4 ways to PROTECT YOURSELF from narcissists

they may threaten to Blackmail you they may threaten to tell other people terrible things about you even if they're not true they will keep doubling down until you break and you contact them and then they will square off and scold you for you thinking that you could cut them out so how dare you think you could cut me out let's talk a little bit about what gray rock is just so I'm sure that all of us are using the term similarly odds are if you're watching this content you already know and you're an expert in

Gray rocking gray rock is in essence exactly what it sounds like you become completely inert forgettable unengaged like a gray Rock the very one thing that if we walked by on the street we wouldn't possibly notice when you go gray rock it's really sort of a metaphor for not engaging for really almost being something that hopefully the narcissist will look right through here's the struggle with gray rocking like I said gray rock is is is not engaging not talking to them not arguing with them and if anything throwing bits and pieces of Supply just to

get them off of your Trail but it's as close to no contact as you can be while still having a little bit of contact so when you go gray rock with a narcissist you know I I actually love the visual and we recently did a seminar in La where we gave out gri rocks to people to put on their desk or even stick in their pocket because it's a great visual because when you're in the presence of a narcissist you really can almost sit like like a statue like calm Serene and not going to engage

with the with the BS basically but a lot of people must Wonder okay I'm going to try this gray rock thing what's going to happen that's where it gets interesting we know that by and large human relationships with narcissists are driven by their need for narcissistic Supply and their need to regulate to by using other people they go to other people to be told everything you know and that's what we keep forgetting is that we always view them as mistreating other people which is a big part of it but they need other people to regulate

it's almost like they don't know that they're having a good time unless the people around them are saying hey isn't this a good time and so they again it's a sad sort of artifact of their childhoods that they never got good at identifying emotion but because narcissists desperately need other people and they resent other people because they need them initially when you gray rock them you stop being as robust a source of narcissistic Supply you're just not it's almost like you were once a full well and you're not such a good well anymore you're not

doing it anymore you're not giving it to them you're not giving them validation at the level they want but you're also not giving them the other things that they in a weird perverse way enjoy too which are things like arguments conflict or times when you show your own insecurity like for example you're like what if he's cheating on me and I'm so concerned and what if I lose him and that kind of stuff believe it or not even though you're distressed is causing is is giving them strangely validation if for no other reason it's reminding

them of their power that they have power over you for someone insecure the idea that they might have power over someone else is really really profound so that said when you initially go gray rock with a narcissist especially if you've already had a standing relationship with them where you're very engaged with them you've been you've always been their source of validation and narcissistic Supply where you will be insecure with them where you'll be like oh I hope they're they like me I hope I'm more than enough I hope I'm enough and all all that other

stuff okay because if they're used to getting that from you and all of a sudden that Supply starts dwindling imagine turning on your sink at home and you're used to a steady flow of water now you're turning on the sick sink and it's a trickle you're going to take note of that and you're going to be like what the heck's going on so if you've had a standing relationship with this person where you were a source of supply and then you start going gray rock they're going to notice and they're going to throw a lot

of different comments at you one thing that often happens is is that the narcissist will get quite frustrated and say oh so what are you in therapy now what are you you you like too good to talk to me and they'll sort of turn it into a a com a combative argumentative demeaning kind of a space as though they want you to explain what it is you're doing it's as though they've been found out and they want you to cop to it when you're gray rocking you're like no no no it's nothing no and you're

very calm and you're not feeding their their delusions or any of it but initially they're going to become agitated what are you doing who are you you think you're too good to talk to me what are you in therapy now what is this psycho Babble I've heard all of that the trick is when you're doing gray rock is to endure this initial period of agitation because they don't like it they don't like that the the water is now coming out of like a trickle out of the faucet when they were used to it coming out

full blast when they needed it now what if you really didn't have a robust relationship with this person okay what if this is a person who you sort of met new and because you have become so well studied on narcissism and you understand it so well now you're beginning to pick it up earlier and whereas everyone maybe like for example it's at work and you notice that there's somebody a new supervisor a new boss a new colle colleague who's really really narcissistic and you choose to kind to go greay rock and not feed it and

not validate it in that kind of a situation the narcissistic individual may actually disappear pretty quickly which is why gray rocking early in the game is such a great strategy because what you're showing pretty early on is that nothing but a trickle of water is ever going to come out of your faucet that you're not a reliable predictable source of narcissistic Supply and that narcissist may move on to someone else before they can actually do damage to you so gry rock can not only work as a strategy down the road once you've already been abused

by a narcissist but it can also work as a Frontline strategy I have to say I've used gray Rocking In professional situations when I've encountered a narcissistic individual and I was able to glean that because maybe the meeting had been going on for a few hours and I was watching how they conducted themselves they're huffing they're puffing their contempt how they talked over people whatever may have been and I may have known this person's track record too so when they approached me I would be as uninteresting as a POS I possibly could be one-word answers

and more than anything else I didn't ask them one question about themselves I couldn't care less it was fascinating though to watch the other people in that space who didn't know who didn't recognize who weren't woke to narcissism about the patterns in this person and they were all trying to win this really toxic person over it's been great because I've really been protected in this one particular scenario from this person's wrath and now other people are have actually now made the mistake of getting into something with them and it's actually sadly fascinating to watch that

this has gone down exactly according to Clockwork as well as the power of gray rock when you use it with someone who you recognize as a narcissist early in the game but let's go back to that narcissist you know well who you've already been their supply and now you're going grey rock as a way to cope with the relationship like I said initially there's going to be agitation contempt anger frustration they may be combative rude invalidating they may call you names they may really try to draw you out this is the toughest phase of gry

rock because you got to be tough as nails to stand there and withstand it you have to think of yourself as Serene Serene Serene and then one day and it's a good day they get bored with you they get bored you're not I mean again how long are you going to stand there and hold your cup under a faucet where the water is just trickling out and you can't even fill the cup at some point they will do what they feel is a discard of you GH you know I'm bored I can't be bothered they'll

stor them off the trick for you and for anyone in a narcissistic relationship the discard phase is always uncomfortable and sometimes the discard phase is triggering it can remind a person of early life experiences where they would be discarded by a parent you got to hold on remember you want this to happen the discard the walking away from you it's good because through gray rock you've now created a really solid boundary between you and this narcissistic individual listen when a narcissist discards you that can go any number of ways can they can just go skullking

quietly into the night they may go off while screaming horrible things at you they may run off and start saying bad things to other people about you that's obviously one of the harder variants of this but gry rock is an incredibly unsettling experience for them many people believe that to overpower a narcissist you should call them out on their stuff you should call them names you should fight as hard and as dirty as them nothing could be farther from the truth techniques like gray rock where you stop giving them Supply you stop enabling them and

embolden where you stop enabling them and emboldening them by getting into the arguments with them by getting in the mud with them and you take away their power fully and play upon honestly their insecurity by no longer being that enabling mirror back on their narcissism instead you're a gray rock that offers no reflection back and that and that you have to be impervious to their cruelty and their criticism always remember when they're launching those criticisms insults and contempt towards you this isn't a about you this is about the insecurities and the Damage inside of them

make sure it stays in there and don't make it your own gray rock is actually a really useful strategy when you don't have the luxury of going no contact and you don't have the ability or the ca the capacity or the Practical structure to be able to eliminate the narcissist from your life this could be a marriage it could be a parent it could be a workplace situation and honestly I would suggest keep one in your pocket it keep a gray rock nearby keep one on your desk you may just need that reminder keep it

on your dresser on your sink somewhere to remind you that you can do this you can stay strong solid and stop being the narcissist Supply now I am not in a position to share the names of the people who suggested this concept but I hope you watch this I've told you it's coming out you know who you are it's a wonderful conversation and it's a great alternative to the idea in the term gray rocking I still love the idea of gray rocking for its intuitive appeal but the Twist on the term that these people brought

in brings this technique into the tech era and actually captures a bit more of how to really really protect yourself against someone narcissistic and give you a really interesting technique perhaps instead of gray rocking we really need to go into this world of firewalling and it's interesting that people who made this suggestion talk to me about this for people in the world of tech firewalling is a term that is used in Computing to refer to protections that are put on a network or a computer to protect the network or computer from malware or other bad

stuff from coming in and also is careful about what goes out of your system into other places some of you may have firewalls on your desktop or laptop computers or they may be on networks that you use at work I am not a tech person so I know I'm oversimplifying this and I I don't fully understand the nuances of firewalling but for example you can even go a little bit further you can have something called a virtual private Network and then even the location of a computer gets a little better safeguarded so there's ways to

in essence put boundaries around your computer I love the idea of taking the concept of a firewall and applying it to how we set boundaries in narcissistic relationships it goes beyond the idea of gray rocking and just being Bor boring or disengaged or uninteresting a firewall is a bit more sophisticated than that it is very much about insuring that bad stuff doesn't get in and that you don't give up information that could come back and harm the system but in this case the system is you so all of this vague talk about boundaries and gray

rocking firewalling elevates it a bit so many people struggle with the idea of having to cut the narcissistic people out of their lives and frankly it is getting pretty damn near impossible to cut them all out people with these high conflict difficult antagonistic toxic personality Styles seriously they're everywhere work family in-laws friends you name it I don't know how in today's day and age anyone could attend an event go to a workplace or even a grocery store without encountering this stuff so we need tools that are tighter than just no contact and a little bit

more sophisticated than just gray rocking or boundaries so think about it a computer cannot be an island in this day and age we do need to be able to to use an intersect with websites and email accounts and all kinds of stuff that could Harbor virus and the like so the firewall isn't about just taking our computers off of all networks and just treating it as a high-end typewriter but rather about making our computer better protected in dealing with all kinds of potentially Sinister and harmful spaces so how could firewalling work as a technique in

narcissistic abuse first let's talk about data in because frankly that's where a lot of the harm lies a firewall in a computer computer is ultimately meant to protect it from things like malware computer viruses hacking and someone getting in putting bad stuff on your computer and misusing our data or breaking down or locking our system it sounds exactly like what a narcissistic per narcissistic person does to another person they get in they mess with your head they leave you doubting yourself and your reality you start even believing this the things they're telling you about yourself

you start falling apart and experienc ing all of the patterns associated with narcissistic abuse and you may even feel like you're frozen and can't function in your life the best piece of firewall protection against a narcissist you know what it is it's to know what it is it's to know what this personality is about what it looks like to identify the red flags understand the justifications they make for their behavior and how they twist the truth to their benefit and understand the other breaches in the system for example those people out there without firewalls letting

all that Mal wear in those are the enablers you need to understand how narcissistic people use victimhood to play upon your sympathies and your empathy then there is radical acceptance that it doesn't change these patterns don't change so you can trim down and let go of all this benefit of the doubt stuff or the hope that somehow it will get better this next time malware is Mal where this is also important because many time narcissistic people like those innocuous files that you may download look just like anyone else in fact they may even be more

enticing and endearing because they're often quite Charming carismatic confident attractive successful so in order to firewall and protect yourself you have to be on your game know that this threat exists and even that these red flags the charm the charisma the easy confidence they should make you doubt whether you need to download this person from there on the next levels of firewall protection come from the deep technique the Deep technique to me is a form of firewalling that don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize just like you can't talk a computer virus off

of your computer you can't really say hey come on malware I'm a nice person and I have a paper du tomorrow it's not going to work you cannot get into it or explain your side to a narcissistic person because they aren't listening and it's not personal it's them they do this to everyone for example everyone who downloads that particular file online gets the virus the computer virus isn't personal it's just anyone unfortunate enough to download it but now what about the data out the data that comes out of the system that is also a part

of firewall protection you don't want to give away important information like identifiers or passwords and the like in a Computing system especially with all of us coming off of almost 18 months of isolation we want to share ourselves we want to be vulnerable we want to open up ourselves to other people I wish wish wish there was a popup window that could open up as we are just as we're starting to get vulnerable with someone and that asks us before we're about to share something vulnerable or difficult that says just like on a computer are

you sure you want to share that information and then that you know that little last off-ramp in case we hit the wrong key and they were like no no no cancel her okay alas computers have more safeguards than human relationships so the best firewalling protection against a narcissistic threat is to move very slowly in any new relationship and be very careful about the data you share what you share about yourself a big part of Love bombing is pushing someone to open up too soon and too much to a narcissist because just like a hacker they

will use your own information against you it's just a matter of time be careful about sharing your vulnerabilities traumas Secrets information you may have other about other people that could come out and gossip opinions that could harm you money resources professional contacts it will either blow up or come back to bite you tread very very slowly especially if you have already experien narcissistic relationships which is an experience that can scramble our past signals kind of like a leftover virus that never got fully cleaned off the hard drive oh The Narcissist will man manipulate they may

shame you or cajo you or manipulate you to open up they may play an abusive game of if you show me if if I show you mine will you show me yours creating a false sense of trust and intimacy and pushing you to open up and render yourself vulnerable too quickly too early or even at all a healthy person will earn your trust over time and you will slowly open yourself up and a way that's comfortable for you in a world that's often characterized by oversharing to strangers there is a risk that create that's created

with people opening up too soon to narcissistic people and then getting psychologically hacked when you take your time you can pay attention to the other patterns in the relationship the empathy the kindness The Compassion the mutuality the reciprocity the gaslighting the manipulation the red flags I've been sharing in my other videos good or bad you can pay attention to the patterns what's interesting is that if you are disengaged from a narcissist or very slow in engaging and you do that early they often get in disinterested for a minute they may try to shame you for

not being vulnerable open or honest and they may call you names like being closed off or being lacking in the ability for intimacy and in that case it means the firewall works and the narcissistic hacker moves on with enough time getting to know someone and feeling safe you will get there to a place where sharing feel safe and share at your own pace not the pace that someone is manipulating you to be at so they can ultimately control you and then use that information against you a final piece of firewalling is realistic expectations hackers hack

malware infects it's what it does you don't don't turn on your virus protection for just one day or for one hour it's always on it's the same as in your life if you recognize that someone is a high conflict difficult or narcissistic person if even a few red flags pop up the firewall needs to be up all the time you can chat about inconsequential stuff with this person boy it's hot this summer or why aren't the peaches good this year or oh did you see they're opening a new coffee shop on Main Street there's enough

little things to talk about but don't share your so-called psychological passwords don't get into it with them and if they bait you or try to escalate you should know it's coming smile politely excuse yourself to the bathroom or just leave and yes they may they probably will just keep escalating but then you can try a little bit of the old school gray rock breathing in different kind of approach that these encounters require once this topic was introduced to me I really love this idea of firewalling more than gray rocking firewalling is more aware more active

and lets you maintain some of these narcissistic relationships that you may need to keep around at an arms length it's sort of an informed set of boundaries informed by what we know about narcissism about our own vulnerabilities and about honestly how computers and viruses work it allows a gradual exit and a way to keep walls up if you can think of narcissistic people as psychological hackers and your psyche vulnerability and mental health as your hard drive and your data and all of your passwords that they want to get this can actually make sense it doesn't

mean you have to get off the internet it just means that you need to be on your game and Safeguard your information it doesn't mean you have to fully cut them off you just need to be on your game and keep that virus protection on and recognize that some websites and some files are just not worth the risk so don't download them so let's go ahead now and start talking about no contact this is a term that many of you who have any have anything to do with a narcissistic relationship you've heard this term I

want you to think about a toxic person in your life right now just think about it whatever that narcissistic relationship is then I want you to think about how it would feel to never talk to them again ever stay with that feeling I'm guessing that you are experiencing a mix of emotions relief fear sadness confusion guilt freedom and that mix of emotion cuts to the core of why going no contact is so difficult let's talk a little about a bit about what is meant by no contact and why it is such a Hot Topic in

understanding narcissistic and toxic relationships no contact is exactly what it sounds like it's having no contact with the narcissistic person no longer reaching out to them but more importantly no long longer responding to them I'm going to be honest with you no contact works and the reason it works is because in general narcissistic relationships really don't change and there's nothing that you can do or that you can say to make the relationship less invalidating to make it more respectful and to make it more empathic it just isn't so as a result every time that you

have con with these folks you end up in the same place and it feels awful it is a wh knuckle experience to ignore all Communications from someone you're accustomed to constantly sparring with in the age of Technology it's becoming easier we can set numbers and emails and other notifications to block we can block social media media accounts but the fact of the matter is if a person wants to contact you they will find a way and that's where this all gets really tricky because it can take a lot of psychological cognitive bandwidth to keep blocking

someone especially someone that you are conflicted about they're going to do all the kinds of things that they do they're going to come up with new phone phone numbers and fake identities they're going to try to find a way to get in it almost becomes like a game for them no contact trying to maintain no contact under these circumstances can start to feel like a full-time job no contact works because it ends the air supply for the narcissist or the narcissistic supply for the narcissist in general they The Narcissist relationships are their source of Supply

it's a place for them to regulate their emotions in essence their relationships involve other people being punching bags for the narcissist to rage and once the narcissist is done raging and feel better they don't stop to think whether they're disregulated and rageful Tantrums actually hurt the other person so no contact most importantly is a tool that lets you end these cycles and that is what narcissistic relationships are about unending toxic Cycles but I mean I'm going to be honest let's face it it is not always possible and it is not always practical to go no

contact it's really hard if not impossible to truly go no contact obviously with someone you live with or with a boss that you report to or to a mother that you may live next door to or to an adult or with an adult child that you may still see regularly no contact really does kind of require the person to largely be out of your life now people who are going through divorces with narcissist they try no contact they really do now the fact is true no contact cannot work if you have minor children together because

Arrangements about custody and all of that need to be discussed even if it's in a minimal way and there's two words exchanged at a drop off but it's also important that you talk with your attorney and your other advisors because if you try to go true no contact with a parent with whom you share joint custody frankly it is going to backfire on you so like I said while you have minor children no contact is simply not an option now when you can go no contact it definitely works but there is a timeline to this

so for example if you're divorced and you don't have kids you can go no contact so let's take a minute and talk about the timeline of what happens when you go no contact in a narcissistic relationship now for a while the amount of communication in your relationship is actually going to increase you may not know it if you block them but it will they're going to keep trying to reach you be prepared for dozens if not hundreds of texts emails phone calls they get angrier and angrier and sometimes even threatening over time they may start

trying nice but then it goes angry quickly they may threaten to Blackmail you they may threaten to tell other people terrible things about you even if they're not true they will keep doubling down until you break and you contact them and then they will square off and scold you for you thinking that you could cut them out so how dare you think you could cut me out but if you're able to keep your nerve and stick with the no contact just like any living creature that isn't getting any kind of reward if the mouse won't

work the maze unless there's cheese if you don't give them a reward they will fade away they will move on to new sources of Supply trust me they will definitely continue to say terrible things about you but they may stop bothering you and go away now many people who go no contact will tell me that they feel like they have symptoms of post-traumatic stress for years even after going no contact they still maintain a fear that they will run into the narcissist somewhere and they live in fear of that day they feel fear even when

they see a car that looks like the narcissist on the street in many cases over time the narcissist has lost interest they may just say a few ugly words and move on if you're fortunate you no longer live near where the narcissist lives so there's less of a chance of just running into them in the grocery store now no contact also can get very complicated by other people people will often call you out for being not being a nice person they're going to say h you're being so harsh or come on I'm sure you can

talk to them for just a minute how bad could it be and this feels it feels doubly awful because you feel as though you are being gaslighted and that your reality about the situation is being doubted but you also may feel judged for going no contact and that this idea that you're point point of view is not recognized and the self-doubt that is such a classical part of narcissistic abuse may get activated and then you crack it takes a lot of fortitude and at least one person believing in you and what you're going through and

supporting you to be able to sustain and stay strong with your no contact now this person may be a close friend who knows what you've been through someone else in the system I don't know who might be a who might be a counselor or a teacher or someone like that who may be going no contact to it may be a therapist who understands what you're going through for many people the guilt of no contact can really make no contact feel like a catch 22 again some people feel that while being in contact is terrible and

taxes your energy and it just feels toxic and awful that cutting off the narcissist triggers so much guilt in them and there's lots of reasons for this a person who has experienced narcissistic abuse often comes from a family of origin where guilt was a major part of the dynamic and people with other factors like they're very prone to anxiety may also be prone to guilt the guilt becomes a bigger Target issue for you to work on in your own counseling or therapy but I cannot tell you how many narcissistic relationships I have witnessed that have

been kept in place for decades and even for lifetimes because a person felt guilty about cutting the narcissistic person out but here now is the other Clincher narcissists are so good at playing the Vic vitim and as such they pull for Guilt from other people they'll try things like saying things like how could you stop being in touch with me when I've always been there for you which is gaslighting and I gave you money or whatever it is that the narcissists think they did or they frame it the narcissistic person will frame it as I

can't believe you're doing this to me I'm going through such a difficult time how could you do this at such a difficult time for me now of course a narcissist is never quite going to see the irony of the many many many times that they let you down and were nowhere to be found when you were struggling but you know what they're going to say oh when I'm going through such a hard time blah blah blah blah blah when I'm going through a deadline when my mother is sick when I'm focusing on my sobriety when

I'm just starting therapy to be a better person for you I don't know when I am having money problems and on and on and on and these are the manipulations they will use to play on guilt so you don't think about going no contact or to break your pattern of no contact now what if you go no contact and then you slip up it happens it happens all the time and I always tell people please be kind to yourself when that happens if if you blame yourself or if you feel foolish because you slipped up

on no contact it can make you even more vulnerable to the narcissist's abuse and the narcissist manipulations now listen it happens to the best of us now you might wonder what why why do people why did I slip why did anyone slip why do people slip when they go no contact I hate to say it it's sometimes as simple as because they're curious because enough time has passed doing your no contact you get stuck in euphoric recall and you only start remembering some of the good stuff and forget all of the bad and there's a

lot more bad than good you because you feel stronger now and you might feel like you can handle the narcissist and maybe you can but because narcissistic relationships are so much like an addiction and you feel pulled back to the dysfunction and the high highs you felt in that situation it's so easy to fall back into it there are lots of reasons that people crack or break when they are going no contact it it happens I also tell people that the minute it turns toxic again if you do slip and you do break your no

contact when it slips and goes toxic you can turn it off again but the problem is that the narcissist now knows that some day you may come back around so what do they do they keep trying you have to be careful because the cycle of going no contact and them and then letting them back in can get very messy and then you can just keep going into this back and forth highs and lows finding yourself stuck in that cycle like the initial love bombing that happens when the narcissist tries to win you back after you

you go no contact but then inevitably they will devalue you and they will discard you because that's what they do and the fact is they'll devalue you more because they think they can play you and then you might start getting to addicted addicted to the no contact Cycles as a way to keep those highs and all of that in place don't do it it's a difficult and unhealthy cycle if you're going to go no contact really try to commit to it no contact does work when you give it a chance it's not even a strategy

that you can adequately judge for yourself and your situation until you've really done it for about a month maybe four to six weeks you need to pay attention to how you feel because yeah I know you're going to feel guilty you're going to feel confused you're going to feel lost but you also have to pay attention to that sense of relief pay attention to how it feels to not have to deal with someone who is constantly criticizing you and undermining you controlling you gaslighting and letting you down on a daily basis really pay attention to

that feeling of what it feels like to not just always be invalidated so even on your hardest no contact day that new feeling of lightness of relief of freedom and a new little sliver of Hope can really get you through the dark days and make the ongoing no contact days easier now what about when you can't go no contact but you really need to because the relationship is so toxic and so awful now that's where we can do a bit of we can call it a modified no contact and it's a lot of what we

do when we gray rock and gray rock as you know is also a video in this series but this kind of of modified no contact means a very very superficial level of Engagement and again the gray rock series will spell out how to do that but there's also one other slice of Hope when it comes to no contact for the most fortunate people one day and this is a good day you become indifferent to your narcissist it doesn't always happen but it can and you may literally get to the place where you do not give

a damn about what happens to your narcissist good or bad you don't care if he gets married you don't really even care if she gets hit by a bus you don't care if he wins a million dollars you don't care if she loses it all and has no place to go you just don't care and that is a good moment because in some ways at that point no contact doesn't matter because even if they did contact you they're one's absolutely formidable powers of manipulation and coercion and charm and Charisma they no longer work you want

to know why because you don't care it's the top of the narcissistic abuse recovery mountain and when that happens no contact just becomes normal just like why would I stay in touch with someone who I just feels like an absolute Stranger in many ways so let's go back to the beginning let's talk about what it would feel like to cut that toxic narcissist out of your life forever right now understand that it will be a mix of feelings that some days will be harder than others but also recognize that being near anything toxic is never

good for us no contact is not something sadly that everyone in a narcissistic relationship can use but if you can in most cases you you will see that before you know it it's like losing a lot of psychological weight and now living in a state of clarity and self-compassion honestly when you go no contact for long enough if something happens that punctuates it that breaks through that you have to have contact family funeral or something like that something that forces you to break it when you practice practice that no contact muscle for long enough when

you finally do have to have contact whether it's indifference or something else you may not at all feel the powerful the powerful suck of their magnetism and their Vortex it is a powerful technique it's not one that's available to everyone but over time you'd be surprised one day even if it's a divorce and you did have kids once those kids grow up you'd be surprised that one day day you might actually be able to go no contact in every narcissistic relationship you have give it a shot on the ones you can the challenge then becomes

many times people say Hey listen there's parts of my family I really do love I love some of my siblings or I love one of my parents or I'm fond of my grandparents and I'm not willing to completely divorce myself from that system because these people are meaningful to me which I think is wonderful so the question is how do you distance from someone when physically you have to occupy the same space that's where the concept of something I've always called Soul distancing comes into play when you're with someone and your physical material body is

in their presence that's fine you know that happens you have to sit next to people you don't like on buses and airplanes or in offices or in classrooms it happens all the time but when those people have no relevance to you for example you're sitting next to someone on a bus or you're sitting next to someone in a conference room you don't really pay much mind to them you might think like I'll be glad when this is done I don't really like this person or they're doing things that are making me uncomfortable or they're just

I just don't like this experience you know it's either time limited or you don't have much association with them it's a whole different game when you have to be in proximity to someone who's been a toxic influence in your life someone who's invalidated you someone who's demeaned you someone who's devalued you or someone who's manipulated you and that's been directly targeted at you that's a very uncomfortable space to occupy and that's not just in your close intimate relationship again that could be your family it could be a friend could even be the workplace we don't

all have the luxury to step away from these relationships and spaces now more than ever right so what do you do your physical body stays in but you can pull that most sacred part of yourself out of there your soul don't have it don't have it present there for them to to be able to play with pull yourself away in that it's almost like classical gray rock really what gray rocking is is a form of Soul distancing what you do in gray rock is you don't let them interact with the best of you you're very

Serene you're very neutral and flat there's a lot of okay sure sounds good that's interesting enough filler to keep the conversation going but what you don't put up on the chopping block are those most authentic important Divine and sometimes vulnerable parts of yourself at this particularly vulnerable time in our world people are scared they're scared about a lot of things they're scared about elderly friends and relatives they're scared about their livelihoods they're scared about getting sick themselves they're scared about the unknowns those are normal reactions in an abnormal situation what can be very unsettling though

is when you have those fears and because you're stuck in sort of a narcissistic space because you're locked in with people like that you don't feel like you have places you can share that the Temptation is oh these are spectacular circumstances I should be able to share this about myself and then you're shut down mocked or gaslighted Soul distancing means that you're not going to share those vulnerabilities you're not going to share those aspects of yourself you need places to share those things and those May Be Friends by I don't know by by FaceTime or

Skype or Zoom or some other video chat could be texts it could be if you're doing online therapy talking to your therapist those are all very good and appropriate ways to do it just don't bring it to the people who are going to mock you and listen what's going on in the world isn't the only game in town we all have other stuff going on many people are still going to school schol online they may be doing their jobs online they may be trying to find work online people have been let go they're trying to

get their finances in order there's other stuff going on and in the midst of that you may also feel vulnerable you may say ah Moro I won't graduate in time or I'm afraid that oh my boss isn't noticing my work in the same way or you're worried that you're not going to be able to find new work and in a few months or even right away you're not going to be able to do things like pay rent you're not sure how all these new things are working there was a lot to figure out right so

in those vulnerabilities you once again around the narcissist in your life you don't get to share them Soul distancing becomes a way to make sure you don't take those things to them that you really keep those vulnerabilities and even it's not just about what's going wrong it's also about what's going right what's been striking to me as we've gone through this entire you know you know unbelievable Human Experience of all feeling vulnerable about something that's time is a virus but it's it's causing so much havoc in everyone's lives is how people have drawn together I've

really really been struck by how people are attempting to reach out to their neighbors to their friends to their families to do the right things in their communities if they didn't lose their work trying to find ways to help financially support other people creating works of art continuing to sing their songs and giving sort of these kind of quick popup concerts online whatever it is I really am amazed that seeing people who are playing by the rules and really trying to do good things for other people keeping their local bakery in business by going socially

distancing buying that loaf of bread sometimes even when they don't need it because they want that place to still be there when all of this is over but when you try to even share those beautiful things with your family like can we draw together let's help the person down the street um why don't we find a way to do give back to our community safely you'll also be met with oh please they're they're not our problem we got enough problems once again that beautiful part of yourself can be denied Soul distancing means you also don't

bring those good things to them you share them with the places they belong it might be on your social media it may be with friends it may be simply just doing it long after all of what's Happening Now is gone the soul distancing is going to still work for you because a lot of people all over the world don't have the luxury y of stepping away from their narcissistic relationships it's so easy to say ah go no contact it's so easy you can't go no contact when you're co-parenting you can't go no contact in many

cultures when you have interdependent family networks you can't go no contact when you need to keep a job especially nowadays right it's not a luxury all of us have to just H let's just go no contact social distancing is a way to do a different kind of no contact because what happens then is that part of you that that again Divine part of you there's no other way I can say it is that Divine Soul part of you is not even out there for the narcissist to touch it becomes an intentional action you almost need

to go into it saying okay I can almost visualize that part I can almost visualize my soul that part of myself just I'm sort of going to put it away and then I'm going to interact with the narcissist I'm going to kind of use a gray rock approach and then find those spaces where you can do that kind of sharing when we're vulnerable when we're fatigued when we're stressed and when we're anxious those are the times we often make I don't know the mistake or the lapse or the slip if you will of bringing those

vulnerable things to the toxic and narcissistic people in our lives and at this unique time of sort of being locked down we may be in close proximity to to them and they may honestly feel like the only game in town like they're the only people we can talk to they're not you've got to view Soul distancing as an incredibly powerful tool for advocating for yourself and protecting yourself without creating conflict it's very much an action that you engage in now as often happens with things like gray rock and no contact and just not engaging narcissistic

and toxic people don't like that they don't like that you're not giving them something to to punch at and have conflict with and be angry about and they they again they love engagement because it becomes one more place to Gaslight or manipulate you so initially they're not going to like that they're going to want to draw that part of you out and they're pretty masterful at it for you the intentional focused work is about yeah no I'm not I'm not taking my soul out right now I'm going to keep it here secreted because those who

are worthy of seeing it and its beauty will get to see it in all its Glory this person hasn't earned that right because they haven't respected it in the past by making it a very intentional act it allows you to even be in close proximity to someone who isn't able to be with that really wonderful vulnerable honest authentic part of you you hold that back and you still may be able to sit and talk with them about the weather listening to their meanderings and ramblings and conspiracy theories and whatever talk they're engaging in that day

but again you can go to that very mindful centered space protect you and not hand over the best part of yourself like I said long after all of this is over Soul distancing which in many ways is a variation on sort of gray rock or no contact but it's goes beyond that it's an awareness it's an awareness that there's this piece of you that's very much you that is your authentic good piece of you don't hand that away if you do it enough and you keep having that vulnerable beautiful internal space in you that spiritual

space in you if you want to view it that way if you keep letting that get trashed it impacts you in numerous psychological ways versus if you're aware that that piece of you is very much you and that you've given yourself the right to keep it held back only sharing it with those who are deserving of being in the presence of your soul listen the soul is a very philosophical concept and even as sort of a traditionally scientifically trained psychologist we sort of we didn't do a lot of soul talk in grad school or even

as you know we we went through our training but I must say that it it's the psyche doesn't quite capture it it's it's that part of us that doesn't conform to something we get it's the US it's it's the it's the identity meets our Divinity meets our spirituality meets our authenticity but that part of us includes everything from our childhood vulnerabilities to our creative interest to the things we want to be and the things we hope to be and a lot of people are letting those thoughts go through them right now and say this is

a wakeup call how do I pursue those things don't have that conversation with the narcissist Soul distancing means that I got all this beautiful stuff in me and for the first time I'm going to give myself permission to only share it with the people who get it