The #1 Word a Narcissist Absolutely Cannot Stand/ Say this Instead/ Lisa A. Romano

we're going to be talking about the word narcissists hate the most and what you can do to avoid vindictive punishment [Music] so narcissists believe in their head they believe in their false self they believe that they're exceptional they believe that they are better than anyone else if your friend is a narcissist your friend will think that she is better than you she is smarter than you she is more beautiful than you she is more capable than you and through various ways through exhibitionism she will show you that she believes this and you may not offer a conflict or you may not approach her with a different opinion the idea is that you should agree with them and if you don't sometimes you'll be seen as a threat and in narcissistic relationships it's not uncommon to have a narcissist literally berate you until you agree with them you cry uncle and then the next step is they have you apologize for ever disagreeing with them and sometimes you walk away thinking maybe i was wrong maybe she was right because they're so convinced that they're absolutely correct now we know that narcissism is a personality trait what we're trying to do because narcissists generally don't go into therapy at least that's what research suggests we're trying to understand narcissism as a personality trait and we're trying to identify people in our lives that create havoc and really are disruptive and what we can do about it i think there's also a very important key aspect that none of us should gloss over and that is do i possess these traits in myself what will happen with a narcissist is because they lack empathy they exploit others there's this overall sense of entitlement and they are unable to look within themselves and to change if you are someone who notices that well maybe i was narcissistic in that situation it makes you uncomfortable that's a really good thing if you take it to the next level and you actually seek out treatment or you seek to change that's amazing you're actually bringing more light and more love and more expansion to the universe rather than staying stuck on this generational wheel of dysfunction and continuing to do to others what was done to you so bravo to you we know that narcissists can't tolerate criticism we know that narcissists see criticism as a form of rejection and therefore when you use the word no to a narcissist you can trigger them trigger their narcissistic injury and because they feel rejected by you this can push them into a complete state of tension and in that space because they lock they lack objectivity they lack the ability to look within they lack the ability to be responsible for the words that are coming out of their mouth they have this visceral reaction they have this tension and pain that shows up when you say no to them and what they do is they react so they can become vindictive very punishing they can go into gaslighting you projection blame shifting and smear campaigns in healthy relationships you feel like your partner actually wants you and welcomes you to come to them with your concerns with your frustrations and with your desires to change something in the relationship we're all striving to have that type of a relationship with someone else and we're all striving to be able to have those sort of healthy boundaries when it comes to our relationships to be able to find someone who is going to welcome us when we're concerned about where the relationship is going we're all trying to find a relationship with someone where we actually feel safe enough to share our vulnerabilities and we know that if we have a concern it's not going to be exploited the other person has good will for us and they're going to going to hold their concerns or our concerns for the relationship in the palm of their hands that's a beautiful thing and we're all trying to become that person as well we're trying to become the person who can hear that our partners are disappointed or we can hear that our partners see something in us that they're not happy with and we're we don't go down a rabbit hole no one likes to feel criticized but there's something specific that happens to someone who has high narcissistic traits that doesn't happen to other people so when we're talking about narcissism we're talking about behaviors opinions and reactions that happen on a continuum or happen on a spectrum so it's important to remember that and so it is normal to react to criticism but it is completely unhealthy to behave as if the person we're speaking to is non-human and or that we have the right to dehumanize someone else because we have been hurt or wounded or some past trauma has been activated within us this is the gray zone that we're trying to find so let's say you have a girlfriend and your girlfriend is spending a lot of time on friday nights hanging out with some of her girlfriends and she comes in late into the morning hours two or three o'clock in the morning and you two have decided that every saturday morning you're going to get up and you're going to jog you're going to run but there seems to be this trend happening there's this pattern where your girlfriend who said with her mouth made the intention and created this future reality with you that said yes we're going to get up on saturday mornings when we live together and we're going to go run and then when she moves in no bueno it doesn't happen actually what ends up happening is your girlfriend ends up staying late at work goes out to happy hour and doesn't come home till two o'clock in the morning and you're like what's up so the healthy person that you are says her words are not matching her actions and i care about her and i would really like to have a conversation around what i see happening good for you you are exercising good healthy boundaries you're recognizing whether when there's a conflict with someone that you care about you're acknowledging your emotions you're acknowledging that you're feeling vulnerable and you're really going out on a limb when you say i would really like to talk about what's been happening friday into saturday now if you have a healthy girlfriend then her response will be sure babe what's up if you have a healthy girlfriend then she'll chew on what you said and she'll think about it and she'll be able to see the conflict in her own behavior she'll be able to apologize she'll be able to see that you coming to her is actually because you want the two of you to be in a healthy place so that you're going out on a limb and she respects that and she welcomes that and what happens is next friday the behavior changes and you end up actually jogging on a saturday morning if it's a really healthy person then she has integrity and her words are going to match her behavior they should have always matched her behavior anyway now if your girlfriend is a narcissist then what will happen is the image that she has of herself this grandiose image that she has of herself is going to clash with the image that you're presenting her so the external reality is now clashing with her interpersonal reality of self she is not going to be happy that creates tension that creates a sense of abandonment she's going to be triggered she's going to see you as a threat she's going to see you as someone who has now become an enemy essentially what you're saying is no i'm not going to tolerate the fact that you said that when you moved in here we were going to jog on saturday mornings and in fact you are now going out friday nights drinking way too much and you're coming home drunk and i'm jogging by myself every saturday morning and this is just not what i signed up for you're saying no the narcissist is going to hate that the narcissist is going to feel like you are the reason all of this anger has been stirred up within them you are not the reason this has happened the real reason is the conflict that the narcissist is holding on in their head that has to do with their perception of self a sign that your girlfriend is a narcissist is how she responds to your attempt to clear the air and set a boundary people who are more narcissistic than others recoil and react they become vindictive they become aggressive there could be screaming there could be yelling there could be throwing things it could really really devolve quickly it could end up in some type of physical issue where there they become combative there's really no telling how far down a rabbit hole a narcissist will go depending on what type of a narcissist you're dealing with certainly a malignant narcissist is someone that you need to be very very careful about so how she responds to your desire to set a boundary and say no is going to tell you a lot about what's happening within this person with how she sees you and how she even sees herself so if you're dealing with someone who is a high conflict personality they're going to have a very strong reaction to your no like no this isn't happening this isn't what i signed up for vindictiveness is a key indicator that you're dealing with someone who has high narcissistic traits someone who becomes extremely over emotional and the emotions aren't matching the situation so they're it's it's not called for your you came at this situation wanting to discuss something to you it's just like we need to get back on on the same track but to this person they have literally felt attacked by your no in some cases you'll have someone just go cold she just stops talking to you right oh you want to go jogging you want to go jogging okay let's go jogging right now let's go jogging right now and now you are being punished by this menacing attitude you are going to be made to feel guilty and if you had no right to approach her about a boundary violation you will end up being shamed you will end up being guilted you end up being coerced into feeling like it's your fault that you said hey wait a minute this isn't what i signed up for so they will turn the entire situation around on you she might go jogging but she's punishing you the whole way right and so if she begins to punish you if she begins to stonewall you if she stops talking to you if she begins insulting you if she brings up stuff from the past to justify why she slept in completely ignoring this this idea because of the lack of accountability because the lack of introspection this idea that you literally said we were going to jog on saturday mornings we went out we bought these sneakers we looked for a trail you have no idea that maybe this narcissist was just future faking you don't know but when you say oh no no bueno you said this now you're doing this that's not okay with me there's going to be a severe reaction if you're dealing with someone who has high narcissistic traits so what happens why does a narcissist react so strongly to this type of very innocuous situation which two level-headed healthy people could really resolve quite quick quickly with some awareness some tenderness and some we understanding looking at the big picture and really wanting to have a healthy relationship with and i'm sorry i don't know what got into me thank you for sharing this with me and you know what you're right next week is going to be better and stick to it right so this really could have been resolved quickly not so when it comes to a narcissist when you're dealing with a narcissist you're gonna have late hour conversations well into the morning that go round and round and round they start off nitpicking you how dare you confront them about anything and before you know it you're apologizing for bringing to their attention something that you think should have been resolved easily you end up feeling guilted you end up feeling shamed and if you stay in this relationship long enough you actually think that you are the reason the narcissist got upset it's all all your fault so why does a narcissist behave this way so i just want to read something to you so reach researchers david chester and nathan dewall have discovered that narcissists react aggressively to interpersonal insult because of a heightened discrepancy between their grandiose self and the now threatened self the conflict between the two perceptions create tension and this tension is processed as aggressive aggression and then projected upon others so your no triggers them narcissists are hyper vigilant researchers are suggesting that narcissists a big reason why people become narcissistic is because of hot and cold relationship styles attachment styles to a parental figure so narcissists are people who are unable to form healthy bonds to their caretakers and oftentimes were very shamed and guilted and just couldn't figure out how to how to make their narcissistic parents happy and as a result now to protect their fragile ego they have become hyper vigilant so they're scanning the environment for the next possible attack and once they hone in on you once you become that person who says no they're locked and loaded they have a missile ready to point in your direction at any point at any time where they feel slighted by you in any way so the number one word a narcissist hates to hear from you is no let's say your narcissistic friend calls you at 2 am and he says something like hey dude i need a place to crash tonight because my wife just found out about my mistress you've known for quite some time that your your friend is narcissistic he has exploited you before he's exploited your money he's exploited your care he's exploited your friendship he has put you in a position where you've had to lie for him cover for him when he's out with his mistress and your wife is friends with his wife and he really has no empathy for how he's exploiting you how he's exploiting your wife how he's exploiting his wife no empathy no no conscience really or very little conscience around the consequences of his actions and so you don't want to allow your friend to sleep on your couch you immediately feel the impulse to say you know what you're a selfish son of a gun you don't care about anyone else but yourself you've got kids at home sleeping you probably had this horrible fight with your wife she found out about your mistress and now you're coming to me you created this mess you know go home go crawl go crawl in a hole somewhere now that might be your input impulse and i get it this is the thing though when you're dealing with a narcissist that has this type of narcissistic injury that's tied to rejection your no is going to trigger them and so we really have to come up with a more creative way at least i think so to deal with these type of people so that you don't become the object of their missile fire you don't become the person that they hone in on the person that they project all of their narcissistic injuries on because what happens is when you trigger someone like this who has this type of an injury you become the mother who abused them you become the brother who abused them you become the sister you become the father you become all of the people or any of the people that ever abuse them in childhood you become that person they are unaware that this is what hap what is happening and that all that does is keep you rooted to this type of a spot with this type of a narcissist rather than help you transcend it so i'd like to talk about some of the things that we can do about it another scenario is let's say you have a mother-in-law who knew for months that her friends from florida would be coming up flying to new york and on this particular day out of the blue your mother-in-law calls you and says hey you know susie q i'd like you to drive the kids over so my friends could see how cute my grandchildren are and see how much they love me right and you're immediately turned off your you and your children have had plans for weeks the kids are looking forward to these plans and your mother-in-law calls and says i want them here now i want them here now now just like violet from willy wonka and your instinct might be listen lady go scratch your nose you knew for months and you're calling me now i'm not dropping what i'm doing and i'm not i'm not stopping my kids plans to come make you look like a good grandmother you should have called me months ago you might want to do that but where is that going to get you where is it going to get you let's say you have a narcissistic boss who hands you a project at four o'clock and says i would like this done by five you might be tempted to say um excuse me you handed me a project at 9 00 a.m and told me you wanted that project done by five no this is not going to work you might be tempted to do that why not it makes sense but we have to recognize when dealing with people have high narcissistic traits the no is going to trigger them and if you're not a narcissist and they are a narcissist they're going to be gunning for you and you might not be able to really hold yourself up under what might happen next it might be very difficult from triangulation to smear campaigns who needs it right if you've ever had to deal with this smear campaign if you've ever been the target of someone's narcissistic rage i can tell you from experience it is exhausting you never know when it's going to end eventually get to a point where it's just like okay say whatever you want like say whatever you want because you just can't fight it anymore but if there's a way to avoid that i think that is something that we should consider so i'd like to point out a few points i've written some some notes that i don't want to forget so here we go so what can we do how do we deal with the high conflict personalities such as these people who have high narcissistic traits who see any form of no as a threat and a valid reason to pinpoint their aggression on you and punish you number one it may not be your fault that this narcissist is a narcissist however understanding that at the core of this personality is someone who fears rejection and fears abandonment and most often times had a really horrible horrible childhood not always there are some narcissists that are created through parental entitlement parents who actually teach their children entitlement but in most cases researchers will suggest that most narcissists have a very fragile ego due to some type of childhood trauma so reminding you reminding yourself that your mother-in-law your boss and your friend this might be their background the one thing that it does is it depersonalizes what they're saying to you you don't have to take it so personally this is the way they are with everybody when you're dealing with a narcissist it feels like a personal attack and it can be difficult to remember this is just who they are so see if you can remember that using language that is less ego insulting can also help prevent the vindictiveness that will happen when you say no to a narcissist so i use what i call the hamburger technique i learned about this many years ago and it works fabulous the goal however is to remember to use it when your ego gets triggered by someone who's being narcissistic so this is how it goes so a compliment the person first stroke their ego a little bit and make sure that they feel seen and understood this helps them to feel like you're insulting them less right because you don't want to you know slam the slam the middle of their forehead with reality it's not going to work remember what the researchers said the problem is the the the distinction or the separation of their person their perceptions of self so they have this inner perception and now you're offering them a second perception and there's a conflict there and so what you want to try to do is not stick your finger in that conflict you want to try to soften that conflict so stroking their ego complementing them first is step one step two is slip in what you what your need is or what your goal is so what do you want to see happen if the answer is no then the answer is no and all you're trying to do is soften the delivery of the no to lessen any unnecessary possible emotional retaliation c is you compliment the person again and begin to back out of the conversation in essence stealing the deal or stealing the no so for instance your grandiose narcissistic friend who wants to sleep on your couch and upset your family life is someone you need to say no to for instance going back to the grandiose friend who thinks that he's entitled to call you at 2 a.m wake up your dogs wake up your children wake up your wife cause chaos in your home the person who's entitled thinks that they can do this to you is someone that you can use this hamburg hamburger technique on so for instance layer one of the hamburger wow you sound really upset i imagine that this is a difficult time for you i hope you can sort all of this out it is good you are looking for a way to create some space so you and your wife can calm down before speaking again you do have a way with words so you compliment layer two is you hit them with a no at this time the kids are in bed and my wife would really be upset if i got out of bed and let you sleep on the couch i know you love me and you would not want my wife to be upset with me and for that reason it is best you maybe find a hotel to crash out for tonight thank you for understanding there's you know the third level of the hamburger is you are a smooth communicator you're you're complimenting them again and i'm sure you and your wife will find resolution you know how to handle things and you will work this out i am sure so it was the delivery you're still saying what you need to say but you're saying in a way that's less insulting to their personal perception of themselves so my what i try to do is what i try to teach my clients and i walk this walk in my own life is focus on the end goal and not your ego so what do i mean by that it can be tempting to lash out at a narcissist and call them out for being manipulative and entitled it can be really difficult to not remind them that they are the reason people don't want to hang out with them it could be really difficult to not remind your mother-in-law of how selfish she's being it could be really difficult not to like lash out at your narcissistic friend and say what is wrong with you if you weren't cheating on your wife if you weren't sneaking around with a mistress if you weren't doing this you wouldn't be calling me at 2 am dude this is not my problem it could be really really tempting to do that it could be tempting to lash out the boss and tell them that everybody in the office knows that they're a narcissist and everybody in the office resents them for being so entitled and so demanding and demonstrative but where is that going to get you it's only going to get you nowhere fast and it might end up causing a narcissist to really take issue with you because you said no in some way so focus on the end goal if you don't want the narcissist to sleep sleeping on your couch come up with a delivery and clever ways to say no rather than allowing your own ego to want to remind him that it's 2am and your entire house is sleeping it won't be easy so it's never easy to tell a two-year-old no but it's a lot harder to tell a two-year-old adult no when they have means to hurt you when they have means to harm you whether it's your boss whether it's your friend or whether it's your mother-in-law it's very different even though they act like two-year-olds the consequences of telling a narcissist no are much greater than a two-year-old so be smart so you have to be wise enough to understand how a narcissist works in order to avoid unnecessary punishment narcissists who perceive any form of rejection from others will react with vindictiveness their hyper vigilance ensures that an enemy will appear at some point in time and you must know that they are locked and loaded and ready to go at all times and so when you realize that narcissistic people people who are narcissism are literally like they're on they're literally military missiles and they're waiting for the person that is going to trigger them and your no pulls that trigger you have to know that and so i just think it's so much wiser and so much smarter for for those of us who are looking to avoid these types of conflicts with these high conflict personalities to come up with clever ways to avoid their punishment and their vindictiveness while still setting a healthy boundary it's my hope that the hamburger technique i use it all the time it's complement slip in what i want my end goal compliment back out right it's my hope that you use this technique to help you deal with the narcissist the next time you tell them no my name is lisa romano i'm the breakthrough life coach and best-selling author and if you'd like to listen to one of my books for free just go to audible.com to listen if you'd like to learn more about my fifty percent off offer for the 12-week breakthrough coaching program just go to my website at www.lisaarremodo.com click 12-week program scroll all the way to the bottom and click on demand program namaste everybody until next time and remember when you're out and about your greatest asset is the ability to think bye for now if you love this content check out the next video and don't forget to click the link below so you can take the codependency quiz when you're codependent you gen generally tend to worry more about what other people think about you than what you think about you you may have come from an alcoholic home or perhaps a home where your parents were narcissistic you are you were treated with indifference or maybe your parents were codependent or one of your parents was disordered or there was an addiction present it's important to remember that none of this is your fault

Channel: Lisa A. Romano Breakthrough Life Coach Inc.

Views: 209,177

Rating: 4.9244556 out of 5

Keywords: the #1 word a narcissist absolutely cannot stand, the one word narcissist hate, what happens when you say no to a narcissist, narcissist, narcissism, npd, how to say no, learn to say no, lisa a romano, mental health, relationship advice, dating a narcissist, spot a narcissist, how narcissists react when confronted, how narcissists react to boundaries, how narcissists react to rejection, how narcissists react to being ignored, how does a narcissist act when found out, narcissistic

Id: afH7ewlHdbA

Length: 27min 22sec (1642 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021