Narcissism Daily Mirror

Why Narcissists Don't Care ...

2012-01-25T16:23:00.000-08:00

- The Love Safety Net -
Is it True that Narcissists Don't Care?

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Full Transcript of Show

The Love Safety Net

January 24, 2012

STEVE: Hi everyone. Welcome to The Love Safety Net.

KIM: I'm Kim.

STEVE: And I'm Steve. In today's show, Kim says she is going to pry into my emotional world a little, so I can tell everybody a bit about the emotional stuff that was going on for me back in the days when Kim and I were having some really big problems in our relationship.

KIM: Well, we get questions nearly every day, Steve, of people wanting you to share more about that, and you have managed to dodge them pretty well so far, but I think it's time you open up a little, eh?

STEVE: I am extremely reluctant; I appear here reluctantly, but we will do it because it is important stuff and we do need to share it, Kim.

KIM: You’ll be okay!

STEVE: Thank you.

KIM: But first off, we have a sale I would like to share with you. Here is our book that is in now print that we have been letting you know about in the last few shows. We have had some feedback and some really good input from professional people and from our audience and because of that, our cover has now changed, and here is what Back From the Looking Glass looks like now. Can you help me with that and see if we can position it so everyone can see it Steve?

STEVE: Okay. Yes it's a little bit glare-y.

KIM: Okay, so I think the new cover is a really good move and it was a good suggestion, because instead of having us on the cover (small laugh) it actually has information ... it says 13 Steps Toward a Peaceful Home, which is exactly what we are offering. I think it gives a good idea of what you are getting inside this book.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: That has left us in a little bit of a situation though, where we have about 100 copies of this one with the old cover. They are brand new, but since the cover has changed we are offering them for only $14.99 delivered - to our Australian customers only…sorry everyone else. But if you live in Australia, this is a great chance for you to pick up a copy and particularly if you want more than one copy -- say maybe for family or friends -- they are only $14.99 delivered to anywhere in Australia. And so everybody else doesn't miss out, we are also running a sale on this—the same book but with the new cover—which is still Back From the Looking Glass. Both versions have been newly updated, new information, organized a little bit better. I have had a lot of help and we are really proud of what we have come up with. It is now our 9^th edition, but the first edition in print and not an e-book. If you want one with a new cover, we have a special and that is 20% off. But that is only for the next few days, so you really need to get in and order them today. You can purchase this version too if you live in Australia but this special is also good anywhere in the world. The total will be include shipping, but you will get 20% off our usual retail price.

STEVE: So have a look at the buttons below, and press the right button.

KIM: (laughing) I will mark it really clearly for them, I promise, Steve.

STEVE: Thank you. So back to our show, Kim. I was saying before that I am reluctantly here to talk about a whole bunch of the emotional stuff that was going on for me as a man or as the guy who was the narcissist in the relationship, and you being the codependent. It isn't something I enjoy talking about. It is a long time ago for us, Kim.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: I mean, I suppose we should start by just saying that. It feels like an eternity ago in many ways that we were having so much trouble with our relationship, because now we are a team. We are a really good team. We work together. We are really good friends. We rely on each other. Things have come a really long way. This is no B.S., we are really good friends. But let me get back to what is a good starting point. Maybe when you first started looking for help when you could see things weren't going really good for us and maybe there were some cracks appearing around the edges in our relationship.

KIM: (laughing) "Cracks appearing around the edges"? It had been 10 years of sheer hell, come on!

KIM: Well, I talked to people for many years, but I think the beginning was when I discovered that how you were behaving was symptoms of a disorder, when I first started learning about Narcissistic Personality Disorder and that this was really the problem. I guess coming from a medical family growing up, I had always heard that an accurate diagnosis is 90% of the cure. So I had a lot of hope at that point. I thought, good, I am going to have a bit more understanding of this now. But I was really quite wrong. When I started talking to people and getting advice and going and seeing support agencies and whatnot and counselors and doctors, everything they said to me was really very negative—extremely negative—and I think to make it simple in my mind back then, I think the biggest question I first wanted to know is just how and why you could be doing the things that you were doing. I mean, I knew it had been bad, but I didn't even really know how bad it had been until I discovered more about what was going on. You read about that in Back From the Looking Glass how -- like I discovered this and what happened. I knew that you were putting me down and putting the kids down and you were extremely critical of us, and fairly aggressive at home, but I hadn't really realized that you were also doing that to other people. You were putting me down behind my back, and you were blaming me for a lot of stuff. And you had even made moves to find another place to live without telling me—sort of a spare time place to live—without telling me, so you could just kind of come and go whenever you wanted. And there was a lot of stuff that I discovered that was very upsetting, so I guess the question in my head was just how and why. And I think that's fairly normal, I have learned now. When people first discover their partner may has symptoms of narcissism or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, they really are wondering that. You know, how can they be doing this, and why are they doing this? And I think the answer that you are given, or that I was given most of the time by the professionals that I spoke to, was very unsatisfactory. They were just saying that you didn't care.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: And that really didn’t help.

STEVE: So just let me jump in there. So when you are saying the people you were asking were very negative, were they negative about me, or were they negative about our relationship, or were they negative about you?

KIM: Well, they were negative about you They were saying I should just completely write you off. But they were also very negative toward me, particularly for me just having an interest in why you might be doing what you were or for thinking maybe I could help, or that maybe I could change things, or maybe by understanding I could fix things. People were very critical of that and—I found—bitter. They were very bitter and nasty, and talked very much like I was just kidding myself.

STEVE: So there was sort of an idea you were kidding yourself believing you could find some answers, right? Is that fair to say?

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: Right. So that would have made you feel—well I know what you are like, Kim, because you don't like letting a mystery go unsolved. You like to try and find answers to things. (laughing).

KIM: (laughing) Yeah.

STEVE: But that must have been really disheartening and deflating.

KIM: Well, it was shocking. As I say, it was a really most unsatisfactory response I found, that everybody just kept saying you didn't care and that people with this disorder just didn't care, and it was some kind of complete major fault or flaw in you, and that I really just had to accept that. Really, that didn't help me at all.

So you're right. I am the detective and I don't like leaving stones unturned. So I journeyed into that, and I don't think I really realized what a dark place it was going to take me to, putting myself in your shoes back then. Because when I saw the things you were doing, and how long they had gone on, I was really shocked at how quickly and easily you had just kind of discarded all the trust and all the love between us. And how little our love seemed to mean to you when I knew that you did care. I knew you did care about the kids and I knew you did care about me. So as I kind of searched in my heart and in my mind, the only thinking I could really come up with is that a really long time ago you just completely had given up on love. And the hope of ever being able to trust somebody, or to have a fair and good, loving relationship. That was a really dark place to be. I couldn’t even really put myself there for very long.

STEVE: Yeah, yeah.

KIM: It was just in a recent interview I did with Margie Casados on Women of g+, that she was asking these questions. After answering them I thought it would be really good if maybe we could get you to talk a little bit more about those times as well.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: Because that was how I saw it.

STEVE: Yeah. Well that dark time that you pointed out, it was interesting because, Kim, I hope I am not telling this story backward here, but you really did put yourself in my shoes and realized I was in a dark place but I think to be completely honest I didn't think I was in a dark place. I would just pretend that I wasn't in a dark place, where really I was. And I think the more we have learned about this and the more I have thought about my particular situation and the more I have heard from people writing to us on our site and in our blogs, etc, the more I know that how much darkness we carry with us for so long without realizing it.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: And that does come from somewhere else and it does get transferred later. And I think I look back for me in many ways to the times when I was growing up. I grew up in a time when my parents had a lot of infidelity going on, to be direct. Both my mother and father had their stories and there was firsthand experiences I had and I could see that there was no trust in my family whatsoever, and it's good you hit on that word, trust there, Kim. I grew up in a family where there was no trust whatsoever. A lot of the infidelity, which caused intrigue and caused distrust and hate. And my parents brought me up in that world. It was very painful and there were stepparents and the whole, complicated situation with that. Now I don't want to particularly single my parents out because we are talking about the 60s to 70s and early 80s and I think that was a very immoral time—an extremely immoral time—where a lot of things were being experimented with. You have talked about it before, Kim, with you being from California. You talk about the "hot tub" culture and the "swinging" culture and porn became such a massive thing in the 1970s. It sort of branched out into film and it became more popular. It became prestigious with the Playboy and Penthouse magazines. It became sort of like a high price consumer item. In terms of an immoral culture, it translated through into how people were behaving and we try not to be preachy….right? We do our best not to preach here, but that culture—the moral culture that western society is based on—is about nurturing children in a loving environment. For centuries we have known that is what kids need. For me, I didn't really get that. I didn't get that level of trust between my parents and even my siblings and my wider family. So that translates into all sorts of pain I carried through. You know, this all happened well before I met you.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: You know, a decade or more before I met you. So that is where we have identified that pain. For me, the guilt of what I did to you Kim is really the hardest bit to talk about.

KIM: Mmm. But I think you felt guilty even before that. And you were carrying a lot of emotional hurt. It's like you had sort of given up on the idea that you could ever have a happy ending, or that happily ever after wasn't going to be real or wasn't going to be possible for you, really before you had even started.

STEVE: Absolutely, Kim. No happily ever after. That was B.S. It was a fairly tale.

KIM: Yeah. And I worry now because I see children now becoming cynical, even younger and younger. And that really concerns me. I think it was really important where you said it was the style or it became prestigious—pornography and swinging and all those things in the 70s became prestigious.

STEVE: And popular.

KIM: And popular. And I don't know if those times were any more immoral than our times now. I think we still have those problems. And of course they were around before the 70s, but I think for me that really defined it. It was in the 70s where they made like it was fashionable and it was prestigious and it was actually something that rich, well-to-do, cool people did, when really it was just pretty grubby and really hurt a lot of people, and really hurt a lot of relationships, hurt a lot of kids and hurt a lot of families. People did come to recognize that. So that it all then sank into the background. It wasn't sort of promoted overtly as being really fashionable or stylish anymore, but the cat was out of the bag.

STEVE: Yeah, for sure.

KIM: It had been initiated. We had the swingers clubs and we had Playboy and Hustler magazine and it was not going to go away. It had been introduced and of course it only has gotten worse with people's ability to access that stuff privately online.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: And I remember growing up in my family there wasn't the infidelities and stuff. My father was quite religious, but he even had like a Playboy calendar on the wall of his den, when he had two daughters and a wife. And I really found that extremely disturbing and it took me years to come to terms with that on an emotional level, because to me that just seemed such a incredible betrayal of my mother.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: A disrespect toward my mother.

STEVE: Well, you as a child wouldn’t have been able to figure that out in your own head.

KIM: No.

STEVE: That kind of concept of why he would have a picture of another woman naked on his wall.

KIM: Yeah, well , an image of a naked woman is so powerful. You know, it had something like a goddess about it. Normally we don't walk around without clothes on, so who is this person that is just so amazing and powerful and important she can stand there on my father's wall without her clothes on? You know? We went to church and he taught us about God, but it was like she was his God.

STEVE: Yeah, wow.

KIM: That's what it looked like. And it took me many years for me to realize how deeply disturbing that really was to me. But even 10 years later there is no way he would have done that, and I even think he probably would have even been ashamed that he had, but back then he had been carried away with the fashion.

STEVE: That's a good point. It had become so established in our western culture.

KIM: Yeah. Playboy was so mainstream in the 70s; it was so just what everybody was doing. I think a lot of people just really lost their way and lost their head about it.

STEVE: Sure. Sowed a lot of bad oats, I think. And let's not be too judgmental because I want to keep it on where it's going with this radio show, but we do have to be a little bit judgmental because as the children who grow up in that particular immoral phase of our western society, we are still carrying a lot of hurt from that. And I think we can't figure that out, you know? It's not something we had the emotional maturity, as you as a young girl in your dad's den, or me watching my parents play the field while they were supposed to be taking care of my sister and I, that whole world just cannot be understood by children.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: And we are still carrying it now. I should just jump in here, Kim, and explain to the audience if you are new to our work, that one of the concepts we have and we talk about regularly in our shows and in our books is the concept of a reparative relationship or in old-fashioned terms "a good example". So a reparative relationship is if you had a grandmother and grandfather who were respectful of each other and you grew up close to them and they loved you and there was reciprocal love and respect between you and other people in the family, and there wasn't a whole bunch of abuse going on, you are more than likely to fall into or to seek out a relationship that is based on the similar values of respect with one another. And the same is true if you have also grown up in an abusive home. If you have an example of parents who are abusive toward each other, it is more than likely you are going to learn that. That is all pretty basic research that is going on now. But Kim and I have taken it to a new level with our work where we are trying to be a good example—not just for our kids—I mean, we are absolutely doing it for our kids but we have taken it to the point where we have e-books and print books where people can learn from some of the mistakes we made as well.

KIM: Because if you didn't grow up with those role models—with your grandparents or your parents—where are you going to learn it from, where are you going to put it back together? You know just getting back to that emotional stability, and that lack of emotional security. That confusion, if you are seeing the sexual relationships between the people in your life that are older than you --when you are young-- being filled with betrayal, being filled with hurt, being filled with insecurity and a lack of security—where are you going to find that security from?

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: And I think that was sort of the situation I realized we had found ourselves in. We didn't have those role models. And the chances and odds for us having a successful relationship or marriage were very slim. And the only option being offered to us was that I was to completely write you off and say, "Oh, he just doesn't care and I should just chuck him on the scrap heap”, because that is what everybody was telling me I had to do. And I was very upset and very hurt and angry at a lot of the stuff you were doing then. But I just wasn't ready to ‘chuck you on the scrap heap’, because I really knew you were damaged. And I knew I wasn't perfect. I knew I was damaged too. I didn't even know back then how. So that was when I just started on the research and said, okay well let's find good role models then. Let's look for good role models. Let's piece it all together. What does a healthy relationship look like?

STEVE: And a healthy relationship is based on trust. And that is where we left off our story. I had no trust of women in particular, of you, or of any woman being somebody I could trust for the future—for the happily ever after which I didn't believe in anyway. So that issue of trust is the huge thing. I wasn't really aware of it. It really took your work and your research, Kim, and your decision to decide that I was worth it, which I thank you for every day.

But Kim, if you had decided to chuck me on the scrap heap, it would have been a self-fulfilling prophesy, because I would have hated you, I would have been bitter, I would have done anything to ruin your life. So fortunately, you chose the other choice, and that was to try and understand it. Understanding is one of the great virtues we have as human beings. Understanding is a really, really powerful tool if you can grasp it. And I think, Kim, your level of understanding, or at least your inquisitiveness and your curiosity to know why I was so damaged really helped uncover that I really had no trust of anybody. I didn't trust women. And I think that was one of the keys you really found in the end was I didn't trust women full stop. And that wasn't personal against you necessarily, but it had to do with issues that I had growing up and other family members in particular. Or it was at least based from there.

KIM: And as I mentioned in the interview with Margie, that was a really dark place when I took those steps in your shoes. I don't think I realized how dark a place it was going to take me to. I couldn't actually stay there for very long. I went oh-oh, okay, I am really going to need some help here. I guess that is why the first chapter of Back From the Looking Glass is called "Going Where His Angels Fear to Tread", because I really did embark on something I knew wasn't going to be easy and I knew it wasn't going to be solved from me just telling you you could trust me.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: When I wasn't behaving in a way that was trustworthy. I might have not have been lying to you and I might have been faithful to you and all of that, but there were other ways I was letting myself down, there were other ways I wasn't being responsible to myself, and so why should you trust me?

STEVE: Yeah, that's right. We will let you buy the book to hear more of the details about that, but that was really, really a big question, Kim. Because there had to be that point where the trust had to get built again from scratch.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: And even though Kim and I had had about 10 years of history—10 years of unhappy memories mostly.

KIM: Fighting, and fighting, and fighting.

STEVE: Fighting and arguing and being completely at loggerheads. But we still took that baggage of all those unhappy memories of 10 years into a place where we could start building some trust. I mean, you were really the instigator of it. I was extremely reluctant to want to trust you. I just wanted to sit in that comfortable seat of hate and obstinate.

KIM: Yeah, so tell us a little about the anger. Because I know there was a lot of anger in that space, that you were feeling back then. Because to feel that the world is unfair and you have given up on love before you have even really started, to me I guess that's why it was uncomfortable for me to stay in that place. I realized to me it just felt like you must be so angry, even angry at God.

STEVE: Certainly angry at women. Angry at the whole world. Angry at God. Angry at anything. I was angry at everything. And not to deviate too much from this conversation, but I think a lot of addictions are formed from that place of hating. And I was a tobacco junkie, porn junkie, marijuana junkie, alcohol junkie, sugar junkie—you know anything. I would just become a junkie. I didn't put a needle in my arm because I'm smart, but that seed of hate really leads you down a destructive path in so many ways. I really did hate the world. You are right. Thinking back to where I was at, I was really hating the kids as well. I really resented the kids and it was really just the fact that I had put myself there in many ways. Based from the difficult childhood, the difficult emotional turmoil of what I just explained previously. But I was just making the decision to hate. And it meant that you suffered.

KIM: And it was self-perpetuating, really, because that hatred then got justified. I mean, if you felt life had been so unfair to you, it justified you being unfair to other people. And then when you are unfair to other people, of course they are not trustworthy and they will let you down.

STEVE: And it keeps going.

KIM: So it goes into a downward spiral, doesn't it.

STEVE: Right. Absolutely. That's how it was for me. And I have to say sorry.

KIM: (laughing) Hey, it's okay. I wasn't behaving at my best then either. But that brings something up for me, I just remembered before how at that time I was really looking for you to save me. I wanted you to make me feel emotionally secure. And I was really disappointed and I felt betrayed and so angry at you that you wouldn't just be my Prince Charming and come and make me feel emotionally secure and make our happily ever after happen. And I think that was a big shift when I realized how emotionally insecure you were—not only insecure but just completely desolate. That you had actually given up completely on the hope of ever having the happily ever after, or of ever being able to trust anyone you were in a love relationship with. That was really the point where I went, "hang on, I am going to have to be the hero here".

STEVE: Sure. And I'm sure you weren't really happy about that

KIM: (laughing) Oh, not at all. It wasn't like oh wow, I want to be the hero. That was really, really disappointing for me, because I had really wanted you to be the hero, or some other hero to come galloping into my life. And it was a really big wake up call when suddenly I realized hang on, no, he is in such a dark place that I am really going to have to get my act together 100% completely and I am going to need to pull in as much support as I can possibly get, and I can't be making any more excuses for anything anymore.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: Because this is really serious. This is as serious as someone drowning at the beach. But it wasn't just you out there drowning, it was you and you were taking all of us with you.

STEVE: Yeah, absolutely. And you know the whole emotional turmoil goes to what you were just saying about confidence. I didn't see at the time and I'm sure you didn't see both of our confidence had been terribly shattered by the fact we weren't connecting on an emotional level.

KIM: Yep.

STEVE: When you even decided it was time to take the lead, like you were just explaining, you didn't really have the confidence but you felt like you had no other option.

KIM: No, none. None.

STEVE: But I think for me and a lot of other guys out there, Kim. I hope you guys will connect with this in some way: Finding that confidence is really not easy. If you don't work on your emotional intelligence or you haven't got somebody around you working on their emotional intelligence with you, you will find that finding that confidence is something that will always allude you. And Kim, just the confidence to say I was wrong, I feel guilty, I feel ashamed. I feel like maybe I'm making some wrong decisions. Just the confidence to be humble wasn't even there for me. And I think getting back to the topic we usually talk about—narcissism—you have to be confident in yourself and you have to know yourself to be humble. The whole problem going on with me is I didn't trust anyone, hated everybody, I was fearful of women, I didn't trust women. That whole problem meant I didn't have the confidence to build anything different than that. And I know for a fact a lot of guys are in that particular same situation and probably a lot of girls are too. And if you are still watching this show guys, and you are still listening to what I've got to say, really trust me to find that confidence isn't easy, but it's what you have to do. And the whole looking at the issue of trust, what we were talking about before, is really one of the first important steps

KIM: Well, I don't think you had any expectation, or any reason to have any expectation, that anybody was going to play fair with you if you did come out and do the right thing. And that was really the heart of the problem. Even if you came out and admitted to me that you were scared, admitted to me you didn't know how to rescue me, admitted to me that you didn't know how to make me feel secure because you didn't feel secure yourself. If you had come out and admitted you were embarrassed and ashamed of stuff you had done and there was stuff I didn't know about. Nothing that had happened previously in your life could have led you to have any idea that that could go okay or that could be all right. I mean, maybe that's a subject for another show we will do soon.

Because I know we had someone write in and want us to answer some questions about dealing with their teenage son and being able to tell the difference between what is normal, healthy, teenage narcissism and what stuff you need to look out for. And maybe that's something we could get into a little bit more in that show. But it's about modeling how to deal with shame and how to admit that you feel embarrassed or ashamed. In reality, when you actually come out and do that, if you have genuine contrition—if you genuinely feel bad about what you have done and you genuinely want to make amends—most people will try and be understanding and try and forgive you. But if a child has never been modeled that—if they have never been helped with that, if they have never had any experience of that. If they have never had a parent to help them through that process, it's an incredibly difficult thing to do all on your own.

STEVE: Yeah, absolutely.

KIM: And I agree with you. It's something that takes an enormous amount of confidence and courage that a lot of people just don't have. And to demand your partner do that, particularly if you are angry with them and you are saying “You should admit you are wrong, and you should admit all the bad things you have done”, it's never going to happen. They already don't know how to do that.

STEVE: Absolutely.

KIM: Let alone when somebody is mad at them!

STEVE: And we would love to give you some suggestions about people who are able to model the ability to deal with shame and guilt. Unfortunately, it's not just parents who sometimes don’t give a good example, but our whole system particularly with schooling, where the teachers are in a class of their own, in terms of the fact that they are staff, they are faculty and they are in charge. And in that power hierarchy, very rarely do you get a teacher who offers themselves as a role model to a child growing up, saying, "Hey, I was wrong". I mean, the whole role of a teacher is to say I am teaching you the right thing.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: I am not singling out teachers, because I think teachers do a wonderful job and they really do have a tough job. But just the system that they are set up in makes it very difficult for things to move forward and for children to learn that.

KIM: And if they can't admit they are wrong, how much harder is it to admit they are embarrassed or admit they are scared, or admit they are feeling ashamed. As you say, not just teachers—our politicians and our leaders—how hopeless are they at this?

STEVE: How often do you see a politician be contrite?

KIM: Or say this is a situation where we need to use caution, because this is scary what's going on here. Which is often the reality of the case.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: And we are led to believe this is bad leadership and people won't trust in us, or they won't believe us if we are honest about our fear and our embarrassment or any of our more negative emotions, but really this isn't the case. If somebody does know how to express those things—and when it is the appropriate time -- I mean it is not everybody that you want to be admitting these things to and of course and there is the appropriate time and place for it. But knowing how to do that really is a vital leadership skill and is actually going to make people respect you better and trust you better and feel more secure with you around. They are going to feel more secure with you as the leader. And being a parent or being in a relationship, we need to be leaders. We can't always be dependent on our spouse to take the lead.

STEVE: Yeah, that's right.

KIM: Particularly if they are behaving badly. If they are in a bad way and the things they are doing are going to take your life to a bad place, maybe it's time you are the one that takes charge.

STEVE: Sure. And you know taking the lead is often not as difficult as you think, Kim, you just have to give it a try. I know when I was giving up alcohol for the first time --I am an amateur footballer still as some of you know-- I thought my peers from the football club would instantly start needling me and giving me a hard time about not drinking, but you know what, Kim? None of them said a word for an entire season. Not one of them said a single word that I wasn't drinking after the game. It just never came up. It was just one of those things where I was really surprised. I thought someone would say, "Hey, how come you're not having a beer?" but it just didn't happen. In many ways, me doing that led to a whole bunch of other guys saying, "Oh, I might try giving up the alcohol for a few months too, Steve." And actually by not worrying about it (even though I was worrying about it) but by not trying to be a leader I ended up being a leader anyway. But I had to find the confidence to be a nondrinker and be a football guy. And that's a bit hard here in Australia, where we are from, and a lot of you know all about that. And it was actually my parents who gave me a hard time for not drinking. My parents said, "What's wrong with you, why are you not drinking? Please have a glass of wine with me." (laughing)

KIM: (laughing)

STEVE: And you know these leadership roles get thrust upon you and confidence is so much a part of it.

KIM: Well, thank you for being so honest with us, Steve, and opening up. I hope we can do more of it.

STEVE: Yeah, well, it wasn't really that comfortable.

KIM: It's not always so easy for me drawing you out, but I hope I have help bring a little bit of information out that is of interest and of use to people. Because I know for me it really is good hearing you talk about it.

STEVE: Thanks. And thanks for being so kind about it.

KIM: Thank you. Okay. So you wrap up the show, not me ...

STEVE: Thanks everyone for tuning in. Thanks for all the great questions you have been sending in. Keep them coming. We really appreciate it. Don’t forget the book sale. There is a really good bargain on both of these. Click the buttons below. All the info will pop up on screen. Have a great day.

KIM: And for how inexpensive we really work at keeping these books, there is so much information in here that if you are struggling in a difficult relationship or if you are having problems or you are fighting, for goodness sake! Just do it. It's not like a lot of money and it really is going to help you.

STEVE: It really will. And there are lots of testimonials to back that up. Grab yourself a copy. Do yourself a favor. Thanks everyone!

KIM: Bye!

Our New Social Media Hangout ...

2012-01-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

Please read part one of a 'Women of g+' interview with me here ...

Looking into the Eyes of Narcissism

http://www.womenofgplus.com/2012/looking-into-narcissism

In this interview Margie D Casados asks me some very personal questions about Steve and my marriage and the thinking that got me started on the path that has transformed our marriage.

'Women of g+' refers to Google's new social media platform which I just love.

Since people's in boxes have been more and more cluttered with junk mail - I have been looking for a new platform a little more private and exclusive than Facebook) to get together with you on -- and it looks like g+ is just what I have been after.

If you haven't tried g+ yet please get started here;

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/better/

My social media tech advisor (Chris Lang) tells me that it is important that I tell you to please use you real name when you sign up if you want searches for your name ranking well in Google.

I use gmail too and that makes g+ really easy as I get notifications of new posts right in the tool bar in my inbox.

Very soon Steve and I will be setting up a 'hangout' on g+ where we can even host live interactive group get togethers you can join in on.

I will write a new post here about that soon but for now, please check out Margie D Casados's interview;

Looking into the Eyes of Narcissism

http://www.womenofgplus.com/2012/looking-into-narcissism

I look forward to your comments!

Kim Cooper
PS. If you decide to follow me on g+ you should know that if someone really wants to look through my list of followers they will be able to see that you follow me!

However a great feature of g+ is that when you make new friends in our discussions you can add them to a new circle and then your posts about narcissism or relationship matters will only be visible to that circle. If you want to see a short demonstration of circles (not by me!) you can check out a short YouTube movie about it here;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zXjvQSuZYA

Narcissism And Social Media

2011-12-27T02:50:00.000-08:00

- The Love Safety Net -

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Full Transcript of Show

"Narcissism and Social Media"

The Love Safety Net

December, 2011

STEVE: Hi everyone. Welcome to The Love Safety Net.

KIM: I'm Kim.

STEVE: And I'm Steve. In today's show, we are talking about narcissism and social media.

KIM: Is there a link between the two? Does one cause the other?

STEVE: You know, a lot of people say that it does. A lot of people say social media is getting so out of hand that it's breeding a new wave of narcissists, Kim. What do you think?

KIM: Yeah…well…we have actually stalled for a long time doing a show on this, but I have really looked forward to it. I must admit that when I hear those claims I do get a bit annoyed. And I get annoyed on a couple of levels. I think the first is that the people talking about this don't really seem to understand how serious a problem narcissism really is. Sometimes I don't even think they know what they are talking about.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: That may not be their fault really, because the word narcissism has changed a little in history. You know, it used to mean that you were just showman-like or a good performer, where now it has come to define a personality disorder, which is a really serious problem.

STEVE: Let's just talk about that for a minute, Kim. Let's talk about what the false concepts of narcissism have become first. Just quickly, what has narcissism become that the media is calling it now?

KIM: I think when they talk about narcissism, and particularly narcissism and social media together, they are talking about self-centeredness. They are talking about kids just becoming obsessed with their Facebook profile and not really caring about their life or their responsibilities of their life and maybe not being as interested in other people as they should. where really, I think that is just part of being a teenager.

STEVE: Yeah, for sure. Definitely.

KIM: And I think it's kind of humorous that we often see Baby Boomer accusing Gen Y, or they call them millennialists now, I think, of being narcissistic and self-centered. And I just have to smile and laugh at that. Maybe that's because I am Gen X, but really has there been a generation more self-centered than the Baby Boomers?

STEVE: Well, maybe we are getting onto difficult ground there, Kim, because I don't know if we can really support that with much evidence. So let's just keep going forward on that one. (laughing)

KIM: Yes (laughing)

STEVE: Okay, so if you have never seen us before, Kim has written a lot of books on narcissism. She has written books and we coauthored a book as well, about how narcissism presents itself within relationships. So, Kim, just quickly tell the audience a clearer picture on narcissism.

KIM: I think relationships are the key. When you are talking about narcissistic behavior in terms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is usually what people are talking about now when they talk about narcissism, you are talking about a disorder with extremely serious consequences. It is not just the arrogant bore at the party that everybody can spot that is really only a nuisance to himself, and becomes ostracized and lonely. Narcissism is actually the person who is convincing, but is at the same time deceptive. And that can be right through to ministers who are preaching high ground morality while at the same time they are trolling the streets looking for young boys as prostitutes. It can be the parents who are spending too much time on dating sites online, pretending they are single when actually they are not and they are neglecting their family in the process. With narcissism, you really have this level of deception going on and usually the person with the narcissistic behavior is really quite successful at deceiving people and with covering the double life they may be leading.

This really has catastrophic consequences on society. It causes a lot of the chaos we see around us now with broken marriages, multiple relationships, with the problems that we have in not being able to trust our government and politicians, the trouble we see with corrupt banks and corrupt corporations. Within all of this is really a very strong portrayal of narcissistic tendencies.

So really to turn around and talk about social media causing this I think is really trivializing the problem.

STEVE: Sure. It was interesting, Kim, that you talk about the deception. When someone is acting narcissistically, they are acting in a deceptive way. How that relates to social media, let's just talk about that a little bit and break that down a little bit.

If someone is really obsessed with social media, and they are being deceptive, what kind of dangers are we going to see with that kind of behavior coming on? I know there are some examples like you have mentioned before, Kim, like particularly World of Warcraft and games like that where people can go into a false reality.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: So let's just talk about that link between narcissistic deception and social media and false reality.

KIM: Okay. Well, I think you brought up a good point there. Before we talk about social media, I think there is really much more dangerous online pastimes people are involving themselves in that do feed narcissism and narcissistic behavior—as you mentioned things like World of Warcraft, things like chat room sex and pornography sites, that really do encourage people to disengage from their normal moral code of behavior, or the moral code of behavior they would portray to their family or to the public. And these games and pastimes are really quite consuming and encourage the person to invest a lot into that fantasy image or portrayal of themselves. Compared to this, I think social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus are really innocent in comparison. There are obviously still dangers there, and we will get to some advice in a moment of how to manage that a little bit better. But in terms of them leading to narcissist behavior, I think that is kind of like trying to say that eating makes you fat. It's like, okay, well eating CAN make you fat but it doesn't mean you shouldn't eat.

STEVE: Yeah.

KIM: Of course people can behave narcissistically on social media sites. They can put forward a false pretense of who they are in a way that is corrupt and maybe deceptive and maybe is damaging to their own relationships with other people and with themselves. But I think that danger has really been overemphasized.

STEVE: Mmm. So Kim, the other one that comes up a lot is celebrity narcissism. We have heard that recently. There has been a book that was released a few years ago now about the narcissism epidemic and how it relates to celebrity narcissism going wrong. There are some suggestions in that book that the culture of celebrity narcissism means that people want to put forward a false profile of themselves such as celebrities do and this is causing some kind of split in the population's thinking, and somehow social media and that portrayal of what we know as a profile on social media when you are talking about Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus or whatever it is, is that that is something that is false. So just having you say that, you are saying that perhaps social media is useful if you can just be mindful that it's not something that should be false. It should be real, it should be yourself. So what are some of the dangers there with people putting across a false profile on social media.

KIM: Well, whenever you are putting across a false profile of yourself, it means that person can't develop and that person can't grow. It becomes very limiting. Sometimes people invest so much into a false idea of themselves which is only aimed at appearances and is quite shallow and is built on false pride. And sometimes they do this very well, so until the years go on people don't actually notice until that personality starts becoming more obviously shallow or faulty or --

STEVE: Incongruent maybe.

KIM: Yes, Incongruent with how old they are. And I think that's what we are starting to see now with people like Hugh Hefner, for instance, who is still behaving as if he was 20 when you know—how old is he?

STEVE: Old.

KIM: Yes and it becomes very sad and the reality of the narcissistic conundrum comes out when we see these celebrities who are still trying to look 20 when they are 60 or even 70 and how much of their life they are missing in that process. The grace and dynamics in growing older and being allowed to grow old and move through different stages of your life, and have a rich life and rich relationships that develop because of that.

STEVE: So Kim, just dragging you back a little bit on the celebrity narcissism, you touched on where celebrities don't grow and they sort of get stuck trying to be somebody they are not, trying to recapture their youth. But what of celebrities whose entire life, almost, is a false profile? How does that relate to people like us or anybody watching who don't have a public profile, but all of the sudden have discovered they have a public profile in social media and they are feeling like maybe, "I don't know, this is not comfortable for me."

KIM: Well, I think to a certain degree, this happens with everyone, Steve, whether we realize it or not. I think we all have a public persona and a private persona. Even from the most quiet, reclusive person that maybe only goes to church on the weekend, they will still have a slightly different persona they put forward at church than they do to their family. That in itself is not necessarily unhealthy—as long as the values between those two different personas are congruent. The problem happens when the values are incongruent and they don't match.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: I think it's extremely important that we do acknowledge that there is a difference between our public profile and our private profile. I think men often understand that intrinsically better than women do.

STEVE: Okay.

KIM: Men know they can't show their feelings in public. They know it is not going to be acceptable for them to cry at a board room meeting or in the locker room after playing a sport, no matter how upset they may be. And I am not saying that's wrong. That's just how it is. And I think women might actually learn from that. We do have to be aware of managing that private and public profile. So, you know, in managing your public profile, we see our kids going through that now. We try and give them space at home to try out new ideas, or try out new fashions, or new looks, or new ways they might want to put themselves across.

STEVE: Reinventing themselves a little bit—giving them space to do that.

KIM: Yeah, and making sure that they have space in kind of a secure group of people to try those ideas out before they actually take them out and run with them in public.

STEVE: Give them a test run, sure.

KIM: And I think it's extremely important that everybody has that. If you didn't have that with your family—for instance, if you come from a quite abusive family that would only ridicule you or laugh at you for trying out new ideas of how you want to present yourself in public, I think then it's very important that you create that safe space or that group for yourself. And I think social media has an enormous amount to offer in the possibilities of choosing your own mentors, of choosing your own group of people—maybe an inner circle of people—that can help you. Because even celebrities update their image from time to time or reinvent themselves.

STEVE: Sure. They do. While you are touching on that, Kim, let's talk about some strategies in terms of what social media can offer you in terms of building a safe environment for you in your social media world. Because it is expected of us now, I guess, isn't it? In many ways, people do expect that you have some kind of social media profile.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: So let's talk about some strategies about how to avoid some of the pitfalls we brought up earlier in the show, Kim.

KIM: I think that's really important but really we are not social media experts. What we are experts at is the kind of relationship skills that have been forgotten and have been lost as we have seen this kind of epidemic of narcissism taking over the world, and I don't argue with that—it really has. And it's creating a lot of chaos and creating a lot of despair as people are lamenting the loss of close relationships with family and with friends. And I think what we have traded it for is peer attachment, so that rather than having healthy relationships—and I hope this is leading to answering your question—having healthy relationships in the community is about having attachment with all sorts of different people, not just people in the same peer group as ourselves. If we are only networking with people online who are the same age as us, who have the same political beliefs as us, who maybe went to the same school and who maybe even played the same sport. The more and more narrow this becomes in the people we associate with, the more we are likely to be deceived about how well we are really coming across or how open-minded or mature we actually are.

STEVE: Sure and I think it's important to say within our peer groups we tolerate more sarcasm and we tolerate more immature humor with people our own age. We tend to run that kind of sarcasm past each other more within our own peer group, we feel safe to do that. I think in social media it doesn't always come across that well with the written language in particular.

KIM: No.

STEVE: You can get in trouble by trying to be funny with sarcasm or something a little bit negative and it can come across so badly. I think that relates to what you were saying, Kim. When you have a lot of people in your own peer group close to you, it's very easy to get into that—like you were saying before—that locker room kind of humor that doesn't always translate well to people who are older than you who are perhaps employing you or are other people in the community that you need to be forming a bond with.

KIM: Yeah, and in that situation it's all too easy to form mutual fan clubs where people pump each other up, but really are blinding themselves to maybe how they are not maybe growing, or they are maybe not quite as wonderful as their peers might encourage them that they are. On one hand, this can seem like maybe it's just trivial and normal, but when you really take it through and see what is happening in our society, there are enormous dangers in this.

You know, there is the obvious, straightforward dangers of people destroying their families and their careers through things like sexting and inappropriate language and inappropriate sexual behavior that they may think is appropriate and they may think is still within their peer group, but suddenly they find out, ooh, actually I took this too far. As we have seen in the media recently create disaster for a number of politicians.

STEVE: Yeah.

KIM: Through to the other extreme of highly unethical behavior that comes to be seen as normal, from peer attachment, where you have a group of say investment bankers --they seem to be copping a lot of flack these days and probably deservedly so, but I guess what I am saying, might even come to their defense a little bit -- because if you have a group of any people who are too isolated from the views of the rest of the community, the danger comes in that they can just start excusing themselves and each other for unethical and questionable behavior until they get egged on to take it way too far.

STEVE: Right and social media is this amazing way to put a footprint out there. You know, your social media footprint doesn't go away.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: It's real, it's there, and it will stick around.

KIM: I think I would just like to add something here Steve. Because when I talk about this moral behavior or this ethical behavior, I think that all too often when we talk about morals and ethics now, we forget how closely tied this is to the health of our relationships.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: A healthy person who has healthy self-esteem and who is truly successful and truly respected in their home and their community needs to be respected by a much larger group of people than just their own peers.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: How can you be successful as a father. How can you be successful as a mother. How can you be successful as being a role model or a good citizen if you're only abiding by the moral and ethical standards of a small group of people, which is your peers. And I think a really good way of looking at this—or a suggestions I can make is to form a group of support people that you trust their opinion. Particularly if you are a professional person, in putting together your social profile or your public persona, don’t just trust yourself in doing that. Maybe you were someone who was fortunate enough to have a mother and father that you love and respect and that are mature and good role models and can give you guidance with this. Be friends with them on social media. Include them in your conversations and even if you don't do that literally, they can still be a part of your conscience in your own head.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: You know, what would my mother or father think of me doing this. Now, unfortunately, not all of us had that experience of our parents. A lot of our parents were immature and maybe even abusive. If this is the case, again I think social media offers a wonderful opportunity where we can choose our own mentors and role models. We can choose better--let's say parents—for ourselves. Better role models. We don't have to be like Ned Flanders on The Simpson's that we call these people up every time before we do something and check that it's okay. These people can just strengthen our own inner conscious, that before we send some message that we can think in our head, Now what would my inner circle think of me doing this?

STEVE: Sure. Even if some of your friends might find it funny, it may be worth leaving it on the shelf and not putting it online.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: So, Kim, that's a really good suggestion you saying look for some people within your circles—I don't know if you want to talk about with Google Plus that there is an option with circles.

KIM: Yeah, it's very elegant and I like the simplicity of how you can choose the circles of people you want to share the information with. But at the same time, what we are suggesting here is really do also making sure most of what you are saying isn't things you would not like everybody to hear.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: I mean, how you use those circles is really about consideration for other people more than it should be about hiding information that you think would not be proper or that might get you in trouble on moral or ethical grounds. I think that's the most important thing for yourself to know in terms of keeping your behavior healthy. You know, there shouldn't be differences in your values across your circles, if we want to use that terminology.

But circles are a great thing, because not everybody wants to hear all the same information about you.

STEVE: That's right, absolutely. So forming a mentor group, Kim, how do you start?

KIM: Okay, well this is maybe one of the most important decisions a person, particularly if they are a professional, may make in their entire career, so it's NOT something to do overnight. It's something you really need to put a lot of thought and a lot of consideration and a lot of wisdom into. I know when I was looking around at who would be my mentor group or who would be my inner circle of people I would really trust for giving me feedback on the work I was doing, I met a lot of people who were incredibly abusive.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: People who were even recommended by other people, but then when I talked to them were very critical in a way that was really not constructive and just seemed to be wanting to put themselves up on a pedestal and keep everybody else that was following them "down there". And I think that is really important to look out for. If you are looking for help or advice or mentoring from people in your career, whether it is about how you put together your social media profile or your public profile or really anything for that matter. I don't care if it's an accountant you are looking for. I think it's somebody you really need to trust and you need to feel comfortable with. You need to be able to ask questions without them becoming defensive. If it takes time to find that person, put the effort in and take that time. It might be a nice point here as well to thank Chris Lang for passing on this movie to some of his network. He is someone who I have chosen as part of my inner mentoring circle. That was really because I found Chris quite honest. I found him somebody that I really believed in and who didn't put himself above me, even though he knows a lot more than I do.

I guess that is the other point that is important when you are choosing an inner circle for yourself of people in the social media world is don't be frightened of choosing people who are smarter than you.

STEVE: Yeah

KIM: Unhealthy narcissism will see us wanting to be the smartest person in our circle of peers, wanting to be the leader everybody looks up to.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: And you don't have to think about it much to actually realize how foolish and unhealthy that is. How are you going to learn if you don't surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.

STEVE: Yeah, wow.

KIM: That's really important. I think I need to say again we are not social media experts. That is not our area of expertise. We do know a lot about narcissism, however. We know a lot about Narcissistic Personality Disorder. And more importantly, we know a lot about the kind of healthy relationship skills that I think are becoming lost these days as we see this kind of confusion and chaos spreading.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: You know, it circles more and more around us this epidemic of narcissism our society is creating. These relationship principles are not magic wands. They are not things that are going to just suddenly make everyone love and adore you—that's now how it works. They are principles that can really help you through some difficult times. We have seen in our own marriage, and in the hundreds of testimonials we have received too we have seen they really do stand the test of time in building strong and healthy relationships that do withstand a lot of the pressures and tests that are put upon relationships now, with all the temptation that is out there. The online environment really does open up a lot of temptation.

STEVE: Yeah. And it does put pressure on your relationship. The work Kim and I do, we are really aiming to build stronger relationships with your partner, with your family, and with the people close to you. By doing that, it sort of limits the chance of you being narcissistic, in many ways. The better your relationship is, the more dependent you are on each other, the more healthy that bond is, the less chance you are going to get caught up in any kind of narcissistic behavior—whether it be online or in the real world. So our work really helps buttress that kind of goal most people have of having a better life. Better quality attachments of people out there in the world. Having a successful career, a better professional relationship with other people and having an easy holiday season when it is time to get together with your family, that there is easy and grace, and you are not worried about tripping up on your false profile.

KIM: I think that is really wise, what you say, Steve, because when it comes down to it, it really is the health and the depth of our connections with others and the health and depth of our relationships that determines our true wealth. But we all get carried away with ourselves sometimes. That is human and we all get tempted to do things that maybe we know are not really what we should be doing. So that is why I think it is really wise if people actually do create that kind of protection for themselves, in setting up a little bit of your own sort of watchdog mentoring network or system of people if you are closing yourself off from other people. If you are creating false identifies and false profiles to do things online that otherwise you would not consider doing under your own name, you have to stop and think about that for a minute and think, what am I trading here? Is this really going to be worth it in the long run?

STEVE: Sure, Kim. So let's wrap up.

If you haven't heard of us before, and this is the first time you have heard The Love Safety Net with Kim and Steve, you can check us out on a couple good web sites…Kim?

KIM: HYPERLINK "http://www.narcissismcured.com" www.narcissismcured.com has a near encyclopedia of information if you are in an abusive relationship or if you have been through multiple relationships or for any reason you feel like you would like to develop better and healthier relationship skills.

There is also HYPERLINK "http://www.fightbusters.com" www.fightbusters.com , which is a little bit more general information, but on there we have 12 Steps to End a Fight in Progress, which is a free resource on that site. It may come in handy over this holiday season—if not for yourself, there may be somebody else you know that could use that information. That is at http://www.fightbusters.com www.fightbusters.com , or http://www.narcissismcurred.com www.narcissismcurred.com .

STEVE: We hope everyone has a really great holiday. Everyone down in the southern hemisphere, stay cool. Everyone in the northern hemisphere, stay warm. We will be back next week on The Love Safety Net. Thanks for listening!

KIM: Bye!

Why You Can't Trust Your Relationship Instincts

2011-12-15T01:22:00.000-08:00

- The Love Safety Net Radio -

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Full Transcript of Show

"Why You Can't Trust Your Relationship Instincts"

December, 2011

KIM: Hi, I'm Kim.

STEVE: And hi, I'm Steve. And welcome to The Love Safety Net.

KIM: On today's show, we want to show you a clear path forward in improving your relationships.

STEVE: Even with the principles we have to offer, it's not always going to be easy. That's why today's show is entitled, "Why You Can't Trust Your Instincts".

KIM: Because if you didn't grow up in a family with healthy role models, chances are you are going to find your instincts and your habits have been impaired and won't necessarily lead you to the healthy behaviors you need to develop good relationships.

STEVE: And, Kim, today's radio show is free!

KIM: Yes!

STEVE: The first free show we have done for a while.

KIM: Yes! That's right. A bit of a Christmas present.

STEVE: Fabulous. So let's get started. Hey, look, when you are talking about instincts, there is a really good example I want to use here about getting into shape. Kim and I have gotten terribly out of shape this year—well, not so bad.

KIM: Oh, we have.

STEVE: We have. Because we have been working really hard. We have been working indoors. We have had pressure on and all sorts of things, and we have gotten out of shape. But now we have gotten back into the gym, we are dieting again, we are really back onto it.

KIM: Doing P.A.C.E..

STEVE: Doing the P.A.C.E. Program. So our instincts at the moment are still kind of we still want to eat pizza and eat chocolate cake, right?

KIM: (laughing) Yeah, that's right. I think that's a really great example of what we are talking about here. We know that you can't use your instincts to guide you to getting a better body if you want to get in shape. You know, your instincts are always going to lead you the wrong way. They are going to tell you there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating that piece of chocolate cake, that it's just an absolutely great idea. But, you know, luckily we have fitness coaches and we have science and research to know the chocolate cake is actually what's going to put pounds on our waistline. We can hold to those principles even when we are tempted and say, "I want to get in shape, so I am not going to go there."

STEVE: So really, it's counterintuitive about what our instincts are telling us. Our instincts are saying, "Hey, there is lots of energy in that cake."

KIM: Mmm, yeah.

STEVE: And we need energy to survive and we need energy to feel like we can get through the day.

KIM: Yep. And my instincts certainly don't tell me I should be doing interval training, you know?

STEVE: Yeah, sure.

KIM: That's something I still have to really push myself to do. But am really happy I understand those principles, because I know now that we will get in shape. It is going to be hard work, but it will only take a month or so. It's Christmas time here in Australia, but that is summer for us. So we are a little bit slow. We probably should have started on this a little earlier. But hey, we have been working too hard.

STEVE: Our instincts have been guiding us toward chocolate cake too much. But anyway, we are getting away from that.

KIM: Well, just sitting on our bums for too long in front of the computer, I think.

STEVE: Yeah, it hasn't been easy for us, has it.

KIM: Yeah, financial pressures, the realities of work, supporting kids.

STEVE: That's right, that's right. And cooking for all those kids too. Wow, we are always cooking. There is always food around us! When you are cooking for a big family, there is always food in front of you.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: So that example is from a very similar perspective, okay? We instinctively want to eat the wrong things because it looks nice and we know it tastes nice. So from a relationship point of view, Kim, how does that translate? How can we use that kind of example as a bit of a metaphor for how we relate to each other emotionally and verbally and the whole gamut of what a relationship means.

KIM: Yeah, well, I think it's a really, really good metaphor. Because if people are experiencing relationship problems—maybe they have had multiple love relationships in their life, or maybe their relationship with their parents is strained, or maybe their friendships don't last as long as they would like them to, there is a tendency with people to say, "Oh, it was the other person's fault. You just had a bad spin on the chocolate wheel or bad roll of the dice."

STEVE: Mmm. Or fell in with the wrong crowds.

KIM: Yeah. "And next time, it will go better." They are always looking for the next relationship that is going to be better and that is going to help heal all of that. I think there is a lot of danger in that. If you have grown up not understanding the principles of healthy relationships, your instincts are really always going to lead you the wrong way—just like in the case of diet and exercise is not instinctively what a lot of us feel like doing. If we didn't grow up in a family with good habits around that—if we grew up in families that had good habits such as a healthy diet and exercise and that was what was normal—then maybe we will grow up with the right instincts.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: It's just a similar situation. I think a really good example of this is from one of our You Tube movies, which I won't tell you all about it as you can go and watch it if you like. It's titled, "Stop Dealing with Narcissism Like This"

http://youtu.be/fPHnDALdmvY

In that, I give three distinct behaviors that it is really important that people learn to stop doing if their partner is pulling away from them, if their partner is being cold and arrogant toward them. I only mention this because out of all the movies we have made, that one probably get the most negative feedback. (laughing)

There is just a lot of people that come on saying this is so sad because these things are just healthy and normal.

STEVE: You've copped a lot of flack for that, haven't you, Kim.

KIM: I have. (laughing) So if you want to see some of our harshest critics, you will find them on that movie.

But I am bringing that up and I want to discuss it with you Steve, because I think it just really shows how clearly that society really doesn't understand the principles of healthy relationships, and how far off track we have gotten, that by me saying, hey, these things are unhealthy and these are things you should really stop doing, it really upsets people because people's instincts tell them that these are the right things for them to do. So I understand they get upset at the movie.

STEVE: Sure. So let's just give one example.

KIM: Mmm-hmm.

STEVE: One suggestion you recommend people stop doing in the movie, Kim, is to encourage your partner to talk about their feelings or try and evoke an emotional conversation.

KIM: Yep.

STEVE: So that has got a lot of negative feedback.

KIM: From a few people; a lot of people liked the movie too (laughing).

STEVE: Sure, sorry. I should qualify. But that has caused a bit of a stir with people who do feel that instinctively that's the right thing to do. Is that a fair thing to say?

KIM: Yeah! Absolutely. And I think what might help here is just really sharing a little bit about what the heart of codependence is about. You know, we talk about narcissism a lot, but I think that both narcissism and codependence at their heart are immaturity. And particularly codependence is about emotional immaturity. So even deeper than wanting their partner to share their feelings, I think the codependent usually wants their pattern to share their feelings so then it will be their turn next and they can talk about their feelings—their sadness, their negativity, their wounds they are still nursing, and their partner will care for that and their partner will help heal that for them.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: And this is a really big desire inside the codependent. And we hear this in a lot of popular music. It's a common theme in probably 80% of the songs we hear on the radio.

STEVE: Yeah, for sure.

KIM: You know, we talk about "my baby" when we want to talk about our lover. There is this sort of unhealthy idea (it really is) that love is actually about having somebody come along and soothe or nurture or take care of our negative emotions.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: And I would suggest that those emotions and that part of us is usually quite immature. It's like we want somebody to baby us. We want someone to treat us like a baby.

STEVE: You know, there is some kind of wound there that somebody feeling those feelings is not quite sure how to move past it and hasn't matured past that terrible—be it trauma related or it might not be. But there has been a slowing down of development in some way.

KIM: Or it may be them just avoiding growing up, because growing up is painful.

STEVE: It sure is.

KIM: So people understandably get quite upset when I suggest that this isn't what love is, and that that it is really a very immature form of love. I mean, you see it really clearly in people in relationships, where they are intimate with each other and the baby talk starts.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: They have sort of goo-goo, gaga names for each other.

STEVE: Yeah, cute and fuzzy names, like honey-bunny and stuff.

KIM: Yeah and the intimacy level between them really goes down to this level of maybe even being under 5 years old.

STEVE: (laughing)

KIM: (laughing) That's the level they are relating at, in terms of intimacy. And I only mention this because I am hinting that there really is more than this. There is something a lot better. As hard as it can be to get past those ideas of wanting that kind of babying or feeling that you really need that, if you think about it logically for a minute, is that the depth that you really want your intimate relationships to stay at?

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: You know, yes, it's difficult accepting the truth for a lot of people that a lot of the principles in our program offer—that you really do need to become emotionally a lot more independent and a lot less dependent than you probably are at the moment. And I know that's really scary. That's tough. It's like working out at the gym. It is going to take some principled effort for you to grow -- but you are only going to be able to do that if you can let go of the idea of wanting to be taken care of like you are a baby.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: But, you know, there is a lot more to look forward to. A true adult level of intimacy and intimate exchange offers so much more dynamics, possibility and potential.

STEVE: That's right, Kim and we have been together nearly 20 years now, so it's fair to say our honeymoon period is over. (laughing)

KIM: (laughing)

STEVE: Do you think?

KIM: Yeah, I think so. It ended pretty quick!

STEVE: It did, rather. But the thing about that initial honeymoon period you do get all those feelings that you really can't grapple immediately. You don't want to jump into that analytic kind of mode in that honeymoon period. You are enjoying the great feelings it is bringing back, the love and the connection, and there is something magical about that. But when you do move past that honeymoon period, that is a really important part of everybody's growth. Everybody that has been in a relationship—men, women, anyone that has been in any kind of relationship. So when that honeymoon period starts to falter, it is a danger time of course, but it is also at that moment, Kim, when that question mark we are raising about instincts and about principles really becomes clearer in the picture. If you can take a moment and think, "Wow, I am really going to need to start thinking about how I soothe myself", and I know we have some ideas on that and we wont talk about that straight away Kim, but those ideas of how we are going to start taking care of our own emotions is about learning to catch them right in the moment.

Now of course there are various different times, it is not just as the honeymoon period is finishing, Kim. As I said, we have been together nearly 20 years now.

KIM: Yep.

STEVE: But we are still working on those roles of being able to depend on each other when we need each other, and that's not always easy but that is becoming adult. That is requiring principles when all sorts of emotional stuff comes up, but we are committed to each other in that sense.

KIM: Yep.

STEVE: We are committed to being able to depend on each other, because we need to.

KIM: Yep.

STEVE: And instincts, like we have talked about in previous shows, where I just wanted everybody to love me and that was the whole narcissistic problem or wound I was carrying. I just wanted to impress everybody.

KIM: You were pretty good at it.

STEVE: Yeah, well…thanks for that. (laughing)

KIM: (laughing)

STEVE: I just wanted to bring up that there are different stages and different challenges come up in those different changes.

KIM: Yep. And we put the principles together that we did in our workbook and in our books, our material and radio shows—I put that set of principles together for myself, and for you, and now we are sharing them with our children because my instincts had been impaired. I realized that doing the same things over and over again that felt normal and natural to me was actually damaging my relationships. It was damaging my reputation and pushing people away from me, and I didn't want that to continue.

I don't think there is a day that goes by nearly, or certainly not two days that goes by, that situations don't come up in our life where I have to call on those principles—especially now that we have teenagers and they are starting to have boyfriends and girlfriends and our family is growing. It is really important, and I can't honestly say that my instincts are all completely healthy now. Maybe that will never happen, but I am so grateful that I do have principles to turn to, and even when sometimes I am feeling like doing this, I know that isn't the right thing for me to do and I really should be doing this.

And this is sometimes tough. You know, just like the gym. This is sometimes the really tough decision, not necessarily the easy decision. That is where I really do want to promote our books and the principles we offer, because I feel kind of a little bit uncomfortable, I guess, when people come onto the blog and they read this and they say, "Oh, I have tried all of that and it doesn't work." Or, "Oh I understand it all now, and I know everything will be better because I can see what I have been doing wrong." In both cases, I kind of go – “ugh”. I hope I have put this across truthfully for how it really is, because really to make our program effective you do need to see it as principles that you are going to have to keep using over and over, but that you can learn to turn to help guide you through. Just like the same principles we started out saying, that to help you get in shape or help you not get too out of shape.

STEVE: Mmm.

KIM: So at least if you are doing the wrong thing, you know you are doing the wrong thing and you have some guidance.

STEVE: Mmm. So Kim, on the topic of emotional immaturity, we have kind of touched on that on the show already. But that emotional immaturity is not always easy to see in yourself, is it?

KIM: No...No, it certainly isn't! (laughing)

STEVE: (laughing) It's always easier to see when somebody else is being emotionally immature, not so easy to see when you are perhaps acting that way. So I think that's also something that people are using as an excuse sometimes, you know? "Oh, I wasn't thinking, I'm sorry." "I didn't mean to call that person a name, I just wasn't thinking straight", when really getting back to the subject at hand, Kim, it's that lack of principles that have maybe allowed that emotional immaturity to sneak up and in the heat of the moment call somebody that name or perhaps make a wrong choice.

KIM: Overreact.

STEVE: Overreact, yeah, which can be terrible and have terrible consequences.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: So emotional immaturity is really something we need to be able to perhaps balance out with our principles.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: And in the example of when we do call somebody that name or we react badly, that is an example of what is instinctively what you wanted to say.

KIM: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

STEVE: You wanted to call that person a name.

KIM: That's right.

STEVE: In the heat of the moment, your instincts say--

KIM: And you don't have to give yourself a hard time or criticize yourself that because it's normal to get angry if we feel disrespected. But we have to then have a set of principles of how are we going to act that out, or when is it appropriate to act that out, or what is going to be effective at setting boundaries with that person so they don't disrespect us in the future. And, you know, we are all going to make mistakes. We are all still going to act out when we are emotional. When we are emotional, we are going to say and do the wrong things sometimes. We are not going to remember to take time out to calm down before we can think things through better. But really the principles we offer also help with damage control.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: So that you do know how to repair that as quickly as possible if it does happen. But sometimes that isn't always what needs to happen, is it? You know, sometimes one of the biggest points of healing for somebody who is codependent is actually learning that they need to deal with people being angry with them sometimes. I know that has certainly been the hardest lesson for me. That is just a natural part of boundary setting, isn't it?

STEVE: Sure. Let's talk about that as an example.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: So, if somebody who has acted in a codependent way their whole life, has been the codependent "role player" in a certain relationship, how would they normally deal with somebody being angry at them, Kim? What is the likely scenario?

KIM: Oh, they would be really anxious and distressed by it. They would feel that maintaining and keeping the status quo is really important, no matter how unjust they may feel that situation, inside they would still really feel a lot of shame and a lot of guilt that somebody was upset with them and somebody was unhappy with them. They would really find it quite difficult to continue functioning.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: It would really unbalance them.

STEVE: So what is the likely steps they are going to take in that scene. Are they going to feel like they have to take the hit on this one or like they are going to try and maintain the status quo by reinforcing that scenario where people are getting angry at them. Is that right?

KIM: OK, say you try and set a boundary. Let's use an example. Say you have a child who has specific dietary needs and it's a holiday season function and your parents or one of your in-laws insists on giving your child the wrong food, and blames you for being too controlling or a hypochondriac or, you know, basically they cross your boundaries in some way. This causes some kind of argument or confrontation. You go away from that with your feelings very hurt because you've had a boundary crossed. You tried to set a boundary, you should be the one with authority over your children and their diet, you really haven't done the wrong thing, but somebody who is codependent in this situation will be easily led into feeling they have done the wrong thing and feeling like they actually need to have it out with that person because they need to resolve it. It needs to be resolved and we need to get everything back to being happy, because everybody needs to be happy.

This is the codependent's real inner driver, that everybody should be happy with me and what I am doing. The reality, I think, is really quite different. The reality is that not everybody is going to be happy with your choices you make for yourself or your children, and that is just the truth.

STEVE: Right.

KIM: And a much more healthy response is to actually realize that. If somebody is crossing your boundaries and you try and reinforce those boundaries with them, you will sometimes make them even more upset with you.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: And sometimes that is just how it is going to be.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: You know, sometimes you actually have to just be able to get on with your life and not let that unbalance you, not let that distract you from your own goals, and that actually confronting that person about the situation, if your intention is to resolve it, is actually going to be counterproductive because that is only really inevitably going to lead to an argument.

STEVE: Sure. So in families we always have these disagreements and problems like this pop up all the time, so it just goes to reinforce when you are setting boundaries for yourself, or for your children, or whatever you are doing, you are setting a boundary that you are setting them with principles. You are not relying on your instincts to set boundaries, because it's almost an oxymoron.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: It doesn't have anything reinforcing behind it, the boundary, if you are using your instincts.

KIM: Or your emotions.

STEVE: Or your emotions.

KIM: Yeah, that you are not using your emotions to set boundaries. You know, staying angry at somebody isn't effective at setting a boundary. It is actually going to usually make it easier for them to continue crossing that boundary.

STEVE: Well, that's right. When they are not backed up by principles, it just opens up so many more opportunity for arguments, right, Kim?

KIM: That's right.

STEVE: And you are not looking for that. You don't need to those arguments with family, extended family or your partner, dragging on in that way. If you are basing them on principles, you know where each other is at a bit more.

I just wanted to clarify something here too, Kim. When we talk about instincts and we are saying you don't rely on your instincts, of course, if you get a bad feeling about something or somebody—that always happens, doesn't it? You get a bad feeling about somebody—that you can sort of put that into the category of that was an instint dislike I had for that person. And that's fine, but underneath that lies the principles. If you don't get a good feeling about somebody, you might be sensing that this person was a little bit too emotional or was a little bit too forward, or was a little bit disrespectful. Those instincts you have about people, there is underneath that some principle you have set down for yourself, that you want to surround yourself with people who are emotionally stable. You want to surround yourself with people who are respectful and understand basic manners.

KIM: Yeah, and you still do need to listen to those instincts, certainly. But maybe just learn different ways of acting on them.

STEVE: Absolutely.

KIM: That you are not acting on them in reactionary ways. Getting back to the example of the child with the special dietary needs, in that situation, where say you have an in-law or parents who are ignoring your authority on that, becoming angry about that or feeling that you need to confront that parent or in-law about that situation because you need to have it resolved might seem kind of noble, but when you are thinking more clearly and are not so emotional you really need to stop and think. How likely is it that this is going to be resolved? How likely is it that they are going to actually respect you on that one? Because often the case is that this isn't very likely. You really have to stop and think about it. You have to say, "Is me getting all emotional, upset and confrontational about this going to make that boundary any firmer?" Because it usually is actually going to make it easier for them to cross that boundary because they are going to be able to point at you and say, "Look how emotional and hysterical this person is about this. Look at how unbalanced they are." And it's really going to give them excuses to actually point the finger at you and your behavior as you being the problem.

STEVE: That's so important, Kim, so important to watch out for that one.

KIM: Yeah, where if you are able to just handle it, just going, "Oh well, okay. You don't like the rules I have for my kids, well that's a shame and I'm sorry about that, but they are the rules. If you are not going to respect them, we just won't be visiting" or whatever—or we are going to have some fairly strict boundaries and restrict ideas around where and when we are going to visit you. And if they get their noses out of joint about that or they are angry, just let them be. In terms of relationship fitness training, that has probably been definitely the hardest one for me. It applies with your children as well—all the time.

If I can talk about that for a minute, Steve?

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: About rules. I think in this day and age there are many parents who are really very frightened of having rules for their kids. We have this culture now that, you know, children should be allowed to explore every little thing that they want to do, and that there is something sort of right and good about that. Well, you know, I don't think that we are as strict as a lot of families, but to me the sign of how good a parent you are is really about how wise and just the rules you choose are, and for what reason those rules are there. It's very important that children have rules whether they like it or not. And if people come along and call you controlling or want to come between your authority with your children, I think that really is a point where a decision needs to made of what is more important—my children or my relationship with my parents or my in-laws. Because just because somebody is older than you doesn't necessarily mean they have matured. (laughing)

STEVE: (laughing) That's right.

KIM: And what they are suggesting and what they may be wanting to allow may not be what is healthy. In the long run, as difficult as that can be, really standing firm to your principles and not allowing people to let you become overemotional or unbalanced about that, even if they are upset with you that you can still stay balanced and grounded and get on with your life. In the long run, they really are going to respect you more for that, you know?

STEVE: 100%, Kim. Absolutely.

KIM: And it may be the conflict goes on for a long time. It may take a year for them to come around, or longer.

STEVE: Sure.

KIM: But if they can't come around to the fact that you are the one with authority over your kids—I mean this is just an example. I know we don't all have kids—but if a person can't come around to the idea that you have the right to set boundaries for yourself about how you expect to be treated and how you wish to live, well, that really isn't a relationship you should be putting too much work into maintaining anyhow.

STEVE: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, Kim, you mentioned that not everyone is in a family—and that similar kinds of things are involved when you are setting boundaries for yourself as when you set boundaries for your kids, you are really making a statement for yourself and you are using your imagination as much as anything. It's a very creative process, Kim, setting boundaries. You are using your imagination, you are using your ethics, you are drawing on a lot of really fantastic philosophical/spiritual stuff you really need to dive deeply into and say, "OK, this is where the boundary is".

KIM: Yep.

STEVE: And even if you are not setting boundaries with kids, you can use this with your partner, extended family, neighbors, colleagues—any kind of social group you are involved in. If you are able to use those kind of principles and set those boundaries, it is a personally-defining activity for you to undertake as soon as possible. If you are feeling like you have troubles with this—and maybe some of our listeners won't—they might be feeling we are talking about stuff they did years ago. (laughing)

KIM: I remember a class we were working with at one stage, Steve and one of the women in it was a nurse. She felt like she had fairly good skills at setting boundaries. When I asked everyone how do you go about setting boundaries if somebody is putting you down or being rude or abusive, she said, "Oh, I'm fine with that. I know how to do that completely." I thought, "OK, this will be interesting." I didn't doubt her, but it certainly didn't come easily to me. But I remember her response, as she said, "Oh, I say to them 'I am not going to stand here listening to you abusing me'; and I just walk away." And I thought okay. As we worked through the class with her, her ideas on this changed but I remember thinking, hmm, I wonder how effective that is her saying that? I wonder how you end up feeling about yourself and how the other person ends up feeling about themselves. Because if your boundary setting is always reactive and in the moment, it is going to lead to some very uncomfortable and confrontational situations like that. I just think that it's really important style wise that people understand that is really not what we are suggesting.

As you were saying, Steve, it is a creative process. It's a process you want to become mature at just like you want your relationships to deepen into something more mature than baby talk and having somebody fulfill some infantile expectations that you may have. Boundary setting can become something that helps build your self-respect so that in that moment when you want to say, "Hey, I'm not going to sit around and listen to you abusing me", which if you think about it is very accusational and very confrontational and creating a confrontation that will probably never be resolved with that person. But you are able to sort of bite your lip in the moment and maybe find a polite excuse to end that conversation, but still end it with some kind of authority that isn't pointing the finger at or blaming that person, but that you are just saying, "I don't see this conversation going anywhere constructive and I really need to get back to my chores". Then later spending some time thinking about that situation with that person and how you can avoid those problems in the future in a way that keeps your own self-respect a little better in tact. So we work a lot on people having scripts and come back lines and ways to deal with other people's disrespect without losing their own self-respect.

STEVE: That's right, Kim. So using these principles, we are learning to set better boundaries, to perhaps present those types of conflicts from happening in the first place.

KIM: Yep.

STEVE: If you are feeling like somebody is disrespecting you and being confrontational in that example you just gave, well there is obviously a boundary being crossed and that boundary needs working on too.

KIM: And it has probably happened before.

STEVE: That's true, there will be a pattern.

KIM: There will be a pattern. So you actually do have time to prepare.

STEVE: So if you do want to improve your relationships, Kim, you do need strong principles.

KIM: Yeah, and not to be trusting your instincts in the heat of the moment. This is something that is going to take work and it's going to take practice, and there is going to be temptation. There is going to be temptation that when somebody is upset with you because you have tried to set a boundary that you want to get on Facebook, you want to get on the phone like it's a big emergency, it's a fire that needs putting out, and just go --ahhhh, how can I live with it that he is so upset with me? And you are going to have those temptations. That is where we really hope you will check out our material and learn some of the principles so they can become a really solid mast that you can turn to just like they have become for us. That even when you are swayed by your emotions and you want to do the wrong thing, that you actually know what the right thing is to do. And that really takes a lot of faith and a lot of trust sometimes.

STEVE: Absolutely.

KIM: I tell you, still it's really tough for me. I have to hold on. You know, my mum was really upset with me recently for quite a few days and I had to hang on. I had to really hold on because I don't enjoy that, but I still stayed focused on my own work and my own goals and what I needed to do for you and the kids, and, you know, she has come around now and it's good.

STEVE: That's great. And there is one more negative thing there we should touch on, Kim, before we move on and finish up the show. That is that there is a temptation, of course, to manipulate your way into setting a boundary.

KIM: Mmm.

STEVE: We know we were quite critical a few years ago of a particular book called The Rules and it was written by a couple of well-connected, attractive women from New York.

KIM: Socialites.

STEVE: Socialites who were very good and had dated a lot and learned a whole bunch of rules.

KIM: Married well.

STEVE: They married well in the end and considered themselves to be quite successful in knowing how to get men to respond and react the way they wanted them to. We read the book and we were very interested in what they had to say, but we felt overall it was a very manipulative process. And there was some positive sides of it like we just talked about in this radio show, Kim, about setting boundaries and saying, "This is not what is going to be acceptable for me", and that's positive. But to manipulate other people into a position where they won't cross that boundary is quite abusive and could be regarded as bullying in many ways.

KIM: And it's certainly not going to create depth in your relationship long term.

STEVE: That's right. So it's a different game if you are manipulating the people around you into obeying your boundaries or obeying your rules—that' s a game of manipulation and a game of strategy you are playing. What we are talking about and what our whole product range is based on, is about playing a different game. That game is to build really strong connections with the people around you, being honest, having firm convictions and being okay within yourself.

KIM: Yes - built on your own self-respect and your own ability to set strong boundaries for yourself and also have goals for yourself and emotional maturity. I think it's good you bring that up at this point, because this is a really clear demonstration of how what we offer isn't manipulation. Because the truth is a lot of the things we recommend are going to make people really upset with you at times.

STEVE: Mmm-hmm.

KIM: We teach people how to stand up for themselves, and not everybody around you is going to like that.

STEVE: That's right.

KIM: But we also teach you how to deal with that when they don't necessarily like it. In the long run, however, that's what really builds deep and lasting relationships that are built on mutual respect, honesty and truth and anybody who is out there who is teaching things otherwise, who are saying here is a bag full of tricks that is going to get people reacting how you want them to; tricks that are going to make people love you or make people beholden to you—I really have severe doubts about how well that is going to work in the long term toward longer lasting, deeper maturity in people's ability to be intimate with each other.

STEVE: Sure and things become revealed over time, so if you have approached the relationship in a manipulative way, that is going to be revealed at some stage.

KIM: Yeah.

STEVE: You can't hide that forever. Even if you have good intentions later, it's really going to be a lot of doubt there. You have left the boundary open, in many ways.

KIM: Like Elvis said, "You said you were high class, but that was a lie".

STEVE: That's right and you know how the rest of the song goes!

KIM: Because if that little crying baby is still in there that wants to be fed and taken care of, it's going to come out and show it's ugly self sooner or later. And I have to be honest about it because it is ugly. Nobody wants to take care of the immature needs of another adult. It's not attractive. It's hard work learning to grow beyond that, but it's work that is really very well worth it.

STEVE: And to support you with that, we have a bit of a holiday package we would like to share with you now. Kim, let's just talk about it a little bit. Our book is in print and this is item #1 in the package.

KIM: Yep. Our first e book is now in print, and the rest will be in print soon. In the meantime, I have put together a bit of a holiday package which means you will get Back From the Looking Glass in print, which is right here. This is a guide if you are in an abusive relationship, so that may not be appropriate for everybody who is watching. But what I have done is sort of rolled together a little bit of the best of everything for a Holiday Emergency Package. Our holiday special includes Back From the Looking Glass. It includes a couple of the most important limiting abuse exercises from The Love Safety Net Workbook and it also includes some of our best self-soothing tools from 10 Steps to Overcome Codependence, so it's a little bit of everything rolled together into a crash course that can really help you through these difficult times. It can be difficult when there is a lot of pressure on people financially and in a lot of other ways.

Besides that, what I would really recommend to anyone who really wants to get into the whole get fit and get your relationships fit and back on track program -- and you are not in an abusive relationship -- because maybe you are still dating and have had failed relationships in the past and you don't want that to happen again, is The Love Safety Net Workbook. That really is our comprehensive exercise manual. I don't have one here to show you, but it really goes through step-by-step. It gives you exercises and a chance to chart your progress and to really see what you need to be working on. A lot of the principles you need to work on are things that won't come instinctively to you and they won't be things you naturally want to turn to.

STEVE: That's right. Now our workbook, for people who are not familiar with it, our workbook gives a platform of how to build the relationship you want. It's not a whole series of dogma we have set down for you. Kim and I don't know what kind of relationship you are looking for. We do know you need this basic platform. It's called The Love Safety Net Workbook because it is giving you those basic principles to work off where it strips it back down. We are not leading you in any particular path other than getting yourself emotionally stable and on track.

KIM: It will help in all your relationships. The principles involved will help in your relationships with your kids, with your parents, with your in-laws, with your partner, with your boss, with your friends. It really is the bare bones principles of what creates attraction, what are the effective ways of setting limits on other people disrespecting you, and on what it is to become emotionally intelligent and emotionally mature.

STEVE: All right. Kim, it's been great doing a radio show with you again. I'm glad we could do this one for free. The next one probably won't be. Thanks, Kim. Thanks for coming in. Again, this is The Love Safety Net. A lot of fun, isn't it?

KIM: Yep, it certainly is. And Happy Holidays everyone! Bye!

Please see our holiday special here;

Be Emotionally Prepared this Holiday Season

Dealing with Parents and In-laws

2011-11-29T16:56:00.000-08:00

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Dealing with Parents and In-laws

In this show Steve and I discuss;

1. Parent who compete for your kids' affection and try and get them to side against you.
2. Grandparents who ignore their grandkids special dietary needs.
3. In-laws who take over.
4. Parents or in-laws who knock you off balance by tempting you with the wrong food or drink.
5. Parents and in-laws who set a bad example for their kids and grandkids.

Our Recommendations;

1. Join in family activities and don't hide off on your own.
2. Plan ahead, practice and prepare.
3. Control the environment.
4. Try and have supportive friends and family on hand.
5. Don't get involved in talking about people behind their back.
6. Don't get involved in arguments.
7. Be ready to hold your cool and self soothe if they get mad or
are upset.

Please see our holiday special here;

Be Emotionally Prepared this Holiday Season

Preparation and practice makes perfect - so get in and work on the exercises we have put together for you and don't let these holidays get you down!

Be Emotionally Prepared this Holiday Season

Purchase this Radio Show as an MP3 for Only $2.95 -

Purchase this Radio Show as a Transcript - Only $2.95 -

Hang in there!

Kim Cooper
www.NarcissismCured.com

Be Emotionally Prepared this Holiday Season

2011-11-23T16:28:00.000-08:00

I have some exciting news today. Our best-selling eBook, Back From the Looking Glass
is finally available in Paperback! It has been such an enormous job getting finished
in time for the holiday season and this is part of the reason I haven't written much
here for sometime now.

All of my other ebooks will be in print soon too - hopefully in time for Christmas.

If you want to buy a paperback copy of Back From the Looking Glass- now is a great time, because we have a Thanksgiving special on where you will not only receive the book but
also a whole package of free bonuses along with it to help you emotionally prepare for the holiday season.

It is easy to think that all the work you put into cooking and shopping etc will make
your family love and appreciate you, but how many times has that proven itself false
in the past?

I know I used to work like a slave through the holiday season, often to find myself on
the 'outside' of the festivities, feeling hurt and alone.

If you can relate to what I am saying - please check out our holiday special here;

Be Emotionally Prepared this Holiday Season

The beginning of the PDF included in this package follows here;

Be Prepared This Thanksgiving and Christmas

I am going to share an exercise with you that might hopefully help you avoid a few
holiday season pitfalls. To understand the reason this exercise is necessary I want to
ﬁrst explain a little about what I call our ‘two brains’.

Do you know that there are very few connections between your emotional brain and
your upper cortex? These two areas of your brain tend to be active at different times
(when one ‘switches on’ the other will tend to ‘switch off’) and they each see the world
very differently. This lack of connection also gives them very little ability to communicate
with one an other effectively.

One symptom of having ‘2 brains’ is that we tend to be very bad at knowing how
things are likely to make us feel. Are there things you can look back and remember
planning many times over, always forgetting that they only bring you suffering and pain?

When we have bad feelings we can be in such a hurry for the feelings to go away that
later when our upper cortex has switched back on and we are happy again we like to
forget the bad feelings ever happened at all.

I like to think of these two brains as the rabbit and the turtle. Your amygdala (emotional
brain) is very fast and small compared to your upper cortex but your upper cortex is a better
problem solver (and is deﬁnitely turtle shaped!).

While your rabbit (amygdala) tends to be more reactive and can say things you might
later regret (or leave you with nothing to say when you should have spoken up), it tends
to be more intuitive than your upper cortex and knows a lot about you and is very good at
sensing opportunity and danger.

Your turtle (upper cortex) on the other hand is more socially skilled and logical and is
more prone to be cautious and not ‘over react’.

If you can learn to get your upper cortex to start taking note of what your amygdala is
telling it and using your emotions as a guide in the plans you make, you may ﬁnd it
possible to avoid some of the mistakes you have made in the past. This is tricky however
because of the limited connections between these ‘two brains’ and so taking a few notes
when you become upset can be very useful later to look back on what really triggered the
upset.

This is different than listening to all the stuff your amygdala is telling you when you
are upset. This part of our brain was great at dealing with lions and tigers (when we were
not at the top of the food chain) but these days you can ignore most of the advice it will
give you. It is that voice in your head that will tell you extreme actions may be necessary
when later on you may be wondering what on earth you could have been thinking. So keep
the notes you make when your amygdala is ﬁring pretty general such as when ------ happened
I felt angry, disrespected, uncomfortable or unsafe.

Unfortunately the mistake we often make is to think that the emotional reaction we
had when our amygdala began ﬁring (and we perhaps became offended or upset) was the
whole problem and once the upset is over we just think to ourselves that we won’t over
react like that again. The rabbit is always much faster than the turtle however and so no
matter what good intentions you might have ‘next time’ the same thing will of course
happen again.

Pre planning is the only solution for this and also learning to take note of strong
feelings when you have them and then calm down and let your upper cortex think about
solving the problem later rather than ‘acting out’ in the heat of the moment.

There is no more important time for this than at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Do you
have relatives that always get the better of you when they make comments you ﬁnd
offensive or belittling? Or do you disagree with some members of your families politics or
other beliefs and too often end up in arguments? Or maybe there are members of your
family who put you down to make themselves feel more important? Swearing that you
will not let them ‘get to you’ next time just won’t work. You need to remember that the
rabbit will always be faster! So this year plan ahead and practice better responses you can
have ready for situations you can already guess might be coming.

See our holiday special here;

Be Emotionally Prepared this Holiday Season

Thinking you will magically know what to say next time just won't work. Because not only
is your emotional brain much faster at responding (Remember that feeling of not knowing
what hit you?) but you also probably do not even have the scripts you need yet in these
moments.

Preparation and practice makes perfect - so get in and work on these exercises and don't
let these holidays get you down!

Be Emotionally Prepared this Holiday Season

Kim Cooper
http://www.NarcissismCured.com

Unsolved Crimes of Interest

2011-10-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

Baby Lisa - Manic 'Rescue' Bid by Drunk 'Friend' of Baby Lisa's Mom?

Kyron Horman - Not One Scrap of Evidence that Kyron was Harmed when he Disappeared ...

Casey Anthony - Part 1

Casey Anthony - Part 1 - Addendum

Casey Anthony - Part 2

Many of my conclusions in these cases will fly in the face of general public opinion and that is the reason I think my ideas are worth sharing. If these cases were obvious more of them would be solved.

The incidence of psychopathic serial killers in the general population is so low that no one really has accurate figures - yet somehow this has come to be the first suspicion which comes to mind when we hear of a child that has gone missing.

There are many other more common reasons children go missing and I believe a better understanding of family dysfunction and it's dynamics could certainly help solve some otherwise baffling cases.

I think people also need to consider that it may not always be in the best interest of a child to be found.

I will add more cases as I am able and welcome requests to look into particular cases of interest.

Of course I will not always be right, but my suggestions will always fit the facts as far as I know them while also being psychologically plausible scenarios.

If a lot of people get interested in one particular case then Steve and I might consider doing a show on it.

Click the links above for the details ...

Hang in There!

Kim Cooper
http://www.NarcissismCured.com

Kyron Horman -- Better Off Not Found?

2011-10-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

Kyron Horman -- Not One Scrap of Evidence that Kyron was Harmed when he Disappeared ...

I have a strong suspicion that -- for now -- this cute little guy is probably better off left where he is.

It's also my opinion that Kyron Hormon's step mother -- Terri Moulton Horman -- probably had her own very real (and understandable) reasons when she tried to hire someone to kill Kyron's father (her then husband) before Kyron's disappeared. I also believe that she is the furthest thing in the world from a psychopath. I believe people should leave her in peace and consider that she may have also had a very good reason to arrange for Kyron to go into hiding.

Of more concern to me is the couple's baby girl and I believe that stringent investigations should be made into her fathers fitness for any form of custody.

Please understand me saying “She probably had her own very good reasons when she tried to hire someone to kill her husband," does not mean I condone murder. I am only suggesting that it appears likely to me that she was in a situation with very few options and this can sometimes lead otherwise gentle and sane people into making bad choices.

If Terri’s eldest boy was offered a chance to prosecute his step father under a media black out and with strict protection placed on his privacy - the other members of this family might be reunited once more and Kyron allowed to re assume his real identity.

This might also save Kyron's dad any further possible attempts on his life ... but there are no guarantees in jail.

Just my opinion and a few hints as to what I believe may be the real story behind this case.

Kim Cooper
http://www.NarcissismCured.com

How Authorities Could Help Baby Lisa be Returned ...

2011-10-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

Baby Lisa - Manic 'Rescue' Bid by a Drunk 'Friend' of Mom's?

I have spent many hours examining the details of this case and the following are the conclusions I have come to from what I have seen so far;

I suggest if the police set an amnesty of 'no punishment and no questions asked' for the safe return of Baby Lisa (alive and well) that Baby Lisa would most likely be reunited with her family within 24 hours.

After this I would suggest that Baby Lisa’s mother read 'Seven Weeks to Sobriety' and her father give up his night shift job and find new work where he can be home with his wife and children at night. In time and with work put into building trust (while offering support) to his wife, Baby Lisa’s mother may feel secure enough to share more details about the events of the night in question (with her husband) and relieve her (most likely) overburdened conscience.

I doubt very much that the people responsible for kidnapping baby Lisa are dangerous or likely to commit this type of offense again and I do not believe the kidnapper is a complete stranger to the family. The person who has Baby Lisa now is probably protecting the man who first took Baby Lisa from being identified.

I could offer a highly detailed profile of this man - but in this case I believe it is probably in the best interests of the family that the details remain private and the kidnapper remain anonymous.

These views are obviously only my opinion.

It seems we have been conditioned to look for an evil motive or sinister intention in these cases but in this case I believe that the kidnapper's own emotional traumas from childhood were triggered by a situation which was also fueled by alcohol and led to a somewhat manic and over protective response.

Kim Cooper

http://www.narcissismcured.com

The Secret to Love and Success

2011-09-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

I am sorry that we have had to put the Casey Anthony series on hold for now ... I hope we are able to get back to them soon! The message in the post below may take a little while to sink in because my bet is that what I am suggesting here is probably the opposite of what you are now doing. If you want to overcome your codependence and become more attractive and effective it is vital that you let this message sink in.

What is Self Soothing?

Self Soothing is the most powerful skill you can learn to become more attractive and more successful in every aspect of your life.

Self Soothing Made Easy

What do you habitually reach for when you become emotionally upset?

A drink?
A cigarette?
The phone to call a friend?
A tranquiliser?
A friend on a forum or on Facebook?

Self Soothing is the ability to calm down and regain your composure after you become emotionally upset. It is probably the most vital skill you can master if you want more love and respect in your life.

In the short movie above I have shared some of what I have learned about self soothing; including mistakes even “experts” make when learning this important life skill. I know self soothing is not easy to master and so today I will share my self soothing ‘secret weapon’ with you as well!

Some people make the mistake of thinking self soothing is about never getting upset or losing your temper - but this is not the case at all. It is normal to get angry when people disrespect us.

However, if you are always dependent on your partner for apologizing and making up with you to feel better after you have become angry or upset, you will unwittingly become a kind of emotional vampire that comes across as very dependent and needy. This is very unattractive and will damage the love connection between you, while also giving all of your power away to your partner’s bad behavior, just when you need your power the most.

Maybe you feel that staying angry or upset with your partner is the only way to have any influence over them and that someone making you feel better when you are upset is what love is all about?

There is much more about this in my e-books, but really, nothing could be further from the truth ...

Self Soothing Made Easy

Learning to be in charge of your own emotional stability and peace of mind is the first step on the road to becoming more attractive and earning people’s respect. Learning new ways of responding to your own emotional upsets is the path to healing all of the relationships in your life.

Another mistake people often make is thinking that calming down after an upset means ignoring what happened or pretending everything is okay and denying your feelings or ‘pushing them down.’ But again this isn’t true.

Learning to take note of what made you angry or upset - as soon as possible after you notice you have become emotional*- then going back and dealing with that issue again a few days later, once you are calm and right within yourself, is just as important as you being able to soothe yourself and get back on track with your own goals after you have become upset.

This is emotional intelligence and my e-books offer much more to help you understand what your emotions are telling you. Needing someone else to soothe you - and especially the person who upset you in the first place - will leave you as vulnerable as a baby; unable to set effective boundaries in your life.

Now I know that in your heart you might want to be loved like a baby - but I will tell you straight up, you are the only person who can give that part of yourself the love it needs. No one wants the responsibility of caring for an adult who has the emotional needs of a baby or child. Wouldn’t you rather be loved as an adult? Isn’t that what respect is all about?

This will not be easy at first and you will not learn this new response overnight, but I assure you that you CAN give yourself all the soothing and love that you need when you become upset. You will make mistakes too and that is OK. It will also take time for this new response to change your circumstances ...

Self Soothing Made Easy

Only last week I allowed a confrontation before work to leave me rattled for most of the day. When I finally realized I was still off balance 6 hours later I took 15 minutes to sit down and listen to a Wellness Audio stress relief track on my iPod while I calmed myself and found my center again.

I then apologized to the person I had been working with for being scattered. The situation that had first upset me continued that night when I got home and on through the week - so although I left it 6 hours to see I needed to center myself again - at least I did this before I had to deal with that same person again.

So ‘better late than never,’ and wow! am I glad I did eventually realize I needed to get grounded and calm again.

I say this because the situation arose with a teenager Steve and I are helping out right now who no one else wants to take on because he is so emotionally volatile.

It is because Steve and I both know how to find that solid place in ourselves that we have the confidence to love and help this boy who we never would have been able to reach out to before. Because, if you don't know how to center yourself again if someone gets you into a spin, you lose your ability to help.

Is there conflict in your life that leaves you feeling rattled? Talking to someone is not usually helpful at calming you down when this happens and I am sure you know that drinking or drugs are really only going to make your anxiety worse.

Self Soothing Made Easy

You may need to talk to people to get help and support in setting boundaries to prevent the situation happening again, but that will go 100% better if you soothe yourself first and find your inner balance again before you talk to anyone else.

Back when Steve and I were our own and each others worst enemies, I used to feel that I would almost die when he did not reach out to soothe me after we had been fighting. The healing in our relationship began when I realized that I had to overcome this feeling because my natural instincts were impaired. Of course he could not help me feel better because he did not even know how to feel better himself. He also had no interest in resolving the conflict because it helped cover the lies he was telling me. Me staying angry wasn't going to help the truth come out and it wasn't going to make him feel bad and apologize. Quite the opposite - he would use my anger as an excuse for his bad behaviour.

I had to learn to be strong and get back on my feet again quickly and how to start being an adult instead of a baby if I was going to be able to help get our lives back on track.

I will never forget it when he first saw that he could no longer emotionally control me. Far from making me a push over it actually scared him and impressed him all at the same time. He knew that his old games were not working anymore and for the first time ever he started having to look at himself.

I want you to find that strength in yourself and to discover that you can be in charge of your moods and your state of mind. It takes training and patience - but mastering this will undoubtably change your life.

Hang in there!

Kim Cooper
PS. Being angry at someone is a very ineffective way of setting boundaries, for better ways to do this please check out Back from the Looking Glass and The Love Safety Net Workbook.

PSS. If someone has upset you it is not urgent that you get back to that person right away after you self soothe and calm down. If you are right back there trying to make up with them it means in reality that their bad behavior is still controlling you. After you self soothe using the Wellness Audio Institutes recordings it is much better (and more attractive) if you can then get back and focus on your own plans and goals that do not include the person that upset you.

* Our emotional brain triggers much faster than our ‘thinking’ brain can keep up with. Learning to stop and notice that your emotional brain has been triggered and that you need to stop and think about what caused this (and not just blame the first thing that your emotional brain yells at you) is the first step to becoming emotionally smart and ending your days of being a push over.

Self Soothing Made Easy

Narcissistic Personality Disorder Looks Like This ...

2011-09-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Are you treated different in private than in public?

In public a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder may either ignore you, giving their attention to others (as if you don’t exist), or else be charming and polite, pretending to be the perfect wife or husband.

In private, however, they will be condescending, acting like they are superior and more popular than you, be being cold, arrogant, withdrawn and unavailable or sarcastic, haughty and insulting, while showing little or no regard for your feelings or well-being (unless they want something) and putting people down (including their friends) behind their back.

This lack of concern for your well-being may cause you to feel rejected, hurt, humiliated, powerless, ashamed and angry and may also lead to psychological and psychosomatic health problems and addictions in your family.

Despite the heartache and damage a person with these symptoms may cause, if confronted about their behaviour they will remain indignant and above being questioned about their behaviour.

Likewise, they may believe they deserve things they haven’t worked for or earned and trade off other people’s honesty and hard work.

This person may be charming (and even humble) in public, so people won’t believe how verbally abusive they are in private or the cruel things they say behind people’s backs.

They will lie and paint themselves as an innocent victim to gain sympathy and justify their bad behavior (while fooling themselves their lies are the truth). You may have no idea of the lies they are telling you or the lies they may be telling other people about you behind your back.

They may also be suspicious and even aggressive towards people who appear emotionally needy.

Both Men and Women Suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder ...

I write from our experience, but there are narcissistic women as well; the statistics state that there are more men than women with this disorder, but our audience is about 50/50.

Female narcissists cause their male partners just as much pain and humiliation and just as much chaos and destruction in their own lives and the lives of the people close to them.

“A couple may swap roles in different situations,

alcohol for instance will trigger narcissistic behavior in many people.”

Click here to continue reading this article >>>

Does your partner’s mind often appear elsewhere?

Does Your Partners Mind Often Appear Elsewhere?

2011-09-13T20:28:00.000-07:00

People with narcissistic tendencies are obsessed with the fantasy of an ideal and perfect relationship, while being skilled liars, so if your partner has these symptoms of this disorder you should be aware that he/she may have secret crushes or be having affairs, using pornography and/or conducting ‘cyber’ affairs (all the while lying that they are single) and all without your knowledge. If their mind often appears elsewhere (and they show other symptoms of this disorder) you should be aware this may be the reason.

“Obsession with real or fantasy love interests

is part of what makes a person with narcissistic tendencies

unavailable, impatient and angry.

I didn’t want to believe this until the evidence was right in front of me

and then I was shattered ...”

If you have codependent tendencies this behavior will be extremely confusing and hurtful to live with. You probably grew up working hard to please people (believing this was love). So a person who once loved you, but now flirts with others, while trying to paint you as their enemy, will cause you an incredible amount of confusion and emotional pain.

Drugs Are Not the Answer

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a disorder and not a disease and drugs are not the answer. If you are on medication (that you decide you want to stop) please get professional advice as withdrawal symptoms can be dangerous. You’re usually better to decrease the dose very gradually over time.

There are no drugs to treat

Narcissism or Codependence

Back when Steve and I were fighting I was prescribed an anti depressant but was extremely lucky that I found better advice and weaned myself off this drug (which also killed my libido).

“Steve’s ‘bad side’ flourished while I was on this drug

which turned me into a zombie that his bad behavior

could run circles around.”

Click here to continue reading this article >>>

Do you worry you and your partner will need years of therapy to get better?

Casey Anthony Part 2

2011-09-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

How Could Casey Anthony Possibly be Innocent when She didn't Report Caylee Missing for 31 Days?

Part Two ...
Download MP3 Audio File ...
$2.95 USD

PDF transcript ...
$2.95 USD

In Part One of this series Steve and I revealed that neither of us believe
Casey Anthony responsible for Caylee's death and who we believe the
true killer is and why.

None of this makes much sense however until we get an idea of why Casey
acted so unconcerned for her daughter's welfare and never reported her missing

In Part Two - Steve and I explain what we believe the reason for this may have been.

We will give listeners a new framework, from the perspective of narcissistic personality disorder, to help make sense of the baffling fact Casey never reported Caylee missing and why she acted so unconcerned for her daughter's welfare.

I think the disconnect in this case, and why it haunts us all so, is because on the surface it appears yet another heartbreaking but unfortunately all too common case of child murder at the hands of an over reactive parent; a crime committed by a person too immature and ill equipped to deal with the challenges of parenthood. Scratch a little deeper however and things just don't add up. If Casey is so conniving and devious, why are her lies so transparent and why is she so lacking in charm?

The next thing that stands out is the evidence this murder was premeditated. Premeditated murder is a completely different crime to that of someone who snaps and becomes violent in the heat of the moment.

Even the monstrous stories of child killings for revenge in divorce cases have an element of emotionality to them. Emotionality which this apparent long-term premeditated murder of a two-year old child, by her own mother, is completely lacking.

In this purported "planned" disposal of Caylee, purely for her mother's short term "freedom from care", we see something I believe to be so entirely new as to be entirely false.

In the heartfelt and compelling novel "Cider House Blues," the reader is made privy to the heartrending history of nearly every aspect of abortion, and its defense in times when women living with addiction and in poverty --with prostitution as their only means of support-- would sometimes be driven to murder their infants while still babes. We also read in this same novel the horrible situation of a young girl pregnant from incest and wonder at the relational and societal struggles a child born in that situation might face. A steady theme of Cider House Blues is the terrible and sad fate of unwanted children left up for adoption. If only the stories in this novel were just fiction! Yet almost everyday in the news, if you search for it, we hear reports of emotionally unstable people neglecting and abusing their children and in undeveloped countries, parents, in dire poverty, selling their children to agents of vice.

Yet while, by necessity, we have become somewhat hardened to these terrible facts of life, you will find that late term abortion is still a shocking taboo to nearly everyone polled.

All of these topics I believe are relevant in the Caylee Anthony case.

For a woman with the affluence and availability of childcare options that Casey had, premeditated murder with no other mitigating circumstances is, in all my reading and life experience, something so completely unique that to me it's just not credible.

In this case I also believe the media has been quick to feed the primitive fires of fear of our younger generation.

To be honest, all of the recent articles on the epidemic of narcissism in Gen Y appall me. As we grow older it is natural to feel threatened by those younger and more beautiful than us, to some degree. But if left to choose who scares me the most (knowing what I do about NPD) it would definitely be the baby boomers who grew up with their peers always on hand to rationalize and approve every greedy and selfish decision they decided they must make in their lives. That's why education and tools for healing NPD are so important to society. A healthy individual ushers their offspring into adulthood with firm and loving guidance while entering his own next stage of life with purpose. A life and ego shattered by abuse turns on their own offspring out of a distorted sense of survival.

Okay, but please understand I really am not wanting to make generalizations here, because in truth I believe we all have this potential within us. Think about what you would not do to protect your current lifestyle if faced with destitution and social disgrace (in the eyes of your peers) and you might start to see what evil you are capable of that is normally invisible in yourself.

Sometimes a murder suspect acts unconcerned around the time of a murder and its investigation, not because they are callous, but because in fact they are innocent, and we are simply not aware of the other stories that may have been playing out in their life.

If we start to suspect people, simply for behaving as if they were innocent, where can we go as a society but down from there? Their behavior may seem irrational or callous to us simply because we don’t understand.

We do not believe that Casey was totally innocent, and this is exactly why we believe she cannot admit her shame at her own involvement in these events.

In this show we put forward a scenario which would explain Casey's lack of concern and free-wheeling behavior after Caylee's disappearance. While we are not excusing it, it does give a bit more insight into what we believe the psychological drivers may have been and who we believe the true murderer in this case to be.

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured.com

Part Two ...

Download MP3 Audio File ...

$2.95 USD

PDF transcript ...

$2.95 USD

Casey Anthony Part 1 - Addendum

2011-09-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

A Virtuous Life

At film and television school I was taught that the first aim in making
advertisements should be to keep people from reaching full maturity.

The theory held that, once a person has their basic needs met, they will
naturally become interested in fulfilling their purpose in life and lose
interest in things such as consumer products.

Advertising, we were taught, must first aim at making people feel
insecure about themselves, and in a constant state of need, so that
people would remain consumers well past the age that might otherwise
be expected of a person. We were given examples of ads where the aim
was to make people feel self conscious--that they smell bad or have an
annoying cough.

I was repulsed by this idea of stifling people's development on a mass
media level, just for the sake of selling consumer goods that people
didn't really need.

Today, all around me I see people who are suffering the effects of this
negative messaging. How this trend has hurt society is so much worse
than anyone could have anticipated.

You see, working in the area that I do, I see that, when a couple does
not mature, their children suffer terribly.

I was determined to nurture my own children and protect them from my
and Steve's immaturity; finally face the hard task of growing up. But I
struggled without a guidebook until I found a wonderful instructional
manual in the virtues.

But, after teaching countless couples the contentment and even glory that
can be found in practicing virtuous habits, and no longer allowing myself
to be held back by insecurity and self doubt, I started to run into a bit of a
problem at church.

You see, I was very excited about teaching the virtues, as taught by Christ
himself. Compassion, humility, understanding, moderation and valor to name
a few. But then church ministers began admonishing me, saying that I was
teaching salvation by works rather than by faith.

So, in answer to this rebuke, I will share this with you...

When you are learning to drive, you do not pray that God will teach you
those skills, or by faith drive without a teacher.

I have now worked four years in the business of helping partners of domestic
abuse. Countless times people have told me that they have prayed for God's
help with an abusive spouse. The smart, self-reliant ones say that God helped
them find our website. Because, if you pray to learn how to drive, God will
not expect you to do it by faith. Instead he will most likely direct you to a
good driving instructor.

In that way the virtues are similar. They are not works to bring us salvation
in the hereafter, but rather are skills we must learn if we wish to mature and
lead a life that will see us reach our full potential on earth.

How many children are suffering from a lack of virtue and maturity in their
parents and grandparents?

Jesus' life was not focused on his own salvation but upon sacrifice and virtue.
If we are to model our lives on Christ's life I believe we must end our
preoccupation with the doctrines of salvation. That was a gift and a promise
and we should trust and have faith in that promise.

The virtues have been so long forgotten that I see many people in my church
who seem to misunderstand even the most basic virtue, humility. Humility
does not require feeling unworthy.

Christ never put himself down. To say that we are unworthy of his sacrifice is,
in effect, to say that he was wrong to die for us. Christ always wanted us to
recognize our worth, not to denigrate ourselves before him.

Christ modeled true humility for us when he washed his disciples' feet. He was
not afraid to associate with beggars and misfits. He showed humility when he
asked why had God forsaken him as he hung on the cross.

True humility is the courage to do what is right even when others will look
down on you, and to have the courage to love your fellow man without the
need to compete with him.

Humility is also the ability to admit our wrong doings and limitations; that we
are not always the author of the grand plan for our lives.

It is the courage to accept the feelings of powerlessness that not being in charge
will sometimes bring; looking for God's plan in our lives and finding the courage
to follow, rather than always needing to be in charge.

A friend of mine recently said to me that perfection is the enemy of good. I liked
that, for if we feel we must be perfect before we can let our light shine, we will
surely walk in darkness all our lives.

The courage to share our gifts in all their imperfection is just one more way of
practicing humility. So for ourselves and for the sake of our children, please let
the leaders of our churches search their hearts and never shy away from teaching
the virtues. Not to earn our salvation, but simply as the best and most gratifying
way to live.

Kim Cooper

http://www.narcissismcured.com

Casey Anthony Part 1

2011-09-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the Caylee Anthony Case

Please download the mp3 of our radio show to hear our version of events in the

Caylee Anthony Case ...

Part One

Download MP3 Audio File ...

$2.95 USD

PDF transcript ...

$2.95 USD

Who Killed Caylee Anthony?

I was late following the Caylee Anthony case and was surprised to discover
that rather than the open and shut case it first appeared be, there were in fact
more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie novel. I was surprised also to
discover that in the media coverage I observed, more than one member of the
Anthony family showed clear signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

After studying the case for a few weeks and coming up with our own
conclusions, Steve and I decided this was a great opportunity to harness public
interest to increase awareness about Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

As we needed a production team to pull this together we have put a small
price on the radio show that our new recording team produced for us.

The studio we recorded this in is a small family operation and I think they have
done a beautiful job producing this show and hope you will help support them
too by purchasing this program which I am sure you will find interesting.

If this endeavor goes well and we are able to pay them and the video crew that
helped make the movie above - it will mean Steve and I will be able to start making
radio shows again on a regular basis.

All proceeds are going to our production team and we will not receive any direct
financial gain from the sale this program.

Who killed Caylee Anthony?

Perhaps no one will ever know that for certain, but Steve and I have a theory
and will give our opinion of who the killer was in this first episode.

This show will also help you to better understand how codependents enable
narcissists and exactly what it is the narcissist needs so desperately from them.

Please leave your comments below and we will take these into consideration
when recording the next show in this series ...

Who Killed Caylee Anthony?
Part One

Download MP3 Audio File ...
$2.95 USD

Download PDF transcript ...

$2.95 USD

Are Teenage Suicide and Narcissism Caused by the Same Thing?

2011-04-27T05:23:00.000-07:00

Is There a Link Between Narcissism and Teenage Suicide?

I am not an expert on teenage suicide, but I have studied
a lot of Gordon Neufeld's work (who is) and from this research
and my own life's experience I have come to believe that there is ...

You see, Dr. Neufeld has found (and this was very surprising to
me) that the cause of nearly all teenage suicide is peer rejection.

Now we all experience rejection as teenagers, so why does
this make some kids turn to suicide while others get over it in
only a few days?

The answer, it seems, is how strong and healthy a relationship
a teenager has with his or her parents. Because it is this strong
relationship which will help a kid deal more easily with
the grief of being dumped by a lover or by their friends.

Teenagers are naturally very narcissistic and often
are very cruel about rejecting their parents in favour of their
peers and so keeping this relationship healthy and strong can
be extremely difficult ...just like it can be with a narcissistic spouse.

There is a saying I like which is, "If you've never been hated
by your child, you've never been a parent."

And another which says "An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy
all his demands."

To me this says that we will never earn our children's love
and respect if we don't know how to stand up to them sometimes
in a way that is rock solid while also being loving and just.

In exactly the same way, if your partner is giving their best to
people outside your family, you need to know how to stand up
to them. Trying to reason or plead with them simply won't work.

Likewise, doing stuff to try and please a spouse who is pulling
away will only make you look weak and desperate and a poor second
choice to their peers whose friendship comes with fewer strings attached
and fewer demands.

If your partner has narcissistic tendencies, they probably grew
up ignoring their parent's attempts to discipline them, right
along with ignoring their bribes.

I remember, when I met Steve, his dad was calling and lecturing him
nearly every day and this had gone on for nearly 5 years - so it
is obvious his words were not getting through!

So if you don't want to be thrown into the 'whining nag' basket and
left to rot, you will need to know how to stand up for yourself in a
confident and attractive way, and not be scared if at first this rocks
the boat.

Because, when your partner just follows the crowd and plays along
with what is easy and tempting it will never lead him to a happy and
fulfilling life, so taking this stand is really for their sake as
well as yours.

When I first began standing up to Steve I remember saying to him
that if he continued dragging our life into the gutter, he had me
as his sworn enemy and I would fight him all the way, but as soon
as he decided he wanted to help me build a respectable family I
would stand by him and never let him down.

He tested me on that too in the beginning and I tell you it was
about the toughest thing I ever did standing my ground.

I had no money either and so I had to do a crazy amount of work
for barter to find professional advice and help.

I remember one woman we paid as a counselor who told me she
didn't like Americans (she was talking about me) because they were
too earnest and then sat me in the dark in the childminding room (on
children's furniture) while she talked in the other room to Steve.
When I came back in the room she sent Steve out to the adults'
waiting room and said to me, smugly, that she and Steve had a really
deep heart-to-heart and that he was very clear about where all the
problems in our relationship were coming from, and of course she
was looking at me.

Back then I was dumb enough to actually try and reason with this
woman about how Steve had not told her the truth - but still
in the end I was smart enough to leave and never go back!

I have often wondered what a therapist could be besides being earnest?
Flippant or off-handed? I have never before or since heard earnest
used as an insult.

Over time I did learn to stand my ground, however, and slowly found
people who gave me better advice.

The job I took on back then is still a work in progress, and Steve and
I are now a team who work together keeping a good relationship
with our kids and keeping them close.

And so what does any of this have to do with teenage suicide?

Well as a teenager I had a boyfriend who, while we were together,
started running with the wrong crowd. I decided to leave him because
I didn't want to let my life go the way he was heading and then a short
time later he ended up taking his life.

That was a nearly unbearable tragedy for me as a teenager because,
even though I did not like the choices he was making, I still really
did love him and had no idea he felt so alone that he would make
the ultimate bad choice.

So this might be part of what gave me the strength to not leave Steve
and instead 'fight for his soul' when other women and friends he had
made on 'the bad side of town' started trying to lure him away
from me and our kids.

Steve acted like he preferred them to me, but just like the boy I had
loved as a teenager, I saw in reality they were making him very sad.

And all those friends of Steve's out about town in bars? Well they are
nearly a forgotten memory now and I know he really doesn't miss
them at all.

Because, as much as a 'peer attached' teenager or spouse may fight you,
a solid and loving home and family are what I believe we all really
want in our heart.

You must know however that this will not come from your pleading,
reasoning or convincing and it won't come from you bending over
backwards trying to please. You will need to start focusing on your own
goals and learning how to stand your ground calmly and effectively -
even when at first your family doesn't like your new game plan or
your new rules.

Kim Cooper
www.narcissismcured.com

Resources, Suggestions and Information

2011-01-20T23:22:00.000-08:00

Facing our Greatest Fear ...

I began writing a piece the other day on the feeling of powerlessness, which I believe is the most repressed (or avoided) human emotion.

I had some inkling before I sat down to write that I might be walking out onto dangerous ground with this, but poking about in the deepest darkest recesses of the human psyche is what I do here, so with a keen sense of curiosity and adventure I set out to explore the workings of my own feelings of powerlessness.   

Well 2 days into that journey I can certainly share that my initial fear was justified and I truly had no idea how hard this would hit me.   

After a tough night I went back to work on my article (which I had already put 4 hours work into) only to find that for no good reason it disappeared from the screen and then blogger proceeded to auto-save the blank page that was now in front of me. In less than 5 seconds all my work was gone and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

HMMM ... powerlessness is a really tough one isn’t it?

So after feeling my life caving in on me (and some unbelievably painful situations arising for me emotionally), I came to the firm conclusion that although I share a lot of my life here on this site, there are perhaps some things - such as my own feelings of powerlessness - that I need to draw a line about sharing.   

I also decided pretty decisively that powerlessness is not something I want to intentionally call in to my consciousness to explore.

So instead today I have decided to share my ideas on this subject in a fairly straightforward and analytical way, this time leaving out my own personal stories and examples ...

Powerlessness  

When we feel in control of our lives and in control of our basic emotional and physical needs, we tend to feel OK and get along in life without too many upsets.   

When we stop feeling in control however and begin to feel powerless - and find no effective “tools” that will put us back in charge of our lives, anxiety and panic may quickly begin to set in.   

The feeling of powerlessness is in fact so unpleasant for most of us, that we will do just about anything to avoid facing this feeling in ourselves for very long.

For example; to avoid feeling powerless we might ... 

Use our bad moods to try and control others.
Use anger to try and get our way.
Blame others for our feelings of helplessness.
Assure ourselves that we 'have it all together' and have all the answers - when it should be obvious from the problems we are facing that we really don’t.
Get sick to gain the time, attention and sympathy we need from others or a reprieve from the unbearable situation or workload we face at home, school or work.
Even blame ourselves (for things well beyond our control) and feel guilty rather than admit that bad (and sad) stuff just happens sometimes and there is very little we can do about it.

These things we do to avoid feeling powerless hurt ourselves and the people around us and so exploring better solutions for dealing with this feeling has to be worth putting some time into ...

Don’t sit there feeling powerless ...  

First to avoid becoming crippled by a sense of powerlessness we must sometimes accept that some things are beyond our control, and in our mind give these type of problems to somebody else to deal with. This may mean giving the problem to God (or any other higher power that you believe to be a force for good). I have heard this called “Give it to God” or “Putting it in the God box.”   

Second is to consider what success truly is? Are overpaid, narcissistic (and perhaps drug addicted) actors or sportsmen or corrupt politicians really success? Our world has been over run with celebrity worship which has seen our standards for success radically change in the last century.   

You do not need to be a CEO or best selling author to be powerful and I would suggest that the most important people in this day and age are the ones who are simply working to be a stable (emotional and financial) influence in their community, while holding true to their own values and morals, despite the confusion and despair that often surrounds us.

It is important to also share this with your children. Let them know that they do not have to be the best at anything (or a celebrity) to impress you, but rather that you will be proud to see them grow up to become emotionally and financially stable and trustworthy.   

Third, I would like to suggest that you put together as big a tool kit of resources as you can - so that the next time you start to feel powerless you will have some new and better ideas to reach for. If you often feel powerless this is vital, because if you continue only reaching for what is old and familiar - but hasn’t worked for you in the past, you will unfortunately only keep getting the same unsatisfactory result.

Besides my list above can you believe some of these mistakes people will make in their effort to become more powerful? ...

Expensive Cars and Homes and Clothes - Leaving you a slave to debt.
Smoking (to look tough and cool) - Leaving you addicted, smelly, broke and sick.
Drinking (because it's what 'grown ups' do) - And again - addicted, smelly, broke and sick.
Illegal and Prescription Mood Enhancers and Pain Killers (to put you in 'control' of your pain) - Perhaps leaving you addicted, broke, impotent, a zombie and in danger of a heart attack or over dose..
Credit Cards - Leaving you a slave to debt.

Ok, sorry if I was harsh there and I could go on and on here - because the traps out there are beyond counting, but I think that you probably get the idea (-: ...

To encourage you to come up with a better tool kit, I will include a list of resources and suggestions here and hope that others may join in the comments section and share their own ideas they have found effective.   

I must admit that I am not too clear on how the Friends Connect social networking bar on this site works, so if someone else does and would kindly explain it in the comments section, I know a lot of potential friendships might also begin here from people writing to each other personally.   

Resources, suggestions and information to help if you are feeling powerless ...   

Simpleology - Bring sanity back to your day.   A daily program to increase your personal power by increasing the money, energy and time available to you. (Get organized!)

Catch Him and Keep Him - Learn skills to create attraction and a deep emotional and sexual connection with the man you want close.   (I was very sceptical of Christian's ebook before I bought it but I have to admit I learned more from him on this subject than anyone).

The Wellness Audio Institute - Enjoy pain free, drug free and low cost relief from stressful and overwhelming emotions including anxiety, depression, ADHD, insomnia, chronic pain and/or addictions. Great for learning to self soothe.   (My personal secret weapon which I carry on my ipod in my handbag!).

The Love Safety Net Workbook - Learn to deal with power struggles and tricky relationships. Exercises to build lasting attachment and respect in even the most difficult friend / work / love / family / relationships in your life.

  Back from the Looking Glass - End the domestic abuse - 12 steps to bring security back to your home.   

Peak 8 - Free Movie - Learn the the most advanced science of exercise and reclaim your shape and fitness while only exercising 30 minutes per week.   

The little Book of Empathy Love and friendship - Do you wonder why people feel more empathy for some people than they do for others? Learn the basics of becoming someone that people respect and care about.

  10 Steps to Overcome Your Codependence - Are you always waiting on that special someone to call? Codependence = Emotional dependence which is behavior you can learn to overcome. Stop the emotional vampire act and walk into a life filled with love today.   

Lovable Me - Know that you are lovable and loved - an anxiety reduction audio with positive affirmations from myself and Steve.   

Reconnect - Empowering discussion topics for yourself and your spouse or the support group you attend.   

Children Full of Life - A free online movie - The most powerful expose on human emotions that I have ever witnessed. Be ready to cry in the first 3 minutes of this amazing real life documentary.   

Validation - A free online movie - A short YouTube movie to put a smile back on your face.   

The Body Ecology Diet - A diet I have personally seen reverse autism. This diet is not easy (because you will have to learn to open coconuts and make kefir), but is tasty and by far the best diet I have ever seen for perfect health.   

Health Recovery Center - Alcohol and drug dependency recovery with over a 70% success rate.  Treating addiction without treating the bodies underlying nutritional damage and deficiencies can lead to depression and even suicide. Get clean, sober, happy & healthy with “7 Weeks to Sobriety” which you can order on this site.

The World Needs All Kinds of Minds - A free online movie - Social skills are not everything, this is one for all my fellow geeks out there!

* Some of the links above are affiliate links and some are not - but these are recommendations of the absolute best information we have come across (or offer).   I look forward to your ideas and suggestions too. Don’t just sit there - let’s get in and start working to create more stability in our homes and communities!

Until next time!

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured.com

Your Dream Lover

2011-01-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

Finding Your Dream Lover and Conducting the Perfect Affair ...

This may shock you coming from me, but today I am going to share exactly how to conduct a life long affair with the ideal lover of your dreams, beginning today in real life!

But first ...

Have you ever believed that you understood something, only to have a life event make you realize you didn’t understand it at all?

The first time this happened to me was when I was hit by a car.

Of course I thought I knew that cars were big and heavy and could hurt people - but it wasn’t until one hit me, that I realized previously I hadn’t understood this at all.

Before being hit by one, cars were just sound and vision to me, a bit like watching a movie or watching TV, but after my minor accident I began to start feeling the cars around me in the street. A new sensation had dawned in me that caused my whole body instead of just my mind to become aware that I had to watch out.

In a very similar way it was only last night that the story of Narcissus falling in love with his own reflection and the experience of my own personal redemption from this same situation, became very real to me.

There were a few events that led up to this breakthrough and I will share with you today how in just the last week, my own experience of myself and my life has completely changed.

Narcissism generally describes someone who is conceited and self centered, but as you may already understand, in reality narcissism has nothing to do with loving yourself at all.

As the Greek myth describes so well, Narcissus was not in love with his true self but instead a reflection of himself which was not real. Far from being ‘self centered’, Narcissus was a totally off-balance individual who died lonely searching for his ‘perfect lover’ in his reflection. Rather than being centered in himself, he is pictured leaning forward trying to catch a shallow glimpse of himself in the outside world.

Longing for this perfect lover does not only apply to people with narcissistic tendencies either. Just like Echo in this same myth, people with codependent tendencies also long for their ‘perfect love’ just as tragically, only in different ways.

Someone with narcissistic tendencies searches for completion in the praise and admiration they can win from others for their own achievements - or the personal worth and glory they can see reflected in the eyes of their admirers - while the codependent seeks their true ‘soul mate’ (who will know all of their secret hopes, dreams and fears) locked behind the defensive walls their aloof (and perhaps narcissistic) partner has erected against them. The codependent is forever looking for the key to the dark well their true love (who continues to reject them) has locked his or her own heart in - to set it free and heal them - so they can finally feel all the love and sympathy they are sure is there waiting locked inside.

Both of these ideas of finding true love are equally as flawed and equally as dangerous. After repeated attempts at finding their perfect love in this way fail, both the Narcissist and the Codependent are likely to resort to searching for this ideal lover in fantasy.

Many of us will have a little of each of these characteristics within us and vacillate between these two states of being, with neither working effectively as we slide further and further away from the wonderful life we once dreamed of for ourselves.

So this is the pain of the human condition - We cannot forget about this love that we crave, but the ways in which we search for it hurt ourselves and the people around us and can cause chaos, destruction and emotional pain.

So how to find your perfect lover, if not in any of the ways I have just described?

There is one person who will truly love and care for you in the way that you secretly crave. I am not talking about a divine or religious identity - your perfect lover is a real life, living and breathing human being and I want to introduce you to that person right now ...

I hope that this isn’t too disappointing but the 100% rock-solid truth is that only you can be your own perfect lover.

So maybe that’s a big let down. Perhaps you are thinking “Oh yeah - loving myself and all that New Age rubbish, I have heard it all before.” or “Hey I have worked for years at loving myself and sure it helps, but still it is not the same as what my heart really craves.” Or perhaps you may even think this idea sacrilegious?

If so I need you to trust me and keep your mind open for a moment (minds work better that way (-: ) and give this idea half a chance.

Because what I have described so far was only part of what hit me last night and these ideas I am sharing are experiential, which (like getting hit by a car) means that they are things that you must experience to understand.

If you truly want to experience self love and all that goes with it - you cannot just read this article - you will probably need to do some things, some of which may even scare you at first ...

Before I get to that however, first I want you to simply imagine exactly how your ideal lover would care for you. Even if you are married or in a relationship please give yourself permission to do this and be as detailed in your imagination as you possibly can. Remember the dreams you have had about your ideal love and the actors and perhaps songs that have evoked a picture of this very emotional character for you.

Maybe you imagined someone who would take care of you by cooking and making a nice home for you? Or someone who would support you emotionally and financially while you changed your occupation or went back to school? Or maybe you imagined someone who would give you the life you always wanted. Someone who was sympathetic to your emotional pain and who understood that you only made the mistakes that you have, because you were hurting, afraid or misunderstood?

Or maybe you imagined someone who would carry you off to live in the neighborhood or country where you always felt you really belong?

Whatever your fantasy, once you are ready please give yourself the gift of a lifetime and stop and write down some notes about the following points;

1. The character traits this person displays (such as beauty, strength or honesty).

2. The ways they would care for you and protect you if they walked into your life as your perfect lover right now.

Make sure that you make a few notes about this, because I will suggest that those notes may become a checklist of the most important things you will ever give yourself in your life.

You see most of us have been brought up to believe that loving ourselves will make us egotistical or conceited (or even evil) and this has caused us to deny ourselves the most important gift this life will ever offer ...

and that is the chance to be our own perfect lover.

I learned this the hard way over Christmas and New Year, because with a house full of kids (and their friends) all off school on summer holidays here in Australia, I lost my direction and inner courage to continue giving myself a lot of what I really need in my life. The first and most important being an office where it is quiet for me to work if I am to financially support my family.

You see I work from home and my daughter shares her large bedroom with me as my office and this usually works fine when she is at school. It is a big beautiful room and she has a desk and a big art table in it too, but with the kids home from school it just wasn’t working.

So I went into hiding and moved my computer into a corner of my bedroom and without seeing the ‘loveless’ choices I was making for myself, my anxiety and fear began to grow.

My story is very relevant to what I hope to share with you today because this journey I am recommending is not easy and the number 1 thing you will need to be your own perfect lover is COURAGE.

When I look back at the problems I have faced the last 3 summers, me needing a quiet space to work during summer holidays should have been obvious, but unfortunately it took all my ‘bad old patterns’ coming back, such as putting demands on my family / trying to please them to get them to feel for me more / challenging their feelings for me / blame and anger / and even now and then me seeking attention and recognition elsewhere.

I am ashamed to say that it even finally took me having a severe anxiety meltdown before this and a few other things I was needing to sort out for myself became clear.

Once I got through this and decided I better start taking a bit of my own advice and start treating myself better no one in my family really helped me (Steve has been overwhelmed with his own workload too) but no one argued with me or stopped me either.

You see what had happened was really no one else’s fault and the real reason for me not seeing the problem sooner was that I had to do some things that were new and this was why it had previously been so hard for me to see what was needed or face my fear and believe in myself enough to look after myself better.

First - I had to call on a friend and admit that I urgently needed some financial support, which is something I rarely do and always feel very uncomfortable about.

Second - I had to tell my in-laws, as soon as we arrived to visit them for 3 weeks, that before I could do anything I needed to find a room to rent (with internet) for me to work in without being interrupted for the duration of our visit.

While they scratched their heads asking how much that might cost and saying they didn’t know how I would find something like that - I was already out looking at the notice board in the local launderette and was very soon on the phone.

I was scared inside about this new thing I was claiming the right to organize for myself - but after my anxiety meltdown, the idea of my own office had, in my own mind, become a life rope back to peace and sanity.

Now because I have never done anything like this when visiting my in-laws, no one really understood and no one really believed it would actually happen. Being my own perfect lover however meant that I didn’t need their support, permission or help, instead I just did it - even though I felt nervous and scared that someone might try and talk me out of it or stop me, or judge me for giving so much time and attention to myself.

So in less than 48 hours after arriving in Melbourne, and with a little help from Steve, here I am sitting in a beautiful upstairs room, with trees outside the window and flowers I bought myself.

This space I have found to sublet comprises the whole upstairs of a beautiful two story house and has total peace and quiet, and the fastest internet connection I have ever encountered.

And it is not just like heaven sitting here - in a way I believe it actually is ...

Because I believe God wants us to know we are deeply loved and wants us to love and take care of ourself from the inner depths of our own heart.

This is not selfish either because back home while I forgot to love myself, guess what happened? ...

I started believing that the love and support I needed was outside of myself and hence I became egotistical and dissatisfied with how my family was treating me. I also became anxious and hard to live with. Once I saw the light however (after my fall) and became my own perfect lover, I can now see that what I have organized for myself is not only good for me but is 100% better for my family as well.

Because loving yourself does not make you egotistical and self centered but instead far less demanding and easier to be around.

So please go back now and have a look at that list you made. Because the truth is that no one is going to give you those things if you don’t start giving them to yourself.

Are there ways you want to live your life differently? Well maybe it is time you start taking responsibility for organizing those changes (without demanding too much from anyone else).

Do you long for a lover who is honest, hardworking and sincere? This is a message that you need to begin working on those traits in your own character and growing stronger so that you can begin to trust yourself.

Will that be easy? No.

Will you get to where you want to be overnight? No.

Will you always get the life you dreamed of or what you want? No, you will often have to make the most loving choices for yourself from what is available and that sometimes may mean needing to choose to be by yourself or to spend some quiet time contemplating nature or even to go hungry if the food available is not a loving choice for yourself.

Will other people help you? Not if you make your needs optional or ask permission for what you need. We all need some support from others, but you need to keep your requests direct and simple and be ready to accept a “no” if the person you ask can’t help.

Will it be worth the fear and discomfort you will feel by leaving your comfort zone? Undoubtably the answer is yes!

So from these ideas here are 3 new rules I have adopted in my life that I hope you might consider adopting too ...

1. My needs and desires about the way I wish to live my life are no longer optional.

2. I will no longer ask permission for the things that I need to be happy.

3. I will not expect people to guess my needs and will ask clearly and politely for the things I want/need help with.

Being your own perfect lover means working to give yourself what you need, regardless of what anyone else thinks. It means finding courage to claim the freedom to live your life the way that you need to, while demanding as little as possible (particularly emotionally) from anyone else.

Because self worth is experiencing and giving yourself love, not just talking or thinking about it.

So now for what hit me last night ...

Being back in Melbourne this week (where I lived when I was younger) has caused a lot of memories to come back to me. Also, because I suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder, many of my memories are of moments of acute anxiety from the past, and so even though a lot of great things happened for me here, it is easy for my daily experience (walking down streets that bring back memories for instance) to become defined by anxious memories which then in turn test my self esteem.

However, turning to my own ‘inner perfect lover’ for advice, I discovered this ...

~ My Own Inner Riches ~

Sitting quietly yesterday evening working in my new ‘room in heaven', I had a realization where I felt - perhaps for the first time ever - my own genuine and intrinsic self worth ...

Because if I am to be my own perfect lover what could possibly be more valuable to me than myself?

For the first time in my life I experienced that what was inside of my chest was worth more than all of the gold or riches in the world, and this same moment I suddenly saw and experienced two things; The first was a flash where I saw that what Narcissus needed and longed for was not the image he saw in the cold water of his reflection but instead to feel his own incredible self worth inside his own warm and living chest.

“It was like I was Narcissus and I felt the cold hard reflection come up and join me

and then my heart expand with love and joy at discovering the warmth,

love and realness of cherishing and valuing myself.

Narcissus’ shame was not to love himself,

but to foolishly look for that love anywhere but inside himself.

The next thing I felt was that all of those anxious memories that had been defining my day were falling away like old leaves.

This revelation was no day dream or wishful or fuzzy thinking either and I will tell you exactly why ...

because true love is a verb.

Giving yourself the things that your heart truly longs for (like the quiet office I had given myself) is not wishful ... it is about doing and it will take courage, determination and hard work!

At first you will say; “But I can’t afford the life that I want,” or, “My partner won’t let me do that,” or if you are more honest perhaps, “But I feel nervous because this is all new and I am afraid.”

It takes courage and strength to love yourself and giving yourself a new and kinder life than you have in the past may be harder than you realize at first ... but if you don’t have the courage to learn to love and respect yourself, who else will?

Loving yourself is also tough because it means giving up all your old bad habits, such as the junk food, drugs and stimulants that you rely on to make yourself feel better about denying yourself the life you truly long to be living.

- Or your addiction to fantasy with soap operas, pornography, romance novels, music, movies, magazines, computer games or TV.

- Or your reliance on blame and always feeling you need things from others (that you won’t even give yourself) because you don’t have the courage to take some risks and step out of your comfort zone and start taking the steps necessary to create the life that would express who you are.

Well you can cringe and beat yourself up about your bad habits if you want to - but I am telling you now that you will never get rid of your current habits until you replace them with something new and filled with more love for yourself.

For instance, if you are a drinker and you try and stop drinking without first finding some new pastimes which you enjoy and that are more loving towards yourself, what do you think will happen?

From experience I can tell you that it will only be a matter of time before you are back filling in your spare time drinking, because it is a habit and what feels natural to relieve your stress and anxiety, even though it actually creates more stress and anxiety in the long run.

Further from this I want to be straight with you and let you know that the things I recommend in my ebooks are not what will bring heaven into your life. My ebooks simply offer new ideas of how to live a life of self respect, replacing some of your old habits and responses that are no longer working for you (or perhaps never did but you learned simply from bad example) with better ones.

What will bring heaven into your life is for you to face your fear and decide to become your own perfect lover and find the courage to replace your old habits with new ones to love and support yourself as you want to be loved.

If you are truly working at change, these new ideas will feel strange and scary at first and some may indeed be challenging, but most of the time it will simply be because these ideas and suggestions will be new.

If you have never made an online purchase or purchased an ebook or read a self-help book for instance, even deciding to get started on this may be something that feels foreign and a bit scary and that fear is completely normal.

But if you are to grow and develop as a person and move towards a better life full of love, avoiding the anxiety trying new things causes and just saying “Don’t worry and just be happy”, is never going to cut it.

Start by Clicking Here to see our Introductory ebook Specials

I have written 5 ebooks now and the first Back from the Looking Glass (which is now in it’s 5th edition) is about how I turned my marriage from one of emotional and physical abuse and humiliation to one of the best marriages that I know of. The truth is however that while I was working through the steps I offer in that ebook, I felt so scared that a lot of the time I felt like I might throw up!

So here is the catch 22 - if the new ideas you are trying are not putting you far enough out of your comfort zone to feel some distress, you are probably not genuinely growing and the things you are doing to improve your situation are probably not going to work.

Just like exercise, no pain no gain!

So alongside our ebooks I also have something very powerful to offer you today to help with this ...

The Wellness Audio Institutes Audio Library was developed in conjunction with our work and was designed for you to have portable, private support that will help you overcome the inevitable fear that you will experience when you begin putting the steps we recommend in our ebooks into action. You facing and overcoming that fear is necessary and will help you move closer to the life you really crave ...

Personal and Private Support

Do you feel that no one really understands you in your neighborhood, at work or at church? Do you have ideas and dreams that you feel might make you an outcast if you were to act on them? Do you find yourself unconsciously asking for permission before you do anything because you are afraid of the rejection or the disapproval of others?

Well you need to step out and take some risks, because you only have one life to live and there are no dress rehearsals and there is NO place on earth where putting the life of your dreams into action will be easy or risk free.

Please understand that I do not advocate you being rebellious or reactionary and I have written reams on how to better fit in and be accepted and loved in your home and community - but needing love and acceptance cannot be at the expense of the steps you need to take towards a life full of love for yourself.

I want you to think now about the people you know who live life by their own rules but are still loved and accepted by their friends and family, even if their lives are a bit unusual and their choices may sometimes be criticized or judged.

There is hard science we can all learn from about the skills these type of people possess that allow them to make the choices that suit them (instead of what the crowd dictates) while still being loved and accepted by the people they want close. I would even say that having the courage and confidence to ‘call your own tune’ in this way is a very important ingredient to being attractive!

I have collected this kind of research for years and I will continue providing you with the most up to date psychology on the skills you need to develop to create this kind of deep and lasting attachment with the people you want close, but first you will need to find the courage to try these new things and the Wellness Audio Institutes Library is support that will help you relax and find courage at any place and at any time.

These recordings are state of the art technology and have nothing to do with hypnosis. You can find longer scientific explanations of brain wave entrainment online but I will give you the experience of this simply ...

Remember that great safe and warm feeling you probably once felt sleeping in the back of car while your parents were driving, or maybe as you were looking out the window of a train with the noise and vibration of the wheels and the track lulling you into a deep state of relaxation?

Can you remember that safe and relaxed feeling you felt in either of these situations?

Now imagine being able to give yourself that very same feeling, privately (even if you are sitting in a waiting room, in a car or on a plane) at any place and at any time.

There are no words or subliminal messages in these recordings. Instead they produce an effect very similar to medication (that will last for hours after you have stopped listening) but without any of the hazardous side affects.

To give yourself this gift of personal support, you will need a portable MP3 player such as an iPod (or a less expensive version will be fine), some earbuds (the modern word for headphones), and the downloads of the albums that will best help you with the current ‘fear based’ problems you are now facing.

You might also wish to buy these albums on CD and listen to them on a CD player, but this will not be as portable or private.

If you choose the CD version you can however still load the tracks from your CD onto your computer and then transfer the recordings on to your MP3 player. This choice is a good one if you have a slow internet connection which may make downloading the files difficult.

Personal and Private Support

So this is a new habit that your own perfect lover might choose to give yourself to help relieve your anxiety and give you the courage you need wherever and whenever you need it while you are working on our steps towards a more loving life.

This library of audio recordings will provide genuine solid support instead of you reaching for those bad habits that will never help you achieve a life full of love.

There is even a Wellness Audio Album for overcoming addictions - so next time you are reaching for that coffee, cigarette, drink, romance novel, porn site, TV remote, prescription or non prescription drug, or even phone for a friend to lean on - instead you can fire up your MP3 player and relax into a better state of mind - ready to make better choices (guided by your inner perfect lover) of how to better spend your time.

Because the truly valuable things in life don't come from others but come from inside of ourselves and of our own creation; such as talent, creativity, inspiration and joy.

And even if the new lifestyle choices you make are a bit scary at first, you will need to face and overcome this fear if you are ever to find the path to self love ....

So please take a look at my list of favorites in the Wellness Audio Library and I look forward to hearing about your success ...

Personal and Private Support

Here’s to you experiencing your own true self worth and truly knowing that you are loved.

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured.com

If you haven't started yet on the steps in our program
Click Here to see our Introductory ebook Specials

Our City Leaders Narcissism Part II

2010-12-14T14:50:00.000-08:00

A Resounding Victory Against Narcissism!

If you followed my last post with this title you may be excited to learn that our local city council voted last night to retain all 14 of the beautiful giant trees in our local Civic Park that were threatened.

This is wonderful news for those of us who have been committed to protecting them.

This last few months has been a very harrowing time for me as it often seemed we would lose this battle and as I explained previously, these trees hold a very sacred place in my heart. For many years they have been the place I would go (even if only in my mind) when I needed to self soothe and calm down. The fact they came so close to being destroyed - fully in bloom and a home to so many beautiful creatures - threatened me personally on more levels than I could express. Walking under those enormous trees is for me God's own church and the fact that other people wished to show their power by cutting them down caused me anxiety and a sense of evil taking control of our city in ways I have never experienced before.

In the past where I would have been debilitated by that anxiety, or over reacted - this time I helped with the fight.

The victory has also been a very healthy one and not superficial ...

In the process of this battle the general manager of our city council resigned. She was the highly paid - behind the scenes UNELECTED official who had insisted there was no choice except that the trees must go. Like an episode of "Yes Prime Minister" she was an expert at massaging the egos of the councillors-with-a-vote to make sure she got her way.

So here's were we stand now ...

- Our city has been 'woken up' and had its community political spirit renewed.

- Our Mayor has had a change of heart and even made a stand saying that council should not be fighting the people but defending their interests.

- The unelected power in the system has been shown it is not invincible.

- Even though the activist's court appeal was overturned it ended up being council itself who has voted to preserve ALL of the trees.

- A better working relationship now seems to be forming between the activist group (that works to protect our parks and playgrounds) and council.

I mention this idea of a healthy victory because all to often I find people in dysfunctional families seeking unhealthy victories.

Once a battle of wills has gone on for too long the goal of each family member can too easily become focused simply on the importance of getting one's way.

Narcissists will lie and cheat while codependents will use emotional ploys - with the sole purpose being that these acts will hopefully get each person what they are desiring for a little while.

Not only does this rarely work but it then sets an unhealthy precedent for their children who will begin using all the same unhealthy and ineffective methods of coercion.

The only real means of healthy decision making and team work is direct negotiation.

If your partner will not play fair however you will also need to know how to cut through their games and keep it honest.

That is certainly not easy but is where our ebooks can really help.

Learning new habits and unlearning old ones takes time certainly - but where will you be in a year's time if you don't start now?

It took my 3rd major relationship being on the rocks till I woke up and saw that I really had to do some hard work growing up.

That decision was undoubtedly the best in my life and so I hope you will do the same.

There are many people who will argue that their relationship problems are completely out of their hands and there is nothing they can do to improve things (and even blame me for giving people hope) but that was exactly the same thing nearly everyone said about saving the trees.

I said from the beginning that we could win and we did!

So who do you want to believe? If the people saying, "There is no hope", win your vote ... what happens to your life then?

There Are Some Things we Must Face Alone

2010-12-06T21:47:00.000-08:00

Poem for the codependent woman

A woman sits looking out of her window
at the warm sun gently caressing the flowers outside.
It is a perfect day but none of this touches her heart
and only mocks the terrible pain she feels inside.

The man of her dreams and father of her children
has abandoned her only two days before.

The work of growing to become a
responsible man was too much for him
and frustrated and angry he blamed her
and left with an old girlfriend who could ease his self doubt for a little while.

The woman now feels a deep longing for a boy she knew at school,
a boy she treated badly
back when she was still haughty about her beauty
and the power she sensed she had over men ...

She begins to weep when she realizes
she would give anything to have this same boy smile at her now.

Her children are worried and sad
and do all they can to cheer up their mother
but nothing works for long
and when they start nagging her she scolds them too harshly and goes into her room crying.

She longs for a hero or savior and thinks of all the men she has known
who she might call on now to help mend her broken heart.

Then remembering her girls she thinks,
"But no one will want me now, men do not even love their own children,
how will they love mine to another man."

This thought makes her cry all the harder and wish,
as she has a million times in the last two days
that he would just say he was sorry and come home.

Her dreams were all built on the love that she would receive when she married
and not the hard work and strength of character that would be required of her.

And no medication or drugs,
no old flames or new fantasies
can do anything to help her now.

She can try and demand that her children fill the gap he has left in her heart
but if she tries she will only curse their lives also.

There are some things we must face alone and the first of these is loss.

Remembering this truth she braces herself and looks in the mirror
at her face all swollen from crying
she closes her eyes and accepts that the dreams she once had were all childish fantasy
and that he is not coming back ...

not ever.

It hurts like a knife through her heart and the pain reaches a crescendo that she finally
finds unbearable.

But in that very same moment when her soul is torn in two
the silver lining shines through and a new brighter future peaks through this same tear.

The girls need a bath
and the house needs putting in order
and it is a lovely afternoon for them all to take a walk in the park.

As she gathers herself and walks out to greet her children
she feels a strength in herself that she has never felt before.

Her girls are so sad but also so relieved to see her back on her feet
that they even forget the TV show they were only a moment ago mesmerized by.

The woman remembers a time when the three of them were together,
without him, but all happy and having fun.

She decides right then and there that this is how
she wants to be feeling again soon.

And so it is and the storm which might have ripped all their lives to pieces, passes.

She has passed this test and found her own power
and though she realizes now that he may in fact return
the woman that was once dependent on him for her happiness is gone forever.

Because there are some things we must face alone ...

Your Blind Spot

2010-12-06T18:26:00.000-08:00

Why you can't see your own gaps ...

I am going to attempt something momentous today but know exactly how foolish that kind of ambition can be. Generally it is the subtle things in life - like changing a habit - that really are momentous - and bold attempts often fall far short of the mark.

Here it goes anyway ...

My big goal today is to start a discussion that improves the life of everyone who joins in it and perhaps even changes the course of history ... and to do this of course I am going to need your help!

Today I will attempt to shine a light into the parts of your life that you can't normally see.

Now any discussion with the power to change lives (and dare I suggest even our perception of the past) will need to range about and cover a lot of ground, so I will begin by giving you my view of the larger battlefield that I propose every human in history has found themselves on. For illustration purposes let's imagine a fictional world something like this ...

The earth is flat and at one end we see the grand continent of reason and the Upper Cortex whose landscapes are filled with bright towers of glass and whose laws are based on logic and pure reason. All thoughts are directed at higher knowledge and all lines on the landscape are clear and strong.

At the other end of our imaginary world lies the emotionally charged continent of the Amygdala - this is a land of no logic or rules - but where impulse and action rule supreme. Style, beauty and feeling are the guiding disciplines - no matter how decadent, frayed, tasseled or violent.

Now between these two continents there is a great expanse of water in which exist many islands and while they are the only truly peaceful and nice places to live in this (not so) imaginary world, very few people venture there.

On the continent of reason, people are slaves to jobs they don't feel good about but 'know' are important. They only eat what is good for their health and won't cause them to gain weight and they exercise for exactly the right amount of time each day. Inhabitants of this continent certainly don't let their feelings interfere with or inconvenience anyone else EVER.

On this continent;

- Men who have families at home, work 50 hours + a week and only go home to eat, sleep and wash.
- Women employ other people to care for their kids while they work or shop (which is considered them helping the economy).
- People travelling from the continent of the Upper Cortex to the continent of the Amygdala as part of their work often fall for the temptation of extra marital affairs which then proceed to make their own and their family's rational lives unmanageable.
- People are made to do what they are told at work (or lose their job) despite their feelings about what they are being asked to do. This in turn leads to a steep rise in heart attacks and the reliance on prescription medication to help with this stress.
- Traditions, buildings and nature (which hold meaning and significance to many people) are regularly bulldozed for development based only on profit and anyone daring to shed a tear is mocked for their sentimentality.
- There is democracy, but politicians regularly break their oaths and pledges to the people because they can simply explain that the facts have changed since they came into office.
- Political protest takes the form of rational debate.
- People listen to Bach, Benny Goodman, Musak or political punk or political rap music.
- There is general suspicion and blame cast on the continent of the Amygdala (even though most spend their holidays and weekends there).
- There are unending wars based on profit and economic 'neccessity'.

Reason can justify all of the laws the people on this continent live by. For example, looking at the first point above - reason would say that many women in the past have had to raise their children with only the financial support of their husband and that because women in the past could handle this a woman is defective and troublesome if she can't manage this too. The rationalists might also add that a husband working long hours for his family is what proves that he is a good husband and father and that really she should feel grateful that he works so hard.

The fact that she doesn't feel grateful but instead feels completely emotionally overwhelmed, distraught and abandoned at this expectation, has little relevance to the rational argument - and her feelings are hence easily disregarded.*

So here begins our discussion and I would propose that without being tempered by emotion, the land of reason, will always become very unreasonable ...

For instance, and continuing with my example; raising kids is harder work than anyone without the experience can possibly imagine and always constitutes a time of rapid (and necessary) personal growth for anyone who wants to be a good parent. Passing that challenge and responsibility to one partner in a relationship while denying the importance of their feelings about it (when our world does not have the extended 'neighbourhood' for mothers it once had) is neither fair nor reasonable.

Meanwhile ...

The people on the romanticized continent of the Amygdala do not even bother rationalizing what they are doing and if ever asked will simply lash out with insults or violence or else somewhat helplessly suggest that they are following their heart.

On this continent there is no written rules but the popular pastimes include ...

- 'Crushes' which break up marriages and destroy familiar family ties.
- Pornography addiction.
- World of Warcraft addiction and other fantasy based computer games.
- Romantic fiction.
- Horror stories.
- Classical music (especially Wagner) and Opera.
- Popular music including (but not limited to) Histrionic Love Songs, Shock Rock, Rock Operas, Heavy Metal, Power Pop, Cabaret and Country Music.
- Alcoholism and drug addiction.
- Over indulgence with food linked to highly emotional traditions and holidays.
- Public gatherings of overt and excessive emotionalism which may include some music festivals, sporting events, political rallies and religious gatherings.
- Romance, horror and soap operas in movies and on TV.

Now unlike the world of rationalism, most people in the world of the Amygdala don't even bother pretending that any of this represents wholesomeness or truth - but instead the people's urges towards these behaviours are condoned by tradition or common practice.

Now each world has its problems but to make matters worse none of the inhabitants can live in only one of these worlds for long and actually spend most of their time flying from one continent to the other becoming more and more confused and at odds with themselves. They want to achieve things in one world and feel good in the other but each world counteracts the influence of the other.

The physical and moral hang-overs they feel after visiting the world of the Amygdala interfere with productivity - but then most people in the land of reason don't feel good about their jobs or the way that childcare and unpaid labour is shared or organized in their families. Not feeling good drives them back to the world of the Amygdala and the negative cycle of their lives continues.

This also represents the history of the human race as popular culture and political movements sway from one extreme to the other, with hardly time to take a breath in the center.

As you have probably guessed by the names I have chosen for the continents, I believe the cause of this duality in human nature can fairly easily be traced by brain science.

I have heard a lot of talk in the last few years of left brain and right brain thinking and while I know they are very different - the truth is that our left and right brain have a lot of connectivity and do work quite well together, while our Amygdala (emotional brain) and Upper Cortex (rational brain) on the other hand are very different and often have trouble working together at all.

AND THIS IS THE GAP WE HAVE TROUBLE SEEING!

Our reason and emotion both want more love and respect in our homes and community and a more affectionate relationship and sex life, but day after day we get home from the same job that we hate and flop down in front of a emotional romance or thriller (and a bit of 'feel good' junk food), or else tune into sleaze on the Internet or perhaps catch the latest movie in town or go on a drinking and/or drug binge if it's the weekend.

This problem is described very well in the book of Genesis, one of the most compelling and mysterious books in all of our history ...

Can there be any doubt that what was described as us eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents mankind's acquiring our upper cortex and hence our self consciousness? God knew that we had 'sinned' because Adam and Eve were suddenly self conscious and 'knew' that they were naked. How eating a piece of fruit can cause someone to grow an upper cortex is beyond my imagination but it certainly fits with the prediction from God that women would suffer in childbirth from that point on (our bigger heads) and also of men having to work. Looked at from the perspective of both religion or evolution, it would seem that us acquiring our Upper Cortex was indeed the point in history where slavery began to take hold.

At this point in the biblical tale, God feared that mankind had become too powerful and took 'the tree of life' (eternal life) away from us. It was not long after this that he also wiped out most of humanity with a flood. After surviving these setbacks God then shortened our life span and also sabotaged our ability to communicate (at Babel). God's fears about the human race can only seem justifiable when we consider the momentous struggle humanity has battled with to balance the treacherous duality of reason and emotion that is a part of every one of us.

There is wisdom in hindsight and it is this hindsight that I believe may help us in this struggle because far from over, unfortunately now - due to our mass media, each continent is even further divided and more heavily armed and we are at war with ourselves more than ever before in history.

The worlds that I speak of are not really continents but two parts of our psyche - neither of which will be denied - and that each and every one of us traverse every day.

As recreation we are sold blatant and mindless emotional excess while most people's work has less emotional meaning than ever. Children and their parents are divided; with adults expected to be purely rational (which they cannot reasonably maintain) while children and especially teenagers are shamelessly seduced with every conceivable form of emotional and romantic self indulgence.

The meaningful connectivity that the Internet promised is now severely threatened by the meaningless competition and small talk of social networking (and the looming threat of the Internet becoming more like one-way cable TV) and with most people not using their computers looking for real connection or education but as yet another place to look for an emotional 'hit' there tends to be less and less time for meaningful emotional connections in our home lives.

So my challenge is for us to get together and begin sharing concrete examples of how we might improve our own lives (along with the human condition) by bringing reason to our emotions and emotion to our reason ...

If you are familiar with my work you know I have already written reams on this subject - but today instead I want to get a discussion going and hear lots of people's ideas.

The problem is that these 'two brains' of ours are very different and it is very difficult to use our upper cotex effectively when our Amygdala is firing. I like the analogy of our Amygdala being a car alarm - you need to consider what it is telling you - but you also need to know how to turn it off!

Or another metaphor could be that we all are bicycles in a land that does not know what they are for. These bicycles are now either being used as very uncomfortable seats to sit stationary on or very clumsy push carts to push things around with, but neither use is very gratifying or effecient.

It is only when we dare to hop on and take a ride and start attempting to use these two very different functions of our brain together that we really begin to understand what it is to live an authentic and complete life.

Not the excitment of a rollercoaster or the security of following someone else's structured orders, but a real and satisfying life full of personal decisions and choices based on both reason and emotion.

I have some ideas on all of this - and Steve and I will be making some movies over the next few weeks on how crushes and other emotionally charged messages can be interpreted productively. I would also suggest that if your home life is in crisis you will check out our ebooks.

Our ebooks will help you develop an atmosphere of love and respect in your home in straightforward and practical steps that are less academic than the challenge I am posting here today. They are based on the same ideas however, and while not easy (like learning to ride a bike) if applied correctly they do work.

Otherwise please let the discussion begin - and if you know of other authors or thinkers please send them the link to this post and ask them to join in ...

To get the ball rolling here is a suggestion of mine for bring emotion to reason in regards to diet ....

My rational brain has a very clear idea of what I should eat to be healthy and maintain the correct weight but my emotional brain doesn't feel very much (except boredom) about any of that food. So to get my two minds working together I will draw up a list of the food I feel the best about and then think of healthier ingredients and ways of preparing these foods. I have also noticed that I feel better about food that I have had some adventure in obtaining and so I will look at what local farms I can visit with our kids so that healthy fruit and vegetables will gain an extra emotional significance and charge when we eat them (-:

I am also going to challenge Steve today to do a movie soon where we put both sides of our brain onto the question of sex. If he takes my challenge I will get that movie out to you soon but until then I want to hear your ideas!

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured.com

PS. I have Craig Shuftan's awesome book titled "Hey! Neitzsche! Leave them kids alone!" (which I just finished) to thank as the inspiration for this post. His book is a cultural and academic study of history and in particular how the ideas of Rationalism and Romanticism relate to modern music. It is not on the subject of relationships - but if you have an interest in popular culture I highly recommend it!

* This disregard of people's feelings makes this continent a very dangerous place to live.

The challenge of your life!

2010-11-24T00:35:00.000-08:00

Only New Habits Give New Results

When you are upset do you feel that you must find someone to talk to? I guess that psychology and medicine have given us the idea that you either need to talk it out or you need a pill.

My dad was a doctor and he had a very different idea. He told people if they wanted to get better they had to change their habits. He would sometimes even call people who wanted a pill to fix things, "losers!"

People loved my dad however because he got results. His older patients loved him too because he knew they were scared of dying in hospital. He would say to them "If you were going to die I wouldn't put you in hospital I would let you die at home!"

So this holiday season I want to challenge you to stop thinking you need someone to talk about your problems and start forming some new habits instead.

You do not need a shoulder to cry on for things to start changing. All the info you need is right there in black and white in our ebooks.

Most people with emotional problems didn't have good role models to teach them how to ...

a. Greet people warmly using their name.

b. End non-productive conversations in a non-confrontational way.

c. Handle put-downs in a non-confrontational way.

d. Not to get ahead of our selves and work on our skills at the level we are really at (also filling in gaps).

e. Handle our own emotions without being emotionally demanding.

f. Read what our emotions are signalling.

g. Admit it when we are wrong or have made a mistake.

All the talk in the world won't teach you those skills if you didn't have good role models growing up. It is actually easier to learn most of these skills when we are older however and we can always choose our own role models to learn from. We have had testimonials from people in their 70's and so it is certainly never too late.

It takes time, certainly and is not as instant as finding someone to unload on and helping you to 'feel better'. Without changing your habits however, that is just a band-aid and will never create real change.

Because it takes time, I challenge you to start working on some new habits today and see if you don't see some big changes by Christmas and the New Year. These dates will come around anyway and I wonder where you will be?

All the best for this holiday Season and you hang in there!

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured.com

PS. If you are dealing with domestic abuse please start with "Back from the Looking Glass", otherwise I recommend you start on the exercises in "The Love Safety Net Workbook" or "The Little Book of Empathy Love and Friendship".

Short Circuiting Power Struggles

2010-10-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

A Basic Recipe for Family Democracy

Being on a family vacation, I have recently had a chance to brush up on my negotiation skills and thought I might share this great recipe for enjoying a relaxed time with your family, particularly when your regular schedule is disrupted ...

There is nearly always limited time and resources in our lives and so it's only natural that family members will struggle to assert themselves as high in the 'pecking order' as they can to be sure to get their share of whatever is on offer (while there is still time).

Unfortunately if family members are fairly evenly matched (in the pecking order) this power struggle may become continuous and conflict can become the 'norm'. This will often happen between children close in age and this kind of prolonged conflict can become very hard to live with.

Families that are normally stable can likewise become unbalanced in this same way when thrown into a new environment where there is limited time and money and some members begin to fear missing out.

Yes I am talking about the dreaded family vacation!

So here is my recipe to short circuit these struggles (which can easily make vacations more stressful than staying home!). This advice may also work to short circuit power struggles if your family's standard routine is less than peaceful.

Ingredients;

- A clipboard and a few sheets of standard sized paper and a pen.

- Everyone who will be participating in activities.

- Adequate time.

- Patience and goodwill.

- A good sense of justice and humor.

1. Establish an itinerary in the clipboard that everyone can look at and is carried with 'family general property' like the food carrier or similar (this is important because it shows that no one owns the itinerary but that it is there for everyone).

2. Put the youngest member of the family in charge of remembering that the itinerary needs to be looked at when making decisions. This child can be called the itinerary master or similar. Giving them a watch will also help them know what time things are planned to happen without asking.

3. Before you leave make sure that all travel departure times including leaving home and all connecting travel points are written in the itinerary - but only for the next day.

4. When you arrive and have had a chance to see all that is on offer (try and make sure that children are selecting from activities within your budget by only showing them advertising about the things you can afford to do) all sit down and ask each family member what they would like to do in your time at that particular destination. Do not schedule anything in yet - just listen and ask questions and write all of the points mentioned down on the left hand page of the note book you are using with the itinerary on the right hand page. Ask other family members "Who would like to do that too?"

5. Do not tell anyone that they cannot do what they are wanting to (but don't promise either!) if this is necessary wait until later, for now everyone is just hearing each other's wish list.

6. Ask older children if they want the things that the younger ones do? The younger kids hearing them say, "No", will help them see that it is OK to miss out on some activities and that everyone doesn't have to do everything (which will help your budget!)

7. Make sure no one in the family misses out on these meetings. Family members sitting on the sidelines will be drawn in as they hear various activities discussed. Everyone has to have at least one thing written down before the meeting can be declared over.

8. Start figuring out what things need to happen first (for practical reasons) and which activities can wait until later, until you have planned only 1 day ahead.

Just having talked about what each person wants to do will often make everyone feel more relaxed that their wishes have been heard and stop nagging and fighting. To be fair, parents should make a sincere effort to make sure each person gets to do at least one thing that was important to them at each destination.

The journey my family is on at present began with an 8 hour plane departure delay after us all being bused to a different airport. The day was still remarkably smooth considering. Even though the itinerary had become nothing more than a failed attempt at prophecy, in the end it was what saved us from what could have become a family travel nightmare ... because of the itinerary (and the meeting we had had about it the day before) everyone in our family knew that the events that were going on had not been planned and that the disruption was no one's fault. The fact we had a plan also made the children feel reassured that eventually things would get back to normal and that playing cards in the airport was not an unusual thing for us to want to do.

Once arriving at an extended family get together, a family itinerary can also short circuit power struggles that can erupt over who is in charge of planning with extended family members. No meeting has to be called - you can simply begin the itinerary meeting when everyone is around.

The itinerary meeting can be held at any time of the day that is suitable and is a tool not a rule book. Once everyone has their wishes written down 'to be scheduled at a suitable time' you may be amazed at how quickly everyone relaxes and gets into the current planned activities and starts enjoying their vacation. Remembering other family member's wishes is also a great way to build trust.

More on our travels soon ...

Kim Cooper
http://www.fightbusters.com

Our City Leaders Narcissism

2010-09-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

Hi all - I will take a risk today and let you very close to my heart and personal values.

I am so sorry that I haven't had much time in the last month or so for people commenting here but I promise I will try and catch up soon. Steve has also said he will hop in and answer some comments as soon as he is able.

What has sidetracked us both is our local council's (city hall's) decision to cut down a whole row of the most beatiful (and giant) trees in our city. Steve and I don't usually get involved in politics but I believe me sharing a bit more of what has been going on in our personal lives is relevant to our discussions here at the Narcissism Daily Mirror and I hope you find my tale today interesting ...

Over the last few years I have had my own favorite ways to self soothe. I once used the audio products we produced together with Sarah Chambers for this purpose. I still believe in Sarah's work but unfortunately she refused to acknowledge our part in marketing and developing her work and felt she could go into competition with us without compensating us for all the work we had done and the royalties we had paid her. After she made the decision to hire someone to intimidate our family forcing us to remove the products we had produced for her (in good faith) I made the decison that for me to keep focused on my own goals I needed to cut ties with Sarah with as few complications (legally and otherwise) as possible and so I agreed to remove her products from our site even though this was grossly unfair to us.

As I rebuilt our site and worked on new audios to replace the ones I had produced for Sarah (but had been forced to shelve) another irony dawned on me which was that Sarah's voice was now no longer something I wanted to listen to to calm down (lol).

Luckily I had been offered the Wellness Audio Institute amazing range of Brain Wave Entrainment Albums to try and I can honestly share that they work - because it was these recordings which kept me on track through the terrible stress this situation with Sarah caused me.

But the lesson hadn't finished for me and little did I know that one of my other favorite options for calming down was also soon to be violated. If you have read much of my writing you will know that walking under (or imagining I am walking under) the giant trees in our city is something that always works to calm me down if I am angry or upset.

As fate would have it these very same trees that I hold so dear to my heart are now on 'skid row' and for the past 4 months or so we have been fighting our local government to save them.

Now when I think about the trees I just get angry about the people who want to destroy them.

The lesson for me in this I believe is valor. Because sometimes calming down and thinking things through just isn't enough. We need to get mad enough to take a few risks and take action.

With Sarah I backed down and stayed focused on my own goals and projects - but with the trees it is different and we have decided to take a stand.

So the movie below is part of what Steve and I have been doing to help in the fight to save our city's trees.

We both remain commited in our role as champions of those living with domestic abuse and hope we will always be here for everyone who need us, but until this is resolved with our city's officials, these trees need us too and we will do all that we can to save them.

I am very proud of this movie and I hope you will watch it to the end and if you have YouTube account you will please comment on the movie on YouTube.

If there is anything you can do to help us in our fight, please let us know as we have only a week until they are scheduled to be cut down. Otherwise we will be back with you with more relationship advice as soon as possible ....

Hang in there and stay cool (-:

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured.com

The #1 Biggest Relationship Killer

2010-08-31T05:55:00.000-07:00

It's only one word and it's NOT narcissism or codependence.

Today I will write to you about taking things to a higher level.

I hope you are in for a quick and exciting ride because we will quickly move it on UP!

When we all agree and are on the same page, things tend to go smoothly right? It is when there are disagreements that things begin to sink down into the mire of frustration, disappointment and anger.

Because of this is it is easy to believe that we must solve our disagreements if we wish to move to a happier place in life. Unfortunately however, this can simply leave us locking horns again and again on the same issues.

Further, disagreement isn't always a bad thing and is actually at the heart of creativity because if there is never a conflict you will never need creativity to solve it!

So if disagreement is necessary, how do we move away from these dark emotions when we feel at odds with ourselves or with others?

To begin let's start with ourselves ...

Have you ever stopped to consider how many conflicting view points you have within you? Some may be very hard to resolve ...

Say me for instance - One side of me loves publishing books online and would probably even love my own office full of staff and to live the life of a real career woman. I like all that and I love the team work and real life challenges.

However ...

Another side of me would rather be an old fashioned mum who ground my own flour and baked home made apple pies for the kids and lived on a big property with apple trees and an old tire swing and took the kids sailing to fun places for picnics!

If I never take the time to resolve this conflict in myself I will end up going one way and then the other, sabotaging my efforts in each direction and never really being satisfied with either. This sounds like some relationships doesn't it? It could be my husband who wanted me to be the old fashioned mother or even the career girl and if I had different ideas of how I wanted to live my life we would face a similar conflict.

So what am I going to do? There is no way I could ever decide between these two different ideas of how I would like to live my life let alone solve this conflict if it was with my husband! It simply looks unresolvable doesn't it? No matter what I choose; one side of myself (or one party in the relationship) will be disappointed with the outcome.

The answer I want you to consider today is to take the whole issue up a level or two!

What I mean by this is I should keep asking myself (or my husband) why we each want these things until we finally find a common answer.

For example;

Why do I want a successful career? Answer: To provide a solid financial base for my family.

Why do I want to be at home cooking and and looking after my kids? Answer: To provide a solid base for my family!

So up a level or two these two sides of me are NOT at odds and both want nearly exactly the same thing! Knowing this and focusing on this higher level I can then see that the answer of how to live my life is simple ...

I work on my career from home, where I can still be here for my family and every now and then we take holidays in the country (and I hope to soon go sailing), and yes I bake something from scratch now and then too! Seen from the higher objective that each side of me shares, this is not a compromise but the best possible combined set of choices for the outcome I desire.

I might never have my own external office and staff - and I may never have a farm to run, but those things would only distract from my real goal anyway!

Even with political parties who are at war, both sides want peace and prosperity for their country's citizens and for the planet - each just has very different ideas of what steps must happen for this to be achieved.

Arguing about the steps needed can become a creative process if the higher level outcome both sides have in common can be kept in the foreground.

Healing these divisions is all about self love and self acceptance. Because until we can love and accept all of our own drives and motivations and learn to see the higher good in all that we want, we will not be able to love anyone else very well either.

If you take the most base or selfish desires that you experience and move them up a level or two (by asking yourself why you want this), you will usually find that you only want these things because you are feeling bad about yourself and at a higher level what you really want is peace and self acceptance.

And if we are not feeling OK about ourselves and our own desires it becomes very hard to love, accept and understand others.

I grew up as a kid that was picked on a lot and I ended up with terrible self esteem. For many years I looked back on my childhood and could not help but feel a lot of self pity.

Now when I look back on my childhood - from a new found place of self love - it all looks different. The thing I regret now is that from my position of not loving myself, I missed so many opportunities to love the people around me. It would have been wonderful to be able to reach out and understand and be confident enough to smile and show them I liked them - I couldn't do that back then because I didn't like myself and so I was trapped in misery, wanting love from the people around me and not seeing they needed my love too!

OK so I have to apologise that I haven't been available lately to answer questions and that is because Steve and I have a new product to launch this week which is all about self love and how to achieve it. It is a new MP3 from Steve and I called "Lovable Me" and it will be available in a few days from now (but before the weekend!).

To get our launch celebrations started, please check out what "the #1 Relationship Killer" is in a short free movie you can view here:

http://www.BiggestRelationshipKiller.com

The answer is one word and is a few levels down from Narcissism and Codependence and I believe is the problem these two conditions have in common.

I wonder if you can guess what the answer is?

I will be posting 3 free movies and a free PDF on this new site in the next 3 days so please go and have a look now ...

http://www.BiggestRelationshipKiller.com

I hope you will come along for the ride with our launch and 'move on up' past any discord in your life to a new place of self love and peace with yourself and the people around you.

See you at the new site!

Kim Cooper

http://www.BiggestRelationshipKiller.com

PS. If you want to recieve the Biggest relationship killer PDF for free just use the coupon code freegift in the checkout when purchasing any of our ebooks or audio products and you will recieve an email with the link to that free download.

I need your feedback ...

2010-08-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

Check out our newly designed website ...

Just a quick post today. We have redesigned our website with a new look and feel and I would love everyones feedback. Once you subscribe on the site a second page opens instantly with a movie of us talking which I would especially love your comments on. Does it play on your computer? Is our message clear? Is there anything you want to share about what we are saying?

What is narcissism and how does it start? ...

Narcissism

I know there is a lot to read on the front page but I have put an enormous amount of time into answering these questions as simply and clearly as I can.

Here's your chance to tell us how we are doing - I really do appreciate your honest feedback!

Kim Cooper

Emotional Abuse Part 2

2010-08-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

Emotionally Abused to Emotional Ninja

I am sorry to hear that many people are struggling at present - I wonder if it is the time of the year? I am glad to hear however that so many people have enjoyed Christian Carter's ebook "Catch Him and Keep Him" which I gave a plug in my last article.

I know I really got a lot out of Christian's work. I used to act really 'low status' by frequently doing the big relationship talk he mentions; trying to convince Steve why he should treat me better. Back then his interest strayed all the time but when I learned how to stay more grounded - rather than me trying to 'convince', I gained a lot more power.

The Real emotional Ninja trick I reckon is being able to stay present and non reactive (and out of defense) even when your feelings are very strong and conflicted.

This is truly warrior energy (and very powerful and hard to do) but if you are in a volatile relationship you may get a chance to practice this sooner than you know.

When we are provoked by someone being hurtful it is natural to want to either hurt them back or withdraw and say you don't care.

It is much harder and much more courageous however to stand your ground keeping your heart open and honestly say what you feel.

"I feel very hurt by what you are saying and I feel very angry about it too - but I really do love you still and hope that we can resolve this in a better way."

This may knock your partner off balance and you need to be ready for that, and ready also to just see what unfolds while you stay grounded and remain present.

So this is the challenge I am offering here - for you to stay grounded and with your heart open - even when you are emotionally undefended and feeling fear.

This is terrifying (and can hurt like hell) but oh my the results it can have!

Anger makes us feel powerful but usually just causes other people to put their defenses up - so it ends up dividing us from others and achieving very little.

Love and fear on the other hand make us feel weak - but if we can face this and hold our ground anyway and not flinch or become defensive, it will instantly strip all pretense away.

Like when Steve and I used to fight he would say mean things about me and I would feel hurt and say mean things back. Then he wouldn't talk to me and I would pretend I didn't care until he could finally provoke me again.

Then one day I got the strength to do what I am saying here...

He was yelling something horrible at me and I stood there and said

"I feel really hurt and angry that you can say that and I really want to hurt you back right now but the truth is that I really do love you and I really hope you still love me too."

Steve froze and stared at me. I know he saw that I had become stronger than him and he really didn't know what to do. First he went berserk with rage - but he wasn't hurtful to me now - instead it was all this rage just pouring out of him and then it was not long until the fear and the shame under his anger came out too. That had never happened before and once it passed we were very close again.

Or another situation I was in recently where I had invited a man we know over to talk about a project I was excited about and which would involve some help from him. There were a few people at our place on the night he came over but this man seemed to go out of his way to avoid me and this actually went on for a number of hours.

In the old days I would have got nervous or hurt and I may have tried to push the conversation.

Instead I thought "Oh well, this perhaps is not the right person I should be working with". Although I felt disappointed, I also stayed grounded and present and did not allow my defenses to go up.

After another hour it just happened - all of the fear left him and I could see suddenly that he decided he felt safe with me. I also saw in that moment that previously he had actually been nervous rather than playing games.

So then the conversation we needed to have happened and in a very deep and very real way. We each expressed our beliefs and fears and we each also expressed that we both believed in each other. That was big and meant a lot to me.

The concept I am discussing here is more physical than wordy and so I hope you might really try and imagine this energy I am talking about here ...

Anger makes us feel feel powerful but you are only truly strong when you can stand in your own self doubt and fear and leave you heart open and stay present. Not begging or pleading or convincing. Not defending or denying or deflecting. Not rationalising or faking or persuading. Just simply and truthfully stating what you feel but also staying very grounded and calm while you do that. To really get what I am saying imagine that you are standing but your energy is going into the ground more like you are sitting and is not pushing towards the person you are talking to. If you cannot understand what I mean by this simply sit down and let your weight sink downward toward the floor rather than you leaning forward while you are talking. In this position you can more easily say what you feel without needing to force or change anything.

Grounded and present. Expressing your own truth and being open to hear the other persons truth as well.

Resisting all urges to be hurtful or dismissive.

I am not saying this is easy. Really it is as tough as it gets - but like all things that require strength and courage it is something worth working towards.

I have got there a few times ... and I know you can get there too (-:

I hope that your weekend brings you peace clarity and truth!

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured

Emotional Abuse

2010-07-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

The Man Who Won't Commit Emotionally (or whose eyes keep straying)

I will eventually write more articles in the verbal abuse series but thought I would write a short piece today on a subject that I know many women struggle with.

I know that this may seem a strange place to start on the subject of emotional abuse but a man who runs hot and cold (and perhaps makes you feel like you have wasted half of your life on him) is certainly emotionally painful to deal with.

Now I know that women's tendencies are to want to pull this guy's emotional profile apart to figure out what makes him tick (and why he is so scared of commitment) but I will leave that subject to the shrinks and instead offer some advice on what actions you can take to draw a man closer and have him commit emotionally as well as want to spend the rest of his life with you.

The ideas I will suggest here need to be practiced in tandem with the rest of our program, particularly if you are in a relationship where love has turned sour and there is a lot of anger and abuse going on. Learning to limit physical abuse if it is present should take priority over anything else and if you are experiencing this I suggest that you purchase my ebook Back from the Looking Glass immediately and start working through the steps in it.

I know a lot of readers here are already working through those steps, so I will offer some specific advice today to help you help the man in your life decide he wants to draw close to you emotionally and physically.

The first thing I want to share is a bit delicate but I guess I had better just come right out and say it ...

Back when Steve and I were fighting, I was blaming him for running emotionally hot and cold and having his eye on other women and although this was true, I was somewhat like a bad guitarist blaming my guitar for the nasty sounds coming out of it instead of seeing that I really needed music lessons (-:

This is why I have put this subject under the title of emotional abuse. Because as tough as it is to say, I have found that most people I hear claiming they are being emotionally abused are in fact abusing their own emotions and using them in ways that are manipulative and which in the end destroy love.

This is behavior that you may have learned from a parent while growing up and so there is no shame in this - unless you keep doing it after you have seen that it is destructive to your relationships and painful to others!

What I am saying specifically is that many women consider their emotions as tools they can use to elicit an emotional or care-taking response out of others ...

I am sad - so if you love me you should cheer me up ...

I am angry - so if you love me you should let me have my way ...

I am distressed - so if you love me you should love and take care of me ...

This is in fact emotional abuse, because the person attempting this is actually abusing their own emotions by using them incorrectly.

You see, emotions are in fact internal signals that are there to let you know there is a situation which may need attention in your life. A person who possesses emotional intelligence (ie. is emotionally mature) will heed this signal and then self soothe and regain their composure without needing anyone else to help them and then later figure out what this emotion is signaling, and what might need to be done.

If action is needed, it should not be decided on in the heat of the moment. To best understand this, imagine that you in fact have two brains and the one that gets switched on when you are emotional (your amygdala) doesn't make the same quality of decisions that your other brain (your upper cortex) does. Now also understand that it's very hard to access information from both of these brains at once.

So anger does not mean that you will need to hit or yell at someone (to stop being taken advantage of), as your emotional brain may be telling you, instead it could mean that a real boundary needs to be set. For example, if your partner spending your money (without asking) is what angered you - the action needed may be you denying them future access to your bank account.

Further, sadness may mean you need to accept something (or someone special) is indeed gone from your life. Acceptance and allowing yourself to feel this grief will bring along with it the silver lining where you begin to see a new future.

There is much more on this topic in "10 steps to Overcome Codependence", "Emotional Stupidity" and "The Love Safety Net Workbook", but I hope the examples I have given here have helped make my point clearer.

Our emotions are not things we should need other people's help dealing with on any regular basis or we will become a very difficult and demanding person to live with.

If you are in a painful relationship learning to take back control of your own happiness by learning the correct use of your emotions - may be the best skills you ever learn.

Back when Steve and I were fighting I was certainly making many mistakes with this and I know I talk about emotional intelligence and the ideas outlined above in my ebooks - but besides these (and all the other great resources I have recommended in the past), there was another ebook which helped me draw Steve close, which I have perhaps been a little too proud to admit before!

It is the ebook by Christian Carter called "Catch Him and Keep Him".

Personally, I find this title somewhat off-putting as it sounds very aggressive and manipulative - and not very feminine, but back when living with Steve's lack of commitment felt like living in hell, I will admit I was so desperate I was ready to try anything. Well it's true you can't judge a book by its cover, because the ideas Christian shares are not aggressive or manipulative at all and really did turn my head around and helped me learn to "play" Steve in a way that got much sweeter music from him! Now I know that again probably sounds manipulative, but the truth is Christian just knows how to share what men really like (and don't like) about women.

You see most men really DO want to commit and be close to a woman - but if you were like me back then you may unwittingly be driving him away.

In my case it has worked wonders and Steve sticks to me like glue now! He is so happy I actually can't believe it (and neither can my friends!) - and this from a man who used to say all women are b-t--es and who would rock the boat constantly.

So if you are having trouble creating intimacy please do check out "Catch Him and Keep Him" and read for yourself what Christian has to say. He is very straight forward and authorative in explaining what men like and what they don't and how to draw a man close and have him wanting to make a lasting and deep emotional commitment to you.

The links above are affiliate links and I hope you don't mind if I get a commision on the sales on this title. You won't find it cheaper anywhere else and my cut will help keep the roof over our heads while I keep working away at all the great new stuff I have coming up for you shortly.

I know I have been a bit quiet of late - but just wait and see what we have coming up next!

Hang in there!

Kim Cooper
http://www.narcissismcured.com

Verbal Abuse 6

2010-07-02T00:43:00.000-07:00

When verbal abuse is covert or may not sound like verbal abuse ...

Today I am going to tackle a very tough area and I may range around a bit at the start - but I hope by the end you will have a clear view of some ideas I have been wanting to share.

I want to start with another type of defense that you may come up against ... but first I should share that the aim of these articles is not to judge anyone but to help you start to become aware of defensive behaviour in yourself and others and continue practicing ways to bring each of you back to feeling safe enough to express your authentic self.

I will call the type of behaviour I will talk about in this article "hiding with the herd", but sometimes you may also hear it referred to as "rigid" defense. As with all the other defenses we have dealt with in this series (sulking, self righteous wrath, 'lights on but no one home' and 'the talker') the behaviour I am about to describe is simply a reaction to fear. There is no shame in this because we all use defenses now and again, because as humans we all sometimes feel scared.

Unfortunately however, acting defensively may become a habit and a person may in fact be acting scared all the time. The real cause of what made them scared in the first place may have in fact moved out of their life years ago and their own defensiveness may now be what is attracting the very behaviour they fear.

I have mentioned this problem before, but let's refresh ourselves on this subject and look briefly at a few more examples of this ...

- The fat person who fears humiliation who eats to feel better - bringing themselves further humiliation.

- The person who is scared of being bullied who "zones out" with their head back and eyes glazed looking arrogant and hence attracting bullies who want to hurt them for being so 'stuck up'.

- The person who is lonely and fears abandonment who acts clingy, needy and desperate and so scares people away.

- The person who fears betrayal and so acts controlling and dominating so that they end up inevitably being betrayed.

And with herd defense we see the person who fears not being believed or validated and so tries so hard to be 'normal' and perfect and 'just like everyone else' that they end up coming across as fake (and so are not validated or believed).

The problem with defensive behaviour is that it not only hurts the person who is acting this out but also the people who end up becoming involved in the dynamic.

So learning to disengage from (and if possible disrupt this pattern) without pulling away from the very people we want to get closer to will accomplish quite a few things ...

a. People's authentic self is much more pleasant to be around than their defenses.

b. We may learn to help them stop attracting the very things they fear.

c. We may prevent ourselves from experiencing the pain, guilt anger and confusion of being unwittingly drawn into a "play' where we are 'tricked' into hurting someone we didn't want to hurt (by playing along with a learned pattern of behaviour that is outmoded and not serving anyone anymore).

'Hiding with the herd' is tricky however because this person really isn't doing anything overtly abusive or wrong (they are extremely careful about this in fact) but you can tell they are still not being real with you and this still can still hurt and cause a lot of friction, chaos and pain.

So this is just one way that covert abuse can happen and I will try and give you a better look at some of the ways this may affect you and hopefully some ideas of what to do that might help ...

1. The herd follower is always looking for what is normal and 'standard' behaviour because this is where they have decided they are safe. When they told their parents as a child that they saw a UFO or dragon in the backyard they learned very quickly what happened if you told "tall stories" IE. you were disbelieved and treated like a silly child. Now to stay safe they may unwitting do the same to anyone who is sharing anything too subjective for them to feel safe about. Anyone who behaves outside the 'norm' may be treated in a slightly condescending manner in a number of ways ...

a. The follower of the herd will use manipulation to bring your 'out of the norm' behaviour back in line. This may include ignoring you, changing the subject or redirecting the conversation, or even scoffing or scolding you in a mild way. This may work in the short term but may leave you feeling devalued and put down, The message you get is that you are somehow a bit weird or "too much" and that you have been judged inferior to the herd follower who feels they need to manage you and not communicated with you truthfully 'on the level' about what you have to offer or your ideas. This may be subtle but can be very hurtful. Even though herd followers may not a have a huge number of friends it can feel that they are showing you that they feel they are superior to you and have a right to judge that you are really not a totally acceptable part of the herd.

b. They may give you a lot of compliments but leave you feeling a bit queasy about whether they are sincere. Again the compliments can be a way of avoiding honest communication.

d. Herd followers may or may not be serial daters or change business partners regularly but if this is the case, then jumping from one partner to the next with no real regard for their last partner's feelings can cause people who wanted to get close to them a lot of pain. This especially when they never had the courage to have an authentic exchange about their need to move on and the other parties feelings about this. The herd follower may seize on something the last partner did that they feel was clearly wrong as their excuse for terminating contact without any honest discussion or chance to 'reframe' the relationship.

e. In organizations herd followers may succumb to some of the worst kind of office bullying (because like smoke you can't grasp it but it can still kill you) where people who don't quite fit in with the herd when it comes to the 'culture' or normal standards of behaviour don't ever stand a chance to defend themselves as they find themselves judged and 'managed' with no room for honest discussion of whether there is even a problem or not. More than ever these days creativity is reflected not just in the health of a business but also in the bottom line and for creativity to flow some unusual behaviour and conflict must be tolerated. No new idea every came to be without some disagreement and honest debate (conducted on the basis that each party are equals). So as innocent as the perfect standards and behaviour of the herd may look, herd followers can really damage a business as well as the creatives within it whose not so 'out of the box' ideas may have in fact been just what was needed to improve not only the bottom line, but safety, efficiency and sustainability as well. In this way if we are not careful the cautious behaviour of the herd may in fact lead our species to extinction if R&D, creativity and innovation continue to lose out to the corporate status quo.

2. Herd followers tend to be good listeners and ask a lot of questions and it is tempting to try and 'expand their minds'. This can be a mistake however because all you will probably find yourself doing is putting yourself more firmly on the outside of what they feel comfortable dealing with - which isn't much. Like the other defenses, what is actually needed is really the opposite of what your instincts will probably tell you. Remember that anyone in defense is trying to get you to play their game - but the game is a hurtful one and it in fact needs to be disengaged. If you fall for trying to open the herd followers mind you may simply find yourself feeling stranger and more of a misfit than you ever suspected you were, while they shy away and feel less and less validated because you - like the many other people they tried to get close to - are always trying to give them a 'new reality' as if theirs did not really matter or exist. For this reason it is best if you can try and ask the herd follower questions and do your best to validate whatever they have to say. As you get them to open up slowly over time, hopefully you will get the chance to validate some stuff that is their own opinion and not just that of the herd.

This doesn't mean you have to agree with them when they are wrong or going to do something disastrous (as following the herd will often lead people to do). It will help if you even just make an effort to listen and catch any little authentic feeling you pick up from them and try and forgive and ignore what sounds too cautious or false.

3. Herd followers need hugs. Most of us like hugs but herd followers don't usually get their fair share. Ironically it is people who are a bit overweight (and usually very conscious about being touched) who get the most hugs while the ones who really want and need them miss out. Next time you see your friend who reminds you a bit of a teddy bear maybe think twice about the hug - unless they offer it - and instead give it to your friend who looks like their schedule revolves around tennis, business networking and the gym. On this point 'lights on but no one home' folk need a lot of hugs as well.

You may be surprised that they really like the hug and realise they don't think they are so superior to you after all. A good way to realise they really do want affection is by noticing how close they stand next to you when you talk.

OK so that was a tough one but I hope I have given it justice. Next article I will be discussing another form of covert verbal abuse which will lead right to the heart of co dependence (emotional dependence) and what needs to be faced for it to heal.

I know these ideas can take a while to get clear on so I might try and find some pictures next time of what different kinds of defensive behaviour looks like. For herd hiding - you only need to look at the behaviour of most show hosts on TV.

Hang in there!

Kim Cooper

http://www.narcissismcured.com