How can you tell if your past (and your narcissist) is haunting you? If you feel unable to trust life, if you’re looking over one shoulder at all times, and if you’re unable to relax. You wonder if your past will catch up with you, and a part of you still lives on tenterhooks. Because reality goes deeper than mere logic. Here’s how you to know if you’re absolutely free of the narcissist in your past: This means you don’t care or respond if they reach out, don’t feel a sense of fear about “missing out” on information if you block them digitally, and don’t feel curiosity about what’s happening to them. The pain from such people trumped the discomfort of receiving. So for a year I trained myself, sitting through my internal squirming and protesting head. Compliments, meals, presents, favors, acts of kindness, smiles. It didn’t matter. As I explain to my clients these days, “You’ve given so much that there’s tons of credit in your Karma Bank. Time to cash out on the interest.” It is at that moment that they really get it. My parents raised me to give. They taught me to repair, rescue, and resuscitate. The sooner I stopped running away from the fact that I am innately a rescuer, the sooner I could acknowledge that it is merely one part of me. And then I could see the beauty of being a rescuer, being the champion that my younger self never had. Sometimes we are forced to confront how high our self-worth really is when we firmly say no to people who treat us terribly. Owning your past means that you understand the relationship was mostly a farce, and that’s OK. You no longer blame yourself or feel stupid for your previous chapter. Then I committed to owning and celebrating the different parts of me. The light and darkness and everything in between. I walked out of the black and white, and learned to sail in the gray zone. Today, I own my past, hunches, and every face of me. Integrating my lessons means I look back and laugh. And it is a laughter devoid of bitterness or jadedness. When bad things like abuse happen, it shatters our world of assumptions and we become the puppets of stories like, “Only bad things happen” and, “The world is a dangerous place.” This is how a happy-go-lucky person suddenly becomes bitter and hypervigilant. When you are truly free of your narcissist, you know in your bones that good things will happen to you and that there are good people in the world. You aren’t doggedly forcing yourself to “be grateful” while actually feeling miserable. You truly see and experience the magic in the present and future, even if life throws you the curveballs it throws everyone. As Paulo Coelho pointed out, we live with one foot in a fairy tale and the other in a cesspit. And you dance the dialectic with grace. Just as standards are the “Hell yes!” in your life, boundaries are the “Hell no!” When you can declare your boundaries, you can trust yourself to live your life, knowing that you will not tolerate having your limits pushed. They are the happy zone within which you play. Boundaries are how we respect ourselves and how we teach others how we feel respected. You can also trust yourself to revisit your boundaries—it doesn’t mean you are rigid and it’s all carved in stone. And when you develop boundaries, some people will inevitably kick back. And you will stand firm. When we’re young, our minds are immature and we form stories about the world and our worthiness based on conclusions we jump to. And we repeat these scenarios like a tape on loop, until our minds get closure. I always ask my clients, “How does your body feel around a narcissist?” Do you find your brain relentlessly justifying why they are good people? If there were a song that could capture how you feel around a narcissist, what would it be? Then, how does your body feel around someone decent? Do you root for different people in the films you used to enjoy? I found myself cheering for the kindhearted person, not the brooding demon. And if you enjoy the company of someone whom you’d have otherwise dismissed previously, discovering exciting and wonderful things about them—congratulations, the spell is broken. But you’re not just doing it to escape; you’re becoming whole. That happens by sorting out the weak spots through which your narcissist wormed his way in. Let me explain what healing is. Healing isn’t just talking things away and implanting another mindset. We are governed by both our hearts and minds; unfortunately, we oscillate between both rather than listening to their combined wisdom. Trauma is stored within our cells. This means it cannot be released with logic—hence why sometimes people say they’ve been in therapy for decades and nothing’s changed. When you heal yourself, your heart and mind play a symphony with each other, and that’s when beautiful things happen. You are at peace. You learn to take care of yourself, and you learn to upgrade your life because you’ve given yourself the permission to do so. Interested in learning more about narcissists? Here’s what breaking up with a narcissist is actually like. She has been featured in Elle, Forbes, and Business Insider and has previously worked with Olympians, business professionals, and individuals seeking to master their psychological capital. She works globally in English and Mandarin-Chinese via Skype and Facetime, blending cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and ancient wisdom.
