Most people I meet and interact with are lovely. My clarity keeps leading me to clearer interactions. My days are full of openness and the seeing of the goodness in myself and in others.
However, I do sometimes have reminders that not everyone has the same flowing goodness from which they are operating; some have their truth buried deep within beneath layers of deception. Some people are acting out of perverse self-interest; they will lie, cheat, sugar-coat, and self-delude to meet imaginary, short-term aims. Self-preservation can be desperate preservation of the false self, the mask, at all costs.
My internal radar for these sort of pitiful, but at times dangerous, souls has gotten more and more accurate.
My responses are becoming more organically in-tune with what these interactions require from me.
I’ve been learning about narcissism and about what patterns within me made me vulnerable to this dynamic in the past, to help me gain clarity when dealing with one driven mainly by self-interest and deception. I have made growth. I now trust my ability to stay open to the inner urgings for setting clear boundaries, decisively.
I was a fly in the web of a spider, once – not able to see the well-constructed web, listening to the charming words, allowing myself to be the sacrificial meal, but I cut the threads; I got away from the web. Instead of flying away, I perched nearby – observing and learning.
Kimberly Harding has written much on the dynamics of dealing with a narcissist in one’s life. Her explorations into this topic helped me to recognize that I had been in this pattern for years, placating, catering to, blind to the motivations of my husband. He showered me with compliments constantly, but left me holding the bag most all of the time. He was good at turning the tables and I was good at taking on more than my responsibility. It took extreme circumstance for me to wake to the magic show shuffling going on, but once I woke to it – I could not be fooled so easily again.
This week, Hannah has reappeared from the Spring semester to protest her grade. Her smoke screen creations in lieu of truth failed to confuse me. My inner-guidance told me the truth of the situation and provided me with clear communication. My gut instincts were validated by my department head, who knew of her past patterns. He had my back.
She used technology as an excuse for lost emails that supposedly contained missing essays – and then tapped danced around for sympathy and time. She brought her grandmother to the department head to vouch for her last semester. Her sob story could work only once. This semester – her number was up.
Hannah has drawn to herself an enormous comeuppance. She will not graduate from high school on time. She will be forced to retake this class until she has passed in order to receive her diploma.
She gave me the gift of clarity needed for listening to my inner guidance without remorse.
She is learning, I hope, by such high stakes in her immediate life.
In the zoomed out view, no biggie. High school! What evs.
(Not much into this genre of music, but this song is a mirror today!)
Life as Improv 
Count down on to graduation! LOVE LOVE LOVING IT!!! We can’t run from our truth forever. What a gift Hannah has received. You send her on her way closer to having to take responsibility and finding/living from truth.
TEACHER PASSES WITH STRAIGHT A’s and flying colors. You power house grown up, grow’n up 🙂 golden hand space holder you.
::
Ms M, I love you. Count down to done flying insight. MORE MORE to come.
-x.M
Oh Ms. M – how the heart sings when you visit 🙂 So looking forward to the MORE MORE of the done flying insight. The way you put words together always puts me in a playful mood for creating. I enjoyed a waking today without an alarm for the first time in a long string of days – ah, the luxury of space in the morning. Heading over for lessons in laziness to your place under the shady tree. The space of summer dawning awaits you, lovely lady! xo! marga
First, I also admit that I love this song. 🙂
There is a character in Irish folklore named Finn MacCumhail, who gains all knowledge by eating a special, ancient salmon caught in a river. If life is a river, you are the wise fisherman catching all manner of little salmon, and sharing that knowledge and insight.
This story and the honest and open peaks into your past are very helpful to me, seeing the same things on my own path.
I also feel that underneath it all, you wish you could hug Hannah, and by the power of osmosis bestow upon her these truths, and save her from much pain, confusion and heartache.
I often look back on my life and see gifts when at the time, I saw nothing, or I even saw a pain in the tail.
I actually had a high school English teacher who changed my life, more than I even knew at the time. I recall one day when she interjected into a lively discussion our class was having on some book of classical literature, “what if it’s all just a dream?” Silence. Mmmmmm, that is just butter. You English teachers are powerful beings!
Andrea,
Thank you first for joining me bravely in the non-judgement zone for songs that speak 🙂 haha!
There has been a tendency in me to move on and keep on moving on, as I have been in good-spirited survival mode, but at the anniversary of 3 years of being on my own arrives, I seem to be ready for another examination of the dynamics that have led me here. I too learn from your amazing wise fish captures and shares – so fitting a metaphor you find as we close out the age of Pisces and head on to the water bearer, Aquarius.
I also love your recognition of the hug underlying the firmness. Learning to hold that tough line with love is a process, and in the learning of this dance, I think swinging too far into rigidity or swinging too far into tolerance must be a necessary part of the learning for balance.
Ok, another love moment, your share from your high school English is priceless to me, because in that moment when we drop these unplanned bombs of perspective on students and we are met with silence, we often don’t know how it can play out. In the moment, it feels like stepping off a cliff and no one reaches out to grab us. I just closed out a wonderful May semester in which the students bonded and walked off that cliff with me. I even went so far as to show the beginning part of Zeitgeist and the Debunker of Zeitgeist and we debated where truths in belief systems were to be found. Most groups are not ready to go there, but perhaps tides are slowly turning. I think it helps that I am just as clueless and searching too, instead of thinking that I am enlightening them, then we all look together.
I am wondering how you and your clan are flowing now. How N’s doing on his medicines, how N and T are expanding into summer and what spaces mamma is able to capture in midst of much activity. Much love and cool breezes sent northward to you! xo! m
Cheering for you and your journey into clarity and authenticity! I had a very (for me) difficult journey with a narcissistic individual in recent years. I think I eventually graduated, but time will tell. Being a reflective person, inclined to try and understand my own role in dust-ups first, in this case perhaps to an excess, it eventually became plain that the “problem” was probably not on my end. This really felt like a failure to me. I kept feeling like I needed to try harder or something. How can I not bridge the gap here? But the truth will out. I think it gets easier, once we reclaim this ability to stand on that truth. It was really helpful to have support around me, and it sounds like you had support from your department head, which makes all the difference. It can be so difficult to stare down manipulation, but priceless to be able to witness it as a gift… Which it was… 🙂
Michael
Michael,
Thank you so much for sharing with me here – and for recognizing the gifts given even in the unpleasantness of it!
What strikes me about your particular experience is how your strength, of being a reflective person, got turned into the opposite. It seems to me the narcissist can have a bit of a run on turning the caring, accommodating, self-reflective traits, which are beautiful in most circumstances, into a weakness they can manipulate. When the interaction did not go well, they are not wondering what part they played in this at all, but blaming or planning ahead. Since they are not remorseful, empathetic, or honest, the game board is not the same, yet they, for a time, can disguise the truth.
I had heard the word Narcissist thrown around for years, but I never stopped to read about the specifics of the personality disorder. Puzzle piece patterns suddenly clicked into place and made a picture for me. I must have order the deluxe learning pack this go around – I guess we don’t uncover information until we are ready. Now, just another little piece of information in my tool belt for navigating this human terrain.
Perhaps you and I both graduated this particular class – Yay! We got some extra cords on our caps 🙂 See you at the rocking Grad party, later!
Marga
(K-PAX is next up in my Netflix Queue- looking forward to it!)
Sometimes we’ve just been conned one too many times, clarity rushes in with a refreshing breeze…
That clarity is such a fresh breeze, Cheyenne, you are right. When I finally was ready to walk away without any conflicted feelings (from my marriage), the air was crisp and smelled like fresh vanilla – (for real)! Hope the flow is smooth off the end of the bristles for you!
Hmmm, how lovely that blessings and grace smell like fresh vanilla… Sometimes you can’t leave if still in conflict, and sometimes you just have to let the dust settle as you walk out the door! Thanks for stopping by my site and checking out the flow. A bit fumed out these days trying different paint brands.