Lisa A. Romano the Break through life coach and today
I want to talk about something that I get asked a lot about and that has to do with how we feel
When we have decided to leave an abuser
When we have decided to leave somebody who perhaps is on the narcissistic spectrum
perhaps who has some type of personality disorder antisocial personality disorder you name it and
we are at a point in our life where we just can't take it anymore and the pain has gotten so bad and
We now know we can see clearly that nothing is going to change right and so many of us don't change
Until we have actually been pushed so far
That we feel like we don't have any other choice. I know that that was my experience
I kept thinking things were going to change and I just
Kept thinking and maybe if I understand things a little bit differently or for I say things a little bit differently then he'll get it
and that just never happened and after getting very very sick and and doctors and everything else they just began to
unravel and they got worse so
I wanted to address what happens to us when we finally agree that we are going to make that move and
so many of us end up feeling sorry for the people who have abused us and
Sometimes we can feel so sorry
For the abuser like in the case with Stockholm Syndrome that we don't even see the abuse. We make excuses for what's happening
We don't even realize that this person is abusing us
And in some cases when we are so codependent
And we are we have such a lack of self
We are so other focus that all we can think about is the other person how the other person is
Experiencing us and we fail to recognize that the other person is not worrying about how we are experiencing them
So it can be very very
it could be a slippery slope when you have been abused as a child or
You have been in a relationship and where you have been other focus from day to night. You know throughout the entire
Entire lifespan of that relationship and very often times throughout your life
You have been other focused you've been worried about how other people perceive you you're worried about
Whether or not other people?
Understand you. It's just a pattern of thought inside your head and
You can't shift a thought you can't shift a pattern until you can see it until you can be objective about it
So that's what I hope you're gaining from my channel and from the work that I put out on YouTube for my books
My coaching programs you name it. Um that is really the crux of it
You cannot change something that you are unaware of the goal is to become aware of what's wrong
So it's important to remember that when we are
People who generally worry about how other people see us
We are setting ourselves up for some serious dynamics when we are looking to end relationships
Because the same dynamic will show up
We'll worry more about how that person feels than we do how we feel about that person?
We're worried more about how that person will do when we're finished with the relationship
Then we worry about how we're gonna do outside that relationship
So it's really really important to be aware of that know that that's dysfunctional
It's a wonderful thing to have compassion for other people
But when you are putting yourself an arm's way and you're putting your children in arms way
And you are not rocking the boat because you're afraid of what the other person thinks when you should be rocking the boat. It's dysfunctional
We have come here to learn how to honor ourselves and protect ourselves
And then to expect that to show up in our outer experience and when we worry more about what other people think and feel then
Then we do how we think and how we feel?
We put ourselves in the positions where we can actually be victims over and over and over and over and over again
and we don't want that right we don't want to be victims anymore and
Until you understand that it is possible to change how you see yourself
Then it is possible to see yourself able to attract other things in life
So when it comes to specifically dealing with how we feel when we are struggling to?
Face the demise of our relationship when we are struggling with worrying about how the narcissist is gonna do or how?
The abuser is gonna do or how you know our mother or father is gonna
Feel when we stop talking to them when we go no contact
And we worry about who's gonna be around for the holidays to take care of them, and who's gonna
You know spend time with them on their birthday, and who's gonna pay their bills, so
Very often times when we end these types of relationships these the types of thoughts we think about who's gonna take care of my
narcissistic mother who's gonna do this because we're good and compassionate people and we know that when we let them go and
We no longer allow them to abuse us
There's gonna be a huge void in their life
And they might not understand the consequences of that void and they might be in trouble so here we go
We're worried about their experience once we're gone and not about our experience once we're gone and so what I?
Love to use metaphors. I know that the brain loves metaphors
I use metaphors and a lot a lot in my work both privately and within
My books and within my coaching programs because the brain actually likes them
So I want you to imagine and I used this analogy on Facebook today
I want you to imagine that you have this huge lion in your backyard and this lion has a spear in his back
So the lion is irritable, and he's pissed off
And he's cranky and every time you get near the lion to try to take the spear out of his back
he goes to lunge at you and
Every time your kids are playing in the backyard and the kids get too close to him the lion
Lunges at the kids because he's irritable and he's angry I want you to also imagine the lion
Can't see the spear the lion doesn't know why he's angry
The lion might know that he is angry, and he's pissed off
But he feels like he has a right to be angry and pissed off, and if you get too close
She's gonna take a swipe at you possibly scratch your face off possibly eat one of the kids, okay
So he's aware that he's angry and he's irritable, but he doesn't know why he doesn't know that there's a spear in his back
So imagine this lion is walking around your back and walking around your backyard, and you live in fear of this lion
but from where you stand you know from inside your home and from behind a
pane of glass that protects you from you and the lion you understand this poor lion is suffering because he has a
spear in his back
And if only you could get to this lion and help him understand that you were a friend not a foe
You were there to help him you were there to take the spear out of his back
Then all would be great with the universe the lion, would love you
He would hug you and just like Beauty and the Beast you know you'd be like Belle. You know dancing and twirling around
Its castle right. That's the fantasy right I can heal this narcissist
I can help him see the error of his ways I can help him understand that his pain
And I can feel connected to him what we're really trying to do is heal our own
Attachment trauma because the narcissist represents our mother our Father a combination of both
And if we can get the narcissist to love us that wipes away all the pain that we experience from childhood
It doesn't work that way. It's an illusion deal once. It's an illusion. It don't work
So I want you to understand that
Even though you have a kind heart and even though you've been programmed to worry more about what other people think about you
Than what you think about yourself and even though you've attracted people into your life that have no empathy for you
Okay, the lion has no empathy for you. He's irritable
He wants to take his frustrations out on you he needs to
blame someone for why he feels the way he feels even if he's angry he knows that he's angry and his
Delusion he'll think it's your fault that
He's upset and that he's in pain everything will be about your fault because he cannot see the spear in his back
Now does that mean that that the lion is unworthy no
It just means that the lion has a disorder and the lion is unable to
See himself
He is unable to see himself
Healthy people are able to see themselves healthy people who are on the healing path
You know they have the ability and the desire to say what am I doing wrong?
How am I affecting the people in my life?
How am I affecting myself when it comes to somebody who is a narcissist? They don't have that desire they don't have that ability
They're not interested at all so this lion has a spear in his back
He's in pain, and he's irritable and every time you come close to him
He's going to take it out on you because the only way that he can feel better is
In the swiping at you and in the blaming you for why he's angry
Because it's a chance for him to release this inner rage right and feel less rageful
It is an opportunity to make you feel responsible
He gets to he gets to transfer all this pain onto you and to make it seem like it's your fault that he feels this
Way because he does not or she does not have the ability to look within and so
When we're when we're thinking about leaving people who have abused us
it's important to think about that type of a metaphor understanding that if there was a lion in my backyard and
This lion could hurt my children of course I would leave I wouldn't stay you can leave this relationship
Knowing that there's absolutely nothing that you can do to get close enough to the narcissist to pull that spear out of his back
There's nothing that you can do first of all the narcissist doesn't see the spear the narcissist doesn't want to look at the spear
It's one of his defense mechanisms
And so knowing that might help you when you begin to understand that you can't help
Somebody who doesn't have the eyes to see himself or to see herself
The only thing that we can do in these situations is not go down with the ship
because if you stay this
Narcissist or this abusive person who may be on this narcissistic
Spectrum who is so blind to the self is going to take all
that pain and all that rage and dump it on you and your children and
Pretty much on anybody that will come into his experience in one way or another
so in my opinion
although and I had this feeling these feelings too when I when I was divorcing my first husband I
Understood that he was going to be a mess when I left in spite of all the things that he said to me I knew
That he relied on me terribly and I knew that below below the veil of consciousness was his crippled little boy who needed to manipulate
And anything he was projecting his own
self-loathing onto me you know and on to other people I
Could see that but he couldn't see that and God forbid. I actually said you know you're projecting
You know I have to do that. You know. It's not your fault. It's your family. It's not you. It's your programming god
forbid I said that he would be enraged because in his head it had to be me I
had to be the one that was wrong I had to be the cause of all his pain it had to be me and
So I did struggle, and I even imagined him being alone and old as an old man and it broke my heart
but I decided that I had to save myself I
Decided that if I stayed I was probably gonna die of some god-awful disease
I was going to create three more co-defendants
I was going to create possibly be responsible for
Children who had children who had children who were co-defendants. I was going to be responsible for
Teaching my children had to stay stuck. I was going to be responsible for invalidating my children's right to live their life
Harmoniously and in alignment with their true self and so ultimately I decided to leave
Even though I knew that he was going to be in pain knowing that I couldn't save him
Knowing that he had the ability to hurt me because he was in pain, and I had to make a choice
And I made it consciously
and I'm so very glad I did and so much of my work has been born from that and
my children are all in very good places right now and
life is good attracted an amazing relationship and
It's just amazing to be able to shed yourself of that and love yourself
Make some mistakes along the way, but as long as you're committed to self-awareness and being accountable
Humility will get you through
So I hope this helps anybody who is suffering with wondering how to deal with
The feelings of guilt that might come up when you decide to leave an abusive relationship
or you might decide to go no contact with your mom and dad or your siblings or
What you might be struggling with when you're ending a narcissistic relationship
And you know that the narcissist is gonna be lost without you
I hope this is bringing brought you some comfort today dear ones now
I must say I bow to the love delight that is absolutely within you