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Living With Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Ever crossed paths with someone who displays narcissistic tendencies? These people tend to leave a lasting impression, maybe even a deficient bank account or a wake of broken relationships, but almost always coming with both an extreme depletion of energy and a sense of unrelenting confusion. Once you recognize that you have invited a narcissist into your experience, your life will never quite be the same.

What are the Signs of Living with a Narcissist?

When you live with someone with untreated narcissistic personality disorder, you are living with someone who is unstable. They cannot regulate their own emotions. They go up and down and they insist that you go up and down with them.


Something small can trigger them—suddenly they are enraged, and usually at you. If you do not immediately apologize and act as if the whole thing is your fault, their fragile ego will cause them to escalate the fight. You become the enemy. They will then double down on the idea that it is all your fault and try to punish you for it.


If you are in a long-term relationship with a narcissist (even a platonic one) at best your life will be a series of waves that you will have to emotionally surf.

 

How Disappointment Ensues When You're in a Relationship with a Narcissist

No matter how much you try, no matter how good you are, you will periodically get devalued, mistreated, and threatened. Things will be going great one moment, then suddenly your narcissistic partner will get triggered and you are no longer surfing, you are underwater drowning.


The longer you live with a narcissist, the more you are likely to exhaust yourself trying to stay optimistic. After a while, your narcissistic partner’s pattern will become extremely and sickeningly obvious. No matter how well things appear to be going, it can all change in a second and become truly heart or gut wrenching—like walking into a room and being sucker-punched. This experience can be quite disheartening because, other than leaving, there is nothing you can do to make your home life stable and emotionally safe.

Who do Narcissists Choose as Their Partners?

Narcissists are often in a relationship with codependent and boundary-less people—those with incredibly emotional empathy and a background of abuse. The narcissist’s need for control over their partners stems from their own abusive or neglectful childhood where they did not have any control themselves.


So if you ever try to communicate your needs in the relationship by speaking up or being assertive, a narcissist will start with the silent treatment as if they are the victim, until you back down. They want to make all the decisions in the relationship while you observe and watch, using defensiveness, excuses, stonewalling, or gaslighting as a form of emotional abuse. This is all used to manipulate you. And because you come from a background of abuse, you tolerate and even normalize their behaviors towards you, and everyone else.


Having a relationship with a narcissist will also create a constant state of inner confusion and exhaustion. You are simultaneously drained of your energy while also questioning your self-worth. No matter what you do, it will never be enough; they will always find a way to criticize you one way or the other, until you give up and truly believe that you are not good enough, loveable, or worthy.


Defeated, you will feel like everything is your fault and often apologize for nothing. Being with a narcissist will also make you feel like the narcissist—as they will accuse you of being irrational, difficult, crazy, or wrong, make you second guess or feel guilty for your choices. Narcissists lack emotional empathy; therefore, their constant taunting behavior takes a significant toll on your mental health.

The Delusional Trap To Avoid

It is very common for both narcissists and their partners to both find themselves disappointed and rather shocked that everything is not going as expected in the relationship. The psychological term used to describe this phenomenon is called cognitive dissonance.

First of all, narcissists are so delusional and dishonest that they play themselves along with their partner. Whenever they meet a new romantic interest they think this time around it will all be different. This person will finally make them happy and lift their fragile self-esteem and ego, making them feel good about themselves all the time.

So the narcissist puts their best foot forward and says all the right things. They act sweet, attentive, and considerate. This isn’t necessarily fake. They truly feel that you are perfect for them and that they have a real chance at a long lasting relationship with you.

The problem is that they lack the skills needed to handle a real relationship. So as soon as the relationship tests them through any disagreements and misunderstandings that naturally transpire, they aren’t able to navigate their negative emotions maturely. If you are paying close attention, this is the time they start to reveal their true colors.

This is when they start to play games. Instead of communicating their feelings directly and authentically, they resort to manipulations in order to control, influence, exploit, provoke, and punish the person of interest. If they can’t play the source the way they want and the source sees right through their perverted pretenses and calls them out, they typically pull the plug and disappear in true coward fashion.

Narcissists are bored, weak, and lazy. Yes, initially they believe they got lucky to have found someone good looking, kind, and intelligent. However, they lack the skills to keep up the facade for any extended periods of time.

What are Some Narcissistic Traits to Look for?

  • A sense of entitlement

  • Takes you for granted

  • A need to be in control

  • A lack of emotional empathy

  • Never apologizes

  • Justified in their rage and blame

  • Extreme self-centeredness

  • Gives only with a goal

  • Grandiosity

  • Poor impulse control

  • Requires constant affirmation and adoration

How Is Narcissism Created?

Narcissists are created in loveless homes, by loveless families, where the child is just an extension of the parent. Often competing with their children, the narcissistic parent likes to also play favorites—showing outrageous favor to one child while over-punishing the other. The idea is to constantly cause division amongst the children so they won’t gang up on the parent. The child also never experiences love from this parent without conditions, and lives in a home where children are to blame for everything that is wrong.

Disproportionate Punishment and Treatment

If we have a childhood where our parents love us despite our flaws, we are punished proportionally to our bad behavior, and it feels like our parents still respect, love us, and want us to be safe. We are able to comprehend and understand that our mother, who punishes us, and the one who is nice to us, are the same person. As we grow up and mature, we also learn to integrate the good and bad parts in ourselves into one stable, realistic person.

However, if our parents aren’t able to see us realistically, and instead treat us as all good or all bad, we will not have the ability to learn how to see good and bad within a whole person. It’s called whole object relations. If you don’t have it, you see other people as either all good, or all bad. And you will see yourself as all good or all bad.

All-Good = They see the person as perfect, special, flawless, high status, idealizable, and entitled to special treatment.

All-Bad = They see the person as defective, inadequate, worthless garbage, low status, fair game for devaluation and abuse, and entitled to nothing.

If you do not have whole object relations, you will not have object constancy either, because object constancy depends on being able to see both sides of a person at once. Object constancy is the ability to maintain the big-picture of your whole relationship, especially the good parts and good feelings towards someone, when you are angry, hurt, frustrated, or physically distant from the person.

For instance, during a fight, once someone with narcissistic personality disorder gets angry with you, they will immediately see you as all-bad and ‘forget’ their past positive feelings for you—or explain them away as mistakes in an attempt to resolve the discrepancy between their current feelings towards you and any past positive feelings. Their reasoning can look something like this: “You are a terrible person and so mean to me. If I ever said otherwise, it was because I was taken in by how ‘nice’ you were acting at the time.”

Narcissists can say something as nonsensical as the above because they do not realize that they have not yet developed the capacity to form an integrated view of people—something that most other people learn by the age of 6. Therefore, they have to rationalize away the inconsistency between their current view of you and their past view because they can only alternate between seeing you as either all-good or all-bad.

Fast Forward to Adulthood

At the start of a new relationship, narcissists may see their new person as flawless. Then, as they see the person act in ways that do not perfectly fit the picture of their ideal life, or start to notice the person’s normal human flaws, they may try and deal with their disillusionment in some of the following ways:

  • Accusations

    Instead of realizing that they were expecting too much and adjusting their expectations to fit the reality, they accuse the other person of deceiving them or having bad intentions. “I thought you were so nice, but now I see you fooled me and were acting the whole time.”

  • Controlling Behavior

    They try to force their partner to change to be more in line with their initial beliefs about what they were like. “You would look hotter if you wore this outfit instead.”

  • Threats

    When their partner does not go along with their requests or holds different ideas, they may try and bully them into compliance. “You will be very, very sorry if you keep up that behavior.”

  • Devaluation

    They try to motivate their partner to change by trying to convince them that whatever they are doing or thinking is wrong, stupid, ignorant, and worthless. “Nobody with any intelligence would ever say what you just said.”

  • Punishments

    They feel entitled to punish their partner for not complying with their wishes. “I am not taking you out for dinner as planned because you are making me so angry.”

What Is Really Going On?

In many ways, narcissists are emotionally and cognitively stuck at a childlike state of development. They still see themselves as the center of the world, cannot conceive that other people can have a valid point of view that differs from their own, and do not understand that it is unreasonable to expect other people to empathically intuit all their needs. They may have a high IQ and be brilliant at their job, but in many ways their view of people and relationships is not equal.

When narcissists are emotionally triggered, they only focus on how they feel in the moment. People with narcissistic personality disorder are usually focused on their current thoughts and feelings, not how they felt twenty minutes ago or how they might feel in the future. Once something triggers a strong negative or positive response, that reaction takes center stage. Narcissists then act as if their current emotional state and way of thinking is all there is and will last forever.

Thus, if you are dating someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, when your lover feels great about you, he or she may start making plans for the future with you—even though the two of you hardly know each other. “Let’s go to Rome together. I can’t wait to show you my favorite restaurant.” Then something you do triggers a negative reaction and suddenly those plans are history, leaving you in a state of confusion.

What did I do Wrong?

Most of us believe that when someone loves us they will do or feel some of the following:

  • They will try to avoid hurting you

  • They will care about your feelings

  • They will empathize with you

  • When you feel unhappy, they will try to soothe you or cheer you up

  • They will not lie to you

  • They will take your side in an argument with other people

  • They will not devalue you to other people behind your back

  • They will try and keep their promises to you

  • They will be sexually and emotionally faithful to you if the two of you agree to be in a monogamous relationship

After the courtship period is over, if you are in love with someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and believe that they love you (whether you know their actual diagnosis or not), you are likely to find that the person’s actual behavior violates your belief system. This puts you in the position of having cognitive dissonance.

So, what do you do now?

At that point, most partners of narcissists use one or more of the following psychological defenses to try and diminish their cognitive dissonance without having to leave the relationship. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, just some of the more common ways people deal with this type of contradictory information:

  • Denial

    They refuse to believe the new information. “He would never cheat on me. He loves me.”

  • Rationalization

    They make excuses that minimize the importance of the behavior. “She was drunk when she called me those vile names. That is not likely to ever happen again.”

  • Blaming Oneself

    Preserving the other person’s basic goodness by taking the blame for their bad behavior. “It was really my fault. I provoked him.”

  • Normalization

    They comfort themselves with the idea that the behavior or attitude is normal. “Everyone loses their temper occasionally.”

How Can You Walk Away from A Narcissist for Good?

What many people don’t realize is that the people we engage with will always mirror who we are on the inside. They reflect our insecurities, self-doubts, tendencies to over give, and feelings of unworthiness. However, once you learn the (sometimes very loud) lessons these types of relationships provide, you can heal to a depth you may not have known existed.

  • Identify if you are in a toxic relationship and seek support to show you how to navigate, or potentially end it.

  • Release ties and energetic cords to free yourself from toxic relationships, as well as any and all karmic ties, contracts or agreements.

  • Stop living for the expectations of others and recalibrate to your own needs.

  • Heal to the core and permanently release patterns that do not serve you.

  • Embrace empowerment and self-confidence.

  • Learn to trust yourself and your guidance system to be your own most reliable and consistent ally.

Now, show them that everything they thought they knew about you was a miscalculation. They thought you would never put your foot down and say no to them? Refuse something really important that they are asking for, and do not budge.

They thought you would always place more importance on their well-being than on your own? Show them that if they are headed in the direction of their own demise, you will help walk them to their next stop.

They thought you would never have the ability to leave them and make it on your own? Show them that life goes on without their help and create a life without them.

Being in a relationship with a person who has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, formally diagnosed or not, can be incredibly confusing and difficult to navigate. It can trigger feelings of low self-worth, doubt, confidence, and can make you question everything about yourself and your current circumstances. But once you can recognize the person for what they are and how they got there, you can begin to set clear and firm boundaries for yourself and move forward in any way that is in your best interests.

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The Little Embryo That Couldn’t

Staring at the screen in front of us, my husband grabbed my arm 30 seconds before the doctor said: “There’s no heartbeat.”

He already knew.

I’ll always remember those words; how they stabbed my soul and jolted me into an inconsolable state of loud gasps and uncontrollable tears.

I remember thinking to myself: “The twinkle light went out.”

In case you’ve never seen the heartbeat of a six-week embryo in a live ultrasound, picture a tiny blinking dot that goes on and off, on and off, on and off. Like Christmas string lights, but Polly Pocket edition.

Miscarriage 101

The official terminology for miscarriage is spontaneous abortion. I learned that ‘miscarriage’ is used conversationally to avoid associating spontaneous abortion with induced abortion (the elective kind). Regardless of your word preference, both are defined as the natural loss of pregnancy before 20 weeks of gestation.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) estimates miscarriage is the most common form of pregnancy loss. And according to this Stat Pearl article from The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), 26% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage and 80% of them occur in the first trimester.

Many women are aware that miscarriage is a possibility. Some might catastrophize about it, some might pray for it not to happen, and some just don’t give it the headspace—I was a mix of all these women. I’d heard that miscarriages were more common during the first trimester, and heard the stories of women who’d experienced this loss. I felt deep empathy for them. However, now I know I was oblivious. I was farther from understanding that heart-rending pain than a marathonist is from her finish line at the start of the race (and that’s a four-hour run).

To say that this broke my heart would be a massive understatement. My soul was broken, my spirit was broken, my life was changed.

A New Year’s Baby

I found out about my pregnancy early on. At five weeks and a few days I was at the doctor’s office having my first ultrasound. After a brief conversation, he told me that my due date was January 01, 2022; I was thrilled. The first day of the year is my favorite holiday and celebrating New Year’s Eve is my favorite family gathering. It fills me with joy and hope and all the goodness in the world.

“Come back next week,” the doctor said.

I thought he meant next month. And so did his assistant. And although I found it odd, amazingly I didn’t overthink it (kudos to my therapist).

Apart from the micro interviews with my doctor, I was reading Emily Oster’s book Expecting Better for the second time and was constantly skimming through the pages of Pregnancy, Childbirth and The Newborn. Not to mention I received weekly notifications from the Baby Center app. So, I felt relatively covered with my pregnancy information at this stage.

Getting Caught Off Guard

We returned to the doctor’s office a week later, now over six weeks pregnant. While in the examination chair and staring silently at the live image of my uterus on screen, I asked if everything was OK.

“It’s not growing properly,” he said.

I was six weeks and five days pregnant, and the embryo’s size matched the growth for six weeks and one day—not five.

My mind immediately went to a place of “What did you do wrong?”

Out of the countless potential problems that I could have imagined, my baby not growing at an appropriate rate, wasn’t even on my catastrophe radar.

And I guess now is a good time to tell you what I didn’t know then, and therefore, didn’t panic over: a slow-growing embryo is a red flag for a potential miscarriage. The team behind this clinical article said it best: “Early first-trimester growth restriction is associated with subsequent intrauterine death.”

When the Lights Went Out

Finding out I was pregnant one week, and learning I was on the road to miscarriage the next, was overwhelming, uncomfortable, and emotionally exhausting. I went to four appointments in the span of three weeks because we needed to monitor the situation closely. The farther the baby grew from its age in weeks, the higher the probability of my pregnancy ending.

Every time I went in for the ultrasound, I held my breath. The phrase “preparing for the worst, hoping for the best” never felt so true. It reminded me of the lady in the thug cat video—she’s observing the mischievous cat whose eyes are fixed on her, but whose paw is getting closer and closer to the glass, about to push it over the edge. I’m sure that like me, she was holding her breath, hoping her cat would spare that one glass from shattering all over the floor. But it didn’t.

On our next-to-last ultrasound I was closer to eight weeks, and the embryo had ‘grown’ to six weeks and two days now. It was not a good sign.

That was the last time we saw the blinking light-like dot, before it went out for good.

The Aftermath

The best unsolicited advice I can give, should you become pregnant or face a similar situation, is to get informed.

THERE ARE THREE COMMON PATHS TO FOLLOW AFTER A MISCARRIAGE AT THIS STAGE:

  1. Expectant Management: wait for your body to expel any embryonic tissue naturally, a ‘wait-and-see’ approach.

  2. Medical Management: the doctor prescribes medication to help your body pass the remaining tissue.

  3. Surgical Management: you go through dilatation and curettage—involving minor surgery (this was my case).

Your doctor or healthcare provider should walk you through any risks and considerations around each option to support your informed decision-making.

Choosing to undergo minor surgery was the right choice for me. I can’t say for sure, but I doubt that consciously passing any remaining tissue would have strengthened my mental health at that moment.

THE POWER OF SHARING

The first thing I did after the doctor said there was no heartbeat (and after crying my life out) was texting my therapist. No one knew I was pregnant. Not our families, not our friends, not our colleagues. And I wanted to tell them. I knew I needed the space to feel, to be, to do nothing, and to see no one. However, I couldn’t disappear from my job, nor ghost my close friends and family.

Being her amazing self, my therapist gave me a simple framework to keep the news short, and to hold difficult conversations without oversharing and overexposing myself, while in that fragile emotional state.

So, I focused on three key points:

  1. What happened

  2. How it made me feel

  3. What I needed from them

I’ll be forever grateful.

Forever grateful to her for helping me navigate through this turbulence, and to those family members, close friends, and colleagues on a need-to-know basis, who offered their empathy and support via kind words and soul-nourishing messages.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

These are a few things that allowed me to make peace with myself and to experience this grief with enough self-compassion:

  • Getting informed. There’s nothing I could have done to prevent or avoid it. According to this review, approximately 50% of pregnancy losses are caused by chromosomal abnormalities. Particularly before 12 weeks.

  • Choosing the right healthcare provider (for me). My doctor noticed something was off, and acted on it from day one. He was thorough and transparent when explaining our situation and our choices. He answered my thousand questions without rush and was exceptionally empathetic. This was fundamental to keep my mind at the right place.

  • Respecting my emotions. Even if my loss happened shortly after eight weeks, I should never belittle my pain, nor undermine my experience. Losing a pregnancy is devastating at any stage.

  • Sharing my experience. I decided what I would share, how I would share it and with whom. I also talked to women who are close to me, and who shared their own experiences. There’s a healing component in normalizing this conversation and in acknowledging the hurt. I don’t need to hear it will be alright and I’ll have a baby eventually (I have faith in that). I just need you to join me in recognizing how much this sucks.

  • Prioritizing mental health, rest, and recovery. Loss is hard. I didn’t just lose a pregnancy. I lost the illusion of a baby, of a child, of our extended family. I lost hope. So, I gave my mind and my body the immediate attention they deserved.

  • Recognizing that this is not only happening to me. My husband didn’t ‘support’ me. He went through this with me. When it came to feeling the feels, I chose to share mine and he chose to share his. Transparency and empathy helped us connect, and ultimately strengthened that unique bond that keeps us together day in and day out.

Honor Your Needs

Healing is not linear, and loss can look and feel different for everyone. Miscarriage takes a deep toll on our body, our mind, our emotions, and our relationships. Consider taking care of yourself by voicing your needs, asking for help, and for the space you need—whenever you need it.

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Mother’s Day Confession

Sometimes I wish someone would take care of me.

I dream about someone preparing a meal for me, so I don’t have to. The only person who cooks for me is my own mother, which, yes, I do see the irony there.

I dream of waking up in the morning and being able to take care of ME first before I get requests for treats (yes, treats are always requested first), and for breakfast, and a different show, and “oh, mom I need more drink!” I dream of taking care of me before I have to take the dog out, and then feed the dog, and then take the dog out again because he’s still a puppy, then serve a second helping of breakfast to my little humans. And then we’re rushing out the door and… “mom, did you charge my iPad?”

I dream of days in solitude spent in a hotel room, where I can make a mess if I want to (even though I won’t).

I dream of being alone. Alone!? Can you imagine being alone? After the year we’ve had?

I dream of commanding the TV and watching what I want without 10 interruptions every hour.

I dream of long afternoons soaking up the sun, without a care for nap time schedules.

I dream of going shopping without first assessing everyone’s mood and determining how on guard I need to be for a toddler tantrum. Maybe it isn’t worth it and tomorrow would be better?

And listening. Oh, how I dream of being able to say everything only once. I dream of not needing to repeat and repeat and repeat until I am bursting and screaming because no one is listening to me.

I dream of a house where I’m the only one that makes a mess (or not) and everything is exactly where I left it.

I dream of being able to sit in my own thoughts without being interrupted by small voices that say…

Where’s my…

Can you…

I want…

 

And then they go to bed…

And I find myself missing their smile.

I’m in awe of the freckles that are beginning to appear in the crease of their nose and how they just keep learning, and learning, and learning, even about things I never taught them.

I find myself creeping in their room when their asleep because I want to see their faces one more time before the day is through.

I catch myself watching old videos on my phone because, look how sweet they were.

 

Look how sweet they are.

 

Motherhood is complicated. And strange. And gross. And busy. And wonderful. And scary. And so joyous. And a mess. And expanding. And shrinking. And confusing. And love. And forgiveness.

And quite simply…

everything.

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Attachment Styles: How They Are Affecting Your Relationships

I used to live in fear that my husband was going to leave me every time there was an argument between us. There were times I would lay awake at night, obsessively thinking about how much he did not wish to be as close as I would like for him to be to me.

Highly attuned to any fluctuations in his moods, I took most of his actions personally, experiencing a lot of negative emotions within our relationship. I was regularly getting upset: experiencing headaches, stomach aches, panic attacks, and non-stop crying.

There were other things that contributed to my constantly being on high alert, in particular, my having been a trauma survivor with PTSD. Throughout most of my life, my thoughts centered around all of my significant relationships.

Wanting to resolve the conflict within these relationships consumed a large part of my time, as well as emotional energy. I was exhausted, my adrenals were drained, and the worst part was, I didn’t really have the tools to know how to make it stop.
A few years later, I stumbled upon and finally read the highly recommended book Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love by Amir Levine and Rachel S.F. Heller. I sat up all night, tears streaming down my cheeks in release, devastated, why had it taken me so long to discover this information?
I am considered an anxious attachment style. Now it all finally made sense.

Consuming each page carefully and absorbing every word, I could clearly see my energy investment and contribution to every relationship I had in my life. Now I felt compelled to take action and responsibility for what I would like to do differently going forward.

Learning Your Attachment Style

First on the list was learning how to tap into the mindset of creating a secure base for myself, my relationship with my daughter, and my husband.

If you haven’t heard of attachment theory, the theory of attachment styles comes from the work psychoanalyst John Bowlby and psychologist Mary Ainsworth performed with infants (usually 9 to 18 months old) and their mothers, during the 1960s and 70s.
 

The classification comes from how an infant reacted to a strange situation test (the reaction to the reunion with a parent after a stressful separation). Bowlby and Ainsworth were able to clearly identify three different styles: anxious, avoidant and secure.

Since that time, attachment theory has become a useful system for re-thinking complex relationship dynamics and reexamining early childhood traumas.

Knowing your attachment style improves your ability to communicate with your family members, and if you are coupled, improves your relationship with your primary partner. If you are single, understanding your style can help you choose the most supportive and vibrationally aligned life partner, partnerships, or friendships for you.

Once you’ve determined your attachment style through an online quiz, you are empowered to learn techniques and principles to resolve personal conflict and effectively communicate when you are in an emotionally triggered state.

The Power of Understanding

Growing up with a secure attachment style isn’t so much about the absence of trauma, but about having a childhood where your needs are met and emotions validated by your primary caregiver. In adulthood, a secure attachment style in a partner relationship means someone who is “attuned to their partner’s emotional and physical cues and know[s] how to respond to them,” as Levine and Heller write in Attached. Non-crisis levels of tension in a relationship don’t make the securely attached person totally shut down or react with an activated or outsized fight or flight response.

If you can see yourself clearly and are able to stay grounded and talk through difficult things in an open manner without getting emotionally flooded or shut down, you have a secure attachment style. Someone with secure attachment is more likely to look at situations more objectively, without overindulging in self-blame, while still being able to take ownership of mistakes.

50% of the population are considered secure attachment styles, and the rest happen to fall within an anxious or avoidant attachment style. If the latter is true for you, your goal is to find more ways of providing inner security and interdependency by learning how to soothe your own inner child. Or partnering with a secure partner which enables you to become more secure over time.

Providing security for oneself requires you to stay present and make yourself available for any and all emotions you are feeling, to learn ways to manage and emotionally regulate your reactions in real time, and continually practice ways of encouraging yourself when you are in a reactive state. Some of the ways might include guided meditation, positive mindset through affirmations or mantras, mindfulness and breathing techniques, or simply a focus on journaling gratitude.

Of course, this is a long, slow process. Unlearning maladaptive attachment styles has to start with compassion for yourself, as these habits were formed to protect yourself as a child. They likely kept you safe, alert to untrustworthy bonds, and served you well. But in adulthood, you don’t need to use these behaviors any longer; it’s time to thank them for looking out for your emotional safety and ask them to take a rest.

For me, feeling security is about knowing that things that make me anxious are safe to bring up in a relationship without the fear of negative reactions to my vulnerability. I also practice doing the same thing for others. It does not mean that I won’t experience conflict or difficulty working through things, but it does mean that conflict produces greater levels of intimacy, security, and growth with those around me, rather than a contact high of codependent enmeshment or a total shutdown of intimacy between us.

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Grief: Processing Regret, Forgiveness, and Memories of Love

I’ve tried to write this a few times, trying to find the right words to say, hoping that this would be insightful and even helpful. But the truth is, grief is surprising. It is messy and complicated, unpredictable and uncomfortable.

The reason this is so hard for me is because I lost a dear friend in a tragic accident 5 days before Christmas—and I’ve been having a difficult time trying to process this. I’ve experienced death from a distance and even as a support to my husband. I knew in some ways what to expect, but at its deepest level, I wasn’t expecting everything else that came along with it.

In some ways, I feel at peace with my feelings. Yes, there is regret, which I think is a completely normal and justifiable response. But I can’t help but think…if I had just seen her or hugged her or done whatever with her one last time, or about the moments I will never have with her. And then I think of the amount of pain her family is going through. She was only 23. Yes, death is part of life, but 23. That’s just getting started.

I think our regret comes from grieving an illusionary life that we imagined but will never get to come to fruition.

This past year has opened my eyes and my heart to a lot of different practices. One of which is radical forgiveness. This can be done for yourself or for others, but the process is the same. While we have no control over others, we do have control over ourselves. Forgiveness is not for the other person to give; it is a gift to and for yourself. In a situation where you are running multiple scenarios through your head and multiple futures of what could be, this is the time for forgiveness. Forgive yourself for what could not be or for all that you wish you would have been done differently. This is the story of grief; being in this cycle. We will never get another chance with them. Forgive all parts of yourself that you have any guilt about.

Ho’oponopono

My favorite practice is called Ho’oponopono. It is an ancient Hawaiian practice for forgiveness and self-healing. The process was founded and adapted to modern times by Hawaiian Kahuna Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona. It is absolutely fascinating to read about and I will simply summarize how I have used this technique to cope with the loss of my friend.

Step 1: Repentance

For this instance you could say something along the lines of “I am so sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. I am so sorry I wasn’t there for you in a way that you needed.” You are essentially placing the responsibility on to yourself.

Step 2: forgiveness

The step where we ask for forgiveness. It doesn’t necessarily matter who you are asking, just ask. “Please forgive me” and mean this so deeply. You could follow up with “Please forgive me for (insert situation or scenario).

Step 3: gratitude

Simply, “Thank you”. Now with grief, this is where I would shift into the feeling of being able to share in their life. They were a gift to us, for whatever that means to you, express gratitude for being able to share in this physical world with you for the time that they did.

Step 4: Love

Last step is probably the most important. Saying “I love you.”
Say this to the person you are experiencing grief over losing. Say this to God or whomever you call to, in times of need. Say it to your friends and family, but also to yourself. Love is the most powerful force in this world and can change the mood in any room. We grieve because we love.

In grief, nothing makes any sense. Time doesn’t exist in your world. Days and weeks, months and years go by and it’s as if you are frozen. Still in the moment where everything in your life crumbled with news that would forever impact your everyday life. You look up at the sky and you see a cloud that reminds you of “that one time…” with your person. Any sense can trigger a memory. A sound, smell, taste, or feel of something can take you back as if it were happening right at that very moment. You are momentarily struck, as if frozen deep in that memory.

And the waves continue to crash as if you never had time to come up for air.

It all starts over.

The sting of reality.

The phone call you want to make to a person that will never pick up.

Realizing the moments that will never be shared together in this physical life. As one walks in our reality and the other glides in the spirit realm.

Words are hard to convey, emotions are even harder.

“It is what it is”

But don’t I wish it could all just be a nightmare I could wake up from.

Grief is something I wish we didn’t have to experience, but as you know, that is life. In some ways, perhaps the process of our loved ones’ departure is teaching us something we could never learn if they were here—a catalyst. Though a meaningful and painful one.

Someone passing away can be a point where you can turn your life around. Where you get to embody the very best parts of your loved one and carry that presence around with you wherever you go. The power of truly being present and not regretting any single thing at all.

I think that’s the greatest gift we could ever truly give.

Anyone in grief will tell you things both predictable and unpredictable will make you sad, and in those moments, just remember, grief is only misplaced love and if you feel that emotion, you have the opportunity to share that love with others—keeping a piece of them alive. We sort of are our own bully in this situation and we really don’t have to be. We can’t change what was or what wasn’t. We can only learn and do better with other people. This is a whole process in healing and growing. Practice forgiveness on yourself and others. I promise this will be transformative.

And I will leave you with something that was shared at my friends funeral and it was a perfect summary of how our life force energy continues long after we aren’t able to interact in this world physically. “Light bulbs die, my sweet. I will depart”, from Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium which was followed by another saying, “I like to think that it’s just a change of address.” They are always around us because the love we have for them is inside us and that can never be taken from us.

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Women And Abundance As Told For Centuries Past

I read something today in a book about abundance that said women often feel discontent because they want to have it all. They want too much.

It went on to say that women need to be okay with having only what we need and not everything we want. While I believe whole-heartedly that we should be thankful and content for everything we have, I do have a problem with implicating that we, as women, desire too much and should not have lofty desires in the first place.

For centuries women have been told what they can and cannot have. They have been told to be meek and safe in their pursuits. To be cautionary in their adventures in fear of making the wrong step, of upsetting the wrong person. It is something so ingrained into our being, playing it safe, holding ourselves back has become a norm that has passed down from generation to generation.

By believing that you cannot have everything you desire, you are, in turn, telling the universe that you don’t deserve everything you desire — so it will never come to you. Life is about cultivating an experience that we love and find joy in, so why would you tell yourself that you can’t have, don’t deserve, the things that will bring in those very feelings?

You can have everything you want. It isn’t a matter of worthiness. It’s a matter of what you are willing to do in order to get what you want.

Several years ago I was deep within an autoimmune flare. I was searching for a diagnosis for months and was in an immeasurable amount of pain every day. If I undertook this belief described in this book, I could not have achieved everything I wanted — health would not be an option for me. I would have settled into the sickness, claiming it as my own, resigning in my pain and grief over my seemingly broken body. However, I refused that outcome. I worked tirelessly to find answers. To find providers who could actually help me and believed that I truly was sick. It wasn’t fast coming and it certainly wasn’t easy, but I finally did achieve the health I was looking for.

The only reason that was able to occur was because I believed (even without proof) that it was available to me. If you are willing to do the work, to do whatever needs to be done to set the course for what you want, you can have anything you want. The world is yours. It is there waiting for you to take it.

Should you grasp, white knuckled, for your desires? No.

Should you be desperate and impatient for what you want? Absolutely not.

But you need to dream. You need to daydream and visualize and conceptualize what it is you actually want in this life. Call it in and believe that it is obtainable. Go after what you want and believe that you can have it — then plant the seeds. Set the goals and actions to make it happen. It is yours.

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Rethinking Kindness

Isn’t it ironic how often we tell our children to be kind? As a mother, I know I tell my children at least 3 times a day to be kind in one way or another.

“Please be kind.”

“Please make kind choices.”

“Be kind to your sister.”

“Be kind to your brother.”

“Was that a kind thing to do?”

You’ll notice here, that these kindness suggestions are pointing outside oneself, rather than in. A showing of kindness to another person. And while being kind to other humans is certainly a worthy attribute, I wonder if we are not missing a crucial piece here. Or maybe it is just me and my parenting habits. Do we frequently remind our children to be kind to themselves? Do we remind ourselves to be kind to ourselves?

Self-care is everywhere right now. While it is important and I am grateful that people are discussing it, maybe we should start this whole process a little earlier. Like, in childhood. Both on good days and challenging days.

How to Rethink Kindness

How do we do this? The same way we taught outward kindness, I suppose. Here’s how I attempted to do this today.

Prior to heading to a local parade, my middle child attempted to fill his water bottle by himself. While I appreciate the attempt, he ended up spilling at least 30 oz of water all over the kitchen island, which proceeded to drip onto the chairs and floor.

Now, it was just water. Not a huge deal, right? Right.

But—this happens fairly frequently. We have water puddles most days of the week with infrequent clean-up afterward. Additionally, my middle and his siblings had been quite rambunctious prior to the big spill. So Mama came in a little intense, as she is wont to do

[She being me, is still a work-in-progress, but I digress].

He was upset and struggling to clean up all the water. Seeing this, I grabbed a bath towel and began to help while requesting some information about the events that occurred prior to the spill. His siblings claimed innocence, which seemed both convenient and unlikely. I began to discuss ways to prevent this from continuing to occur (as in, ask for help or fill it directly from the faucet).

He was soon tearful. I knelt down to his level and asked him if he wanted a hug. He said yes.

I considered releasing the hug after 15 seconds or so, but decided to wait him out. During that embrace, I envisioned pouring my love into him. I also envisioned clearing any negativity from the both of us. By the end, it felt as though we were in a cocoon of safety and love. One that we could carry along with us.

After about a minute, he pulled away. I stayed down at his level and asked him what he was feeling. He shook his head and would not meet my eyes. Knowing that he tends to bottle up his emotions, I asked again and then scooped him up and carried him to the couch. I asked once more.

He replied, tearfully, “it’s all my fault.”

“What is? The water?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you think spilling water is a big deal?”

He shook his head no.

I said, “You are always allowed to feel sad or mad or whatever, but spilling water is not a huge deal. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. I was just hoping to help prevent it from continuing to happen.” I looked into his eyes and then tapped his temple as I asked. “Is that voice in your head being mean?”

He nodded.

I said, “Will you repeat after me?”

He nodded again.

I used the Mel Robbins 5-second method. “5-4-3-2-1. I am allowed to make mistakes.”

He repeated, “5-4-3-2-1. I am allowed to make mistakes.”

I said. “I am loved when I make mistakes. I am forgiven when I make mistakes. Nothing is unforgivable.”

He repeated each word as I had, then breathed a bit easier.

I said, “You can do that whenever that voice in your head gets mean. Just count backward and introduce a new thought. Like ‘I am loved’ or ‘I am worthy of forgiveness.’”

He nodded.

I then said, “You know you’re not that voice, right? That voice tries to keep you safe and maybe keep you from taking risks, but that voice can also be pretty mean. You’re not that voice. You’re the one hearing it, observing it. And know that you can let those thoughts go. Right?”

“Yeah. I love you, Mom.” He said he hugged me tightly again.

I certainly am not an expert in parenting. I certainly make mistakes and get intense more often than I’d like. But I think this is an important reminder for both adults and children.

Are we being kind to ourselves? Sometimes being kind is eating an apple instead of Cheetos. Sometimes being kind is drinking water instead of wine. Sometimes being kind is going for a walk instead of playing PS4. Sometimes being kind is journaling about that trigger rather than numbing with social media scrolling. Sometimes being kind is walking away from a relationship that leaves you feeling unworthy or unlovable. Sometimes being kind is eating Oreos with your kids and laughing at chocolate-covered teeth. Sometimes being kind is forgiving yourself for mistakes, whether 7, 37, or any age at all.

I hope this can serve as a reminder that outward kindness will become much easier when we’ve been practicing inward kindness as well. Just as self-criticism can often lead to being hypercritical to those around you, I have an inkling that self-kindness would have a similar effect.

So today choose kindness—not just outward facing kindness, but inward facing kindness as well.

Love,

B

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