Hey guys, Geoffrey here and this video,
I'm going to show you five key mindset shifts you can make to empower yourself.
If you're dealing with a narcissistic spouse.
Now I really want you to stay until the end of the video because all the other
videos I've watched around this,
all the other articles have washed around this really this empower you and they
make you feel like you've been abused,
they make you feel like there's nothing you can do about dealing with a
narcissistic spouse besides just running away from it,
avoiding the problem and so on. So in this video,
I'm going to try it a different approach than what most people will tell you and
actually try to empower you during the process and actually show you just how
powerful you are, how much more powerful you are in this process than you think.
Now before I begin this video,
I want to let you know that we'll be hosting a free master class on the five
proven steps to rebuilding your relationship from the ground up.
And if you're interested in joining, be sure to stay till the end of the video.
For the announcement and how you can get in on that masterclass.
And if you want more content that will empower you with the right skills and
knowledge to be able to thrive in your relationship,
then you want to subscribe and click the bell button as well to be notified when
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Now if you watched my previous video on this topic,
you'll understand that you know a lot of people actually misdiagnosed this
process.
So what a lot of people do again is they look at the signs of a narcissist and
they say, how many boxes does my spouse tick?
And if it picks enough boxes, they'll say, Oh my spouse is a narcissist.
But doing this lends you to be very susceptible to the correlation is not
causation error. And the example I gave is, you know,
if you are sick for example, and you just have a real normal common cold.
If you go to Google and you ask Google about your symptoms here you realize,
Oh my gosh, I don't have a cold. I have two broke closeness.
And at the same thing here where just by simply looking at the signs,
it's impossible to diagnose properly what a person really is and we're going to
make that correlation is not causation error.
And to give you a good example of this again is that if you look at the signs of
narcissism,
so it could be overt or grandiose in a sense of they're lashing out at you,
they're getting defensive, they're blaming you and so on.
Or if you look at the vulnerable or covert narcissism traits,
they're like stonewalling, shutting down, uh,
being passive aggressive and so on. Yes,
all of these traits can be assigned to a problem of narcissism but they can also
be assigned to a problem of self preservation as a defense mechanism.
The same way you will play out a lot of these patterns yourself when you're
pushed to the corner when you're in a very threatening environment without
safety.
So the first mindset shift here is that whenever you see this narcissistic
behavior,
the last thing you should conclude is actually to assign it to narcissism.
But the first thing you should conclude is to say it's a self preservation
problem, not a personality problem. Why is that?
Because if you assign it to a problem with character, with her personality, one,
it doesn't give you anything meaningful,
meaningful actions to take because it's really hard to change character guys.
And when you already assigned it to a problem with character,
the only thing you can say in your head is what's the point?
What's the point of even trying?
What's the point of even trying to fix it or trying to solve it?
Because I can't change the character.
I can't change the makeup of their brains or their,
the way their hormones run and so on. So it makes you feel very hopeless.
It makes you feel very disempowered.
And if you do take action based on this understanding that there are narcissist,
that any actions you take will be more likely that blame will be more likely to
lash out at their narcissism to get angry at it,
to get impatient at it and so on. And again, if you do this,
you're most likely going to worse than the problem because if the problem was
actually self preservation in the first place,
then all you're doing by lashing out, by responding badly,
it's worsening this lack of safety problem and giving her more reasons to act
out those defense mechanisms and self preservation tactics,
which again worsens this narcissistic behavior.
So if you believe that this is a problem of narcissism,
it's a problem with character from the get go,
you're going to do a lot of things to sabotage your own actions,
sabotage your responses. That actually makes the problem worse over time.
But if you first see this as a self preservation problem,
then it gives you more hope for one because if you understand that this is a
self preservation problem and this is simply caused by the lack of safety,
then the action becomes clear.
You need to build safety and so now this instills more hope and empowers you
because now you're empowered by the fact that Hey,
I can actually do something about this because I can actually create more
safety. That's something I can control and it gives you more compassion.
It gives you more understanding as well for your partner's point of view because
now you're not seeing this as your partner just simply being mean to you,
trying to abuse you and so on and trying to get power over you,
but you see it more as your partners equally, your victim here,
they're struggling as well.
They're struggling with the lack of safety and because of the lack of safety to
have to do all these things to self preserve. Now again,
I'm going to say this over and over again.
I do believe that narcissistic people do exist,
but most of the time people are misdiagnosing this.
Most of the time what people think of as narcissistic behavior is actually just
self-preserving behavior.
And the shame here is that if you think your partner is a narcissist from the
get go,
you were never going to take the right actions to be able to find out if this is
actually just self preservation or just narcissism. Right?
And it's a shame because I think a lot of people dealing with narcissistic
spouses are actually not dealing with a personality problem.
They're actually dealing with a very fixable problem of self preservation.
And if they just learn to create safety,
they'll realize that those behaviors start to go away eventually.
Now the second mindset shift I want you to make here is to blame environment,
not character. So this relates closely to number one in that, you know,
we want to blame this as a environment problem,
as a problem with the lack of safety rather than a character problem.
You are a narcissist. Why?
If you blame character that is really disempowering for you because one is
really,
really impossible to change character and changing someone's character is not
something you can do.
And the only way you can change character is to get angry yourself and blame
your partner to say stop being that way, to stop acting that way.
Stop being like how you are. And if you say things that way,
what happens is you will start to get people's guards up.
You will destroy safety and it worsens the problem even more.
But when you start to shift your blame away from the blame of character to blame
of environment, the situation,
then that instantly makes you more hopeful because the moment you say,
this is not a character problem, this is not a personality problem,
but more of a, she's the environment.
This relationship is not making her feel safe enough to be able to just not play
out the defense mechanisms. Then instantly you feel more hopeful.
Instantly you say, that's something I can control. There's something I can do.
That's something I can act on.
And the funny thing too is also when you shift this blame to a blame of
situation,
you can start talking into communicating with your partner in a much more
productive way where it actually doesn't make them defensive.
The conversation stops being accusatory and becomes more of a discovery,
more of a dialogue together, and it allows you to think more creatively as well.
And this is very crucial because you know,
I'm sure we all have felt this where if we're the ones facing the problem,
we suddenly can't think clearly anymore.
But if someone else was having the same problem and we're the ones coaching that
person as a third party and coaching someone on that problem,
we realized suddenly we can be really objective.
We can be really creative and we're actually giving good solutions to their
problems. And it's the same thing here.
When you start to depersonalize the problem and make it not about a problem with
character about your relationship, about you guys,
but more of a situation problem, an external problem,
then the solutions will come a lot more naturally to you.
You'll find that you'll be able to think creatively together and find win-win
solutions much easier. And so you see, just by simply adopting this mindset,
you can really get yourself to feel empowered quite immediately. Now,
the third shift I want you to make is again,
see this as a moment where you can empower yourself,
not as yourself being abused.
If you watch a lot of videos out there around this topic,
it will tell you that when you're dealing with a narcissistic spouse,
you need to understand that you're the one being emotionally abused.
But if you see this this way, it makes you weaker at this empowers you.
Once again, it makes you feel like a victim. Like you're the one that is down.
You're the one that is being kicked around and you're the one that is weak and
this feeling of weakness,
feeling of being like you're the beta one in the relationship will make you play
out your own defense mechanisms. It'll make you lash out.
It will make you blame.
It will make you react in a bad way to their narcissistic behavior.
And then we talked about if you do this, if you lash out, if you react yourself,
then you're just forcing the problem because most of the time the problem here
is not with personality is with the fact that they're have a lack of safety,
which causes this soft preserving acts. And if you lash out,
you're destroying that safety again and you're worsening those self-preserving
acts. And just making it much harder for you in the long run. Instead,
whenever you see narcissistic behavior,
what I want you to see is yourself as the leader, not the victim. In fact,
I want you to turn this whole thing around and see your partner as a victim.
She's the one that is having the lack of safety.
She's the one having to play out this defense mechanisms.
She's the one having to self preserve.
She's the one feeling cornered and see yourself as that powerful leader who can
create the safety,
who can reestablish a safety to rescue her from that state.
And when you shift your mind this way,
you can finally find yourself that whenever you're dealing with a,
with a narcissistic person, you can certainly see yourself as the alpha,
as the strong one, as the leader. And it makes it easier for you to stay calm,
stay objective, state poised.
And that's an important step for you to create safety.
So you can see here simply by shifting the way you perceive the power dynamics
during this time, it can really get you to empower yourself, right?
Seeing yourself as the abuse victim here feels good,
but understand that it doesn't really give you anything useful to act on.
It disempowers you. It makes you weaker. But seeing yourself,
choosing to see yourself as the leader,
as a powerful leader in this interaction is a more difficult route to take,
but it empowers you. It gives you a very meaningful actions to take,
and it allows you to respond in a much healthier way as well.
Mindset shift number four is to stop diagnosing and start treating. You know,
I don't know what is with people, but they love to diagnose themselves.
They love this part, right?
They would go watch a video on the 10 signs of a narcissistic wife,
and as they're looking at the signs, they're going, Oh my gosh, right?
That's right. That's me. I'm facing that. You're reading my mind,
whatever it is. And if someone tells them like, yeah, you feel abused,
he's talking, you should feel, you feel, you feel disempowered,
you feel like she's overpowering you, and instantly you go, Oh yeah,
that's right. That's exactly how I feel. Oh, you understand me so well.
But diagnosis and understanding the signs. For example,
understanding your situation is something that I call TVU.
It's true but useless. So this is true that she's having all these signs,
your partner, it's true that you might feel emotionally abused, but again,
what can you do with that information?
You can't do anything productive with that besides just feeling good for a
moment and thinking, wow,
if someone understands me and I don't know why people like diagnosing so much.
You know, imagine you go to a doctor and the doctor tells you, uh,
you have tuberculosis or you have the flu and he just stops there.
He doesn't give you any medications, he doesn't give you any treatments.
Just say you have the sickness, will you go like, Oh, okay,
so what's the treatment doc? Right?
You would go like that and you should have the same mindset when it comes to
your life,
to your relationship where you shouldn't just be satisfied with simply
diagnosing and keep diagnosing your situation.
You should not be satisfied until you come up with a good treatment for it. Now,
am I saying here that the diagnosis itself doesn't actually matter or that you
know when you're communicating in a relationship that you should get straight to
the solutions and straight to the treatment right away? Not quite.
You should have the right diagnosis,
which I don't think a lot of people are doing when it comes to this case anyway.
And what I am saying is that without the right diagnosis,
there's no possibility of even finding out a treatment.
So you should continue to be asking the right kinds of questions to be able to
properly diagnose what's happening with you, what's happening in a relationship.
But you shouldn't just be satisfied with a diagnosis.
Once you finished diagnosing and doing a thorough and proper diagnosis,
you should go ahead and look for a treatment.
And in the context of communication and relationship,
when you do have a treatment, when you do have a solution,
if you watch my other videos,
you will know there was a right ways to bring up your solutions in the wrong
ways to do it. And in fact, if you were just focused on diagnosing, diagnosing,
diagnosing, it makes the problem a lot more complex. It's like going to Google,
looking at why do you have a cough? Or why do we have this back pain?
And looking at all these articles and before you know what you realize, wow,
I have a lot of sicknesses. It's the same thing here.
The more you focus on the diagnosis,
the more complex your problem gets and it just gives you more and more true but
useless information. And that just drives you insane.
So if you're just simply diagnosing right now, stop diagnosing,
start looking for the treatment.
Start looking for to understand how you can actually treat and deal with and
respond to your spouse's behavior. And in the next video,
I'm going to show you the artful ways you can respond when you're in the face of
this narcissistic behaviors.
I'm going to show you how you can artfully respond to it.
That actually creates safety. And once you do this,
you'll find that those soft preserving actions go away eventually.
And number five here is that even though there is multiple diagnoses,
there's only one treatment. So I think people in the space,
they like to overcomplicate the treatment.
They like to overcomplicate this whole,
this whole issue of dealing with a narcissistic spouse, right? They talk about,
for example,
the signs of an overt or covert narcissist or a grandiose or a vulnerable
narcissist in the list. All these signs and they say, Oh,
depending on the signs, you have to act differently.
You have to react differently. You have to respond differently,
and before you know it, if you follow this advice,
you'll end up with a hundred things. You need to do,
hundred things you need to memorize to be able to deal with this situation.
But I want to give you a different viewpoint here and that if you stopped seeing
this as simply them being narcissistic and start seeing this as her simply soft
preserving,
and if you understand that self preservation simply comes from the fact that
there's a lack of safety here,
then you start to understand that the treatment is actually very simple.
Even though there's multiple signs,
hundreds of signs of what necessarily behavior looks like.
There's only one treatment behind all those things and that's to create safety.
And so this mindset shift,
understanding that all these things can be solved if you just create safety
really,
really empowers you because it gives you one clear direction on what to do,
how to act.
And once you really dive deep into understanding how to actually create safety,
you realize this is actually much easier than you thought.
So stay tuned for the next video where I can show you the ways you can respond
to narcissistic behaviors in a way that creates more safety and doesn't
perpetuate the problem and allows you to find out that this is actually not a
necessity problem.
This is more of a self preservation problem all along there was an easily
fixable problem all along. Now. In the meantime,
if you're looking for a deeper resource that allows you to understand how to
lead your interactions to create more the safety to remove the self preserving
behaviors,
then you want to check out the free guide down below this video and if you want
to join that free masterclass and the five proven steps to rebuilding your
relationships from the ground up,
then you also want to check out the link in the description box below this video
as well. And a big part of this five proven steps is the foundation of it,
which is emotional and psychological safety.
And what you find is that once you're able to learn this,
you'll see that those narcissistic behavior that you're seeing will eventually
go away and go away for good.
So if you're interested in joining that free master class,
then check out the link in description box below this video as well.
Now if you want to connect with me on a more personal level,
I do have a free Facebook group where you can join, ask her questions,
and actually get good answers on those questions for myself or from other
members of the community. So if you want to join that Facebook group,
check out the link down below as well. Now, in the meantime,
I do want to hear from you, so let me know what did you find most insightful,
most eyeopening from this video? I'd love to hear from you,
and if you liked this video and you found it to be valuable,
do like this video and subscribe to this channel as well.
For more content like this one. In the meantime,
I do want you to watch this other two videos that I can equip you with the right
skills and knowledge to be able to deal with any kind of scenarios in your
relationship a bit better. In the meantime, I'll see you in the next video.