The KEY Differences Between Narcissists and Emotionally Immature People

In today’s world, the word “narcissist” gets thrown around so much that it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s just part of the noise. The truth? Not everyone who hurts or struggles with empathy is a narcissist. In this episode, we cut through the confusion and unpack the key differences between a narcissist and an emotionally immature person, so you can see the dynamics clearly so you can decide whether this relationship is worth your time and energy or one you should let go of. 

✨ If you’ve been caught in the guessing game, this conversation will give you the clarity you’ve been craving. Click play and get clear!

For FREE Resources, Book Link, KB's Self-Love Merch Shop, 1:1 Mentoring and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

The reason why I wanted to have this conversation today is because, you know, I spoke about this the other day. Here a narcissist, there a narcissist, everywhere a narcissist. It's like everybody who does not handle a conversation effectively or has difficulty taking responsibility or is lacking empathy or appears as lacking empathy is considered a narcissist. And the narrative out there is run, run for the hills, don't look back, cross all the streams, hike up all the trees, do everything you need to do to get it get away from this person as quickly as possible. But in true Kristen Brown fashion, and I will say this is this is just me. I've always been this way. I watch this stuff, I study this stuff, I pay attention, and for some reason, one of my spiritual gifts is to see the nuances between all of this. And I know that sounds weird to you, but I just study human nature. And my inner knowing will drop little flags and be like, yeah, not sure about that. Not sure about that, not sure about that. And so with that being said, and having dealt with the both of these types of people in my life, I realized there's a lot of key similarities, but there's a lot of differences too. And I wanted to break those down for you today because if you are indeed dealing with a true blue narcissist, they're likely not going to change. And I'll get into that more. But someone who is emotionally immature quite literally has not matured in that department yet. And they may have some coping strategies, they may have some manipulation strategies that they use when it gets hot up in here and somebody's calling them out and they don't like it because it doesn't feel right, they don't know what to do with it because quite frankly, they have never learned. But having dealt with both individuals and learning what I've learned, I realized, hmm, with an emotionally immature person, they can actually heal and grow. Where a narcissist, it's highly unlikely. Because when you're dealing with an emotionally immature person, it's gonna shock some of you. It's an innocent, naive place. They just don't know any better. So we end up expecting them to be someone other than they're not. I'm talking about the emotionally immature right now, and they're not because they haven't learned that yet for whatever reason. Likely they weren't raised that way. But many of us weren't raised that way, depending on what generation you're in or what kind of parents you have. But we can learn it ourselves. But some people, they just keep doing what they've always been doing because somehow it's been quote unquote working for them, or they think, or when it stops working for them and someone leaves them, then they think it's for another reason. They don't really understand what's happening here. So I want to break this down for you guys today. I'm going to ask that you open your heart and your mind. Don't take every word I say literally. I want you to go into your essence, into your inner knowing if you are dealing with somebody like this in your life and really ask yourself some true questions. Because I will tell you something, even though my narcissist and my emotionally immature person, there were some overlaps, there were some key differences that actually gave me hope and actually helped me to handle that situation differently. And then the emotionally immature person started to grow and everything started to change. But that wasn't true with the narcissist. With the narcissist, it's really kind of flat, dead in the water type situation. I think it's important to know that there's a difference. All right, so one of the first key differences is intent versus impact. So a narcissist will often intentionally manipulate, control, or exploit another individual. The operative word is intentionally, they know what they're doing. My narcissist even said to me way early in the relationship, they said, I know how to say what people want to hear. I know how to get people to do what I want them to do. Many, many years ago, I I it flagged. It did flag, it pink flagged me. I was like, oh, that's kind of weird. But I didn't really think much beyond that. I just, well, maybe this is just a skill. I don't know. I didn't really know, again, innocent and naive on my behalf. I didn't really know what that meant. Well, time went on, they ended up to be a true blue. So it's often intentional, where an emotionally immature person might hurt others unintentionally due to their lack of awareness and emotional regulation or relationship skills. It's not calculated or malice. It's not calculated malice. They're not being sinister purposefully for a gain. Huge distinction. Huge distinction. One is intentional, the other is not. Now, that doesn't mean that either one of them is going to be quick to take responsibility because, first of all, the narcissist is going to turn that around on you somehow, somehow. But an emotionally immature person can do that too. They may turn it around on you as well, but I want to get into more before I unpack that part. So when it comes to self-awareness, the narcissist rarely, I want to say, in my case, they never did, take response, true responsibility. They'll deflect, deny, they'll gaslight, they'll avoid you, they'll abandon you, they will get physically violent with you, they will convince others behind your back that you're crazy, that you're nuts. So if you go to try to talk to somebody else about it, they're going to be like, oh yeah, well, I already know about you. Because people, sometimes people, especially family members or close friends of the narcissist, they believe that narcissist. They've been sucked in by that narcissist as well. The narcissist has used the same strategies on them. So they're really good at their game. They're con artists. I'm seeing a lot of love coming up on the screen. I think you guys relate to this. They're con artists, they know how to work the system. And they know, you know, they often have really believable affects, which means their facial expressions, their affect. They also have believable tones and emotions and all this. So they can talk people into. I remember that in this particular case, my Narc, who was just doing all the things, you guys, all the things. And I went and spoke to his parents. They looked at me sideways like, yeah, we know about you. And I said, Well, no, you don't understand. And I started to give them facts, like things that were facts that could be proven. They still kind of shook their head at me and sort of fluffed me off. And I thought, wow, he got to them. He got to them quick. He got to them before I even knew there was a true problem going on here. You see what I'm saying? He started this narrative a long time ago. So that when I had this conversation, or if I ever had this conversation, that conversation was very difficult for me. I was scared because it was very confrontational and I was gonna have to talk about their son. And I did it gently and kindly, but I was fluffed off like I was the Mad Hatter. That was really eye-opening for me. That the person was not like, yeah, I know our son can be like that sometimes, or he's done that with us, or I understand what you're dealing with. Nothing. It was the polar opposite, which really, really shocked me. And then came the statement, he's our son, we'll stand behind him no matter what. And I was like, oh boy. So obviously, this is why he is the way he is, because they've never called him out or held him accountable. Does that make sense? Which is often the case when it comes to narcissists. But emotionally immature person, this is important, it's the self-awareness piece, may eventually acknowledge their behavior, especially with support and guidance and lack of shaming. We've got to be very delicate and careful how we handle that with them. But they will often struggle in the moment. And this is what I found with mine. When my emotionally immature person, there's been several in my life, did the thing. If they were getting toxic in any capacity, I removed myself repeatedly. But I started to understand because I, like I said, I study this stuff, I'm aware of this stuff, I look for information out in the world that rings true. You guys hear me talk about that all the time. I just don't believe everything I hear by any means. And I started to say, you know what? I don't think this person is a narcissist, because trust me, I thought they were. And I was like, there's something there's something, let me try to do something different and see if I can get a different result. And I did. Because they are willing. They may struggle in the moment with that self-awareness and take your responsibility because uh they are wounded and it's their hidden shame that is blocking that. They've never looked at it before. No one's ever called them on this before. They didn't know healing was a thing, they just think you're acting crazy. But then comes those little moments of clarity and you see it, and they take responsibility even though it's minute. May not be a big, blown-up, massive, that is so my bad, I will never do this again, etc. etc. They may not do that, they may just say, Yeah, I can see what you're saying. That might be it. But when you see even something that small, you're not dealing with a narcissist, you're dealing with an emotionally immature person. Okay, the next one is empathy. We all know about this one, right? If you've studied anything, read, read, researched anything about empathy, you're gonna see that a narcissist lacks genuine empathy. Period. Full stop, end of story. Shut the door, turn the lock. They may fake empathy when it benefits them, but they lack it. My narcissist, get this. Again, I didn't know what this was. I broke my femur. I went riding my quad with my brother. I hadn't been riding in a long time. It was a very strange accident. It was nothing that I was doing crazy. Anyway, I won't tell the whole story. I've told it before, but anyway, I broke my femur. I was air-eved, helicoptered out of this area that we were in because the ambulance couldn't get to us. They rushed me into emergency surgery. Actually, the doctor said that he's pushing back a surgery that he had scheduled in my osteoctor, my bone doctor, and he said, I'm putting her first because this is an emergency. My leg had swelled up probably, oh god, four times, five times the size that it was. It was filling up with blood. They didn't probably know if I had cut my femoral artery. I think I would have bled out and died already because it takes like 90 seconds or something like that if you cut your femoral artery. And I didn't do that, but my my leg had swelled massive. It was huge. Anyway, they gave me the surgery. But I heard from one of my girlfriends who also dealt with this type of person. She was someone that worked with me in the salon I owned at the time. And she said, you know, I just want to tell you something. He paced the floor and acted so annoyed that he had to be there. Not like, oh my gosh, I'm worried. How's my love of my life? How's my person? I hope this is okay. What does this mean? Let me Google some things. I'm scared. He was annoyed. She said he looked annoyed. Now, this was so early in our relationship that I hadn't really seen that yet, but I took note. I took note. And this is why sometimes for you, you may bring something to a person that you're seeing and they don't see it yet. There's reasons why they don't see it. Sometimes we just have blinders on, and sometimes it's just we just don't see it. Here's the thing though, my my inner knowing believed her. I believed her, but I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what this would turn into. I didn't understand any of that, but there was no empathy. Where the other one, the emotionally immature person, I saw their empathy all the time. And what maybe not all the time it was coming to me. A lot of times it had, but I'd seen it with other people as well. And I thought, okay, so you can't check mark the lack of empathy box with this person, although they were doing some of the manipulation strategies like deflecting and gaslighting and things like that. I thought, hmm, there is empathy here. There is a genuine care and concern and a showing upness. So I started to really pay attention. I really hope you guys get value from this today because I'm all about healthy relationships. That's my core. I want everybody to be happy in the relationships. I want us to all have the most amazing relationships where we're loved and loved back equally, that we're valued and valued back equally, that we both put the equal amount of effort in, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This is one of the ways that we can figure out if our relationship is doable or if not. So the emotionally immature has some capacity for empathy, but they can get overwhelmed, please hear this, overwhelm or self-focus and can't always access it. Mind-blown moment. Because that's what I was dealing with. When they got overwhelmed emotionally, they turned into a viper. Having gone through other relationships where people were acting like that, like that similar to this and different than this, and all the other things. I started to weigh up against this and I thought, all right, it's that it's that overwhelming. This is the moment, this is the key moment. So you need to become a detective. Pay attention. Stop taking every little thing they say personally. You guys must know this. And this is something that I people might be sending me hate comments from this, but when you can remove yourself and you can look at these situations and say, this person is wounded, this person has a disorder if it's the narcissist, this person is emotionally immature, they're doing the best they can, they're acting ridiculous, but this really isn't about me. And that helped me. Peter Carrington said, Yep. That helped me considerably because I stopped taking it personally, no matter what they said. Because I started seeing the reasons and the whys behind the situation, and they were emotionally immature. So it made sense to me. Oh, this isn't about me. This person actually loves me, believe it or not. And because a lot of times people will say, that's not love, that's not love. That doesn't mean the love's not there, it means the person's unhealed. So I stopped taking it personally so I could be in observance mode. I just watched and paid attention, and because I started to gain information around these things, I started to do things differently. And I'll I'll again I'll tell you more about that in a bit. The next one is growth potential. Huge. Are you ready? Narcissists are unlikely to change unless highly motivated. And even then, it's rare. Now, Dr. Romani, she is like the leading expert on narcissism. She's all over the internet or all over YouTube. She will tell you that. And this is where when I was dealing with something with an individual in my life, I really had to think about this. I was like, okay, is this person a narcissist or not? They're not going to change ever. Do I need to just not have them in my life anymore? Like, what's going on here? Because she said that, but this was the defining moment when I knew there was a difference because my person started to change. There was growth potential. It was slow, it was small, but they were changing, and I know that the narc doesn't. And I said, all right, there's something, there's a distinction here. And we need to understand this because this narcissist narrative is way out of control. It is just off the charts. Out of control. So they're unlikely to change. Uh, they resist the introspection because it threatens their fragile ego, their self-esteem, their worthiness, all of these things is very, very fragile. Very fragile, which is why they seek to get so much validation. I will tell you this. This was interesting. Again, not knowing what I know. Second husband, we got married here in Arizona. His parents in upstate New York wanted to throw us a like a wedding reception with all the people there. So we flew back there. Now, this is our wedding rite. We should be by each other's sides. Um, he should have his arm around me, proudly introducing his wife, because the first time he's ever gotten married to all these people. And he sat around, I remember this, standing in a circle with a bunch of people, just the grandiose look at me, what I do for a living. I'm amazing. All about him. He didn't even introduce me. He didn't even introduce me. So I tried something. I backed up from the circle about two feet to see if he'd notice. Nope. He's holding court. I backed up another two feet to see if he'd notice. Nope. He was holding court. I went and sat down on a picnic table by myself for probably 30 to 40 minutes. Nobody came over to me, and he never turned around. Just holding court. This was our wedding reception. See what I'm saying? I mean, again, I didn't know what I was dealing with. I know it was not okay, but I didn't know what I was dealing with. And I was like, whoa. And I was trying to be in on the conversation. I'm not, I'm not a brat, okay? I don't go, I'm gonna go pout in the corner. I was testing. I was wondering what was happening here. I didn't know what this was. It was very, very shocking to what I had expected it would be like based on how this person turns on their charm. Well, again, I just remember thinking he's holding court, it's all about him. That was the extent of the information that I had at this time. And it was hurt, it was hurtful, it was painful. That's what I mean by, you know, they really want to be the ones that are in the center of attention. Oh, yes, oh yes. The growth potential of an emotionally immature person, they can grow. And they can develop emotional maturity, especially when confronted with consequences or given tools to change. Massive, massive, massive. The growth potential of an emotionally immature person is that they can grow and develop emotional maturity, especially when confronted with consequences or giving tools to change. So, what we can do when the emotionally immature person pops up, when we touch that wound inside of them, because I'll gotta give you this background first: that we are all the walking wounded, we have all experienced some some type of trauma drama in our past that has tainted us, hurt us, has left a belief system about ourselves that we are not enough and that there is something wrong with us. So when we bring constructive criticism, feedback, critique about how our experience of them, and they blow, the minute we do it, that's because we've touched the shame. And thank God I'm hearing other people in the world talking about this now. We need to get this narrative out there more. There's healing and unhealed people. That's all there is. Okay. And if they're not yet healed, that's what happens. It's the knee-jerk response. It's a panic feeling. I've talked about triggers before. And this person will go directly into defense and fight. They're going to try to make you wrong. That again looks like a narcissist. Where we're, oh my gosh, I must be dealing with the narcissist. Hold up. You could be dealing with just an emotionally immature person. Ask yourself, have you ever done that? I certainly have. Have you ever gotten super defensive? Does someone you feel that ping that like someone flicked you right in the center of your heart, and then you all of a sudden are defending and fighting over something? I have. So I started to look at that and understand, mmm, yeah, Peter says he has too. Yeah, I felt that feeling. That's because that's the wound that's being touched. That's an opportunity for growth. This is coming from me, who's all about our personal transformation and growth. But for someone who's not, they feel that feeling, they don't like it, and they start the fight is on. Or they abandon you, or they walk away. It could, it depends because I've had that too, where they just and walk away. And now they stonewall. Again, all traits that can look like a narcissist, but at some point, when they calm down, are they ready to have a conversation? Can they see what's happening? Now, what I did, if my people in my life did that to me, I would immediately remove myself. And I would do it one time, I'd do it a thousand times. The minute it turned toxic, nasty, abusive, ugly, I don't know, whatever it might be, even if it's just a raised voice, I would say something akin to, not these exact words because I'm not in the moment, but something akin to, okay, I see that we're not gonna be able to have a rational conversation right now because XYZ is happening, and I care about you, I care about us, and I want to talk about this, but this is raising my nervous system, and I know that we're not gonna get anywhere. So let's just take a breather or break, however you want to word this to your person, and we can come back and revisit this. Now, if I came back and revisited and the person did it again, I did the same thing, and I did the same thing ad nauseum until they were willing to show up to the conversation. We must, self-love tenant number one, respect and protect ourselves, but remember our boundaries serve other people. And that's the piece here where it says when they're confronted with consequences. The consequence is they don't get your time and attention when they're acting like that. That can wake someone up. Not anarch. They don't care. Okay, so you're ignoring me. I don't care because I'm out here in the world trying to get more attention. Okay, you're not talking to me, so what? Now I don't have to be called out by you. Do you see what I'm saying? The narc doesn't care. An emotionally immature person, all they although they may be great at that silence, okay, it's bothering them. It's bothering them because they do love you and they do care about the situation, but it may not look like it. And if you're the first person to fold, which was me historically, I was the person that would go back to them and back to the are you ready yet? Are you ready yet? More the same, more the same. I was just beating myself up. I learned to be patient. I learned for Mr. or Mrs. to calm themselves down and to approach me. Feel that 100%. Yeah, yeah. I had to become patient because I wanted to get, I call it going, I call it quote unquote getting back to happy. I just want to get back to happy. I want to get back to peace. Let's keep, you know, let's let's clean this up real quick so I can get back to happy. But I, again, being a studier of human nature and following patterns and all the things that I've done, the get back to happy didn't work. And I remember that in my first relationship, I didn't know how to hold a line. Not my first relationship, my first marriage. I didn't know how to hold a line. And so I would just get back to happy. So he never experienced any true consequences. And I believe he was not a narcissist. I believe he was emotionally immature. Had I known that, maybe the relationship would have turned out differently. I have no regrets. This is life. We learn and grow as we go. But I would just want to get back to happy. So I'd drop things or ignore things or, you know, try to have the conversation or, you know, I wasn't the one that immediately did all the apologizing if it wasn't me. I will tell you that. I wasn't like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, because a lot of times people pleasers in door mats, when the other person is mad, they will be the apologizer. Oh no, no, no, no. I know what's right and wrong. I know what's moral, I know what's ethical, I know what's kind, I know what's respectful. And so I would, I would not apologize for something that wasn't mine. Absolutely not. I'd apologize for anything that I did that might have contributed to it, but not just to stop the argument. I wouldn't do it because it wasn't helping anything. All right, so please know that it's through our consistent boundaries with them that they will start to realize, hmm, the hmm emoji. I don't get their time and attention when I act like that. Because the emotionally immature person sometimes, and I'm and I take this lightly, again, apply it to your situation or not, sometimes they don't mind the argument because they're still getting your time and attention. Somehow, some way, you're still sitting with them. So even though their shame was touched, you're still there with them. So that gives them some sort of strange satisfaction because you're still there. It must mean they really don't suck that bad because you are still there. See what I'm saying? I hope that makes sense. If it doesn't ask me a question, I'll I'll clarify that. But by removing yourself, thank you, Giancarlo. You said beautiful, very insightful. I had a feeling you guys were gonna benefit from this conversation. This room filled up really quickly. We got 200 people in like 10 minutes, so it was, I don't know. But anyway, thank you. I'm glad this is resonating with you all. When you pull back, remember this person loves you, not the narcissist. We're gonna talk about them, but this person loves you. They want to be in the relationship. This is painful for them too. They don't like all of this happening either. Okay, they just don't know how to handle it. And I remember one of my, I'll call them E-Is, emotionally mature person, said to me, I don't know how this is supposed to look. I don't know what to do. I took that to heart because I realized they didn't. Based on their upbringing and their circumstances and their relationship history, they really had no clue. So I stopped expecting them to have a clue. Yeah, I love that. That's honest. Yes, it was honest, Peter. Um, I met them with empathy and I understood they really didn't know it was like asking them to speak Japanese when they've only ever spoken English. I had to take that into account, that my level of emotional maturity was several levels higher than this person. This is not good or bad, you guys. This is not right or wrong. This is just being a person that has worked on this stuff my whole life, I understood things a little bit more differently. So I met him at that, at that understanding. And that's where this part says, or given tools to change. So when you can have these open-hearted conversations, maybe even Google things, but for the love of God, don't shame them when they start to see the light. And I mean that, don't shame them. When they finally say, Okay, my bad, if you shame them, they won't do it again. If you just sit there quietly and you say thank you, I appreciate that. Whoever this person is to you, add in an appropriate touch. Okay, whether if it's uh a child, a parent, a uh friend, a romantic partner, touch them in the appropriate way to your relationship. Whether you put your arm on their shoulder, look them in the eye, and with your heart say thank you. I really appreciate that. Say it from your heart so they feel that energy. Maybe rub their back, kiss their cheek, hold their hand, give them a hug, whatever's appropriate. You know what happens? It starts to sink in that I am safe to own my stuff. Okay, so that knee-jerk response of defense, oops, you've touched my shame. I gotta defend this, that starts to dissipate and they start to own more readily. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen in relationships. You know, my son is one who he's a quick owner, he'll own immediately. My bad. He'll say, My bad. And that got me thinking, oh God, oh my gosh, when he says that, that's that feels so good. There's no argument. There's no argument that ensues after that because I don't exploit. If someone says to me my bad, and I'm like, Well, it is your bad. Why do you keep doing that? That's terrible. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I keep going on, that shaming is gonna build more shame. And then they're not gonna want to own because it's going to feel bad. So when they own and you say, Thank you, I know it's hard, you guys. You want to just you just kick and scream because it's it's heinous to deal with sometimes, isn't it? It's very difficult to deal with sometimes when these people are having what amounts to an adult tantrum. That's really what it is. It's difficult to deal with that. Use your maturity. Extremely difficult, yes. Use your emotional maturity because you're a little bit ahead of them. Hold yourself back, restrain if they do own, hopefully they are, and you say, Thank you. I appreciate that. And then, when appropriate, because at first it might just need you need to say that. It depends. You have you have to feel this out for yourself. At some point, you can say, could we work on a solution to this not happening again in the future? One time I was driving back somewhere on a road trip, and I was listening to, I couldn't tell you who it was, but they were quoting the Gottman Institute, which is this big institute for healthy relationships. And I really haven't studied them at all. We say a lot of the familiar things, but I really value them based on what other people say. And I'm not sure if it was Mr. or Mrs. Gottman who were talking, but I think it was. It might have been, I don't remember. Sorry, I just don't remember. They said when the other person touched a wound to say, ouch. That's it. Ouch. And that was an alert to the other person. Oops, I touched their wound. Okay, because like I said, we have these wounds until we don't. And it's not our responsibility to walk on eggshells around somebody's wound. No, no, no, because that means the wound won't be able to heal because it can't see the light. All right. It's our job to recognize that. So it alerts the other person, and then we can go into I feel statements. Now, sometimes that ouch can be so great that you try to have a conversation and that person just freaks out. Okay. This is a work in progress. Please understand it's a work in progress. Labeling them emotionally immature to their face is not helpful. It's something that maybe you just need to know. And you need to know what's happening here so that you can handle it differently. I hope this is making sense to everybody. So the ouch can start the conversation. Ow, that hurt. And then through conversations and with each other, one of the tools could be use an I feel statement. One of my EIs used to think sharing their feelings meant telling their opinion about what I did and why I did it. And I said, no, I feel statements is I feel rejected, unloved, abandoned, whatever it might be. Okay, I'm making these up off the top of my head. When a person can share their I feel statements, then now we know what we're dealing with. Oh, I just walked in the other room and the other person freaked out because I said X, Y, Z, and so-and-so used to say that to them, and then would abandon them. So their abandonment wound was touched. It's not me, it is the wound, and let's talk about it. And one of the best things we can do for helping people heal their wounds is to remind them where that wound came from. You guys know I always use Bob and Trish. Those are just my two names. Mike Dooley uses Trixie in somebody else. I love it. I thought that's a great idea. Just have two general names that I use for everybody. Say, where did this wound come from? And through these conversations, they can say, well, you know, when my so-and-so did this to me. And you can say, okay, Bob or Trish, let's say it's Bob. You can say, okay, so when this happens again and they feel that feeling, you can say to them, this is an agreement with them because this is once you start this whole process and people are starting to want to heal. You can say something to the effect of, okay, that was Bob, that's not me. Or is that me? Do I act like that, or is that Bob? Something along those lines based on, again, your relationship with this person, and we must remain calm because that wound has been touched. They're now in fight-flight. And if they're holding it together enough to talk to you about it, if you get heightened at all, they're gonna get more heightened. So stay calm. Neutral, neutral, neutral. Create spaces between your words, talk slow. Shockingly, maybe not shockingly, I've taught this to many people. When your EI person goes off, talk so quietly that you're almost whispering. Seriously. Watch what happens. It's fascinating. Now they may go, they may try to try something with um, you know, like why are you whispering or why are you talking so quiet? But most of the time they won't. It's never happened to me, and it's never happened to people I've taught it to. But what happens is by you remaining calm, I hope you can hear me. This is about how loud I speak. I speak very, very quietly. What happens is they get really quiet too. And you're not raising your voice or being loud, which is again threatening to the nervous system. That's why we go into a heightened state of nervous system when these people blow, because we're being quote unquote threatened. It feels the body feels threatened. So we have to, we don't have to anything. If you show so choose the mission, talk calmly, because you want to help bring them down out of their fight flight. Bring them down and you stay down here and you don't over-talk it. Say what needs to be said, get them to say what needs to be said. When it hits a resolution, you break. To over talk someone can confuse an emotionally immature person because, again, it's like throwing the whole physics book at them instead of just chapter one. Okay. Allow them to grow. Allow them to get headway. All right. I'm getting a lot of back channels from um, I don't know how to pronounce your name. Tha il literate. Tha literate, I guess. Okay. What when fight, flight is daily, the simplest things. Yes, I know. I trust me, I know. Um, are you talking about yourself or the other person? The other person is going to fight, flight, or you are? Okay. Oh, the other person is, yes. Okay, there's gosh, that's a big question for this. What really needs to happen is that person needs to understand what fight-flight is and that it's happening on the daily and is telling me that they are highly, highly wounded and they're living in survival mode. And they, what would be imperative is that they start working on calming their nervous system in all kinds of forms. There's many, many, many tools to do this. Meditation is huge. Putting, holding ice in your hands, doing the vagus nerve stimulation, there's breathing techniques or all these types of things, but they really need to heal. But again, they're going in fight-flight daily. I would ask myself, am I helping to perpetuate this or am I helping to them to come down? That would be my question to me. Am I helping to perpetuate this or am helping to come down? One of my children had extreme anxiety. Well, actually, two of them had extreme anxiety. And when they were in their anxious thing, it was frenzy. And if I joined the frenzy, it made it worse. So I learned, hmm, to bring them down, I gotta get very quiet and very soft and very gentle. And I noticed them coming down. Again, work in progress, work in progress. And then hopefully, when they come down, then you ask things like permission questions, like, can I would you be willing to hear my insights on this? Like again, non-tack, non-attacking. You know, I have this friend that was going through, and this was happening to them. Be creative. They then they said this is what was happening. I mean, could that be true for you? Do you feel like that's happening for you? And when they're called, they could be like, Yeah. Yeah, you know, maybe that is. It depends where they're at on the journey, depends how old they are. There's a lot of variables at play here. This is not one size fits all. Please don't even think that. This is about you, the more aware person. I hear that, I understand. Oh, thank you. I'm glad you understand. But again, not one fight size fits all. Move through this. Trial and error. And when something starts to work, double down. Double down. Do more of it. Oh, he's a hip-hop, he or she is a hip-hop artist. I don't know if you're male or female, or that makes sense. Male. Okay, I thought you were male, but I didn't want to assume because you were talking about a she. In today's world, I don't want to assume those type of things, and I want to be very, very, very respectful. Um, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense now. All right, um, patterns versus occasional behavior. Big, big, big. The narcissist displays consistent, deep-rooted patterns of manipulation, entitlement, and superiority. I also want to throw in some type of abuse. I think they are either verbally, emotionally, mentally, there's some type of abuse that could be going on here. Okay. So it's consistent. You're gonna see it all the time, as I did with who was my narc. Um the emotionally mature person, they may have inconsistency. Consistent reactions. They can be loving at times, avoidant at times, reactive at other times. They're very sweet and loving and kind, and then they're losing their mind over something small. Their behavior is unpredictable, but it often stems from fear or insecurity. So important to understand that. Hey Michelle. My favorite, favorite topic. Thank you so much. You know, I kind of I know that about you. And I was like, I hope Michelle sees this because I really appreciate this.

Michele: 40:45

Because I'm still trying to figure that out. Um, but what you just I'm and I'm taking notes, but what you just said, the consistency and the patterns, I gotta think about that one. Because and we're going to therapy, and when we're in therapy, I could I don't think he gets it. I you know, I look, I'll look at him when the therapist says something, and it's just like he's got this blank look on his face. Yeah. And it's like, I don't think he understands. So and I know he's wounded, I know that for sure. Yeah, and he uh he doesn't want to get in touch with that stuff. I think he feels if he opens it up, yeah, he's gonna cry forever or you know, something like that. I don't know what he thinks, but you know, it's just he resists that so much. And I do you have any tips for for me or anybody else going through this kind of thing? And we are going to therapy, and I'm like, yeah, I don't want to push. And like you said, when I do see a glimmer, believe me, I'm just like, thank you. You know, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I would never ever shame him, you know, because I know how that feels, you know. And I just I don't know what the next step is. I just feel like I'm stuck, you know. I just feel like I'm stuck. I want to say that he's trying. It appears he's trying. Yes. I'm gonna tell you, and you can come back. I because I don't want to cut you off and take up your time, and there's no one else in the queue. You can come back if I fill up too much time. But my I went to therapy with my Narc. All right. The drive there, ignoring me, nasty. We walk in the therapist's office, charming Charlie, the smile, the blue eyes, sat on the couch right next to me with his hand on my thigh. Okay, charmed the heck out of this lady. She ends up calling me controlling. We got back in the car, he went back to exactly the way he was. He turned it on and turned it off. And I thought, whoa. So the fact that yours is going and at least trying and leaning in and listening and not charming the therapist tells me that you're dealing with an EI. Okay. That's what I'm gonna say. Yeah, that's what I kind of thought, but how do I, yeah. Okay. And so when he does, when he does do, you know, the right thing or take responsibility, are you adding physical touch to it? No. Okay, add physical touch to it. Yes, especially for a man. Especially for a man, because we're this we're the sacred feminine, we're the divine feminine. That means more to them than we can possibly know. Right. And I've learned that I've learned that over time. So definitely the touch, a look in the eye, even if it feels weird at first because they were just mad at you or whatever. Go against that. Go against that and say, I'm going to bring the feminine to this hurting person right now and be that soft space that he can learn to trust. And the more that you do that, the the more he's going to be able to lean into it. Okay, okay. That's perfect. Yeah, I know that that that will work. Like you know him. I just there's such a type. And it's um, it's heartbreaking because they're little boys that didn't get what they needed. It is, it is. And I do recently just heard something, I think it was like Psych2Go on YouTube. They said, if your parents are in survival mode when you're being raised, which my parents were and his parents both were both of us, um, you don't get to learn these, you know, coping skills or emotion grow emotionally either. Yeah, it's just like I know, I know that because I went through the same thing. But at first, that's what bothered me. I'm like, I'm healing. Why can't you heal? But I shouldn't, you know, I can't compare his journey to mine. But at first it it did make me mad. But now I understand he's on his own journey, but it is he probably doesn't even know it's possible, Michelle. He probably doesn't even know it's possible, right? I think you're right. I think that's why uh when the therapist talks, he's just like, he'll be like, You can you explain that in a different way? And yeah, he just doesn't he'll ask that. Yeah, yeah. He does not.

Kristen: 45:14

Oh my gosh, Michelle, that's a great sign. Oh, okay, good. Oh, he's trying. Oh, sister, he's trying. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, he's trying. It's um makes me cry. I feel so much for these men that have this situation because they love us, they love you, they love, they want to be here and they have no clue what's happening. They really don't. It's so sad. Part of it's because they're not trained, part of it's because emotionally immature parents can't cannot raise emotionally mature kids, period. And also because they're taught not to be in touch with their emotions in the first place. Big boys don't cry. That whole gig. So they don't even know what the heck is going on. Like they're it's like a negative three. It's not even they're not even at baseline because they haven't even accessed their emotions yet. Mo, Michelle, there's so many tools I could give you to for this to help guide you through it. But uh yeah, it's it would be too much to say on here right now, but keep going. He's trying, but love him up when he does it. Even if it's just a little bit, put aside what it felt like to you. Don't take it personally. Love him up when he does that. This I've seen huge changes in relationships. I like massive, which I have now other people coming to me and saying, I can't believe how amazing this was this work. Work in progress. It's slow. Yes, we need praise. Peter said we need praise. Yes, men need praise. They absolutely do it. It does more wonders and can heal a lot of wounds that we don't even know are there. So even if they do something, you're you're even not in an argument, and they take the trash out. They walk in the door, plant a big one right on their lips, and say, You're the best. You always take the trash out. I never have to think about it. I do this with my husband all the time. I don't care what that guy does. And he's somebody, when we were first 80, we first moved in together, he did the dishes, and I looked at him, I said, Thank you so much. And he's he said, You don't have to thank me. What what if I believed him? Because me, knowing what I know, I said, No, I absolutely will thank you. Because I'm I appreciate that. And as the relationship went on, he realized I really like that. And and he does the same for me. And we we like we thank each other for making the bed. We'll detect each other. Hey, thanks for making the bed today. Yeah, thanks. You're welcome, honey. Lately been going to bed earlier than me because he's getting up really early to why to walk. And I come up there and there's my electric toothbrush and toothpaste on the counter waiting for me for when I come up. What do I do? Thank you for putting my toothbrush out. Every little thing that they do, and it's not just for men, but this is I'm it's switching the conversation to men directly. Men need this, especially from their women. Okay. We have the capacity to heal or harm men. Yes, I know they do with us too, but we have so much healing power. Uh someone on the wisdom channel once, when this was wisdom, got up and they said, and I believe then they said, women don't understand how much power they truly wield. And let's lose, let's use that for good. Use it for the becoming and the healing of our men, not for the manipulation of our men. I made a video recently and it was something about because you know, women are dealing with some things too, and we do need to have our appropriate boundaries. I will never ever ever stop saying that. Don't stay in the situation when it's happening, if it goes sideways and you're getting pummeled mentally or emotionally, opt out. I will say that till the cows come home. And when they come around, when they get something, then you praise and you show that they're appreciated. Okay, moving on. Um, thank you for coming up, Michelle. I know that you have been dealing in this department. I was hoping that you would come up like I think Michelle would really that was nice to be thanked. Yes. Okay, let me read some messages real quick. Um, I've been on such a roll here. Yes, yes. Uh Robin said, I wish there was an angry emoji button. That was referring to your ex-charming Charlie at therapy. His name is not Charlie, that's my brother's name. But yeah, it's it was again, you guys, I don't come upon, I didn't come upon the stuff I share on here lightly. I've been through the trenches, but I was wired from birth to figure it out. I think that's just part of my destiny, if you will. I don't know. Because I've out I've talked about, I've thought about many times, like, why am I like this? And nobody else that I know is. I think it's because I've just been wired this way. This is part of my spiritual gift to figure this stuff out. So these stories that I share with you, these are the things I went through over and over and over again in all kinds of ways, where I was like, what is happening here? And that light switch moment, had there at the therapist, had there been the narrative of this back then, it would have been very helpful. And I always pay it forward. I share what I know to try to help other people. But when she called me controlling, which by the way, what is the name of my book? The Recovering People Pleaser, I'm the last person in the world that was controlling. And I lost faith in therapist. I thought, how easily this woman was manipulated. And it it shocked me. And there was an um, there was a couple other good ones with other situations in my life after that, but that particular one I thought, what did you think? He was cute. I mean, what what the heck? It was just wild. It was just wild. Anyway, I'll get off that. So then the last two. I have been talking this whole time. How about I take a sip of water? Okay, um, and these are again the key differences is relationship dynamics. The narcissist needs to control, they need constant admiration and dominance. They seek relationships to serve their ego. What I always say is they're gonna find somebody that is going to basically be a people pleaser or a doormat that will be the overgiver. It's all about them. They wanna be in control, they want to be calling the shots, they want it their way. And when they talk about covert narcissism, it's kind of the hidden stuff. Your person could be doing it in a way that's very passive. But they're still doing it and you're still gonna feel it. And this is why being with a narcissist often feels like that metaphor of the frog in the water, where frog or lobster, if you put them in water, slowly turn up the heat, they won't jump out. But if you throw them in boiling water, they jump out because they notice the vast difference. When you slowly turn up that heat, that's what they'll do to you. You won't sometimes even know what hit you because they'll do it and they're so dang good at what they do because they've been doing it for a long time. Narcissism is learned, by the way. This is something that is learned how to do, but it works for them, so they keep doing it. They keep doing it because they don't really give a hoot about anybody else. When people leave their life, they go, okay, I'll go find somebody else. So this is why the consequences have got to be a heck of a Mac Daddy for them to really want to look at themselves. Because they'll they cash people in or trade people in like they're nothing. And that's one of the reasons why I did not have a huge healing time when my narcissist ex abandoned the family. I mourned the dream, but when he left, I was fine. But I mourned the dream that, you know, okay, I was one and done, here we go, you know, right off into the sunset and be happy together. It was the dream. I was starting over at 42. So I mourned the dream for 21 days. I woke up one morning and I was fine. And I thought, what happened? How many days? It was three weeks exactly. Because I was mourning him during the relationship. I was mourning us during the relationship because it was so nasty. And also remember, he was gone a lot. He was gone five, six weeks at a time. So I wasn't used to not having him around. It wasn't like this big empty hole. But I got over him fairly quickly because all of these things, even though I couldn't put the puzzle pieces together, they were all there. And they just felt wrong. They felt wrong. And that was the most important part. Now, in relationship dynamics with an emotionally immature person, they seek love or connection, but they don't know how to maintain it in a healthy way. They can be emotionally unavailable or dependent. Okay, process that. They will seek love and connection, but they don't know how to maintain it in a healthy way, and they'll they're often emotionally unavailable or dependent. That rings true for the people in my life that I've dealt with that were like that. Absolutely. It's important to think about this that they want to be here. They want you, they love connecting with you. That's all, that's all in there. That's good. But they don't know what to do with this. They don't know what it's supposed to look like. It wasn't modeled for them. They're not reading the books, they're not searching YouTube. Maybe some are, but most of the time, because they're emotionally immature, they don't even have the I don't even know how to word this, and don't take offense because I'm just gonna pull a word out, but they don't have the faculty, ability to even know that there's something different available because they've never experienced it. Human beings look at reality as or what we've experienced as reality. It's sometimes hard for an average person that doesn't study this stuff, think about this stuff, listen to this stuff, to go way out there that they can have the best possible relationship of their life. They don't even know it's a thing. They think this is as good as it gets. Sometimes educating them of the possibilities, and maybe every once in a while showing them a short or a reel or reading an excerpt out of a book to them, like when they when the energy is nice, throwing something on YouTube together on your TV and just saying, I found this video and it was really cool. Just to have conversations, these things can help to start them to start to see, especially if it's a man dealing with if you're dealing with a man, and when they see other men doing it. There's a lot of that right now out in the world. Jimmy on relationships is amazing. He's cute, he's funny, and he almost lost his wife and children because he was emotionally immature. He wasn't a narc. He was emotionally immature, and now he teaches it. He blew up on TikTok and now is blown up on, and rightly so. He's darling, he does the he dresses up in a wig sometimes. He plays the male and female parts. Jimmy on relationships. I tried to get him on here, y'all. I tried, I reached out to him and I said, Hey, I know this is a shot in the dark, but I I speak live on an app and I would love to come in and have a conversation with you. This is my wheelhouse too. I think we'd have a stellar conversation. Immediately responded, thank you so much. I am actually a stay-at-home dad between, you know, all of his other channels and stuff. He goes, I really just don't have the time right now, but I really appreciate it. And I was like, You're so cool. You are what I think you are. What a good guy, right? Okay, so but anyway, Jimmy on relationships, check him out. He's a good thing to show too if you're dealing with the male partners in this or even the female partners, because he does kind of bounce back and forth with that. Oh, yes, absolutely, Sean. Sean said, consider yourself fortunate and blessed because God had better plans for you and he wasn't part of the of it moving forward. Sean, I don't know if you've ever spoken before, but I'm gonna tell you this. I just had this conversation with an individual yesterday, and I've always said this, that he did for me, meaning my ex leaving, what I was unwilling to do. I had a little baby with him. I had a young and we were living in this massive house, et cetera, et cetera. The list goes on of why, right? He was gone five weeks at a time. It was doable, it was an overseas pilot, blah, blah, blah. But I always, always have said, I just said it yesterday to a client. I said the biggest blessing of my life was when he walked out that door and left me broke and homeless. Yes. The story's all over my stuff. You can go find it in my book. I won't tell the whole thing. Broke and homeless with three kids. Biggest blessing of my life. Because I hit the dirt, I hit the ground, and I said, I gotta figure out how to not do this again. And that's what unlocked this entire thing for me and why I give these talks to you all and support you all on your journey. Because there's really no new, there's no real new story. We're all experience very similar things. Having somebody ahead of you that says, I get you, I feel you, I know this, I understand, and here's how the choice becomes yours. Do I want to pick this up and carry this baton forward? Or do I want to sit back and play victim? I'm done playing victim. I decided that 15 years ago. I'm gonna do whatever I can with my power to change up situations and experiences. Victim isn't even allowed in. Okay, because I was a victim, quote unquote, to all these toxic, abusive, narcissistic, lopsided relationships, the whole thing, cheaters, drug addicts, alcoholics. I was I was a victim to all of that. And I chose, I made an about face and said, I'm not a victim, I'm a victor. And I carried, not only did I heal from that, but I carried it forward and said, I have more power than I think I do. And I, since I am the more aware one, am going to bring, I'm gonna try everything that I can because this other person doesn't know how to. Biggest blessing. Thank you, Sean. Yeah, he sent another message that says, Thanks. Most important thing is he left you alive and you're a survivor. God is good. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, and the last key difference is response to boundaries. The narcissist is gonna violate the boundary repeatedly and views them as a threat or an insult. That is so clear to me with Minarc. It was like a how dare you! Oh my gosh. There was just an energy about it that, like I said, he he looked like apple pie and ice cream, if you saw his face. Like I said, pool water blue eyes. Yeah, he shaved his head. He didn't have much hair, but he just had that smile and the lips and the blue eye, you know, he just looked like Apple pie and ice cream. So, but there was an energy about him that I could literally sense when I would speak up about something. Like it was like, how dare you get in my way? How dare you think that you're right or that I'm wrong? But it didn't always come out in those words, if you know what I'm saying. He was very, very covert. And I sense that too. Now, an emotionally immature person, they may react offensively, they may pout, but they have the potential to learn and eventually respect them. Which is I gotta back up here. Did I actually set straight boundaries with my narc? Nope. I brought up things, I wanted to talk about things, I wanted to work through things, but did I set boundaries? No. Not even when he was physically violent with me. Nope. When I say I was recovering, people please adore Matt, I am not joking. I am not joking. And I don't tell the details of those stories here. I have before, but yes, the things that happened, and nope, I just once the dust settled, I was back at it. Back in happy go lucky Kristen. You know what I'm saying? So no, I didn't even try to set the boundaries. I did try to have the conversations about the bad behavior. But he had such a a way with me. I'm trying to unpack this real time, that once it was quiet, I didn't want to bring anything up because the quiet was really good. Again, they're charming. There's a lot good about them. But the emotionally immature one, they may react defensively or pout, but they have the potential to learn and eventually respect them. And I had that experience too. When I said, look, this is not okay to be yelled at, to raise your voice to me, to whatever. I'm giving you the really, really short, condensed version of this, and I'm going to remove myself until things are calm. No one chased me down, no one got mad. They all respected it. There's a difference. And you're gonna see that with your person. You're gonna say, Oh my gosh, there is a difference here. If you are dealing with an arc, the statistic I wanted to give you about 45 minutes ago that I must have got sidetracked on is that trusting statistics and things in the world. I heard initially that only about 5% of the public at large are true blue narcissists. I have since heard that number, that statistic, go up to 25%. So let's just say somewhere between 5 and 25% of the population are true blue narcissists. Do we really know? I don't even know who's making up these numbers. Okay. I don't know. However, there's only a small percentage. So the chances are, oh, and I remember saying this on a live like a year or two ago, maybe last time a year or two ago, I said that, no, it was on a video on YouTube. I said, for the first hundred of you who are listening to this, only five of you have a true blue narcissist. The rest of you, the rest 95 of you don't. You're dealing with an emotionally immature person. And people don't like to hear that because they sometimes they want to be the victim. Oh, poor me, poor me, I'm just the victim. Well, this is where I want to ask and challenge you. Do you love this person? Do you want to be in this relationship with them? Are you the person that's more aware? Because if you are, it is your duty to bring that to the relationship. A Course in Miracles has this quote, I'm probably messing it up, but it says, whoever is quote unquote more sane at the time of upheaval, disagreement, challenge, it is their responsibility to bring the light to the relationship. I've completely paraphrased that. More sane means closer to awareness, more conscious, closer to their God self. That's what more sane means. All right? Conscious, aware, closer to their higher self. Whoever is more sane at the time, it is their responsibility to bring that to the other person. I took that to the bank. When I heard that, I was like, obviously, I'm the more sane one. Sane, again, not meaning mentally ill, more clear, if you will. I started, like I said, to work with things. I started to try new things. Let me see how this works. Now, in the meantime, was my nervous system going up and down and up and down and up and down? Yes. And I would meditate and I would deep breathe because I wanted to figure it out. And I knew that I could if it was figure out. I knew that I could. But it took this what you're hearing in this talk today, this 75 minutes that I've spoken so far, is because I've been through it. And I hope you take the words that I've shared to heart. I hope you listen to this on a replay. And I hope you reach out to me with any questions or even coaching. By the way, my Noom Vibers, I have a 40% off discount code for all Noom Vibers. Only. I do not offer this anywhere else. And that 40% off is Vibers Rock. V-I-B-E-R-S Vibers plural rock. Vibers rock. If you put that in at checkout, you won't see it until checkout. There'd be a place for a discount code. You write Vibers Rock, you will get 40% off every single time you buy a single session. So if you would like to dig into this further with me, you would like to figure out some more things, you got some questions, because sometimes I can't answer the questions on the DMs. It's too small, it requires too big of an answer. Then you can reach out to me for one-on-one coaching, and I'll be happy to uh mentor you and talk you through that situation. Robin, thanks for coming. Thanks for joining me.

Robin: 1:05:56

Hello, my friend.

Kristen: 1:05:57

Hello, my friend. How are you?

Robin: 1:05:59

Good. Thank you. Um, so you know that I have uh a narcissist of my own, but you know, for many, and it's hard, and people need to read through all the garbage because the internet is full of of everything. So I've I've feeling even though I don't want to be the person that's like, oh, you just don't want to believe it, you don't want to do this. But I truly believe that I have a relationship with an extremely emotionally immature person with narcissistic behaviors. So many things point out narcissists, narcisson narcissists. And you know, you watch all these social media posts and you can match it right up and all of that. The biggest things that I took away from the talk today is that, you know, yeah, you're you're right. I think it might be less than 5%, I think, is is true narcissism. Yeah. Um, mine is a spinal cord injury at age 17 and never really kind of matured after that and then tried to figure out how to negotiate his life beyond that. So do I have a sense of empathy for that? I do. But he doesn't hold a lot of the he has empathy for certain things. He's very giving. Um, sometimes it's for his own backpatting, let me say that. Um, kind of a deal. Like, you know, he wants to be known as I'm the giver, I'm the one that with the money, I'm the one that can do this, I can do that. But other times not, yeah, not so much. And you know, he's not mean to animals and he's you know very loving. And you know, animals are are good people that can tell people with a better heart, you know. I think I've always believed that. The difference between them, God, it the line is it's it's very, very thin. It's hard to tell. So I guess the best thing is to know yourself and you know, learn from the things that you've learned from people that you trust. Um, aka you and my new vibe, fam, and learning to love yourself the most and be your own peer leader and and be your own advocate and not necessarily rely on that. But I can see why I'm still um you know drawn to him and I have a love for him that is different now than it was before, but I still go through reminding myself of the times that I literally was just used. And sometimes I'm still literally just used. No, he uses me for an address here in Florida. I I don't care. Good for you. You know, you have physical address that you can say you're here for Florida. I I really don't care about that. It's when he takes other personal emotional things from me that are gonna be the the bigger, like putting up those, um, you know, turning me other people against me and making me look like the bad guy and saying I'm the crazy person and all of that. Just not true. I'm sorry, it's just not true. And I refuse to believe that. Not that I didn't, you know, I don't have to take responsibility for my own behavior, but I do. And that's the difference between us is I own it. I take responsibility for whatever I've done, whatever I've happened. But that story made me so angry about you going in with your leg um because when I had my shoulder and I fell, I waited all night long in severe, severe agony until the light of day. And then I woke him up and said, I need you to bring me the ER. And he brought me to the ER and he left. So live and learn, baby. Live and learn. I didn't even need anybody to tell me that he that this is what was going on. I literally saw it, did it, remembered it, plucked it in the file and said, I remember, I remember. And I bring it up, you know, not like I'm trying to be mean, but every once in a while I'll say, Well, you know, you did leave me there at the ER to deal with this by myself. And he's like, I did not. I had an interview, which you didn't even go to, buddy. So try to tell me. I'm like, okay, you believe what you want to believe, but okay. Yeah, it's it's no, you know yourself, know your own truth and and and rise above it.

Kristen: 1:09:54

Love it. Thank you, Robin.

Robin: 1:09:56

Thank you.

Kristen: 1:09:58

Great share. Robin said something a couple of minutes ago that was to learn to love yourself. And that really is the best. Uh I'm just gonna say defense, defense against the dark arts. Harry Potter reference. What that means is when we love ourselves truly, wholly, completely, we have filled our own worthiness cups, we have healed our wounds and continue to, we have made self a priority. We work on love, connect with, respect, protect self. You are better positioned to show up empowered if you run across this type of individual. You will show up in a different way. Because, like I said, back with the second husband that I had that was acting like this, it was the true blue narcissist, I was very powerless. Even though I'm a strong person, like I said, I've worked since I was 15, I've raised good kids, I'm such a capable person. But in that area, I struggled. I struggled for many reasons. But once I learned, which is what I learned post that era, that was my College of Kristen, when I learned how to truly love and value myself, that that was what was missing. That's what really gave me the foundation that I needed to show up in an empowered way when dealing with one of these type of individuals. Hey Jeannie! Hey, how are you today? I'm lovely, thank you, Jeannie.

Jeannie: 1:11:30

How are you? I'm good. I have you know about this situation, I think. I have a situation, I'm actually the third person, and I'm not really in it, but I'm very involved with one of the other two people. And I'm pretty sure that the woman involved is a narcissist. Nothing is ever her fault. She throws big fits, big emotional fits, and she talks about how bad she has it, and nobody understands like her, and she's too tired to watch her kid, and so the other person in the relationship ends up doing all of that for her. Now, he is an extreme people pleaser, I have no doubt about that. But I'm not ready to give up on the situation. I know there's a lot of love there, and I know there's very little I can do personally, but any helpful hints would be great.

Kristen: 1:12:30

Um, did you put into place anything that we had talked about earlier?

Jeannie: 1:12:36

I'm trying to remember everything we talked about. I did some of it. I didn't withdraw from the relationship.

Kristen: 1:12:43

Okay. Did you have more conversations about what's going on and all those type of things?

Jeannie: 1:12:48

I've tried to. I get shut down pretty quickly. So there's short conversations in little bits and not very frequently, which is really frustrating for me. I had one or two longer conversations about it, and I just was persistent and said, you need to listen to me, my feelings matter. And so he listened for a little while till I guess till he felt so bad he couldn't handle it, and then he just shuts me down.

Kristen: 1:13:18

The one thing that I can say here, and this is going to be up to you how you handle this, or if you even want to, is that is if he keeps getting the whole of you, the entirety of you, then he has no motivation to change because there's no consequence for the way he's acting. So why would he all of a sudden switch things up? Does that make sense?

Jeannie: 1:13:41

I guess if I'm being honest, I don't expect him to do that. The best I'm expecting is that he's gonna decide that he's had too much and force the situation and move away from there. We don't live in the same place. I think that's my best hope is when he decides to move here and away from her. So if you just not a girlfriend or a friend, it's a relative.

Kristen: 1:14:08

Yeah, yeah, I remember. So if you decide that you want to wait it out and be patient, then do so with peace. Because if you still in your brain fight the reality of the situation, you're only gonna put yourself in suffering. Does that make sense?

Jeannie: 1:14:31

Yes, it does.

Kristen: 1:14:32

Yeah. So if you're gonna if you've decided, okay, I'm gonna wait this out, then you may as well just wait it out in peace. Otherwise, you're gonna wait this out putting a lot of resistant energy on it. Hurry up, hurry up, he's gotta get it, he's gotta get it, he's gotta get it, and you're just gonna suffer the whole time.

Jeannie: 1:14:47

Right. That totally makes sense.

Kristen: 1:14:49

Yeah. So if you decide that you're just gonna wait this out until he gets it, because I remember the story clearly. If you are gonna, you know, wait this out until he gets it, then just say, you know what, this is the way it is right now, and I'm gonna accept this.

Jeannie: 1:15:02

Right. And I think that's where I have to be for now. Okay, and you know you best. Yeah, a lot of it comes with his sincerity and his love.

Kristen: 1:15:11

Thank you for coming up, Jeannie.

Jeannie: 1:15:13

You're welcome.

Kristen: 1:15:14

I want to say thank you to everybody who came into this conversation today. It was a very pertinent conversation. I hope that this really helped to clarify things for you based on the fact that this narcissist narrative has been pervasive in all of our social media platforms. And I did give you another resource, Jimmy, on relationships. He's on all the platforms. Start on TikTok, moved over to YouTube, and he's also on Instagram as well. Darling guy, so incredibly insightful. And there's also another man, his name is Man, his is at Man Talks. At that sign, man talks, T-E-L-K-S. And his name is Connor Beaton, and he wrote a book called Man Talks, I think is what it's called. I don't know, but anyway, he's amazing too. And he's over on Instagram. And both of these guides really focus on this topic and they can help you to really understand what might be happening in your relationships. Okay, because um Connor really talks about men, men's healing, because our poor men have been oppressed and ignored in society, and they really, they really, they really need our time and attention. Jimmy talks about relationships at a whole, but so does Connor. So go check both of those out. They're really, really great resources if you haven't met them already. This is definitely worth a re-listen if you jumped in later, because I go into let me see how many seven differences between a true blue narcissist and an emotionally immature person. Yes, there are overlap. Yes, there is places where they overlap a little bit. In fact, all narcissists are emotionally immature, but not all emotionally immature people are narcissists. And I think that is a very key thing to understand here when you're trying to decide what it is that you're dealing with in your person. And by the way, this could be male or female, and it can be any age. Not young kids, not young kids. They they could, I think it's developed in childhood, and it has to do with a lot to do with their environment and entitlements and parenting and all kinds of things. All right, you guys, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you. I love you dearly. I will be back again tomorrow, which is July 11th, 2025, for another episode of Empower Hour with KB. I really appreciate you being here. Thanks for all your interaction and your tons of emojis that have popped up on the screen the whole time. Just it helps me, the speaker, and I have other speakers too, to understand that you guys are relating to what we're saying, you get it or you appreciate it. So that's what community is all about is all of us joining together and supporting each other. And I love when you guys interact that way because sometimes not everybody wants to come up on the stage and talk, but you get to send up your emojis if you have an iPhone. And if you don't, I got a lot of back channel messages today too, and I appreciate you guys doing that. And I was able to address them accordingly as they came up. Of course, if you're interested in healing from people pleasing and resetting your foundation of self-worth, pop over and get my book, The Recovering People Pleaser. It is an international number one bestseller. You can find it on 40,000 main book selling sites, but you can also get it really quickly on Amazon. That among all kinds of other free resources, my YouTube channel, and I have quizzes. I have the self love quiz and the people pleasing quiz to get an assessment about where you're at on your healing journey. You can find all that on my Link Tree by clicking on my profile picture here and clicking where it says Link Tree, and you'll find all those resources there. Thanks for listening, everybody, and I'll see you next time. Bye.