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Honest Feedback
Honest Feedback offers compassionate support, advice and new perspectives on navigating life's challenges.
Honest Feedback
Become Narcissist Proof: Heal from Manipulation, Gaslighting, and Abuse with Lauren Flowers LMFT
The word narcissist gets tossed around online, but the lived pattern is painfully consistent—a rush of praise, a sudden chill of devaluation, the shock of discard, and the too-familiar pull of hoovering.
In this deeply validating episode, we sit down with licensed therapist Lauren Flowers, author of Becoming Narcissist-Proof, to map the entire cycle of narcissistic abuse with clinical clarity and embodied compassion. This isn’t armchair diagnosis, it’s a roadmap for healing trauma, reclaiming your power, and rebuilding your nervous system after manipulation.
Lauren unpacks how love bombing, gaslighting, and emotional control operate beneath charming exteriors and what makes certain people especially vulnerable to the pattern. You’ll hear riveting real-life stories from her book (including her own) and learn how to recognize the red flags in romantic, family, and workplace relationships.
We break down manipulation as a simple equation and explore how it hides behind kindness, guilt, and ever-shifting rules. You’ll also learn to spot “proof of choice” moments and how the drama Triangle traps empathetic, high-responsibility people in toxic loops.
If you’ve ever felt the gut twist, fog, or whiplash of a narcissistic dynamic, this conversation is your map out.
Recognize the pattern. Release what was never yours to hold. Reclaim who you were before the adaptations.
🪞In This Episode
- What it really means to be “narcissist-proof”
- How to recognize the signs of manipulation and gaslighting in real time
- Why your body always knows first—and how to listen to it
- The forgiveness framework that changes everything
- How to stop attracting narcissistic dynamics and reclaim your wholeness
- A surprisingly healing perspective on why narcissists behave the way they do
📘 About the Book: Becoming Narcissist-Proof
Lauren’s book is a transformational guide that blends neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual wisdom into practical, life-changing frameworks. Through seven real-life stories and powerful somatic tools, she helps readers move through the three pillars: Recognize. Release. Reclaim.
✨ Get your copy (and the companion workbook + meditations) at narcissistproofbook.com
Use code HONEST10 for $10 off your bundle.
Lisset’s Huna Introduction
During this episode, Lisset shares how her deep forgiveness work through the Hawaiian spiritual practice of Huna and Ho‘oponopono has been one of the most powerful medicines in her life and her work.
If you’ve been curious about forgiveness on a cellular level, one that liberates you from old emotional contracts and clears the path for your next level of freedom. Lisset has a few spots left in her upcoming Huna Intro Class. Feb 21 & 22 2026
✨ Join her at LissetKing.com/Huna
Honest Feedback was created by Brittney King and Lisset King.
Note: Honest Feedback Podcast aims to provide insights and provoke thoughtful reflection. The opinions expressed in this episode are for informational purposes only and should not replace professional advice.
Please send us your questions by leaving a voicemail at 971-895-4111, DM us on instagram @honestfeedbackpodcast or email us at thekings@honestfeedbackpodcast.com
Keep up with the podcast by following us @HonestFeedbackPodcast on YouTube
And so he cannot do it and he never will. Because his whole goal is to not die. That's narcissism. I cannot feel or own that which is not good in me. Because if I do, I will feel a depth of pain, which I unconsciously deeply believe I won't survive. Love bombing takes so many forms, but really what it is is a pedestal-y, a I'm gonna put you up on this pedestal. I'm gonna treat you like I'm worshipping you. I'm gonna compliment and praise you. I'm gonna make you a part of this team, make you a part of my life, show you all the things, introduce you to everyone. I'm gonna take you under my wing. I'm gonna care for you. And it's it can feel really incredible. You're like, wow, this person really sees me and they really care for me and they really want me, and I am really valuable, and they see how valuable I am. And hell yeah, let's go. This, this, these are my people, right? Because it feels so good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:After the love bombing is welcome to Honest Feedback, the podcast where deep truth meets bold transformation. I'm Goddess Brittany King, a pleasure priestess and a transformational retreat facilitator who helps women connect to their deepest truths, reclaim their pleasure, and awaken their inner power.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm Lisette King, an emotional ninja and transformational coach who helps leaders release baggage, heal unresolved trauma, and step into their most aligned, purposeful lives. We've created this podcast for spirit-led individuals just like you. Seekers of truth, personal growth, and meaningful connection. Whether you're navigating life's big questions, craving more joy and fulfillment, or simply looking for honest, relatable conversations, you're in the right place.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome back to another episode of Honest Feedback Podcast. And boy, oh boy, do we have a juicy walking episode for you? Has anybody ever been curious of like, am I am I dating a narcissist? Yeah. Is my mom a narcissist? Is the boss a narcissist? Who's been like, you know, narcissists is the buzzword of the internet, right?
SPEAKER_01:But apparently no one asks if they're a narcissist.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, you know. We are here today with our one of our best friends, Lauren Flowers, and she is the author of Becoming Narcissist Proof, a book to really, I mean, fucking heal your life. True. True.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You know, one of the things I love about Lauren Flowers, who has been on our show before. She's Lauren Pennington back then, and it was how to help a teen in trouble. Great episode. That's a great episode. If you haven't watched it, go back and catch that one as well. But this episode, I feel so good about it. You know, she's my go-to. Like we talk weekly. This is she has helped me move through an issue with you know who Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Tell us about one of the experiences of you with a narcissist.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. Well, we got we had the lovely opportunity to live with one. And she was also my business partner. And man, like, talk about not knowing you're in it. Yeah. Until you're in it. And and it was just like the gaslighting and the confusion and the gifts, the love bombing. Oh, the yeah, and the um, I just remember how many nights you and I would go on a walk to walk the dogs and to talk about. Did you just like did you notice something weird?
SPEAKER_02:To process, to literally every night we had to leave the house to process what we were experiencing. And we were, we were, we were a little traumatized at the time. We were like, what this is just so confusing.
SPEAKER_01:It was confusing. Oh, yeah. So I'm really excited to have her on to talk about like how does one even end up in that cycle?
SPEAKER_02:And how does one break out of the cycle? So let me give you our fancy pedigree. And this only this only is the tip of the iceberg. That's her all her pedigree. Lauren Flowers, LMFT, is a licensed psychotherapist dedicated to helping people break free from toxic dynamics and reclaim their inner strength. With extensive experience guiding individuals through personal and relational healing, Lauren blends psychology, neuroscience, and practical tools into strategies that create real change. Through Become Narcissus Proof, she offers a compassionate yet empowering roadmap, equipping readers with the clarity, resilience, and competence they need to thrive no matter what challenges they face. Should we get Lauren on the line?
SPEAKER_01:Get Lauren on the line. Hey, Lauren. We are so excited to have you on here today. Um, as always, Lauren was on our podcast before, and she's just one of our finest guests. So, of course, we had to have you back to talk about your book. Oh, tell us a little bit about what you've been working on.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh. Hello, Lissette and Brittany. I am so glad to be with you. Any minute that I get to spend with you two is a highlight of the day. So I'm just ecstatic to be here talking about something that I created and channeled and poured out into the world. It's just such a joy to get to talk about this. So, okay, the book has become narcissist-proof. It's quite a promise. And as I got into what it would take to write this book, it it more felt like it was stirring up and churning for probably about 10 years. And when it came time to refine it down and distill it into these chapters, I knew that this was a bigger story than just mine. And I've got a pretty awesome story about being with a narcissistic type of person. It's pretty phenomenal. I get a kick out of it at this point. And it caused a lot of pain for me and also for him. And that that relationship was full of a lot of pain. And so when it came time to write the book, I knew that I wanted to honor other people's voices. And I knew that narcissism affects not just romantic relationships like I experienced, but also parent-child relationships and boss employee relationships and friendships and all sorts of different relationships are affected. So within the book, we have seven people's stories total for now, more coming to be added to the book as we go. And so, really, if I can say anything about the book that makes it worth exploring, it's that it's a celebration of many, many voices that were silenced, many, many voices that didn't feel the freedom to share or speak, or if they did share or speak, they weren't honored in their sharing, or maybe they weren't believed. And so the book is seven people's stories and woven in through the stories are frameworks. Frameworks that build on each other, frameworks that teach how to calm our nervous systems, frameworks that teach how to see manipulation happening in the moment and what to do about it, frameworks for forgiveness, which is a really challenging topic for many people.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And totally liberating. More and more frameworks than I could ever imagine have went into the book. It is packed. And more and more stories than I could have imagined went into the book. So I'm so proud to be here. I'm so proud to talk about it. Thank you guys so much for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, thank you so much for being here and for distilling something into the words that we could all thumb through and be like, there's a framework, there's a process, I can see it happening in different dynamics. You know, narcissist as of late has become such a big buzzword. I mean, everyone's an armchair therapist and it's just caught, it's like, no, they're gaslighting me. Uh, you know, now you hear it on like the real house eyes. It's like narcissist, you know, right? It's just become everywhere. So what would you say? I mean, you're a clinician, um, a host of like what what's the definition? How would you describe what is a narcissist or narcissism?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so there's there's so many frameworks. I mean, if you Google what makes somebody a narcissist, you can see a lot of frameworks. And really, one of the narcissistic patterns that we track and follow it for how to recognize if you're in a situation where somebody is being a narcissist, it's kind of like most people have to look backwards. Most people have to look at what's already happened. And so it starts with the familiar circle, right? So it starts with a love bombing. Oh my gosh, you if I'm if I'm pretending to be a narcissist, I would come to you and say, Brittany, you are just the best person on the planet. I've never met anybody like you. Oh my honestly, like this is just, do you feel how good this feels? I just, this is the best thing I've ever had in my life. You're incredible. And furthermore, I I don't think I'll ever meet anybody like you again. And this is all perhaps within the first hour, week of knowing you've month.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so love bombing takes so many forms, but really what it is is a pedestal-ing. A I'm gonna put you up on this pedestal, I'm gonna treat you like I'm worshiping you. I'm gonna compliment and praise you. I'm gonna make you a part of this team, make you a part of my life, show you all the things, introduce you to everyone. I'm gonna take you under my wing. I'm gonna care for you. And it's it can feel really incredible. You're like, wow, this person really sees me and they really care for me and they really want me, and I am really valuable, and they see how valuable I am, and hell yeah, let's go. This, this, these are my people, right? Because it feels so good. Yeah. After the love bombing is a devaluation stage. And so devaluation can start with it can be pretty subtle. So you make a mistake because you're not actually up on a pedestal being Miss Perfect or Mr. Perfect. You make a mistake, and somebody who's a narcissist might say something like, huh? Well, that's not like you. I don't know about that. And then they'll just kind of walk away and you're left being like, Tell me it's okay. Like, tell me it's not a big deal that I made this mistake. So you kinda you're kind of like what just it it it it feels like being on unsteady ground. You're like, wait a minute. Yesterday in the team meeting, you were singing my praises, and today I didn't close a sale, and now you're like, hey, that you know, that really wasn't good enough. Okay, well, there's gonna be more in you, you might say there's gonna be more sales. I'll keep at it. No problem. I got this, and they're like okay. So the it's like a change in temperature, one of the ways that I can describe it. So there's a devaluation page, and that goes on and on and on. And what it does is they used to praise you, praise you, praise you. You're up here, and then you make a mistake, and they start going like this. They start to either walk away or put the pressure on or create a tension in the relationship where you start going, wait, how do I get back up there? How do I get back up there? Because where we were felt so good. I like I liked the way this all started. What's happening? This is bizarre. This is where manipulation really starts to show up. And one of the fundamentals of manipulation is simply this do what I want you to do, or else there will be a consequence. And with a narcissist-flavored person, it also it really sounds like do what I want you to do, or else I'll be mad. I'll take it out on you, I'll pull away. There's gonna be an emotional price to pay. Yeah if you don't do what I want you to do. And if you furthermore, if you do what I want you to do, I'll be really happy with you. That's the undertone of manipulation. So the devaluation stage happens, and then at some point the relationship is going the way that it is, and it is so unstable, and then there's a discard phase. They find a new shiny person or they leave. I I know somebody who um his wife at the time was very narcissisty, and she would just pack an override bag, not say goodbye to any of the family members, and just walk out the house and go, and they wouldn't know when she was gonna come back. Three, four, five days. Go no communication. And then there's a hoovering phase. So the discard phase is pretty obvious. Either they're ignoring you, not responding to you. They used to celebrate you in meetings, now they're not even asking your use to your point, opinion, and they don't even respond. They turn to somebody else, uh, they actually physically leave. There's a clear discard phase. They just chew you out all the time, they don't value your opinion, whatever. It's not just that they're ignoring you, it could also be like an absolute um tearing you down. And then when you kind of usually when people think like, you know what, I'm kinda it's like they have their little antenna up and they're like, oh, that person's about to be done. Great, I'm ready to come back. And they come back, and that phase is called hoovering, like the vacuum. Yeah, suck you back in. Yeah. And so there's compliments, there's excuses, there's I, you know, I was really going through a hard time, and there's I I was wrong. There, um, my ex my favorite memories that I can pull up about the hoovering were incredible and impressive, like crocodile tears. He would say, Please just give me grace. I'm trying so hard. Oh God.
SPEAKER_02:I literally find myself needing a nervous system response. Uh-huh. I am saying, I am sick. Because like you, as you describe the phrases, it's like boom, boom, boom. And listeners, like, if you are listening to this and having strong reactions of like, wait a minute, wait a minute when you're driving the car, you look over, you're like, oh, like this is why the book is so helpful. And because it can help you navigate this space, like, whoa. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know you're in it when you're praying for the light to turn run, so you can have a minute.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh my gosh. Lauren, I remember when you were coming up with this book, I just felt this like, what do you need to make this happen? Like, let's fucking go. As you were speaking, it feels like a masterclass and things that just were completely out of my awareness. So thank you for you know going through that.
SPEAKER_02:Ah, thanks. Well, like if we can lean into personal, like, would you be open to just sharing your experience navigating a narcissist in your life? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, where to begin?
SPEAKER_02:Like when you said the crocodile tes and the hoover, like, you know, uh, yeah, just any anything that comes through that feels like this was my experience in a new experiences.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think something to acknowledge too is that after the hoovering phase, it goes back through the cycle. So then there's a love bombing. And usually what happens to us is we go, there you are. That's the person. That's the person. That's the real you. That's the version of you that I know. And then the cycle can move pretty quickly in the beginning of the relationship. You can appreciate that as the years go on, as we've gone through the cycle, our tolerance for it tends to increase. And so, I mean, for me, what I really remember is, you know, names have been changed to protect the innocent and the non-innocent. And um I knew Travis in middle school. We met in eighth grade, and I don't talk about that in the book, right? So we met in eighth grade, we had a big crush on each other, and we did like the eighth grade we give at the time the term was going out. Do you guys have that one? Yeah, yeah. I'm going out with Travis, and my dad would say, Where are you going to? And I'd be like, Dad. You don't get it. I'm not going anywhere. We're going out. And he's like, Where? I was like, that's not it. I distinctly I have a clear memory of my dad in my head being like, I don't get it. Like clearly. Don't worry about it, dad. I think it lasted a really romantic, like, I don't know, three and a half weeks. And uh, so kind of a long one in eighth grade there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I had really fond memories of him as a kiddo. We went through high school together, but we're really friends. He was funny and um he had a good group of friends, and then lost touch. And so I went through college, came out of college, and somewhere along the line we reconnected. We ran back into each other, or I don't even I don't even really recall, but it it felt like this person for me was a known entity. And because we've known each other, we came from the same hometown. And so when I met Travis, I was in a really low place in my life. I was going through my own experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder after college and a series of really tragic events that is another story for another time. But I was ill and not well and struggling to work and just not in my highest light. And Travis showed up and he was amazing. He would like come over to my apartment and hang out with me while I cleaned. And he, I have a clear memory of um, I didn't really have any food, and I didn't have the oomph to go to the grocery store and decide what to get and things like that. And he was like, I got you, let's go. And so we went and he like put me in the cart. Like, I rode in the cart. I was a full-grown adult. I rode in the cart. We laughed through the grocery store. He was like spinning the cart, we were playing. It was so fun. And he bought my groceries and helped me unload them. And it was just this incredibly kind-hearted person. And so we started dating and went to parties, and I met his friends, and he took me to like his church, and I took him to mine, and he met my people. And um, we got married within nine months. He was very excited to get married, and I it was for me, it was kind of this like I kind of remember thinking, like, well, I guess it's about time. Like, I'm out of college. That's what we do. And I want to be married, and I want to be taken care of like I've been taken care of. Like, this is really incredible. Like, I want a partner, I want help, I want to be helping somebody. I love I honestly, I love being in a relationship. I'm like pretty good at it. And so we got married. And there were several things that happened during the wedding planning process that were bizarre. And there were several conversations, like his wedding suit costed twice as much as my dress. And he wanted certain things at the wedding that were very expensive, and my parents were paying for a lot of it, and I said no, like we weren't gonna do that. And he cold shouldered me for like a day. Um, he's just mad and like sulking. And I remember being like, This is really strange, but okay, what do you do? You know, I was 22. Like the moment that I knew something was really off, I I had this because after I ended up leaving and divorcing Travis, I had a really wonderful therapist who literally pulled out the DSM and was like, Let's read this. Yeah, line by line for narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality. She was like, I'm gonna read a line and you tell me if you saw that in Travis. And I was like, Okay. And oh my god, it was like seven out of nine, or however many it is, and then like eight out of twelve, or however many it is. Like she was like, Yeah, that explains it all. So I got you. We'll take care of you. She said, When was the moment that you knew? The first moment that you knew. And I was like, I I can have known. It's not possible for me to have known. What do you mean when did I know? Like something inside of me was like, Yeah. And she's like, you know, that's okay. I I know, but but usually people know pretty early. When did you know? And um I said I kind of took it inside and I was like, okay. Because if I knew, and I think I said this to her, I said, if I knew, then that means it was all my fault. Like if I knew early, that that means this all happened and I could have stopped it. And we talked about that, and she said, That's not really true. You have to learn, and wisdom is through experience. We don't gain wisdom without experience. And so I went inside and I found that I knew when shortly after we were engaged, I was standing with him, I had my arms on his arms, his arms were on my waist, we were looking at each other's faces, and I was smiling, and it just was really romantic. And he had this like far away, he was looking at my eyes, but he had this faraway look in his eyes. And I thought, you're not looking at me. And so I kind of like patted him and said something, and he was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he just had this kind of like dopey smile on his face. And I knew in that moment, and I could have put the words to it in that moment, you're not looking at me, you're in a fantasy. You're in a fantasy, and I didn't know what to do about that, and then I felt this twist in my gut. This like in my gut, and I also didn't know what to do with that. So I broke the holding and I went and did something else that distracted myself until the twist went away. It was so uncomfortable. And then later throughout relationship, I would feel that twist anytime that I felt like I just wasn't measuring up, anytime I was being manipulated, anytime all these things that I didn't have words for, I didn't have names for, but now I do. Anytime that there was something that was just so not right and I didn't know what to do about it, I would feel that big twist. Um we were married for five years, so together for six between dating and being married. Uh I left quite suddenly. Filed for divorce immediately. I knew there was no going back once I had the clarity that I had. And you know, between that and then there were a lot of things that happened. And I share several of the stories in the book. Happy to talk about here too.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, that was chilling and haunting. And um that that felt just so real that what your therapist reflecting to, it's like there's a moment that you knew, and it's that fake belief, uh, if I have known, then this means this is all my fault. Yeah. And I don't know, but you like have you been in that moment before?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And how does one I mean, you said she gave you the tools, but how do you even get away from that? Because that's not that's a familiar place I have found myself in. You know, and and I think that's when we start lying to ourselves because it's like, well, no, no, this can't be what it is. It's it's like the gaslighting goes both ways, right? Yeah, like I was yeah, well, if that didn't happen, or the next moment they're being great, then you're like, oh, see, they're great.
SPEAKER_02:This is the that was the fluke. That was the fluke, yeah. The rec I yeah, if you can chunk down into like recognizing the narcissist.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think this belief that if I knew or if I know and then I don't do the right thing about it, then that means I really was the problem, is part of the belief structure that makes somebody narcissist snacks. Right. If you are a person who takes you know, high level of responsibility for what's going on in your relationships, but too much responsibility, like you're gonna take theirs too. You are charcuterie board for narcissism. Snacky, snacky, snacky. So um, they come off lacking. Uh, I don't know. Again, I think they have like this antenna system or this like they can sniff you out, sniff us out. And so I think the power in recognizing that I can't, firstly, I did know, and it created a somatic response. So there's two chapters in the book dedicated entirely to relearning somatic response, what your body tells you. A somatic response means the messages that your body is sending you, and they are lightning fast, they are automatic. You cannot stop them, you cannot override them. They are so trustworthy. And most people who experience relationships with narcissistic flavored people, again, we're not labeling people's diagnoses, but you know, have something in their body that sends off the warning signal. And over time, or somehow they've been taught or they've learned to adapt to ignore that. So this bodily signal is, I mean, it's my safest defense. It's my safest indicator. It's what makes me feel safe again in my own body. It makes me feel safe to say, oh, I know, and now so I can do something. And the only way that I learned that is because I knew and I didn't know what to do about it. So when it comes to recognizing what's going on in ourselves, becoming narcissist-proof is um a 100% inside job. And I've already caught flack for the title. Uh I've caught flack on social media, I've caught flack from somebody in person saying, like, you can't be narcissist-proof. They just attack and attack and attack. They just will come for you, they'll take everything. And I'm like, correct. They will come for you, they'll take everything. And so build up the defenses. It's I'm not sure it's all that complicated, even if it's not necessarily easy. It does take work and focus and some effort and some release work and some going again and going again and trying again and reflection.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it's completely available to become narcissist-proof. At this point in my life, I only have, I think, one person engaged in my, you know, my like spheres of people, probably about three people out that I allow. And there are a bunch of reasons for that, and I know it. And I tend to do a really good job of just making them unhappy. And that's fine. I saw who they are and they're gonna be around, and you know, and I think I can love them, and it's okay. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm not.
SPEAKER_01:I've got so many. I've got questions, our listeners have questions. Um, what's coming through for me right there is you don't want to be a snack. No. And some of them that kind of snack. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, we're all snacks, but yeah. We don't want to be that kind of, we don't want to be a narcissist snack. And sometimes the person is in our blood family or they're related, or you know, they're an in-law or whatever it is. My father, you know, and what do you do? And what I'm hearing you say when I'm presupposing in all of this is you're making yourself distasteful. They're they're not, they don't like your flavor. So they'll keep they'll keep some distance from you. Yeah. And um, I would love to go into that question, that reader's question, because it feels like we're in that flavor.
SPEAKER_02:What is the best way to evolve out of attracting or getting into narcissistic relationships? Forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, forgiveness.
SPEAKER_02:You had a beautiful yeah, you had a beautiful definition of forgiveness. Hold on, let me check my notes. Uh oh, you redefined forgiveness as releasing what was never yours to hold. Yes. Yeah. Can you expand on that? Like, yes, how to make yourself evolve out of attracting or getting into narcissistic relationships is forgiveness. Let's fucking go.
SPEAKER_00:So This is always really fun. When uh after I left Travis, I spent, I kid you not, three years asking. I was, I was like, it was a compulsion asking different people and my dad, who's a very wise man, and my mom, who's a wonderful woman, and uh my siblings, and I asked pastors that I met and teachers and trainers of NLP. And I I mean I I went down the list. I asked perfect strangers in coffee shops. I did. I and I said, How do you do forgiveness? How do you do forgiveness? Because I heard, you know, I understood that it was supposed to be this really important thing. And I knew that I was carrying around this energy of Travis and my experience of him. And oh, I asked therapists, and they were like, you know, you just let it go. And I remember being like, fuck that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Give me a path. Yeah. So I wanted to forgive in the way that I understood it at the time because I just could see everybody talked about the benefits of forgiving. And they talked about how they felt before and after and the moment they decided forgive, and that it's a choice that you make. And I was so rather unforgiving of all these people who wouldn't give me a way to do it. Um, I would meditate or pray or free write. Oh, I free wrote, that just made me angry. And I mean, I did all these things. So forgiveness, letting go of what was never yours to hold. There are two major frameworks inside of the book where I talk about firstly, what forgiveness is and what it's not. So it's important to differentiate a couple of things. I grew up in the Christian church, and in my mind, and I don't know if this was purposefully taught to me, but in my mind, forgiveness was conflated or or made the same as reconciliation. And if I forgave somebody, that meant that I needed to like go to them and repair. And I I knew that Travis was abusive. And I knew that all of my grad school books and other books that I read said not to be in the same room as your abuser until they take responsibility. And as far as I knew, he hadn't with anyone. And so I was absolutely not willing to go to him and like do forgiveness face to face.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that was the only way I really knew how to do forgiveness. So I had to learn that forgiveness and reconciliation or forgiveness and relational repair were separate. They were not the same thing. That was the first thing. So what forgiveness is and what forgiveness is not. There's an extensive explanation in the book, and that was the key one for me. The next thing that I learned, I went to a training by a wonderful man named Chris Kyle and Ennio Salucci, who since passed away here in Austin. And they laid out, I took furious notes. I wrote as fast as I could. They laid out how you know when you're living and excusing or when you're living and forgiving. What's the evidence? What's the fruit, if you will? What's the evidence of living and excusing or living and forgiving? And it was mind-blowing. And so, like, for example, in excusing, it you it will stay very vague, the topic of conversation. So if there's an in there's an infraction or a wrong done, it's like you stay superficial, right? So for example, Travis being like, I know, I just have done wrong. Give me grace, crocodile tears. Like you're not willing to talk about the wrong directly. And then I folded into that. I was like, man, it makes him really comfortable, uncomfortable. If I point out these wrong things he's done, I should like back off.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:He surely knows. Okay, maybe if I just give it some time, he'll like work this out on his own. Shocker, he didn't. So but on the forgiving side, on the forgiving column, it is it faces the truth directly and it names the infraction. It names the wrongdoing, clearly. That's the evidence of living and forgiving. So, and there's a column of these, I don't know, there's probably 15 listed side by side, maybe more, and of when you know you're in excusing versus when you know you're in forgiving. And I could look at this list of evidence of excusing versus forgiving, and I could point to the relationships in my life where I was living and forgiving, and so were they, or I was living and excusing. And being able to do that was mind-opening. And then the very next spring, I went to my first proc training with Empowerment Inc., and they took us all through a forgiveness process called Ho'oponopono. And I signed up for everything. Yep. It was absolutely miraculously life-changing. They took me through a process of forgiving called Ho'oponopono. And so Ho'oponopono is a trained and guided technique that um they hold as quite sacred. You can find videos online, and so I didn't include that in the book, although I did include a recording and the like comprehensive book material. So when you buy the book, you get audios and guided meditations and things like this. But I did also include one called the acceptance bridge. Two different ways to do the acceptance bridge. Acceptance is a form of forgiveness, it is one of the fruits of forgiveness, forgiveness and living in forgiveness, is that you simply accept what happened and that you can't change it. And you might even name if I could change it, I would. And I can't. And it's okay that I can't. And I'm okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So there's two versions of the acceptance bridge in the book, which help to build a bridge, and it's for the body, it's somatic, it's in the unconscious mind to build a bridge from what happened and that I hate what happened and I don't like what happened, and I'm resisting what happened, which sends me into this spiral of irritability, frustration, fury, rage, disdain, self-defensiveness with other people, all hyper-vigilance, being on the lookout. Everybody's a narcissist. I'll never find love. I'll never have a love. I've been through eight of these people the whole life as narcissists. It's a very small population, by the way, you guys. The fact that we're repeatedly attracting narcissists is so much more about us. Please forgive me. It is it is fixable. That's the point. It is fixable. So we can do the acceptance bridge because on one side we have I hate this and I don't like it. On the other side, we have acceptance, and it's just too big of a leap when you're in pain. It's too big of a leap. So we use this process to build a bridge to help the body and the unconscious walk across and let go of that which is in the past and you cannot change. You have no power to change that person or what happened. What we do have power to do is clear out ourselves, live in a state of forgiveness for ourselves too and for others. Release people who are not serving us, not good for us, release ourselves free from the way that we are not good for others and not serving others, and become the person that we actually want to be so we can attract the person we actually want to have and be with. And that's all boiling down to forgiveness. It's an entire section of the book.
SPEAKER_01:My ability to forgive those who have hurt me, you know, ask for forgiveness from those who I've hurt and free myself, like truly free myself like from their destiny, you know, has felt incredibly powerful. And to be able to offer this medicine, it's one of my favorite things to do. And I have a few spots left for February. Would love, love, love to have you in it. How to get that seat is at LissetteKing.com forward slash Huna. So go ahead, sign up for the class. Love, would love to see you there. Let's get back to that conversation. So fucking powerful. Every time you talk, I'm just like, I know. You see me dazing out, it's because I'm like going through my road.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well the forget and I mean we're we all go to the same school that taught us photo. And so, but just to again revisit the power of forgiveness. Uh it's specifically, I'm like, how do I stop the pattern of me ending up in this space? It's like forgiveness of others, and I've I'm sure possibly also forgiveness of yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And that's sometimes the the very challenging pill to swallow of like I forgive myself.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Otherwise, you get in this cycle of like, well, I created it before, so I must deserve this, or I keep getting evidence of this, so I must deserve this. And it's like that that unforgivableness gets you stuck in this undeserving of the good and deserving of the bad.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think uh a narcissist-flavored person is such a good example of that in the school that we go to, they ask a clear question about forgiveness. Cause sometimes people, when they hear forgiveness, they're like, they don't deserve it. That other person doesn't deserve it, they haven't earned it. They don't like, they don't deserve my forgiveness. And the question that comes out is, okay, well, quick question. Is that person the type of person that if they knew you were carrying around this anger and hatred and pain in your body and you were thinking of them every day multiple times a day, would they like get the rocks off on that? Would they think that's like just an ice cream flavored snack? Would they just like revel it in? Would they get a little taller knowing that and strut out by their new person? Would they try to come back to you and like you know, just pop in for a little visit, just to rally you up? Probably, right? Yeah, that's a perfect reason to forgive. It's the most um merciless forgiveness is the phrase that I've heard. Merciless forgiveness. I will forgive mercilessly.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, goodbye, if you will. Thank you, goodbye. And I think that's the that is what differentiates it with with the traditional what you're taught when it's reconciliation. It's reconciliation is I forgive you, yeah, you can continue to be an asshole in my life, versus I forgive you, thank you, goodbye.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And I feel like also those of us who grew up with siblings, it's like you're fighting in the backseat, everybody's hitting each other, and it's apologize to your sister. No, be nice. So it's think of like my body was literally in an active state of excitement, trauma, whatever you want to label it, whatever, you're fucking pissed. Then all of a sudden you're yelled at, uh, you need to say I'm sorry. Sorry. Now you guys have to be happy and just stay there together. You know? And if that is your one to if that's your experience of this is what it means to forgive someone, that means that I say something, they say something, but nothing about the relationship changes. And I have to still continue interacting with them in the same way. Of course, you're running screaming from like, well, I just don't know how to do this, you know? And what do you mean let it go? Let it go and let and be back there with them, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Let and let it go where? Where does it go?
SPEAKER_01:It does not make sense. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:This is what's popping in and dropping through. So I have to ask everyone. Do narcissists actually know that they're narcissists?
SPEAKER_00:Cute. Okay. So sometimes. Okay. Sometimes, yes. There's a fallacy too, by the way, in therapeutic worlds that I think is getting passed around a lot, which is if you're asking if you're a narcissist, you're probably not. And that may have been true before narcissism was so popularized. Yeah. Um, but you know, I can think of two people right now that my experiences with them indicate high trait narcissism personality. Not diagnosable. I don't know. I'm not into that business, right? Even though I'm a licensed therapist. I just don't think it's fun. So it's and they one of them I know went to therapy to prove that they weren't a narcissist. And now they have a therapist on their side that says they're not a narcissist, and they continue to run the same patterns. And it is love bombing, devaluation, discard, hoovering, love bombing, devaluation, manipulation. Do what I want you to do, or else I'm gonna emotionally punish and energetically punish you. And if you do what I want you to do, I will take really, really good care of you. Mm-hmm. Yup. Right. So that question doesn't work anymore. And but generally speaking, so one of the things that I learned in grad school was that the underpinning of somebody with a narcissistic personality disorder is this. Their deep-seated belief, their unconscious problem, their greater problem, if you will, it sounds like this. I'm not good enough. Okay, that's pretty run of the mill. Like you two both have probably had that. I have that sometimes. Like that check. Human population. I'm not good enough. I'm never gonna be good enough. Okay, well, a smaller portion of the population probably has that running, some of their programming underneath. But are they narcissists? Not necessarily. The real kicker says, and I can't let anyone find out. Interesting. And ultimately that includes myself. I can't let anyone find out. Including yourself. Including myself. Therefore, I must be good enough. I must be good at everything. I must explain away the moments where I'm not good enough and I'm not good at that thing. I must be valued and praised and cherished, and I must diminish other people's experiences of me as anything less than a totally good person. Because if I admit that I'm not good enough, it may unravel everything. One of the really, really incredible fictional representations of this pattern is uh Voldemort. You guys ever read Harry Potter? I watch the movies. You watch the movies. So now I acknowledge that J.K. Rowling has some things going on, some conversations that are painful to certain populations, and others are raising it, and that's really um not what I'm interested in exploring, but I do want to name that. And in the Harry Potter book, she does an incredible, incredible depiction of a true full-blown narcissist in Voldemort. That is the character. At the end of the books, and if you haven't read it by now or watched the movies, spoiler alert, it's too late. So you're in a long time. Very lucky. Um, Harry Potter, the main character, carries around a piece of Voldemort in his body, of that Voldemort's energy. And at the time of the end of the book, he gives up his life to ultimately allow Voldemort to be killed because as he carries around this energy, Voldemort's not allowed to be killed. So he's terrorizing the population. So he Harry Potter lays down his life, and the piece of Voldemort separates from him. And then they go into this ethereal place, and Harry Potter is looking down at this piece, this darkness, this piece of darkness writhing, seeming in pain. And uh the fictional Dumbledore, who has also passed away, explained that, just shows up. The the mentor shows up, and Harry says, Is there anything we can do to help it? And Voldemort talks about how, and I'm gonna summarize this really, really fast. Voldemort talks about how that's one of the key things that differentiates Harry from Voldemort is that he wants to help the helpless thing, and he wants to help the thing that's dark. And which by the way made him a great magnet. And so ultimately, what ends up happening is that Harry learns that the thing that Voldemort would have to do in order to repair himself from having split his soul a thousand ways is feel deep and true remorse for all the lives that he's taken and all the pain that he's caused. And if he did that, he may be overloaded so much with all the lives and all the pain that he's taken on personal to feel the remorse, it may be so much that it actually ends up being the thing that kills him. And so he cannot do it and he never will. Because his whole goal is to not die. That's narcissism. I cannot feel or own that which is not good in me. Because if I do, I will feel a depth of pain, which I unconsciously deeply believe I won't survive. Which is part of why we tell people that narcissists they have like a two percent chance, diagnosable narcissists have like a two percent chance of changing because of the pain that they would undertake in order to change.
SPEAKER_02:I'm just like, do I just do I text it directly to my father who I haven't spoken to yet? The episode happens. No, it's just like, wow, what a beautiful illustration. Like, I completely forgot that. I only watched the seven part two one. Like, you know, when you're just like, I deleted that scene completely. Um but what a beautiful illustration of that experience. And for me, it opens this space of compassion. And again, not that this person has to sit at my table. But like if that is, if this is what is causing like the way that you're showing up, it's just like um what I'm feeling is this acceptance from the whole and from the from the very woo-ey place of we're all one, yeah, of like that is part of the whole.
SPEAKER_01:It is very healing to hear. Like, you know, it's like I don't like it, but I get it. Yeah. And that's another one.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah. Yes. I can't. Yeah. And it's okay that I can't.
SPEAKER_02:Oof. Well, okay, we had another question. Hold on. Is it online? We had another listener question.
SPEAKER_00:No, while you're looking over that, I did have something pop in. Right. Uh, there's a chapter in the book called Understanding the Best They Can. And it goes through basically, and one of the analogies in that is about how it can be helpful to come to a place of understanding that this is the best that they can do. And then I use an analogy of two pins. If you pretend that you have a pin that is like two ballpoint pins, one is skipping, and then one has something in it that causes the ball to see it stuck. And so it like gaps, make big along gaps. And one the ink skips out. If those are the only pins you have and you have to write something, you will pick the best of the two and do what you can. And so there's this aspect of like, okay, if these are the best pins that this person has, I can accept that. And now I get to decide: do I really want to live my life with somebody who has such crummy pens? Because all these really good pens, they could just trade them out. I think it's so easy, just be different. But when I'm finding them on the inside, there's like, these are the pens I have, and I'm holding on. Yeah. Hold it tighter. Yeah. So they uh yeah, as we're interacting with manipulative people is really what it distills down to, not just narcissists, but manipulative people. It's like in one hand they have the stick and in one hand they have the carrot. And if these are two crummy pens, I don't want either of them. And if these are the ones you default to, I will let you find other friends. I will let you find other employees. I will let you find your space because I've got some really awesome pens and I've got some friends with even better pens than I have. And we're doing our work and we're trading out our pens as fast as we can to get to the next better pen, the ones that kind of get us the best results. And I want to live my life with people like that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh so good. Not about the person, but it's about the crummy pens.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Separating the person from the behavior. But also let's not forget that's their default behavior.
SPEAKER_02:That's a default behavior.
SPEAKER_00:That's a default behavior. Calibrate on the behavior. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, this kind of moves into like the workplace, you know, we're talking pens.
SPEAKER_01:So the question that someone sent in, which is related to the work and pens situation, is in regards to narcissists who are in a decision maker position, how can we either remove them or work to move forward when their ego gets in the way?
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. So I'm going to presuppose that the person is under their decision-making power. Okay. Yeah. So you have like a hierarchical structure and a corporate or business setting where the person is in a position and the person above them or indirectly above them in the same way is narcissistic flavored and making decisions. Okay. There are several stories in the book dedicated to this. I can think of two. Um one is offered by my husband, in fact. So his name is Brandon. He is an angel in a skin suit. And I love him to bits. Um, my very own sister says he's the better half. So uh that tells you he's just great. So you contributed a story for the book talking about a narcissist-flavored person. And then one of my best friends, Megan, contributed one called the Rockstar Narcissist in the workplace. So basically, the person in the workplace who's running these behaviors knows exactly who they need to charm. And they're never gonna charm, they're not gonna never gonna stop charming the right person to be charmed. So if you're an underling, they only care about you insofar as it makes them look good in front of the right pre right people. It can be very challenging to get the people who have the power to remove them to remove them. And the Rockstar Narcissist story from Megan, she talks about how this person documented to the teeth. But she had this person in her organization had more turnover in her department than the rest of the company combined, times like three or four. It was nuts and costing the company so much money and it was so expensive. But the higher-ups just couldn't see it because she was incredible. She always met her goals, she knocked it out of the park, she always had reasons why these people weren't good fits for the company, and she documented to the teeth. So it ended up being like a paper battle. Oh, well, we see we got this in. Well, here are my seven documents about why that override that one. Okay, so they know when they need to charm, and they're never going to turn that off. Which I would just like to pause here for a second because this is kind of a thing. Uh if you're seeing your narcissist charm other people right in front of you and then be a dick to you, that's proof that it's a choice. Proof that it's a choice. Sometimes we get stuck in this thing of like, oh, well, they're just in a mood or they're just whatever. But like, I remember watching Travis be like Mr. Man in front of all these people, so amazing, and then even would just turn around privately and like drop a comment in a lower voice that other people can hear, and then go right back to being Mr. Man, amazing in a group. What is happening? So destabilizing. It's a choice, it's something they can control, it's within their power to be kind to you because you can see them being kind to other people. So back to the question. It's really challenging. So really, what it comes down to is not about how to get that person removed, although you can document you know from the floor to the ceiling if you'd like, but they're probably ahead of you. Um and the higher-ups probably have really good reasons for keeping them on. They crush their sales names, they crush their job, they're really good at it. Of course they have they have to be. Even if they're kind of not, even if there's work going undone, even if it's messy underneath the table. And if you go and talk about that, you'll get a reaction, either support or you'll be devalued. So you have to weigh that. My very first question is what's preventing you from getting another job? What's preventing you from removing yourself from the situation? What's in it for you if you stay? And what are the benefits to you if you stick it out? And are you willing to pay the cost that's inevitable of being in this environment? Assuming, presupposing that that person's gonna be there longer than you. Because they're very valuable to the higher-ups because they've made themselves so. People get locked in this gridlock thinking of like me against the narcissist, and my loving, kind response is you're not really likely to win because if you're looking at it that way, you're probably not equipped to play the game that they're playing. Because you kind of have to do some shisty things to pull off living in a glasshouse like they do and defend the glass house. So if you're not willing to get on their level and do some shisty things Which I'm not recommending. But if you're really deeply like if you have an integrity value at all, you you're unlikely to be able to go toe to toe with them.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because they change their it's like living in a spinning teacup. It'll change the reality in an instant.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What I find so uh provoking about this, and I mean, we're all trained baggage hunters, um, but it's like when when there's when there's a problem that's in your glasshouse, the the army that is there to defend it, to keep it going, is vehement and strong. So you have to want to let the problem go in order to really even have a chance at taking out the defenses. Anyone who's probably sat in any of our chairs, we're asking you, do you really want to let this go? Why is this a problem? How is this a problem? And if you're a narcissist, you may not think anything about the way you're being is a problem. So if you don't want to let it go, that army that is ready to go to the death is running at all times. And so just even have that framework of this is this is the experience you might be interacting with. You know, someone has to want to change, want to be different, um, in order for there to be change. And so if you're the one who wants change, can you do your internal work to is it, I need to change my environment, I need to change my team, I need to do what I need to do to take care of myself because this is what it's actually costing me being in proximity to this kind of energy.
SPEAKER_00:They play a zero-sum game. And so some people don't know what that is, but a zero-sum game simply means there can only be one winner. And if you're not the winner, you are losers. We might have multiple people playing, but there can only be, there's no second place. It's a zero sum game. And a narcissist looks at the world and sees a zero sum game and says, Well, absolutely I'm gonna be on top. By the way, because if they're not the winner, Then that means they're not good enough, which they can't prove to themselves or anybody else. So they do some incredible, I mean, just beautiful mental gymnastics to achieve this. And they live in a glass house. And so it's basically this idea of you're either in the glass house with me, noticing how beautiful my reality is, or you're outside the glass house threatening me.
unknown:Damn.
SPEAKER_00:And then, I mean, even part of the like love, love bombing devaluation, discard, hoovering is like you're in the glass house. Love you, Debbie, W. Love you so much. You're incredible. Just the most magnificent employee, the most magnificent daughter, the most magnificent partner to the devaluation is like if you don't show up, if you don't get better, if you don't do better, which by the way tends in people who are narcissists snacks to light up something that says, I can do better. I can just be better. I can do better. I'll just be better. I'll just be better. I'll just be clear. It's meaningful. You know what? You're right. You're right. I could have been better. If I'm better, that would solve this. You're yes. Obviously. So then you're the one, they're projecting out their not good enoughness on you. You can then never be good enough. So I start devaluing you, and they're like, hey, if you don't show up, you're gonna be out of my glasshouse reality and in this nice place to be. And at some point you start going, I'm not sure if it's a nice place to be. I don't really know. Immediately, it's like transported. It's not like you walk through a door. It's like the moment you start thinking that you are on the other side and you are discarded and you are an enemy. You are a threat. And then if something starts, it doesn't matter however long. And then they figure they might figure out too, by the way, that you being outside the glasshouse is actually more threatening than you being inside the grass glasshouse. So then they're like, Hoover, come on back in.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But now you're just a threat to them.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm. Oh, can I just interact?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I got I got thoughts too. Okay. Oh, it's just like a story that's coming through to me that was my real life childhood and how I interpreted this. And you just helped me see about the glass house. But um, my parents were getting separated, and none of me and my siblings, none of us wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my dad because he didn't cook and like my grandma made all the good things. So we did none of us wanted to go, but all of us were afraid to say we don't want to go, you know, for all for all the reasons. And one of my sisters challenged and spoke her truth and said she did not want to go. And the response was her being pushed out of a moving vehicle. So she was discarded. Then me and my other sister were praised for staying in the vehicle. And I remember just having this thing of like, oh, this is what happens when you go against this person, never go against this person. And the energy of the vitriol of the discarding towards her and then the praising towards us, and then it was all it was a whole, and that was one of many experiences of that happening over and over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Quite literal discard. Quite literal. So I'm I'm, you know, a problem solver over here. So the way to become narcissist-proven when just dumb it down for everybody is to not be a snack. Yeah. Which they're like, I can't eat it, I can't eat at this restaurant. And then they don't hang out in your life.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh. And you need the book. I highly suggest reading the book so you can get the details of how not to be stuff. Well, I mean, I loved it when we starve them out. Yeah. Well, your framework of like recognize, release, and reclaim was just such a powerful pillar. Like you really break it down into like actionable steps of like, how does one even recognize this? Like, how do you release the how do you release the experience? And then how do you reclaim, how do you reclaim your life? If you can like, what was your reclamation like? How did you remember? I think you describe it as you remember who you've always been underneath the adaptation. What was your process of reclaiming yourself, of remembering who you were without the adaptations?
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh. I was in, so I was in grad school. And um I was the very first moment that I like felt like the lights turned on. And I have a story in there for this. So I was in grad school and I was studying, and one of the textbooks had a case study of, you know, it's like how to counsel or how to do therapy with somebody who's been the victim of narcissistic abuse. And they had a case study in there, and I remember it was on the right hand side of the page, it was in one of those boxes, you know, that's like filled in a little gray. And I was reading through that case study, like three paragraphs maybe, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is why my life is in such chaos. That I'm living this. Holy crap. So it's like the lights turned on. And then as I continued to live with this, so that was in the spring, I think maybe April, and by August I left and got divorced. So from the moment that the lights turned on to when I left was just a handful of months. And I couldn't unsee it. And so I remember several things that happened. I confronted Travis about not about being a narcissist, but about like how I just felt so bound up in chains. I didn't understand what he wanted. I felt like I couldn't step left or right without stepping out of landmine, making him angry. He was blowing up all the time. I just wanted a clean slate. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do, and we can make new rules and like whatever. I just didn't understand. So he agreed to that. And I remember he said, I don't, I don't want you to feel bound up in chains. I was like, oh, we're really having a moment. Like, okay, you're seeing me. Thank you. I'm like, okay, he's like, yeah, of course. So that was in April. By August, I left. That tells you how well that went. Um one of the stories that keeps popping into my head that's such like a moment that just really just I remember living in this moment and being like, this isn't real. This is not. Like people write stories about this. No, I did. Um, this is pretend. This is a fiction. Is we were living in a little apartment. It was like a two-bedroom apartment, and it had one of those kind of like galley kitchens with like a really narrow you walk in and the sinks on the left and the ovens on the right, and it has like a little bar, right? You can look out in the living room. So little kitchen, and then back through that way is a laundry room. So tiny little space, but I loved it. It was ours, it was mine. And he the trash sit sat right at the entrance of the kitchen. And so we had an agreement in our relationship that he would take out the trash. Finer points. I'm 5'1. He was six two or something, six one. And it was the trash was on risers, and I had tried to take out the trash several times, and I broke bags, swinging it up into the trash. Like, it was just not reasonable. Like, could I have done it? Yes, but not reasonable. So it was his job. And he just like wouldn't do it. And so this is one of those things of like, it's not about the trash. But it is, it is about the trash. He just wouldn't do it. So what would happen is he would tie the bags up, pull them out, set them on the floor in the kitchen, add a new bag, and walk away. And he said that like it was just easier because what he would do is he would back his truck up to the stairs of the apartment, carry the bags down the trash, put them in the back of the truck, drive across the parking lot, drop them off. That was easier for him. And I remember being like, it's not easier for me. It's not easier for a home. Like you have you have quite literal garbage piling up in your home. So one time our house was just a disaster and I was defeated. I was in grad school, I was working full-time. I like I just felt so defeated and so like alone. And my best friend, Rebecca, came over and she was gonna help me clean up the house. She was just coming over to help. She was like, What can I do? And I was like, just come over and help. So she came over to help. Which, by the way, if I ever invited anyone in when our house was in any state like that, I got my ass chewed for letting somebody see how we lived. To which my response finally in that like summer was like, then maybe we shouldn't live this way. Like I was just so done. So she came over, even though I knew I was gonna get my ass chewed, I was like, it's worth it. I just need some help. And we had five bags of trash out of the trash can in the living room and or in the kitchen. And one I think was even on the carpet that was like into the dining room. Like it was bad. And Rebecca came in and saw this, and Travis was there, and she looked him in the face and started like laying in. She was like, This is ridiculous. You need to take this out. Like she started like standing up. And Travis argued with her, told her not to talk to him like that, told her that it wasn't her house. She like went head to head with him. They argued about it, and then he turned around, went into his office, which was the second bedroom, which was all his like man cave, shut the door, and didn't take the trash out. And I was like, I don't understand. So I think we ended up taking the trash out. We got the house all clean the apartment all cleaned up, and then afterward he came out to me out, I think, went back to his office, and then a few hours later, he came out. He'd clearly been drinking. He was pretty tipsy. He gave me this big old hug, big smile, and said, Thank you so much for cleaning up the apartment. It is so much nicer in here. I just really appreciate the time. So, do you guys keep in mind he was in that office just doing bro things, whatever he wanted to do, while we like deep clean the apartment where he lives, like not even helping and yelling at us. It's like it was this whiplash. And I remember he like gave me that hug. I didn't respond, I didn't hug back. I just like froze. And he turned around and went back to his office and shut the door. And I was standing in the hallway of our apartment going like this is some weird shit. This is weird. Something about this is just not I don't think other people live this way. By the end, we had had so much conflict, so much went on. I would often, I worked from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. I would leave, I would come home, make dinner, we would eat dinner, and then I'm clean up the kitchen or not, and leave to go to a coffee shop to study until this coffee shop closed. One of the ones that I loved going to was open until 2 a.m., 3 a.m. sometimes. And so I would study, come home, go to bed, wake up the next morning, do it all again.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And one time some stuff was happening, and he laid into me for like three hours and laid down what he called the boundaries, which were a list of rules. Um, this was nine days before I left. So gave me a list of rules that I needed to follow in order to honor our marriage, and it included a midnight curfew, a list of men and women that I wasn't allowed to talk to, clothing requirements that we were gonna sit together in church, which we hadn't done because I like served on the um like sound team in the back, you know. And um, he would hang out in the lobby. So I had to go out and sit in the lobby with him for like when the preacher would talk, which he played a game on his phone, by the way. I thought that was interesting. Well, seating assignment in church, and like a couple other things. He called them the boundaries, and they were designed to protect our marriage. And I said to him in that moment, I said, You've created a situation where I either obey you and follow the boundaries so that you know that I'm not a threat, or I know that I'm not a threat to you, and so I don't follow the boundaries, but then you think that I'm a threat. And he nodded. And I said, okay. So for the nine remaining days, I followed those boundaries, got my passport and some important documents, got some sentimental items, and I left. And that was that. I think the last call, the last thing, I had a friend call me because he was frantically pacing around in their backyard late at night. I was driving back to the apartment. He was chain smoking cigarettes, which I thought was interesting. That wasn't an ordinary habit of his, and drinking, and just being really erratic. And this friend called me because he said I would rather she be dead than leave. And I thought, I'm never going back in that apartment again. Yeah. That was the nail in the coffin. So all of that was how I came to recognize what was going on and left. Um and then in the book, recognizing includes several different frameworks, but one of my favorites is the drama triangle. How to know, feel, and sense when you're in a manipulative pattern right now with somebody and what they're doing to ensnare you in this manipulation. On recognize, release. That chapter is all about forgiveness, which we already talked about. I told you I spent three years poking around, asking everybody, and they're like cat how to forgive. Love that chapter, that love that section. So it's about release. There's other forms of release, like again in the audible auditory companion stuff. I have some guided releases that you can do to support yourself and letting clearing out some of the things that are stored up in the body from the trauma. And then on reclaim, that's just about beginning the process of rebuilding your life and reclaiming who you are. I have two more sections that I'm in process of writing called Rebuild and Radiate. And so we'll continue the framework on. But when I got through these three initial ones, I knew that it was a complete arc. It was comprehensive enough to help people begin the healing phase. Which is a necessary component before you can begin the regrowth phase, right? Mm-hmm.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So powerful. Wow. This is just like, oh, what an honor and a privilege. I I'm so grateful for you being able and willing to distill your life, to go into the fire, to, you know, ask others in your community to also share their experiences in order and in service to the collective, to so many of us, you know, for my experience, as you guys might have gathered, was my father. Um and um, you know, for a long time, I just you don't know what you don't know. I didn't have a label to call it. I just knew, I just felt unsafe. And I would feel these wild things in my body and felt crazy. So this is just an incredible, comprehensive, depth-filled, you know, experience-rich collection that is still growing and evolving. So, how can people find this book? Where do we get it? It has bonus materials. We have a special gift. Yeah, tell us all the things.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So it's narcissistproofbook.com, is where you can go in and buy the book. It is$37 for the whole bundle. It's an ebook right now. We're in the works of getting it available on Amazon and things like that. But that just takes the time that it takes. They're a little picky. And if you use the code honest10, honest10, you'll get$10 off, making the whole bundle$27, which I think is a super affordable price and really wonderful. Steal. Read it on your tablet and or your computer. Or if you, you know, if you ever print it out, just email me directly because I'd like to talk with you. That's pretty committed. Um, but it's beautiful. My my very cherished assistant, she designs everything for me. The book is gorgeous. Yeah, it reads like a textbook. It just is beautiful. Well, that's probably a negative feeling for some people. It's the color, the pages turn pretty, it clips along, it's fast.
SPEAKER_02:Um and I was like, I have the I have the cover here, kind of. Well, I'll put it in and post. It doesn't look the greatest on my phone, but it's beautiful. It is beautiful, it is beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:It's beautiful, it's brilliant. Yeah. It's got all of your wisdom. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we may we added extra space to the pages so that you have time to digest. It's literally like spaced out. There's a lot of white space so that as you're going through the pages, your body can like calibrate to the information it's receiving. It should just feel really good. It's gonna starve some stuff up. But then as you go through the processes in the air, there's a companion workbook, by the way, with it. Um, the transformation spiral digital workbook. And it takes you through, we've consolidated all of the exercises in the book without the stories. And so as you go through, you can do the exercises in the workbook. And we've consolidated the drama triangle. We have a technique called the clarity method, the plus-minus clarity method. It's about finding the benefits and the costs of any experience you've ever had or any decision you're starting to make and dissolve and resolve conflict about that inside. And so you have pages that you can print out and work on them. And it's just, I mean, literally, my assistant's name is Nika, and she is a gym, and she made it prettier than I could have ever imagined. I'm so grateful for her.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I just hear and feel so much love into this experience and like deeply held, like, wow, y'all, like what a privilege.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, my vision ever since you told me you were writing this is like may it get into as many hands as possible. Like, truly, there's just so many people who don't even know. Yeah, you know, even as you started talking, like light bulbs going off of how in the periphery these people have been, you know, in my life. And um, you know, personally, just the more work we do, the more aware we are. And you just created a workbook where people can do their own work, and that's that's a gift.
SPEAKER_00:Everyone's getting better pens. Everyone's getting better pens. You get a better pen, you're getting a better pen. So many pins for you. You're gonna love them. Some of them might not be your color. That's fine. Just leave those aside. Totally okay. You don't need that. Yeah, I think um becoming a narcissist, become narcissist-proof is it really a gift to the world. And I experience people who have been through narcissistic relationships as people who probably are living in a reality of being afraid that people won't believe them, and living in a reality of not knowing how to be free from replicating this again, and living in some fear and carrying around a lot of hurt in their body and confusion. And, you know, we didn't even touch on gaslighting, and we, you know, like, and that's okay, everybody's calling everybody a gaslight right now, that's fine. But uh, you know, even that as addressed in the book has a very specific context in which it is appropriate, and so how to recognize it when it's happening, how to step out of it, how to be empowered when you face these people who have a huge amount of energy for creating their reality and bulldozing people because that's what they have to do to survive. Um and so it's available to interact with them in a way that keeps you safe and to step away.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:This is powerful. If there was any last thought, feel, um divine channeling coming through that you would love to leave the audience with, what would that be?
SPEAKER_00:My dad shares his story in the book. And my dad's a good man, and his father was highly narcissistic and ran these patterns in their home. And my dad shares his story. Uh it's written a little more interview style, I believe, but it he should he just had a conversation with me on the phone. I asked him a bunch of questions for the book, and he talked about how growing up he saw what his dad would do and made a choice at a very young age that he would never allow that in his home, that he would never be that way in his home. And so you can take what you've learned, take what you've experienced, take what you've witnessed, and draw a line in the sand and be the person who stops it. Sometimes people spend too long hating the person who did it, and then we become the thing that we hate. We run similar patterns and we manipulate people to get what we want because we're trying to self-protect so much. And I know people, and I think I I did that for a number of years, where I became in my own way kind of narcissistic flavored because I was writing my own agenda so hard and bulldozing other people for my own protection because I had been hurt so bad, and I had offered my trust to somebody who didn't deserve it. And so then I became narcissistic flavored, and I had to deal with that. And as my dad shares his story, and as I've come to grips with my experience, it is available to live a free life, it's available to feel good, it's available to be kind, and it's available to be whole and to find the right people. Because I will just remind you that the portion of the population who's narcissistic or narcissistic flavored is so small. This is not everyone. There are good, there are so many good people. Yeah. So we have to calibrate ourselves and do the work that we need to do to become the person that repels the narcissistic-flavored people and is like warm yumminess to the people that we want to be with. It's available.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, so fucking good. Oh, this was one of my favorite episodes. Yeah. I learned so much. Yay. Thank you, Lauren, for being on the show. I love you both so much. Love you. Holy narcissist. Oh my gosh. That was that was insane.
SPEAKER_02:That was that was that was a revelation. Really? Literally, it's like the lights, you know. I've had the privilege of reading some of the book. Haven't read all of it yet. Yeah. It's obviously it's in my phone. Um and hearing Lauren talk about the intricacies and the nuance, and like, gosh, that Harry Potter analogy. Oh my god. It's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, in stereo inside of me.
SPEAKER_01:You know, as she was giving the spoiler and I was upset about a movie that I didn't finish 15 years ago. But the way she explained it, I wasn't even mad anymore. I was like, I finally fucking understand narcissism in this whole new way. It was profound. Like she was dropping bars. I felt like I was in a masterclass. Yeah. I feel changed. Like I could feel myself healing from things in real time. How about you? It was healing.
SPEAKER_02:It was a healing conversation where it was just like the way that she explained through her stories, through other people's stories, and how she set up the book. I was just like, I'm literally, I mean, I really did have an I am safe moment because I started being like, whoa, my nervous system is like, get out of the house. Yeah. But I also had some space of release and understanding and compassion. And it just, I mean, what a fucking gift. And there's a workbook and there's audios and there's meditations, like the generosity of this woman to share from the depths of her pain of like what she experienced and how she was able to get to the other side and how you fucking can too. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I feel that what I loved about it was how she destigmatized um getting caught in those situations. Yes. Which is certainly something that people feel when they're stuck in an abusive loop. Like it's just like, how the hell did I get in here? This book is like, this is how. This is exactly this is exactly how and it's not your fault. And it's not your fault. And and yet it's your responsibility to get out. So it's so oh, and it gives you and empowers you to do that. So, you know, I just love how she mentioned that when she read something in her textbook, it changed her life. And that truly is my vision for this podcast. So please like, share, subscribe, give us a review. This podcast was unbelievable. We want to make sure that it gets out to as many people as possible.
SPEAKER_02:Send it to everyone. Send it to everyone in the group chat who goes, you guys, I mean, send it. Or when your mom is like, well, does it send it? Yes. Send it to the people in your lives and buy the book. It's called Become Narcissists Brook. So it's narcissistproofbook.com.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, narcissist. Say it again. So the site to get this book is narcissistproofbook.com.
SPEAKER_02:And you get ten dollars off and you still get all the bundles, all the bonuses, all the things. Like it's literally free.
SPEAKER_01:And that discount code is honest10, honest10.
SPEAKER_02:Literally, immediately get this. Let us know what stands out. What let us know what stood out for you from this conversation. If you had any haws, if you had any moments, if you had any light bulbs and from the book, like also reach out to Lauren. I'm sure there's a contact and let her know what hits because like she has set with like such a beautiful and compact, I mean, transformation journey. And she's still writing the steps on the next part. So like yo.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Get yourself, get yourself that healing. Oh yeah, man. This was this was unbelievable. I really share this far and wide.
SPEAKER_02:And if you have a question, you can call in 971-895-4111. Leave us a voicemail with your question, with what's going on, and we fucking got you. And if we're like, hey, tag a friend, we will bring in the big guns. We will bring in the best of the best because we have the best community to serve you and feel like this conversation is proof. This is, I mean, you officiated Lauren's wedding. I did. Best friends. These are our best, these are the people we hang out with.
unknown:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So definitely check that out. And there's one more thing. Yeah, and or you can DM us at honestfeedback podcast on Instagram.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:People love coming in through there. And until we meet again, be honest with each other.
SPEAKER_02:Bye.
