you're dealing with a narcissist don't defend don't engage don't explain don't personalize so with a narcissism we have to talk about sort of the top of the line behaviors and those are let's view narcissism as almost like this inner core okay the inner core of narcissism is this variable empathy usually a lack of empathy okay entitlement grandiosity validation seeking a sense of Envy for other people or the assumption that other people Envy them um the inability to regulate their anger when they're frustrated disappointed or stressed a sense of Shame so if anyone points out a flaw in them they tend to react with rage a reactive sensitivity to criticism so if anyone points out anything they wow they come at them blame shifting and responsibility shifting so they blame other people for what you know what is actually their responsibility they're very controlling very egocentric everything is about them everything is self-serving insecure very deeply insecure deep lots of feelings of inadequacy but those are all sort of pushed down all of these things I'm talking about the entitlement and all the rest of it it's like a suit of armor that protects that inner core of inadequacy so nobody ever sees it if I'm walking around telling you I'm all that well then I can't be inadequate right and if I got a big fancy car in a big fancy house and a big fancy person on my arm then I'm all that right so with a narcissism we have to talk about sort of the top of the line behaviors and those are our presentations charm Charisma confidence curiosity [Music] um and they also can you have those things and not be narcissists you can't because I'm a very curious person I can't you know I'm like so here here's where it gets interesting right is you can be curious and when you can find an empathic charismatic person behold to them they are the unicorns of the human beings when I meet when I meet The Confident charismatic empathic kind respectful humble person I literally I'm like all right everyone I can tell you it doesn't happen often and I'm usually like I look Google eyes because I'm thinking and then of course I'm poking at it I'm like no no no no what's wrong with it every so often I find it and I'm like it hasn't happened often it hasn't happened often but here's the thing the charm the Charisma the confidence the Curiosity um there's also comfort that they also offer it's like they'll often feel like they're Rescuers I can take care of it all they'll be very generous up front right you know all it's all a front game right yeah so what happens then the curtain comes down across all your common sense and you missed this is amazing yeah and people and if you either you miss the lack of empathy and the anger and the rage and all the other stuff or you justify it you just well yeah they're they're you know what he's got a big job or she's really stressed or she doesn't mean that or that's just their culture I was I was reading an article by a linguist recently and the linguist was talking about how um people talk over each other in certain cultures right and they were using that as a way to rationalize interrupting and there's interrupting and there's interrupting narcissistic interrupting is not only it's it's contemptuous interrupting it's dismissive like um okay all right you know you're talking and then I not only cut in but it's basically like uh your point of view doesn't matter oh yeah you're you're an idiot I know it's really yeah yeah okay so you share some of these signs of um malignant no that's okay so let's go back to the course we got the core of lack of empathy all that stuff yes now the problem with narcissism is their subtypes oh my gosh crazy we really do need a whiteboard now I'd be writing notes up there because what we have then is the classical narcissist the sort of 57 Chevy of narcissism is the grandiose narcissist it is the the big Charming confident I'm the one I'm the best no Insight very little empathy kind of but very like big sales persony that's the grandiose narcissist but then when we talk about the malignant narcissist again we have all that stuff lack of empathy and all that other stuff but they are more menacing they are more controlling they're a little bit more scary they're sadistic they're paranoid um what if they have both of those things usually they can they can and what would that's a horrific combination because in that person's real Charming on the front end and then once you cross the threshold and walk all the way in with them now you're dealing with their malignant manipulative scary and and when we see controlling when we see manipulative narcissism manipulative I'm sorry malignant and narcissism we're seeing people who are often they're more they're more likely to be aggressive to be violent to be abusive to isolate people from ever being able to get help from being abusive in the workplace we hear these big awful workplace abuse stories a lot especially a lot in the metoo era a lot of those folks are malignant narcissists right so what happens if you're with a narcissist you you maybe it's been a year you've been dating someone or you're you're in Boston it seemed like it at the beginning but then you're figuring out oh check check they've got a lot of these things but you're you know the first six months was seemed great or it seemed like it was amazing but now we're seeing the curtain you know pull back and some of these things are coming out and we're not feeling good about the relationship program whether it's a working relationship a friendship an intimate relationship we've spotted it yep what I'm hearing you say is there's really no way to change a narcissist no so trying to change them is not going to happen that's a fool there doesn't mean we just pretty much have to rip the cord and and rip the Band-Aid and get out or how does it navigate that simple yeah right we can't walk away from all relationships people can't just quit their jobs um let's say let's say a person starts figuring this out five years in a relationship and they're married what if it's their family of origin and they're like I've done my homework and this is actually my parents or my sibling people say well I don't know that I'm willing to cut off for my entire family so I'm not gonna sit here and tell people that oh you just got to always go in fact my my first book on the topic of narcissism is called should I stay or should I go surviving a relationship with a narcissist and I wrote it from that point of view because it's too simplistic to say well get up and go like you said rip off the Band-Aid so if you're and neither path is easy but right in an Ideal World I will be frank with you and there's actually an interesting group in Israel it's Gathering has gathered some data on this on narcissistic abuse and they've found that the thing that works best in dealing with a narcissistic relationship that resulted in the best outcomes was going no contact like having no contact with them completely blocking cut it off done and because it's almost like a toxin right if you if there's a toxic gas the best way to feel better is to eliminate no more if you have a little bit you're just gonna be feeling a little bit of come in consistently it's going to be holding on to it correct but a lot of people don't have that so the biggest if you're going to have to stay in this relationship you have to engage in something that I you know this is called radical acceptance this is never going to change this is who they are this is who they are this is it so and I then I tell people I have something called The Deep technique that I I talk about the Deep technique is when I tell people if you're dealing with a narcissist don't defend don't engage age don't explain don't personalize so deep don't defend don't engage don't explain don't personalize and so when they're coming at you and if you can remember you really are keeping it tight it's a lot of you it's like you're in a deposition yes no okay sounds good sure now man narcissists don't like that because they're gonna bait you they're gonna bait you and they when I tell you when they bait you they they don't play they go forever for everything that's gonna make something else they start making stuff up they go after your friends they draw your friends in it threatening to shame you publicly whatever it is right and so then at some people people take that bait and then the narcissist is like game on you know and they're all got you I got you because when you're fighting they're Fighters that's what they do in fact there was a great research that it came out from Ohio State University Ohio boys and um phenomenal study that came out this year and over over 450 studies they examine and found really strong effects that narcissism is consistently associated with aggression it's a very this is not there's nothing soft about this this is about aggression they want the fight they are always a better fight and they want the fight so they bait you you got to be made a steal don't depend on again it's crazy to not get into the fight every relationship with a narcissist is a threesome you just don't know it because they always need that third person in the relationship whether it's someone gave me the number or someone's noticing me for some DM me or this person is hitting on me they're always trying to and they're always trying to create that sense of intrigue or the idea that somebody is more into them or their or again it's often them creating the jealousy or they be incredibly jealous of their Partners there's a difference jealousy and pathological jealousy there's two different things okay so jealousy is normal jealous we are a actually we're a pair bonded species we human beings we are we we like that we pretty much are about generally normatively have sex with one person people are like no that person cheated on me said yeah they were only having sex with them they weren't having sex with you right there is still sexually monogamous you were on paper in a relationship with them you came you went to the same home but their sex was the someone else okay but we tend to be pair bonded we tend to be monogamous all right so jealousy is a threat to that think of it darwinianly right if if I'm in a if I'm in a relationship and if a threat comes in right normal jealousy is that sort of evolutionary jealousy right I'm with a person if somebody is comes in as a threat to that relationship I've lost the resources and support for our Offspring right that's all that darwinians reproduction pathological pathological jealousy though that starts getting into the realm of things like paranoia and uh oh my gosh and negative mood States and all that like jealousy doesn't feel good but it I I always when I've worked with couples they're like I'm jealous I'm like that's good that means you still got a skin in the game like because when people I've been with people worked with couples and or worked with individuals and they'll say I'm not even jealous when people notice my husband I kind of feel sad because I'm like yeah this thing this thing's kind of oh God I feel like yeah I don't feel jealous I feel like I trust the person I'm with it's yeah but that's what we're talking about pathological jealousy right so I think of my partner ironically on my drive here he's talking about something and about this woman who I knew we were going to see who had hit on him and this dude is so loyal it levels it to a whole new level and I remember thinking in the driver I'm like I got that little funny thing in my tummy okay I I and I'm like huh he doesn't even live in this country and so I'm thinking that's and I was like that's good that's good that I'm still feeling yeah you guys still got a dog in the fight but it doesn't mean you're like letting it stress you out and like the only because we're talking about yeah of course yeah and so the pat what did he saying what's the parent paranoid the pathological jealousy pathological jealousy yeah that's a narcissist that's more of an it's more paranoid it's more antagonistic it's more about you must be doing something you're doing such accusatory it's almost delusional it does okay what would you say again are the main causes what are the main things that happen to cause someone to become a narcissist is it all trauma-based it's no it's it's partly trauma it's also that that temperament it is um chaos in the early environment it's a lack of secure attachment it's overvaluation of the child basically the child can do no wrong and they're so wonderful I mean it's interesting we're about to see something fascinating happen and I don't know how it's going to go down we're about to see because what Facebook's coming up on 20 years soon right we're about to see the first generation of kids who are born into the Facebook world where every moment being documented and shared since they've been born since they were born this is the first time we're going to be seeing this so I bless the people out there who are going to start collecting this data because we now have you know you're going to see what happens if you were because I had kids way before this so I did not the only people saw their pictures were the people actually friends and family put them in an envelope I came over to the house located the actual baby but um this is a this is a whole new game for kids who's who's basically were accessories to their parents lives like look at my child this look at my child this look at my child this every day there's a new place so is it do you think it's okay to share some of your family life on social media and some of your children's you know special moments or do you think we should be protecting our kids at all costs and never show their face never show anything until they're whatever it's a super interesting area there's some actually really interesting thinking and writing about this which is these children aren't consenting to this is are these children consenting to you showing them um have a meltdown or you know we see all these silly child videos and sometimes I kind of feel a little sadness because these things stay Evergreen they didn't agree to that and as much as we say oh no it's so cute is it still they didn't consent it's a vulnerability right so there's some I know some folks in the developmental sphere of psychology saying oh this may not be entirely cool yeah what happens what happens when the kids 23 and they start going back and seeing all the is like things that their mom or dad posted and they're like huh that's not really cool I wish you wouldn't have done that to me but it goes beyond that because even when the child is Young there's this sense of things are done to them without them agreeing to it posing and putting his clothes on and do this and let's post you in a public way and that and then the child also gets this sense of their utility their importance to their parents is their social media Persona you look so pretty in your dress you look so cute in your costume like you're wondering are you costuming your child for Halloween for you or for them or for the validation yeah except for the validation yes exactly and that's tough because I have I have friends who never show their kids stuff and then I have friends who do show their kids and man it's just like yeah how do we how do we navigate that conversation and how do we I I think we're building this airplane in the sky oh man and so the challenge becomes then that I would say it's a it's a balancing act between parents talking to each other both parents but also I think there's a larger issue of how much is the child feeling that their valued validated for being the kid who poses in social media right because what does every child want they want their they want their parents love and attention all they want is their parents love and attention so if they start to recognize that if I'm looking good on social media and Mommy's getting validated then they'll put on the weird thing they want her to wear or do the thing that she wants them to do but what's not happening is that their interests what they value may not be cultivated or everything's a photo op it's as though the child feels that they're constantly on display versus just having a moment where they're being present and mindful and it doesn't all have to be documented that I'm I've been friends with the psychologist I'm concerned about when these chickens come home to roost and they're going to let's say their their parents that are posting about their kids online you know maybe they have a small following maybe it's to a private group of it's the ones that have a bigger following if they were going to be posting and they have a bigger following let's say not to their friends and family what would be appropriate that you think psychologically in a healthy manner to be able to talk about your family and your kids is there a healthy way psychologically that's going to you know I think not mess them up or you know being present with your children emotionally being aware of their needs of not turning them into a performing Pony in your circus do you know I mean again I say this as the mom of two kids right and there are moments when you think well this is the day we're going to take such and such picture somebody's sick someone's crying someone has torn their dress someone is this and if you get angry at them because they've ruined your finely laid plans that child then starts getting that conditional sense of I'm only about this person's finally laid plans listen we all do it we all screw up we all do that conditionality to our kids it's almost impossible to not it's it's how quickly we catch ourselves and say that's not what they want this is not this is we're going to Disneyland because they want to go to saying we're going to the park they want to go to the park not because what a great day for a photo op like I I've been on vacation and I've watched families like practically I mean literally screaming this for I thought grass mask pay attention look here just splash and be Sandy and muddy they're at the beach and it's that kind of obsessive Zeal because all of that social comparison of people wanting to put out the false self and what is narcissism narcissism it's a mask it's always a mask because it's the mask of what they think the world wants the world wants them to look which is why more and more people are looking the same they're getting the same cosmetic procedures they have the same bodies that drive in the same cars they're really sort of shills for this sort of artificial mask that's a narcissist game the narcissism is the opposite of authenticity it's so interesting because um four years ago I wrote a book called The Mask of masculinity which is about and I interviewed a lot of psychologists and and um you know experts on uh on these kind of personality traits and these these masks that men wear and I did I wrote about it because I realized I was wearing a mask a couple of different masks for many different years of my life to protect myself to try to fit in to try to be light and loved by Society um one of them being like the the athlete mask it's like I always had to win at all costs I needed to be number one and if I ever lost or got second then no one would ever love me so at all costs I was like training and developing myself to be the best athlete I could be and I was a horrible loser I was a sore loser I couldn't handle it I would get angry I would be like Moody I would be like frustrated and I'm not good enough I'd beat myself up and train obsessively until I got better and so I could make sure that um you know I could put myself in a better position athletically and there's these different masks that men wear um and I realized that it's all about trying to fit in it was all about men trying to fit in and trying to long but it's it's not the authentic self correct and that I mean that's maybe we'll have a different day I'll come in and talk to you about the authentic self because it's such a big conversation when we look at the work of Carl Rogers right the humanistic psychologist and even other humanists like um Abraham Maslow so these were the big players in that humanistic Universe this idea of authenticity and self-actualization so if you were to view human growth as a mountain self-actualization is the summit it's the top I I can in my lifetime I've met five self-actualized people and it was Unforgettable and they were always older I think it's hard to self-actualize when you're younger and they were deeply authentic I mean like you you did feel like you were in this in the in the face of greatness with them but some of them ordinary like one was a man who was a he was an auto mechanic in Johannesburg and I was like I am in the presence of absolute greatness right now you know that one of that feeling is experience absolute Serenity um I felt that I felt at one with him at one with the situation I felt more calmed down I felt like I could keep listening to him this was a man with almost no education who again he fixed cars in Johannesburg and actually in a pretty in a not in the nicest of surroundings and he was Joy like he was just human joint it's not because he was laughing but he was so proud of what and anyone looking at it like there's not a lot happening here but it was this genuine authentic like please come into my look at my beautiful space this is my life and the other person I met who was same thing joy and that man that Johannesburg man I'm still not in touch with this other man I am and he is somebody who had a moment in his life and he decided to devote his life to um Children and Families living in poverty in India and I worked with the school he was working with in India and I remember sitting with him we were kind of actually kind of sitting next to an open sewer and it smelled like an open sort he's just chilling he's just chilling and I'm like I live I could have sat there all day anyway was hard and there were flies it was uncomfortable and he was magnificent and the the and it wasn't just again the mechanic guy wasn't left there saving the world he was fixing cars this guy happened to be doing something for a very small community in in this Village in India right he was in service the other one was not but there was such a congruence between who they were as human beings and how they conducted themselves and how they were in the world there was no sense if someone has more I want what they have someone's got it better why is that happening how come they got their turn first and I remember when I I I think about them I have the photograph of the gentleman from Johannesburg this other man I'm still in touch with and I I need that to sort of try to get myself recalibrated to my center but again the opposite of narcissism no mask whatsoever they were just in themselves what a life like what a gorgeous life before the interview continues if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life not leaning into your purpose and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of I've written a new book called The greatness mindset and I think you're going to love this through powerful stories science back strategies and step-by-step Guidance the greatness mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today okay let's get back to this video what would be in your mind the key things that an individual would should really focus on seeing or experiencing from the person that they want to date before they say I want to get committed and exclusive with you not before marriage but just okay I feel comfortable enough to be an exclusive committed relationship with you one of those key things you would need to see or experience to make sure you feel comfortable taking that step watch how they respond to stress or frustration if he only had one thing you can do it's that because that's the test right do they start do they become really dysregulated impulsive say really awful things and then you know I was just really stressed out you know because if they did it there they'll always always going to do that because they're on their best behavior in this early dating relationship they'll do it worse you know how are they handling themselves in a in a traffic jam how do they handle themselves when you get to the restaurant and they say oh we've lost your reservation you know because you really are looking for the person who says you know what you up for fast food because there's a place across the street and you know what it could be the dinner where you fall in love with that person over your you know over a year exactly and so but if that person makes a do you know who I am oh let me tell you Yelp review blah blah blah you're gonna be sorry blah blah blah no I mean and I think those those situations manifest pretty early on and the trick is because everything else is sort of new and sparkly and fun people want to say oh they just had a bad day they have bad days all the time especially that early in the game that's just three months of runaway kind of like kind of or not even run away to say yeah just sort of slowly start distancing some people need to see two of those events okay so great there's your you'll get your second soon enough and so I would say that's a really that's a big one um I think other things you want to look at are things like are around equity equitability and balance in the relationship how often are you knocking yourself out for them so in other words you're shaping your schedule to them you're shaping your preferences to them you're giving up things for them and yet they still make it sound like you you give up maybe a I don't know you're you're invited to a old friend's birthday party you know there'd be a girls night out and they doubt your commitment like oh really it's your friends instead of me and then you end up canceling on the friends and you go out with them and they'll say isn't this so much more fun so they make it seem like your sacrifice was actually good for you that's something else you could say oh my gosh really in the game you know and especially narcissistic people do tend to like to control the narrative so they will there will be some isolating happening if you feel that you're not you you don't feel comfortable saying I'm gonna go see my friends or you know this is a I want to spend time alone with my sister or something like that and they pathologize that especially when it's early this is sort of a process for you and if they're trying to Annex all of your time that's a sign too that you need to pay attention yeah if they're trying to take you from your friends and family but sometimes it's not even that obvious it's it's more of a why am I why can't I come um or they doubt your commitment and so it's not as like you're not seeing your friends it's you know you spend a lot of time with your friends like you know maybe maybe this just isn't the right time in your life for a relationship I get that I got that so they play that game and then you're thinking no I'm kind of really into this person I'm not angry at you but they're doing it in a covert way yeah no doubt they doubt your commitment and because people want to prove their commitment right and they know I'm really committed to this okay you know it just I find it interesting that on a Saturday night that's what you chose even though you've told them weeks ago and then you give in so look out for those two things it's interesting because I'm a uh you know I'm every time you say something like this I'm reminded of the past of like okay all these stressful situations but um uh with Martha I talk a lot about Marth on the show because she's been amazing for me but with Martha we we had an experience we went on a trip within the first like month right of kind of knowing each other and dating and we were supposed to go to Vegas um and we had flights booked before whatever reason all the flights that day like got canceled and we couldn't get there for like the event we're going to see an event until like the next morning on the flight and we're gonna miss it and so I'm coming to her kind of bringing some a little bit of this PTSD yeah yeah remnants of like hope she's gonna be okay you know is she gonna be upset this flight this and I'm bringing to say hey the flights are not you know happening we could try to take a later flight um but we may not make it in time for the events what do you want to do let's just drive yeah that I was gonna say if this girl's got it going on humidity oh it's no worries like let's just drive we're so used to people being like well I need first class and I needed this and you know this kind of like don't you know who I am type of mentality she was like let's just you want to drive kind of like fun with it and I was like uh you sure you're okay with that she's like yeah let's go and I was like cool let's jump so we jump we just grabbed our bags we packed we went in and we dropped and had the most incredible five-hour drive there was traffic and it was on a Friday night and it was like whatever stressful but we had so much fun I was like this girl's got something yeah she got something going on and it's and I think when you travel with someone you can see yeah yeah stressful experiences yes I do agree that if you travel with someone you can see a lot and that's what I'm saying that stress can come out there too but I do think it's it's almost a way to create a living lab and create set up a trip in the first three months of the relationship it doesn't have to be elaborate it could be something as quickly it could be a weekend trip it doesn't be like two weeks somewhere watch how they do because I will tell you that's the test somebody who can be chill while they travel done that's that's one it's almost like a final exam relationship yeah yeah before you exclusively commit and again for people to know this doesn't mean you have to have air tickets and this it could really be like a road trip it could be a camping trip it could be any number of things but like a few days where it's really just you and them and there's because when you travel inevitably it's something right and to watch how you manage that it's a great test because if it's a narcissistic person if everything isn't just so perfect and the thing is you got to watch how they they Gaslight try to Gaslight it away if you start getting a little leery on this is not okay they're gonna make it into don't you understand I wanted to make it perfect for you okay I just wanted it to be a great trip you know and and so if because if you might be pushing back and saying you know the way you were acting under stressor I just I'm trying to make it right for you and now you're feeling so guilty because they were trying to make it right for you so I will tell folks this if you're noticing there's some of those early patterns and you decide to distance from this relationship because it feels like there's some red flags don't tell them the why really yeah this ain't you you ain't their teacher their life coach you're you're trying to get out of this relationship because if you tell them the why they're going to Gaslight you they're going to say well I was stressed I'll try to be do something nice for you you're being you're unapprecular you're unappreciative exactly you're sensing a red flag you can make it about yourself and say yeah you know what whatever your reasons are I I think work's getting to be a lot for me or maybe this isn't the right time for me to have a relationship and people say well Dr Romney isn't that a missed opportunity no they ain't listening to you so it really there there if you say to them this is why it'll be Gaslight City and you're going to stay in it because I think people feel like well I need to tell them and maybe they'll improve they're not going to improve that's the radical existence what about if what if someone feels just stuck in a relationship maybe there's narcissistic Tendencies maybe not but they feel stuck in a relationship um what's a good conversation that someone should have with their partner to evaluate where it's at and how they can get unstuck whether there's narcissism or not it's just yeah what your opinions on I mean it's a different it's an it's a different scenario right because I think in a in a narcissistic relationship you're working for survival right so you may not even I have to tell you people in narcissistic relationships may not initially feel stuck they may be like okay it's like the MacGyver of relationship situations like what kind of duct tape do I need to use this thing right so you're doing doing doing where people feel stuck in a narcissistic relationship is when they get in too deep share a place kids marriage that's where the stuckness happens because I think by and large people and then and then honestly there's one big interesting thing with narcissistic relationships is the fear that the narcissist is going to change for the next person because there's a lot of stuff they like about that person they're really attracted to them they have great sex with them they exactly they're charismatic they have shared interest people love them they've got a really amazing career job status whatever whatever it may be there's a lot of magnetic qualities and so that idea that the new person is going to get you know Mr magnetic is actually really overwhelming but in the sense of stuckness it's a it's an interesting issue and it's something I've encountered even with couples I've done therapy with and it's you know listen there's there is the you know there's sort of the kind of the standard advice around like how do you how do you start dating again in this relationship how do you keep that piece of it alive how do you keep giving it some level of priority status how do you make sure you do communicate make the time like part of that is I mean mindfulness has such an important role in human relationships not just Intimate Relationships all relationships everybody's talking about mindfulness mindfulness mindfulness it means paying attention to what's in front of you and that means that it's it can be the littlest things about oh my gosh that's right he had an appointment he had a meeting at two you text him at three like hey how did that meeting go it's just thinking of you that stuff becomes the stuff of the relationship and then saying hey you had a tough one today let's cook this go here pop the champagne it's that idea that someone's noticing you so put mindfulness this can be one piece of the stuckness the other is what do you have shared Vision I mean we talk about this in the workplace all the time but is that there because it's it does and that doesn't even mean there's something wrong with someone if they don't have shared Vision but sometimes if you don't have that that can contribute to the stuckness because you're not working towards a common goal right if you have a company and one person's like I want to sell lots of hand lotion and the other person's like I really Envision us as being a salsa company you're going to be sorry right right right someone's chopping Tomatoes someone's like putting on us all this lotion you're like so you're going to be stuck so it's the salsa hand lotion of it all like one of you may be wanting to work towards family and children the other one wants to travel the world both people are afraid to talk about it and so how do you get unstuck you actually go to the edge of the cliff and recognize that if you open up and they go because that's the fear that fear of Abandonment that fear of being alone that fear of loss that if you can go to the edge of the cliff and say this is actually what I want and can tolerate that early in the game especially if you don't have stuff like kids and commitments and all that where you've spoken your truth and they can say that's not what I want and not personalize it because as kids it's it's almost like the equivalent of bringing our picture to our parents and say look what I drew and the parent not caring or even worse the parents say you're not my kid anymore because that's a bad joke oh my God yeah yeah yeah right and so when the idea that we could bring our truth to someone and they'd say yeah no that's not what I want it's it starts becoming the sunk cost fallacy which kills most relationships right that's the idea of I've already put all this resource into something that's how people get stuck it's the sun cost fallacy and you've got to remember behavioral economics often does have some of these answers you've already put the money in you've got a human experience don't put more into this and so then you have the conversation and I've actually seen some people have beautiful ends to their relationship where they say I you know I still have I this I'm not ready for x or y I don't want to do X or Y that's not the direction I want to go in and they managed to salvage friendships and genuine curiosity in each other and then that and then that's that yeah but it's scary it takes a lot of Courage for someone to end a relationship no matter what type of you know and I wouldn't even say it's ended I think it takes a lot of courage to speak your truth in a relationship it's not even the ending it's saying what I want in this relationship is I want us to set I want to have kids I want to live I want to move out of the city I want to put our Focus there and the other person might say I don't want those things and that's when you say okay then we're on very different paths but it's so easy for me to sit here in a studio and intellectually say this I'm let's say I'm a 39 year old woman that's not the what then what then yeah you know now you're thinking oh my God I want a child this is this is what's in front of me but I'm good then they start doing the math I'm gonna me how many years now I'm 42. is there someone better than this yeah and it's not even like or not even better as much as somebody who's more on my path this is how it happens because we do forget that there is a sort of a biological piece to all of this I mean reproductive technology is changing that and some women out there and I women close to me have said you know what I want the kid I'm not so sure I want the relationship and should I fall in love with someone I don't want to fight with them for over custody so women are having their own children without a partner and saying I now now motherhood's out of the game it's actually easier to date and now I'm going to meet a mayonnaise or he wants a woman with a child or he doesn't if he doesn't he's not my guy but I'll never have to fight this guy for custody of this kid it's a new world and people who are making allowances for not wanting to get stuck in toxic relationship ships are going different path and I know men who have done that too men who have gotten surrogates and said I want to be a father they no they look they find a they find this I mean it's got an egg donor eggs they get donor eggs and they they find surrogates and they're like I want to be a being a father to me was foremost if I meet and fall in love with someone super but I want to be a father it's not cheap though so these are very privileged folks who can do this but the fact is that there are paths forward in a way and I think that the amount of damage Lewis that people being raised in toxic relationships having witnessed toxic relationships may be one of the biggest psychological crises that most people bring into adulthood so I think making how we were raised yes and not breaking the cycle enough crappy blueprints you mentioned the uh the Deep technique uh don't defend don't engage don't explain don't personalize so how do you argue or communicate with a narcissist to get like your point across if you need to get it across uh you don't you don't you can't so the sometimes okay but do we life is meant to be lived in a beautiful way not with them so that we should just rip the bandage you know what I mean not necessarily because we can't right so like I said you know I'll give you an example okay narcissistic divorce family court and family law is not written around saying narcissistic parents aren't good for kids so if you're a parenting of the narcissist we're going to give the other parent full custody not happening yeah State of California 50 50. all right unless somebody doesn't want that so what happens then is a person says if I decide to split up from this person I'm only going to be with my kids 50 of the time and I don't want them with that influence so some people will stay I my favorite is when people file for divorce like the day of their youngest child's 18th birthday I'm like I don't know what that was about you see that happen quite a bit they literally wait till today and then at 18 those kids are free agents so there's no no one can say you have to be here you have to stay here you have to celebrate this holiday with that or anything and they they get to call their own shop so how do you so you do so much you just have to have extreme patience I feel like it's it's beyond patience it's radical acceptance patience is endurance radical acceptance this thing sounds exhausting it's getting it it is absolutely exhausting it's just knowing that this isn't going to change you ever spent time in Chicago I'm sure you have right go to Chicago it's February in Chicago oh it's miserable you running are you going to go for a run in just your shorts and no shirt no unless you're crazy okay yeah why because in February in Chicago it's cold it's radical acceptance yes you just accept it right if your window's Facing East and you don't want the sun to wake you up get curtains radical acceptance you cannot talk to enough so I tell people there's another concept I use is something called True North sometimes you have to get into the argument True North are those things that you're going to fight for because they're so they're they're important to your core values so who you are for some folks it's their kids for some people it may be a cause they believe in or a belief they have or they will not listen to I don't know prejudicial language True North gets activated and they'll say I'm taking the fight they pull off the gloves they pull out earrings and then they're in they're just they'll go at it it is exhausted nothing good happens right but at least they can say I took the fight Dr Romney yeah so I could live with myself right to know that I fought yeah I stood up but but do not get into the fight about the dishwasher or well you know why were you late to the party or why were you rude to my sister or whatever I mean if you keep taking every fight it's exhausting the minute you let go it you know what happens though is when a person finally gives up they're overwhelmed with grief they're like there's no there there's nothing here there's nothing to talk about I can't tell them good news because they make fun of it or they dismiss it I can't tell them bad news because they they get really angry and rageful so all we can really talk about is the weather I'm like that's it but that's I mean what do you do with the rest of your time you cultivate other stuff in your life interests can you actually can you love a narcissist or is it impossible it's a subjective question right love is such a complicated word it would mean something different to you it means something different me it means different things to the people out in the street so the and that's the the bigger question I often get is can a narcissist love is that possible um it depends on besides loving themselves what is cold to you right you're in short sleeves I'm in a sweater yeah you know so it's it's a subjective word so can a PR a lots of people love narcissists they do they're like I love this person I they represent something to me maybe this is where it starts getting to a philosophical question maybe when we love someone it's very it's very it is very representational we love what they stand for we love what we believe they are but we don't know maybe we never know someone enough to love them so you know again that's a philosophical conversation right well when it comes down to it there are people out there who will say I do they'll parents are a great example people have narcissistic parents like I love my mother or I love my father I can't stand them sure but love is much more metaphysical yeah of course right so what's the biggest misconceptions about a narcissist then that they love themselves they don't love themselves oh hell no it's self-loathing this is a disorder of self-loathing all that inadequacy and ugly insecurity they hate themselves but then they put it on other people but I project it onto other people you're a horrible lying disgusting person you make me sick oh my talking about themselves oh my gosh you just want to give them a hug narcissists are miserable they're miserable miserable miserable it's awful I actually say that the compassion we can find in ourselves is people like I want to get revenge on them I say you don't have to they have to keep being them they have to live with it the universe wins on that one like they have to keep being them it is a imagine every day you're comparing yourself to everyone you're thinking they have that and they have that how come I don't have this and how come this and they're constantly anxious they're constantly angry they constantly feel like a victim they feel like everyone is out together that's a very difficult way to live their nervous system must be always heightened too kind of kind of yeah different than their Psychopathic cousins there it doesn't feel it yeah yeah but narcissists really really um it's a very uncomfortable way to live because you always feel like they always feel like they're getting the short end of the stick and so what are the signs then if you're a kid and you've thought one thing about your parents but all of a sudden you're starting to see like oh maybe they might have one parent who's narcissistic what would you be what would you say the main signs if a parent for a kid would be narcissistic I don't think it filed as anyone under 13. I don't even think kids start understanding that their parents are messed up until they run around middle school or High School selfishness inattentive real inattentiveness dismissal dismissiveness um uh devaluation of their emotions shaming them humiliating them expecting them to be like them um devaluing them if they don't excel at the things they want what do you mean you don't want to go to Harvard or like oh you want to go to that college like any kind of contemptuous dismissiveness of their children that's all narcissistic parent Behavior wow rage rage is a big one and I think that's probably the one my clients have brought anger but rage like that walking on actuals if anyone says to me I felt like I was always walking on eggshells around my parent probably dealing with an antagonistic a narcissistic parent yeah I think I was telling you beforehand I was I felt that for a part of my life and then things started to shift but I've definitely walked in eggshells for many relationships yes which makes me feel like why did I uh jump into different relationships where I felt that way which maybe I hadn't learned to heal the past yet or I hadn't learned to but you didn't jump into a relationships you didn't feel it at the beginning it was like six to 12 months later when I was justified then I Justified oh let's just get back to where it was one of the great you're I would say your greatest vulnerability quite frankly give it to me is your history as an athlete athletes are actually at not only great risk of being narcissistic but for falling for narcissists and a lot of that is because for any gifted athlete all you needed to do was work harder you just had to go to the gym or had to run or do whatever whatever it was you needed to do it just meant more reps yes there was always a way to make it better you're gonna you're gonna do the Sunday workout you're going to go to the gym at four in the morning right and so the more in you you have this belief you got better and you were in control so the belief is you could extend that to anyone I just gotta talk talk to them harder I'm gonna I'm gonna be more clear I'm gonna work Friday everything becomes a workout oh my gosh this is what I did in the last 10 years and every relationship for the last 10 years and I remember just being like it would never felt enough and it was always draining to give it was never enough what I gave there was always something wrong with me there's always something to pick at yeah and they never wanted to go to therapy with me I was it was funny because I was like what man you know I don't want to generalize but I was like I'm a guy who wants to go to therapy and get feedback from my like I'm not perfect give me feedback tell me how to improve because I'm an athlete right I'm like I want to improve and they never want to Justice like I I think women would have killed for this you know for a guy who wanted to go to therapy with them another narcissistic woman oh my gosh but that idea of surrender is kind of actually the opposite of what an athlete is conditioned to become right and that's really the core of the narcissistic relationship it's a sense of surrender I'm not engaging with this I'm not doing this it doesn't work and then you just fold it and step away no I was more like I want to make this work what can I do to make it better how can I improve tell me what I can do I'm here I'll support I'll do this and then it just it drains your energy athletes entrepreneurs anyone who's a doer and it's worked for them they're screwed it wasn't until I really started lifting the veil with my therapist talks about is like I started to really realize like okay I don't need to keep working working you talked about this one in your recent videos like the marriage and relationships should be hard work is kind of the narrative and when I realized like it shouldn't feel like it should feel like a commitment and there's attention and presence but it shouldn't feel like this draining hard work no otherwise otherwise I'd rather be single if that's the way it is exactly and I think that that and I have to tell you A lot of people have had a lot of harm done to them in therapy where therapists say to them it's hard work relationship hard work no no no no no no it's not I mean yeah maybe having to say no like having to sit through a football game you don't want to watch I don't know if that's hard work because they sat with watch your French film with you it's just an uncomfortable moment I'm just gonna read my book while you watch your football game like yeah yeah it's we're good yeah it's fine yeah I can show up for a few that's not hard work yeah hard you know if and the other person's kind right again every healthy relationship every healthy relationship has the same core ingredients kindness compassion patience mutuality of regard reciprocity um respect every every every single one and as long as you got that flexibility and flexibility no narcissistic relationship has even one of those ingredients so that's why they don't work they don't work so yeah they're always going to be hard work because you have not one of the essential ingredients like you're trying to make a bake a cake without flour eggs or sugar good luck with that how do you know when you're entering a new relationship if the person is not a narcissist like maybe you've been in a narcissistic relationship where your parent was or whatever it is and you have some pts from those experiences and you feel like well I'm supposed to be walking in eggshells but I don't need to it's kind of healthy like is the shoe gonna drop like when you know the person isn't a narcissist how long does that take to find out about the same amount of time it takes to discover that they are in the sense that the difference is narcissists actually there's red flags right okay I call these green flags green flags mean go and green flags are things like watch the person watch how the person behaves under conditions of stress so let's say that you're running late to the airport great that's a great example of a stress right how are they acting and are they you know they're saying oh I'm a little worried about this but we're gonna make it work and listen what's the worst is going to happen we'll get rebooked and they're calm and like you know listen I'm just glad to be here with you like we'll figure it out yeah we'll go to an airport hotel if you have two friends but we're gonna be fine a narcissist when they're running late to the airport oh oh no no no no no and it just it's just right but it's chaos stress accusations this is your fault entitlement let me speak to the manager get me on that plane get that plane back to the gate that's the narcissist right whereas with the um with somebody you watch them and it doesn't have to be something as dramatic as the airport it could be even something like hey I noticed you've been working late how about I make some dinner so it's the noticing it's the presence it's the mindfulness it's the willingness to be flexible and make compromise when it's needed to meet you halfway to listen to you and more than anything is to also see the growth potential in you so not to be threatened by your own success so if you go to this person and you're like hey you know I got this totally cool new opportunity and the healthy person says that is amazing you have worked your whole life I saw this in you what can we do to make this work for you whereas everybody else not just narcissists but insecure people will say oh I guess that's just going to mean more time away and you're going to be traveling a lot there's going to be a lot of women on the road and you're like oh my gosh they just got the job of their dreams oh my God bringing back so many memories that's the key and I'm a big believer that you know there's actually something and we're I'm going a little off topic but you're off topic guy you can handle it there's something called the Michelangelo phenomenon one person in the relationship sees the absolute potential in the other in such a way that they say what do we need to do to get you to get you to your dream like do we need to should we like should we take a second on the house should we cut back you know should we move closer in like because I see or or you know what could be simple as simple as they eat a cake that their partner made and said okay this is the best cake I've ever had have you ever thought of making this into a business or a partner of yours might have said you ask the most amazing questions you need a podcast like it's seeing that something bigger in the person that's a good thing that's that's the Michelangelo phenomena that's everything that's a good thing it's the best thing and very very few relationships get that because what you've got to do is that person was saying go be your best you is secure enough to say I'm not going to lose you right like I see all the good in you yeah and that and I want the best for you and I want the best for you and I believe in you and I'm here with you and and that might even mean the person encouraging you might have to make sacrifice things like you know I know that you're gonna have to go take this course for six months and I may not see you and that's okay because this is our future together that's the Michelangelo phenomena what's the opposite narcissistic relationship for people who um who have ended relationships with a narcissist or narcissistic personalities um what's the best way for them to enter a new relationship without PTSD or without the remnants of are they gonna lash out on me are they going to Gaslight man they're gonna do these things that I've experienced in the past what's the best way to overcome that and enter a new relationship without bringing that baggage in a new one I when I work with survivors in my practice and when I speak to them in my in a in a subscription like a sort of healing program I've got that people come every month one thing I say is you got a way to beat the Temptation is I'm going to throw myself into a new relationship as a palette cleanser I'm like you know what sit with that dirty palette for a minute because you you need to do this work in you because I think the challenge is is that when people get into narcissistic relationships or antagonistic or toxic relationships they don't know what they're dealing with or they're replicating Cycles from earlier in their life right or both and so what happens is is that it's if you if you pivot too quickly you don't get a chance to sort of know you a narcissistic relationship does such a number on you you have now been living in someone else's reality right if people forget like do I like pepperoni pizza or do I enjoy this TV show or what temperature do I want the house at like you literally lose sight of your own subjective sense of who you are you lose sense of reality or you and your own perception of things you just lose it all because you literally have been living in psychological servitude to this other person so I tell people listen my gold standard is a year give yourself a year which I know is not a short period of time and everyone I'm like you know what take care of your own business but a year I understand that feels like a long time but here's the thing these relationships get so much into someone's head that in a year a person can re-coalesce and they can unpack it and they can start putting down some of the rumination you certainly don't want to do that in a new relationship right you don't want to bring that you don't want to bring that in and you can also learn what you like what you don't like so that when somebody encroaches on that and says they say something contemptuous is oh who eats that and say okay this is not this is not okay I'm not doing this again you can start recognizing those patterns of what just doesn't feel right but if you roll right into it it's almost like a recreation of the old cycle you need that separation you need a break from anniversary dates you need to have that first birthday alone there first birthday alone the holidays you do the vacations you take you've got to go live a life without them and once you because otherwise you're so again caught up you might get caught up in someone else's sort of whole toxic bomb storm so now I know a lot of people say yeah it just feels too long I'm like I got you I get it a Year's optimal and the folks who've done it said I don't regret doing that at all now but for a lot of people might even be eight months nine months but there's a moment Louis after a narcissistic relationship where a person will look up as they go to bed that night and say oh my God I didn't think of them once today that's a good day that's an amazing day and I want not just one of those I want a person to have a month of those a while of those where they're just you know sure something might remind them or something but not that like what are they doing what are they up to almost to the point where you've detached it might even be a moderate indifference like oh whatever you know let them do them if it doesn't like trigger you it doesn't set you off in the same way but I do caution people depending on the severity of the narcissistic relationship sometimes people will report feeling those Echoes years down the line even if they've fallen in love with someone else and some someone will say is that mean I'm not over them not at all it means that the way the trauma systems in the mind and the body hold on to information it means that anything reminds you of that can still activate you I've been through this and I got to tell you to this day I think if I saw some of the people who harmed me in the past I can think of if you have a response oh my gosh and Beyond a response I actually think I would have to I would almost it would be akin to panic and I'm I honestly do not care what happens to those people but if I saw them it would be really upsetting for me it's not that I'm not over it it's just that I it's just my nervous system is just like danger Dangerous get away from this experience yeah interesting wow so you're the optimal is nine months to a year and but it's really more like taking the temperature of allowing your nervous system to heal see if you can have a few days in a row and a month in a row where you're not thinking about that person or it's not triggering you consistently before you enter internet and that you're clear on who you are you're not because in a narcissistic relationship you're defined by the relationship are they happy today are we having a good day are they happy with their lives it's everything is about them right so now for the first time you make things be about you like I'm I'm good like no I want to pursue this job yeah no I'm moving to New York and not like oh is this gonna work you for a minute you and and when you meet your person capital P and it's healthy they might say like ah you know what for about six months we can do this long distance or I can work remotely I'll come to New York we'll figure it out you'll start to see that there's a possibility for compromise but I do think that a lot of people after a narcissistic relationship their tripwire is a bit more sensitive and they may throw back a few fish that are big enough to keep and that's okay I'd rather that they people over correct than under correct and they might say am I and this is where again when I work with clients they'll say am I being too intense about this is this too big and ask nine times out of ten Lewis it's not too big like they're right on point with the thing they're sensing feels red flaggy to them or doesn't feel comfortable or something doesn't isn't sitting well and I'm teaching people listen to that it's so funny you're saying this because uh when I got into my my relationship with Martha my girlfriend now in the beginning I was like listen part of I think I specifically said to her like I kind of want you to run away from me because I want to be so authentically myself that it either draws you into me because you accept and receive who I am or it kind of repels you away from me of like my truth and my vision and my mission and who I am in this world and my being right my what I want to create in this life because I think I gave in so much in previous relationships to please others and to be changed who I was and morph to make sure they were okay and happy which is all my responsibility for for for doing that um but I was like I'm not changing who I am just to make one person uh happy right I'm going to this is who I am if you want if you want to hang out and be friends and see how it goes cool if not that's cool too I'm not going to change myself to try to get you to like me and make you like constantly happy right you know or anytime you're upset at me for doing something I'm gonna stop you know doing it just to make you happy and be an edge right and I'm so glad that I did that well part of me was like probably some PTSD in the beginning where I was like I'm just doing this to protect myself right because I'd rather be single correct then get into a relationship that's unhealthy and that's the key right there I'd rather be single than get into a relationship that's unhealthy and that's the that's because that's that's what people are afraid of yeah and I was like I'll be single the rest of my life if it's if it means I'm not going to be in this type of relationships that I've been in the previous uh and it's creating a new standard for myself you know what I'll allow in and what I want to allow what boundaries I'll create and and making sure that it's in alignment with my partner as well and I'm glad I did that even though in the beginning she's like you might have a little PTSD still I'm kind of glad that I came with that I would call it I was very courageous in my communication about this is my truth and it may scare you away and I have to be okay if you're not correcting it I have to be okay if you don't like me correct and here's like an amazing woman that may not want to be with me and I have to be okay with that yes but it's not giving in anymore right right it's not giving in and I think that that's the key yeah and it was a it was a beautiful experiment for me entering a relationship that way about being honest about this is who I am this is my values this is my vision this is what I'm aligned to and what I'm not aligned to mm-hmm um if this is something you want to explore then let's keep dating and exploring it and seeing how it goes and I think that was a was a beautiful experience for me to witness the receiving of that on the other side and just being consistent with my word you know this is what I want this is what I want and being in that place but um how can we make sure but in the beginning I'll probably say there was a little PTSD reminisce of it how can we make sure we don't bring in that energy is it just waiting for a year and nine months and doing the work on the healing process but how do we not bring any of that past relationship into new relationships when you say bring that past relationship into new relationships what do you think that looks like what do you mean by that traumas of the past relationship there were trigger responses the you know things that you did in previous relationships to protect yourself how do you continue to keep an open heart and open minds and not go back into the default right so one thing I would tell people is don't shame your triggers because I think what people say I don't want to be triggered I'm like nah you know you don't have that line into your sympathetic nervous system it's always going to be quicker than you so you are it is because it's always going to be quicker we have to be aware for example sometimes we even feel it like I know that for people in a relationship something will happen they'll hear something and they'll feel that tightness in their chest that funniness in their gut right the key then becomes is to say okay I am uncomfortable let me hear through that that's where the mindfulness you almost got to try to punch through that let me be present with what they're saying even though you know it's almost like trying to listen to someone in a noisy bar at that point you know when you lean in you're like okay I'm fully concentrating on what this person's thinking it's chaos around me but so that's that chaos that sympathetic nervous system turning on is like the noise in a bar so now you're really leaning in you're looking at them I know when I have that response I literally watch their mouth because I'm like okay I can shape out the words and it almost gives me a totally mindful space to watch them shape the words it's almost like you can think of it in a movie when they go right to someone's mouth and so now I'm really paying attention to what they're saying because the the danger of the trigger is that we we don't hear we're in freeze mode our eyes become wide the whole nine yards we feel that and then we start to name it and say I can feel that I'm getting activated like I did before I've really gotta listen I'm not gonna because we can't you're not going to turn that off that's my point is then people say I've got to wait till I can turn it off I'm like then you're going to be 117 and that's when you're going to start dating again which I'm sure you're going to be you know there's a great dating pool I'm sure no doubt but at that point of the other 117 year olds but no you can't you otherwise you're forever then you're living in the in you're living still living in surface to that relationship and the whole idea is to no longer live in service to your narcissistic relationship to the password to the past relationship so the trigger then becomes to me triggers our communication your nervous system is saying whoa something dangerous is happening and you're kind of saying I get it I need to listen this is new because when you think of what post-traumatic stress is right it's a programming so if you use a classical example I know a person got into a an accident on a particular stretch of the freeway right so they avoid that road right and let's say then one day the Uber driver takes that road and their heart is racing because is that that's almost been sort of imprinted in but you know what you go down that road enough times you set you don't let the racing Hearts say I can't go on this road something terrible is going to happen you say okay I'm going to tolerate this maybe you have someone in the car with you the first time so it you can't stop living but you you can also hear those triggers happening and in the new relationship give yourself permission to communicate not say like I'm being triggered and I think you're cheating on me that might be a little heavy and say you know I need a minute I you know in my past X and Y happened so at these moments I know it just it takes me a minute can you it's hard for me my trust was betrayed so I'm going to need time to build that trust I always say that in some ways people coming out of narcissistic relationships are at an incredible Advantage because if you can really be honest with yourself about saying I'm going to ask for what I need and if this person ain't gonna give it then maybe this isn't my person and time is a big one narcissistic relationships are usually like this fast fast fast right let's do this we're in love this is the best thing ever let's move in let's do this let's go to Paris for three years like whatever kind of over-the-top stuff but time is usually a way that people can build trust you can see that there's a new way to respond a loving kind person will say we're good we're going to take this really really slow if if you need that because then that's telling you that this person's hearing you on one of many things you need someone in an intimate relationship to do and maybe because I'm older I say the I think and say these things is that you know this forgive me this is going to sound so off color but I'm just going to say it is the um I call it the wiping test I need you to look at this person you know everyone's young and beautiful and dating I want you to fast forward to your 85 or maybe 90 and you've you've snapped a hip or something this person going to wipe your ass and be loving about it and if the answer is yes it's probably a keeper but if you think like this person's gonna sneer or doesn't want to be in the hospital no not your person and I know that but if you're really thinking you're going to go the distance with this person are they going to stay up all night with a kid who has diarrhea are they going to wipe your are they going to be okay if when things are no longer okay because that's where narcissistic relationships fall apart when real life comes along so try that I'll tell you now ain't no narcissist and we're going to wipe you around I promise you that right now yeah I think Esther perel talks about the difference between a love story and a life story or a love partner and a life partner right where it's like you could have romance and adventure and you know crazy sex with a love partner right but are they going to be a great life partner for you during these times you're talking about correct there's also kind of like the someone else mentioned this I can't remember who the the 10 000 meal test do you want to have 10 thousand meals with this individual if every other meal they're exhausting to be around and they're ungrateful and they're gaslighting or whatever they're doing do you want ten thousand of these I love that for the rest of your life like can you imagine sitting down for 10 000 meals at this person so that's why I think 10 000 meals life story you know all these things I think are great but I feel like I'll speak from example I used to get caught up so much in the passion the excitement the chemicals of the early relationship moments right I used to think this is incredible this feeling this love right and then six months nine months 12 months it's like you start to unwind and realize well what are do we have the same values and are we in alignment of what life looks like together in our lifestyle and then you try to I try to make it work right so it was always out of alignment from the start and you mentioned something off camera about you know when we find someone who is quote unquote boring um that's a great sign especially for people of histories of trauma yes I mean I think that for some folks you know it's the it's the again the the activation the trauma Bond the the sort of hot and cold is what equals love that I need to earn love that I constantly have to feel like I'm running faster and faster on the treadmill becomes equated with love that's the love equals chaos kind of thing so the person where it's kind of like some healthy life it's not that flatness though and I think I even hate the word boring words as much as it's not qualitis right it's calm it's all yeah is calm is those are what long-term relationships look like but I think people they want they want the chaos becomes is equal it's not even that they want the chaos it's that chaos equals love they want love so what I'm hearing you say the ultimate experiment in a relationship is when both parties are seeing the Masterpiece in each other in a supportive of each other and when one is succeeding uh a person I'm with right now she's incredible she's just a walking success everything she does is just successful I'm so happy for her I want her to succeed I'm like this is amazing let's celebrate you and she's happy for you she's happy for me she admires the work I'm doing she admires the mission we're on to help people and uh she's like what can I do to support you it feels interesting I mean it feels beautiful it is beautiful I mean that's the key though because that ability to sort of code like you know again to have that that um that co-located growth that Michelangelo if you will you're in essence you're you're realizing the statue from the raw piece of marble every day and you're both sculpting in that fruit because but that that's again no narcissistic relationship is like that and with a narcissistic relationship it's really the them show like everyone is just sort of in the audience watching them and celebrating them they can so they can be the only great one in a relationship really is it possible that two narcissists would be in a relationship together I actually love when that happens because it kind of gets together supply for everybody else here's what it is are very volatile relationships they're very superficial relationships a lot of people who are power couples that sometimes what you're seeing like this kind of they're all about the they're only about the aspiration they're not about the empathy but in any relationship with two narcissists as soon as somebody doesn't stay in their Lane so let's say one classical Trope of two narcissists in a relationship very one partner very wealthy very powerful very successful the other one very beautiful looks good goes places with this one looks good with them it all looks good together each other like ish compliments a strong word the first time this one though might look someplace else because this one's a narcissist person this person the powerful one it's a narcissistic May notice someone else this person's gonna blow up because they're they're doing their beautiful thing full time and they're like how can someone be more you're not looking at me obsessive then and that can be all the attention lots of jealousy lots of volatility lots of meaning lots of egocentricity lots of on social media it's like I'm so blessed hashtag love my person hashtag best relationship ever I'm I mean I I laugh when I see like some like oh yeah there we go you know another nurse is super narcissistic relationship where it's all about advertising the relationship but it's very superficial very volatile no empathy there's no depth to the intimacy it's almost transactional that that's what happens when two narcissists get together I honestly would be fine with all the narcissists pairing up like Noah's Ark as long as none of them have kids because that's a reason you're a mess yeah you're traumatized it's a really empty way to grow up those kids that grow up either they either become incredibly anxious as adults or they become narcissistic as adults it's not a good it's not a good look I don't know if I'm inspired by this conversation you're really depressed yeah how many what's the percentage how many uh what's the percentage of people in the world who are narcissists do we have that even okay so here's here's where it gets interesting so let's let's start with something we haven't talked about yet so give me a way to talk about this a lot of people use the word narcissistic the term narcissistic personality disorder I actually think it's phenomenal that you haven't been using it because it's a mistake to use that language and I'll tell you why narcissistic personality disorder okay so lots of people out there will say oh I'm in this relationship where I've got this boss and they have narcissistic personality disorder I'm always like slow down sister okay because narcissistic personality disorder like all diagnoses require a full workup a lengthy clinical interview it even takes me I'll be honest with you if I have a client in my office it usually takes me four to six sessions to be confident that that's what I'm dealing with the disorder because you could have narcissistic personality traits because it's different than anything different and it gets into the weeds in terms of diagnostic stuff you don't want it to be like more like when I'm triggered I have nauseous it's more complex than that because it's that in order to give someone a diagnosis and the diagnostic and statistical Manual of mental disorders the DSM in order to give someone a diagnosis the person who's showing the symptoms has to either be uncomfortable themselves like we call it subjective distress so like depressed people are like they're like I'm miserable I can't I'm miserable I'm sad all the time I can't get out of bed that's subjective distress or they have to have something called social and occupational impairment meaning that the symptoms are getting in the way of their lives in a way that they're aware of right it's causing problems for them where this gets dicey with narcissistic personality is that first of all a lot of narcissists are on top of the world they think their lives are great I'm I'm the one I'm the guy I'm I'm you know it's working I'm the best look how great I got money I've got success I've got the girl whatever it is it's working so everything's working for them so that's no subjective no yeah social and occupational impairment now in some cases they may be having trouble at work and then yeah sure they'll meet that Criterion but for a lot of folks just walking around in the street they're making they're making bank at work they got they got a partner and a side piece like everything's working out for them so they don't even think they're having that impairment but what they're doing is they're blowing up other people's lives oh yeah we as therapists cannot issue a diagnosis of social we can't say that they have social and occupational impairment because they're someone else is bothered by them make sense yeah it has to be in the um it has to be that the person is saying ah I'm not I'm not going to work on time or I got a DUI those are examples of social and occupational impairment or behavioral impairment I personally think they need to get rid of the diagnosis I think it's worth nothing it's a diagnosis with no treatment so why would you have a disease that you can't treat there's no point to that so let's okay so now let's go to the numbers because the the epidemiological studies are studies that tell us the number of people or the percentage of people who have a um mental illness a given disorder gotcha so the epidemiology statistics on narcissistic personality disorder put the rate somewhere between one and six percent okay because people who are diagnosed with this okay so they've gone into research most people aren't diagnosed because they would never come in and do these sessions and so this morning the million dollar question how many do you think this is my number this is the doctor Romney number yeah okay I'm going with 20 to 25 oh of the world or of the US or the world one in five to one in four one in five is probably and I'm saying adults let's take the kids yeah okay so 18 and above 20 that would make it one in five and I would tell you in a major Metro like La I'm going to 25 I think that just the pressures of New York especially New York L.A L.A being an entertainment city um the nature that sort of the the it's a company town and The Business of the town is very superficial and very validation seeking so I'd say 25 here so that's one in five so buddy if you know five people one of them's narcissistic when do you know someone is not a narcissist what are the the qualities they possess empathy kindness respect flexibility self-awareness um the capacity to reflect on their impact on other people um uh emotional regulation managing this is more of the emotional regulation like managing negative States like frustration and disappointment um genuine curiosity about others setting goals from an internal space rather than what they think the world expects of them Strong having a strong sense of identity um a sense of who they are having a having a solid sense of values um a conscientiousness agreeableness these are the things that make a person not narcissistic it's nice to be around those two people oh they're so good and I I feel blessed I have I have a fair number of those in my life but I'm very careful like I curate my world the way some people curate their closets like I don't I and I've made them aside it was recently this year I've let more than a few in so it happens narcissistic friends in yeah I'm getting you know and I gotta tell you it just means that people have been through what's called narcissistic abuse or all the negative psychological impacts of being in a narcissistic relationship one thing I work with people on is just narrowing their social world like it's it's unfortunately a one in five what are the odds right they're pretty darn good you date five people one of them and depending on what swimming pool you're pulling these people out of it could be one in three so even you you've attracted people in your life 100 and I know what my vulnerabilities are whatever my my personal vulnerabilities are things like a um I devalue myself I feel like I'm not enough I um pity people kind of easily and so narcissists actually are pitiful people and that pity can sometimes drive me to say maybe I should try harder so at this point in my life I'm closed off in a way that actually sometimes makes me feel guilty and I'm like yeah that if that's if that's the price of Poker I'm good like I don't I I've been through too much too many times at this Rodeo that I don't want to do it so it's definitely my own lack of um valuing of myself is what's made me vulnerable to nurses if I boiled it down to one simple thing is that I feel like I'm not good enough because I feel like I'm not good enough I let those kinds of people in so what I found unfortunately is that it's just better off to close the gates and um unfortunately yeah that's kind of the downstream effect or I mean would you say the greatest defense against attracting narcissism is to fully love yourself it's to fully love yourself to be do deeply authentic I consider myself authentic-ish authentic adjacent but I know I've got a ways to go because I still struggle with the monkey on my back of feeling like I'm I'm not enough kind of really yeah and I know that and that's my work on my in my own therapy on that consistently and um but it's a I know where my barriers are so anything that pings that it's it's great it's interesting I've got my staff is fantastic I mean and they're much younger than me this is what's so remarkable about it they actually act like guard dogs they're like we feel like one's coming no and I'll be like I kind of feel bad for them like good for you go feel bad in another room we're not letting them in so they're they're I mean there these two are gangster I mean they're the two most amazing young women yeah what's the key to learning how to love ourselves fully so that we don't so that when we see someone coming in we just say no we're okay we don't need to let you into our life so let's go back to the Carl Rogers the humanist I was talking about before it's to lift the condition editions of worth from our lives that we are lovable and cherishable simply because we are I mean we could get totally into a different conversation about we're all made of energy who judges energy right like you know we're all lovable because we're the stuff of life you know where and that makes us beautiful and lovable we're and so it's who said this Carl Rogers talks about conditions of worth Dr Romney says and many others I do believe say we're energy like who judges energy it's like judging the sun I guess we do like we were sunscreen you're right right what I mean like it's a these conditions of worth like whatever people say to themselves I'm not attractive enough I'm not smart enough I'm pretty rich enough I'm not accomplished enough I'm not this enough I'm not that enough that those conditions of worth if I'm I would be lovable if as soon as you put love and if in the same sentence you're screwed wow so it's very much like dropping all that and saying you're lovable because you are everyone is lovable everyone is cherishable all of us not because somebody's more beautiful or somebody's more famous or somebody's more attractive it's not or or rich or something like that but it's hard because we're given the message of you're better if you look this way act this way do this way live here drive this it's it's a lot to break out of and so I think that um and those narratives even go deeper than materialism it's almost like as a kid many kids were were taught were they almost felt like you grow up with a parent who's not attentive in any way or not interested of well I'm not they're not paying attention because I'm not interesting I'm not enough and I get attention when I excel in something that they like and so let me do more of that to get more attention exactly and if I lose at that then they're not going to love me yeah that's exactly right so it all becomes like people think like if I do these things then I can be loved rather than you're just lovable and so that's the um that's where people most people lose the plot and and I think the other piece those people don't understand narcissism I think that a lot of people say oh come on now everyone can change or some uh just they I I just gotta get to know them better or they don't really mean that we enable it we justify it but if people really got to learn like no that's unacceptable that tantrum they just threw not okay that that that entitled Behavior not okay I and honestly get to the point where I don't care why they're behaving like this they're behaving like this so how do you create boundaries with the narcissist it's not easy I mean I think that the narcissistic people the the key with a narcissistic person is to detect it early set boundaries early because then they get interest disinterested and they walk away right you're not an easy Mark anymore right so charm and Charisma come walking in the door I think I'm the only person in the world who's telling people if you meet someone charming and charismatic run away like get away from them this is dangerous but there's some people that are charming and charismatic who aren't narcissistic yeah but I I'm like I'm I'm All About throwing the baby out with the bathroom [Laughter] so it's a um because Charming charismatic people I would say then always make sure they have humility there you go if you have the humility back that's the Unicorn that's the Unicorn that's when you're like they're charming and they're okay and they're humble humble and they're all they're all that they're incredible and they're like listen you know I'm great can you just tell me about you a little bit talk a little bit about you um there's a that's a keeper in your life yeah that's a keeper or they you can see how they're talking to other people their interest in other people they're not talking down to people maybe because let's say they're in a service position they care that evening right that they're not and not in a smarmy like uh the server is my best friend but like they're not like that it's none of that it's really like oh let me wait for the server to come along and see if I can get or what I mean they're just really they're present in a situation they're not elitist they're not status conscious that kind of humility you know that they don't brag you know that they're all that and they're not going on about how all that that they are that's cool they're not talking about oh let me tell you about my new this and my new that and this accomplishment and my nah they're they're just they're actually able to be with you be present with you it's rare because again people who are that hyped up they're hyped up from all sides you have to be really resistant authentic self-actualized to not to not drink the Kool-Aid yeah what else do we need to know about narcissists is there anything else you think that's important for us I one in five of your friends is a narcissist again if we're using this number of 20 okay which I don't think is a bad number to be honest with you I think that just inter I mean it's it's a spitball number and it's just sort of boiled boiled up in this world and it may be uh Urban myth I don't know it's hard to get good data on this right you know it's it's the assessment of narcissism is one of the hardest things in the business of measurement and psychology because who's going to be honest about it right there's all these back doors we try to do to figure it out but I'd say the other things I'd love to talk a little bit about what happens to a person who's been in a relationship with the narcissist tell me because I think that we've been talking we've been so much focus on the narcissist the question is what if I've just been through this is there a sense of pts that you're gonna face a lot of pts you'll see it's a there's confusion self-doubt a sense of powerlessness helplessness sometimes even hopelessness anxiety a lack of not feeling motivated anymore sort of sense of like I can't be bothered with life rumination regret something we call euphoric recall you remember the good parts of the relationship and say why can't we have that part again no because that part wasn't really it wasn't real it was like this explosive of it's with people have physical symptoms they have trouble sleeping because of the rumination they um they might find themselves engaging in less behaviors that are involved like self-care behaviors we call them like things like um working out or eating well or even taking their medications on time they just almost let themselves go because being in these relationships is just basically like completely being you know overwhelmed by them so people aren't in good shape when they're coming out of these relationships because they're going to start beating themselves up how could I stay in this what was I thinking an idiot you know worst part it's the self-blame and the self shame because the self-blame is this is my fault I'm the one who stayed I should have known I'm I'm in and then I'm a fool and then they a lot of people go back right so here why because they think let's talk a little bit I want my whiteboard yes so let's talk about the narcissistic relationship cycle okay step one is something called I'll write it down I'll lift it up I love bombing okay okay love bombing is that big seductive exciting experience that happens early in a relationship the we have a magical connection let's have a picnic on the beach wild and crazy sex texting for 12 hours straight good morning princess good night my darling uh let's take a vacation for our third day I want you to meet all my friends I'm So Into You let's move in after a month my lease is up love bombing it's exciting it's intoxicating it's seductive and what it does it's a narcissist ground game that's how they're able to get you to not notice all the red flies because you're so focused on the 10 dozen roses on your doorsteps for the unreal and sex you're having or these amazing like constantly being these text messages or being going to San Francisco on your fourth date you know and you're thinking like okay right the minute The Narcissist knows they've got you when you kind of let down your guard because some people are like this seems too good to be true and then like okay I love you too all right I I I'm boom that's the day I got you devaluing starts okay now devaluing is characterized by invalidation little digs like um oh gosh you know my ex-girlfriend could cook um or oh my God you know it's like the digs it's it's little it's subtle you're like where did this go like where's where's this because it's not feeling so good and people in devaluing are confused as heck they're thinking how do I get back here now they start blaming themselves because it was this now it's this it must be me oh my gosh you're going through my life right now okay we go to something called the discard now the discard is not always a breakup is this where like they won't speak to you for two weeks the silent treatment it's the um it's the deeper level manipulation it could be infidelity it could be significant lying it could be um even sometimes even the other person leaves the relationship at this point like the not narcissistic personally like I'm out I'm out I can't do this and then comes the phase oh my gosh called hoovering hoovering is when the narcissist tries to suck you back in they don't like to lose and in the majority of cases once after the discard you back try to rule you back love bombing part two now love bombing part two is never as heavy as love bombing part one it's always love bombing light the second time around but it'll be like seductive it's a baby what was I thinking you're the best thing that ever happened to me this could be because they've cheated on you right and they say things like you're so much better and you know what people fall for that because that's that triangulation Dynamic that idea very edible that you're the favorite Child that you're the favored one and the hoovering is choosing you then in the part of the hoovering is a dynamic called You're Gonna Love this one it's blank guess after what you the way you've been feeling future faking okay future faking is uh no as soon as this deadline is done we're going to or I'm going to get therapy or I know let's just put it off for another six months for sure I'm gonna do it then they keep moving the goal posts and future faking is what keeps people in the game because they're like they're almost six months we're gonna have kids we're gonna have kids for sure you know like I just need to get my career established and now you're 50. and you don't have kids or we're gonna you know we're gonna definitely move closer to your parents I know we had talked about moving back there and I know you said there's some better opportunities for you years you're waiting or I'm gonna get into therapy I'm going to work on these anger issues and then if you push it God you know what you're really impatient you're Vic you are not a nice person interesting what I'm going through my life and I need time and yeah that's the cycle of every narcissistic relationship not everybody gets hoovered okay sometimes the narcissist moves into something else and then they they're done and so people sometimes feel bad if they're not hoovered they're like what's wrong with me it doesn't always happen and consider yourself lucky I always say the lucky or not hoovered because then it goes back to Echo the cycle goes again and again and again so what is hoovering again hoovering is when they try to woo you back in seconds and they'll do that if let's say they're the one who left you okay and you finally you start getting your life in order and maybe you're dating someone else and they find it that's when they want you back they just want to mess your stuff up or you're in a good place they don't want you happy because they don't like losing and they don't like the idea of anyone else winning it's all about domination oh my gosh so I tell people like maybe you could get a good before you get in too deep but if that happens where they'll give you like a month or six weeks or two months of Love bombing on you and then you're like you know what I'm not in the right place this isn't for me like it's not you it's me I'm not ready they're gonna get mad so either way once you get it once you go on the first weekend love bomb Extravaganza you're you're kind of sunk yeah because and they're they actually get out there yeah they want to get out the first weekend you want to get out listen here's an interesting tell on narcissistic people and it applies more in La than in a place like New York they um they they drive really badly they drive dangerously they cut people off and they come up on their bumpers and they cut people off on the freeway and that's actually been uh documented so a narcissist is a bad driver bad driver dangerous driver not bad not like dumb driver fast cut people off Hong Kong Road lazy driver I have this uh I don't know if I want to call it a formula but just some steps that I've been developing through my own healing journey and reflection of previous relationships and now being in a very I would call conscious healthy relationship I would love for you to either pick apart or validate or add to or whatever you want to these kind of steps that I've been putting together myself that I think have helped me in this transition towards what to create when stepping into a relationship the first one is for a conscious healthy relationship the first one is you working on your healing Journey before you get into it or if you're into it start it while you start the relationship being in a healthy focusing on a whole healthy body mind spirit and soul healing the past and being on that Journey step one without that I feel like it's not a strong Foundation right because you're going to be more susceptible step two is I don't know if this for me feel free to pick a hole at this step two would be to do the love language test with the person you're dating and to see if you're in alignment with the way you receive and give love naturally um I think in previous relationships for whatever reason I chose women that didn't receive the love that I naturally gave they liked acts of service and Gifts where I was like I don't care about giving someone a gift because that doesn't it's not value for me I like praising someone and touching someone words of affirmation yeah and touching them and giving affection and telling them how much you know I appreciate them like but they wanted a gift to feel loved because that was their blueprint so I was always doing something that was more work for someone to feel loved and in the current relationship we have like identical love languages in order so we both naturally show up who we are and feel loved by the person so it's just less friction I don't have to think I need to buy a gift or I need to do this every week right I normally wouldn't want to do that's number two number three four and five is getting clear with your honest truth about your values your vision and your lifestyle yeah kind of like what you were saying like if you're if your values are out of alignment it's going to be challenging if your vision is you know I want to make hot sauce and you want to make shoes you know we have a different shared vision of our relationship and if you want to live in the city and I don't live in the country with the lifestyle there's going to be some friction there um number six uh for me this is this was a non-negotiable entering this current relationship maybe this is too tough but for me I was like we need to enter a relationship in therapy and start the relationship in therapy so that we can communicate in a conscious way with a third party about agreements you know there's going to be things that come up there's no perfect relationship you're going to have a different lifestyle this and this but can we create agreements together so there's alignment on our communication our agreements to just minimize some friction not have expectations but get clear in agreements and the standard we both have and then with that going through those first six things choosing to fully accept the person for who they are once you've gotten clear on all these things over a period of time saying okay I'm not expecting you to change into a potential in the future but do I accept who you are from your values your vision your lifestyle your your healing Journey we're doing therapy together um can I accept this person my girlfriend she's an actress so she does movies she's on set she's kissed guys on movies in the past and maybe she will in the future I had to be like do I accept this is who she is yeah yeah or am I going to need to change her and say you can't do this correct correct so I said I fully accept you you know and um and this process has been very powerful for us I'm sure from my personal experience what's worked for me is there anything that you would poke a hole in or add or remove from these kind of seven things that I've been you know kind of playing with myself so it's almost like I'd make a Step Zero okay give it to me and the Step Zero is addressing Legacy issues in your own traumas and all of that right because this the word healing is so ephemeral and it's so sort of non-specific but when I think of hundreds probably not thousands of people whose narcissistic abuse in Intimate relationship stories I've heard it was a they went into the relationship and actually I take that back because some folks enter this relationship confident as can be it's not like they entered in in deficit territory but it was first a lot of people for many people their own backstory shaped what they thought they even deserved in a relationship and I will tell you this in that part of that Step Zero is how do you reconcile yourself with societal messages you had said something earlier that made me think about this too which is this idea of the romance and how we view relationships early on we're very programmed whether we like to think that we are we're not we can you know everyone brings up the Disney movies but it's beyond Disney movies it's about what a love story is supposed to look like what a at least a heteronormative relationship is supposed to look like um you know we have these and this is where we get this idea of a gift like what do you how many people say you mean he didn't give you anything for Valentine's Day and I've had to say that I'm in a relationship but I said if he brought home something home for Valentine's Day I would slap that man silly because I think what are you wasting your money for a fool but the day after the candy's off 50 so you're welcome to go to CVS and grab me a boxer so it's because your value was something different right yeah so and and so it's that but but beyond that is that we get this message of what it's supposed to be and when it's not that we think well there's got to be something wrong with me and so I do think that it's a it's there's some there's some pushing back on existing sort of societal messaging there is being aware of One's Own Legacy issues what are you trying to work through one's own history of trauma and those kinds of adverse experiences from early in life to me those are sort of like the Step Zero before the step one so being aware of those things talking to your partner about them or just I know I think that's the word Step Zero is almost like before you ever yeah any part and part of me is thinking you know the healing journey is being aware of those things addressing them you know reflecting on them and then starting to integrate it some type of therapeutic healing process and I think that I would say is this going back to that societal message is the abyss it all I think a lot of people would hear a list like that and be like homie you're high like if I do this I am going to be alone for the rest of my damn life but I was willing to do that you were and I felt so much suffering inside from the pain I was like I'd rather be alone with a cat and dog correct be peaceful right then be in a relationship where I have to you know give up who I am every day and walk on eggshells but that means that people have to understand that giving up who I am means that they value The Who I Am that that's actually something to give up and I think that what what I'll I wish this happened in school I wish that a significant part of the curriculum was on the who am I what am I about what do I stand for what matters to me what are my values I gotta I got a text from my daughter two days ago she's in in college right now still trying to figure out her major and she texts me and she's like Mom I decided I'm going to pursue a career in the Arts and I I was like that is absolutely magnificent and she texts me back said no mother ever do you realize that I'm probably never gonna have a lot of money I said girl I've been broke until I was 50. so I said and I wasn't happy so I said if you wake up every day excited about what you do you're good and so what my daughter was doing was she was unfurling herself in front of me now in side am I thinking like you know rice and beans okay yeah you could do that you could do that that's all but you know what if you're doing what you love that rice and beans in that studio apartment is going to be A-Okay it's gonna feel like a filet and cheese loved you know that this is not like how dare you take this expensive education just you are loved and I want you to be you and I want you to find your path you know that's definitely not how I was parented you know and that's not how a lot of people we're loved if you do what we tell you you're loved if the word doctor is in front of your name they're like I don't care what damn way you get to that you're gonna be a doctor here's the funny thing you the doctor's in front of your name do you feel loved or did you feel loved after you've got that accomplishment um no and I think I became the wrong kind of doctor I think they had the whole MD thing in mind but you know I also understood where they came from as immigrants in the generation they came they really did believe they said no one in this country is going to take you seriously you know so when they look at your face so they said at least with the doctor you're going to get a little respect when they say your name so I'm like okay I could work with that out but the fact is I did think like oh they're going to love me more if I do this no they had their own story but I think that for and I'm bringing in my daughter is like she's trying to figure out who she is who are you what do you stand for and that that idea what are your personal values like we I I do leadership training with folks and you actually they actually take a values deck of cards and you realize like whereas you're you're if you and I did that actually we could do that one we should have that episode I should bring in my values let's do that for sure I'm going to bring them in and we're both going to do it and then I think you put your top 15 and you take a look at them right and so ours are going to be completely different and yet I adore you you're a friend of mine all of that but we'll have very and you know what I'm gonna get your own deck take it home do it with Martha well it's funny you say that because before we got committed and maybe you think I'm high because these these things were like important for me because I was like I'd rather scare her away from being intentional about my communication and my values and my vision and who I am or what I want to create in this world than attract someone on a false foundation so I want to push back on your language then I want to scare her away how interesting that you still scare her away but make sure that we're the right match right but if you're you're like but let's language matter I'm going to scare her away the real Lewis is scary is sort of that and that's right right you know that's sort of there's a certain ingrained assumption that if I me that is going to scare her rather than simply I'm going to show her the real me and let's see if that's a fit so I hear someone conscious bias I like that I like that I like that I'll start correcting myself that's good um so I wanted to share her with the real me and be honest about all these things that I wanted to create in my life unapologetically let's say that I want to be Unapologetic about what I wanted to create and so before we got together you know got into a committed exclusive uh you know dating experience we had we had an amazing few months already like so many trips and things and it was just like peaceful right and so I took it to Sedona and I took her up a a Vortex right like this kind of Little Mountain vortex in Sedona and I had uh a workbook for us a journal and I gave it to her I put some music on and I said listen I want to do a values exercise with you good for you it was kind of like the value deck but I said I want you I put some music on some gentle music we're up the Sun is setting we're on this energy Vortex I said I want you to be so honest and authentic with what your core values are and risk is list as many things that are part of your values in your life you know and I take five ten minutes right I'm not going to look at it I'm not gonna uh you know you do your thing I do that she writes it I then I I said give me a blank piece of paper and I take it and I do the same exercise and I said now I want us to look at them side by side without a bias without me seeing it first and then me writing down the same things because I want you to think I have the same values are we in alignment you know is there alignment not Perfection is there alignment sure and 80 of the things we wrote down were the same right and the 20 that was different it was like okay cool that's nothing against that here and nothing against here and it felt just more organic right it felt because we were honest about it right I don't think there were many relations in the past where I talked about values and vision and lifestyle until it was too late correct that's breaking down and it's like this frustration and we're like what are we doing right but we've already chemically bonded and we've already like gotten deeper into a commitment and you're like well we just lacked the I guess emotional courage or intelligence to have those conversations early and I just don't think a lot of people live their lives from that exam and standpoint like what are my values what do I stand for if you're like what do you mean what do I stand for I can't afford gas you know and so that and I understand that right I'm surviving you are surviving but there are certain things you that you're willing to fight really really fight for and be and that you actually do need you know like for some people for example spirituality May really matter you cannot minimize that and if a person from spirituality matters enters into a relationship for someone who doesn't it's not an indictment of either of them but that may not be a language they can use with each other which might leave both of them frustrated but there's then there's some things that you're not going to fully map on to someone else someone may say I'm very comfortable with your spiritual world I'm simply not going to participate in it and then that will work and they'll say there's a I can see how joyful it makes you but what the struggle here though the main sort of pushback I'm gonna have on your list is your list is predicated on two healthy people that's why Step One is both need to be healing yeah and so we both need to be in a therapeutic journey together that's why for me it's if one person is working on their healing journey and doing some type of therapy consistently with accountability and emotional intelligence and integrating that process and the other is not I feel like it's going to be challenging that's why it's going to be impossible that's why I said enter the relationship in therapy which again this is maybe hard for people to do I think it's great to enter a relationship in therapy it's just not a typical third date activity hey I'm kidding instead of going out for dinner you want to come to there this is after a few months still I didn't think that there's some there's some there's a business for me to open like third date therapy but here's the thing what's the alternative getting in a relationship we're 50 you know get go through divorce within however many years and then those that stay together more unhappy and then you're suffering and you're feeling trapped and you feel stuck and it seems like very few in their first marriage make you know create a peaceful thriving life with you know challenges and bumps along the way but it just seems like it's rare and so if you want that if you want a healthy thriving long-term committed relationship not perfect but a healthy one I mean I feel like it's rare you got to do the ex the extreme or the different things that people never done I don't know right but you also have to Value yourself and that's the work right is for a person to be able to say I am valuable and once if a person can get there all relationships in some ways are have a Fighting Chance not toxic ones but because they do value themselves so they're willing to set a boundary they're willing to extract from unhealthy situations they're they are they're Mindful and aware of what another person you know they're self-aware they're able to and also aware of another person and and can make judgments and statements and all of that about the you know in in an informed aware Manner and then above all else they have empathy right in either you got it or you don't and in the absence of empathy your whole your whole system goes away right without that this this stuff empathy yeah and I think that there is you know I think that a lot of people right now in the world are engaging in pseudo healing and I think it's just narcissistic Naval gazing and they're actually not really healing what does that mean I think is that they're they're they're doing whatever they're doing like I meditate 70 000 five times a day and I do mindfulness this and I Ayahuasca that and blah blah blah blah and they do all of that but they're still really going through the world in a rather monstrous entitled dismissive contemptuous way but it's sort of like you know what I call Healing porn or recovery porn like look at my recovery I'm so recovery-ish and it's like a spiritual bypass exactly it's a spiritual bypass and that that gives me pause so you can't even just say oh they're doing all this work on themselves I don't care how much work they're doing on themselves how are you showing up what's your thoughts on plant medicine as a professional you know in terms of a a therapy in terms of helping people heal right you know I'm always very I tread so lightly here because as a licensed person I always have to recognize that my my my feedback will always carry weight I am not I'm not an MD so I can't prescribe medication I do believe this so what's happening in plant medicine what's happening in the Psychedelic world is the future of of Psychiatry I do I think that there's things happening there um so the early clinical trials on MDMA and um and PTSD we're seeing some really extraordinary things starting to happen and I'm enough of a cynic and I don't know maybe I look like I have a tinfoil hat right on right now but I do believe big Pharma doesn't want this to happen because I think that there there may be a lot of answers lurking there but folks this is not about you going home and going to a rave and and doing some MDMA and saying oh I'm treating myself for PTSD no no no no no no no no the treatment protocols for this have to be done with licensed people in controlled settings therapy is happening while the person is using the Psychedelic this is under the mo it has to be done under the most clear formatted protocol so this isn't just like party drug time and look at me I'm treating myself this is not self-medication it's none of that this is highly controlled the dosages are controlled but I do think there's a tremendous future there I would be it would be arrogant for me to to say otherwise and I when I've talked with folks doing this kind of work it's it's impressive what they're showing I'd like to see more data I you know I'm not when it comes to what I do from a practice perspective for example I can't say to someone you need to be on Zoloft I have to say I'm going to give you a referral to a psychiatrist you will work with that psychiatrist and they will make whatever medication recommendation they have for you but I can't the way my license Works make clear recommendations so if a client of mine says I want to explore this I'll say if you do we just simply need to make sure you're doing it with a licensed um you know so somebody who's doing this in a very legitimized thoughtful kind of a way yeah I have a I feel like I I feel like I have an open mind to a lot of things but for whatever reason I've gonna be intentional of my words here um I've met a lot of people I have a lot of friends who've done a lot of different you know Ayahuasca and planets and Journeys and experiences and Retreats and all these things that swear by it right yeah and people I respect people that I love and I appreciate and nothing wrong with it um but years down the road I don't I don't see it having like the the healing effect that I'm like okay well you keep going to doing it and but where is the the pro the progress this is like a week or two of this Euphoria yes you know but then you're you're still struggling in your relate you're still being a bad person you're still you know and it's not for everyone that does this that I know but I've just I've experienced that where people swear by it as this Euphoria experience but then six months later they're suffering again right it's the if then there's the bypass though right because of the work and then I I've worked with narcissistic clients Lewis it's not like I'm only on the Survivor side I've worked with Mindy in my time and let me tell you that's exactly I mean that's I I feel like four men in the ring and mercifully I'm actually really good and you know actually more like Ali because I can get him against the ropes and exhausted you probably created energy field so you're not like things yeah or I can take the actually no Foreman gets them against the rubs Ali can take the punches yeah just I can take the punch and so it's a but what I would see is I would say because here's the thing what would be really interesting being in the room with a narcissistic client who actually saw through the therapy they didn't drop out one of the the interesting things for me I was fortunate because I had so I had no spots in my my practice and I've completely downsized it and mostly have ended most of it but I back in the day I'd say you don't show up you lose your slot and you're not in this practice and you're like oh I don't want to lose my slot right they don't like that so they show up but the fact is is that when they'd show up they would sometimes say like I would say gosh that thing you just told me you said to your wife like how did she feel and how did you finish no no they'd be like I didn't really think about it I'm like let's think about it shall we and that's something called mentalization when you have someone reflect on what they think how they think someone feels how they think their behavior is affecting someone like put your head self in that headspace so I said how do you think your wife felt when you did X or Y well yeah I guess that wasn't cool okay so what what might you want someone to do for you in that circumstance right get them to do that's good and they would sometimes say like yeah you're right that wasn't so they weren't like punching me in the face they were just kind of like okay that wasn't cool would they keep making the same mistakes yes me repeatedly saying what do you think she thought or sometimes I'd even say like that's not cool you know that was that I know I would often say how would you feel if your wife saw the text that you sent I I divorced her really you know and so they and I said do you see you have a double standard here's my point though Louis and one of the most you know this is going to be sort of a com what do you call like a composite of multiple people you know from a confidentiality perspective but sure I do remember working with a series of people to the end of their their relationships and a couple of them said more than a few said you're telling me to make my marriage work I gotta listen to her talk about her emotional stuff you know she's getting old I don't even like to look at her that much anymore you're telling me that I can't like all right so I'm having I'm just having sex with this other person but your tummy it hurts sir yes okay so you're telling me I've got to listen to her and I have to care about her feelings and and then and you're also telling me I have to do this with this other woman I'm having sex with who thinks I'm going to have a relationship with her please like that okay so you know what I remember one of my more successful you know some of the more successful cases they come back and say I divorced the wife and I dumped the mistress like if this is if I don't want to be causing this much harm they weren't sadistic you know but and after the therapy they're like okay if that if this is Never Gonna Change I don't I I it's very clear I want to do what I want to do and I thought that was a win they're like I'm not changing they were even aware they weren't going to change like I'm not listening to her nonsense and I don't like looking at her and I don't think she's attractive anymore it's like yikes it's a win for their for her other people have been released now that's big most folks most narcissistic folks are people with these personalities don't stay in therapy they're not great candidates for therapy and my guess is to your point about these people who all slide backwards there ain't enough Ayahuasca in the world to turn these people around I can tell you that right now there's not enough MDMA MDMA there's nothing I think everyone's looking for the empathy pill right that's what there's that it's not how it works gaslighting is the denial of a person's reality and the taking a part of another person so that they have completely not only given up on their reality they've given up on themselves so let me say that in a little bit more of a clear way gaslighting is a grooming process it's not a one-off right so let's say a day like today we'd set up our shoot and everything and I were to say um uh and we we had our time we were going to meet the date and I said you never said we're meeting on that day you'd be like what and then you go back to your email and say no it's right there right but for a minute you might have doubted yourself I don't have that much power to Gaslight you because we don't really know each other maybe you trust me a little but it would be enough to throw you off for a minute say did I not send that email right and you you catch yourself okay the reason it's called a grooming process is it happens over and over again I never said that I never did that you're being too sensitive stop making such a big deal about that you really aren't committed to this relationship and they keep saying things to you that are not your reality so what do people do when they're gaslighted initially they defend themselves no no you did you really did like you said that or I I I'm not being too sensitive like and now you're getting more more and more worked up right yeah and then you know they'll say things to you like oh yikes somebody's a little bit crazy like have you seen a therapist so now what are they doing not only they doubted your reality and you're a little off balance then boom they they close it by saying there's something wrong with it oh man and you start believing it oh wow many people are gaslighted we'll start wondering maybe I'm the narcissist maybe I have a mental illness or maybe I need to get help there's something wrong with me and at that point the gaslighter fully controls this person oh my gosh that's the process and so but the initially the Gap the person who's being gaslighted has some level of trust in the gaslighter maybe they're in a new relationship together maybe this is a family member maybe it's a boss or a respected colleague you got to have a little of that from the jump there has to be some skin in the game for someone to be able to Gaslight someone then they're groomed now let's say the first time someone got lights you say uh no here's the email this is the time you said we're meeting and don't ever do that to me again the gaslighter's probably going to move on to a new job they'll stop with you yeah because yeah so they'll say like that is not a fertile Target I'm going to move on to another one right but so early on when a person or a person says you're being too sensitive say no that's my emotion don't you dare play judge and jury on my emotions I'm sad right now I'm gonna stick with that that's what I'm talking about that's a good one so and then the gaslighter will probably lose interest and but they'll always get their last digging they'll say she's just a really difficult person so they'll still have to get their parting shot and say all right I'll wear that as a badge of honor but you but just look how solid you have to be in yourself and understand Gosling in fact I'm doing gaslighting seminar on Saturday literally three hours all gaslighting because that's how much people are confused by this it happens at work it happens in families it happens in relation relationships it happens from The World At Large like no every everyone can every oh the playing Field's equal and then the people are like it can't be equal okay good job so the flashlight it's the first time you feel like someone's gaslighting you what should you say without them saying because I feel like this has happened to me in a previous relationship where I'd be like no I never said that and then it was like they bring up three other things that were unrelated to try to confuse and be like well you this this this and I'll be like just focus on the one thing we're talking about and so I have to go to you know go around all these other things and talk about them where I forget what we were talking about in the first place that all of that question it's very exhausting let's just focus on this thing so a great example get what gaslighting thing that people will do is they will say something like um in a relationship and you know I'm really uncomfortable with how much time you've been spending with that person and there's been a lot of communication between the two of you like it doesn't feel good it doesn't feel good to me this feels Shady it feels like a boundary violation like this isn't okay they'll hit back with let's go back to when you were in college and you and you're like wait and then you know what I tell people have a whiteboard say okay I'm going to table that let's we'll get to that let's write that down I don't want us to not talk about it let's go back to the original so keep going back to the original that's the original issue until they have a discussion don't get mad and they won't discover so how do you define resolve you don't find yourself in these relationships no resolve there is no closure and that's the radical acceptance so you just got to accept this person isn't going to have these conversations this person's not going to have rationality for certain things it's going to be their way or the highway and they won't be flexible and you've either got to live with it and accept it for a certain period of time or you can choose to move on right but being in an argument is only going to make your life correct and you might say like that seems lonely yeah and so I have worked with people who have stayed in long-term narcissistic relationships who have done everything from get very involved in like a religious Community Church community something like that to um do a lot of things with their friends really build friendships unless the narcissist tries to control them if you have a controlling narcissist none of this will work like malignant narcissist it won't work but if you can build out friendships if you can build out collegial relationships if you're working Church community um some people do this in online communities if they're not able to easily get out of the house and have friendships that way develop Hobbies they care deeply about Garden building something whatever their groove is music something like that I've known people that have lovers you know to say like I have my body hasn't been touched in 15 years and so they'll do that and they'll say I felt a little guilty but they're having sex with other people I haven't been touched and they're like you know I know I'm not and like I know I'm not very attractive but they found everyone's got someone everyone finds someone and they find there's someone and so I've heard it all I've heard people do all kinds of things finding their way finding their way to get that support on the um when they're not being when when they have to stay because that's where you get ungaslighted right person saying no that's not that's not okay or this person's conduct isn't okay um but I think where most people destroy themselves is they're like a moth to Flame they're like I can fix this and I'm telling you here you can't stop trying to fix it stop trying to fix it it's just not gonna work that was probably my challenge is I wanted to fix which again your athletic background it makes sense I mean they're people who have had a track record of being able to get things done they're the ones who are very vulnerable to staying in these relationships too I think I was I think I was attracted to it and then one of this stay attractive and then I was just like it just becomes exhausting when it's a when it's a full energy on someone else as opposed to a a combination of let's work together on a shared Vision towards our relationship towards life not all the energy in one place correct correct and it's it's dreary it is very draining and I think a lot of people do feel like you know a good relationship is me doing everything they ask or catering to them no yeah being unselfish all no it's about give and take I'm not saying transactional give and take it's that you feel supported enough that when they say hey do you mind going to this this dinner for work and you're like of course I'll go to that dinner for work because you care about them and even if you both think it's ridiculous you're kind of giggling at each other or you know having fun with it is that you understand that there's a give and take and you give graciously and the other person gives graciously this isn't just about you know grinding your teeth and you know being irritated you have to go but really that group that giving with Grace but at the I'll be frank with you it really comes down though to finding somebody who has a good personality that it's not it's and I keep using this word agreeableness right being agreeable being agreeable and that's actually a personality style so how do you know when someone's agreeable all this things I talk about flexibility and warmth and kindness just the time it's just seeing it over time agreeable men make less money agreeable men make less money the research has shown that pretty clearly blessed their hearts and so for everyone out there who wants somebody who's got the money and the stuff the probability that that person is going to be agreeable is a lot lower so you just need to find a unicorn someone is agreeable and who has money you've never seen that very I know yes I have I can think of one person off the top of my head okay billionaire most agreeable man in the world sweet sweet narcissist [Laughter] oh man he's a darling darling man but just gets walked all over in his relationship oh my God Beyond walked all over but in his business he can go and have killed it he can be assertive and yeah I've met a few agreeable um Rich folks I I mean really am I not just rich like really good at what they do they unicorns like they they definitely um but what was interesting you know with some of the a couple of these folks agreeable very wealthy at the end of their career they got taken down they got like people in the company they they were in soft target there are the vulnerable targets and they're gonna we're gonna take the equity from them or they're going to be able to blame what they did they got a group of people willing to fight for what they well they know they weren't willing to be disagreeable they just wanted to keep the peace at all costs and because they were they were collaborative people they actually thought they were bringing up the Next Generation it's interesting because man over the last decade I really started doing a lot of healing work when I turned 30. I was I've talked about this many times in my show um that I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know and um it definitely shaped a part of me for my life until I started to uh heal that that process and really go through a healing journey of you know the shame that I felt for so long the guilt the insecurity the not feeling enough we're not feeling lovable all these different things into kind of reshaping the story The Narrative and finding the uh the value in the process and in the the pain I guess and really finding the value from 25 years of holding it in and is channeling it saying how can I be of service at a greater level how can I use this to support other men who have gone through sexual abuse and that's why I wrote the book The masking masculine yeah one in six men and I've been sexually abused one in Four Women obviously and what I always tell people is that you know men just don't talk about it you know and they hold it in and then they be become angry or reactive or rageful or you know dismissive or whatever it is they have put a mask on and um you know that shame causes that mask at least it did for me and a lot of men that I've talked to so for for many years I had to learn how to kind of unwind and heal that process and and it's it's been a beautiful journey of healing where I can because I used to be very competitive it was like I had to win at all costs and now I'm like well that didn't work for me you know it got me results but it left me feeling empty and alone and unfulfilled and I didn't have peace because I always needed to win then I started transitioning and when I hit 30 to I just want to collaborate and I just want to support others and work together and it feels a lot more peaceful inside and fulfilling what do you think the function was of trying to win oh to get love be accepted to get love and be accepted I would say maybe to be safe yeah to get love to be accepted to feel like I was yeah to fit in you know because I didn't feel I had any friends growing up so it was like well if I win people recognize me and they like me right right and I'm desirable right if I lose and who wants to be you know around me yeah and then the shame gets activated but it's also safety I mean that's why that idea if I win I'm safe yeah that's the ultimate get for anything I'm not alone I'm not alone if I'm accepted I'm safe if I'm loved I'm safe and it's funny when when I moved into and Jay Shetty talks about this a lot I want to talk with Jay about this he's like just being in collaboration is the key and I was like I know that's what I feel like for the last 80 years because you're safe when you're still collaborating you're still with people you're helping each other accelerate together right but there's a fear there's a fear and I think one of the big impediments to collaboration is the sense that others will leave you behind unto yourself you feel safer right so I think that's often a blockade and then yeah I'm at the top of the mountain everyone else is down yes if they leave you it's not even the it's not the collaboration that's the issue it's the potential for abandonment interesting like if I'm if I'm in this business like the billionaire friend I'm at the top but then I collaborate with others but then they take it all and they leave me behind well they they took it all away I mean this was somebody and that that man that agreeable billionaire was collaborative from the day one of his career so how do you stay collaborative and live in abundance and want others to win around you but also not get taken advantage of it's not easy it's with the one in five number I'm giving you it's not easy I mean it is you know what what is the bet the best offense is a good defense you better have a good defense yeah get your contracts in order to get everything tracks in order to document um don't put your head in the sand I mean a lot the reason narcissism is proliferated the way it has is enabling people keep giving it a free pass so come on now you know don't hate to play or hate the game it's not how that works right and yeah so it's a player yeah yeah no so like it's it's a we have all this kind of culture around and in some ways people like want to see they the best example I can give is that people hate the idea when we see a magician do a trick we know they didn't do magic we know they had something up their sleeve but we want to believe it's magic because that makes the world seem more interesting with narcissists we want to believe in the magic I want to believe they're we want to believe that they're going to be we want to believe that this charismatic person doesn't really is real that they're that someone this Larger than Life is larger than life rather than an ordinary person who who's just has ordinary things and could fall and you know and um we want superheroes We want it's why we've always written myths as a species but the myths should remain stories not the person who's trying to scream at you from the other cubicle that we wish every man could learn to develop more of in society being vulnerable with emotion to share to share vulnerability to share Sadness the number of men for example who've been sexually abused we don't talk about it yeah exactly and we for women there's actually at least in therapy I'm talking about the safe space but I'm telling you for clients I've worked with with male clients I remember some of them saying I don't want to I have somebody to talk to can we do this session by phone I don't want to look at your face so shameful you know so shameful and I think that and when I taught abnormal psychology at the University level and I was teaching about adverse childhood experiences like child abuse child sexual abuse what I did notice was that some of the the male students were really shifting uncomfortably in their seats and I would slow down I'm like listen if you know can take this topic so it felt like the women in the class were actually had processed that a little bit more on the on the macro like overall than the male students in the class so I think that to hold space to be able to feel safe with talking about their insecurities their vulnerabilities their feelings to show tears I mean there isn't nothing more beautiful when a person's able to cry because they're feeling a genuine emotion and I think of how we pathologize men for doing that we do we literally pathology there will it'll be the cold open on Saturday Night Live they'll make jokes about it they'll be memes about it it horrifies me so why would a man ever be vulnerable if he thinks he's going to be turned into a big funnel yeah it's interesting you say this and I you know I wrote a book five years ago called The Mask of masculinity which is about my journey of you know letting go of anger frustration resentment and stepping more into vulnerability right the healing journey and and allowing myself to be vulnerable talking about sexual abuse for the first time in 25 years since it happened and just unpacking at home what it means to be a man how to take off these masks and in the process of doing this I would go to events and talk about the book right and there'd probably be 50 50 men and women who would be in the room and I would ask at some point in the event I'd say all the all the women in the room raise your hand if you uh once a week talk to your girlfriends or you have a place where you can go and talk about your challenges or insecurities or fears and things like this of Life your body you know shaming issues whatever it might be you can talk to someone about it and pretty much every woman in the room wouldn't raise their hand I say keep your hands up if you do this every day with your girlfriends your mom your sister and pretty much all of them kind of laugh and say yeah I call people every day um and I said okay guys in the room raise your hand you know if if you do this once a month you talk with your guy friends and you feel safe to be vulnerable and open up about your insecurities and all these different things as well maybe two hands out of hundreds in once a month would raise their hand let's say are you guys part of a church group that does this kind of like mandatory like structural thing where you feel safe in this place and they all kind of laugh like yes and I go how many of you do this once a year no hands and so I go ladies imagine going once a month not even going once a month not even going once a year imagine going a lifetime without ever being vulnerable and opening up because you feel like you're gonna be shamed just think about the weight I'm not saying how men act and treat you and this and this is okay or actions are are okay but just think about yeah it's true that that's true and I had and I talked to different men throughout this period who said Louis I I started the opening up with my wife and after years that she would always say I wish you were more vulnerable I wish you would show emotion more not just be stoic or angry and some men would say this and I started to do this and I got the worst response from my wife my partner interesting because they weren't available to receive me they're so used to me being stoic in this having it all together that when I was emotional they needed me to be strong for their emotional challenges some of these wrong when I say always women so how do we get women to be to accept yeah of men starting the shift and being to show emotion to cry to say hey I'm struggling right I'm really going with some issues right now right and I've got some stuff I got to deal with how do we get women also to be like hey it's so encouraging it's okay and and keep a safe space so that men will continue to and not be like well I'm never doing that again she she left she made fun of me like why would I ever do this I'm going to be strong and tough again and that's something that oh you know all everyone has to work on is how to do it to say what are our um our biases about masculinity does that how how do we will that change how you view a partner with that you know I mean again we you and I I was watching you talk about something recently where someone was talking about masculine and feminine energy and all that I'm not so sure I agree with that dichotomy to be honest with you but I do think that it is a you know the shaming of emotion and anger being the only acceptable motion so men use that they they turned it into like the Swiss army knife of emotion I'm sad I'm going to be angry I'm vulnerable I'm going to be angry angry angry angry right it's like it's just like the one the one stop shop kind of thing and and to me anger is an incredibly acceptable healthy emotion it's in it's in the whole but it's it's meant to be a whole drawer full of stuff not just one emotion you use for everything and that's that's the challenge is that men do have emotion anger and that that's it's sort of switching that up societally not pathologizing that and and women holding space for that but I think the other piece for men is I want them to have more deep friendships again something else I read a great article I read about a guy wrote this idea of how many men out there have colonoscopy friends and I that headline grabbed me so I kept reading you know what his his point was he I think he had a girlfriend or wife or something and he said if she wasn't in my life there's nobody to drive me home from a colonoscopy because you can't drive yourself home and you can't take an Uber home so a person has to come and get you at the colonoscopy and so it's very vulnerable when most men don't have a and this is like men over the age of 40 which is when you'd be getting a colonoscopy that men often don't have friendships they have like let's go play golf let's go watch the game let's meet at a bar but that person where women have been are really good at that in fact it's why women often fare better later in life after a spouse dies whereas a guy it's sort of like they'll often decline rather quickly some women not because they flourish but some women actually do flourish but they often have a stronger Support Network because women are often doing that that cultivating of of social relationships and so because that's part that's just something that's more validated for them and so and I love that that analogy of the colonoscopy friend like the person you call me can you pick me up from this and that we'll go to work you know it's of course like I'm thinking of the friends I have like you've given me enough notice of course I'm going to come get you and there's dozens of women I would do that for and so um when I even ran that by my partner he got really sad he's like I don't think I have any colonos could be friends yeah and he's like I gotta work on that and so yeah yep Dr Romney appreciates you I want people to get more of your work navigating narcissism yeah you gotta tune podcast powerful season one is uh almost complete season two is going to be coming out early next year but they can go through 30 episodes of the podcast if you want more go there subscribe everywhere podcasts that you listen to also your YouTube's an amazing resource they can go check that out as well subscribe there you've got an online program for people healing from narcissistic relationships and abuse if they go to your website Dr Dash romney.com they can learn more about that they can sign up and get that as well you got great content on social media how else can we be of service to you today I would say that you know for people who want to do the deeper dive into healing I have that monthly healing program I know some people say I don't know I don't know if I'm getting this in therapy I may not have the money it's a it's very affordable and I'd say to people you know try it for a month if you don't like it it's really not that much lost and some people say okay this is working or you see there's a community of other people who've been through this so definitely encourage people to check out my healing healing platform they can go to my website and find that and you know for people who want to hear lived experience that the podcast is great for that too because on on YouTube I teach people about stuff on navigating narcissism I talk to people who've been to and all kinds of things they've survived cult they've survived abusive relationships they've survived spiritual abuse they've served I mean pick a form of abuse we have talked about it and so it's a real interesting opportunity to hear that conversation happen in real time in the insights people get when it's framed in that way and and like I said YouTube is like a big old library where I if I haven't talked about it then drop me a line and if it makes sense and I'll make a video about it and that's where a lot of our content ideas come from people saying could you talk about this or that and so I do that and then I'd say you know what get out there and be empathic be compassionate and practice what I call recognition by recognition is that see see other people feel them be you know experience of hold space for them because that moment of recognition for some people this might be the very first time they've gotten it in years and it can be a real eye-opener that every time we meet someone there's something really extraordinary about them recognize it powerful stuff um I asked you a couple of questions last time but I want people to go to our previous episode to see your three truths and your definition of greatness they probably have changed uh next time I'll ask you those again but I want to acknowledge you first boy before I ask you the final question I want to acknowledge you for what you just said about five minutes ago about how I think it was a week or two ago in your own therapy you realize you're still having a you know Awakening saying growth and creating more wholeness in yourself which is really cool to see that you're teaching the work but you're doing the work you have to do the work it would be it would be disrespectful to everyone I work with if I didn't do the work myself well I appreciate it and acknowledge you for how you show up in so many ways you know in private conversations with people the way you coach people the way you're teaching and all the different platforms so it's amazing we need your voice very grateful for you and appreciate you for for Learning and and using your wisdom from experience on how to teach this stuff I appreciate that you're welcome and my final question I want people to go check the three truths in the previous episode we'll link it up but my final question is if you could go back to your younger self before the first narcissistic experience that you witnessed yourself you know you're probably weren't aware of it obviously but if you could go back in before that and she was standing in front of you whatever age that was what are three things that you would say to her to support her in the journey she's about to experience or to help kind of like you know minimize some of the things that she was about to experience if you could go back with the wisdom you have what would you say to her um I would say to her sheep getting lost in the Daydreams because they are going to happen and don't be afraid to change course and especially that last one is don't be afraid to change course I'm somebody who went a very traditional educational route you know four years of undergrads five years of grad school one year of the training I mean like residency kind of thing two years of postdoc and there was a time in there that I thought to change course and I didn't and then I became an academic and tenure and blah blah blah blah and when I was golly I really didn't change this course I was 55 years old and it worked out just fine I landed on my feet and but there was a lot of work that had to lead up to that there was times I was working three and four jobs but I would say don't be afraid to change of course I don't know what would have been different if I had changed course when I was earlier in education I knew probably there was a different path for me there's a lot of dreams I haven't I don't know that I might ever get a chance to do I've always wanted to live in another country and things like that I don't know if those will ever happen for me had I changed courses would have so I'd tell her change course like it's okay if in the second year of grad school you're a gym listen we end up where we end up so it's um I think that the path is the path and um but I uh yeah those are those are but I'd say it's going to be okay and when I look at pictures of myself at that age I'm thinking of my life exceeds anything that she would have allowed herself to think there's a book um from the 1970s by a guy named Christopher lash called the culture of narcissism and in that book he really gets into the 70s okay and he really gets into issues like materialism and also the falling apart of um American Community structures and family structures and so he pins this sort of pathological narcissism and selfishness to the sort of the erosion of those structures but I think that misses something then it was kind of quiet like this has always been a quiet area interestingly in in mental health and then reality TV happened social media not a witness at all yeah and we had to witness it all kids are growing up with it now political dramas and fights and lots of and and materialism was on the rise so when we look at materialism social media and reality TV that kind of Triple Threat where everything was about Shameless self-promotion everything was about validation seeking look at me no look at me no look at me my life's better than yours and it was that it was I'll never forget the day actually I was uh when I someone told me about social media it was in that space between Myspace and Facebook yeah and I had small small children at the time and I think I was up late and somebody said you gotta look at this thing called Facebook right and I'm like I don't know what this is and so I at the time I was even married so really no social life and I look at it and and I'm and it's that moment that penny drop moment where I could feel that red in my stomach so like a ghost appeared in the door and I thought to myself oh my God this narcissism thing is about to blow up because before that think about it if you were a narcissist and you needed to get validation you actually had to get up and get out of the house right like no one was gonna you had to get up kind of get ready go to work a lot of narcissists got their validation at work especially men in that era and then other people like would get it by like going social events going to parties maybe succeed something but it was a different game going to the gym maybe maybe going to the gym but now all of us excelling at something visible like sports or performing or like uh singing or something like that but then I was like oh hell no you're telling me that people are going to be able to get validation just sitting at home and I thought this narcissism thing's gonna blow up that was 2008 when I had that Revelation I started telling people you know people said like oh honey you're just you're you're running off in your head get some sleep like you're acting crazy and I said no no this is gonna blow up and then it blew up and at around that time we're starting to see the beginnings of reality TV shows like you know Survivor and things like that I'm like this is interesting and then we'd start seeing more and more and more of the attention-seeking reality TV housewife type shows and I I thought oh no no no and then and then the political wins changed and the word came into the into popular you so imagine going from something that you studied only you studied nobody cared about it and then the mainstream exactly and but this another thing that was happening too is this um I was studying it in my research I had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to look at personality issues because I was working with folks who were working in community clinics and they would come back from the community clinics back to the main Lab at the University and say they would look frazzled and I'll say hey what's up and they'll say some of these patients they're so terrible and they're ruining everyone's lives and what we came to find out was that there were some patients who come in entitled and grumpy and take it out on the staff and I thought that's interesting these people are not only burning out the staff so they can't give good health care to other people they themselves everyone's dreading seeing them so they're not getting good health care and then a few years later I was noticing a pattern in my patients over and over again they kept it's like they were all talking about the same relationship I thought this is interesting nobody ever taught these people about narcissism because it's clearly what was happening in their relationships and I'm not kidding you once they got educated on these patterns they were making changes like this some were getting divorced some were splitting up some were saying I'm going to set boundaries I mean it was it was insta change and they said we were in couples therapy for five years and always about marriage is hard you gotta communicate I'm like communicating with the narcissist is I don't know it's like it's impossible he's screaming into an abyss like there's no point is there hope for uh people in marriages if you're in a relationship with a narcissist to actually heal the relationship and improve it or is it just going to be hard the rest of your life going on a probability basis the answer is no I think it's going to be hard always are there unicorns out there sure but the amount of commitment you'd need on the part of the person who's narcissistic I mean we're talking about Daily Commitment and the person who's narcissistic has to get into therapy multiple times a week they have to they have to be willing to have humility they have to be willing to be mindful they have to be willing to regulate themselves that's a long list of things they need to be willing to do they can't be impulsive they can't say whatever's on their mind I it's fascinating because I have worked with me I'd say 25 of the clients I've worked with in my clinical practice for a long time now you know have been narcissistic why would they even come to work with you if they're narcissistic because something's going wrong in their lives their marriage is blowing up they're having some sort of public shaming their career isn't going well they feel the world is against them and in this victimized stance they roll up to therapy um and somebody's wanting to complain right every so often they're given an ultimatum Maybe by a workplace or by a spouse or someone maybe they get caught in an affair and then they're told that white or husband or partner or spouse will say we're not staying together unless you get therapy which is a Fool's errand because if there if someone else is telling them to do it even if someone even if they do it on their own there usually isn't much personality personality doesn't really change personality doesn't change unless you're like doing therapy every week and holding yourself accountable and even that listen I'm I listen I have a certain personality I got it tested when I was in my 20s 30s 40s 50s it hasn't changed I'm a little bit more I'm a little I'm a little bit more confident that's not my personality that's just time served that's right it's like putting more rest yes yeah I put in more reps so I'm like now I know I can do this thing right but it's not that I'm I was born agreeable I grew up agreeable I was an agreeable adult I'm an agreeable person that's just who I am when is our personality shaped well there's two pieces of Personality we're born the sort of the genetic part of personality if you will it's called our temperament our temperament temper temperament our temperament and you're either a crier or not a choir or you're I can't make it Ultra simple like you know there's some kids out there who have really difficult temperaments they're born into the world difficult and talk to a parent their kids who are difficult to soothe there to to make them stop crying to help them sleep as time goes on they're just difficult kids they don't play As Nice they have low frustration tolerance they're difficult with their siblings they're Punchy fighty they get to school they can't sit still they're always getting into trouble and none of the adults like them so these kids with these difficult temperaments actually have this relationship with the world that's pretty unpleasant everyone's like sit down stop that don't do that and there's even this Vibe these kids get like nobody really wants to spend time with them right because they're like real handful is it their fault I mean they can't really can't really change that when you're fine no you can't but the difficult temperament's a risk factor for the adult narcissistic personality now not everybody with a difficult temperament goes on to become narcissistic so it's not a slam dunk but it's definitely when we tell that story backwards every narcissistic client I've ever worked with without exception had a difficult temperament as a child so that either they every so often I'd get lucky they'd we'd phone the parent during therapy and say could we talk about this sometimes they don't ask the parent and the parent would come clean on that and say yeah you're a real because you had siblings right so they'd compare them to siblings some siblings have this great easy temperament it's not quite it's so temperament is that biological part of our personality it's how you might see your personality in either one of your parents or in a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle you'll say wow I have such a similar personality to them that's the genetics okay and the other all the rest of it is is shaped by the world environment parents Society how you were treated and yeah what you're exposed to exactly so if you had a let's say a challenging temperament growing up is there hope for you to you know and I guess shift your personality into a different style with environment I think so I think so I think a couple of things have to happen that kid needs to be met where they're at so let's say you have a boy with a difficult temperament who's Just Energy and you get them into Athletics yes or you get them into something where they're using their hands whatever that might be building things or something like that and you really are with them instead of saying you're being so bad you're so difficult like whoa look at that rocket you built or like oh my gosh you ran 10 miles today are you through the ball or like this is great like let's do it together and they have a parent who wants to maybe do those things with them I've I've heard of some this is where it's interesting I hear a lot of these stories if not in athletics but people who do things like climb mountains that kind of thing and sometimes the parents got them into these things because the kid was just a bolus of energy and then they would and then the parents would really encourage them might even go with them with them or whatever so I do think if that child feels loved safe protected attached they feel like they have a safe base to return to which is usually their primary caregiver they can relax and they have success experiences right so maybe they're not the best kid in school but they're really like they feel loved no matter what whether they can read or not whether they can do math or not they're loved and that they have these other outlets that's cool and that the school is supporting them and meeting them how many kids you know who have that things line up like that I can count on one hand the number of kids I know who got that lineup right I mean who had like all the support we love you no matter what yeah it's very challenging uh it's interesting because I I interviewed Kobe Bryant before he passed obviously and he he said his father one summer when he was playing basketball I think he was 13 he said he didn't score one point the whole summer in like this summer competition League and he said my father told me no matter what I'm gonna love you whether you score zero points or you're the highest scorer I'm gonna love you no matter what you do no matter how good or how bad you are I love you no matter what and he said that conversation with his dad gave him the confidence to say I'm going to go out and and go for it um no matter what happens I'm loved is the way he explained it and I thought that was interesting but uh not a lot of people have had like the school support and parent support and slipping support and like the encouragement but it sounds like you can't change a personality but you can Channel a personality into other activities to support their growth is that right so every human being has the same sort of essential ingredients that they need in terms of wanting you know a like again a safe base yes a safe place of attachment um a sense of being loved no matter what yeah their behavior could be called out like no you cannot tear up the living room that behavior is not okay I love you you know I love you whether you get the 13 points or the no points they're still grounded but I love you you're so grounded you know I love you you know and so that sort of consistency and safety but it was interesting I was just a research paper from 2014 and in this paper they were talking about how do you basically how do you make a narcissistic adult out of a kid one thing we're seeing a little bit is right now is this problem of children being overvalued for nothing celebrated for just being celebrated for like you're just so great and it's it's we you're saying well what should we tell kids if they're not great well great means something right great is excelling so you love a child you cultivate their strengths but the idea being that narcissistic parents are very vulnerable to thinking their kids are great because they have to be they're my kids so they better be great kids so these kids are being told they're all that over and over and you're all that you're all that you shouldn't you're special you shouldn't have to struggle with the slings and arrows of the world well then they get to adulthood and the slings and arrows happen and they are not having it and that's where you see that's that's that on top of everything else can also be what Fosters the building of the narcissistic child just over indulge and what happens is they're almost oh they're over indulged for their outsides and you're you're so special but their their emotional world isn't nourished so nobody is sitting with their emotions and letting them be sad it's many times like come on let's all be happy you know it's a lot of that and that's a dangerous game to play would you would you say with your research if um kids grew up in a healthy family let's say it's they got all the tools and resources and their parents were healed from their traumas and gave them you know discipline but love and all these things in the way that the best way you could is it possible for someone to still be raised as a narcissist even if they have this environment of love and safety and or how does a narcissist become one is it only through family environment and the way they were treated or how does it actually happen so the problem if you if they someone had all the fundamentals yes right the safety the love the consistency the freedom from trauma Great Value the great values all you know all of those things supportive educational environment all of that you still will have a handful but you will have dropped a probability from here down to here okay right it's like a horse race right you you've really dropped the likelihood significantly narcissism is it it creating adult narcissism is a complex inter blend of that biological temperament meeting up all these environmental conditions and there's a range of conditions that can result in results in adulthood narcissism at the most extreme and probably the most difficult is trauma in childhood so a child who is raised and experiences trauma you know significant caregiver loss chaos abuse observing abuse and because that results in inconsistent caregivers right and so that can put a person at risk for developing an adult prognostic personality but here's where it gets tricky the majority of people exposed to trauma and childhood don't become narcissistic factors you could but you don't always so that's one pathway this over indulgence is over like you're so great you're so special you're so extraordinary my kids are the most extraordinary thing that's another model towards narcissistic personality development conditional love Kobe Bryant's father I'm only going to love you if you come back having scored 20 points if you didn't don't even show up right now imagine that happening a thousand times ten thousand times I love you when I love you when you clean the dishes I love you if you got straight A's I love you if you make the soccer goal I love you if you whatever the child learns that they're all love is conditional which is really that's transactional basically all narcissistic relationships and adulthood are transactional you set the tone there with conditionality a lot of this though comes down to something called attachment an attachment is something that's created in the first year or two of life it requires an available consistent responsive caregiver One Singular you need that that person who is there who looks at the baby who responds when it cries who loves it who holds it who feeds it you need that safe it's called a secure attachment a lot of the research really points to the important of the importance of that secure attachment that as being something that predicts a lower likelihood of adult narcissism so if you have a secure you're less likely if you don't have an anxious attachment and an anxiously attached baby is the child who absolutely flips out when their caregiver leaves like you know if the mommy drops them up and they lose it then person who receives the child has a hard time soothing the child and then when the child sees the parent again they start crying again like almost like how could you leave me abandoned me for five hours and that anxious attachment style is very much associated with the narcissistic style interesting in adulthood yeah can you break down the differences between narcissists um Psychopaths sociopaths and then also how you spot them so there's a big difference if if I was at a chalkboard here I'd be drawing a Venn diagram with overlapping circles okay lots of overlap between narcissism and psychopathy Lots okay the boldness the meanness the impulsivity the disinhibition the always Working The Angles the exploitativeness the manipulativeness the entitlement for absolutely overlapping so you might be wondering then what's the difference here's the difference narcissistic people are insecure and they are very insecure very insecure and lots of feelings of inadequacy okay so but that's all happening at an unconscious level but I want you to think of a narcissist as somebody who constantly has a stomach ache right because they're going through their lives but they're like they're they there's almost this tension they're not aware why they have it but the tension that the top is going to get blown off and we're going to be able to see their inadequacies that's why they're so sensitive to criticism hey like uh yeah it's interesting you got some dust on your shirt and you're like oh really and you start coming at me yeah criticizing you yes you see what I'm saying that's a hedge against a shame that's the narcissist game psychopath doesn't go there psychopath is not anxious psychopath is not insecure calm their nervous systems are different so there's a part of our nervous system called the autonomic nervous system this is the this is the involuntary part of our nervous system and it's it's from which the sympathetic nervous system comes off which you know is fight or flight or freeze and that fight flight freeze and there's even a fourth part to it called Fawn which you could talk about but that that autonomic reaction that like boom adrenaline got you know Eyes Wide Open kind of reaction that's not there for the psychopath so whereas I I don't know if I saw something out there and I saw someone had a hundred dollar bill hanging out their wallet never could I ever like I would have a heart attack from the anxiety of thinking about like no you know because I have a very probably overly functioning autonomic nervous system but for somebody who's a psychopath they'd clip that and their heart rate would not think they're just nothing take it steal it and so they have no anxiety no excitement around it no excitement no anxiety and they're very stress resistant in that way that's why there's so many Psychopathic CEOs if you're gonna be a CEO and nothing bothers you you you're able to say cut those hundred thousand jobs and then you still go off and play golf for the afternoon because nothing gets you they sometimes make great surgeons because when all hell's breaking loose they're just sort of calmly doing their surgery thing it's it really is but there is a coldness and a callousness interesting because there is almost like no capacity for empathy no capacity for intimacy interesting and and psychopaths are almost singularly motivated by power pleasure and profit and mostly by power they solely want to dominate because that's what they do narcissists like to dominate but they actually kind of seem like dumb dogs next to the psychopath really yeah the closest we get to overlap is what we call malignant narcissism so that's when we have all the goodies we see in narcissism what we see is more of a sadism and a paranoia in the malignant narcissist they're the most dangerous narcissist they're still not fully Psychopaths because they still have the insecurity and the inadequacy it the Psychopaths don't they're not secure they're not insecure no I mean if you if you see a psychopath get mad it's simply because you might have gotten in the way of something they needed to get done you know what they'll instead do they'll very quietly figure out a way to destroy you get rid of it exactly though they'll calmly have someone say like um I'll literally look at you if I was the psychopathic boss and you were working for me I'd be like and I'd be calm and I'd go and then I I don't know whether that means you should kill them or whatever but no problem with that right and very the emotion they don't have empathy yeah no empathy does narcissists have empathy narcissists have we we tend to say oh they don't have empathy they have what we call I like to call it You instrumental empathy they weaponize empathy so narcissists get what empathy is they know they use it against you they use it to get what they need they don't necessarily use it against you but like if they want to get you to do something oh man I heard your mom's sick oh man oh my gosh how's she doing I'm so sorry like it's rough you know my mom was sick she she was really sick for a while too I get all that stuff you know it's a report and then they're getting something from you right so it feels like empathy you know and especially when you first meet them that's why so many people think narcissistic people are charming and charismatic they know what the feel they know what's right they know or I should say they know what empathy is they know how to read the room so they got it but they can't be bothered with it they actually cognitively get it they can think about empathy oh I need something for him from him somebody said his mom's sick so let me let me work the mom angle here because that's going to help him feel better what they don't have is any regard for so they have no regard for the feelings of others they don't care so when they're done with you and they've gotten what they need from you and someone's the next week when they're fully done with you and say hey his mom got sicker and like so yeah so what do you want me to do about it so it's very cold when they're done so that it's and that's why people say well don't tell me they don't have empathy because it seemed like they cried at that movie or they were really understanding my feelings odds are they needed something at that point Point why do people you know I'm as guilty as anyone in the past for this why do people feel loved or think it's love when there's explosiveness or there's chaos or there's someone screaming at you and then apologizing and it's just this pattern why does that feel like love is that because we maybe saw this as a model as our as our childhood from our parents or why is that why do some people feel that's love where others can see that's not healthy I don't want that well I mean part of it goes to this concept of trauma bonding which is sort of the core of the narcissistic relationship and in the trauma bond is is formed by a relationship that has an alternation of good and bad hot and cold high and low so in a way you're sort of chasing a high because where there's a bad day guess what's going to come again make up sex or whatever makeup looks like right because as a kid what it was was that you'd live for those good days despite all the abuse then there'd be a fishing trip despite all those bad days then your parent would do something there'd be something things so quirky and fun about them or you're like the day they do something good now you could go back to constructing the narrative that I come from a normal happy family that is the origination of that trauma Bond but then in order to keep the mindset that the relationship's good you have to justify justify justify you have to make sense of those bad days to fit the good day so the justification and the denial become big parts of the trauma bonded theme now obviously that trauma bond is going to play out a lot more powerfully in somebody who has that in their backstory because your entire childhood was wired around how can I get this parent to notice me how can I be seen how can I be heard how can I be cherished it's about a Chase because that child was put in the unfortunate position of believing they had to earn that or even worse their needs were shamed and their parent resented them for having needs so they learned well if I'm going to be in love be quiet can't bring up my needs there's going to be bad days but then there's going to be good days and those bad days are because well maybe I was too demanding or you know maybe I'm expecting too much so it a lot of it becomes self-blame focused and that becomes a really profound kind of connective tissue it's not to say though people who not everybody who gets into a trauma-bonded relationship has that history they're by far the people who are going to be more vulnerable but because narcissism is about such a good front game right the charm the Charisma the love bombing you you feel like you're in something really really special but the reason narcissistic relationships are so confusing is because there's enough good days to confuse you and the good days are good right I mean they're really really they're over the top they're over the top and they sort of feel perfect and remember you try to go back to that right you oh and you go back to it but the thing we got to remember is sometimes those good days even stay in there years later you know that it's whatever that moment is and narcissistic relationships are all about alignment if they're having a good day right for whatever maybe a good day at work or maybe they've flirted with someone at the gym you don't know what it is then it's narcissist the narcissist and you are having happen to have a good day something good happened to you and you're both then you're like they get me and they love me no it's just coincidence a fortunate coincidence and then because the narcissist could just as easily have had a bad day their car got dinged in the parking lot their friend got the raisin the promotion and they didn't get it Angry Angry Angry you had that same good day they will invalidate they will criticize so it's all about alignment and timing and that alignment is what makes people say ah we have such a great relationship I'm like it just sounds like it's like it's like chemistry yeah it's like you thinking like roulette can be gamed I'm like you got lucky on the double zero there it's so funny you say that I mean I'm gonna start having flashbacks now memories uh like I did in the last interview where I remember a time for a few years I had this dream of going to the Olympics and making and making the USA now first it was making the USA national team so I had the opportunity to go oh when you said go to the Olympics I'm like to watch so you see your dreams are up there this was 2008 2008 I watched um I just got in a surgery playing professional football broke my wrist uh had a cast on my arm from here to here for six months in this position just got it off and the Olympics came on and so I was kind of down in the dumps because I couldn't train I couldn't play football anymore but I was watching Olympics getting inspired and I see this sport at like 3 A.M in the morning that I've never seen before in my life called team handball oh yeah it's not well known in the U.S but it's a big sport in Europe it's kind of like water polo on land on land yes with with no water and um and I watch this and my mind is blown I'm like this is incredible like this looks like the sport I should have learned growing up like I'm built for this on the size I got the speed like this is my game and it gave me this opening into a new possibility in my life like let me research this maybe there's a USA team maybe I could make the team maybe we could qualify for the Olympics this is what happened in about 10 minutes of watching this sport in 2008. 2000 2010 rolls around I moved to New York City to play for a team on team handball wow the top team in the country New York City's got the best team in the USA for the club teams I moved there to literally to go learn this sport for a year I meet a girl and this girl we have this you know kind of this this chemistry this connection all these things in the first like a month or whatever right but then I start to see the signs later but I wasn't aware of it and she knew that this was a part of my dream and I've been training this whole year for this chance to make the USA national team they'd select 16 Americans wow the whole population to be on the USA national team wow been planning this for two years training for a year moved to a new state New City to practice every week I get an email and I'm with the with the person I was with at the time I get an email it says you've been selected to USA national team congratulations I'm kind of excited because I was thinking about it right I like this was something the email is waiting for you've been selected you're going to the Pan American championships with the national team to compete for our country and I'm reading this I'm literally like so vulnerable and in tears like thinking about this when I'm reading it and I was with her she was in the other room and I take it to her I'm like you're not gonna believe what happened look at this email me I just got I'm like so excited and right away she goes man I wish my career was doing better right now there was no congratulations there was no no it was like God I wish she went to a depression kind of yeah yeah it was like a depression of like I wish I could do this with my career I wish this was happening and so I put my attention on her to make sure she was okay when I'm like I've been dreaming about this for two years I'm busting my up like telling you about this in my mind but I was like well let me just make sure her needs are mad in this moment and I'll get back to celebrating me one day and it wasn't even an acknowledgment of like congratulations right um anyways this happened multiple times in many relationships uh similar situations like that which I didn't even know that was a sign right I was just like yeah yeah I didn't know until I talked to you whenever this was six months ago or something but how you know let me remember when I was going with this but just I think like the good days it's like they had a good talk about alignment right but they have a bad day and you have a good day they're going to kind of try to take you down that's what you said right and your and your story is so interesting too because who knows if she was having a bad day or not but your your good news is always a threat to a narcissistic person always so you know it's funny why is that because it remember at the core of it narcissism's about insecurity deep deep insecurity we always think of these people have as having really big self-esteem they have what we I can only call inaccurate self-esteem they have this sort of falsely grandiose vision of themselves but at this unprocessed deep unconscious level it's not like they walk around thinking I'm really insecure so I better be grandiose the insecurities unprocessed they're not even aware they're not even aware of it but it's almost like this nagging thing that's always in the background so anything that activates that sense like it's almost like it starts to percolate up out of the groundwater that's when you'll see all kinds of things passive aggression which is what you were up against um a sullenness resentment sometimes over its aggression because they're trying to to protect themselves against the threat that this that this insecurity will pop up that's that's the dance right so when I've worked with folks who are in narcissistic relationships listen people have who have been married a long time or in long-term relationships or if kids it's not so easy to say just break up and follow your bliss it just doesn't work that way and so I'd say okay I'm gonna have to give you some strategies to stay in this and I always call it the good bad and different rule never ever share never ever let the narcissistic person be the first person you share your good news with never you should have called your bestest person at that point Who's going to celebrate you who would have been like oh my gosh we all got him right like the good thing happens and you're like I'll tell this person and they're like oh my gosh 20 bottles of champagne we're having a party that's who you tell first then you got your other people who are going to be happy for you and then and only then do you tell the narcissistic person because at that point you felt that your good news was held and cherished and celebrated and you just feel happy you shared it with people who are able to mirror it back to you that feeling of goodness that's what parenting is about by the way your kid says look Mommy I got an and my exam honey that's so great not like oh I'm too busy to deal with that right now and that's what kids who have narcissistic parents get a lot of like I don't have time for that right now right success is Never Enough yes it's never enough so I need to do to get the attention yeah but in adulthood that mirroring matters and then once you do that and you roll up to the narcissistic person like I wish my life was like that in some ways you've been so buoyed that would be like you know what like you don't even in some places you're like whatever you know like I hope it is too yeah would you feel seen and that's the good the bad same thing never go to a narcissistic person first with your bad stuff it could be what happens when you share they'll either feel inconvenienced frustrated what do you want me to do about this um oh my gosh like oh I'm under I have so many things are being asked of me they go into their victim thing yeah you figure it out yeah you figure it out like how and you feel let's say it's like really bad news like I found out my mom is really sick or I um you know it turns out they're going to be downsizing my division and I'm probably going to be in that first round of layoffs or whatever it is you know you find out your friend is ill or you're ill or something more often than not the narcissistic person it's almost like they don't want to hear that there's like real stuff that happens in the world that has nothing to do with them you're a mother being sick has nothing to do with them so they're really not that interested and that you might interrupt them and bring some like negative Juju into their life they don't want that so I always say to people have your people to take your bad news too so people can offer empathy compassion emotional support practical support and only as an afterthought will you say because now you've been held you've been supported you might have the strength to say at some point like yeah my mom's sick and they're going to have whatever foolish you know unempathic response they have but now you've been supported so that takes us to the indifferent I'm gonna tell everyone in a narcissistic relationship keep it in your phone make a little list of completely vacuous topics the weather they're building a new house across the way can you believe that new grocery store is coming into town go back to the weather um you avoid anything that's a third rail that's a sensitive issue that and or where their negativity could hurt you so then you can kind of keep the trains running on time like can you believe this heat he's great I live out in the San Fernando Valley can you believe this heat every in fact all the narcissistic people out there are going to know now I think they're narcissistic because that's how I always start can you believe this heat but because there's nothing else to say so what do you say with the narcissist then what can you can you believe but if I live with someone and you have kids with them and you have to interact procedural stuff and I think that what happens is people want a real partner they want someone to share stuff with them like you don't you're never going to have that here with an artist you're never going to have it so give it up so you're just gonna have to recognize it might be things like who's taking them to soccer today and if they say I'm too busy to take him to soccer realistic expectations of course they're too busy say piece of cake I got it I always tell folks if you're in a narcissistic relationship you need a plan a b c and d because they are always going to let you down oh my gosh okay so you mentioned a little bit moment ago about there are certain situations where you're not going to be able to get out of a relationship and follow your bliss yeah no you can but is there a world where you could at some point as opposed to saying I've got to live in the next 30 Years with this person or 10 years with this person that sounds like a uh you know a free prison sentence you're in the Free World but you're living a prison inside in your own home that doesn't seem like a healthy lifestyle it's not because I work with such varied audiences I'm very very mindful of how painful it is for people to say if you don't go then now I've said to them if you don't go there's limits to how far I can take you on this growth process because you're still constantly having this echoing voice that invalidates you and remind you of that invalidation you know in the next room so there's only but there's only so much but there's still a lot of growth I mean your life almost becomes a series of Silent acts of rebellion you know some people literally I know some folks told me you know what I was inspired by what you said so I just went to an online university and I got my degree and I never told them everything is a little game for yourself to like find your own Joy correct and they or they volunteer in their community and what they recognize is that the volunteering was joyful The Narcissist would say to them why would you want to help a bunch of people who are too stupid to help themselves they they if anything they'll say they're horrible negativity only reinforces and I'm totally right about them I'm not wrong about this I'm not a bad person for recognizing that they're toxic and I can go out and do something that fills my soul but you're right it's only a partial Victory um but if you can get out get out right okay so let me ask you this so again I know there are certain cultures and situations and countries that probably have harder harder restrictions of removing yourself so but it okay so let's figure this out it's gonna be painful to stay in the marriage if there's what the narcissistic person it's going to be extremely painful to leave for potentially years where you might have to find a whole new community move you know build friendships and relationships again be on your own all that stuff but if there's light at the end of the tunnel when you leave you know three five seven years out as opposed to being in the relationship for that time is that the better solution you know I don't I think that here and it's so hard to say because if you somebody said to me tell me the best solution take away all the contextual factors it's obviously not to be in such a relationship when we talk about how people manage themselves in these relationships there's all these forms of contact you can have and the most extreme is no contact which means done you block them you cut them out you don't speak to them you don't take their calls nada nothing and you know what there's there's places I've actually seen the hard data on this everyone will say no contact awesome like I I feel so much better now that they no longer exist in my life but it's a really limited strategy if it's your family member if it's someone you co-parent with it's somebody you might still have professional contact with so that's such an extreme that it might work like somebody let's say someone dated someone and you don't have a ton of mutual friends and you move away physically no contact can happen and let me tell you I've done no content like it's good okay yeah then there's low contact now low contact can be done in a couple of different ways but it tends to be you know what I'd say more perfunctory you don't really engage with them it's just really like just sort of let's say it's a family member you've decided like okay this person's so bad for me I want nothing to do with them but your beloved cousins getting married you may just you say to beloved cousin just whatever the opposite side of the room for seating me is I'd appreciate it maybe they come and talk to you and you give them very simple yes no kids are great responses you go to the bathroom a lot when they approach you people are going to think you have some sort of digestive problem but it's a great out but you step away and if it gets to be too much you give yourself permission to leave so it is you know low contact doesn't mean like you they come to you and you don't speak to them you might say oh hi yeah grids are great yeah it's been a long time yeah I actually got to run to the restroom right it's one of those and so or I gotta run I've got a call or whatever so you find your ways to maintain and then you won't have contact with them maybe for 10 more years until there's another wedding or funeral or something like that so that's more of the low contact and you know and then there's all these techniques like gray rock and yellow Rock like all these techniques to figure out ways to communicate but the tool I give people and I think maybe I talked about this last time I don't remember but it's something I call don't go deep with them which means don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize and I it's a mantra like don't defend don't engage don't explain don't personalize deep what happens if you do any of those If you defend you're going to get in the mud with them and they like it and you get dirty so that doesn't make sense so you don't like if you defend it's just going to escalate a gas light and fight and and there's no point because you're not going to end any kind of sane rational place when you explain they will definitely Gaslight you so there's no point to that engaging means don't get into a conversation with them do not ask them what they think of something do not tell them that good news and don't personalize this isn't about you they do this to anyone in your position they're going to manipulate it's what they do and so they're going to lie they're going to Gaslight it's just how their personalities are organized it's not about you there's nothing you can do to change this not you not me not anybody and so that's the it's a really fun it then that's what we call radical acceptance nothing you can do I won't it ain't going to change and that's not because and a lot of people say well it's not going to change because I'm not enough it's not going to change because it's not going to change no one's ever enough for them I want to discourage the idea that it doesn't take effort that love doesn't take action that love doesn't need intention that love doesn't need working on yourself I want to discourage that idea because I think the idea that it perpetuates is love is gonna find you