Deconstructing the "Narcissist" Narrative: Is "Just Leave" the ONLY Option?

Have you ever felt like the only way to get your life back is to leave the relationship?

What if you’ve been told a story about your partner that feels absolute… but might not be the full truth?

And what if the word “narcissist” has become the final answer instead of the beginning of deeper understanding?

In this episode, we’re exploring a much more nuanced conversation around one of the most charged labels in modern relationships and what it can look like to step outside of a fixed narrative and into real clarity.

This is not about staying in unhealthy dynamics.

It’s about questioning what we’ve been taught to assume, and expanding what we believe is possible when it comes to human behavior, responsibility, and change.

In this episode, you’ll begin to explore:

✅ Why the “leave immediately” narrative may not always reflect the full relational picture
✅ How labels can sometimes limit deeper understanding and healing
✅ What gets lost when we reduce people to fixed identities
✅ The complexity of accountability, change, and emotional responsibility in relationships
✅ How to start seeing patterns more clearly without collapsing into extremes

This conversation is meant to open perspective, not to provide simple answers. Because real clarity and relationship healing does not come from labels… it comes from a deeper understanding of human nature.

For FREE Resources, 📖 Book Link, 📝 Quizzes, 👚 Self-Love Merch Shop, 🗣️ 1:1 Mentoring and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

To join future conversations LIVE, download the Noom Vibe app and join me and many other coaches and mentors on various topics of whole person wellness and longevity.

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With much gratitude,

KB 🦋

Transcript

Kristen 0:00

I am sitting in my chair here, ready to embark on a journey that could ruffle some feathers, that could get some people's shackles up. People might be like, I don't like what she's telling me right now, because I like the idea that my person is just a narcissist. I like that idea. But I am a person who's really and truly at the core of my being, someone who wants healthy relationships in all of my relationships. In order to get to that place to myself where I feel like I do have that now for the most part, there's some stragglers here and there with some behaviors. But I will say that it came because I started to learn and I started to understand and I started to question narratives out in the world only because something inside of me said, this just doesn't quite fit in some capacity. It was like, I don't like this idea. I understand the whole labeling situation. It helps us to kind of draw together a set of patterns and traits and behaviors and say, okay, this is what I'm dealing with right now, or this is who I am right now, as in the case of people pleasing, the recovering people pleaser is the name of my book. Because that just embodies a whole bunch of patterns and traits that we do. But this is not a fixed identity. And often the word narcissist is doing the same thing. It is just indicating a set of traits and patterns and behaviors that are repeated that has now been labeled narcissist. So many of you who have researched this, you have come across, I'm certain, Dr. Romani Durvasila, who is a doctor and she specializes in narcissistic personality disorder, and she talks a lot about this on a lot of her talks. Interestingly enough, I'm seeing her start to sort of shift the way she's approaching this as well, because this term narcissist just took fire. It was like someone laid a trail of gasoline and it just blew up. I this is what I love about society and about human nature and about healing is that we get to go within and we can better fine-tune language and we can better define things so it's more understandable so we can work better with what we are dealing with. So I did a little bit of research before I got on this talk today to look up a couple of statistics because a lot of times I've seen these change as well over time with social media. And this is why I always encourage you to do your own research, have your own questions, get curious, dig in. I am going to disclaim, though, that a ChatGPT and Claude and these types of things aren't always 100% accurate. Just to let you know, I will do my deeper research into institutions that have really done deep research on certain topics that I'm talking about so that I'm getting the real thing, not just what Claude or Chat GPT is grabbing from the internet and throwing at me. There's many times that I have questioned things that it's said, and they're like, oh yeah, no, you're right. And it's it's changed the entire thing that it's said to me. Just FYI, throw that out there. I do love Chat GPT. I do love Claude. I do love asking it all kinds of questions all the time. Like, where's this river and where's this and how high is that mountain? And, you know, all kinds of things. But I'm very careful with using it. So I'm just gonna throw that little disclaimer in here. But in my research, Dr. Romani Dravassala says that narcissistic personality disorder only makes up one to three percent of the population. And then other research that I looked up actually said 0.5 to 6% of the population. This is her words again. One of the biggest misconceptions is that narcissism in and of itself is a personality disorder. Narcissism is a collection of patterns or traits where narcissistic personality disorder, NPD, is actually a disorder. So narcissism is a label used to describe a collection of patterns and traits, and those patterns and traits can be fixed, they can be healed, as in the case of the people pleaser. Okay, does that make sense? Not all harmful behavior is NPD, much of it is unhealed, unconscious, and unregulated. So there are true narcissistic personality structures out in the world. They are real and they are out there. And there's a couple of people that I can think of right off the top of my head that are that, and I'm sure you can too. But most of what we're seeing and labeling isn't true NPD. I hope this is making sense so far. NPD is a is a disorder, but the word narcissism thus far, and according to Dr. Romani, is based on personality traits and patterns that a person. And again, I am combining this or using it up against what we call people pleasing. So the problem is that there could be a cost of overusing this label. Overlabeling people as narcissists actually removes nuance, it blocks real understanding, it keeps people stuck in victim identity or victim mode. It prevents growth on both sides of this equation. When we slap a label on it, we're calling it for the most part unfixable. A lot of times I will hear people say, Well, I'm a people pleaser. Like that's just the way it is, or I'm an empath, or I'm this, or I'm that, and they're just like, Yeah, you know, it's just the way I am. And I'm always here to challenge that. Yes, sometimes we need to label things for quick understanding. When we check a lot of boxes of certain patterns and behaviors and traits, yeah, there's a quick understanding that can come with that, and that's beautiful. But yet, things are changeable, things are fixable. When we overlabel people as narcissists, it could also keep us stuck in the story instead of moving us forward. So when the people that I have dealt with in my life, when I was like, what is this crazy behavior? Why am I dealing with it with this? What is happening? Is this something that is fixable, non-fixable? When I started to dig deep into that, I realized there's so much more going on here. And I threw it up against what I have learned, acquired wisdom and acquired knowledge. And things started to make so much more sense. Back in the day, and this is, I don't know, five years ago. Maybe I'm just gonna throw five years at it because I don't really remember. There was this whole empath narcissist narrative that was going on. And I looked into it. I was like, okay, because I'm clearly an empath. I mean, it's like clear. I'm psychic, I'm extremely intuitive, I'm very grounded in love, I'm a giver. You know, there's all these things. I'm like, I'm clearly this. Why am I keep attracting that? And it made sense to me why that was happening. That made perfect sense to me. So at some point, a friend of mine kept sending me things from a social media group, I think it was a Facebook group. I was like, oh, okay, thanks. Yeah, maybe this will help me give me a bit of better understanding of what's going on or what I can do or how I can handle this or whatever. And then I realized that the people who were calling themselves empaths, and this might ruffle some feathers. I'm just gonna tell you, don't throw tomatoes at me. In these particular groups, I'm not saying this is you, my beloveds, but in these particular groups, these people were acting like the victim. Woe is me. Well, I'm just an empath. There's nothing I can do. I'm just this sweet little empath in the world. And I just keep attracting these things, and I'm a victim. And I'm here to tell you that that is not true. We are so incredibly powerful. Being an empath, which means picking up on people's emotions and absorbing sometimes people's emotions and being a super lover and giver and being very empathetic in the world is really a beautiful thing. I feel like it's a powerful thing. And if we are not understanding it and using it correctly and forgetting that we have this beautiful thing called agency and personal power and choice, then of course we're gonna just think we're a victim. But this girl doesn't do that. This girl looks within, asks a lot of questions, digs deep, figures things out, wants to know what the heck is going on here. And I continue want to, I continually want to reclaim my personal power. And reclaiming our personal power is never about being stronger, bigger, or more powerful than another individual. It's truly about the self. It's the self. Understanding that I, that I was, quote unquote, the labels, empath, and people pleaser that didn't stop there. There was a reason why I was continuing to attract these types of people over again, and how I was responding and reacting to them that wasn't serving me, that wasn't serving them. So I'm truly hoping that through this conversation today, that there's a greater awareness that's going to be had here. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm not telling you who you are, where you're at in your journey, what your relationship looks like, whether you should stay or whether you should go. That is clearly up to you. That is about the dynamic that you are in. I am just an information sharer. That's all I'm doing here today is sharing information. Oftentimes when we're in the narcissist narrative, again, different from NPD, true NPD, which only makes up, depends on who you're talking to, but my research combined is 0.5 to 6% of society. And I'm gonna segue really quickly and just say as time went on through social media, I was seeing other things come up where people are saying, oh, it's 25% of society, now it's 50% of society. And it was going on and on and on. I was like, okay, we're out of control here. We are out of control. Let's break this down. Let's get in the power seat. Let's understand what's truly going on here. So oftentimes we're dealing with people's states of being rather than types of people. Does that make sense to you guys? States of being. There are states of being that I have been in, states of being where I was functioning from a belief that I was unworthy and not enough. There are states of being I have been in when I have functioned from the opposing of that. There are states of being that I have been in when I have um been depressed or low energy. So we're dealing with states of being rather than types of people. And these are generally people who are unaware over being aware. They are not self-reflecting, they are doing the same things over and over and over again. They are failing to look inward and to recognize their impact of their behavior, what it's having on other people. Unaware people often focus outward and are not examining their role. And this is true for not only people that we are quote unquote calling narcissists, but there's many other people out in the world too that are doing this. The next one is they are act there's people who are actively healing versus people who are unhealed. People who are actively healing reflect, they grow, they work on themselves, and they work on their unhealed patterns. They look within and they do the work to do so. These people who we are calling narcissists typically are not in this pattern. They haven't done it yet. And I will tell you with the utmost of certainty, I have watched with my own eyes, people who I have coached and mentored through these type of behaviors start to become aware because they were functioning from their programming. They were functioning from protection. And I have watched them slowly dismantle this and to move away from these types of behaviors. Generally speaking, people who are exhibiting these type of behaviors are defensive versus being accountable. They're looking to protect their story, they're looking to protect their self-soothing, they're looking to protect their defense mechanisms. Accountable people take ownership and are willing to repair. They're also protecting versus connecting honestly. So they have prioritized self-defense and control rather than connecting honestly, which is about being open, real, vulnerable, and willing to be seen. Thanks for all your interactions, everybody here on this talk today. I see so many emojis coming up on the stage, and I just are on the screen, and I super appreciate you for being here and taking time out of your day to join Empower Hour with KB. It means the world to me. I know that life is busy and there's many places that you could be. And my goodness, with social media and everything else out there, there's a lot of people you could be listening to and you're here today. I want you to know that I value and honor you for taking the time to be here. So when we're talking about these types of people and the things that they're doing, and all of the things that I had just mentioned, that they generally are actively not healing, they are actively unaware, they are actively defensive, they are actively protecting. This can lead to all kinds of dysfunctional behavior. If you know, you know. If you have been on the receiving end of this, it's not fun. And by the way, if there's anybody anybody who's listening right now who is like, well, I've been the one that's been called the narcissist, I'm gonna give you a big, massive kudos to you and a kiss on the forehead because you're here and you're wanting to learn. Because this is one of the hardest parts about healing work is ownership. It's really looking within because we have so much shame that is hidden until it's not, until we recognize it and heal it. But the shame is the contributing factor, which I'll get to more in a little bit. But we have so much shame that sometimes it can be so incredibly difficult to look at self because of that hidden shame. The second we look at self and we feel just an inkling of shame, boom, we dip out. We dip out. The mind protects us and gets us away from that. And so there is this overriding of that knee-jerk response autopilot system that needs to kick in, where we need to go, no, I need to sit with this. I need to sit with this. This is truth, this is reality, this is gonna help me heal, it's gonna help me grow, it's gonna help me have better relationships. So if you are someone who is here and going, Yeah, I'm that person, kudos to you. High five, fist bump, belly bump, hip bump, do the hustle. I am extremely proud of you and forehead kiss. Because I see you, I recognize you, and I know this is hard. And you're a courageous warrior, and you deserve to be recognized for that. Because there is nothing inherently wrong with you. I just need you to know that. And I need everybody to hear this. It was like, nope, it's not me, it's somebody in my life. I need you to hear that in regards to what I'm seeing of your person. Because if your person is beginning to take responsibility or starting just even the door is cracked open where they're looking at themselves, trust me, it's extremely difficult for them because they've lived a pattern for so long. All right. All right, the dysfunctional behavior that we are witnessing, and you guys know this stuff, and that is now the first one is, and these are not in any particular order, is refusing to take responsibility for their behavior. And this happens through a couple of ways. And one of the ways is deflecting, which means they'll redirect attention away from their behavior by changing the subject. Maybe they'll blame someone else, or they will start pointing out your faults. They're just gonna deflect, they're gonna turn it around on you somehow, and they're gonna shift the focus off of themselves to maybe your reaction or your behavior in some capacity so that they don't have to stay accountable. If you dealt with somebody that's in this pattern, this mode of being, this quote unquote narcissistic mode of being, if you have dealt with someone like this, you've likely had that, where they're just, they will do anything. And it's fascinating to watch, again, being a person who studies and is fascinated by human nature, it is fascinating to watch this happen. I've seen it so many times, and I can see like I can see the shift where they're like boom and they change into some other mode. It's because their brain took took over, their protection mechanism took over and they just shifted. That in itself has taught me to start to approach it differently. I'm kind of going off, I'm kind of digressing here, but it's coming through me, so I'm gonna share it with you. It's it's like, oh, look at there's when the there's when it happened right there. Boom. They just shifted right there. Boom, I saw it. That helped me deal with them differently. So they may deflect or they may minimize, which means they downplay your feelings or what they did, or they deny the impact of their actions. Frustrating, right, guys? I know it. The next one is they turn into the victim when they hurt you. This means they start positioning themselves as the one who's been hurt or misunderstood to avoid taking responsibility. If you're like me, I've been accused of the most craziest things that were so untrue. And I will say that, I will stand on my hilltop and say that because I know myself well. And I'm just sitting here like, what are you, what are you talking about? Like it is mind-blowing. It's almost to the point where we cannot have a conversation with them. But the one thing that I have known that's different from these type of people and someone with true NPD is that if you notice, there's still this willingness, like they they don't want to be fighting with you either. They don't want to be doing this either. They want to get back together in whatever capacity. Because this, I'm not saying back together is in romantic relationships because this isn't always romantic relationships. But people with this, like they they sort of want to get in there that true MPDs, they don't. They don't care. They're just using you for whatever you can give them, and they're gonna move on to the next thing. And they might have multiple relationships and stories and all different kinds of capacities, all mingled in together at the same time, and they're just kind of jumping from thing to thing to thing, trying to get the thing that they want, whatever thing that they think they need met at that time. I hope I'm not. I feel like I'm all over the place right now, you guys. I'm just talking from my heart. So hopefully you guys are picking up what I'm throwing down. But they turn into the victim, and and I always share my own personal stank, you guys. I saw all the balloons going up on the screen here. Um, this has made me bat shite crazy, where I've just because of their behavior repeatedly repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated, all of a sudden I'm like losing my stuff. And then they're looking at me like, oh, see? Oh, I just I'm such the victim to your behavior, Kristen. And I'm like, okay, am I crazy? I've had to do crazy check-ins. Or I will call someone, you know, call, call a lifeline. All right, I need a crazy check-in. Here's what's happening. And I will tell you, I don't tell one side of the story, I tell the exact thing. I'll tell exactly how it went down. I'm like, okay, here's what it is. Am I crazy? Am I met fault? Am I doing something wrong here? Luckily, I had some good check-ins. They're like, you're not. That's not you. That's not okay. Blah, blah, blah. And they would kind of talk me down because I am so empathetic and I am so caring, and I am somebody who doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings or do something crazy. That I am immediately someone who looks within. So when someone's trying to play victim with me, I'm gonna look within and say, Is this me? Is that did I really do something? But some oftentimes you guys were not until we get to that breaking point where we freak out because we just can't stand this any longer. Our nervous systems are activated. Now, to be honest, we might have a little bit of PTSD. Okay. The next one is gaslighting, which means they deny or distort reality in a way that makes you question your own memory, your own perception of the situation or the experience that you felt. That's a true idea of gaslighting. People use gaslighting again. This is another word that's been blown up and distorted and gone into 40 million different directions. Gaslighting truly is they will deny or distort the reality. That's it. That didn't happen. What are you talking about? That never happened. I never talked to that person. I didn't do this. I didn't act like that. I didn't, whatever. And so then we're sitting here going, uh, so we must know what true gaslighting is. And the last one is they might stonewall or ignore you. So which means that they shut down, they withdraw, or they refuse to engage in a way with you to avoid taking account accountability or the emotional discomfort of it, whatever it might be. Or you're making some doggone good sense. And again, their ego, the protection mechanism, is kicking in and just pushing it away. And this is what's so important about this conversation, everyone, is that what we need to understand in all of this, all of this, is that these are a set of behaviors that are equal to a set of behaviors of people pleasing that came into place based on the traumas and dramas and experiences of this individual. It's what their brain did to protect them. Remember, it's a collection of traits and patterns and behaviors. It is not NPD, true narcissistic personality disorder, that makes up, from my combined research, 0.5 to 6% of the population. What we are dealing with, are you sitting down? You're dealing with a wounded person. You're dealing with a person who has not done their work. You're dealing with a person who has been capital T or lower T traumatized in some capacity that had nothing to do with you. Because typically we there is a vibration that attracts the two of us together, all right? The people pleasers slash empath and the narcissistic type, um, selfish, maybe, if you will, type person, hyper-guarded, because by the way, they are really guarded. Okay, typically, people pleasers, empathic type people are wide open. Their hearts are wide open. These other individuals are very, very guarded. They're shut down and they're guarded. That is what their brain did. So, in my estimate so far, year to date, of what I've seen from this, is what I often speak about here is that we come here whole and perfect. We know nothing other than our divinity and our worth. But then as life goes on and experiences happen, and it's not just through parenting, a lot of people want to blame the parents for everything. It's the world, it's society, it's things we're reading. It's when these things start happening, we start moving away from our whole authentic self and we start to adapt to life through particular sets of behaviors. For me, it was people pleasing. For some people, it's somebody that's on the narcissistic, quote-unquote type spectrum. So I want to lay it out for you guys like this so you can see it very clearly. If you draw a circle, just in a piece of paper, you draw a circle right in the middle. This is called interdependence. This is when we care for ourselves as equally to caring for the needs of other people. If you move to the left of that, call it a spectrum, if you will, and you move to the left, or there's a continuum there, that's the people-pleasing side. Left and right is irrelevant, it's just the way my mind's eye concocted this. Move to the left. As you're starting to move away from that center, that interdependence, you're now moving into degrees of people pleasing. Okay, it keeps going out and out and out all the way to the left, where you're gonna land on extreme people pleasing. Now go back to that center circle again. And on the right is that spectrum of the super guarded, the narcissistic types, quote, selfish people, if you will, and you start moving, you start to go into degrees of that. Remember, the center is the zero. And then just like a number line, you've got the one, two, three all the way up to the left side, and it does the same thing on the right side. You're now moving into degrees of that, all the way out to the extreme. But there's these varying degrees. Now, the way my mind eyes sees this is that one is not worse than the other. I know because we're the gentle ones, because we're the soft ones, because we are the overgivers and the over-accommodators, we tend to want to position ourselves higher or better than the narcissistic type people, who I call NTPs, by the way, because I formed my own term because I didn't like this whole narrative that was out in the world. Everybody, you're a narcissist, you're a narcissist, the world's full of narcissists. I just call them NTPs, narcissistic type people. We're no better than they are. Okay. Our people pleasing behavior is coming from unhealed wounds. Their NTP behavior is coming from unhealed wounds, the end. That's where it is. So for us to think we are better is wrong. Because now get this. This is another piece of this, and I would love to hear from you guys at any time. The people pleasers tend to focus more on and prioritize the needs of others. An NTP, narcissistic type person, tends to focus on and prioritize the needs of self. This is like a key to a lock. We are focusing on others. That person who is only focusing on themselves, do you see how our key just fits perfectly in their lock? We have a part in this. We have a doggone part in this. Isn't that exciting? Thank you. So when we're we're meeting all those and showing up that way to them, we're gonna continue this cycle over and over again, even if we leave the relationship, because we're still the same person. Our key is gonna go find another lock that it fits, which is typically another taker. So the key here always is to heal self, to upgrade, to up-level to heal ourselves. I had to take full responsibility for my overgiving and my over-accommodating in all my people-pleasing ways. I had to take responsibility for that. One of the best things I've ever done in my life. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it because I thought I was a good person, which I am. I'm a very good human being. I'm loving, I'm kind, I am gentle, I am loyal, I am honest, I have integrity, I'm all the things. Now, this is shocking. The NTP, they can have a lot of those traits too. They can be loyal, they can be kind, they can be hard workers, they can be giving. But when it comes to their emotional self, they're so constricted and pulled in that they can't see past themselves. Who knows somebody who would be an NTP that you would look at them as a whole, as a human being, and you would say, gosh, they're really not a bad person. They have all these wonderful traits about them. But this over here is unsufferable. Like I just can't deal with this anymore. Because these people, the NTPs typically, and again, there's a wide range of this, you guys. There's nuance, there's spectrum, there is there's context, there's a lot in here. But in the ones that I've seen, they've had so many amazing traits, but I was triggering them. I was holding them accountable. I was bringing up behaviors, I was shining the light. And that's when it turned into the refusing to take responsibility, the deflection, the minimizing, the downplaying my emotions, or ignoring my emotions, or turning it around on me, or the playing victim, or the gaslighting, or the stonewalling. It was when there was an issue and I called it out. This is why I mostly experienced this in my romantic relationships, and why most people do. Now, you may have a family member, a mother, a father who is this way, it makes it all about them, and you have tried to come to the table and tried to say something to them like, when you do this or act like this, it hurts me like this. And then you get something like, Well, I'm just a terrible mother, I'm just an awful dad, why do you even love me? Oh, you know, all of these type of things that they say. And then you're sitting here thinking to yourself, I'm trying to heal us. I'm trying to fix this, but they're refusing. We can't fix another person. We all know that by now, especially if you listen to Empower Hour on the regular. We can't fix another person, but we can fix ourselves. And understanding that there is just a wounded person under this, that's really what we're dealing with. When we heal ourselves, we are going to shift, heal, morph, and grow in a way that may better able us to deal with them. Isn't that crazy? I know. So I have learned because there were people in my life that I dearly loved, and I thought, you know what? There is just something inside of me that said leaving wasn't the way. And so I have to ask myself over and over again, am I just a glutton for punishment? Am I just a glutton for emotional abuse? Am I just so effing strong that I just stay till there's nothing left of me? What is going on here? Believe me when I tell you, I have dug deep and deep and considered all options. But for my particular path, there was a voice inside of me that was saying, uh-uh, you can figure this out. You're gonna figure this out. Just learn a little bit. Now, sometimes we're gonna say, but why does it have to be me? And we're gonna wanna, you know, kick and scream and shake our hands and say, Why does it have to be me? Why do I have to be the one? Oh, trust me, I've done all of that. The truth is because, and this is weird, you guys, some of you might not like this, but we choose our paths before we come here. We we probably had the option to be an NTP type person. That's not what we chose. We chose particular lessons and this is part of it. Now, yes, there are people that I've left done, the door shut, and there's other people I was like, mm, there's something in this for me. And it was in that that I started to heal and grow and change and shift and morph. And I started to see the other person do it too. Fascinating. Welcome up, Jeanette.

Jeanette 34:11

Yes, yes. Um, so this um dynamic between, you know, more narcissistic type behaviors and more people-pleasing behaviors was going on between um me and my ex-husband. And um one of the things that that I realized was that I was feeling morally superior because I was the the people pleaser, and for and that that to me made me a better person than him. And when you were talking about, you know, the people pleaser is not, you know, above the uh narcissistic type person, that really resonated with me because I had to get over my delusion that I was somehow superior to him just because I had different behaviors and maybe more um socially acceptable behaviors in some ways, but not actually better behaviors. We were both very broken, very hurting people, and both, you know, needed to heal the behavior patterns that we had. But that belief that I had got in my way for many years. I would say it took me about 10 years maybe to really realize that and get over it. Um, and now I do I do see him as just another um person on his journey, you know, and and we were together for that time, and our journeys were together for that time and then separated, but you know, not that I'm better than him.

Kristen 35:58

Jeanette, that is my goodness. First of all, the articulation of what you just stated is beautiful. And it's so true. It's so true because we do feel like we're we can be morally superior than the other person. And I love your honesty and your vulnerability bringing that to the stage. And also, what was the other thing I was thinking? Um, oh gosh, I hate it when I bring fart. I don't know, I can't remember it. Maybe it'll come up. But the fact that looking at you both as people that were wounded and doing the very best that you can, and the other, oh, this is what it was is that oftentimes the people pleaser will hurt self, where the NTP will hurt others. So neither is better. You know what I'm saying? Like we're still hurting someone. That's the way I see it.

Jeanette 36:50

No, that makes perfect sense. But you do feel like, oh, well, I'm hurting myself, so that's okay, but they're hurting other people, so that's not okay. Nope, not really, not really. Not at all. It's okay. Yep. There you go. All right, I'm gonna take off because I'm driving. Love you.

Kristen 37:09

Yes, darling. Love you too. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh. Oh, so good. Those are words that are spoken from somebody who has gone through the experience and who is wide open, heart open. And, you know, Jeanette, I love speaking with her. I love to hear her experiences because I know she is so active on her journey. And thank you so much, Jeanette, for coming up and sharing that. And yes, people pleasers tend to hurt themselves more. But because we're so into people pleasing, because we are in that pattern for so long, we don't really recognize that we're hurting ourselves. I didn't. I had no idea I was hurting myself until I did. And believe it or not, this is gonna sound funky AF, but they don't realize what they're doing either. I know that's crazy. They don't realize it. It has taken from me in my particular situations, me having getting very crafty in a positive way and very creative with how I approach things, where that person is started to dawn on them. And through that dawning on them, they were like, there was that initial embarrassment and cringe and shame. And that's typically what they don't want to feel. So, what do they do? They do all the things that we talked about, they push it away. But over time, this person started to really look at that. But it was my delivery and the timing of my delivery, and how, and these were all upgrades. These were all KB upgrades, okay? Because my delivery and timing and everything else maybe not have been great back when. That started to change the dynamic of the situation. All right, we're gonna bring up Steven, see what Steven has to say on this topic. Hey, Steven.

Steven 39:05

Hey, so I have a question, and it may take a little bit to get to it. I'm gonna forge ahead. So back when I got separated and started actually working on me and starting to figure out who I was, I believe we were both the people-pleasing types. It was that codependent trying to make the other one happy. And then slowly you get away from it and start realizing, okay, this is what you were doing to try to make the other person happy, which is not your job. And I can remember being in group situations, you know, with other single people hanging around, looking at looking around, and especially the gals would be like comparing guys and things like that. And the instance of somebody doing something that they disagreed with. Well, I asked him to do this, and he just like, nope, I'm not going to do that. I'm sitting there in the background listening, thinking, This sounds like the dude set a boundary, and you're not good with it. And so then the narcissistic word comes up. At that point, I was thinking, because it was weird, because I wasn't sure what was going on. I'm like, well, because I was trying to put myself in this situation, it's like, well, I think that's a that's a pretty bold ask of a guy.

Kristen 40:32

Do you remember what it was?

Steven 40:34

It usually involved getting rides to places or just like uh early couple weeks into a uh dating situation and wanting to get access to their house. You know, it's like okay, I'll come over and cook dinner for you, you know, just give me the key. And oh wow, one one person made the remark and I heard it, you know. No, my house is my safe spot. I determine who comes and goes out of it. But we've been going on for two weeks, don't you know me? And wow, I'm sitting there thinking, whoa, I don't know what to do in that situation yet. Then I let somebody live in my house, and I understood what this guy was doing, and I'm like, yeah, my my safe spot's my house. You don't get access to it until I decide. And if that hurts your feelings, then that is on you because that's a perception issue. The question is, do you think that happens a lot? I mean, with the setting boundaries, and if you're really not, you know, if you're kind of new to the well, these are gonna be what I'm gonna stand for, and I'm just gonna put these out there, and you can and then somebody pushes back in there, and you get called a narcissist, and you're like, wow, I didn't expect that. Shit, now what?

Kristen 41:59

I know. So the way I'm gonna see that situation from what little I know about it, because I can only go by what you told me so far, Stephen, is that that woman, that woman had an agenda. There's a reason why she wanted access to her house, and there's a reason why she wanted, you know, somehow she was trying to get something by I'm gonna come in your house and make you dinner. And he was like, No, like that's too soon. And then she turns, flips the word on him. It's because she got boundried and she didn't like that. So now she's trying to make him wrong in some capacity because she's probably likely embarrassed or it got rejected, or whatever it might be. And so now she's trying to make him wrong. Oh, yeah, there's this is why I do the work I do because there's so much out there, so much misperception and name calling and labeling and what have you. But I'm gonna tell you, that man did the right thing.

Steven 42:56

Yeah. I listened to uh Sharon's talk on perceptions this morning before moving into your individual. That's that's where some of this came from because I've always wondered, well, we have different perceptions. And for me, if I can be open-minded enough and offer grace, it's like, well, I can see your perception and I can see mine. And then you're met with, well, yeah, your perception's different, and it's freaking wrong. And I'm like, uh, stop, it's not. And we're not a match, have a good one.

Kristen 43:28

Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly right. I call it next when it comes to the dating thing. My gosh, you guys, the sooner that you pass on someone that you know is not a fit, just next. Just move on, just move on and keep doing that, keep doing that, keep doing that. What's his name, Hussey? I forgot his first name. Hussey. Matthew Hussey. Yeah, just darling guy. But he says people spend way too much time hanging out with people. People trying to make it fit and they could waste years. They're like, the minute you know this is not a fit, say next. You know, he didn't say next. He says move on. Okay, just move on. He goes, and it might be time number 15 that the right person comes, but you have now moved on so quickly through each one of those. Oh, maybe only a year has passed where we can tend to sit with particular people, trying to make it fit, trying to make it jive or for whatever reason. And then we just end up wasting time. I truly believe in my heart of hearts that our ideal partners are out there. But I do believe in my heart of hearts that it requires us loving and honoring ourselves so much that we, that the relationship with self, and I'm not talking selfishness, I'm talking healthy love, respect, care, attention. When you love yourself so much, you'll be so much more willing to pass on those who are not a fit. If we don't love ourselves, we tend to want to put the square peg in a round hole. And sometimes we just sit that square peg kind of dipped into the round hole a little bit and call it a relationship. We're like, well, this is good enough because I'm so empty. I just want someone. When you fill that void inside yourself, that doesn't happen anymore. I've seen it, you guys. I'm sitting here with my fingers on my forehead, just turning my head from side to side. I have seen this. I have coached this. I have worked with people and watched them find, like where I'm my jaw is open. They found just such the ideal match. But that is because they learned to love themselves first. They broke through free of a lot of their own habits and patterns. Oh my goodness, you guys, this is such an important conversation. And one that I said in the beginning of this talk, I said, you know what? You guys might throw tomatoes at me, you might get mad at me, you might be stuck in the idea that, you know, they're just a narcissist and they suck and you don't. I'm all about people. I'm all about human. And let me tell you something. When it's time to leave, it is time to leave. And if you feel that, then that's time for you. Absolutely. We should not stay where we know we shouldn't stay. And we should create an exit plan as quickly as possible to preserve ourselves. We are all at different stages in our journeys. We are all different places. And we are in the classroom of relationships. We are in the school of relationships or the classroom of life or however you want to call it, where we are here to learn. And it depends. Sometimes your learning lesson might be, I need to leave earlier this time. That might be it. Or it might be, you know what? I need to look at myself because I think I'm contributing to this in some way. Wherever it could be. Sky's the limit. I don't know. Only you know. My goal, my motive every day is to share acquired wisdom and acquired knowledge with you all. Just little things that I've learned along my journey, to maybe open your eyes, shift your perception a little bit, maybe hopefully create some inspiration or some motivation or an aha moment where you decide that, you know what, God, that makes sense. I'm gonna try something different. I don't know where you're at. I'm not your coach, I'm not your therapist. I'm just a girl in the world who is sharing what I've learned along the way. And in this conversation today, we broke down what it really means to be quote unquote narcissist or an NTP. Because throwing that label at everybody, just calling them a bad human being left and right, I want to back up again and say that it is their unhealed wounds that are contributing to that behavior. So if we just look at them as just straight a bad person and horrible and terrible, then we're gonna be dead in the water. But if we start seeing this for what it really is, we still may leave. We still may not stay. They could be so far from healing and we're so over it that we don't want to be there. And there's many of you out there who are still in relationships with people who are not showing up in the best ways for you. And this is all about awareness. This is all about a desire to heal. This is all about them learning to regulate their nervous system. This is about them becoming more emotionally mature, which is huge. This is also about opening the heart and the mind to own and see other people's perspectives. It's about learning empathy and how their behavior is impacting another person. These are all things that they learned not to do based on their situations in their life. Their brain protected them in some way. Yes, anybody out there who is abusive mentally, emotionally, or physically, I encourage you to get yourself to safety as soon as possible. There is no reason to say in something with someone who has no desire whatsoever to change, to heal, to shift, to grow. And if this is beating you down, if you are losing who you are, and you do not have the strength or the capacity to work through this with that person, you're absolutely in your right to leave, and you should. But there's nuance to this, and sometimes we're just like, you know, there's something to this that I think I can hang with this. I'm going to only change and adjust the person that I can, and that's me. I'm gonna see if I can get a different experience out of them. I believe in you guys. I know this was a lot, this is a big conversation. I will be listening to this on replay to see if I made the points that I wanted to make in the way I wanted to make them. But if I didn't, and it's leaving you with question marks, please feel free to reach out to me. You can reach out to me through the DMs here on Noom Vibe. If you're listening on another podcasting platform, you can send me an email at hello at kristenbrown.org. If you're listening on YouTube, you can put your question in the comment section. I'm more than happy to answer your questions. Be sure that they are clear and succinct, though, so I know exactly what it is that you are asking if you are putting it in written form. Sometimes people say I have a question and they just make a lot of statements and I don't know what the question is. So I can't answer the question if I don't know what the question is. Jennifer said, if you stay just to be comfortable or to have someone, you don't leave room for amazing. And that's 100% true. I appreciate you guys from the depths of my being. I love you. I wish you well on your journey. I want you to know that you're more powerful than you think you are. You have everything it takes to shift, heal, morph, grow, evolve. You are a superstar. You are worthier than you possibly think that you are. Maybe you do now. I don't know. But if you don't, let me carry that for you until you can believe it. The key always in life is to love self to the best of our abilities. That helps us make the most clear and impactful decisions for ourselves, the ones that are really going to move the needle in our life. I will see you guys tomorrow. So much love.