Empaths and Narcissists
If you are highly empathic, they will exploit that empathy. Empaths have a deep need to be understood, and they also have an innate ability to feel other people’s feelings. If you have high empathy and someone comes at you and they’re very angry, then you will take on those emotions. Below the veil of consciousness, you’ll try to fix those emotions in the other person, so you’ll miss this completely. You won’t understand how an empath has to learn to deal with someone who’s highly narcissistic.
So, before you walk into the lion’s den, you want to try to remember that when you’re dealing with highly narcissistic people, you have to remain out of fight or flight. When you are in fight or flight, you are going to say things that you don’t necessarily need to reveal to a narcissist. You’re going to lose your ability to stay strategic.
Narcissists want you in the right side of the brain. Narcissists do not want you to hit the pause button, find yourself in the middle of your brain, and shuffle over to the left side where you can be analytical, you can be contemplative, and you can see the situation for what it is.
Building Resilience
I believe in teaching cognitive skills. I believe in teaching people how to calm their nervous system. I believe in helping people identify those people in their lives that are toxic to them, as well as identifying the traits in them that make them susceptible to this type of toxic conversation.
Certainly, if you are codependent, you’re going to struggle with abandonment issues. If you are codependent, you are going to struggle with needing to be needed. If you are codependent, you are going to struggle with setting boundaries.
If you are codependent and you have been love-bombed by someone who’s highly narcissistic, and you have told them all your “boo-boos,” they know everything about you you’re going to struggle when this person turns on you and they start using this sacred information against you.
But that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn these skills. That doesn’t mean that you can’t learn how to self-preserve. That doesn’t mean that you can’t stand up to someone, and that doesn’t mean that you can’t practice these skill sets. Their goal is control, not connection. So, the more you understand their agenda, the more you understand their tactics, the more you understand what you struggle with, and the more you practice, the less power they will have over you.
