Dr. Ramani: 2 Signs You are Being Love Bombed & 8 Ways to Know If You are Dealing with a Narcissist

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (01:27):
Narcissistic people are attracted to people who will give them
supply physical attractiveness, status, praise. So you just being a
nice person and praising someone could actually be what makes
you attractive to them. So people may think, well, those
I mean I have to start being me. I'd say no.
They may be attracted to you, and you may be
compelled for a minute, but the key is then to

(01:49):
know how to get off the carousel before it starts
going too fast.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Before we jump into this episode, I'd like to invite
you to join this community to hear more interviews that
will help you become happier, health and more healed. All
I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
I love your support. It's incredible to see all your
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go on this journey with you. Thank you so much

(02:12):
for subscribing. It means the world to Me, the number
one health and wellness podcast, Jay Sheety Jay Shetty Sadly. Hey, everyone,
welcome back to on Purpose, the place that makes you happier, healthier,
and more healed. Today's guest is one of your favorites,
someone that you've been wanting to have back on and

(02:33):
a dear friend of mine, So I always get really
excited when she's in the chair opposite me. Someone who's
great at defining terms that we throw around in culture,
defining those buzzwords, really understanding deeply how they impact our
lives and how we can navigate the challenges that come
with them. I'm talking about the one and only Dr Rahmany,

(02:53):
a licensed clinical psychologist, Professor of Psychology at California State
University of Los Angeles, and the founder and CEO of
Lunar Education, Training and Consulting. Dr Romaney discusses narcissism on
her popular YouTube channel on social media as at Dr Romie.
If you don't follow her already, make sure you go

(03:15):
and do that. Her popular online program on healing from
narcissistic abuse, and as the host of the podcast Navigating Narcissism.
Her new book is called It's Not You, Identifying and
healing from narcissistic people. Go and grab a copy of
this book right now. If this is something that you've
been dealing with, if you have a friend or a

(03:35):
family member, this is the book to give them for
that healing journey. Please welcome back to On Purpose, Dr Romney.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Thank you so much as a absolutely astounding introduction, So
thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, No, I'm so happy to have you back because
last time we were together, you just crushed it and
everyone was so happy and grateful for our conversation. You
have a new book out right now as we speaking.
As I said to everyone, it's called It's Not You.
I was so excited to dive into this and I
can't wait to talk to you about it now. And
as I said, tom on, please do get the book.

(04:09):
We'll be diving in a couple of topics here today,
but to get the depth of the book, make sure
you grab a copy of it. I want to start
off d Rominy by again clarifying terms, because I think
we're living at a time where there's so many terms
on TikTok and YouTube and social media, and often they
transpire into how we talk to our family members, friends. Yes,

(04:29):
What is the difference between a narcissist and narcissistic personality disorder?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
So let's start there because this is already muddying the
water so much. Right, So, narcissism is a personality style, right,
There's lots of different personality styles out there. Certainly narcissisms
are more maladaptive personality style because it puts people at
odds with other people's not good for their relationships. But
it is a personality style in and of itself. It's
not a disorder. There is something called narcissistic personality disorder,

(04:57):
which is when a person is presenting with the various
narcissistic patterns we've talked about, the low and variable empathy,
the entitlement, the grandiosity, the arrogance, the envy, the admiration
and validation seeking, that whole laundry list, the egocentricity, all
the selfishness, all that stuff. Right, So all of that
is happening. It's chronic, it's pervasive, It shows up in

(05:19):
their life and whole bunch of different relationships. The difference
is they actually go to a therapist's office who's licensed
and trained to issue a diagnosis, and that therapist determines
like yep, I'm seeing these patterns. They're consistent, they're across situations,
and they may assign them that diagnosis. The vast majority

(05:39):
of people who have this personality style are never going
to be in a practitioner's office who's going to make
that determination. And it gets tricky, right, because to call
something a disorder raises a whole bunch of issues. Personally, Jay,
if I ran the world, I think we'd get rid
of this diagnosis. I think we get nothing out of it.

(06:00):
It doesn't I don't even think it helps the clients.
A lot of clinicians don't issue it because it feels stigmatizing.
There's a whole host of reasons I think it shouldn't be,
but it is. Right Now, here's what you've got to
remember when we look at narcissism in the world. Right, So,
there's people out there who are narcissistic. They might be
mildly narcissistic and a little bit more emotionally immature and
just sort of selfish and shallow all the way up

(06:23):
to severe where it can be malignant and it can
be coercive and manipulative and all of that. And there's
all the stuff in between. This book is really focused
on the in between. Right, So, most people aren't dealing
with someone coercive. That's and many are, and that's a
much more severe issue that is probably beyond the scope
of the book. But most people who are dealing with

(06:45):
the mild narcissism, they're frustrated and annoyed, but they're not
devastated and hurt like we see in that sort of
middle level of narcissism. Right, So the difference is literally
that sort of mechanical point they weren't seen by someone.
And I don't know that any but listen, I'll be
honest with you. If I met someone at a dinner

(07:05):
party and they start telling me their life, I might
even think in my head, I've got a hypothesis clinically,
what's happening in no universe we occupy. Would I ever
say to that person, even if I talk to them
for two hours, I think you have generalized anxiety disorder.
I think you have bipolar two. I just wouldn't say it, right,
it's not the setting, it's not the situation. I might

(07:26):
strongly sugges say, hey, you should talk to someone right
where it gets interesting is the mistake a lot of
people make is Number one. They assume that if a
person has narcissistic personality disorder, that their narcissism is more severe.
Not necessarily, there are people out there with NPD narcissistic
personality disorder whose narcissism actually is not as severe as

(07:47):
people who were never diagnosed because they never went into
that situation. So you see what I'm saying. So there's
people out there who are malignant narcissistic people. They're never
seen by anyone. We can speculate, we could spitball wed
say yeah, it's probably the case, but that person with
NPD may simply seem a clinician. The other piece though
here too, is that what it's doing is it's creating

(08:07):
this very sort of strange space where people are saying,
these are the patterns I'm seeing in a partner, parent, whomever,
I think they might be narcissistic, and the Internet, as
it does, is very quick to shame that person. Who
do you think you are? How could you think this
about someone? And this person is probably already been really hurt,
really devastated by this relationship, is now being shamed for sharing,

(08:30):
Like I think this might be what's happening, it's also
creating this ord really painful space. So suffice it to say,
I think in the public conversation about narcissism, we should
only call it narcissism. Getting into the weeds on NPD
is really getting on this sort of subtle clinical point
and it just creates It makes a lot of noise here,

(08:52):
so we're not able to have the clear conversation that
these personality styles are harming the people who are in
these relationships.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Make sense, Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Why
do you think it is that all of a sudden,
it seems, at least culturally, that more people are interacting
with narcissists. Like you'll be talking to a friend and
they'll be like, oh God, I'm so glad I just
got our relationship with the narcissist. Or I'm struggling. I'm
healing as your book teaches you how to, Like I'm
healing from this relationship I had. I think they were narcissistic. Like,

(09:23):
why is it all of a sudden we're feeling this
kind of awareness and culture? Has it always been there?
Has it increased? What's happened?

Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's always been there. I think as long as there
were people. It has been there, and I always say
to people, open up a history book. I'd say about
seventy five percent of the people they've written about that
history book, we're probably quite narcissistic. Narcissistic people make history.
They and in fact, honestly, they often are responsible for
some of the greatest innovations we've ever known. Doesn't make
them nice people. I'd say, let them innovate, just don't

(09:53):
go on a date with them, you know, that's really
what we're talking about here. So there is an out
of the box nest to them, and there's a fantasy
that they live in that they often feel compelled to create.
So you better believe that they've always been there. I
don't know that we would have had the leaps and
boutance we've had in some ways without that, right, So
that said, it's always been there, but we never had
a name for it. Remember, psychology is a field in

(10:16):
its infancy. What's it been around one hundred and fifty
one hundred and seventy five years, So it's evolving. And
so this concept of talking about someone's personality in this way,
maybe since the late eighteen hundreds, we've even been having
that conversation. People have been doing narcissistic stuff to partners, children,

(10:37):
family members since time immemorial. We just didn't have a
name for it. I think at some level because until recently,
I think almost all cultures were probably much more authoritarianly
patriarchally patriarchically organized. I think we're seeing sort of bigger
conversations around that. So I think there was almost a

(10:58):
strange sort of universal radical ecceps and said, some people
are just really jerky, and let's just follow what they're saying.
And so we didn't. We just didn't even think.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Of it that way.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
But we see history books of kings who were ogres
and invaders who were horrific, and these were not nice people.
They were the narcissists of their time. Now to your
other question, why are we talking about it? Like even
ten years ago, a person wouldn't have said my partner.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
My boyfriend, that's what I mean.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
But they would have said, First of all, we didn't
have the platforms. What if they did talk about there's
such a jerk. Why do they keep doing this to me?
I can't figure this out. Everyone has always been having
the conversations. We're using different languaging now and if anything,
we now have a construct and we now understand this
hangs together. The point of this book was really to say,

(11:47):
there are people with these personalities. They're out there. The
way they show up in relationships is pretty consistently the same.
And instead of blaming yourself and wondering what you could do,
it's not you. It's really them, and they're having their
process and their journey and probably not going to get
the help they need to defend it against it, but

(12:07):
rolling up and turning your life into a human sacrifice
to please or win over or prove something to an
unwinnable over person. I have watched people waste lifetimes doing this,
you know. And it's even particularly compelling if it's their parent,
but even if it's a long term intimate relationship with
some especially if they've got into the relationship young. So

(12:27):
this has always been a thing.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, No, that makes a lot of sense. And I
appreciate how our vocabulary evolves your time, and as that
expands and extends, it allows us to better label and
understand things. And I know that this book is primarily
about the relationship, a narcissistic relationship, and then the healing journey.
But before we dive into that, I want to ask
you a question, how do you stop attracting a narcissist? Like,

(12:52):
is there a way to not attract a narcissist? Jay?

Speaker 2 (12:56):
I wish I could say yes. And here's where I
want to actually give my props to everyone's listening out
there who has attracted a narcissist. You know why you
attracted a narcissist because you're attractive. And what I mean
by attractive is you may be physically beautiful. It may
be your physique, it may be your something you know,
it may be your social status. It may be that

(13:19):
you could do something for them. What's attractive to them
may not be attractive to the rest of us. You're
attractive to them because you're attractive because you may have
power of some kind of world. When I say power,
I don't mean like you're a leader. I mean you're
self possessed. Many people who get into these relationships, we
have this mistaken assumption that the people who get into
these relationships are shrinking violets who have low self esteem.

(13:41):
Absolutely not. I got to tell you some of the
people I've seen get into these relationships. I'm like, who
I should have your self esteem. There they're strong and
they know who they are, and they're saying this thing
dismantled me. Brick by brick, I was really well but
together when I met this person. Right, So this isn't
about a person who doesn't have self esteem. It can be,

(14:01):
but it's definitely not an absolute. Narcissistic people are attracted
to people who will give them supply. What is supply
for every narcissistic person might be a little different, but
it's usually physical attractiveness, status, praise. So you just being
a nice person and praising someone could actually be what
makes you attractive to them. So people may think, well,

(14:23):
those I mean, I have to stop being me. I'd
say no. They may be attracted to you, and you
may be compelled for a minute, but the key is
then to know how to get off the carousel before
it starts going too fast.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Good answer, good answer, It makes a lot of sense.
And again it's not you. It comes back to that
which I like, which walk me through the consistent You
talk about narcissism being consistent. Walk me through the consistent
pattern of a narcissistic relationship, so that anyone who's listening
can because I think, like you're saying, a lot of

(14:55):
us sometimes feel scared to admit that we might even
be within us because it's it's scary to accept that
and admit that and have that realization because we think
it's something to do with us. We think we've wasted time.
There can be a sunk cost bias of I thought
I had a future with this person. So walk me
through the pattern of a narcissistic relationship.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Let's just talk briefly about their piece first, because it
helps us understand the pattern. They have traits things like
I talked about, the entitlement, the lack of empathy, the grandiosity,
the arrogance, the selfishness. I want you to think of
a narcissistic person as a volcano, and that volcano has
got this bubbling lava, and the lava for the narcissistic
person is shame and insecurity. So they want to be

(15:39):
able to plug the top of that volcano, right, and
that plug is all this stuff, the entitlement, the grandiosity,
I'm perfect, I'm great, it's this so it keeps all
that stuff under wraps. That's not a conscious process, right. So,
but every so often in life something's gonna push that
lid off to the side, which might be feedback a criticism.

(16:02):
Somebody ends a relationship with them. Whatever it is, their
day doesn't go the way they want. They get stuck
in traffic and they're late to something, they don't get
the table they want in a restaurant, whatever it may be.
That nudges that manhole cover over and the lava starts
billing out, and that lava is their rage and their
anger because their shame has been shown. All of this
is unconscious, So all these patterns in their relationship, the

(16:26):
way they show up in the narcissistic person is manipulation,
invalidation of the other person, minimization of what another person
is going through, gas lighting, rage and reactivity, future faking,
which means promises are made and broken just to keep
a person sort of on the hook. There will be

(16:48):
blame shifting. They won't take responsibility. They'll always blame the
other person, which is why people in these relationships always
tend to blame themselves. There's a lot of deceit, betrayal, lying, infidelity,
there is neglect. Over time, they just give less and
less and less to the relationship, and the person in
the relationship is trying to make do on the tiniest,

(17:09):
tiniest bits of being noticed. That's how they show up
in the relationship. Everything in the relationship is about them
getting supply in validation. They have absolutely no interest in
the needs, wants, and honestly the subjective reality of the
other person in the relationship. Over time, the other person
gets almost as considered an inconvenience. If you want something,

(17:31):
you're an inconvenience, much like this cup. CoP's convenient when
I want to drink from it, But the cup all
of a sudden said, hey, can you take me to
CVS on the way home? Like what cup? You're a cup?

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Don't tell me that.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
So they view us in that sort of objectified lens.
All of these dynamics mean that over time, in order
for the relationship to work, the other person has to
entirely sacrifice themselves and buy into the reality system of
the narcissistic person. But that doesn't all happen overnight. Oftentimes,
at least in an adult sissistic relationship, whether it's an
intimate relationship or friendship, that early phase is very idealized

(18:06):
and seductive. It's called love bombing. But it's really this
phase where they're winning, not only winning you over with
gestures and tactics, but with attunement and attention, or seeming
attunement and attention. They pay intense attention to you. What
you realize afterwards is some of that intense attention was
them learning things about you that were going to be
turned around and used against you down the road. That's

(18:28):
often a point of devastation for a person who says
I was vulnerable with this person. I told them things
that I'd never told anyone before, and then six months
in I was being shamed and humiliated, and you know,
it was being used to sort of destabilize me. There
is a point where that love bombing phase then starts
heading into a place where there's ten good things, one

(18:50):
bad thing, ah, one bad thing. Everyone has a bad day,
nine bad thing, nine good things, one bad thing. Over time, though,
that ratio pretty much comes to like maybe one to one,
So now you're having as much difficult, challenging stuff, and
then these little sprinklings of good things happening. That's the
origin of the trauma bond. That back and forth good bad, hot, cold,

(19:14):
I'm here, I'm not here is where people will often
find themselves falling into a cycle of justifying blaming themselves
because it was so great. It was great for two
or three months, so how did it not become great?
Maybe I'm doing something, so the person will literally it's
almost like you know when you open a bag, you know,
you're trying to find something in a bag, and you
take everything out of the bag chaotically, and it's all

(19:36):
in the airport on the ground, and it was like
one little like your headphones. That's what people in narcissistic
relationships do. They open the bag that is themselves and
pull everything out, trying to figure out what is wrong
with me? Why did we go from babe, where can
I take you to dinner? I'll take you anywhere?

Speaker 1 (19:51):
To what?

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Like, please stop interrupting me? And you're you're thinking what
just happened? And so basically, once in narcissistic person almost
feels kind of confident they've got your supply, whether it's
a promise, maybe you live with them, maybe you've really
committed into long term relationships you said I love yous
or whatever, that they've got you where they want you.
Then they're sort of almost not narcissistic folks are also

(20:15):
very novelty seeking. They kind of get bored easily, so
you being around from time to time they'll be into you,
but then from other times they won't. They do like
they do like the idea that someone's a constant sour
as a supply, and over time there can be a
real process of discard. They just really it can feel
like they just don't care at all anymore. Basically, what

(20:36):
they do is they no longer fulfill the roles and
responsibilities of what it means to be in a close relationship,
which is empathy, compassion, kindness, attunement, self awareness. These are
the responsibilities we have in a human relationship, and they
do not fulfill them. I even hate putting them as responsibilities.
I think that they come automatically for a healthy person.

(20:57):
And then if you do decide to leave, or even
if they decide to leave, you start to enter potentially
a cat and mouse game of hoovering where they'll pull
you back, see how you're doing. Sometimes they'll even figure out,
oh they're happy, now let me go see if I
can spin that around a little bit.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
Wow wow, I mean, those patterns sound so painful, and
they found They sound so strenuous and stressful and heartbreaking
in so many ways. Why what are the excuses that
people keep telling themselves and what justifications stop us from healing?

Speaker 2 (21:41):
I mean to go even more foundationally on that. Why
do we justify right when you think about one of
the most primal human needs, it's attachment. We need other people.
We are not meant to be solo acts. Human beings
are tribal. We evolved in social groups. Our brains didn't
change that much. We still need our people, We need love,

(22:02):
we do we need connection. And people say, what about
the narcissis. I said, they need it more than anyone.
They want all the supply, right, so we need to
be together. But that, especially in a child, that need
for attachment is everything. And if a child has an
unattuned parent, or even an abusive parent, the child doesn't
have the option to say, I think I'm gonna split

(22:23):
up with them and see what I'm gonna go on
parent hinge and see if I can find someone new.
Right doesn't work like that. The child has to hold
this parent in esteem, which means a child that needs
to devalue themselves. What am I doing wrong? How could
I be more? And the child really learns how to
be everything that parent wants and needs to the detriment

(22:43):
of their own needs, right exactly. So now let's just
jump that to adulthood. Right, So the child comes up
with all kinds of fantasies, but in adulthood they may
be things like, everyone has a bad day, relationships are tough.
I'm no picnic myself, They've been working really hard, we

(23:05):
did have a good weekend. They did tell me I
love you. I mean, I could go on for the
next two hours about all the justifications I've heard. Right,
So the justifications are not only proliferate, they come easily
and jay, they're reinforced by the world, right because the
world will say, oh, relationships are tough. Maybe they're just
having a bad day. So now what you're saying is

(23:27):
completely in line with sort of what the prevailing wisdom
would be. And you do that enough every time these
really invalidating, destabilizing things that cut to the core of
your identity happen. The people who tend to get more
stuck in these relationships, quite frankly, are the more empathic people,
while narcissistic people are attracted to people who are whatever

(23:47):
supply attractive they are to them. The people who get
stuck are the people who are more vulnerable to trauma
bonding and who have more empathy, and as a result,
are more likely to make those excuses and justifications right.
They're going to be more open to the idea that
there's always different ways too. There's another point of view.
That's what empathic people do, and that's how it happens,

(24:07):
but in a trauma bonded relationship. And it's also about
cognitive dissonance, right, that we don't like. We don't like
the tension of inconsistency within ourselves, so we're always trying
to make it fit. And how do we relieve that
tension and make it fit We justify, then we can
maintain the status quo. And human beings are also homeostatic creatures.
We like the status. I want to keep living here,

(24:29):
I want to keep having this routine. I don't want
to find a new place to put my toothbrush. I
don't want to wake up in a new place, even
if you kind of might want to. Over time, many
survivors will say, I don't even care if I wake
up in a random place, as long as I'm not
waking up here, but how much terribleness had to happen
to the person in that period of time, And so

(24:50):
it's a person is just getting sort of slowly distanced
from their true nature. The longer a person is in
a narcissistic relationship, the more they literally have to abandon themselves.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
That's what I wanted to touch on. Actually, where you
got to is, you know, what is the impact of
narcissistic abuse, like how because I think often we also
think like, oh, yeah, well you should know that you know,
he was a waste of time, or well look what
she did to you, like you should be aware, like
you know, it's almost like we assume that it should

(25:23):
logically make sense to someone that they should be happy
that they're now away from this person. But often with
people who've been with narcissistic people, especially empathetic people, they're
still saying, well, I hope they're okay. I hope that
person's okay, Like I know they're struggling. What is the
impact of someone who's experienced narcissistic abuse on a deep

(25:44):
scientific psychological level, What is actually going on for them?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
So what we're seeing pretty consistently across and now I
can say now thousands of people we've looked at who've
experienced these relationships, is consistently we see a problematic level
of rumination, regret, anxiety, sadness, self blame, self doubt, a

(26:08):
sense of hypervigilance, a social anxiety that comes from it.
And I want to put a pin in that hypervigilant
piece because I want to come back to.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
That in a moment.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
An interesting sort of mild association where a person has
become dissociated from their needs, their wants, and their true
nature because that has been so consistently invalidated in this relationship.
You see problems with sleep, You see the neuro vegetative
stuff we see in depression, like the change is an appetite.
You see problems with concentration. What's interesting, though about survivors

(26:40):
of narcissistic abuse is that some of them may actually
develop clinical depression, but most don't. And what I'll see
is these are folks when they are surrounded by healthy supports,
therapist friends, they're animated, they're lovely, they don't seem like
a person who's under that heavy weight of depression.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
So it is really when the relationship is present, it's
taking its toll, and it is why so many survivors
of narcissistic abuse are able to roll up and be
terrific parents despite what's happening. You see what I'm saying,
because it's not it's not a mental illness. It's a
normative reaction to this. But even with that hypervigilance, there's
a lot of talk about how nice survivors of narcissistic

(27:21):
abuse are. We recently did an Instagram live about this
and it was just me sort of yammering on about
something I'd heard that day. It was really struck by
the strength it had in our community because we talk
about empathy, empathy, empathy and survivors. But one thing I'm
really seeing in my again so many clients now at
this point, and other people telling their stories, is that
the empathy is almost functioning as a bit of a

(27:43):
trauma response, like let me be as kind as possible,
let me be as good as possible. And so it
gets very confusing for you, like am I empathic? Am
I trying to survive? And is my empathy literally like
this this trauma is a survival response to try to
like it's almost like that fawn response we talk about
that trauma response where I am going to be what

(28:04):
this harmful person needs me to be so I can
win them over and I will be okay, right so,
and then after that, though they're shame. Why was I
so nice to this person? They were terrible to me?
Like what's wrong with me? And something I really try
to focus on with survivors is to say, this empathic, responsive,

(28:26):
compassionate part of you is beautiful. We've got to heal
you and not lose that. Does that make sense? So
this isn't an amputation. This is very much about we've
got to keep this here, pull the shame off of it,
but allow you to become more discerning.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
And that's the trick in doing this work with clients
and for an individual who's healing themselves.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Yeah wow, I mean that analogy you just gave of
it's not an amputation. That's really interesting because I think
we would think that when something's that toxic and abusive,
you just want to cut it out, get rid of
it it, move it away. But that's not what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
No, And in fact, you know this is one of
the things I really take umbrage and I'm frustrated with
TikTok and places where people are giving quickie advice is
it's almost as though if you have empathy for the
narcissistic person, you're foolish and absolutely not. They are in
their fashion, there's something not quite right there and they're

(29:24):
not even anywhere close to addressing it. My goal for
folks is you want to have empathy for them. And
I mean, if you don't want to, I get that
too to what you've been through. But if that empathy
for you them is something you want to maintain, yes,
I still need you to disengage. Can you disengage from
someone and still empathize with them? I believe absolutely yes.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well yeah, and that's a hard balance for the people
in your life that love you to see that, because
it can be really really challenging to see someone you
love feel empathy to someone who's hurt them really badly.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Correct, And it's also even for yourself. And this is
where it can bring up a complim emotions like pity
and guilt. Right, and I try and again. The work
of healing is that pity is that these mechanisms inside
of you that attend and attune and care about other
human beings are still working, which we want those to
always remain online, but that you ensuring that you pull

(30:20):
yourself back from a harmful situation. The world needs you,
We need your hold you, not the version that you
had to create to remain in this toxic relationship. And
that balancing act of retaining empathy when you've been so
hurt by someone, that's some of the hardest work of healing.
I see people do it every day and it's really
quite beautiful. But a lot of them think, have I

(30:42):
become a bad person because I'm so angry at this person?
And in fact, a big point I bring up in
the book, and I'm going to sort of jump ahead here,
is I actually don't know that forgiveness always has a
place in these relationships. And this is a complicated conversation.
A lot of people say forgiveness is all good, and
I'm like, slow, no, no, stop the presses. It's absolutely not.
And there's a whole body of scientific research that suggests

(31:05):
that repeatedly forgiving a repeat perpetrator actually harms the forgiver.
There's no win in that, and so what way it
lowers their well being? It can result in negative mood symptoms.
I mean, of course, you keep doing you keep doing
this because I think forgiveness is a very personal decision,
but it's also not a necessary one to heal. And

(31:27):
I think that the message a lot of people get is, well,
if you're gonna if you don't forgive them, you're never
gonna heal. The hell you're not. And I'm gonna be
very frank with you, Jay, there's some narcissistic people who
harmed me immeasurably. I don't forgive them, and I he'll
just fine.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
It comes back to the you can't just say the
cliches to people and hope they'll move on and be
okay with it, and it can be really hard for
that individual to again either rise or lower themselves down
to either of those. Like I know someone who's been
through something recently who's dealing with it with empathy, and

(32:00):
I know for them, their friends and family are like,
how can you be empathetic to this person? And so
they're dealing with it that way. Or you'd have the
opposite in your case, where you're saying I actually don't
want to be empathetic towards them, I don't want to
forgive them, when your family is saying, well, you should be,
but I do.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
I here's where it gets interesting. I empathize with them.
I don't forgive them, right, Okay, So you can those
two states simultaneously. And I think that again. One of
the big exercises in the book, and I think it
might be one of the most important ones, is something
I have been doing with clients for a long time,
which is a multiple truths exercise. Because it's so easy
to say, write all the terrible stuff. And I do
tell people to record all the terrible stuff, but I said, like,

(32:36):
let's just be. I want you to write everything you
feel for this person. And a person might write, this
is my mother. I hate her. She had a tough backstory,
she was terrible to us as children. She lives alone.
I feel sorry for her. I wish you would change.
I know she won't change. This is literally the stream
of consciousness for a survivor. You look at that, and

(32:59):
right there, it's manifest why survivors are so confused. But
I absolutely believe, and not everyone does. Some people have
no empathy for this person, but I think it's quite possible.
And this is where everyone say, no, that's not possible.
If you empathize with them. You'd forgive them, I say,
I understand why they are the way they are. I
even kind of understand why they did what they did.
What they did was unforgivable, and so I wish them

(33:23):
no ill will. In fact, if good things happen to them,
so be it. If bad things happen to them, so
be it. So there's a mild indifference to it, but
it wouldn't be a loss. I mean, I don't think. Again,
there's so many forms of empathy, and empathy is it's
own complicated conversation. But I don't think that the not
forgiving is a lack of empathy, because forgiveness really reflects

(33:43):
the harm it's done to us. And people say, no, no, no,
it's a gift for you too.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Mi.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, And I'm not giving them this gift because I
know they would do it again. If I let this
person back in, they would do it again.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
I love that distinction between empathy and forgiveness really important
to understand. Another word, that a whole chapter is dedicated
to radical acceptance. Define that for us so that we
can understand how that's used. Because again, even looking at
the difference between empathy and forgiveness, it's so interesting to
me just how subtle and specific healing looks like as

(34:19):
opposed to this almost abstract journey that's often painted of healing,
being like you move from this stage to here where
it's you know right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
So radical acceptance is it's I have to say, there's one,
there's two, probably two essential ingredients to healing. You're going
to go through radical acceptance. You're going to go through grief,
and then it's sort of people are going to go
on different paths. But radical acceptance is the absolute acceptance
that these patterns are not this person's behavior is not
going to change, at least not significantly enough to make

(34:49):
this into healthy relationship. That this behavior affected you, and
as long as you're in the purview of this behavior,
as long as they keep doing this to you, it
will keep hurting you. Because some people have said to me,
they say, I radically accept it. They're not going to change.
How come when they say these things to me, it
still bothers me. I'm like, Gods, it's hurting you. It's
still hurtful just because you understand why it's coming out

(35:10):
of them. You didn't just become a piece of concrete,
like you still have a soul and a heart and
a psyche that can be hurt. So some people, I think,
thought radical acceptance was like a magic pill that if
I take this, then the narcissistic person will never bother
me again, and so all of that particularly, but the
key element of it is this is not going to change,
and all decisions from that point forward have to be

(35:33):
made on that basis. By definition, narcissism is, like I said,
a maladaptive personality style. But it's also a rigid personality style.
The less healthy the personality, the less flexible that it is.
So very healthy people have extraordinarily flexible personality. So the
core of mental health is flexibility. It's almost like physical health, right.
A person who's physically healthy has a lot of flexibility

(35:55):
in their muscles and joints. A mentally healthy person has
a lot of flexibility in their psyche.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
How do we find flexibility in ours?

Speaker 2 (36:02):
H I I would say it's an adaptability. It is
a self awareness and awareness of others. It's the ability
to engage in novel problem solving and not get stuck
on a singular solution. It's the capacity to be able
to self regulate and to self soothe those are some
of the things I'd file into that sort of that flexibility.
And I'm not just saying it's like sure, I'll go

(36:23):
anywhere you want. I'm not saying it's the it's the
I'm game for anything. But when things when there's disappointment,
there's the capacity to cope with it. It's a lot
of coping, a lot of resilience is in that flexibility piece, right,
That is the core of health. I've worked with people
who have survived severe trauma. It's ice, but the ones

(36:44):
who really are standing in a different way, it's that flexibility, right.
And you think about it. If a tree is flexible,
it'll bend with the wind. If it's not, it's going
to snap if the wind is too hard. That would
really be the best sort of an analogy. So narcissism
is this sort of maladaptive, rigid style. There's very little
self reflective capacity for the narcissistic person, very little self

(37:06):
awareness for the narcissistic person, and very little awareness of
the people around them. There is little motivation to change.
Most grandiose narcissists subjectively think of themselves as great people.
If you ask them, let's say, I'm a great guy
like I'll help anyone, I'll do anything for anyone. I'm
just a cool person. They believe it, having just cheated
on their girlfriend two nights before that, they're able to

(37:29):
maintain what almost feels like a delusional self schema. Those
things are not amenable to change. And again, the nice
thing about being an old lady is I've been doing
this so long that I've seen cases fifteen, twenty years.
And when I tell you that, there's been some interesting
things they've learned about themselves. In some cases they had
co occurring conditions. Addiction is a great example. The addiction

(37:51):
is managed like they've been sober for many years, but
that core personnalit. They are definitely not fit for an
intimate relationship, at least not one where someone's not going
to get hurt. So that radical acceptance of the all
of it, that moment is the penny drop moment, because
now people see the path forward very differently. This is

(38:12):
no longer once the kids grow up, it's going to
get easier. This is no longer when he gets the promotion,
things are going to get better. This is no longer
when the grandkids come my parents is going to calm
down this is this is it. And I've sat with
many clients and said, I'm going to put something to you,
and I'm going to say, if I were to tell
you this is it, this is never going to change,

(38:33):
how would that affect the decisions you make? Most clients
will say, can I tell you next week? Because that
has a lot to take in. But the challenge with
radical acceptance, Jay, is that I wish I could say
it's on and the light comes in the window. You
know a couple things is that radical acceptance doesn't mean
you're signing off on this. It doesn't mean you're giving
into it. It doesn't mean you're agreeing with it. It's

(38:55):
not that it is. You're seeing it absolutely and painfully clear.
And you know what happens if you painfully and radically
see something, The grief comes over you like a tsunami,
because this is your mom, the mom you always thought
one day we're going to have the moment, or your
dad where you're like, one day they're gonna get me,

(39:16):
or the partner where're like, we are going to grow
old together and it's gonna be okay. You're giving up
a narrative, you're giving up a hope. You're giving up
a life story, You're giving up things you held on
to since you were a child. That's devastation. And I
tell folks, now we're going to hold on tight because
grief is the most human of experiences. It's one of

(39:39):
the other than life, other than being born and dying.
I don't know of any other universal human experience other
than grief. All human beings lose, right, we lose something
or someone, and we all have a very similar experience. Internally,
we grief, and that's why we have rituals. Right, But
ultimately we go through a period of grief. And I
think in this moder age, we think we're better than grief.

(40:02):
We think we can soldier throat. I can make my
grief go like this. Nobody gets to make their grief
go quicker.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Grief is grief, and that grief actually leads people ja
to say, Okay, this feels terrible. Maybe I should go
back into the relationship. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe
I'm not seeing this clearly. Maybe I'm the problem, Maybe
I'm the narcissist. And so the holding on during the grief,
understanding what's happening within you that the loss isn't just

(40:31):
I'm not talking to my partner anymore, or I'm distanced
from my mother or I'm getting a divorce. But the
grief is how much of yourself you lost in this
relationship when people have to dive into that, And sometimes
I'll say, I'm kind of glad they're gone, but oh,
what what just happened to me?

Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yeah? Yeah, it's the grief of the life you once had.
You're going to have what you could have, the grief
of the loss of the person that you lost while
you dissolved into this relationship. And and I've seen that
from the people I know, not people I would say,
these are people that I know in my life, but
I've seen just that dissolving of one's identity, like completely clueless,

(41:11):
even if they've disengaged. Two, I don't know who I
am anymore, and I don't know what to do anymore.
And I don't know whether I was confident, or whether
I was bubbly, or whether I was extra or intro like.
I just don't know, yep. And what's the first step
when you're feeling I don't know what? Where do you?
Where's the starting point?

Speaker 2 (41:32):
I tell folks, we're taking you back to basics. And
it's little things like I'll say, three times a day,
set a little timer if you want. I want you
to just when that little notification comes up, I want
you to stop and say, how do I feel right now?

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Am I cool?

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Am I hungry? My thirsty? Like physiological functions, figure out
where you want your thermostat and move it and see
like I'm filing sixteen sixty eight, this is nice. People
don't even know that. I'll say, what do you want
on your pizza? You'd be amazed how many people are
flum mixed by that question and say, well, he always
wanted what do you want on your pizza? And they'll

(42:07):
say and they'll catch themselves. This isn't meant to be silly.
This is how even these sort of low hanging questions
become a place where a person is now being able
to recreate a subjective focus. They were told for years
you can't be hungry, you just ate. You can't be cold,
I am warm, You're not tired, you got plenty of sleep.

(42:31):
That's what they were told. So when that's done to you,
not just once, but hundreds, if not thousands of times,
just that initial process and part of what I write
about in the book is just you keep reorienting to
yourself and you ask yourself a few times a day,
like what's the temperature? I'm actually feeling a little bit cold,
and that's okay, even if everyone else has a bathing

(42:51):
suit on, it's okay.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Wow. It's just bringing that person back into body, into
their body, because that's our most physical, tangible way of
knowing how we feel. And because we've gone so far
away from understanding how we feel, that's going to be
the easy way. Same with what do you want on
your pizza? It sounds silly, but it's not.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Because it's silly at all.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Let's get these basic decisions right. Let's get these really
amateur decisions right, rather than thinking who am I? What
is the goal of my life? Like?

Speaker 2 (43:20):
But you work up to that and when you ask
people whome and I don't know, and I'll say what
do you stand for? Tell me something that's important to you,
and they will really say, no, I've never thought in
these levels. I mean, your focus for so many people's
meaning and purpose right to me. That's when we're getting
into the latter stages of really this, you know, this
individuation and this autonomy of what is meaningful to you,

(43:42):
what is purposeful. I remember a client when saying to me,
we're talking about meaning a purpose, and she said, are
you kidding me? What's meaningful and purposeful? She said, I
just want to get to a day where I don't
think about them. And I said, great, then that's that's
where it is right now, and over time we're going
to build on that. But that can feel very out
of for people, like in fact, in my healing program

(44:02):
this month, it's going to be meeting in purpose this month,
and even I as I construct that curriculum, I'm realizing,
like I want a lot of the usual conversation about
meaning a purpose. I'm almost having to have the conversation,
you know, point two of what it means when you
were going through this and someone who's the survivor of
narcissistic abuse. But then it's also the willingness to turn

(44:24):
to trust it do us. I'm going to give you
a silly example of something that happened today. I had
a very problematic call today right with someone and I
had to put the call on speaker because someone was
helping me something in the house and I had to
be she was doing her work quietly, but it wasn't
a confidential call. It it was a business thing. And
the call went terribly. The person was very disrespectful, very dismissive.

(44:45):
And I've been through narcissistic abuse in many ways and
shapes and forms in my life. So my first tendency
was am I being too sensitive? Am I being too demanding?
Am I being Ridiculous's what I was thinking. And at
one point, the lady who was helping me out, she
kind of looked at me, rolled her eye. I rolled
my eyes and she looked back at me and she
said yeah. And I got off the phone and the

(45:06):
person who was helping with something else, she had nothing
to do with this is call. And I closed my
eyes and the person said. The person in the room
with me said, yeesh, that was absolutely ridiculous. And I
looked at it and I said, say more, and she said,
I can't believe how dismissed of that person. She didn't
even do the basic and jay I fell whole because

(45:28):
my inner experience, which I still doubt after all these
years and I've come a long way, but my inner experience,
this person outside of me, who I know cares about me,
said it wasn't okay how she talked to you, And
each time that happens, we have a micro adjustment of
that was on point. I read that situation correctly, and

(45:50):
then I was emboldened to make a stronger decision and
decide not to go into to do what this person
was asking me to do was like a speaking thing,
and I'm like, no, I don't want to do that,
but that other person's presence, having that safe space, and
this is so a big part of the healing then
becomes building up safe validating anti gaslights as I call

(46:13):
them in your life, people who see you and say
that wasn't okay, or are you okay? Or that was disrespectful,
they did not speak nicely to you, whatever it is.
Most survivors are so used to being spoken too badly.
They're like, well, so business as usual. But to have
that this is why people go into therapy. And so
then I was able to take the much bolder leap

(46:35):
of no, I'm actually gonna end up going to the
other meeting. But thanks, I don't know that I would
have had that kind of courage. This is what healing is.
You build up those people even if it's one or
two people giving yourself permission to put I call it
the ninety ten in version. Most of us put ninety
percent of ourselves into our most toxic relationships and ten
percent into the giving, reciprocal, loving ones that run easily.

(46:57):
I said, flip the math. I want ninety one present
into those good relationships and phone it into the toxic ones. Yeah,
that's so true, and it's it's interesting because I think
that kind of answers the next question I was gonna ask,
but this idea of I think when someone's going through
that healing journey, they're almost oscillating between like or do
I know myself again?

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh? I don't know who I am anymore. I feel
like I know what I want on pizza. Oh my gosh,
I have no idea, you know. So I feel like
they go through this what I think that partly answers
that you need. These people in your life are constantly
reminding you, and as you said, anti gaslighting you. What
else can someone do when they're kind of oscillating between that.
I think I'm making progress. I'm not sure anymore. I

(47:39):
think I'm making progress. I'm lost again. How do you?
What do you find in that period.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
Embrace the oscillation, right, because it is it's calibration, right,
You're you're sort of it's like a child wobbly on
their feet when they're learning to walk. You're you're learning
this again, and so that warbliness is it's the it's
their internalized voice and your individuated self kind of having
a little bit of an argument and sort of view

(48:04):
that part of you that's trying to individuate, like say
you got this, and that's an old voice, and that
old we can just sort of say, you know, you're
you're actually not welcome here anymore, like you could just
step out, thank you, and the But it's the individuated
voice and the internalized, the narcissistic, internalized, the gaslighted and
internalized voice. And they're they're going, they're still fighting it out,

(48:26):
and we feel as though, am I aren't I just
like today anyone watching that call? I mean, but it
said this was not okay, and the person was almost
like the Emperor's not bring any clothes, right that this
person was saying, this emperor is naked, go away, rom Andy,
go away. And so I think that that initially we
need those voices a lot more, and there will still

(48:48):
be times when we we will tell because I think
there's certain trigger situations that kind of remain pretty consistent
for survivors for a long long time. We do hold
it internally, and we were told too, Jay. Many serve
diverse are told they're upity if they want to achieve
a goal, do you really think you're going to pull
that off? Like I think you're reaching a little too high.

(49:09):
So they were minimized and trivialized for wanting to do
something that they still hear that inner voice of don't
be ridiculous, You're never going to be able to do that,
and they make that voice their own instead of trying
to learn like that kind of that was an unwanted visitor.
So let's see if you can sort of treat it
that way, and we can even think about it. If
you look at trauma theory, we talk about the protector

(49:29):
persecutor kind of a model that the persecuting voice, in
a strange way is doing this really messed up way
of keeping you safe because it's telling you, like in essence,
it's that persecuting voices. That voice is telling you you're
going to fail, So you don't try, and when you
were in the narcissistic relationship and you failed, they would

(49:50):
humiliate and shame you right or tell you it was
going to happen. But if you can say that, okay,
I see what you're trying to do a persecuting voice,
I'll be fine if this doesn't go well because it'll
be on my terms. And if you really have done
radical acceptance, even when the narcissistic person rolls their eyes
and it's a little big surprise, you have to keep
coming back to this is a them thing. This is

(50:11):
not a me thing. Not saying it doesn't hurt. This
is a carousel that really takes a toll on people,
but it can be done. But that oscillation starts to
become a little less oscillate tea. The more people have
these validating voices, people build up what we call efficacy,
the idea that they're able to do something right. So
the first time we're able to do something successfully from

(50:34):
make up a cake or change the oil in our car,
use a drill and put something in the wall, that
what it does to the psyche is remarkable. So I
tell survivors keep trying new things, because the more efficacy
you build that also helps foster individuation. So I'm like,
grab the drill. If you put a few holes in

(50:54):
the wall, but the picture goes up, you're going to
feel really good about the picture going up. Try to
make the difficult called soufle You may burn a few,
but when it's made great. I did try to do
this with bread. I still have not successfully raised the
love for bread. So it's my last neurotic wound. But
I think that when we find that some people and
other people do all kinds of interesting things. I see,
like some folks I've worked with learned languages and they

(51:17):
learn how to play a musical instrument, and they'll say,
this feels so good because back in the day I
would have been made fun of for this. Those who
are able to get out will say it's so interesting
to do this, and that confidence starts jumping into other
areas of their life.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Yeah. I mean, it's really a rehabilitation ectly right, self identity,
self worth, self confidence, self acceptance. You're almost teaching yourself
to do things again in order to feel whole right.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Well, absolutely, but you know what you say, it's interesting,
so you rebuild. For a lot of people to build
because if this happened to them in childhood, their individuated
identity never got to form at all.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Wow, So this is a built yeah to build, it's
from scratch, doctor Romedey. This is, you know, so informative.
I'm thinking of so many people right now who I
know are going to benefit from our conversation today, because
it's almost like I feel like the more and more
I'm speaking to people, the more and more I hear
about people dealing with this in their lives. But I
want to ask you one last question, and it's this

(52:20):
idea of can going back to the empathy point, that
forgiveness point for the person who's healing from the narcissistic
person for them, can the narcissistic person ever heal?

Speaker 2 (52:33):
So it's a listen. I do believe in human potentiality.
I'm probably never going to bet on the psychopathic of
narcissistic course in the race, but might they at least
come in the top five maybe? And what I mean
by that is part of this isn't understanding the origins
of narcissism. Right, some narcissistic folks, their personality development was

(52:56):
very much shaped by adversity, trauma, neglect, loss, chaos attachment
modes right that subgroup. If they are willing humbly to
engage into the work of growth, they do excellent trauma
informed work with a therapist and then get beyond the

(53:19):
trauma informed work and are able to reflect on how
they're able to create that schema of how they affect others.
Right to pull, it's almost like you're pulling away that
you're pulling open gates and say, there's people out there
see this thing you're doing. They're being affected, and it's
really opening the schema out of how they're desperately trying
to protect themselves to how other people are getting hurt.

(53:42):
And I have It's interesting. I work with a narcissistic
client once for many, many years and I sort of
cut back my practice and I've had one or two
of them reach back, Can I work with you? I'm like,
you know, I've really kind of shut up shop. But
they you know what they said, though, one in particular said,
I am I'm screen me get my girlfriend and I
know it's not okay. Now he's still screaming at her

(54:05):
not so good, but he does know. He's like, I
know it's not okay, and she may leave me and
I probably deserve it. And he's like you taught me that,
he's still screaming on that part. But humility is such
a big part of this, right, and and the I
honestly think the antidote to narcissism is humility. And humility

(54:27):
means we're not perfect, we have flaws and it and
we are and it's not all a fantasy and that
we're And honestly, the hardest thing for a narcissistic person
to accept is that they're ordinary. We're your ordinary. I'm ordinary.
Everyone in this room is ordinary, and we're simultaneously special,
but we're just people, right And so if that for
them not to be the most special person means removing

(54:51):
the camp off the volcano, which is terrifying for them.
And if in a way they're almost terrified by their
own rage, you need one very skilled therapist to guide
someone through that journey, you know, And so and they
have to keep showing up. And for about almost sixty
to seventy percent of narcissistic folks drop out of therapy prematurely.

(55:11):
And it usually happens when the rubber meets the road
and the work starts to getting really vulnerable. That's when
I've lost clients, and so we have to go very
very gently into that forest with them. But unfortunately, if
we go too gently and we never get there, then
we're sort of doing a lot of navel gazing. So
it's just finding that kind of balance, and you know,

(55:32):
they can do a lot of spiritual bypassing that kind
of stuff, Like you can't just you can't aphorism your
way through this. You're going to have to do this
painful work face up to that vulnerability. That's I've seen
some narcissistic people make a little bit of progress, But
the way I put it is this, there's hope for
them to make some progress, but the harm they've usually

(55:52):
done to another person usually it's not super it's not
really that fixable. And so many people will say, in
a fear of a lot of people narcissistic relationships, is
what if they change for the next person. They're not
going to change for the next person, right, what if
it all changes overnight? This is not an overnight This

(56:13):
is years and years and years of committed work to this.
Like I said, I've seen micro changes and not enough
to have probably consistently affected other people's relationships and they
still personality is like a rubber band. We can pull
it out, so all of a sudden, Romney the introvert
could become Romney the extrovert for one night only, and

(56:36):
then when we get home, the rubber band will go
back to It's like the narcissistic person on a good
day with a good therapist might get stretched out a
little bit, seem a little bit more tuned aware, do
some empathic adjacent things, but as soon as the first
time stress comes into the picture, rubber band goes back
to its original size.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. As
the last question that came from that was what would
you say to someone who says, I'll wait for them
to change.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Then you're waiting for a bus that's never going to come.
You're waiting for a submarine to show up at a
bus stop, basically, and in the process, it's not even
just as that may not come, you will lose yourself
in the process, And to me, that sort of soul death,
that sort of loss of self is it's just not okay.
And listen, you and I both know this cultural We

(57:23):
both come from a culture where remaining in a marriage
no matter what the conditions are, is very much a
sort of a symptom of the culture. And this is
where I've probably seen it most pointedly of people who
really some folks would find a way, whether their spirituality
or other relationships with their children or others in their
community to sort of create a meaningful space outside of

(57:44):
that problematic relationship. But others it was like watching a
fruit die on the vine. And it's to me one
of the most horrific things to witness is the potential
of a human being being lost to this kind of invalidation.
And I shudder to think how much potential, creative, potential, knowledge,
wisdom that people have held back because of invalidated. This

(58:08):
book is a love story to every survivor and saying
to them, please bring We need you. We need all
of your gifts in this world because you have so many. Listen,
the fact that you endured this relationship is already a gift,
but so all the stuff you kept behind the gate.
Open those gates so we can see all this beautiful
stuff that you could bring into the world.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Doctor Romany, Thank you so much. The book is called
It's Not You, Identifying and Healing from narcissistic people. It's
available right now, go and grab your copy today. We
have just touched on the tip of the iceberg of
the insights and the knowledge that's within this book. Please
go grab your copy, and if you don't already follow
Dr Romney on Instagram and YouTube, make sure you go

(58:51):
and subscribe and follow. And I want to see what
resonates with you from this conversation, so tag both of us.
I'd love to see if you've been affected by any
of this, if you're a friend or family members benefiting
from the book, I'd love to see your takeaways. Dr Rominey,
thank you so much again for this very thoughtful, very
very insightful conversation. And I love your step by step

(59:12):
approach and also the ability to define and clarify things
so well for us, so I always feel better prepared
to talk to people even who may mention it to me, friends,
family members, whatever may happen, and kind of guide them
in the right direction towards a therapist or the support
that they need.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
So thank you so much, Thank you, j thank you,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview with
Dr Julie Smith on unblocking negative emotions and how to
embrace difficult feelings.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
You've just got to be motivated every day, and if
you're not, then what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (59:45):
And actually humans don't work that way.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Motivation, you have to treat it like any other emotion.
Some days it will be there, some days it won't

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