How A Narcissist is Made

Brett: So the word narcissist has been getting thrown around so much that I feel like it's just replaced the word asshole at this point. 

Joe: In a very particular way, right? So it's like you can call somebody a narcissist, and it is like a defensive way of calling somebody an asshole, right? Where it's like, if I call you an asshole, then I'm the bad guy but if I call you a narcissist, then you can't say that I'm the bad guy. 

So it's a very interesting thing that's been thrown around. Let's just start off by saying, like, what is narcissism? Because I don't even like throwing the word around without thinking about it that way,

Brett: Especially with the ist at the end of it.

Joe: Yeah, exactly. 

Brett: There's a different kind like definition that that makes. 

Joe: Yeah, I don't wanna call somebody a narcissist. I think there is something called narcissistic personality disorder and I understand what it's describing. But the way that I really think about it is that we are all narcissistic, and it's on a spectrum the same way that, 

Brett: Autism, ADD, anxiety 

Joe: Exactly, are all on a spectrum.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And the definition of narcissism, the way that I think about it is, my favorite definition is Lowen's definition, which is… 

Brett: Alexander Lowen? 

Joe: Yeah. His definition is just basically the inability to feel. What that looks like is that on an intellectual level, it's the thinking, "I'm better than." And I think almost all humans at some point think that they're better than other humans. 

Brett: It's even in the way that they might hold the identity that they're worse than as some way of actually being better than. Like, "Oh, I'm more humble than you." 

Joe: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Or just like, "You're a narcissist." Right? "You're a narcissist," which means I'm better than you 'cause I'm not a narcissist, right? So that's the intellectual. It's like, "Oh, I'm better than." The emotional is not feeling your emotions. And so any moment when you're thinking that you're better than somebody, then you're not feeling your emotions.

Because if you can't say that, there's probably some hurt or something underneath that needs to be felt. And then on a nervous system level, it's a perpetual threat of attack.

It's like, "Oh, I have to defend myself because I'm perpetually being attacked." And so that's how I think about it. But it gets a little tricky because there's, I would say, in the literature, there's lots of forms of narcissism. There's aggrandized narcissism, and malignant, and covert depending on who you listen to. I simplify it. I just think that there's the aggressive narcissist and there's the passive narcissist.

Brett: Okay. 

Joe: And so there's the person who's like, "I'm better than you, and I know it." You know? And they, "This is how good I am. Look at how good I am," all as a way not to feel. And then there's the ones that are very quietly in the background doing that in a passive way. They don't say it out loud. They play humble. Maybe they don't even play humble, but they say to themselves, "Oh, I know better than all these people, and they don't know what the fuck they're talking about." 

Brett: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: Right? It's that. And that can look, like, really passive aggressive. It can look really, like, I'm innocent, I'm the non-narcissist at the table. But absolutely they can have that. 

Brett: It can be anyone listening to this episode right now who's been this whole time like, "No, narcissism is this," or, "Narcissism is this." 

Joe: Right, Exactly. 

Brett: Not to call anyone out, except I did.

Joe: And again, we are all on the narcissistic spectrum, right?

Brett: I'm like, did I go too far there? 

Joe: No, you did not. I loved it. 

Brett: Ah. 

Joe: But, but we're all there. Like, I don't know anybody who hasn't had a moment when they're trying not to feel, protecting themselves, and thinking that they're better than other people… 

Brett: Yeah

Joe: for X, Y, and Z. And so that, it's in all of us. And then there's just some people who tend towards it more often, and there's some people who tend towards it less often. 

Brett: Possibly even context dependently. In certain type of situations you might go more narcissistic. I'm so scared of feeling my feelings right now that the best thing that I've learned to do is to not feel them. Put myself a little bit above so I can analyze everything from a 30,000-foot view. 

Joe: Right. 

Brett: Calling myself out now to put some balance in with the audience that I just called out. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And in other situations completely different behaviors emerge. 

Joe: Exactly. Yeah. The other interesting thing is that people have a lot of the tendency for narcissism, actually play a really important role in society that I think we get, it's become such a word for asshole that we forget, right? Like, to do a podcast, there's a little bit of narcissism to think that you know what the fuck you're talking about enough to, like, make a podcast out of it. To write a book, to teach a class to get up and say, "Here, I have information that I think will be helpful for the rest of the world," or to say, "I know how to make a decision for this company," or this country, or this state, or this city.

Like, all of that. I can do that. I can make that happen. All of that is some version of narcissism. 

Brett: Right, and it's important to have that in society. If somebody who can hold a vision despite a bunch of naysaying and then make a plane fly for the first time.

Joe: Exactly.

Brett: For example.

Joe: So yeah, so I think that the, there's, it's, like, incredibly helpful to society. And so I think one of the things is it's just become a bad word. Narcissism is the new four-letter word and, and it's really important to see that, the pluses and minuses because without that, you don't really know how to interact with it.

As long as it's, like, black and white, that's the enemy, and you're the good guy. And/or, "Oh, I see for the first time that my whole life has been dictated by A mom who was a narcissist," to really understand that doesn't make them evil. To understand that, oh, there's, they might need to be evil for a while in your mind.

You know, you might need to hate them for a while. That's fine. But to also see, like, oh, what that is, where it came from what it actually served, the good of it, the bad of it all that kind of stuff. 

Brett: And also, in the case of having a narcissistic parent, to be able to understand the behaviors that you learned in response to that the coping mechanisms, the strategies. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Some of which will be similar to it because that was your example, your model, and others will be in opposition or maybe complementary to it because you were able to hold a different pull in the, in the dynamic.

Joe: Yeah. And so I think the most important part to talk about as far as what does it do to you in a relationship that when you're interacting with a narcissist, is that the narcissist when they get scared, they attack. Now, they can attack aggressively, they can attack passively but they attack. So instead of feeling the fear, they typically, they go into attack. And so when I say the narcissist, I mean all of us. When we attack when we're scared, that's a narcissistic behavior. 

Brett: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: And so if you get that all the time as a kid then there's gonna be a certain outcome of that.

So that's what we're talking about. That's the, like, the main implication of living with a narcissistic person is like, oh, I'm constantly under attack. I'm constantly being made to feel small, unsafe if the narcissist doesn't get what they want or if the narcissist feels threatened, feels scared in whatever way. And you can almost always feel the, like, the better than in that, right? And there's always probably an emotion underneath, like a fear or a sadness or a longing Underneath the attack that isn't being felt, that might even not register for most people. 

Brett: Yeah, and I think that's one of the things with, like, when narcissism is more deeply ingrained is it has successfully protected you from those feelings to the point that you don't actually know that they're there.

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: Because you knew no way of resolving them. You had no way of resolving them. You didn't have the connection that you needed as a kid to have them co-regulate and resolve with another loving human being. And so they became unresolvable, tagged as unresolvable, and then they just sink into the subconscious because there's nothing to be done about them.

Joe: In particular, the hardest ones typically are, like, fear, hurt, and shame. For somebody in a narcissistic pattern to go, "I'm scared," it's really hard. That's easier than, "I'm ashamed." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: So oftentimes that's the stuff that's buried deepest and hardest for them to see, their own shame or their own fear. 

Brett: Yeah. We've talked a little bit about what it is and the different kind of types there are in, in the way that you describe and what's underneath it. And now I'm curious just to talk a little bit about how can someone work with a person who has a high level of narcissism that shows up, and not to be like, "Call him a narcissist," and go on Reddit and rant about it.

Joe: That's one way to do it. 

Brett: Maybe that's a stage in the process. But, like, how is it to really constructively work through a relationship with somebody who has that going on for them? 

Joe: So the first thing is if you're interacting with a narcissist, there is no reason that you need to. At any stage. I don't care if they're just a little bit of narcissist or a lot of narcissism. Like, if you don't want to interact with them, don't, period, end of day, end of discussion. So I think one of the things that often the people who are interacting with somebody who's got more narcissism is that they feel like they have to.

Brett: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: That they're oppressed by. There's no way out. That's a typical feeling that they have. And so the first and most important thing is, like, you don't have to interact with them at all. And then the second thing is, you know, how you do it. So typically, the issue is that when somebody's in that narcissistic behavior of attacking you because they're scared, the most important thing is to address the fear that's underneath, the alone feeling that they have underneath. The under-attackness that they have underneath, and it can't be in an accusatory way, right? So typically, the way this looks is, "I'm scared, I'm attacking. Everybody runs away from me. I'm even more alone. Why isn't anybody helping me out?" That's how it feels inside of the narcissistic structure. 

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: Because this is just like my childhood where, like, I got attacked. Nobody showed up for me. Now I'm all alone again. They're in the golden algorithm recreating that reality for themselves over and over and over again. 

Brett: Yeah. Golden algorithm being something we have an episode on.

Joe: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brett: That's the way that we recreate the conditions to feel the emotion we're avoiding in exactly the way that we're avoiding feeling that emotion. That's right. It's the way that we reify a blind spot and fall right back into the, into that attractor. 

Joe: Yeah. So instead of doing that, it's about addressing the fear that's actually underneath. The solution is do not be stirred by their attack, understand that it's fear. If you can be in a place where, "I've done nothing wrong, I understand that. They're just scared." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And your nervous system has that kind of vagal authority of like, "I know I haven't done anything wrong. I understand you're scared."

Brett: Spoiler alert, I imagine that involves feeling and working through your own fear. 

Joe: Or your own, "I'm wrong, I'm bad," thing that happened. Because typically, if you're in that relationship, that's a relationship you're used to, that you're doing the golden algorithm on. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Which is like recreating the world that, "I've done something wrong, I'm bad."

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: So if you say, "Well, what are you so scared is gonna happen?" They're gonna feel all alone. But if you're like, "Oh, ... hey, what are you scared is gonna happen? Oh, I see something's really important to you right now. Help me see what's going on with you. Tell me what you're scared is gonna go down. What are you trying to avoid?" Like, that kind of reaction works really, really well for that narcissistic movement. 

Brett: Yeah. And for the people who are, like, writing down the words of that response put down the pen and the notebook and scroll back to Joe actually saying what he just said, and feel what's in his nervous system with each one.

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Is one an avoidance... The first was, I perceive, an avoidance of your own fear, a disowning of your own fear and going into attack. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Which is very similar to the thing that you're experiencing if the narcissist is attacking you. So you're, you're kind of in it with them. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: But the second was receptive. It was, "I'm actually interested and curious. What are you afraid is gonna happen? Which means I'm listening to you. I'm here with you. You're not alone in this." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: Not me telling you you're not alone in this, but actually being self-abandoning and pulling away from you. While that's the words I'm saying,

Joe: Yeah

Brett: but really being receptive. 

Joe: Yeah, and the way we use the words for this, we call this containing the narcissist, which is basically you're safe. We're gonna actually kinda hold a boundary. We're gonna allow you to be upset, and we're okay with that. Like, it's okay for you to be upset and we're just gonna be here with you, and we're not gonna allow certain behavior. Like, I'm not gonna accept being yelled at or whatever it is. And that all makes them feel safe. And then they actually often feel, like, so safe, and then very loyal, and there's, like, a huge amount of trust that's built. And you see this all the time in, like, if you have narcissistic leaders. People who are high on the propensity of narcissism who are CEOs, for instance. You'll see, like, lots of people are scared of them because they're attacking.

But there's a couple who aren't. They're just like... And those are the people that they trust. They're like, "Oh, I attack you," and you're like, "Okay. Well, tell me what's exactly wrong. How are we gonna solve it? What's going..." Like, okay. Those people are the ones that actually have the trust of the CEO. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Again, that doesn't mean you have to tolerate getting yelled at. That doesn't mean that you have to tolerate any of the behavior. I'm not suggesting that.

Brett: Yeah. We'll get to that in a minute. 

Joe: Yeah, yeah. 

Brett: But I really wanna drill down a little bit more deeply on this containing of narcissism thing. Yeah. 'Cause there's something really fascinating here. I, I feel like a lot of people who get called an asshole a lot really don't want to be the asshole, and when someone draws a loving boundary with them, they actually feel much safer, and I think that's something you're referring to here.

Joe: That's exactly what I'm referring to, yeah. 

Brett: So going back to where this comes from, if a child just got to push over their little sibling over and over and over again, and instead of having a loving boundary drawn with them at that moment, they just had people pull away from them, and then that happened in school, and then that happens in their company, and that happens in their relationships, then there's a deep sense of, "I'm not safe in this world," and also a sense of, "I'm not safe for this world." The belief structure starts to build that I'm not actually fit for consumption. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And so when someone just pulls away and is just like, "Well, you're the asshole, I'm just gonna leave," that just reifies that for them. So there's something actually really compassionate that I've seen in the work that we've done with people, seeing you do this beautifully with certain participants at certain times where just drawing them a deeply loving boundary that had them feel, "Oh, you know what? I actually am safe here because my patterns aren't just gonna run amok and cause problems that make me then have to leave and be alone again or be rejected." 

Joe: Yeah. And then the second part of that is, so there's the boundary, there's the fear that's being addressed, but it's also to not activate the shame. If you activate the shame inside of the boundaring or inside of the holding, it will go terribly wrong. So if you notice the way that I do it always is there's nothing wrong with who they are. So, like, call a narcissist a narcissist. "You're a narcissist," and you're gonna get attacked, right? 'Cause they're scared that it's true. They're also ashamed of that, and so they're gonna attack you. 

Brett: Right, which invites the dynamic. 

Joe: Exactly. Yeah. So it's like, how do I hold a boundary, not put them into a shame box, not do the shame hot potato like we have in that episode and contain them in a way so that they can actually feel safe? One of my most famous stories about this is, I was brought into this, driverless car company I think maybe it's passed, and i'm hanging out, and the, the CEO wants me to work with this one person. This is a long time ago. Wants me to work with this one person, and so they set me up with an extreme narcissistic tendencies.

And I walk in, they're clearly scared, and so they start attacking me. "Coaching isn't... is all bullshit. He doesn't need it. It's the company that's the problem." Like just, prr, just attacks. So I listen really quietly for 20 minutes, and then I just say, "Okay, well I'm just gonna predict what's going on in your business and in your home life and in your marriage. And if I'm wrong, then there's really no use in having this conversation. and if I'm right, then maybe, maybe you're not seeing something. So should we do that experiment? And he's like, "Yep." And so I just, like, read his beads. Like, it's so predictable, right? This is how you feel. This is where you're alone, da da da. This is where the marriage is. Your wife gives you this kind of criticism. Blah blah blah blah. And then he was just like, "Okay, yeah. Whatever. What do you need?" "Let's get started. Let's go." And I chose not to see him. But it was just like immediately he just rolled on his back.

Brett: What are some of the things that, not for this person and their particular, confidential?

Joe: Yeah, it's distinct for people, but yeah. I mean, I can do some generalization of that, right? So, they're typically gonna get the you didn't listen to me. You're gonna get a lot of you didn't listen.

You're gonna have a lack of alignment in your team. you're gonna feel often like I tell everybody to do these things, they agree, but then they don't do them. In this particular case, I remember I could, like, very clearly say, like, if your wife hasn't left you, she's threatened to multiple times. Your relationship with your kids are that they, one of them is, this is a typical pattern, one of them is like the golden child, and one of them is the problem. Usually, it's the younger one that's the problem. And though the golden child, like, has that reputation, they have, like, this huge amount of stress. You can see that their shoulders are at their ear. And the one who's the bad one will eventually rebel if they haven't rebelled already. There's all sorts of things that are like common. Anybody in this pattern, it's like they don't wanna be in it. It hurts, right? And what's also interesting is they can't undo it quickly.

Brett: Mm. 

Joe: Like, there, there's, there's a thing that they call called, like, narcissistic collapse, which is like if that whole identity drops too quickly it can be a very dangerous thing for the psyche. And so these are people who are like deeply on this spectrum. And so there's a lot of work that can be done, but it, it is, they also just require a gentleness that they never got as a kid.

And then that's a thing to understand is that anybody who has this high pattern was constantly attacked as a kid. They didn't get the attunement. They didn't get the nurturing. They didn't get the care. And so this is what they've learned to do. They were constantly scared.

Brett: It didn't start with the fake news or the HR complaints. 

Joe: Exactly. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. It started with constant criticism, constant under attack, never being able to feel safe. And being told that all of their emotions were wrong. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so that's, where it comes from. And so they need that gentle care and nurturing. That, again, does not mean it's your job to do it, because there's a codependent behavior there that people have, which is Okay, well, I'm gonna save my narcissist and I'm just gonna care and love, but all they're really doing is accepting abuse because they're not drawing the boundary. 

Brett: Yeah, which makes me wanna move on to this, 'cause we've now talked about how to work with, but you started that with putting a pin in, you don't actually have to interact with this person. You can leave. 

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: Which was important for people who might find themselves either feeling responsible for staying in the relationship or possibly even on some level attracted to it.

Joe: Oh, yeah.

Brett: Or familiar with it in a way that feels more manageable than the unknown of doing something different.

Joe: I think it's really important to first talk about what makes people want to be in a relationship with a narcissist. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Right? Yeah. It's super fucking comfortable. 

Brett: Yeah.

Joe: That's why. Like, it's like that person tells you what the fuck to do. All my doubt I can just hand over to you. I don't have to live in my own doubt. I can just hand that doubt over to you, and you're gonna not have that doubt, 'cause you're gonna have all this certainty. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And then I don't have to think about the doubt. I can just think about pleasing you. All I have to do to get along in the world is to please you. Like, that's, like, typically... And so if I...

This happens a lot with, like, senior executives at big companies where they move into being their own CEO from having been, like, a second or a third to a CEO, is they all of a sudden, there's like, there's no one to fucking blame anymore. There's nobody who's gonna make the call. They actually have to sit and, like, resolve their own doubt, and if they don't do it quickly, meaning they're not decisive, they're very likely to fail.

And so it's really comfortable to have somebody else say, "You're right. We're right. This is the right thing. Just keep me happy," and that, which is a far more easy task, right? All I have to do is keep you happy? Great. 

Brett: And you can see this in when, when someone is afraid of owning their own responsibility, owning their own power then you'll often find them, when they're not in a relationship with somebody else who's holding the certainty, who's holding the conviction then you'll see them roaming the world like, "Will you be my narcissist?" 

Joe: Yeah

Brett: "Will you be my narcissist? Will you be my narcissist?" 

Joe: Exactly. 

Brett: And what they're looking for is safety. 

Joe: They're looking for is safety.

Brett: Just like the narcissist.

Joe: Just like the narcissist, as beautifully seen. And they're also looking to not have to be in the doubt. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Just like the narcissist. So the narcissist way of not dealing with the doubt is, "I know what I'm doing, boom."

Brett: Right. Which is why everyone says they're not listening. 'Cause, like, no, that would instill doubt. I don't want doubt, so I'm just gonna go with the conviction. 

Joe: Exactly. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: That's right. So it is like this, like symbiotic relationship. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And so that's why a lot of people like that. And to be clear, the more, say, a narcissist has learnt how to feel, somebody... Again, I don't wanna call it a narcissist, but somebody who has high narcissistic tendency has learnt how to feel their emotions, has learnt that feeling better than somebody else is actually just an avoidance pattern that doesn't serve them, doesn't let them see the reality as it is and be effective But they often keep that certainty 

Brett: Mm-hmm 

Joe: Those are the leaders that we love. Like, those are the leaders that are like, oh wow, you have that certainty, but you still listen. You have that certainty and you still know that there's other people who have the wisdom that you wanna listen to and, like, work with and you can hear and you can be empathetic and you're not avoiding the emotion, so you're not avoiding all the hard conversations by dominating.

And those are the leaders that we love. So it's an interesting thing that, oftentimes that the narcissist, the person with narcissistic tendencies, when they start to heal themselves, they become the leaders that we all want, which is really fascinating. 

Brett: Yeah. And so this is... i've heard you describe this as owning your narcissism, and this is something that we've, we've worked with, and becomes part of facilitation. 

Joe: Yes. 

Brett: Like, owning your role in the authority in the room and also not taking the authority in a way that's inviting a bunch of rebellion and isn't attuned. 

Joe: That's a great way to say it. When the narcissism is healed, so to speak, when that narcissistic tendency starts to heal, you take the authority, but you don't take it from anybody else. There's a way in which, like, I'm happy to own the authority, and I'm happy for everybody to have authority as well. 

Brett: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: Right? And so you can tell you're not in the power struggle. The more the narcissistic tendency is unhealed, the more power struggles you're gonna be in, whether you're power struggling from the top or the bottom, whether your power struggle is, "I know what the hell's right, and you don't know anything. I'm not gonna listen to you," or the power struggle is, "You're a narcissist, and I'm better than you." Like, both of those are power struggles. And both of them show that there's the unhealed part of the… 

Brett: Yeah. It's like all of them see threat in authority, and so they're trying to un-own the authority in a different way, and then you find yourself spinning in the in the cycle. I wanna come back 'cause we didn't really finish talking about somebody who finds themselves attracted to to narcissism. How does that person deal? How do they, how do they work through this?

Joe: So one of the big ones is to work with their doubt, right? So the doubt, typically self-doubt, the more that they can work with their own doubt, the less they have the need for the narcissist, right? And so that's a big part of the healing, and it's also owning the fact that there's a part of you that does think you know better, that, like, own the part of you that is attacking when you get hurt.

That, like, seeing your own shadow in it is also a really healing thing. Owning any projection that you have about that the other person's a narcissist and you're not, you know, and the cool thing is, is, like, what you'll see in, like, world-famous narcissists is that they also feel like the victim, right?

They also are like, "I'm oppressed by whatever it is." By the other country, by the information system at large, by, you know, the other party in the political spectrum. Like, all of those is like they, they feel victimized by it. And so to just see all of the tendencies that the narcissist has is actually in you, I think is a really important aspect of the healing. Dealing with the doubt is a very important aspect of the healing. The other thing is yourself moving away from blame to see clearly that the narcissist has never been cared for, that you're as scared, that you're both scared, that it's not one of you that's scared, that it's an interactive symbiotic relationship. I think that's all really an important part of it. And then I think at its core, It's really working on the fear that you have, the fear of being wrong. What I notice is as the shame gets healed, the narcissism gets healed. As the shame gets healed, the being with narcissists gets healed. Because if you do not buy that there's something wrong with you, then… 

Brett: You're not susceptible to that level of certain and when there's like a narcissistic dynamic in an abusive relationship, a lot of what keeps that abusive relationship locked in is that you take it on. You're like, "Oh, I must actually be as broken as this person says I am."

Joe: Exactly, which is them projecting their own unconscious brokenness onto you. But to really be able to say, "Oh, when somebody gets angry at me, it doesn't mean that I've done something wrong." Most people who are in a relationship with a narcissist, when they get attacked, they're like, "I must have done something wrong." It's an automatic response, no matter what. They're like, "What do I have to do differently so that I don't get attacked?"

Brett: Which is true for the person with the narcissism who's defensive when they get attacked too. There's on some level you're believing it and that's why you have to feel you have the need to be defensive.

Joe: Yeah. And that's a kinda cool thing is like, oh, almost everything you've gotta do to heal from being with a narcissist, the narcissist has to heal to stop being a narcissist. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Different emotions maybe. Like, probably if you're with a narcissist, you gotta feel your own anger more than the narcissist does, but both of you have to work on the fear. Narcissist probably has to work on their sadness more than you do, so but it's still working on emotions. It's still dealing with the shame. It's still looking at the underlying fear. It's the same work. 

Brett: Yeah. It seems like there's a, there's some of the symmetry that often goes on there. As you just pointed to, the narcissist often has to work more on their sadness than maybe on their anger. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And the other one might have to work more on their anger to like develop that sense of spine boundaries… 

Joe: Correct.

Brett: Assertion of existence to meet the narcissist with a loving boundary that's not highly aggressive or defensive. 

Joe: Hugely. Yeah. That's a really important thing is to like, until they're good with their own anger, they'll never be good with the narcissist attack. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: And that means both ways, meaning like if you're not good with your, like you're just like, "I'm pissed," then you won't be good with the aggressive narcissist attack. If you're not good with the, "I'm pissed and I can't…" like, passive-aggressive pissed, then you're not gonna be good with the passive-aggressive attack.

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: You know? So it's like, it's literally like being good with your own thing is a big part of it and anger in particular for working with a narcissist. 

Brett: Yeah. And surprise, surprise for everybody, it all comes down to fear. 

Joe: Right. Yeah. Exactly. On the other side of it, like if you're the narcissist, it's very much about every time you attack, what's the emotion you're not feeling? Can you feel it? 

Brett: And can you recognize when you're attacking? 'Cause it can be real subtle 

Joe: Really subtle, right. Yeah. And I think the more you recognize when you're attacked, you're in fear, the more you recognize that you're attacking. 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah, so there's a lot of times where, I remember this with Tara all the time.

She's like, " I feel attacked." I'm like, "I'm not attacking you. I'm scared."

Brett: Right. 

Joe: "I'm not attacking you, I'm scared." 

Brett: Yeah. 

Joe: That's what it sounds like. 

Brett: That's way more aware than like just, "I'm not attacking you. You're attacking me by telling me I'm attacking you." Which took me a while to recognize, oh, you know what? The more I recognize that if I'm feeling attacked, it means I'm scared. So I can just say, "You know, I'm scared." 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: And not, "I'm scared of you," in a way that you're wrong or bad, but, oh we're actually both scared right now, that's why we're having this kind of an interaction. So in my relationship with Alexa, my wife, it's often she would be expressing the fear. 

Joe: Yeah. 

Brett: I would be bottling the fear up. And for me to acknowledge that I'm scared, not of her, but of the situation in the way that she's scared, too, then we're in it together, and the whole dynamic would just soften. 

Joe: Yeah. So acknowledging the fear. yeah, beautifully seen. Acknowledging the hurt for the, on the narcissistic side. Like, I heard that's a really hard one for them to feel for any of us who have been in that to feel is like, "I'm hurting right now."

Brett: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: Because that was the thing as a kid that you could never feel, because if you felt that, then you would have to acknowledge that I actually, no one's here caring for me. 

Brett: Yeah. Or in worst case, that would attract more attack. 

Joe: Almost always. 

Brett: Yeah. The, the tiny violins. Yeah, exactly. "Oh, look."

Joe: Exactly.

Brett: "Little so-and-so's crying." 

Joe: Exactly. So the thing that makes it hard in society to heal narcissism is everybody's calling them an asshole. Like, it's now a word. It's like, "An asshole, I don't wanna be an asshole. That hits my shame. Oh, shit. Fuck you. I'm not a narcissist. Fuck you." And I got into that with Tara. Like, when Tara was first telling me, like, "I think you've got some narcissistic stuff going on," I was like, "Fuck you." You know? Like, "You have that going on. What are you talking about?" Because the word was so triggering. Like, yeah, instead of like, "Oh, hey, I see you're scared. What's going on there?" Or like, "What are you scared of is happening?" It like, it was still, it was still somehow I was wrong and I was like, "I'm not gonna fucking allow myself to be put into the category of wrong again. Fuck you. I have my whole life, and fuck you, I'm not doing that again," is really what's going on underneath that.

Brett: Which is protecting something really important 'cause it's like, I'm not gonna take on more of what already caused me to put this cage around myself. 

Joe: Exactly. And I also, like in my life, what I noticed is like, as I was healing, a lot of the as I was learning to feel and fall in love with my emotions, and the narcissism started dropping away. And as I was not reacting to my fear and actually sitting in it, especially inside of internal conflict and just being like, "Oh, I can love my fear and this other person instead of react to my fear." And then the shame started lifting. Oh, like, now I wasn't doing the things that I was ashamed of, so the shame started lifting. Cause a lot of the things that a narcissist is ashamed of is a thing that the narcissism drives to. 

Brett: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: What I got to see was the innocence of it. And I think a huge part of what drives me now in the work is to make it so that people don't, like, attack the attacker. Like, it's a trauma response, just like in our world it's fight, flight or freeze.

And, like, those are all trauma responses, but the fight is the bad guy. But it's a trauma response. And so, to have that empathy, I think is the same kinda empathy that you would from anybody else. And when I see myself now, when I was doing that stuff, like, all I see is just, like, a little kid who wasn't cared for.

Brett: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: It's all I see is just like, "Oh, right." It's just the basic you were not given care. You were told to bottle it up and not given any nurturing. You're built for war. 

Brett: Yeah. Similarly, I look back on any time that I've expressed those, like, narcissistic traits, narcissistic behaviors which the further I look back, the stronger they are. And I can just feel a lot of compassion for the fight that I had to learn to keep up to survive in that environment. 

Joe: Yeah. So we started off the episode by saying that we're all on the spectrum. And so I think one of the most helpful things is to actually admit where you are, like, admit when these moments are happening and give yourself that same compassion. Give yourself the same care, because every place where it's existing is just, like, a pointer to where you weren't cared for as a human. And so, a lot of people get caught up in who it is and how narcissistic and who's to blame or blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think far more useful to say "How do I care for myself? Where I'm capable, how do I care for other people who are scared?"

I think that is, the only way to look at it that's actually keeps you comfortable inside instead of feeling like I'm wrong or they're wrong or someone's to blame or someone's fucked up or pass the shame around, is to just be like, "Oh, I see. This is, like, this massive lack of care and I have an opportunity to care for myself and others right now." 

Brett: Thanks for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave us a review. We'd love to hear your comments, questions, and suggestions for future episodes.

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