Thursday, June 2, 2016

"Narcissism" Revisited: Energetic Oppressors, Different Roles and Dr. Phil

As I’ve gone through my personal inquiry around “Narcissism,” getting to know and understand my inner Narcissist and how to change for the better, I’m finding myself increasingly curious about the “anti-Narcissist” movement, particularly this therapist I came across during this experience.
I’ve seen a lot of memes around Narcissists and other “sociopathic” disorders.  Before this inquiry, I’d reject them as obvious projection (and a red flag for the people posting them).  This inquiry has given me some more understanding and perspective, though I still see massive flaws.
As much as I disagree with the therapist’s dogma and demonization of people who have certain traits that fall mostly into “grey-area” toxic behavior, I actually agree with the entire gist of what she teaches.  The behavior and relationships she talks about are not at all healthy and the best thing to do is disengage completely.  Totally 100% agree. 
And her tactics, while seemingly extreme, actually make sense.  A lot of people, and particularly women, place an unusually high value on “staying in a relationship,” something I personally believe holds no inherent value and actually does more harm than good as it provides cover for people to mistreat others and stifles personal growth.  It’s tough to crack through that on an emotional level (and even a social-rational level, the deck is really stacked against the therapist here).  To get through, she has to invent a bigger evil – the “sociopath” – who is the enemy of humanity.  Then she can break through the delusion and help her clients start treating themselves with respect.
It’s possible (and likely) this therapist knows she’s taking things to the extreme, but sometimes you have to shake the tree to the roots to dislodge the rotten fruit.  So while I don’t believe most of these “toxic” men are irredeemably flawed, I do believe relationships can become so.  And since giving the client any hope of her partner’s redemption will sabotage everything, the therapist has decided the cost (having the client hate her ex on an energetic level) is less than the payoff (the client learning to love herself).
In the long run, from a spiritual and energetic standpoint, this isn’t helping much.  But we all are where we are at in our path.  As I was thinking about this, I was reminded of something from eight years ago.  Back then I was in a hopelessly horrible relationship where we took turns abusing the crap out of each other on just about all levels.  And people did pull me aside and say “you’re in an abusive relationship, get out.”
The truth is, it was far more complicated than that and there were massive energetic conflicts and spiritual entanglements I was in no position to resolve.  At that point, demonizing my partner and disengaging would have been progress (it’s essentially what came to pass), because then, apart from the oppressive energy, I could heal, grow and later find the resources to truly resolve my problems on an energetic and spiritual level – including recognizing how it’s all a projection and taking responsibility for my karma.  But that couldn’t happen until I got out of the maelstrom. 
So while I disagree with this therapist on an energetic spiritual level, I actually support her on an evolutionary level, because it’s progress.  It moves someone out of the hopeless low-frequency cycle of depression/ fear/ anger into courage and on a path toward love.  She’s saving their lives – the lowest frequencies are the energetic “death spiral.”
And it explains some of the things I’d see that “bothered” be because I wasn’t at a level to see the bigger picture.  All the women who play the “victim” card have a very unattractive and troubling energy about them, almost like the energy of a recently-recovered drug addict. They seem very broken and almost hopeless.  It’s obvious looking at their energy the abusive relationship was a projection of their own toxic energy – they either attracted an equally broken person or somehow damaged the person in the relationship until he matched her wounded energy. 
I’ve experienced this dynamic in an unhealthy relationships where a seemingly attractive and successful woman would act jealous and keep me away from my friends until I finally had enough and left, having fallen completely out of love.  It didn’t make sense at the time – she was attractive, the sex was great, I was genuinely crazy about her.  At the time, I chalked it up to “inexperience,” but looking at it now her energy was badly damaged and she was trying to lower my energy to match how she felt about herself. 
I’ve had many disempowering jobs where entire companies would do the same thing to their employees.  The company’s energy was “loser” and they systematically broke down the energy of their employees to be losers like the company.  Then the company would go out of business.  Being aware of this dynamic is incredibly empowering.
Getting back to the wounded women – yes, their energy is clearly broken.  Anyone in “victim mentality” is in a self-oppressed energetic state.  But these women were just barely out of the death-spiral, so this state is a big improvement.  An unethical therapist would keep her clients in this “head-above-water” state and milk them.  Maybe this therapist does.  Maybe not. 
Eventually, after disengaging and reconnecting with oneself, a person can move to a state of real love and find mutually-rewarding relationships. There are much, much higher states above this, but at least here the person can experience mutually-fulfilling relationships.  And for many people, this is enough.  And given the vast multitudes living in a death spiral, there’s a huge audience. 
Dr. Phil, for example, is a master at manipulating oppressed-energy people and deceiving them into believing he’s helping them.  Of course if he was truly elevating people, his audience would evolve to the point they’d figure out he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about and change the channel.  Or stop watching TV, and we can’t have that!  (And if he was truly elevating people his truth would be too controversial for TV and he’d be ridiculed or worse by the forces of oppression – so he sold his soul to the oppressive forces in exchange for money and fame.)
Then again, perhaps this therapist has a bigger vision where her clients move into higher levels of awareness and become true leaders.  There are signs she’s at least familiar with these concepts, even if she’s not implementing them.  And of course even if she isn’t interested in bigger evolution others can take her baton and pass it forward.  Everyone has a role to play if they choose to step into the arena.  So I applaud her work, even if she sees fit to condemn me for my past behavior.
This is a valuable understanding and a powerful insight.  This is what happens when I let go of the need to react and stay with things, putting my ego aside for the sake of real understanding.

No comments:

Post a Comment