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Narcissism in Self/Others: Respond in Healthy Ways
- Nancy Van Dyken
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Welcome to “Healing From Within.” I am your host Sheryl Glick author of The Living Spirit which shares stories of spiritual awakenings, spiritual communication, healing energies, miracles, and ways to go within to find your true self. Today I am delighted to welcome Nancy Van Dyken author of Everyday Narcissism -Yours Mine and Ours.
Listeners of this show have become aware over the years that my guests and I share intimate experiences, insights and awareness of our emotional spiritual and physical realities hoping to know more about the human condition and to find ways for greater self-investigation and for mastering our emotions for movement towards self-actualization and higher consciousness.
In today’s episode of “Healing From Within” Nancy Van Dyken a licensed psychologist and clinical social worker working with couples, parents, and teens with depression and anxiety, will help us with a clear definition of Narcissism and talk about the five myths that are the focus of the book. She offers ways to build boundaries, suggests healing activities, and shows us how to recognize the differences between Everyday Narcissism and a more serious condition Clinical Narcissism.
Nancy shares what she believes was a motivating force for all she has strived for in life and in learning to know and accept herself with greater love and that person was her very kind and gentle father who rarely, if ever, reprimanded her or stopped her from using her own intuitive and instinctive needs to shine her light into the world with boldness and courage. Sheryl tells Nancy she was lucky to have a father who was also quiet but knew when to speak in order to correct any injustice or lack of action by others. Certainly they were examples of how to live with grace and honor.
Nancy tells us that this is the first and only book on healing everyday narcissism an extremely common condition that limits our happiness—and that most people aren’t even aware of. Nearly all of us are everyday narcissists: you, me, our friends and children, our parents, partners, neighbors and co-workers We must know how to recognize it and heal it. This is not a book about narcissistic personality disorder called Clinical Narcissism.. This book would be good for anyone who feels lost or confused about their direction in life or uncertain about who they are, or anyone having trouble in a relationship, with a partner, coworker, family member of loved one, and anyone who wants more happiness and freedom. Psychologists social workers counselors and clergy should all be aware of the five myths that we are taught in childhood and which often cause us great pain over the course of our lifetime.
Nancy Van Dyken turns the growing problem of narcissism around by helping us look at ourselves rather than judging everyone else. As a result we find it easier to nurture ourselves while paying better attention to our relationships. The forward of Nancy’s book Everyday Narcissism talks about neglecting ourselves and then of course there may be some who do nothing but focus on themselves. Either of those emphasis would ultimately limit our level of well being.
Nancy writes, “Carrying the well-being of others on your shoulders? Heavy isn’t it? Meanwhile a very important life is being neglected. Yours. We humans take extraordinary measures to feel safe, even sacrificing awareness of our truest selves in order to follow explicit and implicit rules. On that path we can stray far from our authentic center that we don’t know that we’ve lost ourselves. Our own false self then relates to the false selves of others. My cat can’t read Even if I could bear to punish or withdraw from him and used my best skills to teach him he still would be unable to read and imagine how our relationship would be affected were I to continue to expect him to live up to my expectations. Yet well meaning parents routinely try to enforce behavior that is beyond a child’s normal development capacity. What do you imagine this does to a child…how can you avoid demanding the impossible of others especially after being immersed in myths yourself.”
Nancy also shares that since we all have a relationship with authority and can struggle with it every day our whole lives and not be aware of the energy it uses or the cost of the struggle. This struggle can take many forms—love/hate, insist/resist, open compliance hiding secret defiance, open defiance leading to self sabotage, overt or subtle domination, and or passive resistance. We may reward and please others while simultaneously digging out the ground they are standing on. We can even force ourselves into internal compliance, while losing awareness of honest reactions. So yes we often are very hard on ourselves and others instead of simply learning to know ourselves and appreciate life in all its quirkiness and without judgment. But nothing is impossible if we approach it with the proper attitude work consistently to develop the skills and tools to achieve our intentions without limiting ourselves through fear and restriction.
We also have a paradox in relation to dealing with young children. On the one hand parents need to devise clear simple rules for their kids in order to eliminate chaos. On the other hand parents also have to understand enough about childhood development that they don’t ask the children to do the impossible. She gives an example. Before the age of three kids don’t normally share. They are simply unable to. So kids playing separately side by side is normal for children under the age of three. Sharing is not. Language development plays an integral role in building self-control and this doesn’t usually begin until about age five. Until then although kids may parrot what they hear from adults they don’t comprehend the full meaning of the words they are repeating. In general most of us are not taught or encouraged or permitted to name our feelings and discuss them. We are often taught to hide and ignore them…not such a good practice in conquering EN. And as a result most young children experience feeling rejected excluded or judged by adults for not following adult expectations.
Nancy shares one of the greatest needs of all humans….”Whatever our childhood survival pattern was it all came from the need to be loved, to count and to matter—that is to belong.” When we get focused on others we often lose the ability to know what we want and stop having dreams of our own. And often pass on these messages to our children.
The 5 myths go beyond person to person relationships and warp how we view our place in the universe. Based on these assumptions that become unconscious we have no idea they are running our life and are buried at the unconscious level of awareness. Over time because of our EN and the EN of others we don’t feel emotionally safe. After all when we were children and didn’t know how to be anyone other than our true self we were repeatedly judged and rejected. We were told to change and to be what others wanted us to be because we might just be inadequate and unworthy of love. Over time we created a false self in the hope of becoming safe and love and built many layers to protect ourselves from expressing our inner soul feelings…we lost trust in ourselves and others.
Nancy goes on to define Narcissism and then Everyday Narcissism and how to recognize it in yourself and others.
Narcissism in all its forms is a belief that the world revolves around us, and that what happens in the world happens because of us. As a result most narcissists are very insecure and they have to be the leader at all times often talking about themselves and forcing their will on others. This everyday narcissism comes from a combination of childhood wounds traumas and powerful myths we were taught as children. Trauma is always felt deeply and remembered by our body. To the body trauma is invariably experienced as an assault whether physical emotional verbal psychological sexual or spiritual. When most of us think of trauma we think of extremely painful events such as incest abuse rape war assault serious injury severe betrayal extreme neglect or great and unexpected loss. However trauma can also result from small painful incidents that get repeated many times. This is often the case with the everyday narcissism most of us are exposed to as children. EN can be seen as a form of neglect in which a child’s emotional and sometimes physical needs are ignored in favor of those of adults. Through EN many children experience a slow repetitive grinding down of our self-worth, self-confidence and self-trust.
Nancy tells us the story of Cassie and her Grandmother who wants a kiss when she is saying goodbye. Cassie doesn’t want to kiss her grandmother because she had just said something hurtful earlier. Mother insists and makes Cassie feel grandma’s feelings are more important than hers. Awful to do to anyone.
Intense and abrupt emotional reactions are usually trauma responses from an old wound that just got triggered
The Five Myths that are the focus of the book are as follows:
- We are responsible for –and have the power to control—how other people feel and behave.
- Other people are responsible for –and have the power to control the way we feel and behave
- The needs and wants of other people are more important than our own.
- Following the rules is also more important than addressing our needs and feelings.
- We are not lovable as we are: we can only become lovable through what we do and say.
Nancy responds that if we believe we have the power to control how other people feel and behave which is one of the myths we will constantly watch how others react to us. If they are unhappy we will assume it is because we did something wrong. We will tell ourselves that if only we had said or done or been something different they would be happy. We will assume we have failed and we will feel ashamed or burdened or unlovable. Thus we will live in fear of rejection and disapproval. This is self-defeating and will lead to serious consequences for our health and state of wellbeing.
Must trust ourselves be honest with ourselves create what makes us happy and encourage others to assume responsibility for their own happiness and well-being.
Nancy discusses the difference between Everyday Narcissism and Clinical Narcissism.
When the healthy pursuit of self-interest and self-realization turns into self-absorption, other people can lose their intrinsic value in our eyes and become mere means to the fulfillment of our needs and desires. (PM Forni)
Clinical narcissism technically known as narcissistic personality disorder is a diagnosable mental illness one of ten types of personality disorder The Mayo Clinic offers the following definition of a personality disorder: A personality disorder is a type of mental disorder in which you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking functioning and behaving. A person with a personality disorder has trouble perceiving and relating to situations and to people. This causes significant problems and limitations to relationships social encounters work and school.
Personality disorders are divided into three groups: Anxious, Suspicious and Emotional Impulsive. Clinical narcissism is an emotional impulsive personality disorder.
Description of disorder: People with narcissistic personality disorder have a constant and overwhelming need for attention usually admiration praise and validation. At a social gathering they dominate the conversation and at work they seek the highest possible position and insist their ideas are the best Clinical narcissists exaggerate their accomplishments and talents and believe these exaggerations. They lie often blatantly and shamelessly. They have an overblown sense of their own importance and come across as extremely arrogant. They tend to be bossy judgmental perfectionist controlling and power hungry. They have no qualms about exploiting cheating or in some cases destroying other people to get what they want.
Everyday narcissism is not a personality disorder and not something that can be diagnosed by a therapist. It’s a familiar outcome of being raised by less than perfect parents in a less than perfect Utopian society. It’s not healthy yet it is extremely common.
Some of the healing approaches you begin to describe include Noticing and Investigating Your feelings and you give a great list of hundreds of feelings we experience and how to actually allow yourself to feel these emotions. Another healing activity is To Let Yourself make Mistakes and Apologize when appropriate..no one is perfect. Another healing activity is to pay attention to your body especially to anger and fear which can close down our heart so we cannot connect to ourselves or others. Exploring personal desires helps you get in touch with what you care most about for you and you alone and is a healing activity that can help you explore your talents and bring happiness.
As far as boundaries are concerned who we are is made up of our likes dislikes wants needs feelings values beliefs experiences and spirituality. These comprise our personal boundaries—our truth. However the myths of Everyday Narcissism tell us these truths are not important. Instead we are encouraged to live by other people’s truths because those are more important than ours. As we grow up and live according to the myths of EN we lose sight of who we are. We become boundaryless. We conform to what others expect of us We change to fit in and lose our own intuitiveness and spiritual gifts.
12 Explain how rules both help and hurt us?
The myths and rules of Everyday Narcissism take root in our psyches because they are taught to us over and over by people we trust.
In Myth 4 Following the Rules is also more important than addressing our Needs and Feelings we may discover that when rules are properly designed and applied the can help remove chaos and drama from our lives… This is why we have stop signs. However, when rules are made more important than the human beings they are meant to serve people become wounded---especially if they are young.
Many myths and rules don’t just pervade our culture: they are cultural norms. We teach them to our kids to help them grow up to become functional adults and some would say the myths of EN help children learn to be kind and thoughtful. They do not. They make all of us those who learn them and those who teach them smaller younger less functional and more wounded.
By the time we are adolescents we accept that if we feel angry sad or hurt when you act in ways I don’t like I am responsible for your feelings and behavior and someone elses responsibility to fix the situation so you may act and feel better….NOT SO This is a form of EN that almost everyone shares. As a result of lifelong training such as this and myths and rules that are wrong..we believe
- I am responsible for how other people feel and behave
- I am responsible for how others act toward me. ( Therefore I am ALL POWERFUL EN)
- Other people are responsible for how I feel and behave and are supposed to make me feel safe happy and ok (I am the center of Universe.
- We spend our days desperately trying to belong.
- We focus on doing and being what everyone else wants us to do or be—at least what we think they want us to be.
- This focus requires us to discount ourselves and deny our own truth and inner direction. This takes much of our freedom and energy.
- We yearn for genuine connections with other people yet may not know how to create this.
- We may not even know such a connection is possible.
- Yet at the same time something inside us tells us that all of this isn’t enough. We yearn for something more real and authentic.
- We are exhausted from our attempts to maintain the lies we live by.
In summarizing today’s episode of “Healing From Within” we have explored the Everyday Narcissism we all experience through indoctrination in early childhood training often learning to follow The Five erroneous myths that perpetuate ideas and rules that we must adhere to that have us caring for others while not caring for ourselves. That behavior can stifle joy, our need to learn more about ourselves, and create boundaries that make us unable to create lives filled with meeting our own needs.
Nancy wrote…” In practice most of us are not taught or encouraged or permitted to name our feelings and discuss them Instead we are taught to hide and ignore them. And in many cases, we eventually pass this lesson on to our own children. The result is that most young children experience feeling rejected excluded or judged by adults for not knowing or following adult rules and expectations. Yet often these rules and expectations are not reasonable or realistic for people their age.”
Nancy and I would hope to break this cycle which sadly turns out to be the case with most parents and their children and to allow more parents to understand many of the myths that still pervade our everyday life leading to Everyday Narcissism which alters the true nature of each soul to experience first and foremost good feelings of Self and a world of possibilities and beauty. Let’s begin by observing what is right with life rather than what is wrong…A positive open hearted approach would be most welcome and beneficial to all.
