain into compassion and Come from a space of love and want to make a difference and make the world a better place. And that's a hero normally in in in Movies and stuff. And I say you're a hero. So self-love is so important in the healing process. When we're choosing to live in fear, we're going bitter, or we can choose right now to start moving into love and our life will start to get better.

Speaker 1: 26:41

When we have trauma in relationships, we feel vulnerable that other people will hurt us. Why, why is it that we stay in these relationships so long? The truth of the matter is there's nothing wrong with you. You're doing what any normal person would do because you're trying to feel safe. I know it doesn't make logical sense, but there's a part of you that felt safe in that relationship somehow, or they created an illusion where they felt safe. You know they say these things over and over again. No one will love you the way I do. No one wanted you. You can't manage without me. You can't, you know, manage this without you. Who? How are you going to deal with this?

Speaker 1: 27:25

You might Understand logically you really don't need this person and it's all a little rubbish. But on a subconscious level, you know, you might think, oh, what about the kids? They need this, you know, and you've heard this over and over, and it's so steeped in. So, even though this person is hurting you, you might think that it's better to, you know, give up your life For your children and stay in the relationship so that let you give them safety. But really you think that's the right and safe thing to do, but all we're doing is allowing ourselves to be controlled. And is that what you really want moving forward? And that is because there's some subconscious programming that's happened and we need to acknowledge that. Okay, I wouldn't have done this. It's not logical for me to do this. It must be because there's some sort of subconscious Programming that's made me think that this is the best solution. This is the safest thing for me to do. So sometimes it's really tough, but by healing all of that, the reward is so much more because we're releasing all the fear.

Speaker 1: 28:38

So look to people that have been through the healing journey there's so many. There's gonna be people, find people that you can look to that have gone through this experience and now they're living a better life, rather than people that are still in the journey to help you through. And as you start going through the journey, it's a normal normal, totally normal to forget how bad it was because you're starting to heal and this is your new normal now. But as you heal, you will become an inspiration for the people around you. They will be like huh, you were like this, but now you're like this and you will engage and help other people heal and they will trust that it's possible to heal, cause, you know, part of the problem is there is no self trust, because we put our trust into analysis, unfortunately. But sometimes we need one person to believe in us for a short period of time until we can then start believing in ourself. And if you want someone to believe in you, I believe in you. I know you can heal, I know you can get through this, I know it, I know you can, and sometimes we just need someone to tell us so, keep going, you can do this, do the work, and it will all come together in ways that you can't currently comprehend, and that is okay. So what happens if we don't heal? This is something that I would invite you to look at. What happens if you carry on the way you are?

Speaker 1: 30:14

Usually our children will continue the wound. You don't have to. You know, if you don't experience the wound, you're gonna keep passing it on. So there's a number of ways that you know we pass on generational wounds. There's biological connections, there's epigenetics perspective. There's a potential where it's passed on in the gene Traumatic is passed on in the gene and then when there's a stressful scenario in the child's life, it gets activated. And also, if they witness difficult relationships, they will normalize patterns like this and just live in trauma as if it's normal. And so you know and it's say, if we're less present with our children because we've been in trauma, then they will. That potentially could cause some trauma for them as well.

Speaker 1: 31:13

So there's so many different stresses, with narcissistic relationships as well. We have to be honest that you know you're not super person, you're not a super woman or super man. You know there's financial abuse. There's emotional abuse, psychological. There's your nervous system there's your brain has changed so you're getting more triggered, so it's so difficult to support the child and they're usually doing the complete opposite of what would support the child. So you're having to deal with that as well, and so it's difficult to manage all these scenarios. But if you're processing your emotions on a daily basis to help you through, you're not only healing, stopping that from impacting you, you're also healing some of the old pain. And I also wanna say just to reassure you, the truth always comes out. You know. Ultimately it will always come out. You know the games will always come out If, as long as you disengage, allow the game to go on, whatever the narcissist is doing, disengage, don't engage.

Speaker 1: 32:19

Let them. The let them theory here is so important. Let them do their game, let them. You get on and start healing yourself. Look, you can't change them, so just let them get on with it. So the more we try and change scenarios, the more we get stooped into their game and then we get controlled by them, yeah, and we get triggered by them. So just go with the let them, you know, let them do whatever they want.

Speaker 1: 32:45

And it's really important for us to understand that. We have been through a lot of trauma and a lot of triggers and sometimes it's really really, really, really hard to see our child, our own child, go through the same thing because of this toxic person. And the reason why is one, we would do anything for our children. But two is also because we've also got unresolved unresolved inner child healing. To do so, we not only have to parent our child our real child, if you like but we've got to parent our own wound within our self, because sometimes our children are mirroring what we need to heal within our self and that is why it's so, so difficult. So if your child has a narcissistic parent, we really can't change that.

Speaker 1: 33:38

So it's really important that we heal and allow our self to heal and understand how to, you know, deal with our emotions, so that our children can heal and become aware of narcissism in an age-appropriate way. Because, look, will their children need to know about the fact that there are people without empathy, so they don't get trapped into this sort of thing. They need to learn how to process their emotions. They need to take responsibility for themselves without blaming others. That is a good way of dealing with stuff, without engaging in the game with the narcissist, because we can't win with the narcissist, by the way. I just want to make it clear You're not made to win with a narcissist. If you have empathy, you can't beat someone that has no empathy. It's not going to be possible. So don't worry about trying to prove and explain, because you'll never be able to catch up with them, because they are ruthless in the way they work in comparison to us, because we have empathy.

Speaker 1: 34:41

But your child can go through therapy. You can go through therapy where you can engage in your higher self and navigate this scenario the best way you can and create more and more boundaries. We want our children to be the evolved version of ourselves. They will be okay, they will be better and they will be quicker at dealing with theirs than we are. And more and more people in society are learning about this and we're doing our bit as well to help people understand how to stop enabling narcissists to continue the abuse. So this is a huge topic in today's society and we want to help our children navigate these people. So don't worry too much if you're co-parenting with a narcissist, because what we will get is children that are more evolved, in a stronger position to change, and they will have a better quality of life because they will heal and they will create more and more boundaries, but please do look at healing yourself so that you can help yourself as well. You're worth it.

Speaker 1: 35:52

This is also where the spiritual aspect of narcissism comes to play. Heal yourself, let go, become the highest, best version of yourself and let the universal God, or whatever it is that you believe in, find your way back to truth and let them deal with the narcissist. They will Get yourself back to the authentic, loving, peaceful, joyous, loving person that you are and get to that self-love. That is what our aim is here. In a way, if you want to get the lesson from the narcissist, we want to release all the fear, as much fear as we can, within ourselves so we can be the best version of ourselves and live our freest life, so that we can get back to our true, authentic self.

Speaker 1: 36:42

No matter what they're doing around us, we're getting on with our life and feeling good and feeling blissful wherever we can. And then, when we get into a space of self-worth, self-love, things will just open up and miracles can happen. And if you are looking to heal, to get us to a space of self-love, if you want to get to a space of self-worth and that is something that really resonates with you. That is something that I really focus on in the Heal to Fry program is getting to a space of self-love and really understanding that part of that process is healing your trauma. So you know, healing is self-love ultimately. So do look in the resources section till next time, but whatever happens, keep being loving, compassionate towards yourself.