How to Avoid the Narcissist's Trap!

all right in this video I want to answer the question what's the best way to protect ourselves from getting into a relationship with a narcissist and the reason why this is so important is because a true narcissist is really good at hiding who they are right they're really good at pretending and giving you lots of attention and affection in the beginning but once they've hooked you in once they know you have feelings for them things will slowly start to shift won't they and they will begin to belittle you and demean you and try to chip

away at your selfworth and if you haven't learned about their playbook ahead of time it's really easy to default to thinking maybe I did something to cause them to mistreat me right maybe I am too needy maybe it is my fault that they're mistreating me and I never want you to think that but before we get into that we have to answer a quick question what even is a narcissist because that's an important question it's extremely important we know the warning signs of narcissistic behavior in order to protect ourselves and it's extremely important that we

are careful not to label everyone who is self-centered or emotionally immature as is a narcissist the highest estimates from professionals and doctors say that narcissistic personality disorder meaning true narcissists represent about 5% of the population still a lot of people but in today's culture it seems like we are using that word to label a lot of people that may or may not be actual narcissists and I just think it's important to remember labeling people isn't the goal I don't care if they're actually a narcissist or not most narcissists aren't going to the doctor to get

diagnosed right so I don't care about the label I care about how they treat you regardless of whether someone is actually a narcissist or not we know self-centeredness and disrespect and arrogance and pride and violence and demeaning someone calling them names refusing to take accountability or repair conflict those behaviors are completely unacceptable from any partner and they will never lead to the trust intimacy connection or love that you deserve in a relationship right so at the end of the day the goal isn't debating on whether someone is a narcissist or not the goal is learning

about what every relationship ship needs to survive like emotional safety and mutual respect and Trust the goal is learning about how and when to set healthy boundaries around neglect and disrespect the goal is maturity and self-reflection and self-esteem and self-worth and remembering you never deserve to be mistreated or abused even if you ignored red flags and you've already been in relationships with toxic or narcissistic Partners you still didn't deserve to be hurt or abused we've all ignored red flags and in just a little bit I'm going to talk about how it's always the most most

kind and sacrificial and loving people that are the most susceptible to getting involved with narcissistic people isn't it that's not something I want you to feel shame about this is simply about remembering our partners should never make us feel worse about ourselves if you forget everything else from this video remember this your needs matter what you need to feel safe and loved matters your feelings matter they're not a burden your voice matters you're valuable and you're worthy of kindness and respect Baseline so that's my job to show show you Grace and compassion but also hold

you accountable to who you're picking for your future Partners to be gentle and kind but also not beat around the bush and tell you directly how you might be contributing to the dysfunctional Dynamics you keep finding yourself in because we can't change their behavior for them can we we can't control their words and actions we can't boundary them into loving us or respecting us the only thing we can control is us and our standards and how we react and respond and how much access we give of our body time and energy to another person right

and I understand that you love them but love won't be enough to save this relationship chemistry isn't enough a great sex life isn't enough frankly I don't even care that you love each other I care about whether there's mutual respect and selflessness and humility and the ability to apologize and empathize the ability to repair conflict in a healthy way the desire to prioritize each other in the ways that your partner feels valued most that's what determines whether your relationship succeeds or fails not whether someone says they love you or not so how how do we

prevent a relationship with a narcissist by learning about their red flags by learning about the type of partners that they tend to get involved with and then by setting a standard for how we're going to show up and how we're going to expect our partners to show up as well all right so most of the time we think of a narcissist as being someone who has a massively inflated ego they're arrogant they're prideful they lie they exaggerate to make themselves look better they talk about how great they are they're loud they puff out their chest

and make themselves the center of attention and that is one type of narciss nist but there's another type that is less obvious but just as dangerous and that's the covert narcissist the covert narcissist still has the ego they're still prideful they still lie and they still need attention and admiration but they go about getting it in a little bit of a different way they're much more likely to take on the role of the victim everybody's out to get me nobody understands me nobody cares about me or appreciates me everyone always leaves me they tend to

get with Partners who are more caregiving in nature someone who wants to save them from their pain someone's really good at empathizing and wants to help them heal but the narcissist ends up creating a toxic environment where they start accusing you of things that you never did or thought about doing they're passive aggressive they give you the silent treatment to punish you and if you ever challenge them on any of it they will play the victim and say see you never loved me if you loved me you would do X Y and Z everything always

comes back to them in some way if you were excited about a promotion you got they would figure out a way to make you feel small and remind you that without them you wouldn't have gotten it they will never pass up an opportunity to remind you of past failures to rob you of current joy and any type of narcissist is the best example of complete self-centeredness after the love bombing face they are completely uninterested in your preferences or desires you are there to care about them you are there to shine the light on them not

the other way around the only time that they will care about you or show you love is if it serves them to do so they will treat you one way in public and a completely different way when you're alone together the true narcissistic person person is living in a fantasy world it's a personality disorder and the craziest thing is they actually subconsciously oscillate between thinking they're the greatest person in the world and also feeling deep shame and self-hatred and the way they handle those insecurities is by projecting them onto you they aren't weak you are

they don't need to feel shame you do because you're stupid and ugly and worthless all those terrible things they say to you are simply a way to prevent them from feeling them inside themselves now of course that doesn't justify any of it we should never tolerate anyone talking to us like that I don't care if it's a parent partner or boss you never deserve for someone to call you stupid or worthless or ugly or any other name you don't deserve to be yelled at cursed at or touched when you don't want to be touched but

the true narcissist doesn't care about that because they are living in denial where they are entitled to do whatever they want to whoever they want they don't care that they're a walking double standard I mean just think what would happen if you treated them with even an ounce of the disrespect and contempt and disgust that they treat you with you would never get away with that so this is a good time to remember it's not a good idea to call out the narcissist or even get an arguments with them because that could result in narcissistic

rage and I don't trust them not to hurt you the most important thing we need to remember is to always stay safe if you weren't capable of having a safe conflict with them you shouldn't be in a relationship with them and I would beg you to get professional help to figure out how to navigate this and possibly get out because they will never try to understand you will they the narcissist is forever the victim it might be their greatest tell nothing is ever their fault they never take accountability for anything and even if they said

that they were wrong they will phrase it as oh I guess I was wrong for trusting you or I guess I was wrong for being so nice see I'm always the one that gets taken advantage of or if you actually caught them in a lie they will shame spiral and manipulate you by saying oh I guess I'm the worst partner ever I can't ever make a mistake I can't do anything right you hate me just go ahead and leave I know you want to and you'll end up comforting an apology izing to them even though

you were the one mistreated because they won't take responsibility they can't make a mistake because that would shatter the fragile ego in the fantasy world that they've created they will blame shift and tell you that you're the reason they mistreat you it's always you you're too sensitive you're too needy you're just overreacting again they are the judge of whether you're allowed to feel a certain way they have no capacity for real empathy now they can fake it and say the right words to appease you to get you to stay a little longer but there will

never be any follow through and eventually they'll be right back to gaslighting invalidating or devaluing you I never said that you're really going to make a big deal about that I was just kidding can't you take a joke gosh I thought you were smarter than that and even more strange even though they are highly critical of you and everything you say or do they will never tolerate constructive feedback or criticism from you will they they will lash out and punish you if you question their judgment after all they're the smartest person in the room they

essentially have the emotional maturity of a toddler and this is one of the things they will always throw a temper tantrum about they are also very controlling and manipulative by Nature the guilt tripping the intimidation The Bullying the threats if you really loved me you would do blank it's all designed to use you to get what they want they have a deep fear of being controlled so the only way to prevent that is to manipulate you first but they also aren't stupid they've studied you they know your vulnerabilities they know your triggers and they plan

to use them against you so they will push you and push you just to get a rise out of you they will lie or accuse or belittle you or bait you into a fight until you explode why because it means they can still control you and eventually you'll become so emotionally or physically exhausted that you'll lash out and call them names you'll yell and curse and they'll sit back and calmly take notes so they can tell everyone exactly what you said or did and now they can spend the narrative that you're actually the abuser in

this relationship they can use all this stuff to isolate you even further and confuse you and devalue you and tell you that you're lucky that they're still with you because nobody else would tolerate you and if you would simply stop being so terrible they would treat you better and the cycle just goes round and round you fight and then you apologize you make up they treat you decently for a few days or a week they breadcrumb you they give you just enough so you won't leave and this is part of the destructive cycle they've created

such a Barren Wasteland for intimacy and connection that all they have to do is treat you with human decency for one day and you think wow they're being so nice to me no it's just that when you have been deprived for so long even the bare minimum feels like love that's why you feel so confused all the time you're confused why they treat you this way but you're also confused why you can't seem to leave you wonder if there's something wrong with you you wonder if you're the narcissist like they call you but you're not

do you know why because they're the only person that you're having these problems with and two narcissists don't want what you want you want a relationship with safety and trust and connection and closeness right narcissists don't want that you're not the narcissist now now that doesn't mean you're not emotionally immature it doesn't mean you don't need to be held accountable for the toxic behaviors that you did towards them but you're not the narcissist and the tragic reality is if you were traumatized or emotionally neglected as a child you're used to Chaotic Love in a way

you're used to performing to feel loved you're used to relationships where you were criticized or demeaned or ignored this isn't the first time someone has said your feelings are a burden is it and the saddest part about all this is in some way this type of relationship actually feels familiar to you and we always gravitate to what feels familiar now here's the crazy thing these toxic abusive relationships don't start out like that do they if they did nobody would ever get in a relationship with someone like this so the narcissist knows they need to get

you to fall for them in the beginning this is what's called The Love bombing face and I've talked about this before so I won't go into detail but essentially they go overboard in treating you with respect and kindness they shower you with affection and attention they can be charismatic or sweet they listen when you talk but not because they actually care they just want to learn information they want to learn about your vulnerabilities so they can eventually use them against you they need you to fall in love with them they need you to attach to

them they need to do whatever they can to move this relationship as fast as they can they begin to isolate you from your friends and family they push for you to be sexual because when we're sexual with someone we're much more likely to feel bonded to them right and for so many of us who are desperate to find our soulmate or someone who sees our value and worth we fall for it because who doesn't love feeling loved and prioritized right it's very easy to let our guard down in that environment unfortunately like we talked about

earlier that's when they'll slowly start to Gaslight you and make you question your reality they'll slowly start to assert dominance in this relationship they'll start to devalue you invalidate your feelings call you names the fighting will start and you being the kind thoughtful person that you are will try to be The Peacemaker you'll try to figure out what went wrong and how you can fix this to get things back to the way they were before but the sad truth is there is no before it it wasn't real and we can hurt ourselves when when we're

staying in toxic relationships based on Hope or the potential that one day things will be better it won't so that brings us to our next way to prevent a relationship with a narcissist and that's by asking the question what type of person do they tend to date because I never want to victim blame but it would be naive to say that the narcissist doesn't have a type does that mean you brought this on yourself or that you deserve it no but this is how we protect ourselves by learning about what type of people tend to

get in these dominant submissive relationships because I'm willing to bet it's usually someone who is used to sacrificing their needs for the sake of someone else right someone who struggles with confrontation and boundaries someone who avoids conflict to keep the peace it's usually someone who gives Grace and kindness and wants to see the good in people someone who's really good at giving Second Chances someone who is loyal someone who is accommodating someone who defaults to empathy and as controversial as it might be I believe it's someone who struggles with self-esteem it's usually someone who is

conditioned to believe that they need to earn love someone who isn't quite sure what they're allowed to need in their relationships right sometimes even the idea of advocating for your needs seems selfish or rude doesn't it heck most of us weren't even Tau we're allowed to have needs it's usually someone who questions themsel who has a hard time being assertive or standing up for themselves right someone who defaults to seeing themselves as the problem because maybe they grew up in a family that reinforced that if I could just do better things would be better if

I could just find the right words to say maybe they wouldn't yell or scream at me we don't hold them accountable for their toxic behavior and instead we think maybe it's my fault that I triggered them I should have known better right but please don't forget we are all responsible for our own choices you didn't make them hit you you didn't make them scream at you you didn't trigger them they got triggered those are two massively different things an emotionally immature person can be triggered from anything that is not your fault in a loving relationship

both partners are concerned about how each other's words and actions affect each other it's not one decided like it is in these relationships think about it you're so concerned about how you can prevent them from being upset right when's the last time they ever showed you the same consideration never the truth is you never deserve to be mistreated like that you never deserve to be yelled at or called names you deserve someone who is safe and considerate and warm and gentle and of course nobody's perfect but this isn't about perfection this is about understanding how

love is actually demonstrated and it's never by blaming hurtful words or actions on you people that stay in relationships with narcissists are people that desperately want to be chosen and loved which you deserve but those people that stay in toxic situations tend to have a fear that if they stood up for themselves they would be abandoned right so we think I can fix this I can just learn to walk on eggshells I can just do better and then they'll see me as being worthy of respect but at the end of the day we're looking for

love inv validation from someone who has no capacity for either and isn't it wild that another reason we stick by by their side is because we feel like if we left we would be abandoning them don't we and yet nothing could be further from the truth they pushed you out of their life you gave them chance after chance after chance and they continued to be an unsafe destructive partner and the other reason we don't leave is because we have subconsciously created the same traumatic cycle of our past in the hopes that we can heal it

in our present we had a disfunctional relationship with someone in our past and we think maybe if I can heal this current dysfunctional relation ship I will feel less anxious or less stressed or less unlovable but that's not the way to heal you never heal in the same environment that made you sick they will never stop trying to manipulate or control you you can't win this battle you can't reason with them I mean think about it when's the last time that they ever cared what you had to say it's been a little while right that's

because you can't have a healthy disagreement with an emotionally immature person the nicer you are the more joy you find in the world the more they will try to bring bring you down to their level of self-hate and shame and misery you cannot save them with your love you cannot heal them you can't rescue them from their pain they are essentially drowning and they're trying to take you down with them this type of dynamic is not sustainable in the end they will discard you or Outlast you you will eventually distance yourself in some way or

you will go crazy and probably get sick from all the stress and cortisol your body is producing because it's constantly in fight or flight isn't it your anger and your confusion and your outbursts are sign that your body is trying to tell you something's wrong you're being mistreated possibly even abused there signals that something is off something needs to be reset even if you can't leave at this moment or you have kids with this person you still need to reset disengage detach to get safe and breathe and rest and I understand all this can be

really depressing and hard but so are these relationships they're really hard on you aren't they and I just want to do anything I can to prevent that pain from happening to you or someone else down the line so how do we do that by getting clear on what we deserve as soon as possible by learning about and facing our fears of Abandonment by practicing self-awareness and accountability and being compassionate towards who we had to become in order to cope or stay safe or feel loved as a child or teen by learning about and honoring that

little boy or little girl who is still inside of you learning about what they had to do to protect themselves and learning about what they deserve in their romantic Relationships by asking ourselves how would I feel if my child grew up to be with someone like my partner and if that Sparks rage in you that's a wakeup call because you deserve that same respect and kindness that your kid does don't you so learn to face your fear of conflict face your fear of disappointing people learn to love yourself again forgive yourself learn to enjoy life

again learn to not rely on someone else to validate your own worth and value get clear on your standards your boundaries how you're going to show up in your relationships and what you're going to tolerate and not tolerate when it comes to someone else's Behavior because that's a very important question that few of us answer when dating isn't it and the reason I didn't answer it was because I never had an answer for what I would do if they just disregarded all those things because the truth is for most of you setting boundaries will be

terrifying your body will start shaking your heart will race you will struggle to get the words out and the reason that's happening is because your body is terrified of what will actually happen if you showed up as your true self your body's terrified of what will happen if you were honest about how you're actually feeling and I'm just telling you it's always easier to abandon yourself so you're not abandoned by others but it's not easier in the long run is it so do me a favor and face that fear because sometimes the person who is

the most hard on us is ourselves isn't it you demand Perfection from yourself and then you punish yourself when you don't live up to those unrealistic expectations and it has to stop the self-hate has to stop the narrative that you're not good enough has to stop the victim mentality has to go you are powerful take back your control I'm not saying treat them the way they treat you I'm saying kindness and boundaries and assertiveness can go right alongside each other learn about what you need to feel safe loved and prioritized learn about your attraction so

many people are out there attracted to chaos and toxicity because that's what's familiar to them safety and selflessness feel foreign and you actually won't trust someone who treats you right because subconsciously you think something must be wrong with them or you think one day they're going to realize I'm not so great so it's probably best that I just stick with Partners who who are emotionally unavailable and shallow and don't treat me right because deep down you've forgotten you deserve so much more and it helps you to have an element of control doesn't it because toxic

Partners believe it or not are actually predictable in a sense aren't they learn about what healthy love looks and feels like learn about how to be vulnerable and feel your feelings and open up and share but also have discernment on when to share and how to determine whether or not someone is trustworthy enough to share your heart with learn how to take accountability that's something we should Place far greater value on remember it's the Fatal flaw of the narcissist if you decide that your next partner has to be someone who can take accountability when they

mess up which we all do if you were only going to date people who could repair conflict that alone would prevent you from dating a narcissist ever again because they will never do that my advice take things very slow in the beginning I don't know about you but I can fall in love quick right I love to move things fast because everything feels wonderful the problem is we can set ourselves up to be fooled can't we so don't attach to someone until they've shown you consistently with their words and actions that you can trust them

that doesn't mean don't have a great time that doesn't mean be cold and distant it simply means understand that relationships are a really big deal right who you choose to be in a relationship with is a really big deal so enjoy dating them but also remember feelings aren't our best guide to whether this will end up healthy or fulfilling are they so take your time don't get sexual with someone early on unless that's a conscious choice that you're making it's way better to take things slow especially in that area so we don't bond with someone

that we don't actually know and that's another thing that narcissists can't stand not being in control so when you say you're not going to sleep with them yet when you talk about your boundaries around disrespect when you have your own timeline for building trust and getting more involved with them when you refuse to stop your life for them because you have friends and hobbies and you've learned how to be comfortable and fulfilled even when you're single when you aren't looking for someone else to complete you when you have the courage to advocate for what you

want in a relationship in the beginning rather than getting trapped in fear of disappointing them and being seen as too needy when you're assertive but still kind they will drop their mask even faster because you're not worth the effort they will turn on you and call you too needy and say you'll never find someone but remember what one person calls too needy another might say that's all you need the truth is the narcissist has no interest in someone who isn't submissive it's a dominant submissive relationship and if they see that you're not submissive they will

shame you and move on they have to find someone they can dominate who's willing to believe them when they tell them they have no value if that's not you if they can sense it they will move on that's just the truth and please don't be afraid to get some professional help talk to someone about your past explore your behaviors and fears and patterns and triggers explore the why behind your reactions and coping mechanisms therapy is a great place to learn what a real relationship is supposed to look and feel like where someone is on your

team where you can trust them where you know they actually care about you therapy is where we hopefully learn what it feels like to be heard and understood and validated and you learn you really do deserve respect and kindness and it's possible to experience that with another human and once again this isn't about demanding Perfection of course we're all going to mess up but be the type of person and find the type of person that cares about repairing and reconnecting and deepening your love and admiration and respect for each other find someone who is humble

and treats others the way they want to be treated find someone who is kind to strangers who can do nothing for them find someone who knows your worth and value find someone who actually wants you to feel safe to express what you need to feel safe loved and prioritized find someone who honors your boundaries because they love you it's not a fairy tale those people are out there become that type of person and then find that type of person thank you so much for listening for all who stayed to the end I hope this was

helpful in some way please let me know in the comments what I should have touched on a little bit more for next time and if you're not subscribed already please do that and I can't wait to see you on the next one