you'd probably be sad if you heard something bad happen to someone random on the news or down the street or on your social media feed people think that they haven't mastered the indifferent part if they hear that bad things may have happened to a narcissist that was once in their lives and they sort of feel bad for them it's not true this is a Zen proverb like I said I've been I've been remiss on doing Proverbs right so the way it goes is knowledge is learn something every day wisdom is letting go of something every day probably something I should listen to where my closets are concerned but how is this relevant to narcissistic abuse because the only way people are going to heal or get past narcissistic abuse is by learning about it it's amazing how much knowledge really pushes healing narcissism and narcissistic abuse are obviously not taught in school in fact we're kind of taught the contrary by families teachers religious communities which is find a way to get along always forgive if there's a problem maybe it's your fault we are definitely not taught about red flags and behaviors that are unacceptable for many survivors or experiencers of narcissistic abuse most will say before this happened to me I didn't know this was a thing I thought a narcissistic person was a person who loves to look in the mirror all the time and brags a lot I had no idea about the rest of this stuff the manipulation the gaslighting the invalidation if it happened to you as a child you just think you had a terrible childhood and it may even be normalized so this means that learning about it is a key but this proverb is saying learning isn't enough you can get it but still be continually harmed by it so this proverb is saying this is where we get into wisdom because the letting go is the key and I tend to agree with that when you are trying to heal from narcissistic abuse what are you trying to let go of you're trying to let go of lots of stuff you're trying to let go of internalized narratives about how you are not enough and your needs don't matter you're trying to let go of the hope that the narcissistic relationship can change you're trying to let go of the hope that you can change them you're trying to let go of the hope of the idea of a normal family happy marriage a certain kind of a life you're letting go of the idea that the only way we'll be loved is by silence silencing our needs wants and aspirations letting go of the idea that if you forgive them then everything will be okay you're letting go of the idea that other people will support your decision and see it too you're letting go of the idea that they will someday be punished or there will be some form of karmic payback wisdom is about letting go of the many narratives assumptions distortions beliefs and hopes that keep these relationships going and for a while perhaps even kept you going and that can be really challenging because then what comes in to fill in that place in theory that's where the knowledge can step in as well as ensuring that you wrote down what happened and allow yourself to remember what the relationship was really what the relationship was really like not let the trauma bonded justifications sugar the whole experience and keep pulling you back in because ultimately wisdom is about letting go of the relationship maybe not literally maybe it's not about you engaging maybe it's about lowerer contact maybe it is staying in but staying in with radical acceptance maybe it is ending the relationship it all depends on your situation wisdom isn't just about walking away wisdom is about seeing it and releasing the narratives and justifications that keep you stuck whether literally or mentally trauma bonding makes Letting Go difficult so if you are struggling with it it is not a lack of wisdom as much as it is a difficulty in digging into Old Cycles giving yourself permission to be fully yourself giving yourself permission for your needs and wants and no longer equating chaos and love it's a lot easier to learn about something than it is to let something go in an Ideal World we can do both and it is essential since the knowledge will prop up those holes where you learn to let things go and where the wisdom came from so I like this proverb because I think it's a great one for healing and lets us know that it's a process not just the knowing but also the willingness to let things go now listen I've been studying and thinking and researching about narcissism for what 20 years plus now when you do that you pay attention to the serial killer literature literature there's a really robust criminology literature out there and obviously a vast proportion of serial killers conformed to either malignant narcissism or so so psychopathy and sociopathy or and generally sort of the whole idea of the dark tetrad of narcissism psychopathy machiavellianism and sadism now this past week I have been very carefully watching the unfolding story of the of the apprehension and arrest of the gilo beach serial killer from Long Island who prayed upon vulnerable women whom he solicited for sex and then not only killed them but taunted their families after the crimes it was remorseless and it was a series of killings that kept a community on edge for years after A Renewed investigation they have an accused suspect now this accused suspect was a hiding and plain sight kind of guy I think he was employed as a architect he was married kids he had a house he didn't have an entirely Clean Slate there was definitely some Financial funkiness in his background he seemed to live amongst everyone in a regular neighborhood he wasn't living on the fringes by any stretch and was able to maintain those two masks in a terrifying way I'm going to be honest with you I do not agree with the characterization of a person like this having a switch just go off the switch was always off people who are capable of these things are expert shape shifters and compartmentalizes and they can go between sadistic cruelty and then showing up to work on time and even going to happy hour that's really because of the sort of lack of remorse we see in this style the lack of empathy the callousness all of those things are very consistent for them any empathy shred of empathy you'd see in someone like this at best is performative I actually don't give a rat's ass about this guy they're going to do their trial it will have an outcome I can't imagine the the anguish of the families of the victims who have waited this long for something that resembles a possible closure it sounds like it was a very messy protracted investigation that case isn't as important the actual whatever happens to him happens right but there's a piece from this story and any story like this that can provide some really important insights about how to protect ourselves from the toxic Personalities in our midst the ones that are hiding in plain sight I was taken by a few things in this story everything I've been reading first just because a person has what appears to be a legit job with an education and sort of your basic Standard Life marriage house kids there's a risk that will put down our discernment after all they are playing by the societal rules they have what are considered socially validated accomplishments we may fall into the Trap of that the odds are that they have to be normal not NE necessarily you have to go beyond the diplomas and the job and for anyone look at their personality their behavior how they treat people I don't care if somebody went to five Ivy League schools and had some kind of fancy job that person is just as likely to be narcissistic as a person who doesn't have any of that stuff in their history in fact my money might even be sometimes on the Highly Educated fancy person to have a slightly greater probability of being narcissistic but here's the next next part in a lot of the coverage of the story that really jumped out at me one article talked about this alleged suspect as a neighbor there was a neighbor to this guy and there appeared to be sort of two camps in these neighbors one Camp was me there just a neighbor didn't really notice him we're so shocked we're so shocked we can't believe this happened right here in our neighborhood shock shock shock shock shocked right then there was another smaller group that said kind of scary made me uncomfortable when I said hi he was odd and unfriendly I kind of would sort of walk the other way when I saw him coming so when we read the stories we do obviously have to account for what we call recall bias something called retroactive interference basically new information has come in that colors our perception so the folks who say they saw him as scary may also be being shaped by the incoming facts but let's hold the possibility that that is not all of it and indeed that some of these people did see him as a little bit scary all along and more and more bits and pieces are coming in that are saying some people were like this guy is not a good guy and others were like I didn't notice a thing so then the question becomes what is it about some of us that we perceive some folks as scary that kind of I need to stay away from this person and this is not cool and others who might think well he just seemed like a regular neighbor who had a regular job and brought in his trash cans and that was fine there's a lot of things that that can factor into how we make these judgments our past experience our past exposure to toxic dangerous threatening people past history of trauma who we are as people could again could also be that people of less power within Society are more likely who need to perceive these cues and threats to stay safe there are Myriad little cues people give us I think as a whole people think it may be dismissive to write off the cantankerous cruel and cold neighbor who feels a little scary as antagonistic or narcissistic I think those cues even if they're little ones they matter personality is a funny thing it's a BackBeat a drum beat that quietly plays under the vocals so a person could either seem like a pillar of the community or a rude neighbor or a recluse or have things that legitimize them a certain kind of job or family or lifestyle but that's the vocals the personality is the stuff that drives the behavior it's the constant the danger of Personality Styles like narcissism and psychopathy is that it's quite possible for people with those personality styles to have the legitimized things the jobs and the social roles that can lead us to think everyone's safe here and yet these are people who could be capable of doing tremendous harm to other people personality doesn't shift that much agreeable people are kind and warm antagonistic people are not and that that personality drives behavior in all situations it doesn't mean that a person can't hold a job if they're antagonistic but they may not be that Pleasant to work with but people make excuses if some of those neighbors were telling the truth and always felt a little uncomfortable the larger question looms of how often do we trust that sense of discomfort within ourselves even when we meet someone who is seemingly together on paper that they tick the boxes of what is socially valued because then we may let down our guard and that's the danger right to let down our guards to let down our caution on the basis of ostensible qualities like the neighborhood that someone lives in what they do for a living that someone is married or that they show up to PTA meetings we have to trust how we feel pay attention to how we are treated how we are communicated with when we engage in basic social interaction a greeting a hello or a question if what you get back when you do those things feels off pay attention and don't let the superficial cues throw you people with antagonistic personality Styles such as psychopathy have that chilling capacity to hide in plain sight while perpetrating terrible offenses this Channel and my work are far more focused on narcissism which as a personality style is actually far more subtle I think than psychopathy and as a result I think it affects people in a different manner interpersonally psychopathy can feel much much more chilling but regardless of the subtype of antagonism narcissism psychopathy or just a mashup of disregulation low empathy callousness manipulation deceit the Assumption we make about superficial characteristics without considering the personality and Associated Behavior and the nature of interaction someone has with people obviously in most cases that person is not going to be a serial killer but may still be a person who can bring Strife or maybe even risk into your life pay attention to how you feel the fact is the victims of a serial killer usually don't have that choice but in our day-to-day lives even with people who may be less dangerous those signs and signals still matter for those of you who are interested in this idea of things like serial killers and violence and aggression and narcissism really high quality research on this is being done done by Brad Bushman and his colleagues at Ohio State and their work has shown very clearly that violence and aggression are associated with these personality Styles now a serial killer is a rare rare event thank goodness but nonetheless the crimes they commit do harm to many obviously not just their direct victims but the many people around them the people who cared about those victims and the people in a community but in a story like this reading the mixed assessments of the person who perpetrator we really do get that sense that there's some people who feel it who recognize it who say something's not right here pay attention to that feeling doesn't mean you even have to do anything more with that other than say I need a minute and I'm not going to talk myself out of it but discernment is everything when it comes to being more narcissist resistant we're going to apply a concept you might not consider to be part of radical acceptance but I'm going to make that argument um today that that's really going to help us understand why it's so difficult because radical acceptance is actually a simple Concept in some ways this isn't going to change so make your decisions on that basis narcissism is a stable personality style folks who are narcissistic often don't have self-reflective capacity they don't have self-awareness they do not feel motivated to change they will not change enough for the changes to be sufficient to undo the Harms in the history of this relationship or to be sustained in a manner that will create a deep collaborative healthy loving relationship but radical acceptance also takes in some other territory including that this doesn't stop hurting even though you've radically accept it it's not as though you radically accept and then the narcissistic relationship no longer bothers you you grieve if you don't completely leave the relationship then their cruel words and actions will continue to hurt you and the cruel words are very unlikely to stop but radical acceptance is not a magic pill or a Panacea by radically accepting you're not going to magically heal healing is an active process radical acceptance though is essential it's almost I would say required for healing but in and of itself is not going to heal you most people frankly after they radically accept will say this feels like the opposite of feeling of of healing they feel like they're experiencing significant grief and a recognition that the hope that you had that you had carried for years maybe a lifetime that someday maybe this is going to get better someday they'll be accountable someday they'll see how they hurt me someday they'll be closure someday they'll get it right the recognition that none of that stuff that you are holding on to is coming can result in substantial grief a way to think about this and where this video idea came from it can come from the annals of sort of high altitude climbing which is this idea of a climatization you can't just start climbing at sea level and shoot up a mountain first of all probably take too long but for most people they would get sick even when a person starts from around 8,000 fet and popping up to 20 20,000 feet or higher it doesn't work climbers about to do big climbs especially those who live generally at sea level have to acclimatize and they do that often by camping at high altitude for a while like let's say at 18,000 ft for a few weeks to get their bodies adjusted so they can manage the not only the exertion of the clim ahead but more than anything the effect it'll have on their body it's not foolproof more than a few people a climatize and follow the rules and still develop altitude sickness which is no joke it can even be fatal the reason for this is I'm actually a climbing geek from way back I'm fascinated by it I read everything I can about climbing I mean these days I can barely get up the stairs I can't learn enough about it it's not like I was ever some great climbing not at all I think it's cuz I'm a Capricorn a little goat in me cares about um climbing but that's that's where this sort of I think about this a lot but this concept of acclimatization has a lot of relevance to understanding radical acceptance as part of your healing once you radically accept it's not as simple as got it they aren't going to change all right yeah got it I'm going to have to do some workarounds and go no contact and yay guess what I'm not even going to be affected by them anymore CU I've radically accepted no you actually have to acclimatize to the new conditions as it were spend some time proverbi proverbially CL camping at this altitude preparing for the exertion and the rigors and the adjustments that are needed for the healing process ahead when people who live at sea level first get to altitude they get winded people in perfectly good good shape at altitude may find that just running a short distance or hiking a little takes it out of them and they may feel fatigued or have headaches and generally feel awful it's the same with radical acceptance when people for example first really learn how rigid and how unyielding narcissistic patterns are and the very low recognize that very low probability that the relationship or the person Goods going to change there may be some moments of denial excuses the idea of maybe I'll be the exception they're going through a hard time they had a tough childhood but as it sets in the person is living in a new re reality the radical acceptance reality sort of Life at a higher altitude but you have to live there for a while to adjust you have to experience the exhaust of that exhaustion of that so-called thinner air you may find that things that once felt simple like getting together with a good friend who you know you love very much and their marriage is good and they have a happy home life or seeing a friend who comes from a happy family and spends fun-filled holidays with them or chatting with someone who has a job where they're valued and appreciated or even just someone who has people in their lives who who are supportive those experiences may feel overwhelming exhausting demoralizing in another words you might feel psychologically winded where you once were able to have these visits and conversations because you hadn't yet accepted the painful reality of your situation now once you radically accept yours those kinds of situations can feel really difficult things that almost felt easy ones may feel more difficult and painful once radical acceptance sets in so that's the process of acclimatizing now people who are cling and acclimatizing might take short little workout hikes at the new altitude nothing fancy just enough to get accustomed their body to get used to it but nothing like they were able to do at a lower altitude and nothing like what they will be doing when they actually do their big climb it's only going to get thinner as they climb higher in radical acceptance a climatization would mean that you initially take life slower some of you may keep to yourselves more you may rest a little more you may go to therapy you figure out what this new reality means you settle into it you acclimatized as you become more acclimatized and it's a hell of a lot easier to acclimatize to altitude I think than it is to a climatize to radical acceptance then you will adjust to the new environment your a climatization may be happening in a circumstance in which you still have Conta with the narcissistic person so as you settle into radical acceptance you may find yourself doing better with realistic expectations you don't engage as much you don't get into circular arguments you slowly find workarounds it's not always easy you may still find yourself very strong and every so often a little bit of Hope will sneak in but as you ACC climatized to the idea of radical acceptance basically is you accept the radical acceptance the grief never really goes away I think that's an unrealistic bar and the wounds are there and they slowly kind of heal over as wounds do but you might find that you slowly adjust you will find that you'll slowly adjust to a new normal one where you aren't engaging where you don't take the bait and most of all and this is really important where you are not surprised when they do something deeply unkind that lacks empathy that is deeply entitled or self unaware and as the acclimatization gets more and more complete and you find that your body is adjusting you can start breathing a little bit more normally in the thinner air as you adjust to the acceptance of this you will find that you open up to the other steps of healing things like building up other relationships where people see you that are validating and help you feel strong and safe creating safe spaces in your life where you can actually Express Yourself openly and freely without fear of shame or reprisal where you start to trust your insights intuition perceptions experiences memory ability and reality and even when those things are questioned and if the gaslighters and narcissistic folks are still around in some capacity in your life those things will be questioned that now you're able to hold your own and push back and say I think we're having different experiences this is how how I do it instead of I'm sorry H I must have remembered that incorrectly radical acceptance is essential but painful for a climber a climatization is timec consuming but essential if you don't want to get sick or Worse on a high altitude climb you have to adjust to sort of a your body has to adjust your soul has to adjust to the new way the world will be once you radically accept your schemas expectations your hopes and your narratives all get dismantled to be replaced with more realistic ones and that process of breaking down the old and building up the new takes time maybe you could hold that as almost a visual for yourself if you are in the early phases of healing and you have just started in with radical acceptance that almost this Vision okay like okay this radical acceptance is beginning that I'm camping on some sort of Glacial Marine glacials Marines aren't that attractive so maybe you could make your climatization spot mentally pretty prettier like a beautiful Meadow but it's an in between space you're not fully into a new future where you really are vigorously moving forward and healing but it's also no longer the unseeing prison of the narcissistic relationship it's no it's not the world where you still believe the future faking or G lighting it's that in between space where you slowly learn to breathe differently let it come over you adjust to the different air take it slow and get your strength and then you can set out for the proverbial Summit it's really important you don't try to rush your healing I mean it's like trying to will a full a full moon into existence on the night of the first quarter moon I mean it's coming it's just not coming tonight radical acceptance takes a second to take to to take basically and for you to acclimatize to the new conditions and climate and once you do you will realize you will not only be able to hack it hack the climb hack the healing but that you'll be stronger in all areas of your life but you got to create that early experience of ACC climatizing that sort of radical acceptance climatization Sanctuary for yourself have the grief feel it out let it out and be patient with yourself you will ruminate and euphoric recall and I list it all out and feel sad and depleted that's kind of like that altitude sickness and slowly but surely you won't and it's important that you do enjoy the view from the top because you will get there and I just again when I thought about this video I was very struck by it because again there was a time I did I mean never was a f P climber but there were two times I actually flew to high high places and I remember one of them both of these cities one of them city they're both altitude around 12,000 one of the cases as soon as the plane landed I think it was Cusco um uh in uh Peru and we landed and people got up you know to get their bags out of the bins one guy stood up and he passed right out like stood up fainted like I was when he was a tall guy and I was like w this altitude is no joke and the other time I had the opportunity to be in um um in Lassa in Tibet and at the time I happened to be in good shape not I'm not anymore but I was that really good shape and I was V visiting a site and there were many many stairs and I would be like five steps winded five steps wind I get these terrible headaches and I really had to slow down and and one mountain I was cl and hiking and I live pretty close to sea level and that mountain had the top was probably close to 11,000 ft and I got very sick at 9,000 so the acclimatization is real and it was it really made me reflect on how you got to take a second and you got to adjust to this new space one thing I love to do on this channel is answer the many great questions we get and we got a really great question about indifference now you know that to me indifference is something I believe is the top of the mountain when it comes to Healing from narcissistic abuse the person's question reads my goal in recovery is to feel indifference about the narcissistic person in my life and about the abuse I experienced how do I get there I've been out of the relationship for a year and I haven't had any contact with my abuser but I still struggle with moments of anger anxiety depression and fear so let's talk about why indifference is so important why indifference is so useful but also discuss some of the misunderstandings that come up about indifference let's start first why why indifference why not focus on getting to a point of forgiveness or friendship or to a place where you'll like the other person well because that's probably not going to work when we are talking about narcissism listen if you get to actual forgiveness then that's your process but as you know I never mandate it I know a lot of people never get there and that's perfectly fine the behavior and the destruction wrought by many narcissistic people is not forgivable and many narcissistic people take forgiveness and assume that oh you forgave me oh great now everything's forgotten and then they could just go right back to the manipulative be behavior and then they assume that you will forgive them again the next time they mess up and they will mess up what about friendship or any other close relationship how could you really have a meaningful friendship with a person you cannot feel safe around or trust at best that kind of friendship is a risky proposition and at worst it's almost a form of self harm ah but the beautiful Crystal Clear Mountain Air of indifference that's the prize but this question shows some confusion about what indifference is indifference is how you regard the narcissistic person the goal frankly is to become indifferent to them not to become indifferent to their impact on you but towards them you may be wondering what's the difference before I give you my answer drop a comment below let me know what you think the difference is between indifferent toward being indifferent towards them versus indifferent to the impact on you being IND towards the narcissist means that you're kind of Blas about them or you don't give a proverbial you know what about what happens to them whether it's good or bad and the good or the bad part is important indifference means that you do not care if they win the lottery or get married or get a promotion or go to jail or lose their money or lose their left foot many people not only don't care if something bad happens to the narcissist sure they got that but they get really aggravated and angry if good things happen to the narcissist if you're going to be indifferent you're all in you just don't care I don't know the guy that I can see outside my window right now I really don't care what happens to him because I don't know him I don't wish anything bad on him but I really don't care because I'm indifferent to him in fact you may be less indifferent to a stranger than you should be to the narcissistic person I actually don't know the guy outside my window so in the grand scheme of things I don't wish any good or bad on him but I kind of hope he has a nice day why not he doesn't hurt me and let him have a good day most of us can be less indifferent to strangers than we need to be to the narcissists narcissistic relationships are like Tangled masses of seaweed that we can get caught in and that threaten to drown us we get so entangled in in the narcissist and we get so entangled in their their their narratives and their realities we no longer want to derive any of our sense of self or our emotions from that person that's why indifference is so important indifference works and people do get there I see it every day people get to the point that they just don't care about the narcissist they think oh look at that my ex just bought a beach condo with his much younger new partner who has lots of money and they actually will be indifferent to it despite maybe a year or two before being initially devastated that their partner left them but instead taking the attitude of okay as long as I never need to live with them or talk to them again they can live anywhere or with anyone they want I don't care but it takes people a minute to get here but people do get here so what about all of you drop that comment have you gotten to be indifferent to a narcissist in your life now let's face it you may get a brief chuckle if you hear that the narcissist that was once in your life got caught in their bad behavior the work scandals finally catch up with them their bad behavior finally gets caught out in an expensive manner they really get in trouble for cheating yet again on their new partner and you think uh all right a little bit of karma feels good indifference means though that you weren't up at night wishing this would happen you live your life you became indifferent and you didn't care but you a little you you got yourself a little shad and Freud a Sizzle we're all human okay now some people do struggle if something really bad happens to the former narcissistic person for example if they get sick or they die or they get badly hurt or something happens to their family or their children remember the key piece of when you walk out of a narcissistic relationship you're still imp athic and that's fine you may be sad that something bad happened to another human being don't mistake that empathy for you thinking oh maybe I made a mistake or maybe I'm not indifferent maybe I still care H you'd probably be sad if you heard something bad happen to someone random on the news or down the street or on your social media feed people think that they haven't mastered the indifferent part if they hear that bad thing things may have happened to a narcissist that was once in their lives and they sort of feel bad for them it's not true it just means that you have retained your empathy which is great most people will say yeah listen I feel bad that anything bad happens to people but I really no longer have skin in that game and so that's that but I also want to say for those of you who are like you know what I actually didn't care that something bad happened and I didn't care that they died I didn't care they got sick that's okay you nailed the indifference no shame in that game okay but the person who asked this question asked an interesting question because what they're asking is they're saying I haven't had any contact with the narcissist but I'm feeling anxiety anger depression and fear well that's an entirely different issue you having feelings especially in the aftermath of narcissistic abuse is normal a person just upended your reality they invalidated you they were likely enabled by other people to do so they behaved in a manner that was psychologically manipulative and abusive or worse and you are still feeling the after effects this is a normal response to an abnormal situation as Victor Frankle would say it's normal to become indifferent is to not stop being you to become indifferent is not to become numb or to stop feeling to become indifferent is all about how you regard The Narcissist after a person experiences narcissistic abuse people report having negative emotions for months and even years especially if a person was not able to get into good therapy to address what happened to to them and really particularly if there's ongoing enabling hoovering harassment smear campaigns flying monkeys all of that so you having these feelings it's normal it doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't indifferent listen folks I've been through narcissistic abuse I have learned the Fine Art of indifference and I still feel fear and anxiety y I still have nightmares I had one last night as a matter of fact I am a more anxious person now than I was before all of this happened and let me tell you I was pretty damned anxious before that's my work that I need to do on me but frankly I am completely indifferent to the narcissists themselves I don't actually care what happens to any of them I really don't but I took the blows and the blow Chang changed me in some good ways in some not good ways I don't judge my ongoing anger or fear as me not being indifferent to them I judge it or characterize it as my mind and my body and my soul still reacting to abuse and working on it in my own therapy with my own supports but I promise you this I don't give a damn what happens to those narcissists this person asking this question has gone a year no contact that's not easy to do and that tells me that this person who wrote this question has the bandwidth to maintain no contact and maybe the indifference to The Narcissist but still having the aftermath feelings of narcissistic abuse themselves a person is probably further along than they think if if they could maintain the challenge of no contact for that long the one thing that really gets harmed after a person has experienced narcissistic abuse is self-compassion you spent months years or a lifetime catering to someone else's meanness and selfishness transitioning to valuing yourself and caring for yourself that takes a minute but it does happen and you will learn to do it you will transition to that place your body and your brain are still reacting to some bad stuff it's okay and it takes time it's important you support yourself get the help you can to process it and you may very well grow indifferent to The Narcissist long before you internally feel comfortable again that's usually how it goes I still don't feel comfortable internally but damn I am IND different so thanks for tuning in if you like this video please consider giving it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to this channel so you can keep getting the daily content and I look forward to reading your comments thanks again
