For years, I had an irresistible attraction to narcissistic people. The confidence with which they move through the world fascinated me. The very force of their presence, which seems to command others to look up and glance their way as they spread their vibrant peacock feathers to parade their brilliance for all to admire, mesmerized me. 

And I, special by association, was no longer the shy and insecure one, but instead, sure of myself as the chosen one of someone who was so clearly majestic. 

Before they deflate and drain you, your association with the narcissist will puff you up as you find yourself floating on the coattails of grandeur. Yet steep dues will soon be due. For by getting too close to the sun, you’ll eventually begin to burn. And down you’ll go in flames, as little by little you find yourself slicing off pieces of your soul to desperately barter away your authenticity and integrity for a crumb of attention and approval. 

Being involved with a narcissist is little like looking in the mirror and seeing no reflection.

It took a while, but eventually I understood that when a narcissist tells you they love you, what they mean is that they love the intoxicating feeling that they get in regards to you. It has little to do with actually extending care your way, which might be the actual definition of true love.

Many of us who have this kind of attraction have hopefully become good at spotting the red flags by now, and begun making different choices. The day I graduated from this pattern, I was at a dinner with a group of friends. A girlfriend had brought along her brother, hoping he might meet someone he liked. He was good-looking, well-dressed in a classy light grey suit, and clearly quite well-off, as he offered to pay for dinner. He was fun in a life-of-the-party kind of way as he ordered appetizers for all. And he seemed very interested in me, making it a point to sit next to me and engage deeply as we sat nearly nose to nose for at least two hours, rarely speaking to anyone but one another. I floated away from that dinner, sure I’d met someone special. It wasn’t until I was falling off to sleep that I realized with a start that it was the same pattern all over again. For though we’d spoken non-stop, not once did he ask me anything about myself. Instead, he entertained me with story after story about himself and how he became such a successful entrepreneur. Because this was such an ingrained pattern, I’d not noticed it at the time. Yet once I saw it, I could not unsee it, and I wisely refused his advances after that. Which, of course, irritated him and caused him to badmouth me to his sister.

As hard as these moments are, life must evolve through us and not simply to us. Meaning that we can’t just ask God for a miracle without also making different (and often difficult) choices to graduate from our unwanted patterns. We must choose the more mature path of denying that which we know is not good for us. Many of us have learned to say “no thank you.”  Yet what we say “no” to is only half the story. We must now learn how to consciously create that which we actually do want.

The beginning of this is to focus our efforts on becoming who we will need to be to manifest and sustain the happy, healthy, mutually rewarding future we desire. Freedom from our unwanted patterns doesn’t come from learning to diagnose others, though discernment is a great skill to have. Nor does it come from finally understanding our history and why we are the way we are, which is an important part of any conscious life. Yet the breakthrough comes from seeing our own part clearly and recognizing the sense of self that drives us to make the unhealthy choices we’ve been making. For the “you” that’s willing to throw yourself under the bus by disappearing your own feelings and needs in the hopes of being chosen, is usually a younger part of you that suffered early attachment trauma. It’s not the truth of who you are or who you came here to be. 

The Power Statement I used that helped to wake me up from the trance of old trauma was this: