Elaine's News: Interview airs on the 3rd, new email list
Hello Everyone,I just wanted to let my readers know that I've just moved over from Feedburner to a new email software called MailPoet. Please bear with me as I work out the kinks.It's been a big year. Some of you may know that I took a break from shamanic work to concentrate on writing another book. However, my life took an unexpected turn with a move, and with withdrawing my child from school to do independent study this past year. It's been a challenging yet fun year seeing my son thrive in an out-of-the-box environment, but it's left me very little time to write or to take clients. I hope to be back in the writing routine soon.In the midst of adjusting to this new lifestyle, I had an opportunity to talk to another Empath about my work that I had put on hold. Karyn Kulenovic asked if I was willing to be interviewed as an expert for her Integrated Empath Summit. She had read my books and wanted me to speak about the Empath and relationships, especially around the Drama Triangle, the Rescuer Role and how Empaths can attract narcissists. The experience reminded me of why I went into coaching and then later became a shaman. Helping others learn how to empower themselves is so satisfying. In speaking with Karyn, I realized that I had forgotten how much I knew about the subject, and how satisfying it is to do this work. I had so much fun in this interview!Karyn has interviewed 22 Empath experts. You can listen to all 22 interviews for free. Two interviews per day will air beginning June 1st. Mine airs on June 3rd. You also have the option to purchase all the interviews at the end of the summit. If you are interested, you can register here. In talking to Karyn I realized that I had great case studies for a book on the Empath and romantic relationships. I'm really looking forward to sharing these with you. Thank you for your support!Elaine
Listen to Elaine's interview on the Integrated Empath Summit, June 3rd
Hello Beautiful Souls!I'm very excited to announce that I will appear as one of the experts on Karyn Kulenovic's Integrated Empath Summit. My interview goes live on June 3rd, and you can listen to all 21 expert interviews for free. Just click here to sign up. My interview concentrates mostly on relationships, especially with narcissists, the Drama Triangle, and shamanic energy work. I hope you will check it out.much love,Elaine
The Empath, the Narcissist, and Favors
I’ve had a few questions around situations in which a relationship with a narcissist has ended, and ended badly, and lo and behold, a few months later, or even years later, the narcissist makes a request for a special favor despite all that had gone before. Clients come back to me stirred up, old wounds uncovered, resentment brewing once again. How can this person have requested a favor; what the heck is wrong with the narcissist? Empaths must remember that if we are healthy we tend to understand how a person is feeling, and we tend to respect boundaries, so we naturally do not ask favors of those people who have told us to go away. When we are healthy we understand that our feelings and needs are just as important as others’ feelings and needs. But for the narcissist, the narcissist simply cannot see anyone in their lives as important as themselves. The narcissist simply doesn’t care how other people are feeling. It is the narcissist’s feelings, needs, and requests that are important. Everything else takes second place to the narcissist.If you have read my book on the Fan-Hero Family System, you are familiar with the Enneagram Type Three, which I like to call the Hero. When the Hero is emotionally dissociated, the Hero usually starts behaving as a narcissist. While the healthy Hero is in pursuit of self-improvement and acts as an inspiration to others, the unhealthy Hero believes in the image he has of himself and of others in his life, and tries to protect that image even at the expense of others and in direct contradiction of reality. In the Fan-Hero Family System book I described the adult son of a Hero who broke off contact with his narcissist father because his father could not treat him or his family in a way that wasn’t damaging and hurtful. The son, my client, had explained to his father that his father seemed incapable of seeing that there were problems in the relationship, and therefore no change could occur. Unless those changes happened, my client couldn’t afford the negativity and crazy-making behavior from his father in his life. My client asked for no visits, and no contact unless the behavior was addressed. Basically since his father was incapable of even admitting there was a problem between them, the relationship was over for my client, even though the narcissist father wanted the relationship.As you can imagine, this breakdown of the father-son relationship was extremely hard on my client. It had taken him years of hard work to become clear enough about his family to see what was really going on, and to see how shallow many of the family relationships were. In his family, like with many unhealthy Fan-Hero Families, he was expected to serve the family and the image. He was a support person, not the person who should get the attention and glory, which always goes to the Hero. His wife had been punished because she had seen what the dynamic was, and then his children had been neglected and ignored. On one level my client had allowed this to happen, which had caused him major grief within his marriage. On another level, this was the set up of his family, so once he did his personal work he was able to release himself from these contracts and behave as the man he always wanted to be. His marriage repaired itself, and his children were free of any generational contracts from his side of the family. He knew he had been lucky to escape, and he only regretted that it had taken him so long.A year after he had ended his relationship with his father he received a letter from him asking for help. His father wanted to remove his son from his will so he could give that money to his current wife, who was likely to outlive him. His father had mismanaged his money, and wanted to fix the problem this way, but didn’t want to do so without his son’s approval. My client, who had assumed no inheritance was coming anyway, was angered by this intrusion and had the urge to write back to his father and tell him to jump in a lake. He was surprised that his wife found the letter hilarious—she encouraged him to not respond at all. While my client ended up deciding not to respond to his father’s request, it was a good opportunity to look at the mind and motivations of the narcissist, especially the unhealthy Hero type Narcissist.While a healthy person would feel extreme shame and embarrassment at writing such a letter, the narcissist has no problem with this sort of request because he is too emotionally dissociated to feel uncomfortable feelings of shame and of embarrassment. He doesn’t have that natural check in place that the rest of us have, which is the main benefit of being able to feel and to handle our uncomfortable emotions. Because the narcissist only considers himself, he doesn’t consider what effect writing such a letter would have on his son, or even on his wife for that matter. He is only fixated on getting his own needs met, which is to have enough money in his bank account so that his young wife won’t go back to work and possibly leave him in his old age. Also notice that in this case the narcissist also avoids responsibility for his mismanagement of money and for the ensuing consequences by asking his son to give him his approval. By making it a joint decision he doesn’t have to shoulder all the responsibility for his actions. The narcissist also doesn’t see that his letter simply reinforces his son’s conclusion that he is incapable of having a healthy relationship. He doesn’t see or care that he makes it appear that his wife has only married him for his money. Another point Empaths don't realize is that the Narcissist can make such a request because he has nothing to lose. Since he doesn't feel uncomfortable like most people would, there is no cost in asking for a favor. Either way, he wins. In this particular case, the narcissist wins no matter how my client responded. The narcissist can tell himself that he did his best in contacting his son if his son doesn't respond, and it's his son's fault for not helping him. He wins if his son contacts him and says go ahead since he can then share responsibility for fixing his mismanagement of his money. He can tell his wife that his son knows about the change in the will, too, so she won't feel like she's imposing on the father-son relationship. But he also wins if his son says no because he can tell his wife that his son cares more about the money than her financial security. In all three cases the narcissist avoids responsibility, can transfer blame, and also lightens any emotional discomfort that may be pushing through his repression.While my client was angry, and while he understood on a whole new level how deep the narcissism ran in his family, he was grateful he had already ended the relationship with his father. If he hadn’t done his personal work and had still been in contact with his father, he would have had to deal with his father’s financial problems. It would have been enough to end the relationship at that point, but then his father could blame the ensuing rift on his son’s attachment to money, rather than deal with the cleaner break my client had made months before. The narcissist’s behavior isn’t surprising here, even though many Empaths are revolted and baffled by such behavior. Narcissists have no compunction asking for favors that benefit them to the detriment or discomfort of the people around them. If you are in relationship with a narcissist, keep this in mind. A narcissist is too wounded to be able to care about you as you care about him. He is simply incapable of doing so. He may say he loves you, but remember that his love for you is secondary to his own needs and feelings. Staying in a close relationship with such a person without keeping this fact in mind can lead to deep hurt and betrayal. Don’t expect a narcissist to treat you as you would treat him—that simply misses the point of what it means to be a narcissist.
The Empath and the Narcissist
Lately I have had questions from readers about how to deal with a narcissist. Empaths are confused by this relationship because the narcissist tends to mimic an Empath, and before the Empath knows it, the Empath is ensnared in a relationship she thought was real and equal and now cannot find a way out. What has happened, and why is this relationship so draining?It's important to realize that all people when their wounds are triggered have a tendency to become narcissistic. We focus on our pain and our emotions, becoming self-absorbed and less aware of the effect our actions and words have on the people around us. What this means is that Empaths can be narcissists, too. However, once we get out of a Victim stance and we start taking responsibility for our emotional state, we tend to behave narcissistically less often. We have grown ourselves out of the trap of the narcissist. What is this trap?From what I have seen in my practice and my personal experience, the narcissist has a core wound that makes him or her feel unlovable and worthless. However, this wound and the belief is buried so deep that it is completely unconscious. To compensate and to not feel this pain, they over-achieve, they become know-it-alls, and/or they build up a facade that allows them to feel good about themselves. Feeling good is all they can allow or else they will access that deep pain. Many narcissists will sacrifice just about anything and anybody to avoid facing such pain. Such a person is unlikely to be able to do his work in order to heal because they are avoiding that core pain.I have written an article (See The Emotionally Dissociated Hero) on one type of narcissist that the Empath tends to find fascinating. I have also written a book on the type of family that tends to support and collude with the narcissist called the Fan-Hero Family System. The book goes in depth into how this type of narcissist tends to function, and I recommend it for any Empath who is trying to recover from a relationship with such a person. However, the most important point for the Empath to understand so that they can avoid this relationship is the Empath's own tendency to need to be the special, bonded one in another person's life.The narcissist uses this need to manipulate the Empath. The Emotionally Dissociated Hero uses his or her intuition to find a person to take on a support role in the Hero's life and to keep them happy in that role until that person is invested in the relationship. Empaths, as you can already imagine, are great support people. We will listen to the Hero's story, we will help the Hero with his projects, and if we haven't healed our dependency issues, we will do this in exchange for having material support or for having a sense of purpose and belonging in the world. The blind spot for Empaths to watch out for is our unconscious belief that going deep and seeing the inner world of another is the best way to bond. It is unhealthy to bond to an unhealthy person!The Hero unconsciously knows about the Empath's need to bond. The Hero knows what to say and how to behave, but all of it is just an act. The Hero draws the Empath in, the Empath thinks she is having a great relationship, and then the confusion begins. What has happened? Why does this relationship that seemed so real at first now feel so weird and draining?Heroes are usually charming, attractive people, they know how to make the Empath feel special, but they are shut off from their Hearts in order not to feel that worthlessness. The Hero is also a liar. He lies to himself, he believes his own lies, and then he tells those lies to the people around him without knowing he is lying. The Empath starts thinking that she is the crazy one, when it is the Hero who is actually ill. The Hero is so focused on his outer image that he is willing to sacrifice reality (and the Empath). Unfortunately, the Hero has usually gathered enough people around him that are willing to go along with the facade. These people, unlike the Empath, do not get past the outer shell of the Hero and fall for the facade. Or worse, these people catch glimpses of the unhealthy inner core, but do not call the Hero on his behavior. Theses people would rather live by appearances as well.As you can imagine, this living-by-appearances is crazy-making for the average Empath. She begins to doubt herself; the Empath can get stuck in a mental loop of analysis of the situation and the relationship without making the realization that the Hero is happiest living a lie and wants it that way. However, eventually the relationship disintegrates when the Empath either becomes so drained the Hero has to find another support person, or the Empath leaves the relationship out of desperation for her sanity. For many Empaths it can feel like an act of survival to leave this relationship while everyone else involved thinks the Empath is the crazy, over-reactive one. Most Empaths who have been through this scenario have been in the relationship for years. It also takes them years to recover.In the Fan-Hero Family System book I talk about an Empath and her husband who escaped from a group who both knowingly and unknowingly supported the unhealthy Heroes in the Family. This type of dynamic requires scapegoating--which means we set someone else up to take the blame and we project our unwanted feelings on to them. Of course, it is the Empath that usually becomes the scapegoat. Scapegoating is a terrible form of group lying and of avoiding reality. Most of the time it is done unconsciously, but even so, it is always incredibly painful for the scapegoat.Empaths who have lived through this and want to heal must remember that they have been badly abused and injured in the worst sort of way. The person they have bonded to has violated her trust. Understanding the hidden dynamic can be helpful, which is the main reason I wrote the Fan-Hero Family System book. However, once the understanding is there, the real challenge for Empaths is to let go of the wound and not give it another thought, another feeling, or any more energy. The narcissist involved is a sick person. The people that support him are either knowingly or unknowingly supporting a lie. Empaths who want to live happy, full lives must embrace reality. Narcissists simply cannot. The best way to heal is to understand that the narcissist probably won't be able to heal because he must first realize he is wounded. He cannot take responsibility for himself. Empaths must accept this is the case. This situation is unfixable!The only sane action the Empath can take is to take responsibilty for her state. She can realize that she has these core beliefs about being special and about being emotionally bonded, and she can start observing how these beliefs drive her. Then she can be more choosy in her relationships. And she can be on the look out for people who avoid reality and avoid them herself.Let me know if you have questions or comments!much love,Elaine