Ep. 159- Interview with Jordon Monroe: Healing Narcissism With Honesty And Heart
To open Season 6 with a bang, we start where most hot takes end: with a self-aware narcissist describing his collapse, the shame behind the mask, and the painstaking choices that made empathy real. Jordan Monroe, a former tech founder turned emotional healing coach, joins us to explore a grounded path out of grandiosity, defensiveness, and reality wars—without dismissing the deep harm survivors endure.
We dig into what actually shifts behavior. Jordan explains why many narcissists don’t lack empathy so much as defend against it, and how guided “heart-opening” experiences help clients feel another person’s pain without spiraling. That visceral “ow” moment rewires daily habits: listening before defending, noticing a partner’s needs without being asked, and choosing small acts of care that build trust.
If you love someone with narcissistic traits, the boundary playbook here is essential. Jordan’s partner models how to stop self-abandoning: pause conversations when defensiveness spikes, withdraw energy from harmful dynamics, and nourish yourself so re-engagement comes from strength. We share practical, incremental boundaries that keep you safe and force clarity, whether the relationship heals or you exit whole. For anyone navigating narcissistic abuse, healing narcissism, or rebuilding intimacy, this is a compassionate, no-nonsense guide anchored in accountability.
Don't miss this episode, as this is our last episode with Jacqueline Trumbull! Stay tuned for the next episode that'll map out the road ahead for "A Little Help For Our Friends"
Resources:
Jordan's Instagram @the.recovering.narcissist
If you're experiencing narcissistic abuse or affected by someone else's narcissism, join Dr. Kibby's KulaMind community to learn how to heal and set healthy boundaries.
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Dr. Jacqueline Trumbull: 0:00
Hey guys, welcome to A Little Help for Our Friends, the podcast for people with loved ones struggling with mental health. Hello, little helpers. So today we have a super exciting guest. I was really excited he agreed to come on. And we're gonna return to the topic of narcissism, but we're gonna be talking about healing narcissism itself as well as healing from narcissistic abuse. So Kibby, could you kind of before I introduce Jordan, tell us a little bit about how Cool of Mind can help in this space?
Yeah, so KulaMind, for people who don't know, is our community and program for people with loved ones with mental illness or addiction. So we teach a lot of education about like what is mental illness, what is your loved one struggling with, how do you set healthy boundaries and heal yourself. We have uh I'm noticing that a lot of people in the community right now are struggling with being victims of narcissistic abuse. Either they're just kind of realizing it, or they've had a recent ex where they feel like, you know, oh my gosh, I was in a relationship with narcissists and I'm trying to heal from it. So if you notice that your loved one, a partner, someone close to you has narcissistic traits, and maybe you're experiencing narcissistic abuse, like you're not sure about your reality versus theirs. You keep um hiding or swallowing your own needs in the relationship. You feel unseen, unloved, you feel like you're walking on eggshells around their temper or their ego. Um just reach out. So uh you can go to the link in our um in our description, or you go to KulaMind.com, k-u-l-a-m-in-d dot com. And you can, you know, reach out to me, book a free call, and we could talk through what you're going through and how I can help.
Hello, little helpers. Today we return with one of our favorite topics, but I think discussed from a different angle, um, that I'm really excited about. And uh, to do this, we are bringing on Jordan Monroe. So the topic is narcissism. Um, and Jordan Munro is a tech entrepreneur turned emotional healing coach, best known for his work helping narcissists recover and reconnect with their hearts. After co-founding Outlet Baby Care and launching over a dozen consumer products, Jordan shifted his focus inward, embarking on a deep personal journey of self-discovery after realizing he lived with narcissistic patterns. So today he runs the Recovering Narcissist, a growing community and coaching program that humanizes narcissism and guides people through genuine transformation using self-awareness, spirituality, and emotional integration. Jordan's mission is to prove that healing is possible and that even narcissism can be met with compassion, honesty, and love. So check him out at healnarcissism.com or recovering narcissist on social media. So welcome, Jordan. I'm really excited to talk to you because we've never gotten to talk to somebody who feels that they have personal experience with this particular disorder. And it's so easy to stigmatize this and to just talk about narcissistic abuse or to talk about narcissism in a wholly negative way. So I'm really excited for you to come on and have a different kind of conversation.
Well, thanks. Appreciate it.
Um, could I ask you about your kind of personal journey? So I've been following you on Instagram, listening to a lot of your videos, and I'm really thrilled to talk to you about how you help heal narcissism. Um, but you do this from a place of kind of having a personal understanding of it. So could you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, um so I like I was like life was great for me. I sold my business in 2021, and for most narcissists, it's like they think they got the best mental health in the world. And I was kind of like that because I just was saying, like, everything's great for me, and all the problems are my wife's problems, and you know, she was the one that went to therapy. I was totally fine. And we actually started, you know, or thought I was fine. Uh, we started this trip around the world with our family, and everything was going good, and then uh we got divorced, and our relationship kind of you know broke up, uh imploded, and um my narcissism got way worse. I was like, well, fine, you know, I'm just gonna become so much more rich and powerful, and that'll show her to to ever think of not wanting me. Like, I was deeply hurt by it. And I went on this like total ego trip of like building a new business to get you know more money and um trying to date like as many women as as I could, and actually told them I was dating them at the same time. Like, I wasn't I was just like, I'm gonna be solo polyamorous, and you can get in line. And I was just honestly on this insane ego trip until um I really fell in love uh with this woman and wanted to start committing to her, and I started to notice my same fights, same patterns that were going on with my ex-wife were showing up here. And I paused and was like, Well, I'm not gonna mess it up again. I'm gonna try and figure this out, but maybe it has something to do with me. And my ex-wife had called me a narcissist after we'd already divorced in kind of an angry fit, and I was like, What's what is a narcissist? I didn't even know what the word was, and I looked it up and I saw that I'd only checked like four of the six boxes or something, and was like, or whatever I found in that article, and like, I'm not I mean, I got traits, but I'm not a narcissist, and I just convinced myself I wasn't, and just kind of put it away for like a year, which this is really common with narcissists too, and until I kind of hit a similar breaking point um with my uh partner at the time, Kira, and in kind of one fell swoop, just kind of woke up to the fact that no, I'm an actual narcissist, and at that point it was like a spiral, and this is what they call narcissistic collapse, it's where the illusion of you being this amazing person breaks, and you can kind of see through to all the shitty stuff you've been doing, and and how like the reality of things, and it's uh yeah, it's this scary wake up and and I kind of spiraled for a long time, and I looked on the internet, and what all I found was just a lot of like anger towards narcissists, which I think is very valid and justified because narcissists hurt so many people, and I but I couldn't find anything that was like helpful or about healing. Um, so I started calling therapists, and every single one that I called said, Don't get freaked out about the internet, like there's a kind of an angry story going on there, but a lot of it's not true, and you can heal, narcissists can heal. And I just remember thinking, that's so interesting that there's such a disconnect. Um, and I just started on my own healing journey, and at some point just felt that that was the change I wanted to make was to like talk about the the truth that wasn't being discussed on the internet, and so I just started sharing my story. Um, and I was I had seen enough healing in my in myself to say I think healing's possible, but it's this also kind of a question mark, but I'm gonna start documenting my journey. So I documented the journey at the same time was just talking about it, and it was really healing for me to like see my pattern and then go make a video about that pattern, you know. And like, why did Narcissist lie? I just lied, and here's why I caught myself doing and just kind of like broke it down. Um, and yeah, that was kind of the wake up and and started beginning the the healing process. I did it for about a year and a half, and I would say, you know, fast forwarding to now, I honestly just feel like a different person. Um, I don't think I qualify for NPD today, um, but I know that structurally, the way my mind is kind of organized, it I would still um go that direction in times of crisis or or things like that. It's almost like an alcoholic who hasn't had a drink in 30 years, but they still call themselves an alcoholic because they know that if they do have that drink, they'll go down that route. And you know, while it is a little bit different, I still notice that you know, if I'm really hurt, you know, by friends or family or something, I only notice my mind trying to say how great I am and and you know try to you know compensate in that way. Um but once you're aware of it, it can't really take over as much because you're kind of watching your mind, you know, run those patterns. So um yeah, that's kind of my wake up story and fast forward in a in a nutshell.
I have so many questions. Um so many.
Uh what g can you give us an example of the of the patterns you noticed that your different exes could like what you said that they called you narcissists and they were getting through the same fights? Like what what was it coming up in your romantic relationships that signaled to someone else, like, oh, you might be a narcissist My second partner Kira never called me a narcissist.
Um and I'm now we Kira and I are now married, so um yay. Uh and she never called me narcissist, but she said, you know, you really have this anger problem, you have a really big shame problem, and you're you have a real empathy problem, which like you you don't listen to me, you get defensive instead. Um, and so it's like I was working on those for six months before I ever even woke up to narcissism to begin with, but those are similar patterns that I had seen uh with my ex-wife.
There, so I I I mean, we just I just graduated my PhD, and I feel like even it's I'm happy to hear that therapists were telling you, like, you know, it's not true, narcissists can be healed. I feel like I did not receive that message actually, it was still pretty negative.
Yeah.
Um, and one of the reasons is because in order to be receptive to that kind of diagnosis and all that it entails, requires a kind of ability to look inward and accept a bit of an ego destruction.
Yeah.
In the name of like being better for others, that kind of seems to contradict the diagnosis in the first place. So yeah, I'm wondering like how you were able to be receptive to that, and then I like want to stick on you at first and then talk about your clients later, but but it I'm also so curious about how you experience that receptivity with your clients or help them get to that place.
Yeah. Well, for me, it's just like you know, I kind of hit that rock bottom and was was looking at seeing the pattern show up again was just so such a slap in the face, honestly. And um, and I I you know I blame so much on my ex, like she did all these things, and then to see it, and this and Kira is honestly one of those kindest humans I've ever met. And to see my pattern playing out and my mind saying she's the worst, I'm like, wait a minute, she's the literally the kindest person ever, you know, like this doesn't really make sense.
Can you give us an example of that where your mind was like where she did something you're like, oh, I was convinced after my divorce, I was convinced every woman was is the most manipulative thing in the world.
They don't really care, they're just trying to manipulate you, and you know, and so Kira would do something kind, and I would think, what's her angle? Like, what's she trying to do? You know, or it really anytime my shame got touched, instead of thinking, oh, I messed up or I'm a problem, I'd go, She's doing this to me, or she's only, you know, whatever. So a lot of it was around thinking people were manipulative.
That's interesting.
Oof. Um I totally hear what you're saying with the negative view of narcissists. I mean, I'm dabbling into the social media world now, and it is just crazy to see the one note that's like, here's how to tell if you know someone's a narcissist and you should cut them out and probably never speak to them again and blah, blah, blah, right? Like, let's pick out the bad guy. And yet, the things that you just said of anger and shame and wanting to, you know, not trusting someone else's intentions, even just like thinking, oh, I'm great when I get hurt, those all sound like pretty normal things. And we also know that there's a lot of narcissism in our culture. So, how do you deal with like a lot of these traits are normal?
Sure.
And there's so much hatred for them now.
Yeah, absolutely. How do I deal with that?
Yeah, how do you think about that? Like seeing the internet being like, this is the equivalent of an evil person, and that like when you're saying like anger, ooh, a lot of people struggle with anger these days.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I I think the internet's very justified in um the anger that is pointed towards narcissists. Like I've had narcissists even in my life. Like every narcissist actually understands narcissistic abuse once they wake up to what that is. Most of them just called it their childhood. You know, like they just called that they just thought that was just normal, you know, ways of of relating. Um but you know, I I feel that's so justified, like to be completely constantly gas-lit by somebody, to like constantly be questioning yourself, and to have to if you've ever been with a narcissist who is so firm on their thought process about something, about why this is happening, or you know, whatever, and you just literally have to go, fine, I'll just I'll just dissolve myself into your delusion that you have here. I will just deny myself and do whatever you want, because I'm tired of fighting, you know, and when someone does that, you know, they might they'll do it just to get through so they're not fighting forever. Because a narcissist will will not let it go. Because if they if they bend on that thing, what it means about them is is too destructive to the psyche. So they will not, right? They're just like, uh-uh. And so the other person is always denying themselves or or self-abandoning, and it's painful, it sucks, you know. The handful of times that I've had to do it with friends and things, it's like, gosh, I hate this. And so to imagine someone living in that constantly, it's like they're so justified in that anger. I just don't think that anger is really serving them in so you know, long term, I'd love to see a switch in that. But getting back to your question, like, what do I think about that? I think that uh if you actually look at Google Trends and you look at the word narcissist, in the last five years, it's done this, it's it's actually really uh blew up. And I think that we're all just kind of waking up to this pattern, you know, and we're seeing it in humans and and we're just noticing. I think it's always been there. But and just like anything that becomes new on the scene, everyone we freak out and villainize it at first when we don't fully understand it. You know, think about like homosexuals in the 1950s, or think about like alcoholism in the early days, thought these people were possessed by demons and there was nothing to do about them. Like the insane ways that an alcoholic acts are not too different from a narcissist. But today we can look at it and say they're sick. This comes from, you know, history of neglect and abuse in in their families, and like because we can see also the patterns, like a fuller understanding of it, we can have more compassion for it. And I think that that's all we're lacking right now is is the full understanding of this condition.
So going back to receptivity, there you were kind of saying, like, I was dating this wonderful woman, she was so incredibly kind, and I was noticing these same patterns emerge. Was it just that the logic was just staring you in the face to such a degree that you had to confront it? Or was it fear of losing her? Or like what do you think got in that allowed you? Because you were just describing so so um vividly patterns that I've lived through, right? Where I've felt crazy and I'm like, why can't we just let go of this argument? You know, like why can't you shift your thinking in any little way? And now it's now it's not even about agree to disagree, now it's I have to agree with you, right? The those lengths, like going to those lengths to keep up a construction, really illustrate how crucial it is to not look inward and not experience shame, but you were able to do it.
So I'm just yeah. Well, I think a lot of people do it. I mean, I'm I'm not the only one, I think I'm just the only one who's talking about it on the internet.
Yeah.
You go into Reddit, there's there's 50,000 some odd, you know, narcissists in in Reddit that are all self-aware. You know, I've met with hundreds on my side as well. Like, this does happen. It's not completely impossible, it's just like who's gonna talk about that, you know, to anyone. Um but so for me, it was like I already knew I had shame problem, an empathy problem, and an anger problem. So I already like knew that this was the thing. And so when I was circling back on the narcissism question in that kind of moment, um I was like, I just looked at it different. I was like, yes, yes, I do this, I do this, I do I do all those things. Okay, you know, let me look at this. And I think that that happens a lot. I've got um there's this narcissism, there's something called the narcissism spectrum scale, and I can't remember which university created it or uh set of researchers, but it's a really great view of narcissism on a scale, and um I send people to that all the time is they go find out where where you sit on the spectrum, and a lot of narcissists wake up that way and they look, they take the quiz and go, I guess I'm I guess this is me. Like help me understand why. And um I think that a a hard, hardcore narcissist, so even in the in the scale itself, the nine and ten, like the high highest level narcissists, cannot be diagnosed using that scale because their narcissism will not even let them take the survey correctly, like it it will block them from you know convince themselves that they are none of those things, you know. But um, but there's still a lot of people who are not that high on the spectrum, but still like like a seven and an eight will struggle in their relationships forever, like they will they will go through like five marriages, and even people on the internet who are you know being told or being called narcissists, they might not be a nine or ten, but they could be a seven and eight and still be incredibly difficult to be with, you know. So there's a lot of people I think who are able to look at it. And I think if if today we change the the the concept of narcissism, if it wasn't this like evil, horrible human, I think a lot more people would wake up to it, which is a big part of my mission, is to change that viewpoint because then more people can wake up, then less people are getting abused, less harm is happening, right? So um if we as a society got together and said, let's look at this a little bit differently, like we could remove a lot of pain and suffering that's going on in the world.
I mean, it is it is talked about as if it's synonymous with being a bad person. So if you are supposed to accept that label, it's kind of like, oh, I'm an irredeemable monster.
Yeah, my condition literally doesn't allow me to to to accept that, you know. It's so such a catch-22, we're stuck in.
My God, I I have because we we are so we we specialize in personality sores and we love talking about it. And even we we put something out on on um social media that was just like we had a conversation about can narcissists actually love their children, and it we said, like, yeah, I just gonna look and feel differently. And the amount of hate comments I got, they were like, How dare you say this? Like you were putting people in danger. I was like, what a one one note. So I I appreciate changing the conversation, but I'm curious as you're you told the story starting the the um being an entrepreneur. Yeah can you bring us back um before that? Like how did you how did these traits show up in your life? Like you're you know, you're talking about how it might have been um influenced by early experiences and just like there's a lot of narcissists in in on tech and for good reason. Um it's a good it's a good outlet for it, it's a good like place for it. Can you talk about like the before times before you were like, uh-oh, this is a problem?
Sure. Well, let's let's let's back up a second and say, you know, what causes narcissism? So 90% of the time research shows that it's from uh neglect and abuse. And so at a young age, this child, you know, uh inherits this viewpoint that they themselves are not okay the way that they are, that something's something's wrong with them. And they come to believe that if they can be the mask version of themselves, that they can be lovable, they can be safe, they can be all these things. And so tech is really a magnet for narcissists for people who in their mask, the version of them that could be lovable is a is a high performing, successful, wealthy person. Um that mask is that will draw people in because tech is something that you literally anyone who's crazy enough to go start a business and go get money from investors can do it. You know? And so it's like it it's just a magnet, I think, for for people. And I think that there's certain industries that definitely attract you know more narcissists because of the amount of power uh and wealth that that exists in those those industries. So um, you know, one well, no, that's a little bit off topic, but so why was I drawn to it? Well, because I I thought that that's that was what I needed to be essentially. That like the hyper successful, like I was like student body president in school, I was like played sports, I did all the things that got the attention that I needed. And um I was always hungry for more. It's another thing really common on entrepreneurs. They can go make a hundred million dollars and then a year later they're back starting another business because they're like, I I guess I need 300 million to be happy. Like they get back on the carousel because the truth is nothing can fill that void, nothing can fill that hole of feeling like you're not enough. And so um, yeah, I was I was always drawn to things that made me look good on paper. So I did sales in college, like a door-to-door sales, and I was really good at it. I just like was it tickled this part of my brain of like making money and and performing and being better than other people in the office, and um I was also drawn to this, so then I was again drawn to building a business because you know, same reasons. So yeah.
Were you did you come from parents who really expected high achievement?
Yeah. Yeah, they rewarded it. It was like if I was good at church, if I was good at uh performance, uh like my mom had like a singing group, so I like did a lot of singing as a kid and through high school. Um, and if um I did well with money, like those are like I got a lot of attention, you know, for doing those things.
Did it ever cause problems earlier? I mean, you would did the anger show up before and the shame show up before, or was it just like uh yeah, you were killing it, so keep going.
It was good. Honestly, like no, like I if if I got touched on certain subjects, yes, like I would spark and be angry if you really touched my shame. But I think my ex-wife knew how to kind of avoid that and just make sure that never really got pricked. But for the most part, it was like a slow death. Uh like she just slowly was like not being seen. Because the truth is, like, narcissists are sitting there, I was like focused on my my business and and the thing that would make me great. And I would do like loving acts, but they were they were like a show. It was like something I had to, but that's what I thought it was. That's what I thought love was. It's like you go do this like fancy thing and you make sure that they see you do it, and um, that's love. But you know, when I was at the gas station, I never got her favorite candy. I never I didn't remember what her favorite candy was. You know, when we were uh when I was out doing something, I never thought, does she want me to pick up something for her while I'm gone? I was literally just stuck in me world, and I thought it was ADHD, and that's what we would just always fight about was my ADHD. And and I'd say, I'm sorry, I'm I'm just ADHD. What do you want me to do? Like, I can't change this. And um so I think she just felt honestly really unloved and unseen.
Um did you have a sense of like you you talk about having my shame touched, like if somebody touched my shame, did you have a sense of what that was? Like a particular insecurity, or was it more this amorphous sense of just if I'm criticized, then the kind of inner sphere that sort of defective me will be seen. And so it was just any criticism, any kind of rejection would hit it.
No, it was so I didn't know about if that it was my shame that was getting pricked. I just would get angry and I'd be like, I don't know, I don't know what happened there. Or I my brain would come up with some excuse, like, no, it's because you did this, or because you know, I I honestly was just so blind to it. It wasn't until I started my healing journey that I read I started to like label my shame. I read Brene Brown and was like, oh, I created the list of like what is what am I actually ashamed of? And um then starting to see the pattern of like, oh, those are the moments that trigger me. That's that's crazy. I was actually someone who would make fun of myself all the time. Like I would, I was like in business, I'd say, um, I eat I eat criticism for breakfast is literally what I told every employee. I was like, criticize me, like, tell me what I need. But if so, you I could get criticized up and down, left and right, as long as you didn't hit uh making me feel sh shame because of being lazy, for being stupid, like because of my ADHD, um, for being weak. Um there's like those handful of things. If you hit those, I would you know, prick up, but almost never at work, only in the home. Yeah, or in friendships, you know.
Yeah. How do you experience or explain the empathy deficit? Is it that there because it seems like it's come back online for you. Um so because I I think a lot of questions around neuroscience, for instance, are right, is this like a developmental or like a physiological empathy deficit? Or it maybe is it something that's buried? Um, because in order to have empathy, then you would have to see other people's perspectives and then understand that you're not perfect. So I'm wondering how you how you experience it or explain it.
Yeah. Yeah, the way I see it in myself and in my clients is that it's not that narcissists don't have empathy, it's that we have really strong shields against empathy, against letting else letting in someone else's pain. Um, on one side, we're very self-absorbed because it's like we got the message at a young age that no one's gonna take care of us. We had to take care of ourselves. And so that's the part of narcissist staring into the mirror, always focused on himself. And so it actually takes a level of safety to put away the mirror to look at someone else and say, What do you need? How can I help you today? Right. Um, so I think that's one aspect. Um, the safety, the the feeling like able and capable. And then the other is honestly, like, I think at a young age, most narcissists put up those guards and just like never never let them down, never let somebody in all the way, or never like made it a point to look at someone's pain. Because if that's how you lived your whole life, your whole family did that. Like you show up at home and you had a hard day, and everyone says, your parents go, quit being so loud, like you're interrupting me, and then your siblings go, You're such a baby, you know. Like, you didn't learn to open up the soft and squishy parts to be seen, and you just thought, I'm no one doesn't that we don't do that, you know. I don't do that, people don't do that for me, I don't do that for others. And so something I really work on with narcissist clients is the there's the quote from uh Rumi, which is the um you have to keep breaking your heart until it opens, and we really actually have like a focus on trying to have that heartbreaking moment where I try to have them visualize or have conversations with their partner where they can feel their partner's pain. Like I literally we do a meditation, they open their heart, like we do this long sort of like you're safe, you can do this, and then we have their partner talk about something that has nothing to do with them, won't incur shame, won't make them feel bad, just something that's hurting in them. And they for the first time will go, ow, ow, that hurts. Like and that is like a a first kind of experience for most narcissists to be able to feel someone else's pain. And um yeah, they have to keep like they keep breaking it open. And I've had people call me and be like, like clients, like, ow, this hurts so bad. Like every I'm I can't believe this is like what a lived experience could be like to actually let people's pain in all the time. And um it's really beautiful to watch people change because as the empathy opens up, then they are able to um show up for the partner. So if I felt so, for example, I felt bad when I hurt my my ex wife for not getting the Sour Patch kids at the gas station for. If I actually for the first time went, ow, that hurt, it wires my brain to go. I don't want her to feel because I felt her pain and I don't want her to feel it again. Just like if I put my hand on a stove, wires my brain to say, don't touch stoves anymore. And I only do it once and it never hurts again. So similarly, once you start opening your heart to feeling the pain that you caused or just their pain in general, you start wanting them to not feel pain. You start going, ah, what can I do to help you? What can I, you know, how can I be a better partner? And it's really amazing to watch these narcissist go from, I've never thought of how I could help my wife or my husband and have them go, I realized how hard this is for them. And I just started helping them and I started doing it. And like watching them build empathy and build connection with their partner in that way is truly like a magical thing that I get a witness and help people through. And even in myself was really magical. Like I remember like waking up and thinking, oh Kira, she she was feeling sick last night. I wonder if she's okay. Let me like sneak out of bed and go do this and take care of this so she can sleep in and afterwards it was like I've never had that thought cross my mind before. I've never sat and been like what can I do for her? Just wake up in the morning and think me, me, me, me, me, me, me, you know, what do I need? And um yeah it truly is a a change in our mind and our body to that I think every narcissist can do. It's not impossible. It's just we didn't know how to do it, you know?
That's so interesting.
I love that I love hearing that empathy can be learned and and and grown and it's there's a block. I think some people are like oh no no empathy they don't even care. It's like there's something about the empathy that might be threatening. Yeah. I'm wondering too like I I have the urge to be like oh that sounds normal but if if if you're how do you when you start to you know see new clients or hear people who say do I have narcissism like what would be the way that you recognize signs of narcissism versus all the other feelings and struggles that you mentioned, which is like feeling angry when you get criticized, um feeling like you need to achieve um like thinking that you're the best, right? Like how do you know that they're they're not just like something else? I think what I'm asking I think I think what I'm asking is like I lately especially because men's mental health isn't great. The more I learn about it the more it looks depression looks like anger and shame and the self-focus right when you're upset. So how can you tell when someone is like oh they they have narcissistic disorder versus like they're struggling with shame like the rest of human beings one of these days.
Totally honestly I don't know that I can tell like sometimes it's like I don't know there's like a pattern recognition that I've started to tell but honestly I just say go take the go take the narcissism spectrum scale and tell me what your score was and then we'll talk. You know if you don't score high on that I don't know what you got but you know it probably not good for me to talk to you. So yeah but I mean what I notice is like this there are certain it there's phases too like an early stages of a narcissist waking up a lot of times like am I a narcissist? I don't think I'm a narcissist like I actually don't like they really struggle taking on that word and um they want to they want to say how everything they're doing is is totally normal. And I honestly trust their partner a lot a lot of times it's like well if the partner doesn't feel safe if they never feel hurt if they always feel that you're defensive if you're acting angry and and doing all these things and it's like man like that that's worth you know taking a look at but they really struggle with it in the early days to to own that that that title but yeah I would love to hear about your process um I went into my program initially wanting to treat narcissism and there wasn't exactly any training on it.
So um this is a little bit of of me um getting a workshop from you.
Sure sure yeah we can talk about it what what are like initial sessions like how does it work yeah I think that if I had to sum up what a narcissist has to go through in order to heal um it's like in two phases. So phase one is releasing relieving the shame and pain that is kind of causing all the dysfunction to begin with. Like um like imagine that narcissism is like if I injure my arm and swelling pops up. The swelling is the narcissism that's just protecting the overall wound. And so the first part is to learn to love themselves and to learn to to try and get at the wound a little bit. Some of it some of them have to process like trauma. They have to like move through that stuff. Some of them have to um just come to realize that the mask is keeping them sick and actually accepting the true aspects of themselves is what starts to relieve shame because they they just are start to own themselves. Like I'm okay being sensitive and needing a rest and all these things right and so um that's I think phase one. And then phase two is learning how to love other people. So the second half of the 13 week program that I work that I work with people is learning devotional love, which is which is love that has no expectation in return that's not performed that's not transactional. And so um you know we start halfway through saying let's focus on trying to love and then we spend the rest of it removing the barriers to love which is another roomy quote that I love which is you don't have to learn love you just have to learn what's blocking you from love. And so we work on you know trust and humility and vulnerability and in these things that are actually blocking them from experiencing that that connection.
So that's that's all of it in a in a nutshell do you do that do you do that um virtually or in person or how how do you like to work?
Yeah so I have a a program that I put them through it's 13 weeks and each week is like a really in-depth focus on on something and it'd be half and half like I was telling you relieving the shame and you know that self-acceptance and then so learning to love yourself and then learning to love others would be kind of the the two halves of of it. And I actually have if they work with me they have to do like it's like a part-time job I'm like you're gonna spend an hour and an hour and a half doing homework every night a lot of his journal entries and introspection that they then pop into chat GPT and it spits back out a really powerful reflection for them. And then they go deeper with an activity where they actually go do something with their partner kind of like a cognitive behavioral therapy we're actually like doing a thing to start to rewire uh the brain and self-acceptance and then love.
So what kinds of what kinds of assignments might these be like what kind of activities?
One that's really cool that I love to do is uh is authenticity. So we we spend a week focusing on authenticity and the whole week the journal entries are about what parts of you did your parents not accept? What parts of you did you uh did you love to do as a kid but you don't do anymore? What parts of you uh did you kind of have to put away because parents or you know your your family system didn't didn't allow for that and they put that they put all these like big journal I tell them you know put as much as you can in because you'll get a really cool output when you get out from ChatGBT and I give them a prompt and they put these massive journal entries in it spits back out the lost self and all the masks that they've been wearing to keep the lost self hidden. And it's really wild because I tell them that your authentic self is a version of you you've never actually met. It's a version you put away a long time ago and and they all say this they're like that feels like me but also like it feels really far away or it feels like maybe that itself is a mask. Like they truly don't know themselves and they they have to come back home to for me it was my sensitivity like even on this call I've gotten emotional a few times um just thinking about like my ex-wife or just you know whatever and I was like a deeply sensitive kid that I completely hid that because I couldn't be weak. I couldn't be those things and when I've kind of brought that home it's really cleared up the shame of feeling like something's wrong with me constantly and constantly have to wear masks. And so they they get this big spit out of the however many things that have been lost and then they start working on how do I how do I reclaim this? How do I start to you know bring this back home to myself which can be scary for them.
I mean there's a reason they put on the mask to begin with so this just sounds like a program I want to do I'm like I want to know like what parts of man should be it is it is fun.
It's it I mean you're right Dr. Kibby when you say that like these are all very normal things and that's what's interesting is like we can all relate to wearing a bit of a mask or needing to be something else.
It's just narcissist kind of had to do it on a really intense level so much so that they've like hid the truth from themselves you know so yeah you do you feel like there is um I mean we we've talked about that they uh on this podcast before that there are different types of narcissists there's like vulnerable and grandiose and malignant or yeah uh just in general when you think of working with someone are there types of narcissism or stages that they're in that you're like this is not going to go well there are like I guess I'm I'm I'm voicing the question that people have like can narc are there some narcissist that just can't heal?
Yeah I would say the narcissist who can't heal are the ones who don't ever come to me so I'm I have a bias to people who come people who are saying they they want something so there's probably a huge swath of people that I'm not privy to seeing because they're they're not they're not trying. So I'm just gonna say I don't know on that. But whether they're grandiose or covert is not a problem for like there's they're they're just different. They're two sides of the same coin it's just one side of the coin showing but they have they they have the same holistic issue kind of at hand. And uh what was I gonna say the the only people that I struggle with are or who I see struggle are people who are not sure if they're really a narcissist and they're just doing it because their wife or husband has kind of got them over there. And I've seen people performatively heal. I've seen them like you know go down this route of and I'm and I can now smell it. I can now kind of see it and I just kind of filter for it before they come in.
Um but yeah how do you how can you tell if someone's gonna perform healing how do you how do you tell?
Well it's like if they're only there because the the partner told them to and if if they don't do any of the homework assignment and um if they're actually not asking questions or trying to be better they're just telling you how great they are or how how great they're doing at their healing, you know, it's like um those are all pretty telltale signs.
I um I was just in Africa for five weeks and it's interesting when I travel because I think when I'm home and I'm thinking about traveling, like it's this amazing thing. And then after I do it I'm gonna be an even more amazing person. I come from like a high achieving family also where I just feel like I have to like be more and more like awesome in all these different ways. And then I'm in the travel and I'm like this is stressful and lonely and boring sometimes and hard and like I think part of why I'm doing like most of why I'm doing it is I want to see things and everything but part of why I'm doing it is because I feel like part like my meaning or purpose in life is like experiencing as much as possible and be like I don't know like having more and more awesome experiences.
And then I I kind of had this moment in Africa where I was like what if I have to stop swimming like what if I have to stop traveling and just sort of be alone and you kind of mentioned purpose with narcissism before of this sense of like you always have to level up you always have to um get more and more money it's never enough and I I guess I'm wondering how you um help them regain a different kind of purpose yeah what that looks like for your clients for context I both of us are are have narcissistic traits but in different domains like I'm the school person and Jacqueline's the the life person.
Yeah totally I think it comes down to finding what that authentic self is and nourishing that. Like narcissists are really good. I think a lot of people are really good at nourishing the mask like doing the things that we think we need to do to get love. But like true nourishment of your true self feels it it's fulfilling. It's like when you eat a steak dinner and you're just like I'm full. You know there there's no dopamine scratching at something else when you feel you know uh fulfilled and when we are eating candy and seeking the the that that's the seeking the dopamine hit of the the the what the mask wants you know what we think we should be doing and that never fulfills us. Because it's like you know you go to the zoo and you see a you see a cheetah like just so depressed or the polar bear like same thing. They're so sad. And it's because they're not fulfilling their their genetic expression. They're not being what they're here to be you know and you you you we do that to ourselves. We put ourselves in a cage of our own uh beliefs on who we should be and then we wonder why we're depressed all day you know it's because we're not we're not fulfilling the our unique genetic expression in the world right our our authenticity our dharma as the Hindus would say right so it's like an addiction. Yeah yeah where do you feel like you you're mentioning sensitivity what are other things um that fulfill you now versus before um finding your authentic self and and getting that um real meal instead of candy yeah um one is just creative expression so like my my dad used to say never be a designer never do a job that you would do for fun that's just you know creative work is like not work basically and so I was like got it sure I'm I started a business and and did all the external you know growth things and it's been more recently that I've just really tapped into my creative side and so um just like I love designing a great video or creating uh like designing my office to look really really cool and have like lights and you know fun thing things like that. Like that's very very nourishing for me. Yeah. Just one example.
But is that same yeah um I wanted to just briefly give some time to I know your wife is also she's also now coaching right but she's doing it from the other side of the the script of the empath I was wondering I mean I know she's not here but if you just wanted to say something about that because it's that's such an interesting pairing of like you helping to heal the narcissist and her helping to heal the empath and like yeah yeah yeah yeah Kira is amazing like I honestly like I couldn't have done anything without her she's the most intuitive intelligent she's a uh RTT therapist so hypnotherapy um and she's just so good but um yeah I mean she started waking up to her own toxic patterns her patterns of self-abandoning right and the the the truth that I think is really hard for people to swallow is that it takes two people to be in a in a toxic relationship.
And yes the narcissist is the one who is the bull who is like pushing things in a certain direction but it's the the partner of that narcissist who stuck with that person for years and called it love. You know I mean both people are at a certain amount of fault. And both people are just operating childhood patterns. So it's like we're not going to blame either of them and say either is worse than the other. Well I mean narcissist definitely hurts a lot more I'm sorry for that that statement. But I think that they are both participating in this and so what Kira is she kind of woke up to her self-abandonment. She woke up to the fact that she was she was basically saying she was giving me the permit every single day to go act this way and do these things you know and so when our healing really started when she woke up and she started saying I'm not going to self-abandon anymore and I'm not gonna soothe his insecurities and I'm not gonna dance around and walk on eggshells around him. And that forced it's like throwing a a kid into water and then they had to swim. It was like that forced me into whoa I actually am so dysregulated all the time and when she's not dancing around or trying to soothe or take care of that I actually got a lot going on here. And so we think it's just as important to heal the loved one of a narcissist because the current story of saying just leave them and get out of that narcissistic relationship is honestly not very helpful. Um because they are drawn to narcissistic people for a reason. And what happens is they will exit one narcissist a grandiose and then go find themselves with the opposite version of a same narcissist as a covert. Right and then just be with five narcissist over there. Jacqueline's laughing too hard because is there something personal there?
Oh yeah I went straight from a grandiose to a covert slash grandiose.
I think he kind of went back and forth um exactly yeah yeah but I I fell for him in part because at first he seemed like he was the opposite to the first one but then I found myself in the same yeah yeah and so like our message is like hey you could leave but you might it might take you know two years to heal from that relationship and then you'll have a whole bunch of trauma from from the pain of that and then you'll start dating someone else and you won't recognize that they're a narcissist until two years later. So you can go five years and then be in the exact same spot or you can stay here and try to heal as long as you're in a safe environment like it's safe like they're not being abusive physically abusive or anything like that. Right. And that's where we just kind of invite because that real that relationship will force both of you to heal your patterns. And if at least you stay in the relationship and focus on your healing, you'll get to the end of it and if they don't heal well great you exited and you're healed and you'll go find you know a healthy dynamic somewhere but if you just keep exiting and exiting exiting you'll be like a lot of the people that were in our our free support group where we saw like I'm on my fifth narcissist I'm on my third narcissist. It's like yeah the statistical chance of somebody you know finding a a narcissist five times is like one in 10,000. Like that's not you know that's that's happening for a reason.
They're they're drawn to it, you know well I definitely want to talk to Kira because it seems like we're doing similar things. I mean like I'm doing a lot of work with uh narcissistic abuse and healing from that I have a question about that. Um something that I struggle with when talking to a loved one of a narcissist is a lot of the situation not all of them but not all some of the situations are abusive right like the narcissist um like you know the anger can get violent or you know really demeaning and you know uh it's abusive situation a lot of time with the domestic violence um situations. I have a really hard time since I'm trying to teach them skills about how to like heal from that and you know like you know heal from that yeah I have a hard time saying there's something that you can you've you do to co-create this abusive dynamic, right? That feels like blaming. Yeah and I think that's why the internet loves to just say just it's not your fault at all just leave. It's really hard to say there are things you could do to help your situation because that also means you are like enabling it, allowing it to happen. What do you do with that?
That's so hard because you don't want it to you don't want it to say that well because you enabled it you can't have any pain right like the truth is they've been talking about intense amounts of pain being with the narcissist. And so um yeah that's a really hard one to thread I think Kira's able to do it really well because she was that person. So for her to say I was self-abandoning this she's just saying she this is my story. You know so people can see themselves in her and it's a lot easier for them to go yeah I'm doing that okay you know so when she works with loved ones of narcissists she's just really helping them like take back their power you know and you can do it in an empowering way I think too and that's that's the message that she really tries to to embody. It's wonderful.
Can you just speak real quick we're gonna let you go soon but um how like how did she take up for her how would she approach you when she had decided that it was time to stop self-abandoning because I could see you know and like in my situation I would try to speak up for myself and then I would get bulldozed um and I would just I I would just be as you said so much of the time she's just like let's stop fighting and of course me allowing myself to get bulldozed and still not leave was inviting it to happen again. But I'm wondering if you could kind of give an example of like a better way to go about it.
Yeah how she did it. Yeah you know like one thing she did when we were when we were calm and not in a fight she would say you know what I really what I need is that I need you to listen with your heart and to not be defensive when I'm trying to say something that's that's hurting me. And this is like stereotypical hard thing you know dynamic with the narcissist. And I was like you're right I should be able to listen then I'll do that you know and she's like okay well here's what I'm gonna do. If you're ever being defensive I'm gonna stop the conversation and I'm not gonna keep going until you're ready to open your heart and listen. And I was like sure boo that'll be easy and like turns out that was like the hardest thing in the world she'd be like you're being defensive and I'm like no no no I'm not like bite my tongue and be like you know sometimes I'd I'd throw a fit and she just she just held it and was like no I'm I'm you know I'm gonna go over here and that is extremely painful for a loved one of a narcissist to do because you are you are risking disconnection with that person. You're right like you're risking that fear of abandonment comes up and they go so for them to do that that's really hard but they have to go learn how to nourish themselves how to go and like cool he's doing a thing I'm gonna go over here and nourish myself. I'm gonna go do what takes makes me feel content go talk to my girlfriends I'm gonna go paint I'm gonna do you know whatever it is that I need so that my cup is now full. So when it's time to re-engage I'm coming from a full place I'm coming from like I'm taken care of and I can like navigate this. So that was one she was really hard there's quite a few that she was just like not going to engage but it's a boundary is something you place not to control another person but to um control like keep your energy inside not leaking out right so that's you know having being really good at boundaries and doing it as a means to keep the energy in and keep you kind of sustained and and thriving um you know is is the way awesome can be any less you're lucky I mean I'm just like you're lucky to have found her it sounds like she's sounds like a wonderful person. Luck doesn't even begin to describe it. She really is amazing.
So um I hope you someday do a workshop for therapists.
Yeah I really want to yeah I actually had two narcissists who were therapists and graduated from my program and they're gonna start taking some clients as well because there's there's quite a there's a there's a lot and so I'm I'd love to do that or even just kind of give therapists a a different viewpoint too and like some tools that they could use. So um yeah that's something I'd I'd love to do actually. So well is there anything else you want to plug or or share with audience like um yeah I mean the name of your program or how find you this is probably draw drawing people in who are interested in narcissism because they think they have a client a a partner who is a narcissist. And the one I think important message I I just really want to share is that you know your biggest their biggest fear is to shake up the relationship and to cause problems if they you know speak up or you know start taking back their their energy. And the truth is a narcissist will never wake up unless the loved one does something. I've never you know in the the year and a half I've been doing this hundreds of narcissists I've talked to they always wake up when their partner is fed up and when their partner is done like done done done. And my invitation is to say you know instead of waiting a year or five or ten or twenty or thirty and then finally pulling out because the relationship has sucked you dry and you have like no heart left in it you know standing up for yourself now and is what's going to kind of kick off the the the levels of healing in both of you. And so them standing up and I think that's something we really try to teach them is like you know tools and and ways to do it because that is the most helpful thing you can do for if you want to keep your relationship if you want to have a loving thriving relationship and keep your kids you know in the family and not be divorced and all that like it starts with you. And I know that's unfortunate like it sucks to be married to a narcissist to have someone with a person personality disorder but it's like it's just the situation you're in and um you know my I the last thing I want to do is inspire someone to stay in a horrible relationship and never change anything. For them to say oh he'll wake up one day he'll change one day he won't unless um the loved one does something unless the partner says I'm done. I'm going to and we we say there's all sorts of ways they can withdraw their energy but it's like you don't just have to jump to divorce or or separation. It's like hey I'm not gonna go on dates with you anymore because you don't treat me well you yell you whatever I'm not going to cook you meals anymore. I'm not going to sleep in the same bedroom as you anymore like there's so many ways to start to say I'm not happy with how things are and we need to change because a narcissist won't wake up to it unless you do something like that. We convince ourselves everything's great, we're great partners everything's fantastic. And it's not until they say you're sleeping in the basement that they kind of start to go whoa what you're not happy you know and so um yeah that's just I think so important and I just hope I can inspire some people to do that because narcissists need that to be woken up and if anyone is gonna try and go down this road of of healing inside the relationship then you know you you have to kind of kick off things correctly. So um if you're interested to about that Kira's uh on my Instagram you can find her she's recovering empaths um and then you can find me at healnarcissism.com if anyone has narcissistic tendencies or um you know is open to to changing uh I've got a lot of awesome people in there who have changed their lives and um we're inspiring more people to do it.
So yeah amazing well this is so interesting so thank you so much for coming on um I was really glad you agreed to um and little helpers if you could feed our narcissistic supplier and give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify um we won't throw at the interim. So we'll see you next time by accessing this podcast I acknowledge that the hosts of this podcast make no warranty guarantee or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information featured in this podcast. The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast and any and all content or services available on or through this podcast are provided for general non-commercial informational purposes only and do not constitute the practice of medical or any other professional judgment advice, diagnosis or treatment and should not be considered or used as a substitute for the independent professional judgment advice, diagnosis or treatment of a duly licensed and qualified healthcare provider. In case of a medical emergency you should immediately call 911. The hosts do not endorse, approve, recommend or certify any information, product, process, service or organization presented or mentioned in this broadcast, and information from this podcast should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement
