Letting Go of Narcissists

Have you heard the story about the frog and the scorpion? There once was a scorpion on the side of the riverbank who was looking pretty worried. A frog happened upon him and asked, “What’s wrong?” The scorpion explained that he had to get to the other side of the river, but the current was too fast. He was sure he would drown. He asked the frog if he could take him on his back. The frog said, “Oh, no! You are a scorpion. You will sting me!” The scorpion replied, “Now why would I do that? If I stung you, you’d die, and we’d both drown. It doesn’t make sense.”

The frog thought about it. His big heart and common sense appealed to him and he said, “You’re right. Hop on. I’ll take you.” So, they made their way across the river and at the midway point, the scorpion did indeed sting the frog. As they were both sinking, the frog said, “Why did you do that?” The scorpion replied, “Because I’m a scorpion. That’s what I do. That is my nature.”

Hi, I’m Laura Giles with Let It Go Now. I’m here to help you let go of the things that stand in the way of your happiness, success, and satisfying relationships so you can live your authentic, savage life. When you get rid of what’s not you and not real, you flow. In today’s podcast, I am going to talk about the trickster and narcissist - and why the song “All You Need Is Love” is wrong. 

Now most of us have been told and probably believe that love is the answer to everything. If we’re not loving our life, it’s because we need more love. Love conquers all. I’m here to burst that bubble and tell you that love is not enough. 

Loving the scorpion won’t make him not sting because it’s in his nature to sting. It’s what he does. Now, this doesn’t mean that you should hold your love in reserve. Love abundantly. What it does mean is that you can’t use it as a tool to change someone’s nature. Everyone is sovereign. It’s up to them to decide if they want to change, when, how, and what they want to change. 

A scorpion is going to be a scorpion. If you’re practicing good boundaries, this doesn’t enter into it because we always let people do them and we do us. But it absolutely gives us peace of mind to know why some people don’t respond to love the way we would hope they would.

So, let’s look to Nature for that answer, as Nature is the ultimate teacher. 

If you grew up in an Abrahamic faith - so Christians, Muslims, or Jews, your frame of reference is good and evil. Even if you weren’t raised in a religious home, if you grew up in the west, you probably had this as your frame of reference because we live in a Judeo-Christian culture, so it’s steeped into this culture. If you hear people talk about battling evil, this is where this idea comes from.

In Nature there is no good or evil. Lions kill antelopes because that’s what they eat. There is no judgment in it. Mushrooms decompose dead things because that’s what they do. Goats eat brush because that’s what they do. Beavers make their home from trees because that’s what they do. There is no malice in it. It’s just all part of the cycle of life. Everything has its own purposeful nature.

In the Judeo-Christian view, anything that isn’t pro-life, pro-health, pro-social, or pro-my point of view might be viewed as evil. In Nature, there is no evil. There is yin and yang or balance. So, for every positive energy, there is a negative one. And I don’t mean good and bad. I mean masculine and feminine. Together, they make things whole.

Everything is always moving from birth to maturity to decline to death and rebirth. If we don’t like death, we might call that evil. But it’s not. It’s just not desirable. So, in many ways, the cyclical nature of life is very predictable and orderly.

However, there is this thing called Trickster energy that Judeo-Christianity erased from the cultural landscape. And it’s very important to understand because it will help you to accept things as they are and be more effective in your choices.

Trickster’s purpose is to maintain the connection between Heaven and Earth or the microcosm and the macrocosm. We are the microcosm. The macrocosm is the big picture, the spirit realm, the universe. Spirituality exists to answer the unanswerable questions. When we engage with the Great Mystery, we are whole because humanity isn’t just about bones and flesh and returning to the dust. There is more to life than that.

If you look around you, you will see lots of people turning their back on spirituality right now. So, it’s quite natural that you also see more tricksters because that is their job - to keep us engaged with the spiritual realms.

Trickster shows up in many cultures as the creature who is goofy, unpredictable, sometimes very thoughtful and giving, and other times vicious. Like the scorpion in the story, you can’t tell whether he’s telling the truth or lying. He’s tricky.

In Japanese culture, he’s the fox, who of course has the reputation of being sly, so that fits, right? In Celtic culture, she’s the hare. This is where we get Bugs Bunny from. He’s silly, sometimes really clever, and sometimes just plain goofy. And he’s always trying to get one over on Elmer Fudd.

In some Native American cultures, he is the coyote. For the Lakota, it’s Iktomi the spider. Africa has a spider trickster too named Anansi. You may have read those stories when you were a child.

In Greek mythology, it’s Hermes. Hermes has the ability to move between the Underworld, the world of men, and Olympus, which is the world of the gods. This is what I mean about being able to keep open the communication between the spirit plane and the mundane world.

Loki, the Norse trickster, stole fire from the gods and gave it to the morals. In one Native American story, coyote - who is also a trickster - did that. Prometheus is another one. So, sometimes trickster works with you and sometimes he doesn’t. 

Trickster is neither this nor that. Sometimes they are hermaphrodites or can switch genders or shape-shift. Loki can shift genders. In the Disney cartoon The Sword in the Stone, we see the wizards shape-shifting as they are battling. One turns into an animal to obtain the attributes needed to catch the other, then the other one shifts. This is a reference to the Celtic myth of how Gwion became Taliesin, the greatest druid and bard in Celtic mythology.

When you come upon a trickster, all bets are off. The typical ways of functioning in the world won’t work. If you are trying to be wise and effective, trust me, trickster will outsmart you and use your tactics against you. If you try to use love as a force, they are like judo masters who know how to use your own energy against you. 

And the biggest trickster energy facing westerners today is the narcissist. I want to tell you about narcissists so that know them when you see them and do the only thing you can do with tricksters, that’s avoid them. You can’t trust a trickster. You will get hurt at some point- probably very badly. I wouldn’t take it personally. It’s not you. It’s just their nature. It doesn’t matter how good you’ve been to them. It’s just what they do.

So, if you look up narcissism in the official book of psychiatric diagnoses, you will see a definition that fits almost nobody. So, the technical term is not what I am talking about. I’m talking about a set of behaviors that occur on a spectrum. They may come out when under stress only or may be a way of life. They can be mild or severe. Everyone has some level of narcissism. It’s when it’s harmful to yourself or others that it becomes problematic. And when it’s severe, it may be enough to classify as a disorder.

The official definition is an extreme focus on one’s self. This is easy to see in people who are egotistical, talk about themselves all the time, walk on other people to get what they want, talk down to people, and don’t seem to care how their behavior is impacting others. These people are often at the top of their profession and are very successful. They have a knack for persuading people that their point of view is correct, so you can see them as CEOs, self-help coaches, influencers, politicians, high-ranking military officers, and high-profile professions like doctors and lawyers. If you saw the Wolf of Wall Street, that’s a perfect example.

They are power people. They can be really likable on the surface, then you get behind closed doors and see a different person. I have had many clients who came from picture perfect families who said they lived in houses of horror behind closed doors because one or both parents are narcissistic. 

These are the easier ones to spot. The harder ones are what we call covert narcissists. These are the ones who don’t seem to be egotistical at all. They may appear to be kind, giving, and focused on you actually, but this is actually a manipulation to get you to pay attention to them. 

For narcissists, it’s all about them. They need constant reassurance that they are the greatest thing on earth and as long as you give them that reassurance, you're the best. They are really good at making you feel like you're the only person in the room.

I once saw a woman do this and was fascinated by it. I didn’t know what narcissism was back then, but she was a co-worker. She had just started dating mutual friend, so we went out on a double date. She looked at him so adoringly, like he was not only the only person in the room, but the only person in existence. I found myself feeling insecure, like I couldn’t possibly love my husband that much and my heart wasn’t as big as hers. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.

All the fairy tales about falling in love at first sight and living happily ever after are built upon this narcissistic fantasy. That’s exactly how a narcissist makes you feel. You fall hard and fast because they are your perfect dream mate. All the songs about how love hurts are written about narcissistic love. 

The first phase is the love bombing, where they puff you up, give you tons of attention, wine and dine you, and make you feel wonderful. They actually do believe all these things about you because a narcissist typically wants a high value partner to make them feel better about themselves. It’s like, “If I can get you, I must be pretty special.” So they do love all those things about you and could write songs like Little River Band’s “Lady” or Etta James’ “At Last” or Cold play’s “Yellow.” You are everything and everything is you. 

Then we get to the devaluing phase.

From the time I first heard the song by Lou Rawls, “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” I hated it. I thought it was repulsive. All through is this guy singing about he is so wonderful that nobody could ever top him. Yuck. This is a classic narcissist move. They might put you down and tell you how unlovable you are - this is after the love bombing. Then tell you that they are the best thing that ever happened to you, so they don’t leave. They rob you of your self esteem until you are too weak to leave.

This is classic trickster stuff. Do I love you or do I hate you? They keep you hooked with the promise that it can be as good as it was in the beginning, but it never is because that wasn’t real. 

Some other songs that reek of narcissism are Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back,” Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” and “Blank Space.” “I Love Kanye” by Kayne West. “Unapologetic Bitch” by Madonna, “Big Shot” by Billy Joel, “Smooth Operator” by Sade, and “Friday I’m in Love’ by the Cure. 

Love shouldn’t be that unstable. It shouldn’t hurt. It’s not that mood swingy or all-consuming. Or if it is, maybe it’s infatuation or the love bombing stage. 

If being with someone disrupts your equilibrium, there is something wrong. It may feel intense and strange and wonderful, but there are probably a lot of boundary violations happening and what goes up must come down, so the cost of loving like this, is probably going to be really high. So expect some intense lows to follow.

Here are the signs that you’re dealing with a human trickster who can’t be trusted. First, it’s all about them. Whether it’s obvious and they are talking about themselves all the time or more subtle, it’s always about their feelings, what they want, and that the rules don’t apply to them. 

Maybe it’s cool for them to admire other people, but you can’t. If you do, you’ve committed a mortal sin. Maybe they can flirt because they are just friendly and it’s their personality, but if you do, you’re a horrible person. Maybe they can spend money on themselves, but if you do it, you're selfish. Or it could be something like, you have to pay attention to me because I love you so much and I have done so much for you, or maybe because I am so small and weak that I can’t do for myself. 

It doesn’t have to be anything huge, subtle things carry weight too, so watch out for double standards. Another common example is someone who talks, talks, talks and never listens. It’s all about what they want to say. 

Another sign is controlling, manipulative behavior. This is probably subtle and wrapped in a love sandwich, but to shine, you have to be able to be yourself. And if you have to change yourself to please someone else, it’s probably not a good trade. Some examples of this are, “Don’t wear that. I care too much about you to see you go out looking like that, and that’s not a good look.” 

You can wear whatever you like. Even if the other person has a better fashion sense than you, it’s not cool to suggest that you dress to please someone else. It might sound like a little thing, but it’s the little things that create big things.

Another example is what’s known as gaslighting. It comes from the 40s movie called “Gaslight” where the guy in the movie moves the gas lamp flame up and down to make the woman doubt herself and feel like she’s going crazy. She knows she experienced one thing. He denys her reality, which makes her question her reality and start to distrust herself.

So, if you know that your friend said something and then she denies it, it could just be lying. If it’s a pattern of behavior, it’s probably gaslighting and that’s taking things to another level because over time, it makes you question yourself. If I love you and trust you, given the choice to believe you or myself, I might believe you. And that results in a loss of self, and we can’t shine from that place. We need to be in our full power to shine.

Another common trait of narcissists is the need for admiration. Now, with covert narcissists, this might not look true. They don’t go around bragging about themselves, and they could actually have lots of nice things to say about other people. One of the ways that this shows up is by putting you down - either overtly or with backhanded compliments or helpful suggestions. Because the only thing they need to feel admired is to feel better than you, so if you are wrong, bad, or messed up, they feel better about themselves. If you see someone who is surrounded by people with a lot of problems and they are the savior, this could be what’s going on.

Another tell-tale sign of a narcissist is that they don’t apologize and don’t take responsibility for their stuff. If they are in therapy, they typically talk about how badly other people treat them or how bad their life is. They aren’t in therapy to actually do any work on themselves. They do tons of blaming and deflecting because underneath it all is shame. They don’t want to look at that and don’t want you to see it either, so they are often perceived of as secretive. They won’t tell you what they are up to, what they aspire to, or what they want because they don’t want to be accountable for anything. 

The last trait that I will share is the lack of empathy. There is no give and take, no reciprocity. They can’t really do that because they don’t see you as a person. You’re an object whose value is to adore them or give them something. They don’t see you as someone with needs, so there is no way for them to meet your needs or anticipate your needs. Now, this can make a lot of people rule out narcissism for some people because they seem to be really emotionally connected and feel deeply. So I will say this as the final deciding factor on whether you’re dealing with a human trickster. If you have emotional mood swings around this person, feel off balance, and this relationship is like no other, you could be dealing with a narcissist.

So let’s look at why this matters when it comes to letting go of your baggage.

Narcissist use seduction to make you feel comfortable to let down your guard. When you open up and tell them your innermost thoughts, dreams, your past, and your vulnerabilities, they exploit them and use them against you. The less baggage you have, the less ammo you have to use against you.

Another thing is, the more we shine the light on what’s in shadow and let go of the meaning that we used to assign to it, the easier it is to grow in compassion for yourself and other people. So, whatever is there just becomes part of your history and not some skeleton that has to be hidden away. If there is no emotional charge, it can’t be used against you to hurt you. So, you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be in a place of acceptance with the past.

Third, when you get to that place of acceptance of your strengths, weaknesses, history, and experiences, you are in your full power. Yes, that’s right. Our strength comes from our struggles as well as our victories. You know who you are. A narcissist wants to undermine your ability to know yourself. They want to keep you off balance so they avoid abandonment and always have the upper hand. It’s hard to do this when you know where you stand.

In the process of letting go of your baggage, you start to learn that YOU are the source of your own light. It comes from inside. While it’s nice to have love and appreciation from others, it’s never in short supply if you give it to yourself. Narcissists are threatened by this kind of thinking. They want to be the source of your esteem and control it. They are the types of people who believe that there is a limited supply of light and that if you shine, it takes away from me shining, which is just not true. So, they are not really the best people to have around if you want your inner light to shine.

Now, I am absolutely against othering. I am not saying all this to ostracize narcissists or paint them as bad guys. I am simply saying that everything has a purpose and when we respect that, nature functions as intended. When we don’t, things go awry. This is why we see people getting eaten by sharks or alligators when they jump into the shark tank or alligator tank. They imagined that these were friendly creatures who just need a cuddle. 

No. We don’t have scorpions as pets and we don’t keep rattlesnakes in our basements because they are dangerous and can hurt us. It doesn’t make them bad creatures. It just means we keep our distance. If you have been negatively impacted by a narcissist, remember that they have two divine purposes. One is to keep the interaction between humans and the spirit world going. They do this by making things make so little sense that you have to appeal to god, the gods, your ancestors, or spirit for understanding.

The other thing they do is to trick you into changing. They exploit weaknesses and expose flaws that you don’t want to address and make them so painful that you have no choice but to change them. I believe they are here now in such abundance to show us the folly of such a me-focused, self-indulgent, isolated lifestyle that we have in the west. There is no point in doing all that work to be your authentic, radiant self if you don’t share it. It’s a waste. 

So I hear a lot of religions and self-help programs that talk about just loving your way through life. That’s a nice, fluffy idea, but this is why we focus on being effective rather than creating rules for how to live. Details matter. I don’t want to lead you down a garden path where you become prey for a narcissist because you want to show them that all they need is love.

No. If you have a narcissist in your life, the best thing you can do for them is let them go. So it’s a bit of the taste of their own tricky medicine. Hear me out.

There are many theories about what makes a person a narcissist. Is it nature or nurture? Regardless of how it started, it’s not their fault any more than it’s the scorpion’s fault for being a scorpion. But it is their responsibility to change it. And as long as you are engaging with them on their terms - meaning you are providing them with love, acceptance, and adoration, they don’t have to change. They can just keep manipulating their way through life and sucking the light out of other people.

If you are focused on being the best you can be and putting your needs first, your healthy boundaries will leave no space for the way a narcissist wants to dominate and control you. You won’t be a good target. I call this a lock and a key. They want to hold the key to the lock. Don’t be a lock. They will move on to an easier target.

When there are no other targets to be had, perhaps that will trick them into looking at their behavior and using other tactics to get their needs met. Maybe those will be healthier tactics. We all need love and attention. There are healthy ways to get it and unhealthy ways. When we have healthy boundaries, we are actually practicing self-love and validating pro-social ways of behaving so we get more pro-social behavior. If we reward unhealthy boundaries, we get more boundary violations. 

You can’t serve from an empty cup, and we are focusing on filling that cup. Love doesn’t happen until we are solid. Things like happiness, love, peace, and goodness are byproducts of a well lived, authentic life. So I know a lot of us are here because we want love, but we are not putting the cart before the horse. Love comes easily and in abundance when you’re already in a good place. If you doubt it, think about all the times when you were in a romantic dry spell, and then you get with someone and what happens? The guys or girls come out of the woodwork, don’t they? Like moths to a flame, we’re all attracted to light. Contentment creates light. Be you and it will shine like a lighthouse on a foggy night.

But be careful. Don’t abandon your values or boundaries for love. Love won’t ask that of you. Keep yourself first so you can always serve from a full cup.

Final word. If you see a trickster or narcissist, don’t hate. Practice acceptance and gratitude. They have a place in this world just like you do. And recognize it for what it is and know that if you flirt with it, you’re likely to get stung. It’s just their nature.

I can’t tell you how many clients have told me, “No, my person is too sweet to be a narcissist,” then a year, two years, ten years later, they realize it’s true. The healing journey can’t start until we’re in a place of truth, so it’s better to know now than later. 

If you want to dive deeper, head on over to lauragiles.org and join our “Let It Go Now” community where we’re going to play a little game of “Spot the Narcissist” so can identify narcissists early and let them go.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate your time. I’m Laura Giles with “Let It Go Now”, and I will see you next week.