I recall when a narcissist showed up in my life, and turned on the love-bombing. It instantly elevated the way I felt about myself.
This led to the belief that this is how ALL relationships should be. We should all have a partner who makes us feel good about ourselves.
In my mind I was chastising my then partner and thinking that it was a shortfall of theirs that THEY weren’t showering me with all of that “love and affection”.
And truly, this new person that had entered my life must be my true soulmate because of the way THEY made me feel.
But it couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Because this is the “fatal attraction” of the narcissist; the artificial filling of a void that WE need to fill ourselves. (It’s like a predator attracting their prey.)
Unfortunately, my belief around how my then relationship should be in comparison with the new (narcissist) in my life, led me to “jump ship” and run to the love that I thought was “true”.
Of course, it wasn’t true at all.
And in the end, it created a great amount of unnecessary pain for everyone involved. (Well, not really for the narcissist because they will always be seeking another “supply” to try to fill their own painful void.)
And all of these voids between the narcissist and ourselves cannot be filled from the outside.
This is an inside job. This requires us to look in the mirror and tell ourselves that we’re enough.
It requires self-care, and believing in our own intuition, so that if something doesn’t feel right; we avoid it. (I remember feeling that pull toward the narcissist, but at the same time there was anxiety coming from my intuition.)
When we fill our own heart and soul with self-love, it opens our eyes to the fake love that’s out there in the world.
It creates boundaries and barriers that keep toxic relationships out of our lives.
Is it easy to do this? Not at first. It takes some work, because we’ve been this way since our childhood when our initial trauma happened.
Because THAT trauma is what started it all. That’s the time when our self-worth really dipped, and caused a ripple effect in our lives.
So we have to go deep in order to work on those layers of our past that require love and healing.
Unfortunately, we often avoid it because we’re used to the chaos of our lives, and it actually feels normal to us.
But when we make that conscious decision to do the work because we’re fed up with toxic relationship cycles, miracles happen.
We discover the peace and contentment that we deserve, and finally let go of the mayhem that we’ve been used to in our lives. The disorder that seemed “normal” to us for decades.
And the beauty of it all, is that it’s never too late.
It’s a beautiful thing to finally heal our life and live it to our full potential with joy, confidence and purpose.
No matter how old (or young at heart) we may be.
PS: Ready to go deep to heal, stop the repeating toxic relationship cycle and create joy, confidence and purpose in YOUR life? Schedule a free Time to Thrive call with me and we’ll look at the vision for your life and what’s keeping you stuck.
Also, join me for my free interactive live, virtual event by saving your spot here: Navigate Your Path to Empowerment: 3 Keys to Thrive After Narcissistic Relationships
