Reduce the need to please

Two motivations primarily based on fear

  • Fear of being unloved – to be or not be of significance or worth, become very adept at scanning others, perceiving their needs, and reaching out to help in an assertive, not militant way. The feeling of joy and connection boosts their self-esteem as the payoff. This unconsciously keeps the underlying belief going: if I am not giving, pleasing, or helping, I am not loveable. The perpetual proud helper, whereby giving is my inherent worth, not gaining worth by giving. It needs insight into the futility of repetitive giving, the need to give to get. We must stop reaching out, reacting immediately, and demanding reciprocity.
  • Fear of being without protection and being vulnerable – if I don’t give, be agreeable and go along with your agenda and belief, you may remove your support and protection and abandon me. Extreme anxiety beneath the mask of warmth and concern, to take individual responsibility and be open to blame or confrontation. They must reclaim their inner authority and capacity to use their resources and experiences. Connect to their inner warrior to protect them when not being agreeable and conforming.

Calm your nervous system.

Psychological capacity and resources are less helpful and effective under stress. It develops in 3 stages

  • Alarm -adrenaline rush to constrict the muscles in fight and flight mode if in an abusive relationship or under pressure.
  • Resistance –locked into a negative cycle, creating more cortisol and inflammation, stopping serotonin release.
  • Exhaustion – burnout due to chronic fight or flight, losing the ability to adapt, lifeless, unable to settle and rest, in hyper-vigilant mode.

Shrink the internal Critic/Judge.

The judge is the repository of the critical messages, wounds and put-downs accumulated over time. The judge is masterful at triggering these wounds, especially under stress when the nervous system is dilapidated. The judge disables higher reasoning centres and can instigate rage, panic, and fear. The empath may turn to more power and control or create a victim mentality with chronic complaining. They need to develop an awareness of their internal observer and to notice when the judge has been activated when feeling guilty or not good enough. The judge is not very sophisticated or mature and uses the same patterns of attack, which can be dismantled and confronted with awareness.

The empath needs to break away from these pathological core beliefs to break free of abusive narcissistic relationships. They need to develop the courage and discipline to confront the lies they are telling themselves. If I love you and give you what you need, you will love me back without me needing to ask for and express my needs. The pathological denial of one own needs and willingness to sacrifice them leads to co-dependency. Beneath the niceness is resentment, hostility, and anger for these unmet needs, whilst blocking any attempt to have needs, as this is selfish, defective, bad and weak, hence staying with the narc, continuing the false hope for reciprocity.

Only until the empath capacity to deny these needs bursts into a volcanic rage, will they ask and express these needs to someone who can`t fulfil them

Their attachment system is easily activated and is hyperactive, feeling the pain of others, with a tendency to assume a deeper level of intimacy existing, overstepping boundaries, leading to resentment. The narc views others as extensions of themselves, with no cohesive sense of self and can’t see others as others. The narc knows how to open up the energy paths of the Empath through love bombing, gaslighting, etc.—feeding off the empathy. The empath has two core states.

  1. Dependent – seeking approval, affirmation, reassurance, and acceptance from others, people pleasers
  2. Counter-dependent -denial of vulnerability and trying to operate as an adult, with pseudo-false self and image.

They create continuous problems by surrendering their ground, giving up authority for security and protection for life whilst actively resisting help and support, relying on themselves. They have four self-states (archetypes), two underdeveloped and two overdeveloped, with separate moods, thoughts, behaviours, roles, purposes, and beliefs.

  1. Inner child – wants to gain love and feel secure but has had to give up parts of the self to survive and gain approval. Overactive, frequently accessed with no support from their adult and warrior, kept with distress and fears of rejection and abandonment.
  2. Inner Critic – overly accessed and represented, critical of the survival adaptations of the child, reinforcing maladaptive rules with extreme judgment. The child is never good enough or perfect and needs to be criticised.
  3. Adult mature Adult guides and protects the inner child and sets limits and boundaries, working in real-time, taking in real data, and not distorted by the inner child’s early maladaptive behaviours, delusions, and beliefs. This is underdeveloped or preoccupied and withdraws and abandons too easily, leaving the inner child vulnerable.
  4. Warrior – protects the adult and inner child, underdeveloped or distorted through wounds, unable to protect energy being used and manipulated. Needs to develop the courage and capacity to confront and stand by the inner child and adult when under stress or pressure
  • Unhealthy co-dependency – a pathological need to heal, save, and rescue an individual with an obsessive quality. An egocentric and grandiose people pleaser with an addictive quality seeks new victims and projects to transform and fix. Their abandonment fears can lead to irrational, violent, suicidal and psychosomatic illnesses.
  • Proud helper – average level and function of giving with a good heart, views themselves at the centre of attention for their caring, engaging in self-deception, unable to pull back from giving. Becomes resentful if not reciprocated with passive-aggressive behaviour with a moderate psychological level of awareness
  • Authentic Altruist – high level of awareness and psychological development, can determine when and how to give, wise with no attachment to the desired outcome. They embrace their spiritual essence and move beyond vulnerability to the narc and abusive relationships, aware of their shadow and anima/animus.

Helpful stages of awareness

  • Revealing too much too soon
  • Forming unhealthy alliances with needy colleagues
  • Always saying yes, afraid to say no
  • Unspoken agreements, I will be valued and recognised if I go above and beyond what is asked, resentment feeling used.
  • Playing it safe in unfulfilling roles and jobs, having a fear-based mentality, saying nothing better out there and staying in a comfort zone.

5 Destructive fantasies after the narcissist has left

  1. The narcissist will admit to their mistakes and acknowledge the pain they have caused you. It keeps you in a pattern of yearning and pain
  2. Your suffering will break through to the narc and make them realise what they have done.
  3. You will be able to see evidence of the narc’s suffering eventually because of what they have done, some form of divine retribution.
  4. You can prove your superiority to the narc and show them they have missed out.
  5. Everyone else in the narc’s life will finally see who he is, and they will know the truth and abandon him.
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