so the goal of a casino is to take your money what is the goal of a narcissist so I'd say that in this in your analogy the casino is society that is selling people a bad bill of goods on relationships so much of why relationships work out is luck I really believe that you know the bad luck of getting into like you're young you meet someone you pick someone you think they're nice they're not nice and then it's hard to get out of the relationship right so that there's a bit of Lux when people talk
about how successful their marriages are I often read into there's a lot of luck there's a lot of luck in this one and so but but that said that I do think the casino is society that's selling people like there could be a jackpot keep trying try harder stay stay longer winners don't quit winners don't you yeah just keep make it work keep going and so people that's society giving people the message of stay in the casino right and so what's the what's the slot machine trying slot machine is just being the slot machine right
it's just taking your stuff it's taking and it's taking and every so often it's giving you a little bit and it's taking and it's giving a little bit you might wonder does anyone ever get the jackpot I've never met anyone who's ever won a jackpot in a slot machine I'm sure they're out there but they are unicorns right and they're not normative and so be I think that in this scenario the narcissistic person exist to get validation and supply and they don't care I think it's the not caring that's hard for people to get through
their heads like the narcissistic people person doesn't really care that you're hurt right now if anything they're irritated that you're hurt because now they have to deal with it or that's leading them to feel some sense of Shame and then they're going to yell at you and telling you you're being too sensitive don't be ridiculous I didn't really say anything that bad big deal you found a text on my phone there's someone I work with and that's how that plays out they leave the other person feeling crazy there's this idea in the work of eart
tole he calls the pain body if you ever heard of it is is that useful here in our understanding of what the motivation is of a narcissist that you have this energy ball of some the ego the dark shadow side of them that can only stay alive with constant sort of stimulation at the extremes and so that a narcissist needs this negativity in their lives to keep them going to keep their idea existing it's not negativity for them they're getting praise they're getting validation they're getting they're getting people telling them great they might be having
sex with three different people I'm I'm missing the negativity part for them so a better way to ask it is that are narcissist happy that's a really tough question to answer no there's a constant sense of unsettledness and I was playing with you I I agree I I agree with the sense of a pain body with a Darkness right that I would rather not be a narcissist I'd probably be a hell of a lot more successful if I was but I'd rather not because there's a constant yearning It's never enough for a narcissistic person they
can have the riches of the world at their feet a devoted partner beautiful wonderful children a kind people they work with and that's not enough it has to be the next thing the next thing the next thing like it's this it's like this big consuming Beast that is the narcissistic person's psyche so there's an unsettledness to them I think narcissistic people can be happy in a moment so a narcissistic person goes into a restaurant they get to the restaurant and the the the person who the host says oh my gosh you're such a gorgeous couple
we are giving you the best table in the house cuz we want everyone to see you and then they send a bottle of champagne and the the chef sends a course and the the narcissistic person they're happy that night because they feel like they're getting all this validation that they deserve and that on that for those moments when it's all the stars are lining up they're happy however I say that with an asterisk because underlying that is well the next time we come here it's not going to be like this so there's always that sense
of it's going to be taken away I'm not going to stay at the top of this complete I remember being at a celebrity event once many many narcissistic people there these people had more stuff than I could conceive of in 27 lifetimes I'm looking homes and the cars and the dresses and the hair and the jewels and there was an emptiness I'm thinking like this never going to be enough for these people like they were in the midst of something so lavish that I remember saying I've got to sketch this onto my memory because I'll
never be in something like this again and they were so blasé about it but there was an anxiety a tension and so they can't be in that moment I don't know how much you know uh Dr keltner's work out of Berkeley this idea it's amazing work I love his work because it's this idea on being a struck on this idea of awe as being a healing energy and awe is not about the Grand Canyon it could be a bumblebee sort of pollinating a um pollinating a flower and you see the little bits of yellow on
its little dancing butt and it's beautiful I have homing birds that come to my house and you just stare at them you're like how is that how is that color of the hummingbird's throat even something in nature and the narcissistic person can't get there so they miss some of these really incredibly human experiences right or if they're there they're so focused on getting the selfie that they're not even present with the awe inducing thing that's in front of them and so they're missing out on a lot of The Human Experience so I don't actually think
they're happy but I believe happiness is a subjective state so at any given moment they might say I'm happy everything's going my way you know we're going to get into this whole bunch of topics including how to protect oursel and what to do if you can't leave as you mentioned there are some people that are in a situation kids might be involved could be a Business Partnership whatever it might be that some people have to long-term could be a family member that you have to be involved with in some way but you're trying to minim
minimize your contact with them or your you know how deep your relationship goes but I think a big part of getting to that place and we'll get there is first even understanding the motivation or the origin story of somebody who is a narcissist so you mentioned something before you mentioned that there are these wounds that drive and sort of settle this Behavior so do all narcissists have some original kind of either individual childhood wound or combination of wounds that led to who they are MH I would say yeah I mean I I do believe narcissistic
people are wounded people the second path I'm about to tell you may not register as a wound initially but it is many narcissistic people have a backstory characterized by adversity Now to create an antagonistic personality like narcissism you usually need a biological temperament in place so every child every baby comes into the world with a temperament which is why in one family the mother will recall parents will recall these were three very different babies right but they are babies growing up born to the same mother born to the same parents growing up in the same
household right so that temperament matters and it's temperament that are more high demand difficult to soothe don't regulate well very attention seeking very kind of almost very externalizing those are often the temperaments that provide the biological seed that may grow into narcissism but you got to give it perfect growing conditions all temperaments are shaped by the environment right so that temp that temperamental style if it is if that up against a very invalidating environment characterized like I said by adversity trauma chaos detached caregivers disinterested caregivers frustrated caregivers other lapses and attachment that's one path of
vulnerability to narcissism now keep in mind the vast majority of kids who grow up under those conditions don't become narcissistic but when you throw in that vulnerability temp that that temperament it may up the odds now the other pathway by which people become narcissistic is the uh overvalued the um overindulged pathway these are kids that are told they're more special than any other kid you don't have to wait in that line we got it covered we'll get you into that school we got it co we'll take care of all of it the child learns or
the child's told they're more special than any other child right now again the vast majority of kids raised that way they end up with things like imposer syndrome anxiety Failure to Launch all of that because they were told they're so special they ain't that special they go into the world and they see that they're like everyone else everyone is special if you want to argue that but if you have that difficult temperament and that's being shaped that way you could also give you know sort of give rise to a narcissist I'd argue those are both
wounds right in one case you're being viewed as a prop as an accessory to the parents so you're one more tool of entitlement for them and the other you're harmed by the adversity of your childhood but I'd argue all of us carry core wounds it's rare is the person that have hasn't had those core wounded experiences at least in my world it is I'm sure they're out there but narcissism definitely is driven by core wounds and so again this can be viewed compassionately and and I think what the challenge is is that for people in
these relationships I want to tell them you can't save this person they're an adult they're able to narcissistic people make more money they're more likely to be in leadership they're more successful at dating research shows that their judge should be more attractive they're doing fine in the world so they can take responsibility for making all that money and getting all that validation they can take responsibility for knowing how they go through the world because narcissistic people also know how to turn that switch on and off they know to be Charming with the CEO on the
golf course but then they go home and scream at their wife they know if they were they would have screamed at the CEO but they don't so they have the they they know how to behave they just take that person spouse whomever for granted so this is into not knowing this is calculated But ultimately people say well they do have the wound and I say uhuh so I said and I'm I'm very paradoxical with clients I'll say so you're then signing up to be the the emotional punching bag for this person for the rest of
their lives is that it you're sacrificing ing yourself to try to save them just say those words out loud so I know you're clear on what you're consenting to and people like well that's not re I said but that's what you're doing you know you shared something very powerful which is a key distinction in your work and your approach to this topic of narcissism which is that I heard somebody ask you can a person stop being Nar a narcissist and you shared something very powerful you said is is very rare and you tell me if
I got this right is is you've never seen a situation in your experience that somebody has all of a sudden stopped being the way they are now that doesn't mean that people might not have a moment in therapy have a couple of good days be a little bit more mindful about how they're apologizing about something but this goes back to something you just shared which is that you can't save this person why is that so important for people to understand because you can't take responsibility for that I I mean again I am paid to work
with people in a in a mental health capacity and I don't think it's my responsibility to save them either I think it's a therapist responsibility to give people tools to live to live better to address their acute distress so that they can manage their emotions even when they're not in that office with you right but it is no adult's responsibility to save another adult least of all an adult that is harming them right and to take that responsibility on that's an impossible task because narcissism like all antagonistic personality Styles is very rigid it is not
amendable to change people with the healthier the personality the more flexible it is the more flexible it is the more there can be some modifications so a person who's who might be a very agreeable flexible person H but might need to work on some of their conscientiousness a bit keep things a little tidier they'll be like okay yeah I need to do this and they'll say every so often I slip because I start getting distracted but they will give it they'll give it a try non-defensively they like okay I'm going to have little labeled cabinets
and I'm going to put my things away and I'm going to wake up a little earlier and I'm going to do my work and they'll do it they'll say oh I messed up and then they'll try again that's what a person with a flexible personality I'm not still the personality brings us back to our Baseline that not very conscientious person is probably going to have a little bit of trouble with discipline all their lives but will rise to the challenge if they have a healthier personality the narcissistic personality is like cement it is so rigid
so they don't think they need to change if a person doesn't think they need to change and they think everyone else is to blame where is the Buy in here where what are they what do they need to change in fact the world they always saying oh my gosh really I have to listen to their feelings their feelings are dumb what am I supposed to do with that person nothing and so I think that people though we're again we're back to the casino we we keep selling people this bad story of you can love people
better you can just you can figure that pathway out no you can't it's their responsibility to do this but I have watched people sacrifice entire lifetimes trying to one of the things on that topic of sacrificing that you often hear I've even seen it on your YouTube comments people saying well that person did tell me that they were going to change that person said that they wanted to change and I brought it up a couple weeks later on about that conversation and they denied that we even had that conversation so it's gaslighting meets future faking
welcome to narcissism you know you shared something earlier when we were talking about this idea of how to spot a narcissist and you said that even for somebody like you who's this is your life's work and Mission is that it can take time because there are ways that people are externally and then you don't really know how they truly are until you see them with their close relationships so for somebody who is listening today are there any cues or signals that are there that are some things that they could be potentially pulling on I'll give
an example for ex I'll give one example I've heard you say that often one of the things that narcissists do is that they play in this place of praise and blame and there's this old idea in quote and saying I don't know where it's attributed to but it's that praise and blame are both the same they're both the same energy when you're praising somebody and you're building them up it's actually more about you in the way that you talk about it it's not like true gratitude and making about the other person and then there's the
other side which is blame you want to rip them down so you want to build the person up you want to rip them down is that one example of somebody's regularly doing this in your life is that one sign that this person is deeply in this pattern that we're talking about so you're talking about the other person in the relationship or you're talking about the narcissistic I don't think they're going to I don't think they're going to praise that much I really really don't I think that they're going to blame and blame and blame and
blame the prais part is only going to happen at the beginning of the relationship and or if they need something from you right so they're very calculated and narcissistic people are actually incredibly socially perceptive they know how other people tick so they'll know what matters and so the praise you're talking about might be I'm going to it's very transactional right I'm going to give them I'm going to give them what they want right so that kind of tricks the other person who's hearing what they want getting what they want oh we're going away for a
couple of days or they remembered my birthday or whatever it may be then that person's getting something it's not even praise like you're so pretty but that could be you'd be amazed at how often I mean you'd be amazed at how long one utterance like you look beautiful tonight by person another six months in a relationship with a narcissist it's pretty it's pretty bad and so you'll hear whatever that praise is you'll relax you'll think oh I misjudged this relationship and then boom will tear you back down narcissistic people put people on pedestals simply to
knock them down and the fall is a lot harder from up there so they put you on a pedestal you might be wanting to look for your parachute real soon so you can at least soften that Landing that's a great distinction that it's the praise that I was talking about it's really a transaction it's a transaction it's not a genuine gratitude or acknowledgement which is something different that's real that's what people do when they care about each other when they want to acknowledge something this is really a transactional building you up to to take you
down correct correct hey if you like this video check out the next clip and I'll see you there
