I have spent a number of years focused on Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the absolute destruction it causes those who are involved in that Web of Illusion.  The deeper I went into the dark world of narcissism the more I learned about myself and how I relate to the world around me.

Where I once looked at narcissism as a personality disorder and the people afflicted with this disorder as the narcissist, I now look at narcissism as the egoic illusion one erects in order to protect himself from the judgment of others.   The more deeply we are wounded and the more abandoned our inner child feels the greater we feel the need to protect ourselves.  The more we choose narcissistic behavior to protect ourselves the greater our narcissism.

We live in a narcissistic world.  It has evolved to a place where every man is out for himself.  There is little real cooperation as leaders of the world are focused on their own image, greed, power and control.  We are forced into roles of competition and slavery in order to fit into the world.  Love is something we often feel we have to manipulate others to get.  We often feel we have to look a particular part, or play a role in order to be perceived as “good.”

We get so entrapped in our roles that don’t even realize we are playing them.  We judge ourselves as superior or inferior depending on external appearances.  This is the grand illusion.  Our ability to be at peace in our own skin is not factored into our ideas of success.  Instead we focus on material accomplishments, i.e. degrees earned, money accumulated, assets, homes, cars, titles, physical appearance, sexiness, associations, and accomplishments.  If one sits under the bohdi tree for twenty years and achieves enlightenment society will deem him crazy; a fool, stupid, wasting his life away, and worthless.  For in his sitting he has achieved no material assets. Read the rest of this entry »

In my work with narcissism and abuse I see many cases of those who have no empathy for the experience of their children, parents, partners, wives, husbands and lovers.  There is nothing more painful for those highly senstive people who are so easily dumped on by one who is supposed to care for them. 

But what I have found is it is normally the highly sensitive empaths who find themselves getting involved with the energy vampires, the narcissists and those who take extreme advantage of these sensitive souls. 

Ironically we are talking about two opposite ends of the same spectrum.  An empath can sense and feel the energy of others.  If you are an empath and don’t know you are one, you may find yourself taking on a whole lot of other people’s stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with you. 

An empath is very compassionate because he or she actually feels what the other is feeling or not feeling.  What I mean by this is many very closed off narcissistic types are so out of touch with their feelings that they aren’t aware what is going on in their emotional landscape.  They tend to project their supressed emotions onto those closest to them and this tends to lead the empath into believing these toxic emotions are actually his or hers.  How confusing is that?  Very!

When empaths recognize their highly sensitive nature they can begin learning how to separate what is theirs from what is not.  This makes for much healthier relationships and much less emotional insanity. 

For more information on Empathy listen to my interview with Dr. Michael Smith from www.empathconnection.com on Tuesday August 4th at 7pm Pacific time. 

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dispelling-the-myths

Don’t worry if you have missed this interview you can go there anyway and listen to the recorded version.