Unraveling Narcissism: Childhood Influences, Cultural Impacts, and Emotional Healing with Darren Elliott

Ever wondered how early family dynamics shape our perceptions and relationships? On this gripping episode of Discerning the Unknown, I’m Ryan Peterson, joined by Darren Elliott, a survivor of narcissistic abuse who has transformed his plight into a mission to help others. From the emotional turmoil of sudden breakups to growing up with a narcissistic parent, Darren unravels his deeply personal journey and shares invaluable insights on narcissism. This episode promises to unlock a deeper understanding of how early experiences influence our adult relationships and self-perception.

Darren and I dive into the complex world of narcissism, exploring its development and the spectrum of traits that can be influenced by family and societal factors. Sensitive children, often becoming people pleasers, and the role of empathy and self-awareness in distinguishing oneself from a narcissist form key parts of our discussion. Our conversation broadens to cultural aspects, examining how patriarchal influences and societal pressures shape narcissistic behaviors and impact mental health. We also touch on the far-reaching implications of generational trauma and emotional disconnection.

What practical steps can one take to recognize and address narcissistic behavior? Darren introduces "love loops," a novel concept aimed at fostering genuine emotional connections, beginning with safe relationships. Through this episode, you’ll learn strategies for setting boundaries, practicing empathy, and promoting emotional growth. We also explore the transformative power of drag culture in embracing diversity and healing past wounds, featuring Darren’s inspiring journey. Don’t miss this enlightening conversation that offers practical advice and heartfelt stories to help navigate the intricate world of narcissism.

Chapters

• 0:02 Understanding Narcissism and Narcissistic Abuse
• 14:15 Exploring Narcissism and Its Impact
• 25:21 Recognizing and Addressing Narcissistic Behavior
• 36:55 Unveiling Cultural Narcissism and Trauma
• 48:48 Embracing Diversity Through Drag Culture
• 59:17 Creating Love Loops Through Emotional Growth
• 1:06:57 Promoting Empathy and Understanding

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Greetings to you. I am Ryan Peterson and this is another edition of the Discerning the Unknown podcast. I think this will just be about episode number eight. I think We've just been going for a couple of weeks, so having a lot of fun, learning a lot. The show is already evolving, I'll tell you.

Speaker 1: 0:24

I wanted to start off. I thought something like debunking conspiracy theories would be fun to do and have a lot of interesting guests. As I was having those guests, you know, I realized that a lot of these conspiracy theories either started or were made stronger over the years by the spread of fake news and of course, nowadays that's all the worse. It's becoming more and more commonplace. We have to be discerning more and more about what we believe and what we share, what kind of news stories we see. So I encourage you to check out any news stories that you spread. So trying to slow down the spread of fake news on this show is a focus. There's basically the three focuses of debunking conspiracy theories, slowing down the spread of fake news and, as I was talking to guests the first few we really started talking about what we think and why we think it, and all of those things go hand in hand, because the conspiracy theories you know kind of is. A lot of people believe those because of the way they think and they'll buy them and defend the conspiracy theory so fiercely. It's because of the way they think. And fake news because of the way they think. And fake news Any story that's out there, whether it's fake, whether it's satire, whether it's supposed to be a joke or whether it's a little bit serious and a little bit fake, somebody will buy it, somebody will believe it, and so that's why it's important to be discerning and then exploring what we think and why we think it. I think that's not only fun but educational. It's interesting. We'll see some of ourselves in all of these guests the psychology experts that I enjoy having on the show.

Speaker 1: 2:13

So when I found the information about today's guest, I really thought this was appropriate for today, or this time, I should say, because I really think I've thought this lately that in about the past eight years, the word narcissism has really become common in society. It's become one of those buzzwords that we hear it every day. Now I don't think before, eight years ago, we really did, we were aware of it, but now we see it online all the time. How to avoid a narcissist, how to talk to a narcissist, how to everything, how to deal with a narcissist, and I personally think that started with one very popular guy. We may talk a little bit about that. My guest may not want to, but I will.

Speaker 1: 3:03

But narcissism, of course you know a little bit about it. Of course it's a disorder of disconnection. I'm going to let Darren Elliott really give you the definition. But it's a person who could hurt or murder somebody We've all seen it on the true crime stories and Dateline and so forth and feel no guilt or remorse. It's a person who brags that they could go down to Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any votes. That's what we're dealing with. So we're going to get the actual definition and how we deal with it and what narcissism is.

Speaker 1: 3:40

And I'm very glad to welcome Darren Elliott to the show. He is a survivor of narcissistic abuse and his story is very serious and very worth listening to. He later became a coach and a therapist specializing in narcissism and relational healing, and so his personal experience and professional journey have given him an intimate understanding of narcissism. Narcissism that is, and it allows him to guide people through emotional growth and healing and transformation of relationships, and I think we're going to learn a lot today from Darren Elliott. Thank you very much, darren, for joining me today.

Speaker 2: 4:19

It's a pleasure. Brian, thank you so much for having me truly this is my passion topic.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Yeah, tell me why that is. I got into it a little bit, but why, as a therapist, why did you decide to focus on narcissism?

Speaker 2: 4:36

Really, I decided to focus on narcissism. First, I came out of a relationship that was narcissistic, abusive. I didn't know what that was, I didn't recognize that was what was happening for me, because it just felt familiar. And until the end of the relationship, when it ended, from one moment to the next, from 100% to 0%, it was suddenly over in just a moment, just a conversation. I was suddenly not needed, I was suddenly not part of their life. It was such a complete devalue and it was so easily done, without even emotion on the other side. It left me just. I could hardly breathe, you know, and I could hardly function. This was the person I thought we loved each other and then to discover that it was only on one side was a big shock. We had been living together for a year and a half. I thought we were like this, but it turns out I was projecting my experience onto them and they were mirroring my experience. But the thing is, whatever you grow up in is normal for you, whatever that is.

Speaker 2: 5:37

you grow up with your eyes and nose and ears and you're looking around and your family is your world at the beginning, and the people around you are your world, whatever that is, will feel familiar and will feel natural. Um, in my case, we had a father who was a very kind narcissist. He had the? Um, the personal view that someone has of themselves, their own self-image, helps guide their behavior. So, in the court, in the case of my father, he was a good christian father, a baseball coach, and that's how he saw himself. So that had him make a lot of good decisions, but naturally he made very bad decisions, especially when it came to me. Um, he wouldn't let me be who I was and he did not understand why, why I couldn't just be the kid he wanted me to be. It really bugged him. He. He literally didn't understand it. He was, you know, he was an engineer and I should be an engineer. He was not creative. I should not be creative as well.

Speaker 2: 6:36

I Was a depressed child, I was a suicidal child, and it just came from this his inability to see who I actually was in order to allow who I actually was. So after this relationship broke up, though. Going back to the most recent story, I eventually discovered that what I had been dealing with was narcissistic abuse, and it had never occurred to me. This was about 10 years ago. Abuse and it had never occurred to me. This was about 10 years ago, and I, my family, had gone through so much trauma, so much dysfunction, so much confusion, um, the generation below my dad, and we just had no one, and the therapy was not understanding it.

Speaker 2: 7:18

They were not understanding what was going on for any of us and eventually, um, I I decided to become a therapist to you know, essentially that to to help solve what was going on here and to bring hope and and healing to people who have suffered narcissistic abuse, because I did understand it well and it was something I healed from. But very soon I started working with people who were themselves suffering from narcissism. Soon I started working with people who were themselves suffering from narcissism. This happened during my student time. Even I wasn't expecting I was not expecting to work with people suffering from narcissism. That was not my, that was not my original intent, because I was told you couldn't. I was told it's a personality disorder that's fixed and that might be the case for someone who's in a severe level of narcissism.

Speaker 2: 8:07

But the narcissism I've been working with has been has been relationally caused. It's relational traumas and essentially, when you look at all the narcissistic traits, they're basically all children's traits. Children believe their thoughts more. They identify with thoughts. The purple dragon came over and then he played with the green marshmallow and the green marshmallow. They believe their thoughts. You know, just like saying what they want to be true, just making up creative ideas and like it's true, because, well, maybe if we put javax in their plane, you know, maybe it'll clean the blood. Like it's my thought. Therefore, it's true, right, preoccupation with success, unlimited success, and power and brilliance. So narcissism is going to look very different for and then you know, for someone who's a janitor at a school than it is for someone who's the ceo of a corporation. Right, you can both be narcissists, but you're going to look entirely different. Um fantasies of success, um relief of one being unique and special, different than others, um need for acts. They need admiration. That's something that's common around people suffering with narcissistic injuries.

Speaker 2: 9:22

It's like their nervous system's kind of open. They need you to be showing them admiration all the time. They need constant validation. They need you to be mirroring them that they're a good person.

Speaker 2: 9:34

When you're not mirroring that. They're a good person. They are in basically an empty void of pain. There's like an emptiness there that they need to constantly fill.

Speaker 2: 9:49

If you're a very giving person, person, if you're very empathetic, if you're overly empathetic, you may have learned to be with the narcissist because you're giving so much and the narcissist needs to take so much. So that that was certainly my case. I was, I had been, I had been grown up to be a very agreeable to let the other person come first, to let them decide what they wanted, to let the other person win. In fact, I just gave up on winning at some point as a kid because it was like there was no point in trying. I'm never gonna win anyway, so I'm happy to let the other person win. Well, someone who's suffering narcissism. There, you know they'll test you at the beginning of the relationship to see how much space that can take. Well, with me they could take most of the space, right, I was taking just a little sliver of that pie. Um, most people see that as giving and caring and you know, being a good person it's not. We should both take half the space yeah, truly, truly, truly.

Speaker 2: 10:38

And if you're not see, someone with suffering from narcissism generally has two sides of themselves as well. They have the side that can join you in positive energy and that feels great, but they also get triggered into this negative version of themselves where they're vindictive, um, contemptible, where they feel jealous and anger and frustration, and they get, they get triggered into that side of themselves. They usually think it's the person's fault who hit the trigger, but their nervous system is so open. If it's any little tiny bit of criticism, it causes this big explosion and and they think it's your fault. It's your fault I feel so badly now, um, and then they'll attack. So that's what they'll do. One of two things they'll either believe it's your fault, so they will attack, or they'll hide their actual feeling. And now they're feeling contempt and they're hiding it from you and they're pretending to be happy. But they're down here and that's that'll come out with passive, aggressive behavior, things like that.

Speaker 1: 11:36

OK, I've got kind of a quick question, but I'm going to ask you I think we're getting kind of a distance in your volume. I think we're getting kind of a distance in your volume. I wonder if we're just picking up your webcam volume and not your headphones, if you have a webcam microphone.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Okay let me see. But while you're doing that, I wonder is narcissism? Is it? Are we born with that? Is it the formation of the brain as we're growing, or is it learned, like from a young age and growing up? Or is it something that's just there? Or do we learn how to act that way? A narcissist?

Speaker 2: 12:21

Yeah, it's a complicated question and there's different theories about it. Of course, the people who I've worked with have very much had trauma was a very obvious component of how they became narcissistic. If you're a child who is alone in your emotions, meaning that you are having to keep a lot of your personal experiences um to yourself, from whatever reason it whether you were told that you shouldn't cry because you're a boy, or you shouldn't feel sad, or you shouldn't feel um certain emotions if you hold those in, you end up keep creating um a narcissistic world of me versus you, because when you are, when you're not sharing your true experience with others, you're not going to feel your, you're not going to feel your full connection to them either. Um, so, for whatever reason, a narcissist is not feeling with others. So, um, for example, if I'm feeling my sadness and I come to you and it's like all right, I'm so sad like this went about, yeah, you can feel sad with me for a moment, cuz you see that I'm sad, right, because, because we have empathy and we feel that sadness, someone suffering narcissism would would be like oh, why are you bringing this to me?

Speaker 2: 13:37

Or they might want to know like, okay, well, what happened. They're not gonna feel sad cuz you're sad, but they might. They want to hear like oh, this happened, this, oh yes, that is sad, and they want to have a quantifiable sadness about your sadness. They're not feeling with you, they're not going into their negative emotions, they're. They're trying to avoid all the negative because they themselves are trying to live in the positive, as if there's nothing wrong here, nothing to see here. We're all perfect here. No one's perfect, of course, and if you're, if you're trying to only show and only recognize your perfect parts, you're disowning a lot. There's a lot of stuff underneath here.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Um can something like narcissism? Um well, first of all. Um well, can it? I'm sure it can get worse. I mean, just like we can get more depressed over time, do we get more narcissistic over time. Do we just settle into that personality trait? Yeah, or do we learn how to deal with it.

Speaker 2: 14:41

It's often passed down families.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Okay, if you have a narcissistic parent, that's your model. That parent is how they treat their partner and that's how they treat their kids. That becomes the model for the kids. So a child might identify with a narcissistic parent and actually really value them and really admire them and nurture the same qualities and become very narcissistic themselves. So that's that's one, that's one path towards it. Um, in my case I reacted with a borderline experience and by that I mean I just regulate it in my family. I was a very sensitive child and we call it in gestalt, we call it a narcissistic family system, when, when the patterns are narcissistic and for a sensitive child in that family, um, it was just a very painful experience and I became, um, one of the ones who take care of.

Speaker 2: 15:35

You know people pleaser, trying to always keep the person happy, always keep the person happy. Um, someone narcissistic sort of expects you to take care of their emotions for them, in that when you're doing things they like, they're going to have approving behavior. That's positive. When you're doing something they don't like, they will punish or they'll pull away or they'll stop talking to you or they'll go into a bad mood. So the person who's with the narcissist ends up managing their emotions for them, because you're always very aware of how your partner's feeling, because if they're feeling well, you know you're going to have a good day, and if they're feeling bad, you know you're going to be attacked all day. You're going to have to deal with a certain amount of mess. So you end up spending all your time actually trying to keep them happy.

Speaker 2: 16:21

And it's a very addictive process as well, because someone suffering narcissism does have tends to go on and off. That's polarized responses and that's childish. Children have polarized responses. You know when a five-year-old is angry at mommy and say I hate you mommy, you're a bad mummy.

Speaker 2: 16:37

That's normal for a five-year-old. It's not normal for a president to have a temper tantrum like a five-year-old, but we can see it right. You know we can't diagnose someone, but we can certainly recognize. The traits are very clear and obvious and we see a lot of temper tantrums.

Speaker 1: 16:53

Certainly, I think a lot of people can recognize even some of the traits that you've mentioned here. Maybe they don't, maybe they know they're not narcissists or don't consider themselves narcissists, but may have a trait or two of what you're describing. Is that something we need to be Well, we always want to be concerned with it, of course, but if I have a couple of those traits today, can I turn into a narcissist?

Speaker 2: 17:33

so what matters is the impact right, and not so much the traits. We all have narcissism. We all have some narcissism. It's on a range from healthy on one end to malignant on the other. So it's good to feel our pride, it's good to feel good about ourselves, to have a certain amount of self confidence and agency. That's healthy narcissism as you go up the scale further and further. It really is about the impact, because we do need people in the spotlight. We do need people who enjoy, you know, getting all the attention, in fact, because they make up our media, they make you know they. So some of the traits are advantageous, but lack of empathy is really the one that causes the biggest issues.

Speaker 2: 18:10

Um, because they have a self-centered approach, where they're not seeing the needs of others so much and then they have a lack of empathy for the other's experience, and that's that's where it can be really, really hurtful, because they will end up blaming others for their own mistakes or blaming others for their own pain. Can you become a narcissist? I think you can grow those traits, they can be nurtured. You know this hits on the patriarchy as well, where men considered themselves better than women. In fact, women were the property of men at one point. And we're still dealing with this kind of out of balance relationship where equality you know it's a narcissist doesn't feel their equality with others, and that's part of what goes wrong. If you're not feeling with others, you're not going to feel your belonging with others either, and that feeling of distance causes them feel like there's something different about me, and they know there's something different about them. To deal with that pain of separation, they usually go to I'm better than them, I don't need them anyway. Um, so they not.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Grandiosity is is really a defense. It's to be okay all along if you have no one truly in your inner circle. Um, like no one who you, who share all the fears, all the secrets, all the things with yeah, you're going to be alone in that inner circle and you're going to be defended. You're going to have narcissistic defenses about what's really going on in your life. We are all pack animals. All of us are pack animals. We need to be seen and understood in our experience. You can't understand my experience if I don't show it to you. If I'm pretending to have a different experience than what I'm actually having, then you're not seeing me and we are not having true connection. So that's you know. That's the main crux of it.

Speaker 1: 19:56

I would think, by what you've described so far, if if we're the type of person who may worry that we might be a narcissist, I would think that chances are, that means you're not. I think that shows some empathy right there. Could I be a narcissist? Is it how I treat other people? Well, if you're thinking that that's not a narcissist behavior, is it?

Speaker 2: 20:26

Yeah, statistics suggest that only 5% of people suffering narcissism wake up to their narcissism. It is possible for someone to become self-aware. I work with them. You know people come in and they say I think I'm a narcissist. I'm like, okay, what makes you think that? And then we go through it. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. Yeah, because they are denying their negative traits, they're denying their shame. It's very difficult for them to ever wake up to it. They wake up to it generally when everything around them has has pointed at them as being the common cause of their issues. So they come to me. If you know, their wife is leaves them, their kids don't want to talk to them, their brother and sister don't like them, their parents are putting boundaries up the people at work. They're having problems. Like everything's going wrong, like I think maybe there's something wrong with me, like they they really can start to accept that when there's enough proof.

Speaker 1: 21:29

And so how obvious.

Speaker 2: 21:30

What more people are identifying with it too. But you know we can't diagnose President Donald Trump, but we can. We can recognize that his behaviors that we see on television, that's narcissistic. That's narcissistic, that's nice, nice. We can recognize the narcissistic behavior and unfortunately he has normalized narcissistic behavior for a whole generation. Honestly, the damage that that month has done to our culture the second people in mental health field suggests it's gonna take generations to get rid of the damage he's already done to the psyche and the idea of fake news, that my opinion is as true as your opinion.

Speaker 2: 22:08

Even though your opinion might be based on facts and truth, mine is still just as strong as yours, because it's my opinion that is so damaging, because it's it's taking people out of reality. Um, there were a lot of traumatized churches that already did this. There were a lot of traumatized churches that already did this, where, you know, when a narcissist has a view of me versus you, right, but when a narcissist goes to church and finds they're accepting there, it's us versus you, so they take this belief of separation and they apply it to the whole group. And so a lot of churches have narcissistic culture as well, where we are the good ones and everyone else is the bad ones. That's narcissistic, it's absolutely narcissistic and my beliefs are the only true beliefs. That's narcissistic.

Speaker 2: 22:55

Um, there's a lot of narcissistic churches and there's a lot of really traumatized people who were not able to find their connection in the world, who were, you know, traumatized, and they came to church and they did find connection at church. You know, we are pack animals. We're meant to connect in those deep ways, like the way that people often connect in church is how we were meant to be connecting. We grew up in community, for most of you know the thousands and thousands of years that we were pack animals together. It's only recent times that we're living so, so, very separately. We are meant to be supporting each other emotionally, and so it can be good to go to church and you share your problems.

Speaker 2: 23:35

You know the kind of churches where you pray for each other, you're sharing what's going on for you, and that's good to get it out. And then others are showing concern for you, right, like oh, and they're, and they're praying for you. So they're, they're speaking positive words to you and it helps you to release that negative energy of what you're going through. We release our emotions with others. We're meant to feel them with others like. Love is meant to be a it's shared, right, and so are the other feelings. They're meant to be shared, and if they don't, they can get stuck in our bodies as an energy. In the case of narcissism, that energy can be explosive. They're avoiding this, avoiding this, avoiding this, and then they perceive a criticism and they'll attack. And they might attack openly or they might attack secretly, but they will be, they will be vengeful, right. That's part of the one of the places they'll go to Sure.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Oh, we hear all the time about Trump seeking revenge. I mean, he said in interviews that he seeks revenge on people because he started it.

Speaker 2: 24:40

Yeah, that's like a 10-year-old. Like you said, that's a 5-year-old, that's literally a 5-year-old.

Speaker 1: 24:43

Yeah yeah, if you look a 10-year-old, like you said, that's a 5-year-old. That's literally a 5-year-old. Yeah, yeah, if you look at all the traits.

Speaker 2: 24:49

All the traits are, I mean, if you think, angry child, that will give you an understanding of what's happening. It's. Yeah truly, truly.

Speaker 1: 24:58

Because our. So how does therapy help when you see somebody walk into your office? And how does therapy help when you see somebody walk into your office and we're talking here with Darren Elliott, a psychotherapist, and we're talking about narcissism and when you see someone then walk into your office and they do display some traits of narcissism, where do you start? How do you?

Speaker 2: 25:19

start helping them. So what we work with is the behavior patterns. So the very first thing we do is stop the abuse. We explore their life with them and how they're behaving with others and we reduce the abuse that they're dishing out, that they didn't realize was abuse. The most common form that we stop is the silent treatment or stonewalling.

Speaker 2: 25:42

A narcissistic partner will often give a silent treatment to someone that they're mad at, that they're angry at. It often happens to their partner. I, you know, I hear it from both sides, right like my. You know, my husband didn't speak me for me for three weeks and he stopped talking to our kids for for a week and a half. Like that gave us a silent treatment because he was mad at us and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So stopping the abuse is the first thing. The second thing is creating a motivation for them. Like, why do I want to change? It's like you know what you want to have the best relationships you can. And if you're suffering from narcissism, you cannot have deep connected relationships because you're going shallow all the time and life. At the end of life, studies show that relationships are what make your life the most satisfying. And if, if, if you're suffering from narcissism. You are. Your relationships are also suffering, and don't you want to have the best relationships? That is where they get some buy-in. Is that they do want to?

Speaker 1: 26:43

have some best relationships.

Speaker 2: 26:44

You know they want to have the best life they possibly can. When they stop abusing others, they'll start noticing that others are a little bit different towards them. Because these things are co-creations, right, and I'll also have them do experiments. Experiments like some narcissists find are find people who are working in service jobs. For some reason they they seem to go into a bit of a combat with them. They might be rude to the waiter or the person at the cashier. So one of their practices might be to like go to a grocery store you never go to and see what it feels like to be friendly, see what it feels like to be complimentary and kind, and see how that changes your experience about that grocery store. So they go in and they have a positive interaction. They're friendly to the cashier and the cashier is friendly to them and they sort of see like, oh, that was a little different, because usually they're being judgy.

Speaker 2: 27:43

But here's the thing there's all different kinds of narcissists as well. When I'm talking about this, I'm it's it's always a generalization because we are not computers, right? Narcissism looks like a whole bunch of different things, but in in the work together it's they're learning to respect others. They're learning to respect others, boundaries they need to develop. Actually and this sounds counterintuitive they need to develop self compassion for them to be able to help compassion for others. So some trauma work where things have gone wrong for them can often unleash some of that self-compassion, some of that feeling of softness that they avoid trying to feel. Um, emotional regulation skills are also something to to work with, because all these patterns, these, you know, narcissists, children are narcissistic we are all narcissistic.

Speaker 2: 28:39

Freud used the term narcissism to describe the behavior patterns of children. Term narcissism describe the behavior patterns of children and we grow out of them unless we don't. And not growing out of our childhood emotional processes is narcissism. See, ryan, if if you don't play soccer, you're not going to be great at soccer. If you know, if you don't practice singing, you're probably not going to become a great singer. It it's the same with your emotions. If you're avoiding feeling your emotions, if you're avoiding sharing emotions with others, you're not going to grow up either. These emotional processes that get stuck, they're very childish processes. No, I didn't, you did Like the instant deflection.

Speaker 1: 29:23

I'm not weird, you're weird, that's what we're hearing now. Everybody's calling each other weird, and you're weirder than I am weird.

Speaker 2: 29:31

Oh, and you know they tend to put people against each other because they really are only on their team. So they are stronger if everyone else is fighting amongst themselves. Yeah, and we can see that happen a lot.

Speaker 1: 29:48

What do we do then? For anybody, I would think, when it comes to family members, it's tough to recognize anything other than well, that's just how they are. That's my family member, that's my mom, that's my dad, that's just how they are. That's what I've got to deal with. When it comes to a family member who may be a narcissist, how do we deal with that? It is it creating? Could it create more harm than good? Or how do you? How do you deal with it gently?

Speaker 2: 30:17

that's a really good question, um, you know, narcissism is extremely common and and so probably most of us have narcissism somewhere in our family, somewhere in our life. Um, boundaries are really the first thing having clear boundaries, um, clearly stated boundaries, because they will jump over your boundaries. They don't want you to have boundaries, they want you to do what they want you to do. Um, so having very clear boundaries with the family member is the first step. Seeking support, practicing self-care, managing expectations your expectations need to adjust to. Honestly, if you just imagine that you're talking to a 10-year-old, it gets much easier to deal with someone who's suffering from narcissism because you can recognize.

Speaker 2: 31:05

Oh, that's sort of what's happening like and it gives you the understanding angry 10 year old um, but you know, dealing with someone who's suffering from narcissism, the antidote really is intimacy and they're and they're not having that. They're really not getting to their inner core. But if you've not gone there for a long time you may have forgotten it. I mean, there's a famous therapist in the US called Terry Real and he works with narcissism in his couples work and he's the one who I really heard first that intimacy is the antidote to narcissism, because narcissism is shallow, narcissism is living on the facade right Narcissism is pretend. It's the opposite of intimate.

Speaker 2: 32:03

And you know, narcissists can be great friends. They can be fun co-workers, they can be charismatic, they can be the life of the party and you might notice someone with narcissism tends to be polarized, like this was the best meal, that was the greatest waiter. Oh, she was the worst waitress I've ever had. It tends to be one or the other.

Speaker 1: 32:21

They're either the best ice cream or the worst ice cream.

Speaker 2: 32:27

And they tend to do that to people too, and that's that's what's so shocking to people in their lives, when they get devalued because they might idealize a friend and then, as soon as that friend does something they don't like now, they devalue that friend that's so.

Speaker 1: 32:37

It's all or nothing all or nothing. It's painful for the other, you either with me or you're against me. There's no shades of gray right. There's no shades of gray, that's childish.

Speaker 2: 32:49

We mostly live in shades of gray. And with narcissism, we mostly live in shades of gray. You know it's not mostly. At that end and that end you need some narcissism. If you don't have enough, you're also out of balance you're also.

Speaker 1: 33:09

You're also out of balance. Another one of those buzz phrases, buzz words that we hear a lot lately is gas lighting. Does a narcissist use gas lighting? Will he gaslight others? And and what exactly, then, is the definition of gaslighting?

Speaker 2: 33:22

Yeah, so this is another childish process that didn't get grown out of. It's essentially saying what you want to be true and believing yourself that it is true. They often believe their own gaslighting. I know it seems impossible to think that, but nobody builds walls better than I do. Where does that come from? Have you been building walls all your life?

Speaker 1: 33:49

I mean where?

Speaker 2: 33:50

does that kind of statement come from that no one builds walls better than you? Gaslighting is speaking what I want to be true. When it isn't, we can hear it all the time. I don't know if you can think of any examples yourself.

Speaker 1: 34:05

I think it's the same subject, trump when he said I have the greatest economy in the world. I'm the healthiest president in the history of presidents. You know he's always. He's the best. There's him, george Washington, abraham Lincoln and everybody else and how can anyone? You know it seems to think how can anyone argue with that? And, good Lord, I think a lot of us are. You know, I'm still at the point. I just I can't believe anybody can follow this guy.

Speaker 2: 34:35

It's hard to imagine and you know they demand blind faith and that's part of what's gone very wrong, because there's a lot of people that are used to giving blind faith, so they've been taught to give blind faith and not question, and they're able to give it to him as well, but he will. I mean his purpose of gaslighting.

Speaker 1: 34:54

It's always self-serving in some way another example that I've had come up lately. I wonder if, if whole entire cultures have taken on you know both roles of it. I, I, and the example I'll give is this is a fairly new podcast for me. I've done radio in the past but, um, I don't know anything about video editing and so I've been going out asking for help and as soon as I put the word out there that I'd like some help with video editing, I got dozens of offers for help from Bangladesh and I got talking to one or two people from there and fascinating.

Speaker 1: 35:45

I mean, I love learning about different cultures, that I, you know it. Just I've chatted with them a little bit, and a female and a male, and I think it's just fascinating from the language to the culture, to what's you know what's common and what's considered an insult, and so I've definitely learned in the last couple of weeks from her. But I've noticed she is very accommodating and I think she might be that type. I don't know her personally and again, I'm not generalizing a whole culture, but she's very accommodating and I think maybe in her family life she is that type, like you explained, wanting to please, and maybe we'll be going out of her way to please someone else, and I know in some other cultures then the men seem to take advantage of that or they encourage the woman to please them. Does that happen? Is it entire cultures that have kind of taken this on?

Speaker 2: 36:46

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, Different cultures have different relationships with narcissism. There's a certain narcissistic feeling about the how to put this, you know meaning Americans meaning we're trying to be careful here yeah, meaning Americans in Asia, for example.

Speaker 2: 37:10

There's something there's sometimes surprised that the world doesn't revolve around America. It comes as some shock to them. They thought the world did it all over in America. And when they look at TVs and they see nothing American and they see all these crowds of people and it's like wow, there's this whole world that has nothing to do with America. Yeah, the rest of the world, in fact. You know we have something to do with America, but not that's sort of a narcissistic belief that our culture is the best and our country is the best and we are the best and the way we live is the best. That's narcissistic. You don't know. Have you experienced every other culture to actually have that information? Probably not.

Speaker 2: 37:44

Right, there's narcissism is quite often tied to trauma. It's often tied to disconnection. You know the generation before us. A lot of them went to war, for example, and they came home with PTSD. So a husband coming home with PTSD and being expected to be happy because now you're home, you should be happy, but they're not happy. They're actually in trauma and we didn't know what trauma was yet. So someone suffering from PTSD is going to be, you know, possibly removed from their emotions, not able to be emotionally supportive, they might get triggered into explosive reactions where they have the feeling like something's happening now and they might be you know very reactive. Many of them became alcoholic. Many of them were abusive towards their partners. That became the model for the next generation. They didn't know any different If your dad had PTSD your whole growing up you don't know what it would have looked like if he hadn't had PTSD, the whole look growing up, that disconnection.

Speaker 2: 38:43

And you know, keep calm and carry on. Those were things we had to do during wartime, you know. And then men were taught not to feel their feelings by that generation who feelings were too difficult. So then they're teaching their kids don't feel sad, don't feel. If you teach your boys not to feel their delicate emotions, you know, then they're not going to feel their delicate emotions with others either and that is teaching them lack of empathy, right? If I don't go to sadness, I also don't go to sadness with my wife. If I don't go to you know these feelings, I also don't go to her feelings or his feelings with them. So that is lack of empathy. If I'm avoiding my own emotions, I certainly cannot go to yours, right?

Speaker 2: 39:24

So someone in a relationship with someone who's avoiding their emotions is going to feel alone emotionally, and that's that's very difficult and not only alone emotionally, like someone like you described who is a pleaser, you know they're alone emotionally and they're constantly supporting the other person and, as you say, it can be cultural. It can be cultural where the women have one role, the men have another role and it can be that the men have a narcissistic, you know, overtaking role. But a lot of cultures have narcissism built in in this kind of way. I see a lot of young Asian people who have come with their parents needing them to be the top of their class and to have the best marks and to have the best and nothing else is okay. Well, if you have a number of kids and all their parents are expecting them to be number one, well, a whole bunch of them are not going to be number one, right, um? But they end up putting too much value on on that, too much value on measured success, measured success. And if they haven't had emotional support.

Speaker 2: 40:28

this is pushing them towards narcissism. It's pushing them towards evaluating others based on checkboxes rather than feeling, and they're not feeling with others. So that is how they're evaluating others. They need to have proof that they're a good person, because they can't feel that they're a good person. So, though, they'll create proof, they'll join the board of this charity and they'll do this kind thing for this person, and I'm always the one who reacts first. They can be do-gooders To, to prove to themselves, but they'll also measure other people by by check boxes as well, like they won't really know I'm a good person or not, unless they know what I've done, and then so they don't have that same ability to feel with others in that way.

Speaker 1: 41:12

Okay, yeah, that's something I never really thought of. That's kind of a new thought process when I think of this. Now, you mentioned in the beginning your own situation and I'm sure you use your own experiences in your therapy with others. Does it ever come up that as you're seeing a patient, a client, that their story may trigger something in you? I mean taking it from a therapist's point of view, are you beyond all of it that you feel now you can help others without still dealing with some of that yourself?

Speaker 2: 41:57

Yeah, I can say that. I don't get triggered in a session, but I have spidey senses and I'm seeing the forest through the trees. If you're in a narcissistic relationship and it's something you're used to, you may not see it.

Speaker 2: 42:13

You may have no idea that's what's happening. They often will belittle their partner to feel better about themselves and the partner will often take it in and they'll just believe it and they don't realize that being put down is abusive. And yeah, the narcissist puts the reality on the other person. They can end up believing like yeah, my partner is really special. He's so much smarter than me, you know that they can end up believing that and allowing it to be the way it is um I can remember in my my past relationship.

Speaker 2: 42:47

I'm a singer but I didn't sing for 25 years because my dad shamed me out of singing. He, he didn't like me to sing, so he would um, after every performance he would plant seeds. That just caused me to feel horrible. Um, like, no one likes to show off. Um, they're just pretending. They like you're singing, they're like I'm just being supportive, you didn't do all that great. Like he would turn around. He would say, like he would be bragging about me to others, like oh, have you heard? My son's voice doesn't have a beautiful voice. And he'd turn around like don't let that get to your head I'm just being supportive.

Speaker 2: 43:22

you don. You don't know, I'm not all that he would. So he would build me up in front of others and then pull me down in private, um, so that I didn't sing for 25 years. I don't know where that thought was going. It was you know, ryan, I have ADHD. Yeah, when dealing with that, talk about it openly, cause my ADHD will sometimes click in and I I veer in a little bit direction it was related to what we were talking about, but I forget.

Speaker 1: 43:46

What brings me back to well in in dealing with others. I mean, does this ever pop up into your own head? What you know, the abuse that you you suffered, and, uh, I think a lot of us. You know, we, we, we learn and can teach others based on things we've gone through ourselves. You know, like you said, you see a little forest through the trees there and you want to say, okay, this is how I dealt with that.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Yes, I mean my family. No one saw what was happening, Everyone in my family had therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy, therapy. And, yeah, we didn't understand what was going on.

Speaker 1: 44:25

Yeah, we didn't understand what was going on. Tell me about, now again, your website. I put it up on the screen here just a bit ago. Darrenelliotca, I love the spelling of your last name. It's the same spelling as my youngest son, who just turned 20 yesterday. Oh wow, two L's, two T's. But tell me me about and we'll see this on your website. Doreen divine, oh doreen yeah, who is doreen divine and why should we pay attention to dory?

Speaker 2: 44:57

doreen is my stage character singing mental health drag queen persona. She um, you know, I invented her because the biggest problem with narcissism getting help is not recognizing themselves. And when you type in narcissism internet, all this, all this hate and vitriol comes up because the abuse is very, very painful. Doreen is a narcissist who is a recovering narcissist, so my stage character. So part of what she's doing is sharing openly about her experience, about what's actually happening inside for her, so that someone watching might actually identify, because they'll recognize their own behavior Like oh gosh, I do that too. Oh gosh, I see that too. But she's doing it in a really non-threatening, humorous, cheerful drag queen way, right, so it's very non-confrontational, but it's a way that people can, they can relate to and I came up with that because that's how I work with my clients as well. You know they come in for a consult and I, when I'm, when, I'm, when I'm picking up the spidey senses that narcissism is what we're working with.

Speaker 2: 46:06

Um, I will explore it with them and I'll I'll explore it by by asking questions like when this happens, do you feel like this? When this happens, do you feel like that? And I'll be guessing what's happening. And when they see that I can see what's actually going on inside, they start to trust me and they start to actually share what's going on inside. And that's what really needs to happen With most therapists. They're just going to play the game of I'm a good person and they're going to hide the things that need to really come out.

Speaker 2: 46:35

So Doreen is showing it all At the same time. She's also spreading messages of equality, because narcissism is anti-equality like I'm better than others, right, and there's cultural narcissism. We are better than others, um. So she's doing that and she's spreading mental health messages of equality that we all belong, that love is for everyone, that drag queens are not evil, that's. That's another one um, and you know we are good and the others are evil. It's a very narcissistic thing as well. You don't know if I'm evil. How would you know I'm evil Just because I'm a drag queen?

Speaker 1: 47:13

Really, Well, just like everybody who comes over the border is not a rapist and a murderer, we can't generalize other nationalities like that. Ridiculous to do that.

Speaker 2: 47:26

That's polarized.

Speaker 1: 47:27

That's the polarized thinking there you go. Yeah, perfect examples in him. We all know who we're talking about. Now help me, if you would a little bit and I think I mentioned this in our first email exchange that I'm going to have a couple of questions here and I hope you don't mind that these questions are likely going to be very basic and maybe, maybe a bit ignorant, and I apologize, but I and I don't know why, but I feel a little uncomfortable whenever I see a drag queen on TV. I haven't and I don't have any. I don't think I have any preconceived notions. I just don't understand. I I haven't been around them. So with a drag queen, are you and I've looked at your website I I see obviously Doreen is sending a message and trying to get her message across. Is, is that the main goal? Are you trying to be funny and you know I'm not trying to ask this accusatory or yeah, how does it work? What's the intent? What? What makes you say you know, I need to do this.

Speaker 2: 48:45

That's a great question. You know, it's not uncommon, when you grow up on the fringes of society, not feeling your belonging, because you know you're feeling a different attraction than your friends are feeling or than the people around you, if you're receiving negative messages about who you are as a person. In the case of myself, it made me small. My father wanted me to be small, so he shamed me and I stopped singing and I did become small and my voice became small, my opinion became small and every time I sang I had a shame response, in fact, and that's why I stopped singing. When I don Doreen, doreen can be bigger, she in therapy we talk about having different parts of herself, the part that feels this and the part that feels this and the part that wants to do that. Doreen allows my big showy peacock feathers to come out and I'm okay. I'm able to speak in a way that I I never have been able to speak as myself. She does not have the same filters I have. Okay, and drag is for anyone. It's it's, it's something that's opening up a lot. I mean they've now had, for example, on RuPaul. They've had straight drag queen, they've had lesbian drag queen, they've a trans drag queen. It's not just for gay men, it's it's it really anyone can do drag. It really is about taking on that bigger persona and also it's a disregard for gender norms. It really is saying you know what, be who you are, whatever that is, you don't have to fall into the gender norms that are being pushed on you, just be true to yourself. In the case of Drag Queen, it really is just a character. It is a, it's a performer. It's different than trans. It's not like I identify with those female characteristics, but it's fun and it's and it's powerful. Honestly, drag has created a, a community around the world for LGBTQ people. It's drag race itself is in so many countries now and it's honestly, it's a beacon of hope that I didn't have.

Speaker 2: 50:58

I was a depressed kid. I could feel my attraction for other the same, the same sex and I. I felt that as a huge shame and I thought I was evil because my church told me what I was evil. So when I was a teenager, I tried to kill myself because I thought I was evil and I still suffer every day from it. Honestly, I damaged my neck and it's every single day. It causes me to. If there had been a drag queen. If there had been any kind of message on tv back in the you know when I grew up because I'm 50. Um, it would have made a huge difference. There was nothing for me to hang on to. There was, you know, I only saw liberace and I just had no identification with liberace whatsoever. So I just could not imagine a life for myself because I didn't see anyone else having a life for themselves. Drag is very in your face, right? It's very, it's very forward, it's very obvious.

Speaker 2: 51:53

You can't ignore this right. You're not hiding, it's the opposite of hiding, right.

Speaker 2: 51:58

Doreen went to Pride this year and it really is the opposite of hiding in her big yellow dress and interacting with so many people, but it's also uplifting. You know, it's an expression of so many different talents at once, because people are showing their creative talents in the clothes that they're making, that they're putting together. They're often showing their artistic ability and singing, like I do, um, they're often doing essentially stand-up comedy. There's some, and then you know the performance makeup.

Speaker 2: 52:34

It really is an extremely creative act and you know, when they're on shows together there's all sorts of different competitions with dancing and acting, um, so it really combines a lot of different feels together and we, you know, I find it's a really exciting uh, genre. If you look at early, early days of, for example, rupaul's drag race, people were so traumatized in the early, in the early seasons and you can see that trauma. They're really sort of me against you and they're catty and they're fighting and they're and they're you know they're mad at each other because they are desperate to win. It was hard out there they were struggling.

Speaker 2: 53:08

They were you know, waiting tables and trying to earn a living and trying to be a drag queen on the side. So they're coming in there, they're desperate to win and they're, you know, live in sort of an uh, uncomfortable world where they've dealt with a lot of bigotry and issues. 14 seasons later you can see that, oh, and you know, half them had families that had kicked them out of the family as well, right, which is a big trauma. So, 14 seasons later, most of them are feeling sort of some acceptance in their community. Most of them are feeling some acceptance in their families. Um, people are not afraid of them as they were before and they are making friendships that are, you know, deeper. And when people are leaving the show because someone leaves every week, they're sad about it like oh, no, aurora is leaving.

Speaker 2: 53:55

Oh, my sister, I'm gonna miss you. But so you can see, you can see the evolution of, of how healing has come just through acceptance.

Speaker 1: 54:04

Just just through, um, yeah, really just through acceptance and stuff it's made a big well, I I think I thank you for that because I I think I compare it, you know, as of the last couple weeks with the, the recent person I started talking to with banglade in in Bangladesh. I've never talked to anybody from Bangladesh before. I've never talked to anybody who is a drag queen before, so I knew if I was going to learn anything about it. You know, it just made me uncomfortable, I guess and maybe uncomfortable isn't the right word Just I hadn't been around it. You know, I hadn't been around it, I hadn't been around that community society and I didn't know. And I knew I had to get somebody's story. I knew I had to talk to somebody who could tell me their story and tell me okay, how does this happen? I think maybe just like a narcissist, then I don't think that's a trait I'm showing here. But you hate what you don't know, you hate what's foreign to you.

Speaker 2: 55:11

Or fear.

Speaker 1: 55:12

Sure, sure. That's part of we've got to learn, to be accepting of what we don't know. It's part of learning, I think, who not only who the other people are, but who we are ourselves yeah, you know, fear is the opposite of of love.

Speaker 2: 55:30

hate is not the opposite of love, it really is fear. Fear is what pulls us away from love, and that happens to a narcissism as well. When you're not having anyone in that inner circle, there's sort of a fear of exposure and that's part of what keeps the defenses up so high. When we just love and accept each other for who we are, that's all we need to do, you know, as pack animals, we're just meant to love each other and accept each other. I really think people have gotten things really, really complicated with so many little rules that they think we need to follow to have good lives. I believe that God's in all of us, you know, and when they say two or more are gathered, yeah, we need to share our emotions with others, to process them and to deal with them. We do not do well alone, and narcissists are too alone. They're too alone in their inner experience.

Speaker 1: 56:23

They're too alone in their inner experience. Is there a goal for a narcissist? Are they looking for power? Do they know what they're looking for? Do they know what they want? You know?

Speaker 2: 56:33

probably the commonality for all of them is they have a desperate need for validation. So that need for validation is always there they need to be validated validated validated.

Speaker 2: 56:45

And if you're de-validating they will be angry at you. So they will essentially reward validation and punish anything that's not validation. They will be attracted to it. You know their partner needs to give them lots of validation. If they're not getting enough over here, they'll get it over here. Um, very common to have affairs because they just need so much validation, someone to really be into them. Um, so it is. It is fairly common for them to have affairs, although I shouldn't be generalizing. There are all different types of people suffering from narcissism as well. You know it looks in different ways as well. Like a covert narcissist is going more for pity and sympathy than someone who's grandiose, who's going for admiration. But if you look at them with contempt, that can that can be enough to trigger. If you look at them with like, even confusion, that can trigger their narcissistic rage. They really need to avoid that, that rage. They have a rage within them because there's so much they're not dealing with. It's a big part of the picture. I forgot what the question was, though.

Speaker 1: 57:52

I had asked about generally the goal.

Speaker 2: 57:54

That's why.

Speaker 1: 57:57

I ask questions, though so we can go in many different directions. I like that. We'll wrap up in a minute. I know you've got to be moving, but and again, just as I said that my question went out of my mouth oh, what you were describing, then it kind of conjures up the same, much the same behaviors as insecurity, Somebody who's very insecure with themselves. Does one come before the other or does one trigger the other? How is it connected with narcissism and insecurity?

Speaker 1: 58:35

They are not aware of their insecurity um, oh, oh well, that surprises me then, yeah yeah, I mean, they're trying to hide it so strongly, oh that, that they're able to.

Speaker 2: 58:49

They're able to, um, they're able to forget it essentially, but the insecurity comes from their lack of connection with others, like as pack animals. We really need to feel our connection and if you are not feeling with others in their emotions and they're not feeling with you and your emotions, you have insecure relationships. They're not deep, they're shallow relationships.

Speaker 1: 59:16

Okay, yeah, that surprised me, I guess. So, darren Elliott, take a look at the website, folks, it's DarrenElliottca and tell me what we'll find there, both at your YouTube channel and at your website.

Speaker 2: 59:34

So on the YouTube channel you will find some videos about how I work with narcissism and sort of a foundation that has a more healing approach than what we're used to hearing about narcissism. Um, there's some videos that will be helpful for family members to understand what they're dealing with. There can be help in therapy. It's just they rarely reach for it and then when they do reach for it, they're rarely honest. But if they can be help in therapy, it's just they rarely reach for it and then when they do reach for it, they're rarely honest. But if they can be honest and they can actually connect with the therapist, that can be their first authentic relationship and then with that authentic relationship it can spread out into other relationships.

Speaker 2: 1:00:06

I'm usually the first person that's in their inner circle, right. And then, as we develop our relationship, they're developing emotional skills with me. First, because this is a real relationship, I practice relational coaching and relational therapy, and then it feels good. As it feels good in this relationship, it starts to spread out into their other relationships and in the end we end up creating what I call love loops, and sometimes I have them practice on animals first.

Speaker 2: 1:00:34

It's easy to love someone when you can see they're loving you first. Right, if I come to you with loving eyes, it's sort of easier to feel those emotions. If I come to you with hostile, angry eyes, chances are you're going to have a different kind of feeling. So they're learning that they're co-creating their relationships. They didn't even understand that before and that love is a feeling in their body. Once they realize like love's a feeling in your body that you get to enjoy, it's not over there, it's actually in you and it feels good to love others. And when you love others, they're more likely to love you back. So they can practice with a dog, right, because dogs love a dog, they love you back. Right, they are they, just they. So they can practice with that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:16

Because when they're practicing with a dog, they're practicing feeling love in their body and that's a feeling that they may be a little bit foreign to them and they can expand the ability to feel love. And, you know, starting with the pet, that's extremely safe because they know the pet's not judging them. They, you know they don't have any of the normal defenses with the pet. Yeah, so if they can grow that with the pet, then we can expand that later to having trust for other humans. Because there is no trust there if you're not feeling with each other, you, you you're not having an intimate understanding of how the other is feeling. Sure, um, so you're having lack of empathy. You don't know you have, you know, no recognition of your, of how you're impacting the other. And then that lack of connection, it's no one is truly, truly seeing what's happening to you. They can end up the facade, ends up taking over over time if they use it and use it, and use it and use it. They've essentially become a well, they become a facade yeah, that's interesting too.

Speaker 1: 1:02:20

Yeah, I, it seems so logical. You know your relationship with your pet, your, our pets become part of the family and you know, sometimes we, we, we love a pet just as much as a family member. You know, and if you've got an issue with that then yeah, you need to start slow. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:02:36

If love is a feeling you don't feel, then you're not going to feel it for your partner either. Right, it's, it's. Yeah, we need to nurture these, these emotions, and build them. They need emotional growth is what they need in therapy and coaching. They are growing up, so it's a little bit different than just doing CBT and changing your thought pattern. We're nurturing that, the the behaviors that did not have support to grow up before, to not gaslighting anymore, so that you don't need all the attention all the time. You know they don't even recognize that there's very dependent on others, right, they are dependent on others for validation very often, and so when they can recognize, like you know, what it's stronger to not need validation, right, like I, you know there's more agency. I don't need validation from you because I have it from within me. That's another thing that they learn, right Is what they thought was strength is not strength. You're actually dependent on others giving you positive feedback or you feel like garbage.

Speaker 2: 1:03:34

That's not strength that's depending on others for validation. So when? They realize that it's a weakness, they want to work on that as well. It takes a lot of motivation to want to work with your own narcissism, because grandiosity does feel good, it's true. Feeling better than others is a nice, comfortable place to be.

Speaker 1: 1:03:56

Interesting. You know, this is one of those where I'm fascinated, darren, by what you've said, what you taught me today, and I think we could go another hour, because I actually think I have more questions now than an hour ago, when we started, because you got my mind spinning so much. I could go in so many different directions with more questions now. Maybe we can do it some other time. This was fascinating.

Speaker 2: 1:04:24

Absolutely this is my passion, I think you can tell.

Speaker 1: 1:04:27

Yeah. I want to mention. You brought up Love Loops and you're working on a book of the same name, right, Right, right.

Speaker 2: 1:04:34

Yes, I'm working on a book. It's gone in a few different directions so it's taking some time. I wanted to have a lot of personal narrative so it doesn't read like a textbook, but yeah, love Loops is the name of the book I'm writing. It shares about my own personal journey through narcissism, how I woke up to the narcissism in my life and how others can wake up from it as well, essentially creating a more stable, more loving, more connected relationships.

Speaker 2: 1:05:07

that's relationships are everything they really are at the end of life. You look back at your life. It's the relationships that you look back for. People do not look back at their life and say I wish I worked more.

Speaker 2: 1:05:18

They don't. Very rarely they do say I wish I hadn't got angry with my wife so often. I wish I'd spent more time with my kids, I wish I'd actually, you know, supported my kids and what they wanted to do, instead of forcing them to play baseball when they wanted to be something else. You know, they can have regrets at the end of their life when they're sitting there by themselves, um, but they tend to see people in a manipulative way. So they were. It's like, do you want people to be at your best, your bed, because they have to, or do you want them to be there because they want to? And explaining to them, like, how it's how they feel with you that causes them to want to be there. So, um, if you're belittling others, if you're not allowing them to be themselves, they're not going to feel very good with you. You want people to feel good with you. That's. That is what relationship. That's how you create these positive relationships and that is why they will be at your bedside when you're 84.

Speaker 2: 1:06:14

Because they feel love with you, not because you bought them a car and said they had to be there they tend to do those kinds of things right Quantitative things and reasons that you have to be here because of this. Well, I did this for you. Now you have to do this for me.

Speaker 1: 1:06:33

It's impersonal sure, sure. Well, thank you, darren. Uh, again, that's a. That's a good place to end, I think, here with uh. You know how we, how we should live lives and how we want to end up. Uh, you know we on a on a good note with family, I think yeah, we're all packing metals.

Speaker 2: 1:06:50

Honestly, we're meant to be loving each other and right now we're so traumatized it's yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:06:57

Okay, darren Elliott, take a look, folks, at his website. It's darrenelliotca. And again, this has been great, darren, thank you very much.

Speaker 2: 1:07:05

Thank you so much, Ryan.

Speaker 1: 1:07:06

I appreciate it. Okay, thank you. And yeah, he's got the YouTube channel there, folks, and the website darrenelliotca. Take a look at it. Lots of, lots of very interesting things there. It's going to make you think, and you know we mentioned empathy and I think that's so important. We've got to, we've got to put each other, we've got to put ourselves in other people's shoes. You know, try, just try to imagine walking in somebody else's shoes for a while and how they would handle, how you would handle how you're treating them, and you know a little more empathy in the world, and I think you know that's part of working towards a better place. So, thank you folks, I'm Ryan Peterson and this has been Discerning the Unknown. Remember, as I always say at the end, men should not wear flip-flops, and we will talk next time.