Trauma Talks : With Russ Tellup

Breaking The Narcissistic Abuse Cycle

• rtellup • Season 2

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0:00 | 45:16

What if the “spark” you crave isn’t love at all, but your nervous system chasing relief after chaos? We break down the narcissistic abuse cycle step by step—love bombing, devaluation, discard, and hoovering—and connect each stage to what’s happening inside your body. The result is a clear path out of confusion: you’re not attached to the person; you’re attached to the internal state they temporarily create.

I share how intermittent reinforcement rewires your brain to seek tiny rewards and call it connection, why goalpost-shifting erodes self-worth, and how apologies without accountability keep the loop alive. We dig into the physiology of hypervigilance, the chemical highs of cortisol and adrenaline, and the false equation of intensity with safety. Then we pivot to practical healing: stabilizing your nervous system, relearning what safety feels like, and replacing drama with presence using simple somatic tools.

You’ll also hear how grief fits into recovery—mourning the fantasy of who you hoped they were, not just the relationship itself. I offer concrete steps to navigate the collapse phase after leaving, build boundaries that stick, and rebuild a life where calm becomes your default setting. If trauma can echo through generations, healing can too. Let’s choose the version of love that is steady, accountable, and kind.

If this conversation helped, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs clarity, and leave a review so more people can find trauma-informed tools that actually work. Your story might be the lifeline someone else is waiting for.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey guys, welcome to Trauma Talks Live. My name is Russ. I am your host. I am a trauma-informed somatic, sorry, somatic trauma-informed coach. I'm also a certified brain spotting practitioner and a hypnotherapist. Um, this podcast is designed to educate and to encourage and to empower uh those who've experienced trauma, who are beginning to be awakened to the fact that they have experienced trauma. Um and this this is to help you understand your nervous system better uh so that you can leverage that information to live the best possible life that you can, because ultimately I have experienced just about everything. Um, and I don't want you guys to have to live the life that I did. So anybody I can help wake up to trauma and wake up to the effects of trauma on your body and why you feel the way you feel, um, then I then I have succeeded my mission. So my mission is to elevate the well-being of my community, and my community is you guys. So thank you for joining me once again. Uh, it's been a couple weeks since I've been on. Um, I've had some health stuff going on and um took some time off for the holidays. So thank you for joining me and coming back. Um, I uh realized during after uh uploading my last episode that I have not been uploading the audio version. So this is back on Spotify and all of those guys, um, all the different podcast platforms. So if you're not watching this on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or one of those, um, then you can check it out on the uh I just gotta go in real quick because I just realized my channels are incorrect. So let me fix that real quick. I think we're good. All right, cool. So anyway, um this is this will be the first one back on those audio platforms. So my my apologies to the people on the audio platforms. I don't have audio versions of the previous episodes since we've created um trauma talks live. And if I could figure out a way to rip those from YouTube uh to upload them for Spotify, I will or not just Spotify, but all the different whatever platform you're listening on. Um, and my apologies. It was uh it was a mistake on my part. Um just fix one more thing here. This is a the fun part about doing uh doing stuff live. Um, my so my apologies. My apologies for not not uh remembering to get this on those podcast platforms. It was uh mistake on my part, and it what happened was is we have gone to a new uh what do you call it? What would you call it? A new uh flow, I guess. So instead of just pre-recording these and uploading them on Tuesdays, um, what we've begun doing is recording everything live. So when you see me go live on Facebook, it is one of three things. It is either coffee talks, which is a little short, uh short form positive psychology type stuff, stuff to help with your healing journey, very short, about five, 10 minutes at most. Um, and or it will be the midweek check-in, which uh is also live. All of these are live streamed. So if you want to and want to uh interact, or if you have questions, or if you want to come on with me, uh you can just simply send me a message or or say it, you know, mention it in the chat. I will see it. And we were simulcasting on Facebook, in the men's um uh trauma unlocking group in the Colorado Springs Mental Wellbeing Club group on my personal Facebook page, as well as on YouTube. Um, and I can receive uh chats from all of those. So, or you can just send me a private message on Facebook that works too. Um, and then I can bring you live on and address your question, and you can be on the podcast and interact with me. It's a pretty cool feature. We're just testing it out. We've been doing it for a couple, we did it for a few weeks. The problem was I didn't realize that I wasn't uploading it to our podcast platform, so it just messed everything up. Unfortunately, all of those are simulcasted out, so it doesn't give me a recorded version, even though I'm recording one now, um, so that I can convert that to audio and then get that out to the podcast. So, anyway, my apologies for all the confusion and let's move on. I thought I would talk to you guys today about the narcissistic cycle of abuse. Um it's very specific in the way that it that presents itself, and it's it's interesting because for me year years ago, a couple of years a few years ago, this is kind of one of the things that that escalated my journey that really got me moving, right? What was hearing this laid out in front of me, understanding what it meant and what it was, um, and and noticing the similarities to some of the things that were happening in my life. So this is the cycle of narcissistic abuse. Um, it's it's the steps that basically happen. So one thing that I noticed in a narcissistic relationship was everything is cyclical, nothing ever has a beginning or an end. It it all loops through, and that's by design. And we'll get into why that's by design um in just a few minutes. But really, the first step um that a narcissist uses. I'm sorry, I just have my whole screen got taken over, couldn't see anything. The first step that a narcissist uses is love bombing. Um, love bombing can feel like you're being put up on a pedestal. Um, it can feel like sorry about that. Um, it can feel as though you're um you're being elevated way beyond where you should be. It can feel amazing, right? It can feel really good to have someone uh put you on that pedestal and just shower you with love and gifts and affection and sex and all the different things, whatever your love language is, they find it and they will drill into it, and they are the most incredible partner you will ever have. They are doting, they are affectionate, they are loving, they are giving, they're self-sacrificing, everything that you could imagine you want in a relationship, they'll become it. In fact, they'll become it to the point where they're unresistible, irresistible. Unresistible is not a word. So love bombing is that first stage, and and and what they're doing is they're sinking those hooks in, they're learning all the different things that they need to know about you in order to control you. So that is that first stage. And man, you feel you'll feel seen, chosen, pursued, intense attention, attention, very fast intimacy. You may find that you're having sex on the first date. You know, it's that that type of speed in the intimacy. It's it's they're locking you in, man. They're getting their grips in you. Um, it'll feel warm, it'll feel energizing, it'll feel like it's you're being activated in a positive way. You don't feel that alarming activation, but you feel an energy that comes up and wells up inside you. Um, your nervous system interprets intensity as safety, right? So that that intensity of that doting and that love bombing feels like safety and connection. What's actually happening, excuse me, what's actually happening is they're bonding you to a version of them that does not exist. This is a version that they created specifically for you. So after love bombing, and that can last months, it can last years, it can it will last as long as they need it to last to convince you that they are who they say they are, and to get you to bond with that version of them. Um after though, it becomes unsustainable. Somebody who's acting in this way have put you on a pedestal that's impossible to live on. They've made you the perfect partner. Why? Because they deserve the perfect partner and they don't deserve anything less than the perfect partner, so they create this persona around you that makes you the perfect partner. Let me just check the chat real quick. Uh, once again, guys, if you're watching this, we're recording live for uh trauma talks live. And uh one second. If you guys would like to jump on with us, give me one sec here, guys. This will get edited out for the for the audio version. Uh, we stream live on Facebook and several of the healing groups that I run, as well as on Trauma Talks Live's podcast, which is on YouTube. Um, up until now, unfortunately, when I switched over to this platform, it stopped working with the podcast platform. So I'll have to update all that. But let's get back to uh what we were talking about here. Um, so that that love bombing is intense, man. It comes in and it pushes you up on this pedestal. I remember saying, Don't put me on this pedestal, I'm going to disappoint you. And that's exactly it. That's exactly what happens, is they put you so high up on this pedestal to create the perfect partner so that you meet the expectation that they need you to meet to be good enough for them. They put you up on this pedestal so high that it's impossible to sustain, and you will end up disappointing them. And when you do, and it's nothing you've done wrong, right? That tension's coming from within them. But once they've reached that disappointment and they that you've fallen off that pedestal in their eyes and in their minds, they begin to go to devaluation. You can't be better than them, but in order to be good enough for them, you have to be better than them. You got to remember, these are wounded, damaged, hurt people, these are people with a lot of pain. These are not what's the word I'm looking for. Eventually, what's gonna happen is this person has such a high view of themselves, and as they start building you up on this pedestal to make to make you worthy of them, you begin to surpass them in their mind and value. And as that happens, here comes devaluation, and it's it's fast, but it's subtle. When it happens, it's like a light switch turns off and things begin to shift. There's more criticism, right? Where you used to be uplifted constantly. I just got a message.

SPEAKER_00:

One second, guys.

SPEAKER_01:

Sorry about that. All right. Um hey Kevin, if you want to jump on and just jump into the chat and you or into not the chat, I'm sorry, into the uh the comments on the video, and I'll see those comments in there. And if you'd like to jump on with me, and um I'd have I'd be happy to do that. Uh so back to that narcissistic abuse cycle and that devaluation. You might notice some withholding of affection, um, withholding of sex. Depending on what your love language is, it becomes a torture language. They know exactly the way you feel love and they know how to show it to you. They just did during that love bombing stage, but they begin to intentionally withhold it in a way that's meant to be hurtful. You start being compared compared to their exes, compared to their father, compared to your father. Affection becomes conditional. Well, the reason we haven't had sex in six months is because you haven't bought me flowers, or because you don't make me the priority of your day, or because we haven't spent enough time together. And then you try to make those things happen. You try to meet the needs that they have, but the goalpost constantly gets moved. In your body, you might feel some confusion, some anxiety. You might feel like a tightness or a or an energy buzzing kind of feeling in your chest. You'll be hyper-villa vigilant. Now you've gone from being up on this pedestal to falling hard. Now everything you do is wrong. Nothing you do is right. Everything you do is right is not quite right enough or wasn't done the way they wanted you to do it. The things you say don't matter, the way you say them matters. It's not what you're trying to get across, but how you said it. The semantics start becoming more important than the message. It it becomes anything that they can do to get under your skin, they gotta start doing it. Now, this is really confusing, right? You just came out of this stage where you were the center of their universe, and then all of a sudden you fall hard. We got a couple new guys or new people on. If you've just joined and you'd like to talk live, you can just type into the comments on the live video on Facebook. I should see those. Um, if you are in one of the healing groups, I apologize. I can't monitor those chats. So if you just send me a uh private message, I can get you on that way. Kevin, if you're looking to jump on with me, just let me know and I can send you that link. Um, so that devaluation, you you come down hard, man, and it can be impactful. It can be it can be really confusing because this person, this person who has worked so hard to prove to you that they are exactly the person that you need. Now it's switched. Now they've got you working overtime trying to prove to them that you're worthy of them. Eventually, it gets to discard or the threat of discard. This might be threatening you with divorce. This might be divorcing. This might be uh it might come on very slow or it might come on very sudden. Uh silent treatments are a really good uh example of discard. That's a that's a minor version of discard, you know, emotional withdrawal, breakups and getting back together is pretty common, and you'll understand here in a why. Cheating. Cheating is a big version of discard. Uh sometimes being very dramatic, trying to like force you away from them, pushing you away, really, really pushing away. Uh, sometimes very cold. You know, they they may act as if you're you mean nothing to them. Um, that's that's one of the most painful and hurtful ones. In your body, you're gonna feel shock, you're gonna feel defeat, collapse. You may feel panic, you may feel your heart beating a million miles an hour, your chest feeling like it's going to explode. You might feel a sick, intense sick feeling in your stomach. Um, all these things are are pretty are pretty natural and pretty normal. Your attachment system goes into emergency mode because you feel like you're losing your lifeline, right? They've created a bond at this point. Everything is cyclical. Everything, the conversations are cyclical, the behavior is cyclical, the relationship is cyclical. Everything brings you back through that whole trauma bonding cycle. And that trauma bonding cycle ends with hurt followed by love, breadcrumbs of love, followed by hurt, followed by breadcrumbs of love. That love is 99% of your day when it starts. By the time you get to this discard stage, it's like 10% of your day. It's still there. Just because you're in discard doesn't mean you're not getting little breadcrumbs of love because you are. Because as soon as they start to feel you pulling away, boom, here's a little love. There's a little love, there's a little love, there's a little love. What's actually happening is they regain control by abandoning you first. Um, if you were to say, I don't want to do this, I'm done, I'm out of here.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, give me one second.

SPEAKER_01:

I just got a message from Kevin. Oh, cool. Thanks, Kevin. I really appreciate that, buddy. Uh, so we're still trying to work out the details on how to make this uh trauma talks live platform work, but I I appreciate the the heads up, Kevin. If you guys are interested in jumping on with me, you can go on Facebook, send me a private message, and I can bring you on with a link. Uh, if you're on YouTube, you should be able to just put it directly into the chat and I can pull it up that way. Um, if you're on, I don't see anything on brain spotting. I don't see anything anywhere. So if you guys uh if you want to jump on, just throw into the uh the comments on the video and I'll pull you guys on. Uh so back to sorry for all the interruptions, guys. And in the uh audio version, we'll try to clean this stuff up a little bit. They are always the one that's gonna break up with you first and they'll rush at it. If you do. For some reason, begin to pull yourself away from them, they immediately go into the next phase, which is called hoovering or re-engaging. You'll notice as you begin to finally go, okay, this is just not gonna work. This is over. I'm gonna leave. This just isn't for me. And as you begin to pull yourself away, they feel that pull away from them and they go into hoovering, they come back or they beg you back, they begin to apologize, not with accountability, but apologize for the way that you feel. You might hear them say something like, I'm sorry you feel that way. Or they may say things like, I'm sorry, but I'm sorry, but it's not an apology. There's no accountability. They'll promise to change, they'll promise to go to therapy, they'll promise to go. Um, they'll promise just about anything. They'll they'll bring up nostalgia memories of the past. Um, they'll create a crisis, fake pregnancies. Um I see health avenues on there on YouTube. Thank you for joining us. Um, I'm sure now if you could put your name in the chat, I'd love to call you out. Um crisis is a big one. Fake pregnancies, uh cheating, another one. Um, when they when they come back with it, they could be they could uh I'm not actually cheating out of nowhere. I apologize. See, live video. Um everything becomes the end of the world. They'll create crises with the children. If you guys have children, illnesses, things of that nature. Um, they'll create crises in in your interpersonal relationship, again, like fake pregnancies or real pregnancies. Um the way it feels in your body is you'll feel some relief and dread. You know, as they uh oh hey Kevin, as they uh as they begin to come back and shower you with this familiarity of this love, this this side of them that you fell in love with, this side of them that um that that made you feel safety, right? Even though the intensity is not necessarily safety. As that starts to show up again after you've been feeling this this intense separation anxiety, right? As that trauma bond begins to be torn apart, you really it feels like you're dying. Um when they begin to hoover you back in, it can feel like relief. Oh, oh, they're back, they want me back, they they're back. She said she's gonna go to therapy, or he said he's gonna go uh to AA and quit drinking, or whatever it is, right? They they they make those promises of change and they make those apologies without any accountability. And the reason is to pull you back in, and it feels you feel that intensity again. So you start to feel some relief, but then in the back of your mind, you're feeling dread because you know what it was like last time, or the time before that, or the time before that, or the time before that. Remember, these are all cyclical events, these happen over and over and over. And the more times you live through this cycle, the more bonded you become in that trauma. What's really happening is the cycle's restarting. Nothing's changed. It's not because they really have decided to go to therapy and get help, it's not because they really have realized that they've got a problem that they need to deal with or some healing that needs that needs to be done. Um, it's not because they realize and finally feel empathy or pain for what they've done to you over the years. It is because their supply ran low. It's because you started pulling away and they were no longer being showered with the praise, love, and attention that they deserve. Their supply ran low. Like a heroin addict. Their supply ran low. You're their supply supply, you're their emotional supply. Causing you pain causes them pleasure, elevates them. So, trauma bonding. The cycle of this intermittent reinforcement, these breadcrumbs of love, as they start to push you away, and then when you start to say, finally, okay, I'm done, they pull you back in or they reel you back in. This is an intermittent reinforcement, the most powerful conditioning possible. The nervous system becomes bonded, becomes bonded to hope, relief, and the return to good. What happens is at 90% when they're in love bonding bombing, when 90% of your time together is amazing and they're exactly what they need and everything they want, becomes 10%, you're yearning for just five percent more. That little tiny five percent starts feeling like an award, a reward, and you're rewarding your system, your nervous system for staying in a toxic relationship.

SPEAKER_00:

They're rewarding your real uh it was a whirlwind romance, and she said I remember.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. Uh Kevin just said he had a long-distance relationship with someone, and it was a and she uh said he she sorry, excuse me. She said that he reminded her of his of her father, and it seemed like a big compliment. And then after about a year and a half, she broke it off and lied about it. Yeah, sorry to hear that, man. Um, trauma bonding becomes this conditioning, like I said, right? Those breadcrumbs of love are beginning to condition you to accept and accept more, more intense abuse, more blaming, all of it. Um, the biology is doing its best to survive unpredictability. You're constantly aware, your amygdala is just going, it's laser focus on trying to find the threat, and you'll find it everywhere. You'll find it in the way they walk, you'll find it in the way they talk, but you be drawn to it at the same time. It's incredibly strange. So here's the question that everybody is always asking why is it so difficult to leave? If they're so abusive, and they're so hard to be with, and they're so difficult, why is it so difficult to leave them? You're not attached to them. The trauma bond is not with them. You're attached to the state inside of you that they temporarily provide. Let me repeat that. You're not attached to this toxic partner, you're not attached to this person who feels like they have like their Vecna and they have your brain in a spell. You're not attached to them, you're attached to the way they make your body feel. You're addicted to chaos, you're addicted to pain, you're addicted to being treated poorly because it reinforces the internal belief that you are not worthy. Let me tell you something. You are worthy. You are worthy from the moment you were born, you had value, you are valuable, you are worthy, you are lovable. But they have spent all this time in this cycle trying to convince you that you're not, and not only that, but they're convincing you that the only way that you can feel valued, feel love, is by getting it from them, that they become your source of self-worth. So, what does that mean? What does that do for you? How does knowing this help? Well, once you can begin to stabilize your nervous system, detox your nervous system. Remember, this is an addiction. It's an addiction to cortisol, to adrenaline, to these hormones that run through your body and keep you in a constant state of awareness, constant hypervigilance, waiting for the next ball to drop. Walking on eggshells. Do you walk on eggshells at home? It can be exhausting. The biggest thing you can do to start healing your nervous system from this kind of abuse and this kind of pain is to begin stabilizing your nervous system. And the way you can do that is by relearning what safety feels like. There was a point in your life where you felt safe. There was a point in your life where you knew what safety feels like, hopefully. People like me, I didn't know what safety felt like until I was like 44 years old and began healing. I had no clue what safety felt like. I couldn't tell you. And it's difficult today to even do so. Our bodies are trained and our bodies are wired, and our predisposition is toward the negative, toward the pain. Uh when you leave or terminate a relationship, aha. I'll bring you on here in just a second, Kevin, and you can give us a quick rundown of what you're doing with Toss Catch Heal. Uh, Kevin, I did an episode with Kevin Halley a while back. You guys can go back and look for that. Um, he is founder of Toss Catch Heal, which is a somatic um experiencing program that uses juggling as a way to bring presence and do some of the same work that I do. So I'll bring him on. Yep. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Safety equals toss catch heal. I'll bring you on in just a second. We can chat about it, Kevin, if you don't mind. Uh stabilizing your nervous system, relearning safety, right? Without chaos, because chaos does not equal safety, guys. Just because she is paying attention to you, talking to you, or having sex with you currently doesn't mean that that chaos that surrounds her or him is love or is safety. Very different. Intensity is not love. Grieving the fantasy, grief of this fantasy that you created in your mind around who this person was. Grieving that because it's a loss and it feels like a loss, and it can feel like a death. I I just recently um wrote a chapter in an anthology with my good friend Chris Mimoney. Um, in fact, it was uh the graphic played right before the video started. It's called uh The Empowered Grief Journey. And when we originally talked about uh me writing a chapter in there, we were I was gonna talk about the grief of leaving a narcissist. I ended up talking about the grief of my father's death, which is interesting. You guys should check it out. Uh, this is it right here. It's on Amazon. Uh, it's being published elsewhere too. And there's a new volume out uh or new uh edition out. We had to make some changes. So uh, okay, so the grief of leaving someone like this, the grief of pulling yourself from that trauma bond, it feels like someone died. The the anxiety that comes with it, the anxiety as you lead up to finally getting out of it, it feels terrible. You need to grief, and that's where coaching comes in handy, helping guide you through that grief in a way that's healthy rather than guiding yourself in a way that's not, guys. So after you've separated yourself from this person, you might feel a complete emotional collapse. You might feel like you can't even get off the couch to leave the house. Anything except for your immediate surrounding feels unsafe. And this could feel really disordered, right? Um, I I want to I want to give you something that you can use to have a little bit more compassion with yourself during this time. I experienced this after my divorce. I I didn't leave this house for almost six months. In fact, that's when I started the podcast as a way to get some uh interaction with people, right? Uh was because I I wasn't leaving to get interaction anywhere else. I was I was almost uh excuse me, agoraphobic agoraphobic. In fact, I did an RTT session with my coach. Excuse me, because I was experiencing that agoraphobia. What I realized now is I had spent 12 years in a constant state of hypervigilance, waiting for that attack coming from anywhere, right? Um, any of you know my history and heard stories that I've told about my father, know the story about me lying in bed at about four six years old and him coming in as I'm sleeping and dumping the trash can on my head because I had not taken the trash out, right? That just constant waiting for you can't even sleep without having to worry about being attacked. It's very similar. Um, and when you go from that environment to an environment that you've created yourself that is that feels safe, an environment that is yours, um, and that solitude that you create in that environment for yourself in order to feel safety can feel overwhelmingly safe, and everything else feels incredibly dangerous. So you might find yourself sitting on the couch, not doing anything, not able to get the energy to even go out and go to the gym. Anything outside of the house feels nearly impossible. I had friends that got pretty pissed off. You know, they're like, uh, hey man, I thought you were gonna come play golf with us today, or hey, I thought we were going to lunch, or hey, I thought we were going to this festival or whatever it was, and I would bail on them just about every time because I just didn't feel safe anywhere but my living room. If it's normal, it's your nervous system reacting to the feeling of safety. Safety doesn't feel safe for someone who has either not experienced safety before or someone who's had that safety taken from them for a long period of time through the cyclical abuse of narcissists. So I hope today was really educational for you guys. Like I said, when I received an email about three years ago with this basic outline of what narcissistic abuse is um and how it affects you. And it was um eye-opening for me. It's what started, ooh, that is way too bright. What started my journey of healing, it's what really got me going and got me watching videos on this stuff and starting to understand it. And it's what got me to go to school to get certified as a coach to begin with. It was it was it was a light bulb moment reading that email. And I'm hoping that after watching this video today, you guys also have a light bulb moment because it can save your life and it can save your children's life. You know, it's if if if trauma can be passed down generation to generation, so can healing. So let's start becoming the healing instead of the trauma. All right, I love you guys. Take care, and we will see you on the other side. Take care. Thank you. Let me grab a link here and we're gonna let Kevin talk to us about uh let me see here. Kevin, I'm gonna throw this into a Facebook message so it's a private message. Um, give me one second. If you just click on that link, buddy, it'll uh it'll let you right in. If anybody else is interested in jumping on with us, um feel free. I can send you guys a link. Just send me a uh a message in in the chat. Um, easiest way to reach me in chat is through the YouTube channel. So if you uh if you can do that, Kevin, if you can just click that link, buddy, we can get you on. Um if you uh just send me a message through the YouTube video, just make a comment on the video and it'll pop right up. Uh alternately, you can send me a message on Facebook. Um, that's probably the easiest way because then I can send you the link through Facebook uh to jump on. Uh, we're just gonna wait for Kevin for a few minutes. Um, man, I hope that this episode this week was was really enlightening for you guys because this is the type of topic that really cracked the world open for me. Um, you know, it's it's a little longer video than we typically put on. We've been on for about 40 minutes. Um, usually we're on for about 20 to 30 minutes. So uh thanks for those of you who are still on. Thanks for for joining us and staying on with us. We're gonna give Kevin just a couple more minutes. Hopefully, he can jump on. And obviously, this will all be edited out of the audio version when we go to throw it on uh Spotify and all of those uh podcast platforms. This is the fun part about doing stuff live, you know. Just can't give Kevin a couple more minutes and we'll edit out the the silence part later. Um going forward, guys. When you see this pop up, I'm gonna try to get it on an actual production schedule so that you guys know when I'm gonna be going live and when that way you can come on and interact either through Facebook or uh or YouTube. Uh I do broadcast simulcast to several different places. So this goes out on my mental well-being club group. Um, that's the Colorado Springs Mental Wellbeing Club on Facebook. So if you're interested in joining that club, it's a pretty interesting club. We're going to be doing some meetings locally uh where you guys can can join us for some positive psychology education as well as some trauma based education to help create a trauma informed uh community. in Colorado Springs. If you're interested, I'll be doing these uh as well, these these meetings um live. So I'll be streaming them live to those groups using this platform. Uh these will not be streamed live to YouTube. So if you're interested you'll have to come out and check me out on uh give me one sec here. No worries, Kevin. I'll I'll wait for you. I'm just telling everybody about the the mental well being club. So um if you guys are interested in your viewing on on YouTube, you'll have to look it up on Facebook. If you look it up on Facebook, you'll be able to get that simulcasted out that first meeting on March 7th. It'll be March 7th down at Mount Carmel Veteran Service Center or here in Colorado Springs. That's off of Communications Drive down by 8th Street near Motor City. We're gonna start at 10 o'clock we'll have a couple speakers. I've got Frank Sinclair uh he is from the Be Empowered group he's gonna come out he's a motivational speaker as well as a business coach and then we've also got Bob Landry Bob will be coming out he is also a business coach as well as does some mindset coaching things of that nature. So he'll come out and do a a talk uh to give you guys some information kind of the stuff that he does and then I'll be out there as well I'll be doing a about a 45 minute talk um and it'll be specifically geared toward men's mental health. Now that does not mean that if you are a female you can't join us. I would love for you to join us. It would be great for you to understand men's trauma a little better. It would help you understand some of the reactions you may be getting from men. It would just help understand men a little bit better. And there's nothing wrong with that. If you're a woman and you're uh with a man that you would like to see come and join us you bring them you know bring them out it's free breakfast. This first one is absolutely free there won't be any cost for it. Going forward we'll have a small cost like 15 20 bucks something like that to cover the cost of the food and the venue and all the volunteers and um all that stuff so uh but uh this first one is absolutely free March 7th down at Mount Carmel uh we're just waiting for I just saw this from Chris I've experienced a high level of narcissistic behavior from people over the years and what most people miss is that it is very subtle and backhanded. They are expert at using manipulation to shift things in their favor. They also move the goal post constantly it's absolutely true Chris I'm not sure if you're still on with us but 100% brother it's uh it's brutal um that goalpost thing when your value and worth becomes performance based right so your value and worth becomes based on what you're providing them if they're constantly moving the goalposts so that you can never attain what they're trying to get you to attain it's painful right if if your entire focus is to try to make them happy but you can never make them happy because they keep moving the goalposts and you can never quite get there it can be incredibly painful. Not only that but your value just feels completely worthless. You feel worthless when your value becomes helping them Jessica question why are narc individuals why narc and why do narc individuals often feel unsafe when they're not in control that's a very good question. Narcissistic people have to be in control because they cannot allow their what's the word I'm looking for their persona that they have created they they cannot allow that persona to deteriorate in anyone's eyes if they're in control they can they can protect that persona when they're not in control that persona can dissolve. When they're not in control they they can be found out that's a big one that's a really really big one thank you for asking that question Jessica I really appreciate it. And I apologize I didn't get to these earlier guys I didn't see them um I guess if I had been oh because it's only read only unfortunately okay bummer I'll have to be better about watching those chats when the on the future episodes thanks so much for being on with us guys I really appreciate it um unfortunately it doesn't look like Kevin is going to be able to join us so we'll do that another time maybe next week when we record um I'm going to try to record at the same time every week I'll get an actual production schedule out um here in the next week or so I'm gonna try to try to be a little bit more consistent in 2026 uh doing things the right way you know what I mean so thanks so much for joining me guys I really appreciate it you're the reason I'm doing this stuff so um take care and uh have a good one bye