Why Do I Feel Wrong All The Time?: Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome

Abuse does not need bruises to be real, and one of the most disorienting parts is how “normal” it can start to feel from the inside. Grace and Claudia (psychotherapist and co-author) dig into Chapter 5 of Healing From Narcissistic Abuse and lay out the symptoms that quietly take over your body, your choices, and your sense of self long before you can explain what’s happening.

We start by clarifying the definition of domestic violence and why psychological abuse, coercive control, and even energetic abuse belong in the same serious conversation as physical harm. From there, we break down the lived experience of walking on eggshells, chronic hypervigilance, and the strange paradox of feeling like the next outburst is unpredictable while also knowing it’s guaranteed. We also talk about how narcissistic dynamics chip away at self-worth through teasing, subtle putdowns, and compliments that contain a hidden blade.

Then we move into the deeper trauma responses: the exhausting belief that you’re always wrong, the addictive loop of chasing the early “high” of love bombing, and the moment when “it’ll never be enough” becomes a painful but freeing truth. We discuss dissociation as a survival mechanism, how numbing can show up through substances, and how gaslighting erodes self-trust until decision-making feels impossible. To close, Claudia guides a practical grounding exercise from her dynamic meditation method, using the simple question: “What’s my now feeling?”

If you’re looking for narcissistic abuse recovery tools, trauma-informed insight, and language that helps you trust your own reality again, press play. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the symptom you want us to unpack next.

Transcript

Welcome And Chapter 5 Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello Claudia. Nice to see you again.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

You too, great. We're back.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

We're back. We're back to discuss chapter five from our book, Healing from Narcissistic Abuse. So just to give a little introduction to the audience, my name is Grace, and I'm one of the authors of this book. And Claudia is a psychotherapist. She co-authored this book with me, and we're doing a series of podcasts right now discussing chapters from our book. And today we will be discussing chapter 5: The symptoms of narcissistic abuse.

Domestic Violence Beyond Physical Harm

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Claudia, this chapter starts with me describing and defining what domestic violence is. And before we touch base on the symptoms of narcissistic abuse, I just wanted to clarify the definition of domestic violence because this was enlightening for me. So ironically enough, I spent eight years of my life working in the Court of Justice in Malta, where I'm from, working in cases of domestic violence. But for some reason, it never occurred to me that I was also a victim of domestic abuse. Why is this? Because I used to associate domestic abuse with physical violence. And when we experience different types of abuse, we may not realize that this is also a criminal act, which shows how serious it is. So the definition of domestic abuse is any physical, psychological, or sexual abuse of a member of one's family or household, especially a spouse or partner. So I just wanted to clarify that any kind of abuse and manipulation, even if physical abuse is not involved, this is also something to be taken seriously. And so when I was in the relationship, I had normalized the dynamics and his behaviors. And it's really difficult, and abuse can be so subtle, even financial abuse, financial control, that you may not notice it until you become aware of it. So this is what we are doing here through this book.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yes. So one of the things that in in the first of all, this was one of the hardest chapters, even as I was rereading it for this podcast, Grace. And I just want to keep honoring you for sharing so much. It was for it was really hard for me to actually even reread it. It feels painful to me. And like it was for folks who are going to read the book, it's absolutely amazing. It's so life-giving, actually. But Grace is so generous with how she shares her story. And I just I wanna I wanna honor you the whole way, my sister. I want to honor you the whole way because it was really hard for me to even revisit this chapter and to see everything that was done. So let's just start with that. Thank you for saying that. Really, really. I'm I think I'm gonna say it the whole time. Number two, the fact that you worked, this is one of the things that I said in the book, that the fact that you worked in um domestic abuse for eight years. And when I'm working with clients, I do notice where they work and why. And and especially when it comes to abuse, or even sometimes in the jail system, it's like there's something happening, whether that's an alchemizing of the wound, whether that's a repetition of the wound, whether it's an attempt to heal the wound, all of this unconscious. So it wouldn't surprise me, right? When we're trying to save children, like there's something inside of us that is like a calling towards this place. So it's very interesting that you found yourself there. And I talked about the law of attraction because we are psychospiritual, that whether it's conscious or unconscious, law of attraction will find us and will pull us.

Energetic And Psychic Abuse Explained

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Yes, that was so interesting when I read that.

SPEAKER_02 4:52

So interesting, right? That this whole time there was a parallel life playing this out. The other thing I want to say that's really, really, really important very quickly is that people I I I just need to scream it from the top of the hills. Energetics matter, we are all energy. This is psychic abuse, and because for so long we haven't believed that the invisible, that energetics in a home exist, that silent treatments have nothing to do with physical abuse, and yet it is so abusive and invisible. So I can't emphasize enough that psychological abuse and energetic abuse is real, it's happening constantly. When a group excommunicates or does gives a silent treatment to another, there's nothing physical going on, is there? It's the energetics of that type of abuse. So I really want to take an opportunity to emphasize how important energetics and psychic communication is alive and well in a home, and you you experienced all of it. Yes. Okay, so I just needed I want us to start with that when you're talking about what domestic abuse is.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yes, yes, and thank you for for emphasizing on that because it's it's true, and it goes so deep, this type of energetic abuse, that uh I would dare say, of of course it depends what type of physical abuse we are talking about, but to me it feels like the energetic abuse took longer to recover from.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

Yes, it programs extremely deeply. It's a deep, deep programming. And sometimes because we're actually unconscious to it, we think that if we get away just from the physical abuse, but we see it in people who leave cults or leave you know all sorts of situations, how long it takes to actually deprogram.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Oh, yes, yes, totally.

Walking On Eggshells And Hypervigilance

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So um so now we get into the first yes symptom of narcissist abuse, which is very much related to what you just described, in fact, walking on actions. So um what happens? Why do we do this? And what does it mean, walking on actions? This can be hard to notice, but once you become aware of it, you'll start realizing that you're living your life literally tiptoeing around these people to make sure that they don't get upset. And whether it's yourself making yourself small, whether it's abandoning your needs and feelings, shutting down, not communicating your boundaries, trying to bend over and backwards to make sure that their needs are always met. And uh even if if you want to do something for for yourself or something differently from the usual routine or from their expectations, you can anticipate that they are going to be upset, therefore, you your nervous system will get triggered, and of course, you want to avoid pain, conflict, and suffering. If you're an empath, you want to keep harmony, and this way you end up going through your life feeling scared almost all of the time.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

Yes, yes, it's really painful to talk about in this way. Like that's an exact example. Walking on eggshells, right? And this is where the other person, you, the sensitive, the just the other human, the normal other human. Imagine what this does to children. It is energetic fear. The house is full, full of fear. Because, on the one hand, it's predictable, they're gonna go off the handle, they're gonna have moods because moods is also a thing that happens. Let's be really clear about the impact of moods, okay? But it also feels unpredictable that you might move the remote control, and and that's the thing, or you might you talk a lot about cooking, or about something you might say that's gonna cause something. And in this, in the book, we talked about, or I talked about sort of the walking dead, meaning this is the place where you want to become more and more and more invisible. This is the true loss of the self for the other person. You literally just want to become invisible, glazed over. This is when the mother or the wife doesn't even protect the children anymore, because it's just intolerable to constantly be on this edge of what might happen, which feels unpredictable, but it's actually incredibly predictable because you know it's going to happen.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah. Yes, it's paradoxical, it's like it's unpredictable because you never know what's gonna make them get pissed off, but at the same time, you know that this is it's guaranteed. You can sometimes they can blame you for breathing in the wrong way. You know what I mean? It's like expanding.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Why are you breathing like that? Um, and one of the things when I'm working with people, I keep teaching them to reverse that. It's predictable, it's actually very predictable. Let's just know that it's going to that's how it's gonna play out, like over and over. It is predictable. Um, because part of the the fear and the heightened hypervigilance is feeling like it's when is it gonna happen? When you start thinking, like, oh no, it's going to happen. It's it's not ideal, but it does calm it just a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

That's true, actually. I can see, yes, how that makes a lot of sense because then you can feel like, yeah, you're not hyper-vigilant because you expect it to happen, and there's a sense of acceptance that this is going to happen, and that sense of acceptance helps you to maybe rest down a bit your your guard and your nervous system. And I can't even imagine, like, I I had to deal with a partner who was like this, but uh having a parent, for example, and you're you're kind of stuck in the same home living with someone, and you can't leave the house because you're young, for example, or as a child, how exhausting and how detrimental it is for someone's health to be living like this.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yes, it's really quite painful, and that that's how it starts is with a parent like this.

Self-Worth Erosion And Subtle Putdowns

SPEAKER_00 12:40

The second symptom that we mentioned is loss of self-worth. And I start by talking about how we learn through neural pathways and repetition, and uh the same way that we learn supportive beliefs or neutral beliefs about ourselves or about life in general, the same way we we learn and we become brainwashed by hearing negative beliefs or belittling comments repeatedly. So even if you if you enter a relationship with a solid self-esteem and self-worth, they will eat it out and they will erode it slowly. And this can be obvious and it can be not. It can be something like a small comment, like uh to not make it so obvious, pointing out that oh, you look a bit funny from this angle, or in this photo, look at this, how how it how it looks, this you know, and it's like just taking you down slowly, slowly, for example.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Do you remember other examples? I like asking you about concrete examples so that people can connect it to their own lives, it's really helpful. Your examples, everyone, just get the book. You'll see how many examples she gives. She's quite detailed, but even here. Yes, that's a really good one. It's like looking at a picture and saying, huh. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Yes, I my examples were quite severe. So sometimes I worry that people may not relate because I know that the this my my cases were quite cinematic. But I can mention, for example, um cooking for during the relationship for him, he would always make uh drama if I picked up the wrong ingredient or if I tried to be a bit intuitive with my cooking and I throw in an ingredient that is not in the recipe. And this is something that it's now a thing, actually, intuitive cooking. That's you you buy the ingredients and you cook intuitively, you know. So, but one of the examples was when I and now looking back, it sounds uh ridiculous that someone could make such a drama out of nothing that I made um a car caprese salad and I chose the wrong olive oil, not according to his requirements, and he goes into this massive tantrum, but like bizarre, like out of this, it was so out of proportion his reaction. Where we go into this fight for hours, hours hearing how useless I was, and because I cannot do anything right, and then he would start going through my skills. Oh, you're emotionally intelligent. How is that going to be useful in your life? How are you going to use emotional intelligence? Huh, you have good communication skills. What do you think you're gonna do? You're you're useless. Look at you, you can't do anything right, you know. So these types of comments, and then hearing them day in and day out, what I wasn't aware of what was happening, then I start questioning myself. Oh my god, it's true, but but he did want that type of olive oil. I did make a mistake, and now I say, so fucking what, dude? Just suck it up and cook it yourself next time. Chill, like, chill, man. It's just olive oil.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Yes, yes. I'm glad you can laugh about it. You can see the ridiculousness of it. So I I was just I as you were talking, I just had uh uh different examples. One is I remember uh a friend, uh someone who's a friend who was married to someone who kept talking about how beautiful the women were in his office in front of us. And not like, oh my gosh, you know, it's I'm you know, it was constant. Someone new joined, and he would say things like it's it's super who like she's like and with those faces like really attractive, and she's sing and the wife would just because of course it's such an un you could feel the casual demeaning of the wife, yes, uh what if she said something, why are you? I'm just saying she's attractive, right? These that's like a subtle but not so subtle energetic form in parents, it might be constantly talking about one of the other kids, so amazing, and this is the divide and conquer strategy, which they do with with other people, um sort of this highlighting how amazing someone else is, but not in a way that feels like healthy, it actually is an attempt to demean the person that's next to you. That that's an example. Um think of some more, but there there is this this and and the idea is at the beginning you will not see the cinematic test. And Grace, in the book you said something about the teasing and the nicknames. Yes, the teasing, and then it's like, well, I'm just joking. You're so sensitive. If you're like, why did you yes?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

That was always his defense, in fact. No, um, this is this is how you joke with your friends, this is how you know that you have a close relationship because you can joke in a mean way to your friends, and then you start questioning. Oh, oh, oh, is this a thing? Like, I don't joke like this with my friends, but maybe some people do, and you start questioning these things. And even if it's if it's real, I wouldn't want to be friends with someone like this if they joke this way. It's okay, no, thank you. Not my cup of tea.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

In fact, you want to notice it. That's one of the little red flags that you want to notice early on. Exactly. It's one of the symptoms early.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And one of one of the other subtle symptoms is that sometimes the belittling comments may come after a compliment. So you find yourself feeling confused. They compliment you, but then they belittle you. And so they're still taking away from your achievements, the thing that you just shared with them that you're joyful about, whatever it is, a milestone in your life, they will chip away at your self-worth slowly, slowly. Before we move on to the next one, do you have something else to that you would like to add?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Well, I just thought of an example. I had uh two people who took my one of my classes once, and one of them is an active narcissist, and um he kept saying, he kept saying, Oh, I really am enjoying. Here's the compliment. I'm enjoying taking your class. The other day we were laughing so hard at how much you push your glasses back. We were dying laughing, so that was uh, I really like your class. I'm not saying anything about the class. Can you feel can you feel that? So the sensation is you're over there talking about me. We were both dying laughing, and it was slight, it was slight, but that's a really good example when you said that about the compliment. Yes, that we kept laughing at how often you do. So all of a sudden, I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I guess I do that a lot. Oh my gosh, it looks hilarious! Oh my gosh, people are over in that corner laughing about me instead of me feeling empowered as a teacher or addressed as a teacher, because there was no comment on the class itself. Yes, so can you feel all those energetics? But if you're in it, you think, oh, I guess that's funny. I guess they're spending that time talking and laughing about me at me, and he kept saying, It's just really funny to watch you.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

So you could you could pick up on the intention, no? And I feel like these people they they do these things because they feel threatened. So now I learned to take these things. Compliments because otherwise, why are you trying to make me feel less inferior? Some you know, something I I triggered something in you, so thank you. I I will take this as a compliment, and it is it is true. So you might uh probably triggered something in in this person, and instead of paying attention, absorbing your insights at the lecture, I guess he showed what an idiot he was by laughing in a lecture at something that is not really funny, so right? Yes, no, very good example.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

For the audience, Grace is laughing now, but this is years of work, years and years and years of finally being on the other side and being able to see what was happening at the time.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yes, yes, no, at the time I was yes, like 10 kilos less than I am now. I was unrecognizable almost. So, but when you do the work, you can make it to the other side of the tunnel.

The Trap Of Never Enough

SPEAKER_00 23:15

So the next symptom is always feeling like you've done something wrong. And this is something that haunted me throughout the entire relationship because you feel like you're you're always, as we said, you're always working on actions, and no matter how hard you try, they make you try harder next time. Try a bit harder to please me. And um anything that you do doesn't ever feel good enough, and whether it can be so exhausting, Claudia. It can be so exhausting because you want to show the other person that you love them, whether it's a parent, a sibling, a partner, you want to prove your love, but it is never enough, no matter how much you give of yourself, no matter how much you abandon yourself, it's just never gonna be enough because they have this void inside of them. They're trying to fill through you energetically, and it's just not gonna fill their void, and it can be so exhausting, and instead of taking care of your life, taking care of your children and your family, you are just all the time thinking, how can I make things right? And I've experienced this and I've talked with other people who were in this types of relationships, and it was always the same. But if I could just get it right next time, it would be different. No, you gotta lose hope. You gotta understand and realize it's never going to be enough, and that is when you can start moving on slowly. Lose hope.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

And it's it's unreachable. This is the this is sort of part of the treatment strategy, is to say, and this is what the book does, audience, please. This is what the book is saying. There's a blueprint, so it feels because that's the addictive cycle, right? The addictive cycle is that you feel like you'll ring the bell at some point. The bell would ring because at the beginning they were ringing your bell all the time. You're beautiful, that's amazing, you're gorgeous, look at what you do. I love the way you da-da-da-da-da, right? So you're so you're so if you know addictions, that's your first high. And you keep chasing that high. But what happens is the relationship erodes. So these these are some of the nuances or the tweaks to this. It is a sadistic need to and part of their supply, the sadistic supply to always feel above. Remember that the narcissist only has two relational dynamics. I'm either superior or inferior. So they're constantly fighting for the superior posture. And in order to have that, especially with powerful women like you or just normal humans, it's almost ridiculous to do this to children. Ridiculous. But but this is done with children to always have the superior posture, and so it's actually a sadistic need on their part. It's the only way to get um satisfying supply-ish because they're never satisfied with. So that's this loop, they're never satisfied. It's it's a leaking hole all the time in their soul. There's always a leaking hole, and therefore, you're never enough, like it's never going to happen. So, in the treatment strategy, if you can start just getting it through your head, oh, wait a minute, this is predictable. Wait a minute, it'll never be enough. And empaths and highly sensitives and normal, open-hearted human beings. Let me just say something. This will confound you for a long time. This will you you will stay because you almost can't believe that this is how it stays, right? That the cruelty, it it's just so hard to believe, right, Grace? Like, that's why it takes so long. Because to say something like to an empath, it there's no hope. Stop right there, stop believing to say that to a highly sensitive, an open-hearted human, a child, even. Yes, yes. This is how it's going to be. It's really hard, it takes a long time to get there.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Oh, yes, and I had a full army backing me, telling me to lose hope, to see this person for who he really was. Nobody wanted to continue speaking with him, he was not welcome with my family. I just didn't want to listen. And I just didn't want to lose hope until I was ready to do so. It just didn't happen. So I completely empathize and I understand anyone who stays stuck in these dynamics. There's no shame in judgment because I've been I've been through it. So it's extremely difficult, especially because they they keep luring you back into the relationship and seducing you. We've mentioned this in the beginning with love bombing and the the cycles that they go through. Recently I went to our conversations because I needed to check some things for for our book presentation. And the conversations going through them, it feels crazier now looking back and reading through them. Because you would see massive amounts of hate and venomous words, and then the next day, it's just like nothing ever happened, and also crazy from my side as well. Because how dare you speak to me like this, and then the next day I'm speaking to you like nothing ever happened. Like this is absurd.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

So, from both ways, yes, is from your part the victim, the empath, the highly sensitive, the open, normal-hearted human, the need for relief. And for children, this is where it's most painful for me. Children always want to make their parents happy, they need it for survival. So they'll try and like, okay, if if our parents are happy, there's a need for relief, there's a need for like, are can we just be normal and happy today? It's it's desperate. Okay, so so that's part of maybe your response is like, oh my gosh, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna sort of pretend like and now a lot of households live off of this, pretending like nothing ever happened. For the narcissist, that's what's normal. It's actually normal. Yeah, it's it's it's almost like I don't know, like um a protein drink. They demean, they get filled up, they feel delicious with their sadistic supply, then they're like good to go. They've got the fuel they're running on. Yes, until the next put down, right? Until the next need to get refilled. Um yeah, this is a and for anyone who's watching, we hold you, and and please there's there's trigger warnings and trauma informedness all around because the this this is real, and it's real, not just between a couple. Um yes, Grace. Uh you I I was thinking about something you said right now, but please go on like with the these symptoms. Yeah.

Dissociation And The Walking Dead

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Um, so the the next one is quite quite a heavy symptom, quite a powerful one, and it's dissociation as a coping mechanism. And as I was reading through the chapters, I remembered I had forgotten about this, because it's been a while now, but I remembered that for quite a while after the relationship, I felt me, an empath, a person who feels a lot. Her emotions. I was numb. I was emotionally numb. I couldn't feel anything, I couldn't feel joy, I couldn't feel sadness. I was just like this, and I didn't know what was wrong with me. I was like, oh my god, what's happening to me? I I cannot, I didn't feel anything, nothing, it was so new to me. And then I realized while I was reading, researching, and studying all of this, that this is what's happening to me. And it goes even further, that some people even dissociate so much that they don't even they cannot even recall certain episodes and traumatic experiences from the relationships. Because it's so traumatic that your brain just puts it in the archive in the unconscious, and you dissociate completely. And you might find yourself thinking, oh no, it's not bad actually, the relationship. Because you you've stored away those those memories, it can be so dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

So let's let's let's sort of psychoeducate and psycho-spiritually educate, because that's that's the sort of distinguishing feature of our book is that it's we write it in a psycho-spiritual form, right? That that's that it's not just psychological, that that spirituality is always playing here. So I'd like to say that our psychology and our psyche as human beings is actually quite divine, it's quite perfect because when we're children or when we're going through severe abuse, or maybe when we're tortured or prisoners, right? The human being, it's an actual survival mechanism to be able to what I call leave the body. You literally leave the body, and that's dissociation, because you must, because in certain experiences, the psyche cannot bear it or tolerate it, neither can the body in certain situations, okay? And um, and sometimes and these this if you do it consistently, these become mental health issues, psychological issues. This becomes um uh personality disorders, etc. etc. If you're not aware of this dissociative state, and and so in the book, I call it like if it's become severe, which is what you're describing. So what it meant was your body was just trying to keep your you safe by completely, it's I call it the glazing over the um walking dead syndrome. If you're if you decide to stay, it's almost like it's required. Yes, required the only way to survive. I think you glaze over it. Sometimes when I'm working with clients in session, I can actually see it. I can actually like gently bring them back, or I can say, hmm, just so because sometimes people do it when they're at a party or when they're on a date, or or if if they hear yelling, you can see this instinct to leave the body, to actually leave the body and and dissociate. It's it's a survival mechanism, but if it stays stuck as a survival mechanism, again, there's the complete loss of the self. You become a zombie, you zombie out. I I like to use sort of like everyday words. Um but we want to also honor it, especially for children who are getting abused or under narcissistic systems, um that the body and and our soul and our higher consciousness helps us. And what you're describing, Grace, as leaving it in the unconscious. This is why so many people don't remember child sexual abuse, like we we block it. It's it's too hard for that little psyche to bear, or for that for an empath or for a sensitive like you, it's too hard to tolerate. And so it is just carefully put over here. And if it's if that's done for too long, that's when you begin to compartmentalize. That's when you begin to have dissociative identity disorder, right? It becomes something else because it's a lack of integration, right? That's when dissociative disorder becomes something much more severe.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Yes, exactly. And I think a lot of people don't realize that just because it's cut off in the unconscious, it doesn't mean that it's not there, it's still in your system. You just gotta need to find a way by working with a professional like Claudia to help you process these and integrate these hurt parts within you. Otherwise, they can cause issues and they might not be so obvious, even. They can show up as illnesses in the body, as sickness, and you would not realize why or where it's coming from, or numbing yourself even further by substance abuse, which is something that I was uh doing as well.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Exactly.

Numbing With Substances And Self-Disconnection

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Can you talk about that? I wrote here numb and numbing because you did talk about waking up and smoking weed immediately, going to sleep, certainly drinking, because that that is that is a parallel process. Whether you start eating and gaining weight, um, and I talked about that too in the book. That sometimes, for those of you, one of the ways that some folks become invisible is by gaining extreme weight.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Yes, how paradoxical.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Please don't, right? Don't get close to me. Don't rate, I'm invisible. Do not touch me, do not get close to me. It is paradoxical, but it's an attempt to not be seen.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Yes, my god, that's so true. I I never saw it this way. It's true, it makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Uh, you you asked me something, but numbing, numbing, numbers, like becoming numb and numbing.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Yeah, yes. So I was not dealing with with my traumas uh immediately, and I was well, I started smoking cannabis heavily during the relationship, and I used it to numb myself because it was so painful sometimes, even waking up, that my I would have like heart palpitations immediately. I would open my eyes and my heart would just start racing as if I was like running a marathon. And the only way that I could function was to be zoned out like a zombie by smoking. Now, I'm I don't um I'm not advising against cannabis, but I'm talking about severe abuse of cannabis and misuse of it, and the way that I was using it was clearly because it was too painful to be present with what I was experiencing. And these kinds of substances, any kind of substance, makes you dissociate and numb and not feel something that you don't want to feel. Even smoking cigarettes, I used to notice that it's a kind of self-harm. It's like you're harming yourself, you're harming your body, but I would rather do this than feel whatever I avoiding. Does that make sense? And how I'm explaining it, Mike Clear.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Absolutely, absolutely. You have that awareness. Um and and I think using the word intolerable is not dramatic. It literally is too hard to tolerate. And um you begin, right? It I always say all sickness or all psychological issues, including all the isms, alcoholism, workaholism, sexualism, all of that, is just you start to just get if people can visualize this. I I work a lot in visuals because it helps us. You just start getting more and more and more separated from the self. If folks can just picture that, if you begin to self-hate, you become this if if you because of someone hating you, you just begin to move further and further away from the self, and all addictions just keep moving you further, and then you hate yourself for what you did yesterday, for what you ate last night, for all the corn you consume. And so do you see you just begin to again, it's another way of zombieing out of becoming separate from the self, and so all the healing is is this coming back, which we talk about later. But go ahead, Grace.

Gaslighting Mistrust And Lost Agency

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Did that tickle your breath?

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Yeah, so the the next one is having a sense of mistrust, and this was a big one for me as well sense of mistrust because these people gaslight you so much, you start questioning what is real, and I remember that I I I think we talked about this a few times where I had to track evidence. No, we mentioned that you need to track the evidence of what's being discussed, what's happening, because they would deny so much what you're experiencing, what you're going through, and they project and they deflect on you that you your sense of mis your sense of trust and your inner compass and your intuition starts to lose its strength. And also, it is very hurtful to understand and accept the fact that someone who you seem to be so totally in love with, both of you, or a parent that's supposed to care for you and protect you, is actually causing you harm, is actually lying to you, is betraying you, and it can be so difficult to wrap your head around it. It's like, what? How is this possible? If this person who's supposed to have my best interest at heart betrayed me, how am I supposed to trust anyone else and my sense of judgment of other people? And the all of these symptoms that I'm mentioning, it took me so much time to work through them, but it is so worth it, it is worth doing the work because otherwise your life is always gonna be gray, and there's a whole spectrum of rainbow and colors to experience there.

SPEAKER_02 43:57

Yes, yes, I think we both know. It in our own skins, and we see it, and I see it in people all the time, and it's worth this work. Oh, we're near, but can I just say a few things? So, in the in this chapter, you talked about calling this narcissistic abuse syndrome. And um, for the audience, this doesn't just happen in families, it happens in religious institutions, in cults, in governments. This happens. So, one of the reasons why this book is so important right now is because it carries over into a way, a modus operandi in humanity. Okay, so it's it's we're taking two people, Grace and this person, and we want to translate it. Grayson the other thing I want to talk about, and maybe we can bring it up later, with the earth angels. Um, everyone, people will notice. Yes. Oh, yes. People will gossip about you and criticize you. We're not talking about that, and that's actually what makes us turn turn our ears off. But there are people, you have an example in the book. I have an example of a cousin also who who very gently and lovingly says, something's up, something's going on. You're not the same person, and even in the moment it feels so like uh this is horrible. There are earth angels who, with love, with kindness, with full heart say this. Um, and one more thing about what you said about eroding Grace. When your trust is completely eroded on purpose, self-trust, and actually, what gets eroded even more is your decision-making ability. So you are completely limp, not only limp in life when it comes to decisions, you are so easily manipulated. Because when you lose your agency, your ability to trust yourself, because when we trust ourselves, we can decide. Okay, even if it's gonna be a mistake, we just we fail forward, for example, we can decide. Um, then it means that, and this is done on purpose, that any authority, any power, any lover, any parent can decide for you. And that's actually the ultimate agenda, and that that goes for all in.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Yes, and we need to talk about this on the collective at large because, as you said about agency and serenity and narcissistic abuse, this is how it works taking away your agency, control, manipulation, feeding of your energy. So I think we need to dedicate a whole chapter on this. Yes, yes, and I know we need to conclude this this episode for today, right? Do we have a few minutes left?

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Yes, we do. We do.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

We have yes, keep going.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

Yes, yes, we're good.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Okay, cool. So the last thing I wanted to mention, yes, is uh complex post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Complex PTSD And Recovery Hope

SPEAKER_00 47:38

And finally, I was wondering whether we have five minutes, five minutes to include if you're offered it, uh, one of the dynamic meditations that you like to do to maybe guide the audience. You can do it on me and we can do it together and guide the audience to this. I know we have this dynamic meditation method. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. And I think it would be beautiful to offer it as as a way of ending. Yes, to and because we talked about the symptoms, and I think it would be so nice to have like a grounding practice, and I know that you are brilliant at the psychospiritual work.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

Yes, yes, I leave that up to you. I appreciate that. So for everyone, I created an amalgam in the early um sort of around 2009.

Dynamic Meditation For Grounding

SPEAKER_02 48:29

I took all the tools that I'd ever learned, and that comes from traditional spiritual um practices, but also psychological and clinical practices, and I put it all together and I called it the dynamic meditation method. And um I use it with clients all the time and it turbocharges our work together. But really, what I did it for was to use it with anyone who wanted to learn about it, even if they weren't in therapy at all, because this is portable, practical, especially for people with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, general anxiety disorder, ADHD, anyone who thinks there's no way I'm doing meditation or any any of these practices, don't worry. So we're gonna do so. I have a whole bunch, and if you know, we can practice them as much as we want, but why don't we just go with the now feeling right now? And and the idea here is we're gonna get very gentle, and I always encourage folks to like touch their body because it's a way of signaling embodiment, like, and it's so gentle and kind to the self. And you can touch your belly or touch your chest. And for some people, I like to do ask them to touch their face because there's so much sweetness and kindness to the self. So always bring it back to the body, and I'm gonna ask everyone to lean back, especially empaths and sensitives. We're always leaning forward, which facilitates leaving our body. Lean back and Grace, I want you to experience this. Really lean back into your back body. We're gonna do three breaths where you're you're breathing it all the way into your hips, breathing in.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

And as you exhale, longer exhale, you're gonna push it into your hips. For empaths and sensitives, you might not even realize you have a lower body. Breathe in. Now you're gonna go past the hips into your thighs. Always leaning back. Breathe it.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

And now you're just gonna push it all the way back, feeling that lower body nice and heavy, and now you're in your body throne.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

You're not moving forward and dissociating. You're nice and heavy.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

And we're just gonna start super gently with going inside, and everyone, you can do this for one minute, even if you're ADHD. It's an active meditation.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

We're just gonna ask what's my now feeling. And right now we're activating the observer.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

And even if you say my now feeling is numb, I don't feel anything. That's fine. Just notice that.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Let's do that again. What's my now feeling? We're gonna do that again. What's my now feeling? Scared, disorganized, distracted, restless, happy. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:29

Any just give it a word, no. Doesn't matter. Resistant.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Let's do that two more times. What's my now feeling?

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Notice as we do this, you're coming into yourself. You might have, if you've never done this before, an impulse to want to not go inside. Just go gently, just say to yourself, I'm afraid to ask myself, what's my now feeling?

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Just say that. One more time. What's my now feeling? We're gonna take a deep breath as we come up. You're gonna be very gentle as you open your eyes. You're gonna notice that our personalities come back.

SPEAKER_02 53:38

Remember that when we go inside, so what did we just do? We activated the observer, we went inside, we validated some feelings, even if it was scary. Very gentle. If you're dynamic meditation, it is practical and portable. You could be at a happy hour and you could just do this. What's my now feeling inside you? No one needs to know what's my now feeling. If your ex walks into the room, it's my now feeling, and what it's doing is it's bringing you just like the practice of coming inside. That was a very gentle one, very gentle, it's active, it's portable, it's practical. How did you experience it?

SPEAKER_00 54:25

Thank you. That was really beautiful. Yes. The first you started by saying that we're like out of our bodies and like so forward, and I felt like this is me most of the time. I'm like, you know, out of my body. Like, and I had such a chaotic day, and the moment that I went back and I start breathing into my body and focusing on the hips, yes, it's so grounding, it centers you, and it just brings a sense of presence in your being, and sometimes that's all we need to be a bit more present with whatever we are experiencing, and just being aware, gentle and calm.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

I do this particularly for empaths and highly sensitive. Lean back, you're in a staff meeting because we're and it actually allows us when people when we talk about embodiment, when we talk about grounding, this is the first thing to do. Touch and notice how you can do it anywhere, anywhere you're having coffee with a friend. I guess nobody on a phone call, exactly on a date, and we want to make the bottom part of our body heavy. A lot of empaths I work with are like I didn't even know I had a bottom part, right? Because we're always up here leaving ourselves, anyway. Thank you so much. And I'm happy to keep dropping these little, there's a whole bunch of easy, very easy ways. Don't be afraid, don't be.

How To Follow And Join Us

SPEAKER_00 56:03

Thank you so much, Claudia. Um, we will bring more into these lovely tools in our episodes. So this brings us to the end of our episode today, and we will continue next time with another chapter. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 56:18

Please follow, share, comment, engage, subscribe. We want this to be a conversation. We also have a channel. I have my own channel, but we have a channel together. Grace, the name of our channel on YouTube to be found.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

It's the name of the book, Healing from Narcissistic. They can find us there. Leave comments if you ask, you want to ask us questions as well. We want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

We're going to do monthly podcasts on this, so please engage, subscribe. Remember, this is for us for sure, for you for sure, but it's actually for us to start bringing more consciousness just to planet Earth about these types of dynamics. So you're not just doing it for our little tribe here. We're doing it in the effort to buy your consciousness.

SPEAKER_00 57:08

Yes, yes, let's go to the new earth. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

Yes, bye bye.