Narcissism Experts Reveal How To SPOT, Handle & Heal From Trauma | Lewis Howes

relationships, then this episode is for you.

Now, have you ever wondered, why do I always attract this type of person?

Or why do I feel so small after loving them? Well, I hate to break it to you. You may have been dealing with a narcissist and you didn't even realize it.

“And the truth is, narcissistic dynamics don't always look like what we expect.”

They don't always look like a loud ego, sometimes they look like care, sometimes they look like protection, and it can be confusing. So how do you spot it and how do you protect yourself? And most importantly, how do you heal from it when you've dealt with it? Without carrying that damage into future relationships.

Well, today I've put together a powerful masterclass where we're bringing in the world leading experts, and we're going to be helping you identify the science, break patterns, and rebuild yourself trust, and learn how to create healthy, safe, and secure relationships moving forward. In this first section, we have narcissism, expert, Dr. Romani, Darosula.

She is the gold standard on this topic, and she's going to break down the six different types of narcissists that you need to look out for. Let's check this out. Indios, which is the traditional arrogant pretentious, trauma and charismatic, you know,

kind of shiny narcissists.

That's your kind of prototype of the narcissist. There's the vulnerable narcissist. This is probably to me the most compelling form of narcissism because this is where you see the solidness, the patchalance, the passive aggression, the chronic victimhood, the social anxiety, the failure to launch.

These are people who live in fantasies of the great things they're going to do, but they never do them. Wow. Indios, people actually often do, get them done. They will talk the big game and they'll kind of do the big game.

So the vulnerable doesn't mean they're actually intimate and vulnerable with you. No, no, no. It means that they, they themselves are vulnerable, but they don't actually take action. Correct. And to tell you, everyone, I'm going to do this project to this thing.

And you know why I couldn't do it? Because that guy didn't give me the money, and that guy was scammed me and that, you know, everyone takes advantage of me, and that person stole my idea, that's that's that. The vulnerable. The vulnerable.

Okay. Here's the malignant.

Now, to me, the malignant narcissist is the most severe form of narcissism, and that's

when we talk about stuff like the dark tetrad. And the dark tetrad is composed of narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, the willingness to take advantage of other people, and sadism.

“And I also believe paranoia sits in there too, right?”

So in malignant narcissism, we're talking about people who are more coercive, who are more menacing, who are more isolating. This feels a little bit more like psychopathy, but it's still narcissism and that's much more severe. Okay.

Then we have the communal narcissist. Communal. Communal. And these are the folks who get, so all narcissistic folks need validation. The communal narcissistic folks are interesting because they get their validation by being perceived

as saviors, rescuers, and do-gurders. Like cold leaders, or more. That's the severe. So a cult leader would be a communal malignant narcissist. That would be good.

So people like cocktails, right? These are like your move every, you put it all together. Wow. A communal malignant narcissist, called leader. But some communal narcissists could be, could be a mother who does all the activities

and the PTA is the, helps the little eagons, raises the money, and goes to the gallows, and goes home and screams at her kids and is horrible and abuses her partner. But on the surface, it looks like she's- They think she's in a saint amongst us. It's the person who walks around and everyone thinks they're humanitarian, and people

like no, no, no. I worked for their non-profit. And they're like they, we were crazy. I was crazy. Yeah, when you look behind the curtain, you see being ghosts.

So that's the communal narcissist. So they get validation by being, by the sense of, look what a good person they are. They're rescuing puppies, and they're, they're doing this thing, and they're raising all this money, and they're so good. But behind the scenes are not-

No. So it's not thing of people who do nice things are communal narcissists. It's that they continue to have the lack of empathy, entitlement, all that other stuff. So it's like, because I'm like, okay, well, I want to build a community and serve people. So how do you build a community?

You've got to be audience. How do we build communities without that becoming a thing? Is it just because if you're not consistent with service all around you and your relationships, then you're more- Right.

So I mean, are you being mean to other people? So like, if I was-

“Public facing, you look like the best thing ever, but behind the scenes.”

Exactly. So you're being to your partner. You're being to your family. You're mean to your- Not people who work.

You're being consistent. You're consistent. Well, you're consistent. You're consistently mean to the people who are being ignorant. Right.

I think you're in here. Consistently, you should be putting on a show in front of the curtain. Yeah, but you're not consistent on both ways. No, no, no, no. That's like service mindset.

Okay, communal. No, communal. And then there's a self-righteous narcissist. In the self-righteous narcissist is judgmental, moralistic, rigid.

They will, like, they will-

“This would be of kind of person who has so much money, and someone in their family has”

a hardship. They had a job loss, and then their kid needs medical care, and they'll say, "Well, I shouldn't create this situation, so I can still have to figure it out." They have no heart. Like, it feels like you know, heart, but there's also this really rigid judgmental.

And they judge people from the sense of, "Well, look at all I built, I guess I must have worked hard.

They'll never account for their luck."

Right? They're absence of bad luck. That kind of thing. They will say, "If they say dinners at six and you shop at six thirty because your kid got sick, they'll say, "I'm sorry, we already ate."

So it's very, it feels very rigid, cold, moralistic, miserly obsessive. These are people who are often with work of hollocks, and with little care for how it affects. And he will say, "There's work of hollocks out there who check in on other people." Like, "I'm going to make time for you."

Sure. Or, once in, we are going to do rectangular vacation when this is done, whatever, and they're communicating, and people are aware, they're doing this so we could buy the house, or whatever.

“So is it possible to be self-righteous and not be a narcissist in them?”

I don't think you can ever be self-righteous and healthy, because I think if you're self-righteous, you're like, "I'm better than you." Right. So you'll even see self-righteous narcissism in some of these kinds of exercise zealots who are like, "I wake up before I am, and then I milk my goat, and I make a smoothie,

and then I do raw fouls and thousand crunches and run ten million miles, and then I work

and then I journal, and then I this and I sleep at eight o'clock, and I'm like, "What are you talking about? Is there no other human being in your life? How do you deal with a crying sister? I just want to go to hell, and I drink more, go about it."

You know, I mean, that can be self-righteous, and the reason I'm in shape, and I'm going to live to be 179 years old, because I do all this, and you don't, you lazy, awful person. That's self-righteous. Lacken compassion, lack of energy, lack of awareness, lack of awareness of others, so that self-righteousness is sort of where the lack of empathy sits, right?

So I don't think you can be self-righteous, there's good self-righteousness, I don't think

“all self-righteous people are narcissistic, but many people said to me that self-righteous”

narcissism is really what happened in their family of origin, it was a parent. So there would almost be this unrealistic expectation that the child would adhere to rigid obsessive rules like, "Don't touch this, don't do this, don't sit there, eat like this,

and so the kid never got to be a kid."

Okay, number six. And number six would be more of a neglectful narcissist. So these are the people who, they will not, they view everyone as object, so coffee cup, whatever, and they, and they just neglect them until they need them. They just discard them, or they just don't get them attention or energy or...

They don't, they don't have to give them attention, they don't, they don't, they, when a person around them is struggling, they won't care, it's, it's, it's, it's a lack of empathy. It's a lack of empathy, but it's a lack of, like, for example, a malignant or a grandiose narcissist might actually get mad at someone, like, "Oh my gosh, why are you keep talking to me?"

And people in relationships and neglectful narcissists will say, "I'll take it because at least that person was listening, but people in these relationships will literally feel like they're losing their minds because the person with them is literally not noticing it on last, they need something from... Wow.

So they're giving the cold shoulder, they don't speak to them for days, whatever. Whatever. They just don't notice, they don't care, they won't know, like you might say, like, "I have the biggest presentation of the year and next week, they won't even ask." Wow.

It's all about them. It's all about them, but in this weird way, but, and they don't even take notice of other people. So it is a, people, I've known clients in this experience and they'll say, "It's as though I didn't exist, but then when I had the piece of information or something they needed,

I existed to you feel like a really neglected personal assistant." Oh my gosh. In this next section, we are speaking with behavior expert Vanessa Van Edwards. She's going to show the physical science, the body language that tells you exactly who you're dealing with.

Can you talk to me the difference between charisma and narcissism, and how can you spot when someone is actually warm and caring and charismatic versus someone who uses the skills or the tools of charisma in their narcissistic approach towards manipulating, controlling, and getting what they want in life? So this is my biggest fear with this book.

This is my, this is my single biggest fear, and it was an issue for me when I first started writing it. It's on be honest, you can use this book for manipulation. Yeah. Of course.

And that scares me. And when a smart person who's not a assistant is going to study everything and start using it. It scares me.

Very subtle. Yeah. So we're talking about big to subtle, right? There's a range of them.

So first is, it is my biggest fear with this book that people do not have the right intentions.

And my hope is that we can actually use these powers for good and non-eval.

“But as the number one thing is you can, if you want to, here's a good news.”

There are certain cues that we cannot control. And if you have bad intentions, they will leak. So I call these dangers own cues. So in the book, I talk about there's four different types of cues. There's highly warm, non-verbal, verbal, and vocal.

So these are things that make you highly warm, highly trustworthy, highly likely. They're highly competent, cute, verbal, non-verbal, and vocal. And then there's charismatic. The ones are just knocked out of the park, like they're just great. And the last one is danger zone cues.

Danger zone cues are the cues that get us into trouble. They're the cues that liars use, they're the way that we leak guilt and shame. Actually shame is not a bad thing. It's only when you have guilt that you do something wrong. So in the danger zone, it is very hard to inhibit those cues.

So I teach them because I want people to be able to spot them. Okay. What are those cues? Okay.

So there's a bunch of all let's talk about as many of you can.

So... This might be someone who's very successful, someone who's accomplished a lot potentially. Someone that seems very credible, someone that could be in a power position on the business or having influence online or something like that. Yeah, yeah.

Extremely successful. They could be successful. They could seem credible, trustworthy, but might be super narcissistic underneath. Yes. So there's a couple of lingers on cues that we can control, which a manipulative person could

inhibit. Right? So for example, one that I found that I talk about in the book is Lance Armstrong. So Lance Armstrong, for those who don't know a spoiler alert, Lance Armstrong was dopeing.

So... Someone was like, "There was spoilers in the book," and I was like, "You haven't heard of this yet." Oh, I also talked about Britney Spears in the book because there's some really interesting cues on her, which I think why we're worried about her, why her fans worry. She shows a lot of danger zone cues.

Yeah. So Lance Armstrong and one of his early interviews on Larry King Live, he's asked about dopeing. And he does what's called "A lip purse." So a lip purse says, "Okay, when we push our line and our lips into a flat line, we mash

our lips together, that is universal with holding gesture." So when we're literally trying to hold something in, or hold something back, or we don't like what's being said or heard, we go... And so you'll notice that when someone has been asked something, they don't like when someone had to lie a lot of the time.

So we did a massive experiment in our lab, where we asked people to send in videos of themselves lying. Actually, you play in the book. It's called "Light a Me." So I have you lied to me.

Play this "Light a Me" game to diagnose your own towels. It's very important.

“To know your own towels, because you should know what your dangers own cues are when”

you're leaking them. And one of them... You should know those. It's good to know those in the background. Do that with your partner.

You want them to know what those are, too. So one thing that we noticed is on live. That was one of the biggest indicators, in "Light a Me" game, we asked you to do two things. We asked you to tell us an embarrassing story, your most embarrassing story, and then a fake embarrassing story.

And we want to see if we can tell the difference. If we cut the clips, can we know which one is the fake one? Man, that'd be interesting. Yes. And it's amazing.

You see the same danger zone cues over and over again, right before someone's about to lie and tell their fake embarrassing story, they go, "Okay, and they lip hurts, right before they're going to do it." And that's because we don't like lying. Our body knows it's going to go into trouble.

So we're like, "Stop it, stop it, stop it, and we hold ourselves back. You ask a woman, how much do you weigh?" And she'll go, "Hmm, literally close those lips, 'cause no woman wants to talk about them." She weighed.

So it's a withholding gesture.

And that's the first thing, as you want to look for some of the bigger cues with holding

gestures. Lip purse is one, a sudden distancing behavior, so we also notice that liars in our lab, they want to get away from the lie, as if it's smelled. So when they were telling their most embarrassing story, they'd be leaning in, using gestures always so embarrassing.

And remember, embarrassing stories are negative. Right. It's not like it's a positive memory. It's like, people are like, and they do a shame touch. The universal shame touch is when people touch their fingers to the side of the forehead.

It's happening and I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed." So they usually tell the truth and they do like this. Yes, because they're actually embarrassed, right? So these are all good, odd, like congruent. Right.

We're seeing embarrassment and shame gesture. We're seeing negative number of old people shaking their head. I can't believe that happened. Right. Like, they're so upset that happened.

We're seeing cringes. We're seeing fear. We're seeing sadness. congruent. Right.

Like, that's all congruent emotions. On the bad stories, we often see people who lip purse, and then they try to get away from it. And then, you know, and then, and they're literally like as far away, well, I'm not messing on my audio.

They're as far away from the lie as they can possibly get. They're leaning back. They'll sometimes literally lean their head back in the chair. And that's because physically we want to distance ourselves from things we don't like. So we're looking for lip purses, sudden distancing.

“And there are a lot of cues that we can't control, right?”

So blink rate is another one.

They're blink more. Yeah.

Actually in Britney Spears, she had a really interesting interview that I actually

break this on on YouTube channel.

“So we wouldn't have to read the book if you want to see it.”

Right. Break down the cues in this early interview. This is right before the conservative ship started. So very, very full of cues because it's right before it happened. And she gets asked, very difficult question.

And she all of a sudden her blink rate goes from a normal rate to a high rate. So she starts to really quickly blink her eyes like this. And that is because when we're really nervous, we literally want to close out stimuli to not see what's happening. So we can process what's happening.

So blink rate is something that a lot of manipulative people cannot control. In fact, when I share this, people go, oh, I know a very narcissistic, manipulative person who has a very high blink rate. Interesting. Because they're literally like trying to block out the lie or the manipulation.

And it's felt sound really good, but they're like really like processing a lot. And you're like, why are they blinking so much? And it's because they're trying to process. Oh my goodness. So just knowing those cues are not all bad on their own, but it's important to know what

those cues look like so you can spot them.

And I do think I really think manipulative people will get caught eventually. It is very hard to fake competence. It is very hard to fake warmth. It's hard to keep that. Yes.

And so for the long game, yes, you can learn a couple of these cues. And try to master your way around them for the long game. It's really hard. I mean, look at, you know, Theranos, right? So Elizabeth Holmes, so Spoiler alert, Theranos to not go well.

No, no, no, no, no. So one of the her interesting cues is, I don't know if you've ever seen her talk. She has a really, she uses a really deep voice, like, fakely deep like down here. And people who you say, like, is that real? It's because she read, in some cue book, was a mine because I book wasn't out then.

Thank goodness. She read in some book that having a lower tone of voice makes you more competent. And that is true. Research has found that people who use the lower end of their natural voice tone are seen as competent.

That's for both men and women. So you have a very deep voice and it serves you really well. When I'm talking right now, I'm trying to use the lowest end of my natural register. When I'm talking to my talk like, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no." Right.

Right. When I'm talking to my toddler, I'm much more up here. Hey, baby, how are you? And if I were to do my entire interview, you're like, "You would drive you crazy." Right.

You were to feel incompetent. No, and people will go, "I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't.

I can't take your seriously." So, she read that study. Obviously. And there you go. And when an octave lower.

So, it wasn't her natural voice tone. It was one step lower than her voice tone.

She was always talking like this.

And what she didn't interview, she would talk like this. And you would hear that this just doesn't sound natural. And part of your spidey sense would be like, "Why is she talking?" So, whoa, it sounds really unnatural. And it came out that when she was drunk, her employees noticed that she went back into

her natural register. Wow. So, there are cues that they will eventually... Don't drink alcohol. Don't drink alcohol.

Yeah. And that is the point that I'm sorry. Don't drink alcohol. Or you get caught. Yeah.

So, like, you can't keep it up for that long. Right. It is that she was faking that cue, we think.

“Well, I think you're also just, your body is out of integrity.”

Like, the more you're keeping back something, you're telling us, light, lie, whatever. I felt this from the past, because I've been out of integrity in my life at different times from different stages of childhood to adulthood, right? For little white lies to bigger stuff, hide from my parents or whatever. They feel bad.

So, you're like, oh, something inside of you feels off, right? And then you've got to, like, keep the lie up, and you're like, "Uh, eventually you're going to explode or you're going to have a heart attack or something." It's going to leak. It's going to leak.

Like, leave the cues. Leave the cues. Leave those cues. And like, those are the cues that we're looking for. Like, I want you to be on the lookout for them because when something feels bad,

like, even something feels bad, even just then when you were saying it, felt bad, your voice tone changed. Right. Just then, because when you think about, oh, I think about seeing a toxic person. And I know that people probably have toxic form in our lives.

And this is why toxic people are so challenging because toxic people put us out of integrity. Toxic people force us to use warm cues where we don't feel like it. Now we can do it. What do you mean? We've got to be nice to them or something?

Yeah. You have a toxic person and this is the thorn and I think our work is I want everyone to be their best selves. I want them to show up as their warmest was competent self. But what if you have a toxic person, how do you do that authentically?

And this is what's so hard about toxic people. You have a colleague or co-worker or a family member, and you don't like, right?

“And you have to break out the fake warmth cues.”

Oh, hi! How are you? Oh, right. And so what do we do? We fake smile.

Right? So, oh, it's so good to see you. Great. That's like good. I don't like it.

Right? Oh, we say, oh, yes. Oh, that sounds good. Congratulations. You know your LA roots are coming back to you.

Right. That's why toxic people challenge us is because they come into our lives. We know we're supposed to be warm and so we try to force that warm sound and it comes

it.

The antidote here is not learning more fake warmth cues, it's time to get rid of toxic

people. I think that's like the side effect of the book is like, don't keep them around. Yeah. Keep those people around because it will leak and so it's about what it means. It will leak.

Like, you're integrity relief because you're constantly trying to be nice, but they're actually out of integrity. Because you don't want to be. Right? Right?

That's exactly what you're doing. I'm doing something that's not authentic to me, because I feel like I have to with this person. That's right. That you feel like you're integrity with yourself.

Yep. Exactly. It's yourself. What do you mean yourself? That was a question.

That was a question. Yes, it was. Yes. It was perfect. Because you were asking a question.

Yes.

If you allow toxic people to come into your life, especially without boundaries.

We have to have some of those people we do with it, but if you don't have boundaries

“around them, they come into your life and you have to fake niceness.”

And that feels really bad. What happens if, let's just say there's a person you don't like, as you said, maybe that it's toxic. There's so many you don't like. You don't like being nice too because you feel like, yeah.

I just don't. Another wrong person. There's not much person. Yeah. Totally.

Let's say you have a work environment. Yeah. And you're at a company. You got fifty hundred employees that you're working with. You're on the team with.

And you're just okay. I'm here. Yeah. Is it better to be inauthentic and lie and act nice around this person? Friendly fake.

How are you interested? Even though you've been around for six months or a year and you realize you really don't like them. Or is it better to go right at the person that for six months?

So you know what, I just want to be completely honest and not fake with you because I feel

like I've been fake that I don't connect with you. I don't like you. I think I think you're out of integrity, I think you're an authentic and maybe I'm being judgmental, but I'd rather be honest with you and fake nice to you. Okay.

That's A and B. Can I give a C? Sure. Okay. So I don't believe in fake it so you make it.

So I, I, I try not to give like fake it. I don't, I don't roll that way like I just think it's exhausting. I think it's going to leak. The C option here is to not fake warmth, but it's to double down on competence. So if you were working with someone that you don't like, the one thing that you do have

to do is get stuff done with them, right?

“You have to mash your tasks, you have to be honest, you have to be responsive to emails.”

So that is something that you can be authentic about because to do your job, you have to be able to get along with them in a very professional setting. So I would skip all the fake warmth stuff. Don't write the confidence. Yeah, right, like stick with where you're authentic, which is like, I don't you hear about

your week? I don't need to go to Happy Hour with you. Yeah. I don't need to fake sitting with you for coffee, but you know what? We can get stuff done.

You know what we'll do? We'll not go. We'll bring boundaries around the, hey, let's go off coffee. Oh, I know. I'm so busy.

I'm so busy today, but you know what? Let's do a brainstorm session tomorrow at the end of the day so we can really kick off. Yeah, yeah. So get back to like the mission on the task on a hand, the competence. And maybe you've just got to be like, okay, this is someone where, you know, 20 seconds

a day, I've got to be around someone that's trying to be fake, a lot of daddy with everyone. Yeah. And I'll just wait. I'm going to get sucked on. And then I'll move on to the next.

That's it. Exactly. Because at least you're focusing on where you can be authentic. And also that's even if that were to come up, you could honestly say that kind of conversation could be listen like, you know, I'm, I'm not really into like, you know, connecting

it work. I'm more about getting it done. I want to get home to my kids and my family. I hope that's okay with you. You know, we're together.

If it's all right, I might skip lunch and just have us like, you know, work it out. You really appreciate. I really appreciate how efficient you are because it allows me to get home to my kids faster. Right.

Like, that's authentic.

“So what can you appreciate about them that's competent?”

Yes. What can you highlight about them that's competent? What if you don't feel like they're warm or competent? You're like, this person on a team is just that they can't get anything done. They're not smart and they have fake attitude around me all day.

I mean, this depends on how you feel, but I would say deal with it. Like, you've got, like, go to your boss. Right. And so, hey, I just like, look, I cannot. Yeah.

Yeah. You say, like, I don't know how I can work with this person. I don't want to be on authentic, but I'm telling you that we're not getting stuff done. And they are causing issues on the team.

Like, I don't like to ignore that stuff. Like, you could hope it gets better, but ask for help. If you have someone on your team or someone in your life who is not warm, nor competent, it doesn't treat you with warmth or competence, either get them out of your life, set a boundary or get help.

Give them my number. Don't live with. Yeah, don't live with it. It's too short to feel faithfully competent in our faith, warmth. Right.

What's been the, I think I asked you this last time. What's been the charisma strategy? Yeah. You want to call the strategy? Yeah.

You want to call the strategy? You want to call it strategy. Yeah. You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy.

Yeah. You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy.

You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy. You want to call it strategy.

Yeah. There's this. There's a new queue that I snuck into the book and the very last draft I just learned it. And this is actually brought to me by one of, it's called my male readers and I'm so curious.

Do you agree with this Lewis?

Okay. Here's what they said. So in the book I had a whole section on nodding. So nodding. A front of nods upside down.

Yeah. I'm not all done. Yeah. You're not. It's really high warmth.

We love it. It's not as great because vertical nods, by the way, this is different in certain cultures where they'll nod, they're not satisfied with it. That's different. Okay.

So just vertical nodding and Western cultures is agreement. It's yes. In fact, the research is found that when you nod at me slowly, I speak to four times longer. That's cool.

“That's why you're a good interviewer is because you'll not be like, keep going.”

Keep going. I'm just like a bottle of it. I'm just kind of like, yeah. I'm very slowly. I'll pause.

I'm like, okay. Okay.

Well, actually you're right.

Slow nodding is telling me more. Fast nodding is finish up. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

I got it right. Right. Right. Right. Okay.

So that's the difference there. If you want someone to wrap up in a meeting, give them a one, two, three, triple nod. Like I got it. If you want them to keep going, and introvert. Yeah.

Okay. So that's the difference. That's number one. So I shared about this. I taught it.

And then I called my male readers said to me, no. But now so we think that there is a secret, non-verbal cube between guys. No. I don't know what this cube is. Here's what they said.

Okay. If you know a guy and you're trying to acknowledge him, guy to guy, you're not a. Yeah. Good to see you. It's literally like an open gesture.

You're broken. If you don't know a guy, but you're trying to acknowledge his presence, you pay. Good to see you. Oh, wow. That's so true.

It's so true. Yeah. I could see it. Good to see it. Yeah.

Hey, what's that, buddy? Okay. Yeah. That's true. Okay.

So this is, so I snuck it into the book last minute. I wonder is that like biology is that? Yes. Your soulful. Okay.

Here's my theory on this. As soon as I heard this, I was like, and I started looking. I sort of watching man. I asked man. I asked my guy friends.

And this is why I think it happens. When we know someone, we expose our jugular. So this is a very vulnerable part of our body. And we're saying, I know you. I trust you.

Look. I'm opening, I'm acknowledging you. And I feel trustworthy. Yes. When you don't know someone, what you want to show respect.

You're not down to protect your jugular. I don't know you. But I see you. I got you. I got you.

See, I'm here for you. Kind of. Yeah, my jugular. But I'm here for you. But I see you.

But I see you. Exactly.

“I think that that's where it comes from.”

It's like, do I know you were not. No, you. So in that sense. This is a high warmth. You hey buddy, what's that?

It's high warmth. You're showing your jugular. This is a high confidence cue. Hello. Good to see you.

I look ridiculous. I don't do that.

In this third section, we have the legendary psychotherapist Esther Parallel.

Who is going to share the clear patterns that prove your partner might be a narcissist? What's your thoughts on narcissism in general? And can people change or evolve out of it? I can answer it clinically and culturally. Yeah.

Maybe we should start by talking about the like Christopher last October. We do live in a narcissistic culture. Selfie culture, the likes of that. In a culture of narcissism, once you are continuously evaluating yourself, proving yourself, performing, demonstrating yourself,

you know, posting about yourself. I'm engaging in fake news about yourself. You are in a narcissistic culture that, you know, criteria, diagnosis, a company, the culture of the day. In the 19th century, we talked about hysteria.

We do not talk much about hysteria today. Because we realized that the majority of this hysteric women, supposedly hysteric women, were actually women who had experienced sexual abuse. They were not hysterical, they were traumatized. Yes.

Narcissism is the word that we come back with on the 21st century. Stress and anxiety and depression was the 20th century. So every century and every culture has its expressions through mental illness or mental manifestations. Eating disorders existing, some cultures and not in others.

You know, a diagnosis, a personality disorder, doesn't just exist like that without a background. So that means that it's easy to make these issues very personal, but they are also societal. That's it.

I have sat with people who have a whole range of narcissistic tendencies. To get to seeing somebody is a narcissist, somebody is depressed,

“somebody is, you know, I think that there are,”

there's more to us than just that. Right. But you see a lot of people who are narcissistic tendencies. And you see a lot of people who are not just exhibiting it with manifest narcissism, but there's a whole other form of narcissism that is called covert narcissism,

which we talk about much less because we do not name it in those ways. That is the difference. That is a long conversation.

In the short form, what is the?

You know, power can come from above and power can come from underneath. You can have power through victimization. You can make people feel guilty all the time. You can be passive aggressive. You can make people continuously feel that they are responsible for your life.

That if they don't do what you want, that you make heal yourself. There's loads of ways to make other people submit themselves to you. And that would be considered. Those are expressions of more covert. It's not like this domineering thing.

But you can control people from the top and you can control people from underneath.

“You know, it's a, I think that there is a certain profile at this point of,”

when we say narcissists, everybody has five or six associations that have quite similar. And this is really a whole other conversation. But what I will say is that, yes, I have sat with people who have very little regard. People who bring everything on to themselves. People who see everything as a reflection of themselves.

People who are charming, charming when they need to seduce you. And then once they think they have you, they turn and they go into the next people who they need to charm. Those that they have already recruited are disregarded and discarded. So those are the most out of them already. You know, people who can lie, pathologically to your people who are very little empathy for what is happening.

So there is a cluster of things. But I think for me, I tend to look at behaviors and I tend to look at interactions. Because I'm a relational therapist and I'm a systems oriented therapist. And so I less spend my time labeling a personality. I think it's useful on occasion, but it is not my primary vocabulary.

But she's very, very eloquent about it. Yes, yes. We'll have to have you back on to do a whole two-hour conversation on that. It's a lot of that. It's really, I do not want to talk about complex topics.

In a short time, because it doesn't do them just as well. And I don't like to reinforce notions that have not been examined. Absolutely. But that are easy to grab on. We'll have you back on for that.

“I'll do one final card and then I think I've got to make sure I'm respecting him the time.”

That you're going to touch on me. Yep, what is that? Okay. I'm my own worst enemy when. It's interesting.

You know what? Going different one? Yes. Okay. I want to give you this.

Okay. Because of what happened just a few minutes before. Last time I cried, I was, I mean, yesterday, you know, in terms of my father just died two months ago. And so I've been crying a lot. You know, every couple of days, I hear a song that really connects me to a memory to him.

And to the whole, it was a sad experience because he happened to a car accident 17 years ago. How to severe brain trauma was in a coma for three months.

“Then he woke up in a different country in New Zealand at the time.”

I was in college. Then he came back. And it was like my dad was physically here, but emotionally mentally and spiritually not. And biggest loss. Yes.

This is it.

I never was able to fully grieve.

That's ambiguousness. My father, he was physically here, but he was not the same person. And every interaction I had with him was reminding me of the loss. Was, I'm grateful he's here. And it's great to experience some time with him.

But every time I go and say hello, he says, "Lewis, right? Didn't you, didn't you, didn't you just to play? What's the point that you play growing up? Where did you go to school again?

So he could have a conversation with you and speak conversationally, but it was the same story over and over again. I mean to remind my father's family. 17 years of the memory loss that he had. Show him photos of him with me taking photos of me playing sports.

The second half of my life with him was a beautiful. He showed up. He transformed. He overcame a lot of the anger and resentment he had. And I had a two different lives with him.

And I was 13 before. I had a, some love, some scary with him.

Then after a 13, it was like this incredible friendship.

So it's like I lost my dad, but he was physically here. And every year there was some type of health scare. He had a couple strokes, a heart attack. He had multiple surgeries from the accident. Just the complications from the accident.

And so every year I did enough, he was going to survive or not.

Okay, he's in the hospital now.

He's going to make it.

“Do I need to be there in this 17 year cycle of learning to accept something?”

And doing my best to be okay with it. And accepting and loving words at. You know, so for me, he was 17 years of, I want to say numbing, but it was acceptance and just like managing at the best I could. And then when he passed in February a couple months ago, it was.

Me, just full circle, kind of like going back 17 years ago and re-living that. And then re-living my whole childhood and allowing myself to be. To have a full range of emotions. And I think it's beautiful because. Do you feel like this time, actually, you can fully agree?

I feel like I can't. Because it's, see, this is ambiguous. I can't agree if I can't mourn because he's there, but he's not there. Yeah. And it's this one.

Now you can experience the full range. Absolutely. I didn't feel like I could. Yeah. And I feel like I have a more spiritual connection to him now than in the last 17 years.

You know, every night I'm connecting with him in my own way and my little meditation room. And, you know, throughout every day is there are things that come up where I feel the spiritual presence and it's, it's a beautiful. It's sad. It's beautiful.

It's emotional. It's a wide range of emotions. And, you know, there's a lot of sadness I have because I wish it wasn't that way. But I also. I really.

I have some relief. And I'm also doing doing my best to create meaning from the whole thing.

“So that it's not just this thing I'm frustrated with constantly, but like, you know what?”

I probably want to be doing this without that pain and sadness and loss. I want to be a curious hungry. I want to have been as resourceful if I had him there. So, yeah, I mean, I've been crying a lot. I've been crying a lot.

And it's been beautiful to have a safe environment in my relationship with someone who allows that. Because I think that's hard for some people to allow that, especially for men to be able to express their full range of emotions. And for that, there are partnered if you'll save with that too. So I feel very grateful.

But it's. It's not. It's not. It hasn't been fun, but it's also been. Allow me to have like peace with me.

It's losing thing that if you ask people when it's the last time you laughed. Nobody has to justify laughing. But crying. But crying. People have to justify it.

They have to. Interesting. You ask that? I mean, it is the absolute, that's really motion to feel inside us in grief in loss. What the, man, woman, they, them, whoever.

I had a woman on two days ago who, who hasn't cried in years.

“And I had a man on yesterday who hasn't cried and I think 10 or 12 years.”

And it's interesting. It's like, there's something there. I think to go to have the full range. Of course. I felt it a lot recently, but we're allowing ourselves to feel.

But that's probably for a whole other conversations. I mean, I would say that it's hard for people to really fully say yes if you can't fully say no. And it is hard for people to fully laugh if you can't also cry. If something is funny, you automatically do this. If something is sad, the fact that you stay like that,

affectless, or that you repress it, or that you hold it in, or that you don't even notice it, or that the thing is coming down your face and you don't even realize.

I've had people tear in my office while they say I never cry.

What does that mean when someone is, isn't able to fully laugh or fully cry? What would it be like if a person comes into this world and doesn't scream? I mean, if a baby doesn't scream when they come out, you think they're death or birth? What is it like when people make love and make no noise? When it's impossible, I mean, you're a sports person.

You know that if you lift something, you make noise. You're trying to grunt here, yeah. The voice is, it's just, what does it mean when this whole thing is closed off? There's something inside that's missing or dead or trapped or trapped? Or trapped?

Or was it shut down or can't come out? But for sure, it is a blockage. Next we have the Family Therapist Expert Jerry Wise who shares a different type of dynamic. Because sometimes the narcissism isn't in your partner. It's in your history.

It's the people who raised you. And he's going to explain how to heal that childhood trauma right now.

People will always ask me, am I a narcissist?

And I'll go, do you ever feel guilty?

You're just dysfunctional. You're just dysfunctional. Now right, a narcissist is not going to feel that guilt. They don't feel, what have they done wrong?

They're always right so that why would I feel guilt?

About anything or shame? So if you felt that, you're probably less likely to be a narcissist. If you, but a parent can be a narcissist, and they, they don't. They can abuse you. They can criticize you.

They can, but they'll never go, oh, that my bad. No, that would. They want to apologize. Do that. Why would they apologize?

You made them do it. You made them do it. Or they did it for your good. So why would I ever need to say, I'm sorry. There's no need to say I'm sorry.

“What's the worst thing a parent could do then to their kids over and over again?”

That will almost surely make them dysfunctional as an adult.

Is it never apologizing to them when, you know, they.

That's too symptomatic. That's too superficial. Uh-huh. The thing that's going to make them more dysfunctional as an adult is to not break their own cycle from their own past.

Bringing that cycle to their current nuclear family. And not knowing it. So bringing the generational trauma onward and the generational programming. The, and the generational emotional Wi-Fi. Hmm.

That's been going on and they just bring that right into here. That's going to mess them up more than ever. Now, does abuse and narcissistic meanness. Do all those things affect the kid? Of course it does.

Screaming and all the stuff. Exactly. Of course it's going to do.

“But it's not the screaming that's the underlying problem.”

That's a symptom of that. That's a symptom of how the family has been dysfunctional and toxic. And it can come out in different ways. Narcissism, alcoholism, abuse, workaholism, sex addiction. It can come out and gambling in all kinds of symptomatic ways.

But underneath all of that is an enmeshment to a family whose trance has never been broken.

Wow. The origin family. The origin family. It's never been broken. And now you're just living it out.

Only John's living it out that way. Mary's living it out that way. But that's the underlying important. And if we don't break the trance of the family, the origin family of ours, if we don't break that trance, then we're just going to relive that pattern in our adult relationships as well. In some way.

And it may not even look like the way mom and dad did it. But the pattern still there. So people will go, well, I'm not like my parents. Oh, hold on. Just second.

Let me ask you. But what you're doing is the same theme. And it has origins in your family of origin. You may have chosen the opposite. But up 180 degrees from unhealthy is unhealthy.

So people will go, oh, I'm all the way over here. Oh, now you're just a class B on half healthy. Right? And a class A unhealthy person. And you feel superior over them because you're over here.

Right. You haven't broken the cycle. You're living the pendulum life. Yeah, I'm not screaming at my mother. I'm not screaming at my mother.

My parents are like they did. What I'm controlling. But I'm being controlling. And I still may be self-absorbed or judgemental or any number of other kinds of things. Interesting.

Here's the real question then. If we start to think about, oh, maybe my parents had some narcissistic tendencies. And I'm starting to think about it. And I'm starting to evaluate my childhood and realize, oh, I thought this would just normal because it's the only thing I knew. How many families did we grow up?

Yeah, right. And it wasn't as bad as that family, so I got to be grateful for this. Yeah, and we should. And my parents were loving at times and they gave us and they were doing the best they could. So that I can't think of them as narcissistic, but we start to internalize that.

What are the warning signs then that show up in adult children of narcissistic parents? Let's then take a look at that. Mom and dad, or whoever was narcissistic, hyper-critical and judgmental.

“Now, I think we're open to say, I'm not going to be like that, but what am I to myself?”

Hyper-critical and judgmental. So in the adult child of a narcissist who family often will have unbounded guilt, shame, criticalness, hyper-criticalness.

So they just take the voice from here and just live it inside them so really.

Everything is that way. People go, well, they, they screened all the time. So many times, I've said, so how many times have you internally screamed at yourself? I don't scream at other people. I didn't say other people. I said, you, oh, well, yeah, I can be pretty nasty to me.

You know, you stupid. And I said, you're just reliving this only in a different way. And so it's all embryonic in the family. So everything is happening out here. The problem.

“And that's what I think that's why I use the term.”

The problem is the solution is not near the problem.

Also, the problem may not be near the symptom. Here I am criticizing myself and cutting myself down internally and hating myself. And narcissists, adult children, narcissists can definitely hate themselves. Because they've been judged and criticized and, you know, emotionally hurt so many different ways. Chamed and so this is what they're doing out here.

And they're now doing this as adults to themselves internally and going, well, what's the solution? And many will go, don't look at any of that. Let's just try to be nicer to yourself. Which is not bad advice, but it's superficial advice. And it may not hold.

And then you'll try it and then give it up. And you'll try it and give it up. Versus, wait a minute. Let's get mom and dad out of you. Wow.

That's what we want to do. Because we and do you recognize that's not you. When you are criticizing yourself that way, you're going to be under the hypnosis and the trans that this is me doing it to me. And I go, let me give you some good news.

It's not you doing it to you. It's your family still doing it to you through you. Wow. There's a difference and that's a huge difference.

“And so as adult children, what should we be thinking about if we felt like we had a dysfunctional childhood?”

So we'd be thinking about how do I get myself to the self differentiated from my parents and my family? How do I block my family completely? How do I heal the past? Like what should we be thinking about as we coming to awareness as adult children of dysfunctional childhoods or narcissistic parents? And I think it's a great question.

But your question also has within it a certain paradigm as all questions do. Every question has the answer in it.

Every question that someone asks the answer is in their question.

And so you were asking about, so do I separate myself from my family, do I? And certainly if someone, if families are abusive and toxic and have no interest in changing, well then we have to look at some no contact or we may need to go that far. But self differentiation, what I tend to think when someone has a family that's narcissistic, does the person that I'm working with or talking to or the adult child of the narcissist need greater self differentiation,

which is an emotional state and a maturity state or do they need to physically separate? In this next section we have Annie Sarnblad. She is the master of micro expressions. She'll show you the tiny split second signs that reveal a narcissist true intentions.

“How can you know if someone has narcissistic tendencies?”

If you're going on a date or you've been in the relationship with them for a long time? Just they don't show me any kindness. They don't show kindness. They don't care when I get hurt. Regardless of how I get hurt or regardless of how somebody else gets hurt, they don't show that.

Really? They don't. No. They care more about themselves or they just don't care. But I know narcissists that will describe something that they've been through that's painful.

And their chin will be working over time. But for someone else, they probably won't have that. No, because they don't care. But how are they so good, I guess, at captivating you to love them? When they tend to over the, well, a narcissist in my life tend to overdo the eye contact.

So they're very present and connected? Yes. They think that the gaze is long.

So I had somebody in my life.

“I won't mention who it is, but it's a family member of mine that I just lost it on him.”

We were living in Hong Kong and he was yelling in a taxi driver. And we got out of the car and the taxi driver had made a wrong turn. You know, even though the person that I was with had said, you know, turn to the right. The opposite. You made a mistake.

And he just lost it on this taxi driver. And I was really angry afterwards. I said, do you understand that this is somebody's trying to support his family working really long. Or is like, this is, you know, a decent human making it on honorable living, working hard, and probably has a lot of people depending on them.

And you don't get to yell at somebody for making a mistake. We all make mistakes. Next night we were out and this person was trying to pick up girls. But that is chest and said, I'm the kind of guy who's nice to taxi drivers. No.

Wow. The next day. She's like, this is so weird.

“It really clicked for me this narcissistic behavior.”

And I knew that this was a narcissist. This idea of, oh, there's a puzzle piece and a tool that I can use to impress other people. And it was just so artificial and strange. But people find a way to get their needs met. Where it reghumans tend to be really good at that.

And if something works for us, well, we repeat that. We do more of that. Yeah. We kind of store that in our brain. This work before us.

Let me keep doing this thing. That whole love bombing and the whole, like, I will tell you. And the narcissist that have ever tried to date me. I call them parrots. They try to figure out what is your thing.

So I had a guy not that long ago. I've actually written about it that was telling me. And I've been obsessed with micro expressions for years because if you can't really connect with people. I mean, he'd seen me speak a couple of times. And he was just pulling all this stuff.

And I was lonely and newly divorced. And I almost fell for it. You know, he really liked my stuff. Because he was so good at the. I was speaking to your heart and to like your things.

Well, and he wasn't doing it face to face. He was doing it via text. And I kept saying, well, let's just jump on a phone call. No, no, no, didn't want even jump on the phone call because he knows that I can do post. Wow.

No, face time. Yeah, face time. Didn't want to do the face time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“So can you personally tell the difference between someone who's maybe a psychopath, a narcissist, and a genius?”

Can you tell the difference based on an, and other tendencies of all three of us? That's a really good question. You can be a genius and also be content, right? That doesn't, you can be a narcissist and a genius for sure. But the genius isn't necessarily overlapping the other ones.

There are a couple pieces that I look for. I look for what my kids call crazy eyes. So, remember I talked about, we pull our upper eyelids way back. You know, we do this, right? So that's a piece of fear.

So if I walk into a room and I see somebody, you know, maybe standing with a gun behind you or like pulling out a net. In my upper eyelids, I'm going to pull way back. That fits. Right? If I'm in a scary situation, something scares me.

If somebody jumps out or there's a loud noise, I'm going to pull my upper eyelids back. And that, like crazy eyes. Yeah, okay. But that matches. But we don't ever, in fear, the only time we will pull our upper eyelids back and hold them.

It roller coaster haunted house, you know, a terror. Loud noise. Right.

We never hold our upper eyelids pulled way back, except when we're nuts.

When you're associated, a psychopath. You just hit that ball all the time. Taylor. Really? I'm going to get in so much trouble for this.

Elizabeth Holmes. How wow. Yeah. Yeah, seeing your face immediately goes, like, there's a lot of people in the public eye. The school shooters.

If you, if you look at the pictures of them, they always like that. They always like pull their showing their sclera. And there's something about mental instability and volatility and I'm not safe. That, and I don't know what it is. And I've done a lot of research, just my own private research on that.

But, but I almost always find that somebody who's committed a heinous crime and a really violent crime.

They're almost always like, I don't know, 20, 30% of their pictures that you can find up on the blind.

Fantastic. Interesting.

Okay, so watch the facial expression if you're the full facial expression of fear.

And it, like, makes me shiver. Is it? Right. Watch when I take the bottom half of my face and turn it into joy or arousal or cheerfulness. That is weird.

It's super creepy. And it, like, sounds all these itchy signals to my brain. But it's, it's out of context. It doesn't match. And you are whole body, your whole nervous system knows that when you see it.

When I give you the vocabulary to pull this and dissect it, you're going, oh my god. I just talked about this thing and that person showed crazy eyes. Like, almost like they were, there's horror and arousal at the same. They should not, that's the Joker's face from Batman. They are rousal in the horror.

The joy in the horror. That's terrible. The joy in the horror. Right. That's something to watch.

That is something to watch out for. Now our people, you know, I guess there's psychopaths that they more like that. All the time, or is that only sometimes? She seemed to show it a lot. Right.

Right. And I don't really, it's almost like I'm not all the way to the finish line with that research. Uh-huh. I just know. Something seems inauthentic though.

Something's inauthentic. And you can have somebody who is not a bad person. But who is going through a period of severe trauma and mental instability. It also have that sort of constant deer in the headlight looks. So you have to be careful.

“All of these facial expressions you have to put them in content.”

You need context. And it's not like you see this in somebody. They're automatically a bad or a dangerous person. But they are more likely in my experience to be violent against others or themselves. You sometimes see that facial expression before somebody takes their own.

Yeah. So there's something, um, there's some, you know, serious emotional health issue. With a, with a psychopath, essentially. Yeah. And yeah.

And finally, my friend, Dr. John Deloni, this is a big one.

He's going to help you look in the mirror. He'll show you how to make sure you don't fall into your own narcissistic tendencies that all of us might have from time to time. There seems to be a trend of narcissism, self-interest. And my feelings and my beliefs are the things that matter most.

So you need to change this system. You need to change everything needs to change to fit my feelings and protect my feelings. Why do you think that is happening more or so? We don't know if we, we've clipped the strings. Esther talks eloquently about this.

We've clipped all of the, the common strings that bind us together with the common story. For, just for, however long you think the, however long you think the earth has been around. Our relationship to our gods told us what we're going to wear. What your role is, what, whose job is what job, what, what our values are, what you do and don't do. There's been tons of oppression.

I must say that's all great. Let me say that's the way it worked. And then we cut all the strings. None of that's real guys. If it can be randomized control, double blind study, just not real.

It doesn't exist. And so, as being created to worship, whether you're an atheist or not, as being created to be in service of something. If there's nothing to be in service of other than the self, then you are the, the supreme ruler of your world. You're a savor universe.

You're a pharaoh. You will bow before me. And we have a whole generation of people saying, you bow before me. No, no, no, you bow before me. Then you get chaos, which is what we have.

“Instead of saying, what if we all just went to the moon?”

Can we figure that out? All right. Let's do that. Let's go to the moon. And what if we said, how can I love you today?

Instead of, this is just how I'm wired. I give answers. One of those ways you're going to end up sleeping outside by yourself. One of those ways creates warmth in your home. Right?

And so, what do you want? What do you want this thing to feel like? What are you doing? Right? And I often ask this question, does that feel good?

Like, great, quicky response. Like, great, grenade, sarcasm, you know, cynicism. Good job. That feel good. Yeah.

Did it? Is that what you're going for to think?

You feel powerful for a minute?

Like, what are we doing?

“Or do you want to be connected and you want to be whole?”

Yes. You get to pick man. Connection, wholeness, peace. I believe comes from service. And I believe first comes from service to self-imcreating wholeness.

Not neglecting self and being empty all the time and just only serving others and, you know, deflecting all of your needs to feeling peaceful and whole and healthy. Right? But then, in that journey, giving to others, helping others, being of service, contributing to something greater than self, a mission, a vision, a family, a community, a goal, you know, going to the moon, whatever it is. Well, leaving in something and others and giving to them.

And it's something for me that has really flipped in the last ten years. Ten years ago, prior to ten years ago, I was more about how do I look good, how do I win, how do I succeed, how do I, you know, be right, as much as possible. And it was very unconscious. It wasn't like, I was conscious of it. That's your body playing deep into it.

And it was survival. It's right. Mechanism. It was like, deep into it. I need to win.

I need to be right. I need to make more. I need to look good. the agent ego shaped the way I wanted. And I just realized that wasn't a happy life for me. Maybe some moments that seemed happy but it wasn't really fulfilling. Until I said it's got to be collaboration over competition. I can still compete in certain ways, but it can't be for someone to be less than. It needs to be for me to compete to get better and serve better. Yeah. But collaboration over competition.

That is what brought me a lot more fulfillment. It doesn't mean it's always easy. There's challenges but it's brought me much more meaning of fulfillment.

“What do you think is the biggest cause of pain in relationships today?”

Me over us. Really? Yeah. Me over us. How I feel right now? How you made me feel? Not my body responded and you did this. I needed to deal with that. Or I've got some hard choices to make. You did it. You did it. It's me over us. I think this would go back to the question you asked earlier. It was a watershed moment when I heard Estonia Pearl talk about the 9/11 tower analogy. She was talking to a couple who had experienced infidelity. And she said one of the greatest challenges, a couple's experiences, but one, two, I just want to get back to the way things were.

And she likened it to, you couldn't go and September 12th and sweep up all that dust and glass and steel and rebuild those towers with that stuff. They fell. You have two choices. You can walk away and let nature take it back over and it will. Or you can hire some experts. You can excavate that. You can design build, grieve, come together and build something beautiful. A nod to the past, but something going this way. That's hopefully stronger. Right? Those are your two choices.

But what you had is over. And so I've taken that into my own home. My wife and I right now, we've never been parents of an eighth grader and a second grader.

This is a new marriage. And so we'll build something new. It'll have a lot of the features of the old one. But this is new because the eighth grader stay out later than second grader. That's right. Right. Right. We're used to going to bed at 9 o'clock. I ain't doing that anymore because I got to pick it up right. So we have a new marriage. And if you keep saying, I just want to get back to the way it was. So we're going to get back.

You end up dragging each other back. And so if we put, we said I do, then us becomes number one. Well, and that's a, it's not a popular thing. But I know I got exercise. I got to eat right. I got to get some sleep. Still that I can show up for us. Right. So it sounds self-serving but it's not. I got to do these things I can be holds. I could show up for what we're building new. On your, on your show, the Dr. John Deloni show, you have a lot of colon aspects as well.

People are calling you. You're, you're coaching. They're telling you their challenges. You've been doing this for the last few years now.

“Um, what is the big reasons for struggle in relationships or causes of divorce that you're seeing lately?”

I know kind of historically what that is. Is it more financial burden? Is it more, um, is there infidelity or people wanting more to like sneak around? Is it a lack of intimacy? Is it family dynamics of the other families? Is the main cause of friction in relationships or marriages today? I think if I'm looking at symptoms, it's going to be money and infidelity.

Really? Really? Some scale of infidelity. Yeah. Some version of. And people are calling in and telling you about this. Still mild stuff. Yeah. Um, underneath it, I think it's a broader picture. Terrier real talks about this beautifully. Um, the world changed.

And men, um, just want things to go back to the way they were. And women want men to do new things without new set of tools. I hope this master class didn't just give you information. I hope it gave you a sense of clarity and a sense of peace.

Because understanding these narcissistic patterns is a huge first step.

But the real goal, it's not just about identifying the toxic people. It's about reclaiming your own power, your own self trust, your own worth.

“Healing from the past is the only way to rebuild a great future.”

Because you can't run a world-class race.

you can't experience true intimacy.

“If you're still living in a state of hyper-vigilance.”

And you deserve a life where you feel safe in your own skin, in your own heart and body. You deserve the relationships that fuel you. Not drain you.

Your healing is the greatest gift that you can give yourself and to the world.

“Your past only has as much power as you give it.”

So today we are here to take that power back. Today you choose a higher standard for your life. And if this was something that supported you today, please comment below what your biggest moment was from all of these great experts. Share it in the comment below and let me know, go ahead and like this video, share with a friend.

And I'd love to know what is the one boundary that you're going to set starting right now in your life to ensure this doesn't happen in the future. I read a lot of these comments and they inspire me. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for constantly choosing your own personal growth.

And as always, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

“Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full run-down of today's episode with all the important links.”

And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as add free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.

And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.