Blog: Make Change Fun And Easy
Navigating Narcissism:
Strategies For Dealing With Difficult Personalities.
Ryan Angelo & Samia Bano
Is your #PeaceandWellbeing compromised because of difficult personalities around you?
Listen now to this interview with Ryan Angelo, #SoulSherpa, to gain insights into understanding and effectively managing interactions with #narcissistic individuals and #difficultpeople so you can #protectyourpeace and maintain your well-being.
You will learn:
-- the effects of narcissistic behavior on personal and professional relationships
-- the patterns of #NarcissisticBehavior and how they inevitably lead to self-sabotage
-- how to maintain compassion while setting necessary boundaries with difficult people
-- techniques to #reclaimyourpower and energy
-- and much more!
Connect with Ryan at: https://ryan-angelo.com/
To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ
#NarcissismAwareness #BoundariesMatter #DifficultRelationships #narcissisticrelationship #narcissisticrelationships #narcissisticpersonalitydisorder #narcissisticabuseawareness #narcissism #narcissism101 #CompassionAndBoundaries #NarcissismImpact #HealingAndGrowth
Here's the audio version of this episode:
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Full Video Transcript
SAMIA: Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry! Yay... I've been learning new greetings as I go along.
RYAN: That's wonderful.
SAMIA: Thank you.
RYAN: That's wonderful. I really enjoyed that. Yeah.
SAMIA: Thank you very much, Ryan. And talking about Ryan. Yes! Everyone, I'm so happy you've joined us, and I know you will be so happy you've joined us, because we have a wonderful guest with us today. And it's Ryan Angelo, who is a Soul Sherpa. That is so cool. Welcome, Ryan…
RYAN: It's a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.
SAMIA: Yes, it's my absolute happiness to have you. And please tell us more about who you are and what you do…
RYAN: So who I am and what I do... I'm one of the guys who doesn't like talking about himself that much. But for purpose of this dialogue, let's say I started as a personal trainer who had interest in that because of an injury from division one football… then started studying psychology, became intrigued by psychosomatic correlations, became intrigued by positive psychology and how much it affected everything. And it did remove infections a lot of ways in terms of ways of thinking about the body and how much it improved my client's athletic performance. There's one client of mine who was in his late seventies, and his wife forced him to come and work with me because he kept breaking chairs. He’d keep falling into them. Partially it was his mind state, but he had no flexibility. And so within, I think it was in two to three months, we… we had him back on the dance floor, like, just by recircuiting a couple of things. So then became very intrigued by the concept of leadership. How do you share something of value? Started studying leadership, started becoming a consultant for a lot of organizations. And kind of like the guy behind the scenes. I've always been a guy behind the scenes. Like the... I like to work with healers, teachers and leaders. Like, I like to help the people who help people. Like, helping the helper is my primary function in whatever facet, whether it's a mom or a grandma or some sort of a specialist. And then eventualities happen. And I had an extreme... I had a very extreme spiritual awakening on 11-11-11, that is November 11, 2011, on a mountaintop where I came into contact with the archetypal presence that is Archangel Michael, this aspect of the creator. And, you know, these archetypes… There are many archetypes. There's many benevolent forces working to assist humanity in our continued evolution. And this is one of my primary guides. But all of a sudden I became aware of a lot of things, I guess like the spiritual awakening… It's like, oh, I remember that, you know, and for me it's past life awareness. A lot of us, I believe in past lives and I believe a lot of us be doing work for a while at this because, I mean, we're here to remove some pretty entrenched bull nonsense. And so, let's see, that began a nearly eleven-year reset. You know, all the stuff that I thought was important to all the millionaire friends I thought I wanted to keep… all that… my sports car got torn in half. Like, all this huge shamanic death, like, cycles of deaths and almost dying on a mountaintop and all these different things that took place. But I was protected and guided the entire time, as we all are when we're in alignment with our true self and staying in awareness because there's a lot that supports us, right. But I think part of it was helping me strip away a lot of ancestral stuff, which many of us are working on. That's always fun, I said playfully. But coming into this idea that there is a bigger force working to assist us, right. And a lot of personalities, and we're probably going to talk about this too, they feel very cut off. So a lot of what I find is that these personalities so barely cut off, we call them narcissists. And all these different terms we have for this… they create sort of a parasitic quality because their own connection isn't being honored within themselves. And so then souls like us, they come marching over like they want to fight us or they want to undermine us or they want to be rescued or they want to create this weird confusion thing. And what I'm finding now is a lot of my work is around working in particular with incarnate angels like those of us who literally came here for the purpose of assisting to release the nonsense... A lot of us have an instinctual sense of oneness. Ever since we were a kid, we're the ones that we just... What is the problem with this planet? What's going on? The Matrix didn't work for us.
SAMIA: Yes.
RYAN: And so a lot of what we're doing, I think… and we talked about this before we clicked record is how do we be the one that think we are, but also main gain our back, honor our own autonomy, our sovereignty. Like I get to be happy to, you get to have your cake and eat it. Like life actually gets to be good.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: Yeah... And so… but in a nutshell I hope I've answered, but I operate as a specialized trainer who works with individuals to help them connect with their own truth, not a guru. I don't tell people what to think. That's between you and your inner source and your connection to…
SAMIA: …yes...
RYAN: ...the highest guidance.
SAMIA: Yes. Thank you so much for sharing all of that, Ryan. I mean, wow, you just brought up so much in what you shared that I would love to dig deeper into. And I think one way that I will continue the conversation is to really sort of hone in on talking more about these people who have difficult personalities to deal with, because you are absolutely talking to the right audience, the right community of people. We are a community of change-makers. We are passionate and committed to creating positive change in our lives and in the world, in our societies, in our cultures. And when we engage in this work, of course we come up with the challenge... I mean, I think personally, it's the biggest challenge that I have faced is when I come against people with these kinds of difficult personalities because, you know, if there's any kind of challenge that is in the physical environment or if it's a technical challenge, I'm not bothered by those. I know those can be dealt... You know, you do what you need to do with that and it gets done and it's over. But with dealing with people, it's like, gosh, I mean, they are people. So on the one hand, being the kind of person who's committed to creating positive change and helping others, you know, I don't want to be judgmental. I don't want to fall into the mindset of dehumanizing them and demonizing them, etcetera... And at the same time, you know, sometimes they have such strong negative energy and the consequences of the choices that they make are so negatively impacting everyone around you and yourself that it can become really difficult to know how to deal with them in an effective way. You know, and I know one of the areas of specialization that you have in terms of helping people, is learn… teaching us how to deal with narcissists. So tell me more about, you know, how do you understand who a narcissist is? What, what's going on with them?
RYAN: So, piece of something. I liked how to deal with one of these personalities effectively, which is next to impossible in a lot of regards. Sometimes we have these... I call it an assignment… like, this part of the equation. You can't remove it. If you could, it'd be gone. But sometimes they're kind of like, put in there as this perpetual source of frustration and confusion. And the reality is they're operating in a much significantly lower vibration than you are emotionally. They can't get past pride. There is this line in emotional frequencies that is between pride and courage. It's the Christ consciousness line or the anointed consciousness line. Whatever semantics feel best for you… the Buddha mind is all, but the idea that the Christ consciousness or the anointed consciousness, which all traditions have a way of describing this, is the line of enough is enough. Like, you are not bringing your trash into my household. I love you. Hang out on the porch as long as you want to. You're not bringing that in here.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: No, bang on the door and cry and weep and tell you you're selfish for not taking on their problem and all this different stuff. But the biggest thing I teach my clients, one, is their emotion actually isn't yours. But as an empath, if you have somebody… we use a mathematical equation… Let's say you're hanging out at Plus Two, right? And this essence is at negative 20 by natural law if things balancing, it's going to pull you down. And so if this person is making no authentic effort to improve their life and has all this trauma that they're reliving, and there's lots of other possible things, you know, there is possession, there are demons, and things like this stuff for those who are willing to be aware of that, or just simple, extreme neurological complexities, right? And these things get rooted in pretty tightly. And the reason why they do things that you and I are like, what____... What do you. What are you doing? Like, how does this make sense? Because it doesn't make sense. You can't make sense of something that's illogical or it's extremely reactive or extremely toxic because it doesn't make sense. But for them, in their little bubble, it makes complete sense. This is how things are. I have to play the victim to get attention. I have to threaten you so I feel like I'm not being ignored. I have to walk into a room where people are happy and make them miserable so I can be rest assured that everyone's miserable, not just... It's just like…
SAMIA: ..yes.
RYAN: …their thinking is in total contrast to how we live our lives.
SAMIA: Yeah, yeah. You just made me think about this one person I've been dealing with recently who's pretty abusive in his behavior. And I mean, this person… I mean, everyone around him is complaining about him.
RYAN: It's just a vortex. Yeah.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: That, man... Yeah, I feel you…
SAMIA: Yeah. But you know what I realized in dealing with him? And the realization happened for me because of the training that I have and the awareness that I have in terms of, you know, my learning about abuse and how it impacts us... But also, I mean, I've not done as much work in terms of learning and understanding the psychology of people who are abusive, but I have done some learning and I have some experience in that context as well. And just to give you, like, a quick example of, like, how… like, to us, to me, like, his mindset, it's like, why? It seems crazy. But when I thought… took a moment and I thought about things from his perspective, I was like, oh, okay, from his perspective, what he did make sense. So basically what was happening is that this person is actually a tenant in one of the properties that I manage. And so I'm the landlord, and I had to… I actually provided him a notice, which is what we're required to do legally, that I needed to come into his apartment to do some repairs. And because I've been, you know, having a... Before I stepped into this situation, before I took over the building, no one knew how to deal with him… once I stepped in, you know, I have this attitude that you were describing of, you know, like, I'm not going to take any abuse, I'm not going to tolerate abusive behavior. And so I've taken up, like, a pretty strict stance on that with him. And so now he's decided that, you know… like, for example, when I talk to him, he ignores me and doesn't want to talk to me, etcetera. But he also doesn't want me to come into the apartment for any reason. I'm like, I'm trying to come in to fix something for you. But he didn't want me to come in. So at some… one point, there was, like, stuff going on… at one point, I was like, okay, fine, I'm going to let him have this one time. I'm going to back off. And I told him, fine, forget it, I'm not going to come. And after I told him that, okay, fine, I'm not going to come, he decides to escalate the situation. And the way that he decides to escalate the situation is… the, the person who… one of the neighboring tenants, he picks a fight with them and, you know, abuses them and you know, basically acts in a way that threatens them and they feel threatened and all of that. And I'm like, you know, at first I was like, why did he escalate the situation after I told him that I'm not coming? You know, and then I was like, oh, again, from his perspective, he interpreted my saying, I'm not coming as me backing down. And he was like, ah, this is my opportunity to exercise power and control… regain my sense of power and control in this situation. Because I can I can perceive that it's very important for him to feel in control of the situation. And with me, he has not been able to do it very effectively because I take such a strong stance with him, with my no tolerance of abuse policy. But in this instance, when I gave just a little bit of leeway and I said, fine, I'm not coming in, he immediately jumped on that and retaliated in the best way that he could figure out in the moment, you know. And so from, like, my perspective for a moment, I was like, this is crazy. But then from his perspective, no, it's not crazy.
RYAN: It's interesting too, because… and I speak to the the listener… If you think about anyone in your life who's in this frequency. Whether it's a spouse you're having to try and release yourself from, or parents… like, a lot of us have toxic parents we had to survive… sibling, coworker, tenant, customer, whatever it may be… the thing I always warn my clients about, first and foremost, is to be mindful of how much you argue with them psychically, right? Because what these… your audience… is it… I'm gonna speak in psychology and spirituality, you can determine what you want to extract… So from the spiritual vantage point, there's this concept called loosh… In psychology, there is this idea of narcissistic supply… same basic thing. It's in quantum physics or in base psychology, it's just a stabilized energy. It's raw energy. It's something that can be taken. And so this is why demons and boogeyman's and devils and Heyoka and Waitiko wants to create this, and why narcissists live this out. I think they're the same thing basically, manifest version of one or the other… is… again, they're cut off from something deeper. That is for you… It's up to you to determine… I don't tell people what to believe. But there is something that you connect to at times when you have to. This is… we always connect to it when we actually have to like when we're worn down. But the question becomes, do you want to wait until you're worn down by psychically fighting with so and so you met at the store who was really rude, and, like, shoved their cart into your cart, and then cut you off, and then started talking smack to the person checking them… I mean, it's like we could take so many examples. And what these personalities want to do is stay somehow in your focus…
SAMIA: right…
RYAN: …Because your focus is your light, it's your energies, it's… or it's just your... It’s where you're placing you.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: And so with this, this personality, like, the behavior doesn't make sense, so you can't make sense of it. That's the thing. And the trick is to try to figure out how does… We could use psychology and different terminology. Like you said, his personality probably was abused or was somehow trained, usually through abuse, to be a bully and try and be in charge and control… Overly hostile, shadow masculine, based on whatever is… There's a lot we can do with this for sure. But he's not asking for that. He wants to impose his reality… Just like shadow for men who wants to kind of pull you in. Shadow masculine wants to force it, whether it's a male or a female. And the shadow child wants to create just ignorance, just like, confuse everything and slow things down. Like the lugger mentality, just like blah, blah, blah... And so here's an exercise we can do. We put this on the… On the table and come back to you here in a second. Because you, myself and our listener, sometimes they actually don't matter right now, like, at all. And there is a solution. There's something for you to do, and it's going to come from a wiser part of you, whether it's your higher guidance, whether it's your metacognitive, just mastery… You will know how to navigate this if they do not succeed in sucking you into their vortex, right. Because that's what they do. They're a sad bunch. God bless our hearts and souls, man. They really are. And so we're going to let that go for a second, though. So if you would just bring your... Your hand or both hands over your heart center and imagine you can take steps back like you're sitting back into a hammock. Just energetically. We a lot of times have our focus in front of us. Like, we're strong, where we have a strong mind. A lot of us, like, we're tunnel visioned… kind of pull back and let your eyes relax and take a deep breath in and a really long sigh out... Take a breath. Like you're letting it go. And so we're going to do this, too. We're actually going to squeeze the fist really tight because sometimes this level of stupid really pisses us off because too much stupid is absolutely… I mean it’s, let's go... It's like, so flex the muscles. Flex your face. Like make a funny face. Like get all the muscles sweet. Flex your core muscles. Breathe while you do this. Right. Flexing, flexing, flexing. Letting your body let go. Some that fight or flight energy. Kind of shake the hands a little bit. Like don't, don't punch yourself in the face, but shake the hands a little bit. Really flexing, really flexing. For 5, 4, 3, 2,1, just kind of like shake your arms up. Just shake the body. Stretch. Pull your shoulders back. Because these types of personalities literally suck... At least they suck. Multiple ways of looking at that they suck to deal with, but they literally suck your energy. And so pull your shoulders back instead of leaning forward. Like pull back like, uh,uh. And let your chest open a bit.
SAMIA: Yes.
RYAN: And take a nice deep breath and, and a really slow exhale... See, the thing about narcissists is they prey on intelligent people… or stupid people... But for those of us who are intelligent, we try to make sense of it. So that's how they loop us. So let that go, right. Because no one listening to this is going to be one of the dumb dumbs. God bless your hearts. But those are the different type of prey. You and I, they want us because they want to psychically conquer something, because of their wounds. So let yourself release your smartness for a second and settle back. And it wasn't like if I'm okay, because they can't reach you there, literally. They can't conceive of that possibility. They need to control something for 3 seconds of thinking things are okay, and then they're on to the next thing. You and I, and our listener, we can actually take a step back and somebody's like, enough. Like, enough... I'm not going there. I'm letting that go. And what happens is your natural qualities refill your energy. This is why if you think about the personality, like, sucks you dry, you feel tired, feel angry, feel all the... But if you pull back from it, which is hard, right… It can feel difficult to disengage from this because it doesn't want that, but it doesn't have a choice. Your life force belongs to, your focus belongs to, your essence belongs to you. So just bring yourself back in, like literally, as if you're scooping your energy, pull yourself back. And if you're fully psychological minded, really smart, think of this way. You're attempting to step into higher brain function by giving your body some time, a little bit of a reprieve. Because from higher brain function, you're more aware of the thinking and can choose different patterning.
SAMIA: Yes.
RYAN: Reactive pattern is very different than proactive. And so…
SAMIA: Yes… No, I hear you. And I think one of the challenges that I know I used to get caught up with in dealing with such things, I do much better now… But one of the things that I realized that I used to get caught up with is, like, my own sense of pride and ego. You know, so, like you were saying, how much are you psychically fighting with them? You know, and the thing was that my pride and ego would get in the way and I wouldn't want to disengage. Like, my thinking would go into this cycle of, you know, not only, you know... So on the one hand, you know, there was this part of me that was immediately wanting to resist being dominated and being controlled, but then there was also this thinking of, like, righteous anger kind of thing where I was like, this is wrong. This is injustice, and I will not release... I will not let go over here. Because to do that would be to give in to injustice and oppression or whatever terminology of that sort made sense in the moment. And so I actually made it into a fight and made myself believe that I had to fight that fight… and to fight, you know... And the way that, you know, I would fight the fight was from an angry place. And there was also underlying the anger, there was the fear also, you know, for my safety and my well-being, etcetera. And what we just practiced… and what I have learned to do now is to, one, recognize that, first of all, I don't have to fight any fight. I get to choose. And more importantly, I think in terms of the anger part to realize that… like, if I want to fight... I don't like the word fight. But if I keep using that word fight to say that there's a better way to fight, rather than fighting from that place of being angry and judgmental and so forth. You can fight the good fight or fight a better fight where, you know, you… You say, no, you know what? I'm going to choose to ground myself in compassion and empathy, first for myself and then the other person, and, you know, strive to create change from that place. And, you know, and then, you know, also when you tap into that, that motivation, it connects you to your higher self, it connects you to spirit. And that is actually where the fear begins to be released. Because when you connect to spirit, when you connect to your source, you're like, ahh. Actually I am protected. And it's not for me to protect myself. It's my source and the spirit that's protecting me. And so you can sort of, like, begin to let go at all of these different levels, and that’s so much, so much more easy to do it that way.
RYAN: So we're not… We're not... And this is the concept of surrender… I always had a struggle with that word. I'm a Scorpio. Like, I don't forget anything. I mean, I truly don't. I have zero tolerance for betrayal, which is a prime function of a narcissist. And so to actually practice this thing called surrender, we just described very eloquently… it's not you're giving up on the scenario. It means you're just not fighting it. And so the... There's a concept in native American lore called heyoka, or coyote medicine, the trickster… There's another concept called Waitiko. There's so many words… the devil, for instance. What it really is is this concept in human consciousness that wants to play with you and keep you engaged. Like, even the coyote, it plays with its victims before it takes them down. Huitica likes to swirl you around and use your own creativity against you. The devil and the boogeyman wants to whisper something to mock you for listening to it. These are all things we're aware of, and they're always at a lower level, right? But when you get it back above that level, there's this line. Like, honestly, this line is the key to everything. It's the whole equation. It's the whole shebang. But the line is a nanometer thick. So when you slip below it, it's like, oh, my God, what do I do? How do I get here? Everything is bad. And all that stuff... When you're above it, it's like, ooh, that personality is complicated, right? You're still in your higher frequency. A lot of us, though, if we have enough of these things in our field, enough of these personalities, if you're plus, let's say you've been doing your work and you're plus 50, but you got negative 15 over here, negative 30, negative 465. Because of that one person, you can't do it on your own.
SAMIA: Right.
RYAN: There has to be some other faculty assisting. This is, again, the continuum I was talking about… and that is the most vital thing, because you're dealing with a personality who is ruthlessly manipulative, insidious, has no concept of actual right and wrong… not, like, legit right and wrong… does not consider consequences. You're dealing with a disease, you're dealing with a virus. It doesn't have anything to teach you. And we could, we could argue that it does, but that's not the case. You're actually its teacher. But it doesn't want your lesson. It doesn't want your boundaries, but needs it. You're dealing with literally vampire consciousness. The archetype of the vampire is in total contrast to the Redeemer archetype. The vampire archetype is designed to bite you and inject doubt, right… this idea… this is why we see all these different things about vampires trying to turn things into themselves. A narcissist is an emotional vampire, so it tries to bite you. If it can't control you naturally, then the next step it has is to fight you because you're still in its control.
SAMIA: Right.
RYAN: If you get above that, it's got nothing left.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: …it's nothing left. They'll keep trying to bait you, but it's not able to. And the idea of the Redeemer archetype, like, the whole concept of the crucifix facing the vampire is your anointed consciousness stays above that line. It's like, look, I'm not doing this with you. And it's like this person… the true reality is you could go through the process of evicting them, right. And you have a lot of available options. And so the question is, what magnitude of tolerance are you going to allow in this given situation? And many of us who are these empathic people, who see the good and others in the potential and the possibility want the best for everybody else… at a certain point, the only thing we can do for one of these personalities is stop, say no, and draw the line. And they're going to hate you for it because they don't want boundaries. But that's the premise of what the vampire archetype fights against is autonomy.
SAMIA: Yes. And just to clarify... I mean, for me, you know, with this person in particular and my life in general, you know, my thing is like if I just try to think about the situation from my brain, I can come up with different ideas of what's viable way to move forward. But for me, especially in this kind of situation, I prefer to go to my heart and be like, Hey, heart, guide me on what to do. And with this particular person, my heart's like, there's nothing really we can do with this person. We have to get him out of there. So it's just complicated because, you know, I mean, on the one hand, for those of you who follow this podcast, you know I'm in America, I'm living in Los Angeles, and, you know, we have very strong renter protections here, which is, by and large, a very good thing. But in this case, it's hindering my ability to actually evict him.
RYAN: Yeah, well, there is, like you said, there's always, always a way. And I personally think those laws are insane, like, in various extents... I mean, I was talking to one of the clients about that the other day. That's a whole different bag of worms right there. But all of that stated, there's always a way… there's always a higher level of guidance.
SAMIA: Absolutely, absolutely. And I trust that, you know, that we are being guided and we are being protected, and we're going... So, you know, we're going through a process that we have to. And eventually, you know, what needs to happen will happen in terms of this person being pushed out of there because he's not… like, he has shown no willingness to change or to improve his attitude or his behavior. And so the good thing is that basically the position I am in is that I just have to build a strong enough case that I can present at court and be like, here, you see? And he keeps handing me more evidence, so I'm already working on it…
RYAN: He's gonna help you. He's gonna help you.
SAMIA: Yes, exactly. Exactly. This last incident that I just shared with you guys earlier, he literally did it… when he was abusing the other tenant…. he did it in front of a camera that he knows is there, and it's recording. I'm like, dude, thank you for handing me this piece of evidence.
RYAN: This is the other thing about the narcissist. They inevitably sabotage themselves. Inevitably.
SAMIA: Exactly.
RYAN: The question is, can you be… Can you let it play out? Because they're extremely cunning, predatorial consciousness… but they inevitably reveal themselves. And as soon as they do, they'll try and blame you.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: As soon as they do that, they... The premise of this particular disease is it blames you for what it's doing.
SAMIA: Yes.
RYAN: You're trying to bully me. I'll show you… right… It's like, I'm not trying to bully them. But you're fixed…
SAMIA: Yes. He... Oh, my gosh. This is exactly what he does, is that you say anything to him at all, even if it's kindly and compassionately, but he receives it as an attack. And he is, you know, constantly being like, I am being harassed. He says, I'm being harassed... Everyone in this building harasses me and is against me and is always trying to do bad by me, you know…
RYAN: …which is sad. I mean, it's a sad reality, but it's not… So there's lots of, like, this we'll talk about... There's lots of ways to describe it, like the leg worker syndrome or the shadow of the healer. All these different terms we have for it. We can see the pain… how much of it is as a conscious, higher frequency being our job to assist. And what I've come to appreciate personally is, I'm done. Like, I'm done. Like, at this point, if you want to, like, even, like, my simple term of Facebook ads, right… We do outreach stuff. Someone writes a toxic comment, they're blocked immediately. There's no more figuring them out. There's no more trying to rescue them. If they want to walk in their poison, I leave them to it. I'm here for those who do not. For me personally. And I don't hate these people. I just… I'm done…
SAMIA: Yes, but some of us, right, who are recognizing that we get to be individuals and our life force is not available to everybody else, are having… there's a phase, right. There's a phase for all of us who are dealing with looking at narcissism. You're dealing with it someplace, and you're a caring person… because narcissists latch on to caring people. There's this example I can offer. There was a personality in my life… I'm not gonna give any descriptors, who calls me all sweet and cuteness, right. Because narcissistic can love bump, they're the masters of the persona, but that's why they're shadows to extreme, right. They're trying to hold up this shiny mask of…
Look at this. Because they're a split personality in a lot of ways. They have this extreme shadow here, but they have this concept of how they want to be seen here.
And the poor ego can't hold altogether anymore because it's too strong. This person contacts me all sweet persona, nice, happiness, cupcakes, and sweetness. Hey, this, this, this... cute talk. I want this thing that you have. Very gently, very nice… You're not using it. Can I have it? I'm like, no, actually, I want to hold onto that… it was like… What do you mean, I can't... Well, I want to hold on to it. It matters a lot to me. Like, I can't believe you've been saying this right now. I'm like, well, I'm not sure what you're surprised by. It's mine, and I wish to retain it. And then blows my mind is this particular statement which gets all of us who are very empathic… You're selfish… which for a lot of us who love so much, that's, like, the most terrible thing for us to hear, because we're trying to make sure everybody's okay. And so I look at the equation from, like, I mean, it's like I'm selfish for not giving you something that I don't owe you whatsoever? And it's like, huh? I was like, which reality is real here?
SAMIA: Exactly. And, you know, I realized in this particular situation, for example, one of the reasons why other people have been having such a difficult time dealing with him is, for example, one of the tenants that he bothers the most… the reason they have been hesitating to, for example, I actually asked those tenants, I said, can you please provide me with a statement so that I have… I can present that to the lawyer and he can use it to build the case, because you're the ones who are most impacted by his behavior. And they've been hesitating to provide me with their statement because they are actually worrying about his girlfriend and their two little kids… and, you know, saying, we don't want to be responsible for, you know, these people potentially becoming homeless with, like, these two little children. I mean, they're literally babies still and so forth. And I'm, you know, so this burden of, you know, we have to… like, we are responsible for their… like, for if something goes wrong or, you know… that's such a heavy burden to carry, you know.
RYAN: There's an example… I’ll offer this… There's a friend of mine, really good friend of mine, who's dating a female sociopath, a covert female narcissist. Like, narcissism is on both sides of it. They just approach things in different ways… she latched on to him because he's a very loving, giving guy. But I recognized that… I saw through her stuff. And so immediately works this cunning manipulation to turn me into this evil bad guy, right. Perfect track record… Known my friend for five years, perfect track record… But all of a sudden, I try and talk to her authentically, and she plays the victim who runs out crying. We're talking, like… I mean, I'm sitting there, like... and she got me. Like, I have to give her credit. She… She played the manipulation effectively, and I wasn't accepting my awareness of where she is consciously. Like, she's not able to confront truth. If you bring truth to all these people, you're threatening the delusion that… they will attack you with every darkness within them because they belong to a lie. If you bring them truth? Well, you're not going to be popular.
SAMIA: Yes.
RYAN: And so, you know, I connect with higher guidance because my friendship with this amazing spirit brother has vanished. Like, he stopped talking to me that day. We haven't talked in months now. And there's a part of me who's the warrior, who's like, I'm going to level this… This… I'm going to make this better. But higher guidance reminded me of something… and it's difficult to practice, and this is to ponder… But there are different timelines, too. Sometimes we're asked to hold space for things unfolding, but it doesn't mean you have to be in there. Now, sometimes there's something that's really knocking on the door and wants more attention than you're willing to give. And it's not taking no for an answer, because your job is to say no.
SAMIA: Yes.
RYAN: And these instances is really interesting, because how do you let things unfold, and how do you have a boundary? Well, you take a step back… from there you're going to see what's going on. Am I reactively refusing to let this play out? Like, it's not my job to learn my friends lessons? He obviously needs this. I wish he didn't. I would love to help him and make… But I can't make someone see the truth when they don't want to, especially when they're ensnared in it. And with this scenario, with the family and the kids, I mean, that's like the perfect problem, because what are you gonna do? So I say, perfect problem. I mean, there's always a solution. There's always infinite solutions. And I found the greatest enemy to narcissists, the most powerful thing that they can't defeat is time. Time… if we can be patient, because they have no patience… Like, they have, like, cunning, insidious patience, but they don't have, like, authentic, happy patience.
SAMIA: That's right.
RYAN: Right. If you stay in the frequency of patience and let it play out, they eventually reveal who they are. And so I was reminded, even, like, just two days ago, I had a good friend of mine who I reconnected with… same situation… got into a relationship with a friend who was caught in some really dark side of the force stuff, convinced him that I was evil and trying to control him, which was the opposite of truth… I was a threat to its effort to control my friend… and sucked them in. I was pissed. Like, I wanted to go to war with this thing. But then I took a step back, and I'm like, well, I can destroy this person. I could do this, I could learn on a variety of levels, but is that who I truly wish to be… like, is this really a fight I need to take on? Is this is really, truly something I need to take on? And the higher guidance was, no, let time play out. And there was a symbol, this symbolic journey was given to me. It's like I was asked to put this thing I really like down in front of me, right, through higher intuition. I didn't like it. And the idea of putting it down, letting it go, it's still there, but it's not my hand now. And then after, say, 30 minutes in this particular meditation, pick it back up… I was like, oh, it's like I never left. And so the idea with these types of personalities is when you can let time play out… Now there's another… We have a mutual friend who was caught in this and she had to sort of, in a sense, play the game. I don't like that terminology because I don't like games. She had to appease this quality while she was able to get her essence together, to get free of it. And it's with time as our friend and our ally, that we can maneuver these things… because they need you reactive, because that's where they're trapped. They can't get past reactivity. They have no actual mastery. But if you refuse their gain, like you did, and pull yourself back, and you let time unfold a bit, which is difficult because it's mastery… It's full-fledged mastery… psychologically, spiritually, and all its factors… You're not being lazy, you're being observant. You're letting other factors play into the situation, because they always do. When you do this, you have released narcissism's hold on you and you come back into your field of autonomy in oneness. You come back into your connection with the Creator, but as a sovereign being who says, I'm not going to destroy you, but I'm not jumping in your pit with you… like, I'm going to do the middle road thing here. And that's where things open up. Sometimes the answer will be revealed by doing nothing. It's not to say take your hands off the steering wheel. Sometimes we get caught in a “I gotta do something” voice, “You're like me” voice, or the “I don't know what to do” voice... They're all the same thing. And you need to give yourself some time. You actually have to authentically, not like, fake relax where you're thinking about it while you're watching a show… that's not relaxing… or you're feeling stressed out, you're reading a book… I should be dealing with that thing… you're trying to make yourself have a good time… Give yourself space. Go for a drive. Like, physically, get away from the location, wherever you are… Go for a walk, breathe in some air, give yourself space. Because when you create that space, solutions… What's bigger -- a problem or a solution? Problem, by its nature, is… it's a limited faculty, right. It's a limited thing. Solutions are actually infinite. There's so many ways to solve something. But if it's a complicated problem that's got you sucked in and you're looking at it like, I don't see a solution. No kidding. Because the solution is right here.
SAMIA: Yes, exactly. You just made me think about the saying… what you focus on expands. And it's so true when it comes to problems and solutions, because most of the time, what happens is we get so focused on the problem, and so then the problem keeps expanding… versus if we can pull back and focus on solution, then the solution can expand.
RYAN: Can I offer a different way of looking at that?
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: And so it's not that the problem expands, it pulls you in further. So as you're falling into a pit, it feels like you're in the problem, right. But if you take a step back, the problem is actually really tight. It's like one of these types of things. The lower the frequency, the more it feels like it's expanded. Because it's like you're... Exactly.
SAMIA: Yeah, yeah.
RYAN: …exactly.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: But boom. We, all of us have this natural buoyancy within us. It just takes just a moment to love yourself enough and be like, I don't have to deal with this bullshit.
Like, honestly, that's the big thing. But recognizing the part who wants to fight with it, the part that feels victimized by it, and the part that feels confused by it… Those are three parts you gotta love and honor, right. Because they're aspects of you… but you still can't get above it by giving yourself a break. Doing something you enjoy is the most powerful anti-venom for narcissism. Because if you've been around one of these personalities, the energy is serious around them, because they don't have access to joy. You and I, we can actually laugh. They can't laugh unless they're mocking. Don't have authentic laughter. They can't really laugh at puppy videos. They don't get it that much. But if you come back into a frequency of joy, it's like, it's an ultimate spiritual and psychological bug spray for this type of a factor.
SAMIA: Exactly, exactly. And I think for me also just, you know… like, for example, when my other tenants expressed this concern of, no, we don't want to provide the statement because we're worried about the kids and the girlfriend… for a moment, you know, I was like, whoa, wait... I mean, that's true… They would be placed in a very difficult situation if I proceed with my plan of, you know, following the path to eviction. But then I had… like, what really helps me was I was like, no, you know, I mean, I cannot take responsibility for this. And I have to trust the universe… I have to trust spirit… I have to trust source that just as I'm being taken care of, that these children and this lady will also be taken care of one way or another... And I actually, you know, have… like, you know, what I was guided to do was that the best that I can do is offer this lady the opportunity that if she wants to stay on at the apartment, but we move… the guy has to go… I would be happy to let her stay and, you know, willing to, you know, make further accommodations so that it would be possible for her to stay… but it…. She is not in a place where she's ready or able to leave him. And so I'm like, okay, so, you know, that's it. That's the answer for me in terms of… I cannot hold that responsibility or that concern for her because she's not ready to receive the help that I can give her in this situation, you know.
RYAN: That's probably the biggest lesson we, all of us are working on, is when someone we care about is caught in a timeline we don't want them to be in. And this is one of the most powerful lessons I've learned is the relationship between anger and desire. Just above that's the line of narcissism, and above that's freedom. And so when we have desire, we want something to be a certain way. If it's not that way, we feel anger, and we want to force that reality to occur. Sometimes we desire people to be healthy, and in their present state of consciousness, they are where they are, right… and that can frustrate us, and in so doing, pulls us into that level of… This is where we start judging. Like, I don't like stupid people. Like, I openly admit this. Now that said, is that super kind and gentle? It's part of my personality. I don't like stupidity. I find it useless... That said, it exists. And so I'm given an opportunity to have judgment towards these personalities when I'm around them, which, like, how are you dumb? Like, what is the purpose of this? And I can do that… but if I do, am I really at a high level of consciousness? Am I really operating as a person who's aware… and this is a person who isn’t at that state of consciousness. And the idea of consciousness is it's like a sphere. It continues to expand out. The more conscious you become, the more subconscious becomes conscious. Unconscious becomes subconscious, and so on, all the way into the infinite. And we’ll perpetually be growing… become vaster... Those who have shamanic awareness or like, legit spiritual teachers… now a lot of people aren’t. A lot of people are calling their egos, love, narcissistic spiritual teachers out there. Be careful about who you trust. Like, just be mindful and trust your intuition, not their promises and whatever the case may be. I don't do promises. I'm like truth on the table. You're doing the work. It's not effortless, but you'll make progress if you actually do it. And the reason why I see all these different things is… there are different timelines… there are different… You could… there's different dimensions in the same space. We use a mathematical equation. So you go to the grocery store, everyone's there is in the same temporal location that you are, same spatial location that you are, but dimensions are different, right. One person can be shopping for bananas and hate everything. One person could be shopping for bananas and be like, dang, bananas are amazing. I love bananas. And this is where the complexity is… By staying in your light, you're going to naturally do what you need to do to impact things in the right way. By focusing in other people's realities too much, you get sucked into it. And then it's… you’re encapsulated, you're doing a deep dive. And this is, this is why so much of our work, our mastery, around this is to accept this does exist… Call it evil, call it the devil, call it narcissist, call it Hyoka, call it Wutiko, call it the boogeyman, call it WTF, right? It's a factor.
SAMIA: Yeah.
RYAN: That said, once you… we all desire, it wasn't there… we can all be frustrated that it’s there. But if you acknowledge this is something, that it's naturally fading out, because it has no access to life force unless it gets yours… And so if we're like, okay, you want that to phase out, no longer give it your focus. You don't, you don't, you don't… There's a quote in the course of miracles…. Like… look on the crucifixion, but don't dwell on it. It's there, but you don't have to go there. This is also why in the Christian scriptures that the concept of the Moses, people were scared of the snake. So he put a snake around a staff. It became the concept of the caduceus, which is in all of our cultures. It's a healing essence, right. All of our cultures have certain higher measures of truth, right. There's a concept called theosophy. There's no better religion than truth, which I always subscribe to personally, because truth sets us free. But narcissism is the opposite then. So the idea of the serpent on the staff was, if you look at and recognize, okay, yeah, narcissism is a thing. They have these personalities, patterns, that it's no longer… like, how could they act that way? Like, my friend's girlfriend, if I accept she's where she is, there's no longer… How could she act that way and judge me and blame and put that on me?... It's just like, that's where she is. How could my friend turn on me? He didn't turn on me. He's turned into that.
SAMIA: Yes.
RYAN: If I let it play out, at some point we're gonna reconnect. And he'd be like, dude. He's like, I should have listened. Like, well, you couldn’t at the time. Here, I'll buy you a beer or some tea or whatever…
SAMIA: Yeah, yeah. Yes. You know, you made me just think about, this was, like, a few years ago when I had to deal with somebody who… I mean, for a while, you know, we had a very positive relationship, but then whatever was going on with them, they sort of turned to this, really… I mean, they became very blaming and judging and being like… Samia, you are the one causing these problems and so on, so forth. And, you know, again, like, part of my mind, like, if I had just been thinking from my mind, it would have been, no, okay, I can fight this. I can prove with facts and figures that, No, this is not my fault, etcetera, etcetera... But what I realized and when I... What I… The guidance that I received from my heart was that, you know, this person, they're not ready to face certain truths about their own self and their own life, and that's why they're doing what they're doing. And it's not your place, it's not the time… They're not ready to face those truths, and it's not my place to force them to face those truths. And so, you know, I was guided to step away and step back, and I literally cut off my relationship with that person. And, you know, if/when they're ready to reengage with me at a different level, you know, I’ll probably welcome that, but if not, it's okay. But it's, like, interesting, you know... Like, the guidance that we receive from our hearts, from spirit, can sometimes be very different from what our minds want to engage with or engage in.
RYAN: Can't think of what's better, right? We're obviously doing the best we think we can do. So the concept of a better is beyond our comfort zone. With all my clients, the biggest thing I see is we do the work through time. Even clients who work through the systems I've created. The feedback I have is always, I didn't think life could be this good. Like, what happened? Like, what did you do to me? I'm like, I didn't do anything. I gave you some tools to remember certain things, right. Because a lot of this is just remembering... I don't have to fall into that. I don't have to sit here while this person's being in this particular field. I mean, something… you know, you asked what I do in the beginning… the soul sherpa was kind of a playful way of describing it. I hang out with people when they climb their mountain. I remind them, like, you actually can do this… I don't think I can… Look at how far you've come. That's evidence enough... Oh, that's weird. How did I get here?... You've been doing the work... I don't think I can get up there… You said that ten minutes ago. You got here. You got this. You're doing it, right. Make sure you have a snack, you know? But it's staying in that awareness, right.
SAMIA: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, Ryan, I could talk to you forever and ever, and it's already been an hour, so I think for today, for right now, for the purposes of this show, we should wrap up. Yes... Do you have any last words, last thoughts you want to share?
RYAN: Just a prayer and intent that our listener will be surrounded in the strength of love, light, and the freedom of life force that the Creator offers. And whatever your relationship is with such higher forces that the relationship mend, whatever way you're willing to have it mended and improved… and that anyone in your life who is truly there for you, that they become more evident and recognize you and you recognize them. And to anyone who needs to phase out your life, that it be the gentlest way possible, with with the greatest measure of ease. May you continuously remember there's a part of you who knows… like, a part of you does know and that part you can trust and you're trusting that more and more… and the distrust is breaking down… if you’re honest with yourself, if you're listening to this, I can pretty much promise you, you're most likely doing better than you think you are. So maybe take a step back and okay, I get to enjoy myself. I get some me time... That would be my final statement.
SAMIA: Thank you for sharing that Ryan. And for my final reminder, I will just remind our listeners to please make sure you check the show notes because we will be dropping Ryan's links in there so you can get in touch with him and learn more from him, get more help and support whenever you're ready for it. So until we connect next time, I wish you lots and lots of peace and joy... :)
Samia Bano, Happiness Expert
Samia Bano is the #HappinessExpert, author, speaker, podcaster & coach for coaches and healers. Samia is most known for her book, 'Make Change Fun and Easy' and her #podcast of the same name. With the help of her signature Follow Your Heart Process™, a unique combination of #PositivePsychology and the spiritual wisdom of our most effective #ChangeMakers, Samia helps you overcome #LimitingBeliefs, your chains of fear, to develop a #PositiveMindset and create the impact and income you desire with fun and ease… Samia’s advanced signature programs include the Happiness 101 Class and the Transformative Action Training. Samia is also a Certified #ReikiHealer and Crisis Counselor working to promote #MentalHealthAwareness. Samia models #HeartCenteredLeadership and business that is both #SociallyResponsible and #EnvironmentallyFriendly. Samia is a practicing #Muslim with an inter-spiritual approach. As someone who has a love and appreciation for diversity, she is a #BridgeBuilder between people of different faiths and cultures. Although Samia currently lives in California, USA, she has lived in 3 other countries and speaks Hindi, Urdu, and English fluently.
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