December 5, 2025 • 52 mins
Happy Holidays, everyone!
This season can be especially triggering, so it’s important to carry strong boundaries—particularly when dealing with narcissists who may try to dominate the spotlight, love-bomb with gifts, or create emotional chaos. Protect your energy by choosing how much access they get to you. In some cases, the healthiest choice may be avoiding them altogether. If you do attend gatherings, set yourself up for success: sit away from them, keep interactions brief, and stay in a calm, neutral “grey rock” mode. Avoid sharing personal feelings; instead, keep conversations light—commenting on the food works great. Remember, holidays often activate a narcissist’s core wound of “never enough.” No matter how much they receive, it won’t fill their emotional void, and you don’t need to exhaust yourself trying. Preserve your energy and invest it in people who uplift you, create synergy, and enhance your life instead of draining you. Wishing you a joyful, peaceful holiday season—one where you are the cause of better outcomes in your life.
This season can be especially triggering, so it’s important to carry strong boundaries—particularly when dealing with narcissists who may try to dominate the spotlight, love-bomb with gifts, or create emotional chaos. Protect your energy by choosing how much access they get to you. In some cases, the healthiest choice may be avoiding them altogether. If you do attend gatherings, set yourself up for success: sit away from them, keep interactions brief, and stay in a calm, neutral “grey rock” mode. Avoid sharing personal feelings; instead, keep conversations light—commenting on the food works great. Remember, holidays often activate a narcissist’s core wound of “never enough.” No matter how much they receive, it won’t fill their emotional void, and you don’t need to exhaust yourself trying. Preserve your energy and invest it in people who uplift you, create synergy, and enhance your life instead of draining you. Wishing you a joyful, peaceful holiday season—one where you are the cause of better outcomes in your life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Hello everybody, Thank you so much for doing again, doctor Judy,
Doctor Judy W t F. And being that we're right
in the middle of these holidays, I thought it was
appropriate to do a segment on narcissist in the holidays
and the gift of boundaries. So for those of you
(01:09):
who do not know me and are tuning in for
the first time, welcome, Thank you for tuning in. And
my name is doctor G. D. Rosenberg. I'm a clinical psychologist.
I run the Psychological Healing Center and I am the
founder of the mind Map system for healing human disconnect
(01:29):
and so that with that in mind, I want to
bring in the concept of narcissism, holidays, boundaries, the mind Map,
childhood wounds, and what everything has to do with everything
that I've mentioned. And this is a call and show everybody,
so please feel free to call in. And that number
(01:50):
is three two three five two four two five ninety nine.
So if you're here, I'm sure you're here because you
embroiled with a narcissist and in particular, holidays are a
time when narcissists like to make chaos and hoard attention
(02:14):
to themselves and cheap out on gifts, possibly or embellish
you with gifts so that they can love bomb. And
we're going to talk about different types of narcissists, mainly
covert narcissists, overt narcissists, what you can expect and how
to put up your boundaries. So I thought a good
(02:35):
place to start would be to do a little bit
of mind mapping. So Tony, my host, thank you so
much for putting up the mind map. And there it is.
This is called the be the Cause of mind map
because we want to be the cause of better outcomes
for our lives, and we want to not be at
(02:57):
the effect of people like narcissists who will literally take
us down a very bad pathway into chaos, defenses and breakdowns.
So starting with childhood wounds, let's mind map the people
who are narcissists and have incurred narcissistic injury. And then
(03:21):
let's mind map the people who are attracted to narcissists.
So what the freud is going on here? Why are
narcissists even in your picture? And what is it about
you that has you attracted to them in the first place?
And that's my very noisy dog. So we'll have to
(03:41):
bear with the narcissistic dog who heard about the title
and wants all the attention to himself. So going into
that panel one, let's go into panel one, and panel
one is a metaphor because I have these graphics that
(04:01):
represent metaphorically the darkness and the light, and you can
see that the light is representative of our whole and
complete self, something that takes a lifetime, if not lifetimes,
to achieve. And then there are the wounds, those shadows
that block us from manifesting the best of our best.
(04:26):
And what are those shadows specifically if we boil them
down to childhood wounds, the wounds specifically are verbal abuse,
physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional physical neglect, smothering, controlling, and
(04:46):
of course will add in their narcissistic parents. And what
is a narcissistic parent. It is a parent who lacks empathy,
who uses their own children to be their narcissistic supply
and basically flips the system from being the giver to
(05:08):
their children to be their taker from their children. So
it robs the child of their ability to experience unconditional love,
It robs the child of feeling special and important, It
robs the child of childhood because now they are the
suppliers to these so called parents who are taking instead
(05:35):
of giving. So let's go for a minute to doctor
John Bolby, who is the father of attachment theory, and
what he has to say is that in order for
us to have a healthy human psyche, we need certain ingredients,
kind of like we need certain ingredients to bake a cake, right,
we need the flour, the sugar, the yeast, the eggs,
(05:56):
so on and so forth. In order to have a
health the human psyche, we need ingredients like eye contact
from our primary caregiver. We need skin contact, preferably breastfeeding,
a lot of attachment and holding. We need attunement so
(06:17):
we attuned to the needs of the baby. We need
mirroring so that the baby and you or the parent
engage with each other and evolve evolved the connectivity of
the brain and the emotions. So these are some of
the ingredients that are necessary for human development. And unfortunately
(06:41):
we live in a world where this is not exactly common.
Rarely do I see or know of people who had
childhoods with nourishing parents, intact families that they've had unconditional love,
that they haven't been neglected, molested, beaten, name called, and
so on. So you know, this is the state of
(07:04):
affairs today, and that's why we're not doing so well.
We're not doing so well individually, we're not doing too
well as a human race. So in order for there
to be a narcissistic injury, the baby would let's say,
incur the wound of emotional abandonment. And this wound of
(07:28):
neglect and abandonment and demeaning and devaluing and objectifying by
the parents will create in them what I refer to
as the whole in the soul. And this hole in
the soul kind of makes a deal with people, not
really consciously necessarily, but an unconscious deal that people are
(07:52):
not really all that nourishing or wonderful. So we'll move
to plan B instead. Out of connection, I'm going to
opt for power control, manipulation, objectifying, sucking the life force
out of other human beings, which I call the vampiring effect,
(08:14):
and basically be a consumer of humans rather than somebody
who adds light to other human beings. And if you've
been around a person like this, then you will know
that they are sickening to be around because at first,
even though they love bomb you possibly or offer you
(08:35):
the carrot with fake promises that motivate you to stay
in the game. At the end of the game, you
feel suck dry on so many levels, financially, sexually, emotionally, spiritually.
It's just a kind of a feeling of really being vampired.
(09:00):
And that's why I call it the vampiring effect. So
at the end of the journey with a narcissist, you
don't feel more than you actually feel less than who
you are, which is the exact opposite of what a
healthy relationship is, which I'll get into later, but basically,
you know, I'm heading in the direction of one plus one.
(09:22):
It's supposed to be greater than two, not less. Then,
So now let's go into your wounds. Possibly you're watching
this because you've been embroiled in a narcissistic relationship, and
you know, why did that happen to you? How did
you become so vulnerable? What made you engage with such
(09:45):
a person? Well, don't be too hard on yourself. I've
done it. A lot of people have done it, and
they're really good at what they do. Because they're really
good at being chameleons. They can do things like love
bomb you and make you feel like you're the most amazing, important,
(10:05):
wonderful person in the world. They could do things like
promise you future, fake that things are going to be
a rosy future, all the while stringing you along. They
can chameleon really well, so they can act like a
good mirror and say things like your wishes my command.
(10:26):
I remember that statement from a narcissist, Your wishes my command.
So basically, what they're offering you is kind of a
self for your own hole in the soul, if you will,
so in order to make sure that you don't embroil
yourself in another situation like that, it takes a lot
(10:47):
of deep healing for that individual to essentially change their
taste in what they desire in a relationship. Because remember,
narcissists are good jacking up your dopamine and serotonin or
whatever love drugs exist in the body. So what happens
(11:09):
next is a reaction to the wound. So let's move
to panel two and see how this reaction manifests. So
the reaction is where we start to crack up. Okay,
So panels one, two, and three kind of represent pre
verbal and panel three is a representation of when we
(11:34):
start understanding and verbalizing. So the wound sometimes is so
deep and unconscious that we don't even know it's there
until it manifests in our life. And then the reaction
is a part of the brain that I will refer
to called the amygdala, which is the fight, flight, freeze,
(11:55):
and fawn. And so when you are in a scissistic home,
then you crack up see panel two, like a cracked
mirror here, cracked glass. And what happens is your psycho
perception cracks up, So no longer are you seeing straight.
(12:15):
So you are either fighting, You're flee you're fawning, or
you are what's the fourth one, fight like freezing or fawning.
So as a baby, we can't really flee, we can't
really fight, So we're either going to start shutting down
(12:37):
or we're gonna We're gonna start fawning and starting a
people pleasing mechanism. Okay, so this is something that you
have to examine within yourself and ask yourself, am I
a people pleaser? Am I the kind of person that
gets goodies from being the good guy and helping people
(12:59):
and curing people? And that's why people go into the
healing profession. You know, I want to help people, except
that in the case of narcissism, it takes an expert
to even go there, and sometimes it doesn't even work
because the person is so defended that they can't take
(13:21):
in the therapy. So moving to panel three, we've got
the encoding. So what's the encoding. The encoding is our
negative core beliefs, beliefs like I'm not good enough, I'm
not special, I'm not lovable, or in the narcissistic encoding,
it looks like I'm the most important person in the world.
(13:45):
The world is a place to take from and manipulate
and basically be a taker. So those are the encoded. Well,
my dogs are active today. I will close the door
if they continue to bark like that. But you can
(14:06):
see that these encodings are what trips us up. So
if you're encoding, if you're encoded with I have to
please people in order to be loved, then the narcissist
is there to receive you're pleasing so that you can
feel good about yourself. So it's a setup. Okay, So
(14:28):
I'm just going to move through the panels so that
I can get to the holidays and how this affects you.
And the holiday season and what you can do boundary wise.
So if we go to panel number four, you could
see that there's a lot of chaos there. It's the
chaos panel. So the bonds that you thought you were
for me with a narcissist were not really bonded because
(14:52):
you were bonded, but they were transactional, so they weren't
really bonded emotional to you. Why because as I mentioned earlier,
they decided that people are transactional and they're not to
be bonded with, so they're better off being used rather
than connected to. So you can see all the chaos
(15:16):
that happens when you're in a narcissistic relationship or when
you break the bond of a narcissistic relationship or attempt
to get out, and then what happens there is very
painful and like a bad drug, like a love addiction.
You're spinning around and disoriented and in pain, and most
(15:38):
people go back, They go back to the abuser, and
the cycle of violence begins again, which is what I
call the what the freud? So you know who wants
to be in pain? Right, So you either go back
to the unsustainable bond or you move to panel number five,
(15:58):
kind of like a bad game of life. Life, you know,
snakes and ladders. You move to panel five, and what's
panel five? A bunch of defense mechanisms. So we're very creative.
We defend in all kinds of ways. Some people smoke,
some people drink, some people watch porns, some people have
(16:18):
love addiction. Some people shut down all kinds of defense mechanisms,
and they're not healthy because in the background you see
all of this toxicity. Now, the opposite of an unhealthy
defense mechanism would be what the show is about, which
(16:39):
is boundaries. Other healthy defense mechanisms would be exercising, eating right,
treating yourself properly, making sure that you surround yourself with
healthy people and healthy lifestyle and so on. But in
the case of unhealth the defenses, we usually go to
(17:03):
a drug, sex, rock and roll and we defend so
that we numb out and don't feel the pain. Now,
a narcissistic defense is a little bit different because what
they do to defend is oftentimes the drug, sex and
rock and roll that goes with the deal. But they
also have what is referred to as the narcissistic defense,
(17:26):
which is a defense that's really thick. It's really hardcore.
And what's different about it is that they do not
take feedback. They do not take feedback because to a narcissist,
feedback is criticism and feedback is a very very caustic.
(17:48):
So instead of taking any feedback, they'll put up a
shell and they'll delve deeper into their narcissism and they'll
get more vampire ish, and they will objectify harder, and
they will try the narcissistic tactics of demeaning, devaluing, and
destroying and faking the future and love bombing and all
(18:11):
kinds of things. Because if you truly nourished them in
any way, in any way, through money, through sex, through attention,
through any kind of esteeming them and supplying them with
their narcissistic gifts, right then they don't want to lose you.
(18:33):
But the problem is that because they're not capable of
completely bonding to you, because remember they weren't particularly bonded
to their primary caregiver, then they are really incapable of
having empathy towards you. And empathy is a huge deal
(18:53):
because without empathy, you could just leave a relationship and
casualize the the dump where you can hurt somebody's feelings
and not really feel the pain. There are a lot
of things that people who lack empathy can do that
people who have empathy just don't have the heart to do. Okay,
(19:15):
So at the end of this journey, what happens is
there's my little narcissistic dog, the one I love so much.
So what happens is that at the end of the journey,
everything breaks down, so that the unsustainable bond crashes and burns,
the defense mechanisms don't hold up, and everything is either
(19:40):
an implosion or an explosion. So the breakups happen, the
traumas and the dramas and the re traumatizations happen. And
you can see in panel number six six, if you
can put that up, it's a crash and a clash,
and no longer is there any kind of a synergy,
(20:02):
even fake synergy, it's just not because the system broke down.
So really this is predicated on a system gone wrong.
So now we're up to panel number six, and now
we're going to bring in the holidays. So here comes Thanksgiving,
which is passed for twenty twenty five, and then we've
(20:24):
got Christmas in New Year's and the narcissist is going
to do what a narcissist does. So if the narcissist
is a an overt narcissist, then you can expect what
anybody want to hazard a guess And this is a
call in show three two three, five, two four two
(20:46):
five nine nine. So what do you think is going
to happen in narcissistic character during the holidays? And if
you're the happy or sad recipient of this, do you
think is going to happen to you? So anybody in
the chat room want to guess at it or call
(21:06):
in and tell them tell us your experience with a
narcissist in the holidays. I would love to hear from you, Tony.
Any questions in the chat room.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Well, there is a question. I'm just waiting for people
to respond to that question that you just ask. Let's see,
there was one here, oh okay, here that says they
want to be the center of attention, the funniest one,
the funniest ones, the one with the best gifts, the
(21:37):
one who plans everything, the one everybody should be grateful for.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Right, And if the person is not narcissistic and does
all those nice things, then it's coming from the consciousness
of giving. So one of the things that my book
starts with, and you can show everybody the book because
you can actually have a free downloaded copy of it
or get it on and on there, it is thank
you be the cause healing human disconnect. The first thing
(22:05):
that I talk about is that consciousness is causal. It's
just that a narcissist isn't in the consciousness of giving.
The narcissist is in the consciousness of manipulating and controlling
and taking. And so there's an agenda. So if they
give a good gift, they're going to expect something. If
(22:27):
they dress up beautifully, they want to be the center
of attention. What was the other thing that the person
commented about.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
They said, being the funniest one, giving the best gift.
They planned everything, wanting to be grateful for everything that
they do.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Okay, so they want to be grateful. Instead of expressing
the gifts as gratitude to the people that are receiving,
they want to get gratitude for the gift that they give. Okay.
Do you see the difference. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, if I give a gift, I'd like to
be acknowledged for that, and I want some gratitude toward that. However,
(23:15):
if I'm in the consciousness of manipulation and I'm giving
a gift so that I could be big and special
and better than and extract from the person that I'm
giving the gift to a sense of obligation and a
sense of now you're beholden to me, that's a whole
different level of consciousness. So do you see what I
(23:38):
mean by consciousness? Consciousness is causal. So if you're in
the consciousness of selfishness, you're going to get one outcome,
which is panel number four or five six chaos, defenses
and breakdowns. If you're in the consciousness truly of giving
and sharing, you're going to get another outcome, which I'm
(23:59):
going to get to right now, which is panel seven
eight nine. So what are panels seven eight nine? So
you could see encode decode recode. So we want to
recode ourselves into health. So how do we do that?
Recoding into health means that you could put that panel
(24:20):
number seven up but appreciate it so I can kind
of visually show people is that you're going to be
as whole and complete as possible, which are those orbs
representing our individual isms, and we're gonna want to pair
with other people who are as whole and complete as
(24:43):
possible so that together you can create friendships, romantic relationships,
family relationships, community relationships that are synergistic. Okay, synergy is
the one plus one is greater than two phenomenon. And
(25:04):
narcissists are not conscious of synergy because they never had
synergy with their primary caregiver. It wasn't a give and take.
It was parents took and the children survived the taking.
So basically what they're doing is they're doing a WTF.
(25:24):
They're doing what the freud replica of their childhood. So
they merge with you and they get the light. You
see the light in the center, So they suck the
light right out of you, and then you become dark
and vampired, and then they take that light. But unfortunately
(25:45):
nobody wins here because even that light doesn't sustain because
it goes right into a dark hole. They're hole in
the soul. It's sort of like pouring water into a
broken cut, which is kind of like keeps out the
other side. So all of your giving is for not
all the presence that you're giving is really just to
(26:09):
fill the hole in the soul. So even if you
give them something, it often feels unsynergistic and it feels
unappreciated because part of their core belief underneath all of
the defenses, is that they're not important, they're not enough,
and they're not lovable. So nothing is enough. If you
give them one hundred dollars not enough, one thousand dollars
(26:33):
not enough, a million dollars not enough because they consume it.
They don't turn your light and your generosity into light. Okay,
any questions so far? Anybody want to call in and
talk about all of this. I know it's pretty heavy stuff,
but I think that my map sort of helps people
(26:55):
to organize what the foot I'm talking about and understand
how this pathway of breakdown occurs and why it occurs.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
There is a question, and I mean, I think I
might know, but I'm going to have you answered. Of course.
It says, why do narcissists seem to act worse during
the holidays? Is that something about the time of year
that sets them off? Or is it just because we're
being kind of forced together?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Or that's a great question. Why do they act worse
during the holidays. Well, first of all, there are a
lot of gifts in the air, right, and they want
to get those gifts. So they want to eat more
and drink more and be more and show more. And
you know, it's sort of like, oh, I've got my
stage and the stages Christmas or New Year's or any holiday, okay,
(27:51):
And they want to be the center of attention. So
it's an opportunity. I think that's one Okay. Another it
might be that in their childhood these holidays made them
feel unimportant because it was the parents that were busy,
too busy to be with them or too busy to
(28:12):
really give them the most important gift, which is connection
and love and yeah and family. And so if the
parents were drunk or out of town during the holidays,
leaving the kids with the nannies, then they feel the
hole in the soul deeper, and so the neediness shows up,
(28:36):
and so they want to hoard their gifts again.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's it's that hole in the soul, and temporarily it
feels good. It's just that in the long run they
don't know how to hold the light, because in order
to hold the light, you have to have had those
those ingredients, those nurturing ingredients from your family of origin,
(29:06):
the eye contact, the skin contact, the nurturing, the mirroring,
the attainment, the unconditional love. And without that, then we're
not off to a good start. Okay. So during the
holidays this comes to the forefront and it can turn
(29:27):
really ugly because a lot of narcissists have defenses that
involve drinking, doing drugs, smoking, which, by the way, I've
been saying this for many months, but my new stop
smoking book is coming out. I want to show you
guys the cover. It's called kick It, Stop smoking and
(29:49):
be the cause of better outcomes for your life. And
it's really a deep dive into your smoking habit, not
just from a habit point of view, but from the
hole in the sole point of view. What are you
doing sucking down your feelings? What are you doing defending
yourself in this way of injecting poison right into your system?
(30:11):
And you know, it's interesting because when you're smoking, you're
literally putting poison in your system, and when you're in
a narcissistic relationship, you're literally poisoning yourself. So you're smoking
metaphorically speaking the wrong energy. Okay, that hopefully makes sense
(30:32):
to people. So back to the holidays, it's an opportunity
to show off, it's an opportunity to take there's no
synergy here. You might think for a minute, because you know,
getting you have to examine your own hole in the soul,
your own childhood wounds, and ask yourself, are you doing
(30:54):
a what the freud? Which is a repeat of your
own pass. So one way that these childhood wounds can go,
as I've talked about, is people become narcissistic and they
choose power and control and manipulation and demeaning, devaluing, destroying
(31:16):
over connections. The other way can go is that people
can become people pleasers. And people pleasers are the perfect victims,
so to speak, for the narcissists, because their core belief
is that unless I'm pleasing, I'm not good enough, or
I will not be loved, or I will not be special.
(31:38):
And so you know, I want to invite everybody, of course,
everybody in the world to take this mind map journey
because it's not only curative, it's preventative, so that when
you bust the lies and you start seeing the truth
of what you've been deeply embroiled in. Then you can
(32:02):
start to clear your psycho perception and not see everything
through this crack lens of perception and not react to
core negative beliefs which we dismantle in the course of
the process. So it's going to be a different outcome
when you're not in this system gone wrong. So that's
(32:26):
the purpose of the mind map is to get you
out of the system gone wrong. So if we go
to panel number seven, you can see that the one
plus one is greater than two is a paradigm shift
because now your clear sightedness, your clear sightedness allows you
(32:47):
to appreciate people who are growth partners, people who are healthy,
people who are contribution to your life, people who are
going to create synergy as opposed to chaos. And then
that's what you become attracted to. And no longer is
the narcissist going to look attractive because you now will
(33:07):
remember the pain of panel number four, five, six, chaos, defences,
and breakdowns. So what we're really headed for, you know,
if you really want a great holiday season, is we're
headed for synergistic We want to be headed towards synergistic
relationships that are true growth partners. So let's look at
panel number eight and you can see that this is
(33:32):
a metaphor for growth. Okay, so what is growth. It's stable,
it's rooted in the earth. Of the DNA strands are
now healed and they're non toxic. They're solid as steel.
And you can see the little people on the ladder
climbing the ladder and helping each other evolve. So either
(33:56):
one is helping the other climb, or they are helping,
or one is helping and one is elevating. Okay, so
this is a true partnership and true teamwork. And so
that's what a beautiful holiday looks like. Where there is
(34:18):
the gift of appreciation, there's the gift of connection. So
how do you achieve that? Practically? One of my pet
peeves is cell phones. I hate cell phones. I mean
I love them. I use them every day and I
get information off of the cell phone. But you know
what I don't like about them is that it's very addicting.
(34:39):
And what I hate most about them is of course
children being exposed to cell phones and performed cell phones
over human beings. So it's not a good thing. And
during the holidays, I really suggest that you please please
put your cell phones away, okay, very very important. And
(35:01):
so if you don't put your cell phones away, then
you're basically communicating cell phones over people, which is quite
narcissistic because if you've got people there to connect with,
then why are you busy on a cell phone? So
shut it down unless you're a psychologist or a doctor
(35:24):
who has to be on call, just shut it down
or put it on beeper in case of emergency. And
that's the true way, the true gift of holidays for
preventing yourself from being narcissistically attacked and injured and violated.
(35:47):
Our boundaries and you're allowed to have boundaries. So what
are boundaries. Let's go back to panel number five for
a minute. So I talked about panel five as fence mechanisms,
and now I'm going to veer in the direction of
panel five is boundaries. So boundaries are something that keep
(36:09):
us safe. So if we use this panel as a
metaphor for human cells, what does human cells do? They
vet what comes in and what goes out. So a
human cell is responsible for being permeable, which is letting
in the vitamins, minerals, fluids, okay, or being non permeable
(36:38):
shutting out the toxins, or being semi permeable, which is
vetting what comes in and what comes out. So this
holiday season, the gift that I want you to take
with you is the ability to be non permeable to
toxic people okay, or toxic anything, meaning that you politely
(37:03):
remove yourself from them, okay, and more permeable to people
who are nourishing and nurturing and interconnected and in general
semi permeable, so that you can vet people and know
the difference. Okay. So kind of like the three little
(37:23):
bears in the three chairs. If the chair is too soft,
you're going to get a backache, and you know you're
not going to feel well sitting in the chair. If
it's too hard, same thing, you're not going to feel good.
But if it's just right, then it gives you the
proper support and you feel good in it. And that's
the kind of relationship that I'm suggesting that you go for.
(37:48):
Somebody that will make you feel acknowledged, appreciated, will give
you the best of their best, will have boundaries towards
you as well, so that you you be called on
to be the best of your best. And okay, go ahead,
(38:11):
there's a question I think in the child room.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yes, and we still have time. If people want to
call in, please call in at three two three five
two four two five nine nine. You don't have to
use your name. If you don't want to, you can
make one up, so don't feel intimidated about that. But
this question says, I've been using your mind, Maac for
a long time. But when I go home, let me
(38:34):
read when I go home to family holidays. I'm trying
to put this in a little better words. Here, go
home for family holidays, I fall back into letting the
narcissist get a reaction out of me.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
You know, this is really common and it's happened to
me too. Holidays are very triggering. And so with everything
that I know, my mind map and your knowledge of
the mind map, you know, sometimes we can be in
situations that will still highlight leftover wounds that we possess. Okay,
(39:14):
so that if you're triggered by a narcissist, then it
feels horrible and you might even have a really bad
day as a result. It's sort of like back in toxicity.
After you've built up some sense of knowledge and immunity
(39:34):
and you've done the work, but sometimes it can be
overwhelming because the triggers are so harsh. And so, look,
I've been there, I've been triggered, and once you get
out of that environment, it's super important and useful to
see where you've been triggered, so that you could take
(39:56):
that as a highlight of core beliefs that still exist
within you, core beliefs like I'm not important, or I'm
not lovable, or you know, whatever core beliefs you hold.
I invite you to sit down with my mind map,
take a pencil, pen whatever, and go to panel number
(40:19):
three and write down the core beliefs that were triggering you,
by the narcissist, by the environment. Okay, if you have
the book, then go to that chapter, panel three core beliefs.
And remember you can all have a free copy of
the PDF version, so why not take advantage of it
(40:40):
and just ask for it and download it and it's
yours or buy it off of Amazon. But you know,
every time we get triggered, every time we fall off
the ladder, so to speak, it's an opportunity for us
to re examine these horrendous core beliefs and regroup and
(41:01):
do our own inner growth and process because that's the
way the light works. Okay, You're going to be triggered
and triggered and triggered until you grow so tall and
so strong that they are no longer triggers for you.
And when you can arrive at that place where they're
no longer triggers for you, then you know that you
(41:21):
have definitely paradigm shifted. Okay, when let's say you have
a core belief that you're stupid and your parents called
you that, and forever you were so sensitive to being
triggered by that core belief that you're stupid, and then
you do the mind map work or a lot of work,
(41:43):
and then you figure out that that core belief was
some lie that you brought bought into, and then you
outgrow that core belief and somebody comes along and says
you're stupid. It's like and or you know, like okay,
or you know like uh, just no reaction. And by
(42:06):
the way, that is sort of like you know. In
the book, I use the uh some metaphors from the
Wizard of Oz, and one of the metaphors is the
Wicked Witch. Right, Dorothy spills water on the witch and
what happens to her She starts melting. Okay, so the
(42:27):
truth is going to melt the lie. So if you
throw water in a narcissi's face, not literally, because that's
not going to be too happy for you, but if
you don't play into their game, if you become pH
neutral and non reactive to their attempt to trigger you,
(42:54):
it's probably one of the most horrible narcissistic injuries you
can inflict on them. And not so that you can
inflict narcissistic injuries, but it's sort of like a way
of dismantling their effects on you. So remember truth is
a very important element to your boundaries. So tell yourself
(43:19):
the truth. The truth is, and the truth is, and
the truth is this doesn't feel right, or the truth
is I don't need to be around this, or the
truth is I don't need to buy into this, or
the truth is I'm still triggered by this and it
hurts me and I need some more work around this.
So either way you win. If you go into the
(43:42):
holidays and you're severely triggered by these people, then you
have a lot to learn about yourself that you're still vulnerable,
you're still reeling in pain from some old narcissistic injuries
and that you haven't healed or haven't healedly, So revisit
(44:03):
the healing and keep working on it so that you
can dismantle the lies that you bought into. Does that
make sense to the person who commented on that, Just
give me anything, thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Something, as I'm waiting on that response. This is another
good question that I think a lot of people are
going through. I've heard this even Oprah did a segment
on this. How people are are pretty much just disconnecting
from holidays at all with family. But this one says,
(44:42):
should I miss the holiday Christmas and Thanksgiving to protect
my kids from my narcissistic parents?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Well, one of two things either limited and don't engage
and teach your children boundaries. So if anybody does or
says anything that's disruptive, you know, I'm not really a
fan of family disconnect Sometimes people do have to disconnect
from their families, but it's kind of sad because families
(45:13):
just sometimes are big. Some people deserve to be disconnected
from some people don't deserve to be So, you know,
you've got to kind of play a better game of life.
So if you're going to show up you might want
to show up for a shorter amount of time, you
want to pull out your boundaries, or if they're just
(45:33):
so disgusting and toxic. I mean, obviously, I've been working
with people for you know, a few decades now, and
some people's families are just so unbelievably toxic that it's
impossible to sit down with them. It's just an exercise
(45:56):
and injury. And so look, you know you've been so
demean to value destroyed, verbally, physically, sexually abused, emotionally neglected,
you know, whatever it is. If it's so bad and
you haven't worked it through with the person at the table,
(46:18):
then your choices are very minimum contact. And there's a
thing called gray rock, and it's been talked about not
only by me but other people, which is very superficial conversations. Oh,
how's to sell it? Oh it's great? Oho, those Christmas
lights are beautiful. Oh I love those Hanukkah candles. You know,
(46:43):
like anything that doesn't involve your emotions. So that's a
way of remaining gray rock. You don't engage, and if
people violate you, it's not a bad idea to sit
in a different spot a way so you can engage
with the people that bring you more light and keep
(47:03):
away from people that don't honor you. And there are ways.
But if it's so bad, look, I'm not going to
tell you to go to a place that's going to
make you toxically miserable and you have to go home
and you know, and have a horrible evening. So you'll
(47:23):
pick your situations. And that's why I call this episode
the Boundaries is the gift, because your boundaries are your
boundaries and you get to set them. So boundaries can
be anything from non permeable, which is you know, I
just I'm not going to show up because it's too
much to semi permeable. I'll show up, but I'm going
(47:48):
to vet the situation. I'm going to vet the people.
I'm even going to vet where I sit and vet
what kind of conversations I'm going to have with who.
Because the last thing you want to do is go
vulnerable with a narcissism, because vulnerability is something that they
like to take advantage of for their own narcissistic supply. Okay,
(48:10):
so play that better gain of life. Be vulnerable with
those that you're able to be vulnerable with, because that's
a beautiful thing. You don't want to stop doing that,
because then we're not human. We don't get to connect,
and we don't get to do something vital to our humanity,
(48:33):
which is share and care and give and take, receive
and share, because that's the cycle of life. We're sharing,
We're receiving the light in order to share the light.
And that's something that is very emphasized in Cabala, something
(48:53):
that I study quite a bit of and something that
inspired my mind map, And that's where the mind map
came from, was when I was studying Kabbala, and it's
really a description of creation. So we're created, and the
further we move away from the light we go into chaos,
(49:16):
defenses and breakdowns. And the more we reunite with the light,
then we can paradigm shift and we can therefore be
great receivers of the light in order to share. And
the more we share, the more light we get. So
it's a kind of a system of receiving and sharing
(49:40):
and receiving and sharing, and the more you receive and
then share, the bigger your vessel gets. And the narcissist
vessel doesn't get bigger because their receiving is a way
of just sucking dry and they don't grow, okay, So
stay away from people who are not grow partners. Set
(50:02):
your boundaries so that you are the cause of better
outcomes for your holiday seasons and for your life in general.
And also, if you do have children, pay this forward
so that the next generation can learn boundaries, learn about
mental health, learn about negative core beliefs, bust the lie
(50:26):
and not be at the effect of life, and truly
be the cause of life and your life. So thank
you very much. Any other comments or questions in the
chat room.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Nope, that's about it. I mean there's comments, but no
more questions, okay.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
And then if you want to avail yourself of the
video that I created a few years ago called Healing
from Narcissistic Abuse, please feel free to contact me the
clinic and it's a.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Complete video and pathway to healing so that it'll cut
down on therapy time and it'll give you a real
hands on.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Course, so to speak, so that you can free yourself
from the narcissistic trap. So thank you very much, and
if anyone has further questions and wants to connect, feel
free to do so. Good night everyone, Happy holidays,
Hello everybody, Thank you so much for doing again, doctor Judy,
Doctor Judy W t F. And being that we're right
in the middle of these holidays, I thought it was
appropriate to do a segment on narcissist in the holidays
and the gift of boundaries. So for those of you
(01:09):
who do not know me and are tuning in for
the first time, welcome, Thank you for tuning in. And
my name is doctor G. D. Rosenberg. I'm a clinical psychologist.
I run the Psychological Healing Center and I am the
founder of the mind Map system for healing human disconnect
(01:29):
and so that with that in mind, I want to
bring in the concept of narcissism, holidays, boundaries, the mind Map,
childhood wounds, and what everything has to do with everything
that I've mentioned. And this is a call and show everybody,
so please feel free to call in. And that number
(01:50):
is three two three five two four two five ninety nine.
So if you're here, I'm sure you're here because you
embroiled with a narcissist and in particular, holidays are a
time when narcissists like to make chaos and hoard attention
(02:14):
to themselves and cheap out on gifts, possibly or embellish
you with gifts so that they can love bomb. And
we're going to talk about different types of narcissists, mainly
covert narcissists, overt narcissists, what you can expect and how
to put up your boundaries. So I thought a good
(02:35):
place to start would be to do a little bit
of mind mapping. So Tony, my host, thank you so
much for putting up the mind map. And there it is.
This is called the be the Cause of mind map
because we want to be the cause of better outcomes
for our lives, and we want to not be at
(02:57):
the effect of people like narcissists who will literally take
us down a very bad pathway into chaos, defenses and breakdowns.
So starting with childhood wounds, let's mind map the people
who are narcissists and have incurred narcissistic injury. And then
(03:21):
let's mind map the people who are attracted to narcissists.
So what the freud is going on here? Why are
narcissists even in your picture? And what is it about
you that has you attracted to them in the first place?
And that's my very noisy dog. So we'll have to
(03:41):
bear with the narcissistic dog who heard about the title
and wants all the attention to himself. So going into
that panel one, let's go into panel one, and panel
one is a metaphor because I have these graphics that
(04:01):
represent metaphorically the darkness and the light, and you can
see that the light is representative of our whole and
complete self, something that takes a lifetime, if not lifetimes,
to achieve. And then there are the wounds, those shadows
that block us from manifesting the best of our best.
(04:26):
And what are those shadows specifically if we boil them
down to childhood wounds, the wounds specifically are verbal abuse,
physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional physical neglect, smothering, controlling, and
(04:46):
of course will add in their narcissistic parents. And what
is a narcissistic parent. It is a parent who lacks empathy,
who uses their own children to be their narcissistic supply
and basically flips the system from being the giver to
(05:08):
their children to be their taker from their children. So
it robs the child of their ability to experience unconditional love,
It robs the child of feeling special and important, It
robs the child of childhood because now they are the
suppliers to these so called parents who are taking instead
(05:35):
of giving. So let's go for a minute to doctor
John Bolby, who is the father of attachment theory, and
what he has to say is that in order for
us to have a healthy human psyche, we need certain ingredients,
kind of like we need certain ingredients to bake a cake, right,
we need the flour, the sugar, the yeast, the eggs,
(05:56):
so on and so forth. In order to have a
health the human psyche, we need ingredients like eye contact
from our primary caregiver. We need skin contact, preferably breastfeeding,
a lot of attachment and holding. We need attunement so
(06:17):
we attuned to the needs of the baby. We need
mirroring so that the baby and you or the parent
engage with each other and evolve evolved the connectivity of
the brain and the emotions. So these are some of
the ingredients that are necessary for human development. And unfortunately
(06:41):
we live in a world where this is not exactly common.
Rarely do I see or know of people who had
childhoods with nourishing parents, intact families that they've had unconditional love,
that they haven't been neglected, molested, beaten, name called, and
so on. So you know, this is the state of
(07:04):
affairs today, and that's why we're not doing so well.
We're not doing so well individually, we're not doing too
well as a human race. So in order for there
to be a narcissistic injury, the baby would let's say,
incur the wound of emotional abandonment. And this wound of
(07:28):
neglect and abandonment and demeaning and devaluing and objectifying by
the parents will create in them what I refer to
as the whole in the soul. And this hole in
the soul kind of makes a deal with people, not
really consciously necessarily, but an unconscious deal that people are
(07:52):
not really all that nourishing or wonderful. So we'll move
to plan B instead. Out of connection, I'm going to
opt for power control, manipulation, objectifying, sucking the life force
out of other human beings, which I call the vampiring effect,
(08:14):
and basically be a consumer of humans rather than somebody
who adds light to other human beings. And if you've
been around a person like this, then you will know
that they are sickening to be around because at first,
even though they love bomb you possibly or offer you
(08:35):
the carrot with fake promises that motivate you to stay
in the game. At the end of the game, you
feel suck dry on so many levels, financially, sexually, emotionally, spiritually.
It's just a kind of a feeling of really being vampired.
(09:00):
And that's why I call it the vampiring effect. So
at the end of the journey with a narcissist, you
don't feel more than you actually feel less than who
you are, which is the exact opposite of what a
healthy relationship is, which I'll get into later, but basically,
you know, I'm heading in the direction of one plus one.
(09:22):
It's supposed to be greater than two, not less. Then,
So now let's go into your wounds. Possibly you're watching
this because you've been embroiled in a narcissistic relationship, and
you know, why did that happen to you? How did
you become so vulnerable? What made you engage with such
(09:45):
a person? Well, don't be too hard on yourself. I've
done it. A lot of people have done it, and
they're really good at what they do. Because they're really
good at being chameleons. They can do things like love
bomb you and make you feel like you're the most amazing, important,
(10:05):
wonderful person in the world. They could do things like
promise you future, fake that things are going to be
a rosy future, all the while stringing you along. They
can chameleon really well, so they can act like a
good mirror and say things like your wishes my command.
(10:26):
I remember that statement from a narcissist, Your wishes my command.
So basically, what they're offering you is kind of a
self for your own hole in the soul, if you will,
so in order to make sure that you don't embroil
yourself in another situation like that, it takes a lot
(10:47):
of deep healing for that individual to essentially change their
taste in what they desire in a relationship. Because remember,
narcissists are good jacking up your dopamine and serotonin or
whatever love drugs exist in the body. So what happens
(11:09):
next is a reaction to the wound. So let's move
to panel two and see how this reaction manifests. So
the reaction is where we start to crack up. Okay,
So panels one, two, and three kind of represent pre
verbal and panel three is a representation of when we
(11:34):
start understanding and verbalizing. So the wound sometimes is so
deep and unconscious that we don't even know it's there
until it manifests in our life. And then the reaction
is a part of the brain that I will refer
to called the amygdala, which is the fight, flight, freeze,
(11:55):
and fawn. And so when you are in a scissistic home,
then you crack up see panel two, like a cracked
mirror here, cracked glass. And what happens is your psycho
perception cracks up, So no longer are you seeing straight.
(12:15):
So you are either fighting, You're flee you're fawning, or
you are what's the fourth one, fight like freezing or fawning.
So as a baby, we can't really flee, we can't
really fight, So we're either going to start shutting down
(12:37):
or we're gonna We're gonna start fawning and starting a
people pleasing mechanism. Okay, so this is something that you
have to examine within yourself and ask yourself, am I
a people pleaser? Am I the kind of person that
gets goodies from being the good guy and helping people
(12:59):
and curing people? And that's why people go into the
healing profession. You know, I want to help people, except
that in the case of narcissism, it takes an expert
to even go there, and sometimes it doesn't even work
because the person is so defended that they can't take
(13:21):
in the therapy. So moving to panel three, we've got
the encoding. So what's the encoding. The encoding is our
negative core beliefs, beliefs like I'm not good enough, I'm
not special, I'm not lovable, or in the narcissistic encoding,
it looks like I'm the most important person in the world.
(13:45):
The world is a place to take from and manipulate
and basically be a taker. So those are the encoded. Well,
my dogs are active today. I will close the door
if they continue to bark like that. But you can
(14:06):
see that these encodings are what trips us up. So
if you're encoding, if you're encoded with I have to
please people in order to be loved, then the narcissist
is there to receive you're pleasing so that you can
feel good about yourself. So it's a setup. Okay, So
(14:28):
I'm just going to move through the panels so that
I can get to the holidays and how this affects you.
And the holiday season and what you can do boundary wise.
So if we go to panel number four, you could
see that there's a lot of chaos there. It's the
chaos panel. So the bonds that you thought you were
for me with a narcissist were not really bonded because
(14:52):
you were bonded, but they were transactional, so they weren't
really bonded emotional to you. Why because as I mentioned earlier,
they decided that people are transactional and they're not to
be bonded with, so they're better off being used rather
than connected to. So you can see all the chaos
(15:16):
that happens when you're in a narcissistic relationship or when
you break the bond of a narcissistic relationship or attempt
to get out, and then what happens there is very
painful and like a bad drug, like a love addiction.
You're spinning around and disoriented and in pain, and most
(15:38):
people go back, They go back to the abuser, and
the cycle of violence begins again, which is what I
call the what the freud? So you know who wants
to be in pain? Right, So you either go back
to the unsustainable bond or you move to panel number five,
(15:58):
kind of like a bad game of life. Life, you know,
snakes and ladders. You move to panel five, and what's
panel five? A bunch of defense mechanisms. So we're very creative.
We defend in all kinds of ways. Some people smoke,
some people drink, some people watch porns, some people have
(16:18):
love addiction. Some people shut down all kinds of defense mechanisms,
and they're not healthy because in the background you see
all of this toxicity. Now, the opposite of an unhealthy
defense mechanism would be what the show is about, which
(16:39):
is boundaries. Other healthy defense mechanisms would be exercising, eating right,
treating yourself properly, making sure that you surround yourself with
healthy people and healthy lifestyle and so on. But in
the case of unhealth the defenses, we usually go to
(17:03):
a drug, sex, rock and roll and we defend so
that we numb out and don't feel the pain. Now,
a narcissistic defense is a little bit different because what
they do to defend is oftentimes the drug, sex and
rock and roll that goes with the deal. But they
also have what is referred to as the narcissistic defense,
(17:26):
which is a defense that's really thick. It's really hardcore.
And what's different about it is that they do not
take feedback. They do not take feedback because to a narcissist,
feedback is criticism and feedback is a very very caustic.
(17:48):
So instead of taking any feedback, they'll put up a
shell and they'll delve deeper into their narcissism and they'll
get more vampire ish, and they will objectify harder, and
they will try the narcissistic tactics of demeaning, devaluing, and
destroying and faking the future and love bombing and all
(18:11):
kinds of things. Because if you truly nourished them in
any way, in any way, through money, through sex, through attention,
through any kind of esteeming them and supplying them with
their narcissistic gifts, right then they don't want to lose you.
(18:33):
But the problem is that because they're not capable of
completely bonding to you, because remember they weren't particularly bonded
to their primary caregiver, then they are really incapable of
having empathy towards you. And empathy is a huge deal
(18:53):
because without empathy, you could just leave a relationship and
casualize the the dump where you can hurt somebody's feelings
and not really feel the pain. There are a lot
of things that people who lack empathy can do that
people who have empathy just don't have the heart to do. Okay,
(19:15):
So at the end of this journey, what happens is
there's my little narcissistic dog, the one I love so much.
So what happens is that at the end of the journey,
everything breaks down, so that the unsustainable bond crashes and burns,
the defense mechanisms don't hold up, and everything is either
(19:40):
an implosion or an explosion. So the breakups happen, the
traumas and the dramas and the re traumatizations happen. And
you can see in panel number six six, if you
can put that up, it's a crash and a clash,
and no longer is there any kind of a synergy,
(20:02):
even fake synergy, it's just not because the system broke down.
So really this is predicated on a system gone wrong.
So now we're up to panel number six, and now
we're going to bring in the holidays. So here comes Thanksgiving,
which is passed for twenty twenty five, and then we've
(20:24):
got Christmas in New Year's and the narcissist is going
to do what a narcissist does. So if the narcissist
is a an overt narcissist, then you can expect what
anybody want to hazard a guess And this is a
call in show three two three, five, two four two
(20:46):
five nine nine. So what do you think is going
to happen in narcissistic character during the holidays? And if
you're the happy or sad recipient of this, do you
think is going to happen to you? So anybody in
the chat room want to guess at it or call
(21:06):
in and tell them tell us your experience with a
narcissist in the holidays. I would love to hear from you, Tony.
Any questions in the chat room.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Well, there is a question. I'm just waiting for people
to respond to that question that you just ask. Let's see,
there was one here, oh okay, here that says they
want to be the center of attention, the funniest one,
the funniest ones, the one with the best gifts, the
(21:37):
one who plans everything, the one everybody should be grateful for.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Right, And if the person is not narcissistic and does
all those nice things, then it's coming from the consciousness
of giving. So one of the things that my book
starts with, and you can show everybody the book because
you can actually have a free downloaded copy of it
or get it on and on there, it is thank
you be the cause healing human disconnect. The first thing
(22:05):
that I talk about is that consciousness is causal. It's
just that a narcissist isn't in the consciousness of giving.
The narcissist is in the consciousness of manipulating and controlling
and taking. And so there's an agenda. So if they
give a good gift, they're going to expect something. If
(22:27):
they dress up beautifully, they want to be the center
of attention. What was the other thing that the person
commented about.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
They said, being the funniest one, giving the best gift.
They planned everything, wanting to be grateful for everything that
they do.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Okay, so they want to be grateful. Instead of expressing
the gifts as gratitude to the people that are receiving,
they want to get gratitude for the gift that they give. Okay.
Do you see the difference. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean, if I give a gift, I'd like to
be acknowledged for that, and I want some gratitude toward that. However,
(23:15):
if I'm in the consciousness of manipulation and I'm giving
a gift so that I could be big and special
and better than and extract from the person that I'm
giving the gift to a sense of obligation and a
sense of now you're beholden to me, that's a whole
different level of consciousness. So do you see what I
(23:38):
mean by consciousness? Consciousness is causal. So if you're in
the consciousness of selfishness, you're going to get one outcome,
which is panel number four or five six chaos, defenses
and breakdowns. If you're in the consciousness truly of giving
and sharing, you're going to get another outcome, which I'm
(23:59):
going to get to right now, which is panel seven
eight nine. So what are panels seven eight nine? So
you could see encode decode recode. So we want to
recode ourselves into health. So how do we do that?
Recoding into health means that you could put that panel
(24:20):
number seven up but appreciate it so I can kind
of visually show people is that you're going to be
as whole and complete as possible, which are those orbs
representing our individual isms, and we're gonna want to pair
with other people who are as whole and complete as
(24:43):
possible so that together you can create friendships, romantic relationships,
family relationships, community relationships that are synergistic. Okay, synergy is
the one plus one is greater than two phenomenon. And
(25:04):
narcissists are not conscious of synergy because they never had
synergy with their primary caregiver. It wasn't a give and take.
It was parents took and the children survived the taking.
So basically what they're doing is they're doing a WTF.
(25:24):
They're doing what the freud replica of their childhood. So
they merge with you and they get the light. You
see the light in the center, So they suck the
light right out of you, and then you become dark
and vampired, and then they take that light. But unfortunately
(25:45):
nobody wins here because even that light doesn't sustain because
it goes right into a dark hole. They're hole in
the soul. It's sort of like pouring water into a
broken cut, which is kind of like keeps out the
other side. So all of your giving is for not
all the presence that you're giving is really just to
(26:09):
fill the hole in the soul. So even if you
give them something, it often feels unsynergistic and it feels
unappreciated because part of their core belief underneath all of
the defenses, is that they're not important, they're not enough,
and they're not lovable. So nothing is enough. If you
give them one hundred dollars not enough, one thousand dollars
(26:33):
not enough, a million dollars not enough because they consume it.
They don't turn your light and your generosity into light. Okay,
any questions so far? Anybody want to call in and
talk about all of this. I know it's pretty heavy stuff,
but I think that my map sort of helps people
(26:55):
to organize what the foot I'm talking about and understand
how this pathway of breakdown occurs and why it occurs.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
There is a question, and I mean, I think I
might know, but I'm going to have you answered. Of course.
It says, why do narcissists seem to act worse during
the holidays? Is that something about the time of year
that sets them off? Or is it just because we're
being kind of forced together?
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Or that's a great question. Why do they act worse
during the holidays. Well, first of all, there are a
lot of gifts in the air, right, and they want
to get those gifts. So they want to eat more
and drink more and be more and show more. And
you know, it's sort of like, oh, I've got my
stage and the stages Christmas or New Year's or any holiday, okay,
(27:51):
And they want to be the center of attention. So
it's an opportunity. I think that's one Okay. Another it
might be that in their childhood these holidays made them
feel unimportant because it was the parents that were busy,
too busy to be with them or too busy to
(28:12):
really give them the most important gift, which is connection
and love and yeah and family. And so if the
parents were drunk or out of town during the holidays,
leaving the kids with the nannies, then they feel the
hole in the soul deeper, and so the neediness shows up,
(28:36):
and so they want to hoard their gifts again.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
It's it's that hole in the soul, and temporarily it
feels good. It's just that in the long run they
don't know how to hold the light, because in order
to hold the light, you have to have had those
those ingredients, those nurturing ingredients from your family of origin,
(29:06):
the eye contact, the skin contact, the nurturing, the mirroring,
the attainment, the unconditional love. And without that, then we're
not off to a good start. Okay. So during the
holidays this comes to the forefront and it can turn
(29:27):
really ugly because a lot of narcissists have defenses that
involve drinking, doing drugs, smoking, which, by the way, I've
been saying this for many months, but my new stop
smoking book is coming out. I want to show you
guys the cover. It's called kick It, Stop smoking and
(29:49):
be the cause of better outcomes for your life. And
it's really a deep dive into your smoking habit, not
just from a habit point of view, but from the
hole in the sole point of view. What are you
doing sucking down your feelings? What are you doing defending
yourself in this way of injecting poison right into your system?
(30:11):
And you know, it's interesting because when you're smoking, you're
literally putting poison in your system, and when you're in
a narcissistic relationship, you're literally poisoning yourself. So you're smoking
metaphorically speaking the wrong energy. Okay, that hopefully makes sense
(30:32):
to people. So back to the holidays, it's an opportunity
to show off, it's an opportunity to take there's no
synergy here. You might think for a minute, because you know,
getting you have to examine your own hole in the soul,
your own childhood wounds, and ask yourself, are you doing
(30:54):
a what the freud? Which is a repeat of your
own pass. So one way that these childhood wounds can go,
as I've talked about, is people become narcissistic and they
choose power and control and manipulation and demeaning, devaluing, destroying
(31:16):
over connections. The other way can go is that people
can become people pleasers. And people pleasers are the perfect victims,
so to speak, for the narcissists, because their core belief
is that unless I'm pleasing, I'm not good enough, or
I will not be loved, or I will not be special.
(31:38):
And so you know, I want to invite everybody, of course,
everybody in the world to take this mind map journey
because it's not only curative, it's preventative, so that when
you bust the lies and you start seeing the truth
of what you've been deeply embroiled in. Then you can
(32:02):
start to clear your psycho perception and not see everything
through this crack lens of perception and not react to
core negative beliefs which we dismantle in the course of
the process. So it's going to be a different outcome
when you're not in this system gone wrong. So that's
(32:26):
the purpose of the mind map is to get you
out of the system gone wrong. So if we go
to panel number seven, you can see that the one
plus one is greater than two is a paradigm shift
because now your clear sightedness, your clear sightedness allows you
(32:47):
to appreciate people who are growth partners, people who are healthy,
people who are contribution to your life, people who are
going to create synergy as opposed to chaos. And then
that's what you become attracted to. And no longer is
the narcissist going to look attractive because you now will
(33:07):
remember the pain of panel number four, five, six, chaos, defences,
and breakdowns. So what we're really headed for, you know,
if you really want a great holiday season, is we're
headed for synergistic We want to be headed towards synergistic
relationships that are true growth partners. So let's look at
panel number eight and you can see that this is
(33:32):
a metaphor for growth. Okay, so what is growth. It's stable,
it's rooted in the earth. Of the DNA strands are
now healed and they're non toxic. They're solid as steel.
And you can see the little people on the ladder
climbing the ladder and helping each other evolve. So either
(33:56):
one is helping the other climb, or they are helping,
or one is helping and one is elevating. Okay, so
this is a true partnership and true teamwork. And so
that's what a beautiful holiday looks like. Where there is
(34:18):
the gift of appreciation, there's the gift of connection. So
how do you achieve that? Practically? One of my pet
peeves is cell phones. I hate cell phones. I mean
I love them. I use them every day and I
get information off of the cell phone. But you know
what I don't like about them is that it's very addicting.
(34:39):
And what I hate most about them is of course
children being exposed to cell phones and performed cell phones
over human beings. So it's not a good thing. And
during the holidays, I really suggest that you please please
put your cell phones away, okay, very very important. And
(35:01):
so if you don't put your cell phones away, then
you're basically communicating cell phones over people, which is quite
narcissistic because if you've got people there to connect with,
then why are you busy on a cell phone? So
shut it down unless you're a psychologist or a doctor
(35:24):
who has to be on call, just shut it down
or put it on beeper in case of emergency. And
that's the true way, the true gift of holidays for
preventing yourself from being narcissistically attacked and injured and violated.
(35:47):
Our boundaries and you're allowed to have boundaries. So what
are boundaries. Let's go back to panel number five for
a minute. So I talked about panel five as fence mechanisms,
and now I'm going to veer in the direction of
panel five is boundaries. So boundaries are something that keep
(36:09):
us safe. So if we use this panel as a
metaphor for human cells, what does human cells do? They
vet what comes in and what goes out. So a
human cell is responsible for being permeable, which is letting
in the vitamins, minerals, fluids, okay, or being non permeable
(36:38):
shutting out the toxins, or being semi permeable, which is
vetting what comes in and what comes out. So this
holiday season, the gift that I want you to take
with you is the ability to be non permeable to
toxic people okay, or toxic anything, meaning that you politely
(37:03):
remove yourself from them, okay, and more permeable to people
who are nourishing and nurturing and interconnected and in general
semi permeable, so that you can vet people and know
the difference. Okay. So kind of like the three little
(37:23):
bears in the three chairs. If the chair is too soft,
you're going to get a backache, and you know you're
not going to feel well sitting in the chair. If
it's too hard, same thing, you're not going to feel good.
But if it's just right, then it gives you the
proper support and you feel good in it. And that's
the kind of relationship that I'm suggesting that you go for.
(37:48):
Somebody that will make you feel acknowledged, appreciated, will give
you the best of their best, will have boundaries towards
you as well, so that you you be called on
to be the best of your best. And okay, go ahead,
(38:11):
there's a question I think in the child room.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Yes, and we still have time. If people want to
call in, please call in at three two three five
two four two five nine nine. You don't have to
use your name. If you don't want to, you can
make one up, so don't feel intimidated about that. But
this question says, I've been using your mind, Maac for
a long time. But when I go home, let me
(38:34):
read when I go home to family holidays. I'm trying
to put this in a little better words. Here, go
home for family holidays, I fall back into letting the
narcissist get a reaction out of me.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
You know, this is really common and it's happened to
me too. Holidays are very triggering. And so with everything
that I know, my mind map and your knowledge of
the mind map, you know, sometimes we can be in
situations that will still highlight leftover wounds that we possess. Okay,
(39:14):
so that if you're triggered by a narcissist, then it
feels horrible and you might even have a really bad
day as a result. It's sort of like back in toxicity.
After you've built up some sense of knowledge and immunity
(39:34):
and you've done the work, but sometimes it can be
overwhelming because the triggers are so harsh. And so, look,
I've been there, I've been triggered, and once you get
out of that environment, it's super important and useful to
see where you've been triggered, so that you could take
(39:56):
that as a highlight of core beliefs that still exist
within you, core beliefs like I'm not important, or I'm
not lovable, or you know, whatever core beliefs you hold.
I invite you to sit down with my mind map,
take a pencil, pen whatever, and go to panel number
(40:19):
three and write down the core beliefs that were triggering you,
by the narcissist, by the environment. Okay, if you have
the book, then go to that chapter, panel three core beliefs.
And remember you can all have a free copy of
the PDF version, so why not take advantage of it
(40:40):
and just ask for it and download it and it's
yours or buy it off of Amazon. But you know,
every time we get triggered, every time we fall off
the ladder, so to speak, it's an opportunity for us
to re examine these horrendous core beliefs and regroup and
(41:01):
do our own inner growth and process because that's the
way the light works. Okay, You're going to be triggered
and triggered and triggered until you grow so tall and
so strong that they are no longer triggers for you.
And when you can arrive at that place where they're
no longer triggers for you, then you know that you
(41:21):
have definitely paradigm shifted. Okay, when let's say you have
a core belief that you're stupid and your parents called
you that, and forever you were so sensitive to being
triggered by that core belief that you're stupid, and then
you do the mind map work or a lot of work,
(41:43):
and then you figure out that that core belief was
some lie that you brought bought into, and then you
outgrow that core belief and somebody comes along and says
you're stupid. It's like and or you know, like okay,
or you know like uh, just no reaction. And by
(42:06):
the way, that is sort of like you know. In
the book, I use the uh some metaphors from the
Wizard of Oz, and one of the metaphors is the
Wicked Witch. Right, Dorothy spills water on the witch and
what happens to her She starts melting. Okay, so the
(42:27):
truth is going to melt the lie. So if you
throw water in a narcissi's face, not literally, because that's
not going to be too happy for you, but if
you don't play into their game, if you become pH
neutral and non reactive to their attempt to trigger you,
(42:54):
it's probably one of the most horrible narcissistic injuries you
can inflict on them. And not so that you can
inflict narcissistic injuries, but it's sort of like a way
of dismantling their effects on you. So remember truth is
a very important element to your boundaries. So tell yourself
(43:19):
the truth. The truth is, and the truth is, and
the truth is this doesn't feel right, or the truth
is I don't need to be around this, or the
truth is I don't need to buy into this, or
the truth is I'm still triggered by this and it
hurts me and I need some more work around this.
So either way you win. If you go into the
(43:42):
holidays and you're severely triggered by these people, then you
have a lot to learn about yourself that you're still vulnerable,
you're still reeling in pain from some old narcissistic injuries
and that you haven't healed or haven't healedly, So revisit
(44:03):
the healing and keep working on it so that you
can dismantle the lies that you bought into. Does that
make sense to the person who commented on that, Just
give me anything, thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Something, as I'm waiting on that response. This is another
good question that I think a lot of people are
going through. I've heard this even Oprah did a segment
on this. How people are are pretty much just disconnecting
from holidays at all with family. But this one says,
(44:42):
should I miss the holiday Christmas and Thanksgiving to protect
my kids from my narcissistic parents?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Well, one of two things either limited and don't engage
and teach your children boundaries. So if anybody does or
says anything that's disruptive, you know, I'm not really a
fan of family disconnect Sometimes people do have to disconnect
from their families, but it's kind of sad because families
(45:13):
just sometimes are big. Some people deserve to be disconnected
from some people don't deserve to be So, you know,
you've got to kind of play a better game of life.
So if you're going to show up you might want
to show up for a shorter amount of time, you
want to pull out your boundaries, or if they're just
(45:33):
so disgusting and toxic. I mean, obviously, I've been working
with people for you know, a few decades now, and
some people's families are just so unbelievably toxic that it's
impossible to sit down with them. It's just an exercise
(45:56):
and injury. And so look, you know you've been so
demean to value destroyed, verbally, physically, sexually abused, emotionally neglected,
you know, whatever it is. If it's so bad and
you haven't worked it through with the person at the table,
(46:18):
then your choices are very minimum contact. And there's a
thing called gray rock, and it's been talked about not
only by me but other people, which is very superficial conversations. Oh,
how's to sell it? Oh it's great? Oho, those Christmas
lights are beautiful. Oh I love those Hanukkah candles. You know,
(46:43):
like anything that doesn't involve your emotions. So that's a
way of remaining gray rock. You don't engage, and if
people violate you, it's not a bad idea to sit
in a different spot a way so you can engage
with the people that bring you more light and keep
(47:03):
away from people that don't honor you. And there are ways.
But if it's so bad, look, I'm not going to
tell you to go to a place that's going to
make you toxically miserable and you have to go home
and you know, and have a horrible evening. So you'll
(47:23):
pick your situations. And that's why I call this episode
the Boundaries is the gift, because your boundaries are your
boundaries and you get to set them. So boundaries can
be anything from non permeable, which is you know, I
just I'm not going to show up because it's too
much to semi permeable. I'll show up, but I'm going
(47:48):
to vet the situation. I'm going to vet the people.
I'm even going to vet where I sit and vet
what kind of conversations I'm going to have with who.
Because the last thing you want to do is go
vulnerable with a narcissism, because vulnerability is something that they
like to take advantage of for their own narcissistic supply. Okay,
(48:10):
so play that better gain of life. Be vulnerable with
those that you're able to be vulnerable with, because that's
a beautiful thing. You don't want to stop doing that,
because then we're not human. We don't get to connect,
and we don't get to do something vital to our humanity,
(48:33):
which is share and care and give and take, receive
and share, because that's the cycle of life. We're sharing,
We're receiving the light in order to share the light.
And that's something that is very emphasized in Cabala, something
(48:53):
that I study quite a bit of and something that
inspired my mind map, And that's where the mind map
came from, was when I was studying Kabbala, and it's
really a description of creation. So we're created, and the
further we move away from the light we go into chaos,
(49:16):
defenses and breakdowns. And the more we reunite with the light,
then we can paradigm shift and we can therefore be
great receivers of the light in order to share. And
the more we share, the more light we get. So
it's a kind of a system of receiving and sharing
(49:40):
and receiving and sharing, and the more you receive and
then share, the bigger your vessel gets. And the narcissist
vessel doesn't get bigger because their receiving is a way
of just sucking dry and they don't grow, okay, So
stay away from people who are not grow partners. Set
(50:02):
your boundaries so that you are the cause of better
outcomes for your holiday seasons and for your life in general.
And also, if you do have children, pay this forward
so that the next generation can learn boundaries, learn about
mental health, learn about negative core beliefs, bust the lie
(50:26):
and not be at the effect of life, and truly
be the cause of life and your life. So thank
you very much. Any other comments or questions in the
chat room.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Nope, that's about it. I mean there's comments, but no
more questions, okay.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
And then if you want to avail yourself of the
video that I created a few years ago called Healing
from Narcissistic Abuse, please feel free to contact me the
clinic and it's a.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
Complete video and pathway to healing so that it'll cut
down on therapy time and it'll give you a real
hands on.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Course, so to speak, so that you can free yourself
from the narcissistic trap. So thank you very much, and
if anyone has further questions and wants to connect, feel
free to do so. Good night everyone, Happy holidays,
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