How to Handle a Narcissist with Wendy Behary

Welcome to Let It Be Easy with Susie Moore.

Susie Moore:

Do you have a narcissist in your life or suspect you Do. You definitely want to dive into this interview with Wendy Behary, whilst leading expert on narcissism and cognitive therapy? Sure. It's an incredible book, disarming the Narcissist, and I tell you, it is an intimate education on your relationship with the narcissist, and most importantly, your relationship with yourself. We uncover so much. We speak about what a narcissist really means, the difference between empathy and compassion, how to manage the narcissist practical information mantra is to tell yourself and how to navigate this difficult situation. Even if you are related, married, someone's your very close friend. This is an interview you want to watch. I'll leave it and kick it over. Now to me and Wendy,

Wendy Behary, am I one lucky woman to get you today. Wendy is the narcissism expert. You've wrote this incredible book, disarming The Narcissist, which I've read three times, incredible notes. I mean, it's such a pleasure having this book in my life and learning from you and having you show up with us and answer my questions about narcissism, how we can manage it in our lives, how we can still love the narcissist in our lives, and just understand a bit better. I'm so grateful to you, Wendy. I just have to say that upfront.

Wendy Behary:

You're very sweet. Thank you, Susie, and thank you for that warm welcome and that lovely introduction, and I'm delighted. I'm just delighted to be with you.

Susie Moore:

I have to say that, I mean, reading through your bio all of the impressive things, you've got over 25 years experience in cognitive therapy, schema therapy, which we are going to be speaking about sometimes. I think Wendy, even just at its most simple level, narcissism is kind of misunderstood. Some people think it's vanity or someone who's just really ambitious and who puts their own needs first. How do you describe it in its simplest form?

Wendy Behary:

Yeah, and its simplest form. Well, the signs of it, the one outstanding sign is someone who is highly self-absorbed and feels very entitled to have what they want when they want it. They will intrude, they will make demands. But the real key issue is that there's such a need to bring attention to the self. And that's because in a nutshell, underneath all of that noise and that bluster and that performance artistry and a kind of maverick shell that they can put on, there's a lot of insecurity and there's a lot of insecurity, very feeling very inadequate, feeling very misunderstood, feeling great demands and pressures to perform for their own survival purposes. And so it's not to feel sorry for them, I don't feel sorry for someone who is hurtful and impacting others in ways that are even at the worst level, cruel and abusive, but even at the moderate levels can be just painstaking to live with. So I'm not feeling sorry for someone with narcissistic modes or narcissistic ways of being, but we can, as a therapist, if I'm treating someone with narcissistic issues, I'm certainly feeling compassion for the early suffering they've endured, and I can make sense out of why they became the way they are.

Susie Moore:

And this is what I love, love, love about this book. What you break down are the schemas, which is a word that I've never come across before, but not only understanding them within the narcissist in your life, but your own schemas. So when you understand what a schema is, and I'll ask you to break it down for us, you're doing it for two people, which really allows a lot of understanding and there is just grace in that. So can you explain to us what a schema is so central to this book

Wendy Behary:

In your work? Yeah, yeah. I mean, schema, the term has been around forever. And in psychology, it's a word that goes back to the Latin meaning like a theme or a script or a story, a message of meaning. In schema therapy, we talk very specifically because this is a research-based model. So we're talking specifically about 18 early maladaptive schemas. That means these are traits, these are specific traits and personality ways we look at the world, ways we look at ourselves, ways we look at our relationships with others, ways we predict our future. These are emotional beliefs. They're more than just thoughts. They're really strong, intense emotional beliefs that form in our childhood, and they come directly out of some combination of our biology and the world we grew up in. So we all have emotional needs and we come to the world as helpless, powerless little beings, and the universe can't meet all those needs perfectly, and sometimes it doesn't meet them well at all.

And sometimes those needs are frustrated by abusive environments, neglectful environments. And so we develop schemas, meaning these ideas about ourselves. That might be something like, I'm useless. I have no value. I have no power. Or a schema that we'd call emotional deprivation. You can't count on people to take care of you. You're on your own. A schema of abandonment, everyone's going to leave me eventually, I'll be alone, I'll be rejected. There's 18 and all of us have schemas, and narcissists have schemas based on their, so it goes like this. We have experiences. They get loaded into our memories under certain conditions, our memories are triggered, and it can be as if we are once again living in that early once upon a time experience. That's what happens when schemas get activated. We don't know it. Most of the time we're just reacting to it as if I'm that helpless little girl who's in danger, and I have no choice except to give in and be good and sacrifice myself, which is what happens for so many who are in relationship with narcissists. They become silenced, they become voiceless, they become subjugated. And it's not that surprising because there's often a story in the background to support why that would happen when you're living with or dealing with someone who is larger than life.

Susie Moore:

And when you identify your own schema and you're like, oh, because I remember just reading through the 18 and going and identifying mine, identifying other people's or guessing what they could be, it starts to make sense. What pushing your button, how your buttons are pushed and why it kind of always tends to be in the same couple of areas. Even narcissism aside for a moment, this is so helpful to know just in life situations. You give an example in the book of just say that there are a couple of people talking in your office. Say it's your boss and a supervisor. You think they're talking about you. Maybe if you have a defectiveness schema or you're waiting for someone to tell you that you're doing something wrong or there's something that's not good enough, and I'm thinking, wow, this is so helpful to realize the lens in which we see everything is coming from our own learned experience and a bit of a wound. That's okay. The awareness is key there. So how does it work in terms of being able to manage a narcissist in your life if you're also aware of theirs and how that plays into yours? How does that fit?

Wendy Behary:

It means going the next step, which is first we identify our experience, the schemas that may have formed as a result. So we've got this kind of blueprint. Schemas are like blueprints. This is how the world works, and this is who you are in that world. And they're not always active. They're active under certain conditions, like the example you just shared from my book. But the next step is how do you cope with it when it gets triggered, what part of your survival system do you tend to resort to? Are you a fighter? Are you an avoider? Are you someone who just gives in? Because that's easier for, we all go to our survival system when we feel threatened, and let's face it, there's really no one out there. Well, I shouldn't say that. There certainly are people who can be more severe than narcissists, but narcissism, these types of individuals can push our buttons like no other.

And when the button gets pushed, what do you do? What's your tendency? Do you go into a rage? I mean, because typically when we look at our patterns or what we call modes in schema therapy, when you go into these survival modes, is it really working? What is the outcome? Or is it just perpetuating? Is it just continuing the very thing you're trying to avoid? So by fighting, does it really reflect the hurt that you're feeling? Does it really lead to a healing consequence or does it just drive the narcissist into a fury where they're slamming doors or they're fighting back, or now they're gaslighting you and distorting your reality, or they're threatening you with abandonment? What does it do? And again, it's not that we should give up our voice. It's how we use our voice and is it representing the healthy best part of us?

When we get triggered and when we get triggered, our obligation is really first to recognize our feet on the ground. Like I'm in this moment. I am not that helpless little girl anymore. I am not that powerless little boy anymore. I am a healthy, competent adult. I'm not perfect, but I have power now. I have resources now. I don't have to just give in, give up, scream, fight, avoid. I have other options. And so we take our vulnerable self and tuck that part into a safe place so that I can stand sturdy on the platform and be an advocate for myself and say, what's so I don't have to shout and I don't have to shut up. I can just be an advocate for me, and that's the best thing we can give ourselves. When you're dealing with a narcissist,

Susie Moore:

My reaction is just to say, okay, okay. It's fine. We'll do it your way. Keep the piece. And I got so many tools from your book. I love the mantra specifically. That was then. This is now. It feels simple, but the best things are simple, aren't they, Wendy? Because what I've noticed with the schemas, and again, you say this in the book, is they can be dormant most of the time, but when they are triggered, it's almost like this exaggerated response that you feel. A friend of mine recently was just skiing with her husband and she fell over, not serious. And he said, come on, get up. Let's keep going. And she was so emotional in that moment, irrationally. So she felt her schema we spoke about it was probably not feeling protected or nurtured. And in a moment of You've been afraid when you fall over, he was like, come on, get up. And she was like this just it's a real transport back into time, not feeling protected, and the emotion felt unreal, like an unreal level.

Wendy Behary:

Yeah, that's a great example. And it can be that small, and we have to honor and respect that. We don't know what's going to stimulate the activation of a schema. Some things are obvious to us, some loud noises or someone glaring at us. Some things are obvious when we think about our own personal autobiography, and sometimes it sort of comes and surprises us, where suddenly the smell of something or the sound or someone like in that example, her husband's not being abusive. He's just saying, come on, let's go. Right? But she has this little reawakening, and in that moment, she's not in the here and now, she might still feel a little disappointed, like a little compassion bleed, but it's not that little disappointment that is the identification of a schema. It's the intensity of the feeling inside that says, ah, this is old. This is an old feeling like little me needing care and not getting that care and compassion when I need it.

Susie Moore:

And we see it sometimes in life, not often, but I've seen it with people even I don't know. Well, I see their reaction to something and I'm like, oh, I try and identify the schema now, Wendy, because of you.

Wendy Behary:

There's a little tip that I use, which is to say that when it's big, when the feeling is big, when the feeling is intense, it means someone's small. Big equals small. So Greg means someone small in us is being triggered because how often do we really have a big reaction as grownup people? How often do we really feel threatened in our lives? Certainly if someone's holding a gun to our head, certainly if someone is almost has cut us off on the road and almost killed us, those are big moments. There are big moments, attacks, assaults, real life threatening issues. Of course, we're going to have big reactions to that and traumatic, but most of the time these intense big reactions that come over us are so much more than what meets the eye because there's a little part of us inside that's feeling this from a once upon a time experience.

Susie Moore:

That's such a wonderful, easy thing to remember if something feels big, if the emotion is big, and it's a negative emotion, right? It's like feeling afraid, feeling threatened, feeling unsafe, feeling a lot of stress in that moment. It's little you.

Wendy Behary:

Yeah.

Susie Moore:

You shared with this with me, Wendy, which I love so much. I was lucky enough to have a session with you. You said that because your work is with narcissists, you have to park little you at the door when you go into your sessions. How can we learn from this? You are dealing with people who sometimes want to undermine you. They're so desperate to protect themselves or not want to be there, be there because someone wants to leave them or something like that. How do you manage it in your personal interaction?

Wendy Behary:

Yeah, and I'll answer that in just a second, but you said something so important just a moment ago about that little child part that we feel in the intense moments following what I had said, and I just want to say to people listening to this, I know that when I say sometimes it stirs up this like, Wendy, are you kidding me? I mean, really, if you're living with a narcissist, your frustration is definitely going to be big because they're twisting things, they're distorting things, they're cheating on you, they're lying, they're making unreasonable demands, they're ignoring you, they're monopolizing, they're manipulative. And my answer is yes, extremely frustrating, but then you go to what is driving that insight beyond what it appears to be, and usually it's this sense of powerlessness. I can't fix this. I can't change this. I can't make this go away. I'm helpless.

I'm alone. What if I'm alone forever? What if there's so much fear underneath that? And that's where we're forgetting that we are grownups and that the choices aren't easy and the solutions aren't great, but we do have choices. We do have solutions. We do have paths that we create thoughtfully amid all the frustration, which is yes, indeed, reasonable. How do we prepare? How do I prepare to go into a confrontation or an interaction with a narcissist is literally taking some moments to, usually I'm standing by my desk. I mean, when I had in-person sessions, which hopefully we're going back to soon and standing at my desk before I open the door and just eyes closed, deep breaths, nice deep breaths, and really just visualizing my little self from a photograph, from a memory, just a little image of me as a little girl and just tucking her into a little safe place.

You can imagine yourself floating on a cloud. You can imagine yourself in a little tree house. You can imagine yourself in a comfy chair tucked into bed with a story or even just tucked within yourself, just tuck her in, and then you plant your feet on the ground and you hold your head up and you don't have to roar like a lion. You just need to be a sturdy, thoughtful adult knowing that this isn't perfect and that you probably will still have some little icky triggering moments, but it won't be overwhelming because you're a little self is safely stowed away, safely protected. You'll hear I'm always feeling that part of me. It informs me what it must be like for everyone who's dealing with this narcissist in their world. Oh, yeah. Okay, so I get a picture of what it's like for your daughter, for your son, for your sister, for your wife or your work mates, whatever. I get a feel for that through my own vulnerability, but I'm not overwhelmed by it because I'm sitting there as an adult. You can't take on a narcissist when you're coming from that vulnerable part of yourself. It's not fair. It's not possible.

Susie Moore:

And this is very conscious. I just really want to highlight this because sometimes you think, oh, I read the book, or I know that there are wounds there, and that's why there's a lack of empathy, but we can know that, but it's not helpful until the moment's coming. You're about to see the personal, there's a difficult time, and this is very conscious. It takes a moment and we have to be responsible for our own wellbeing

Wendy Behary:

In yes, it's very conscious and very deliberate, and it's really kind of taking it from here and making it a part of here. Your whole nervous system becomes more alert, your observing faculties become more alert. We're watching and we're paying attention. We're learning about ourselves. The exciting thing is we watch ourselves and we actually get a little measuring stick to see, I would've given into that before. I'm not doing that now. I would've just said yes and agreed last time because I didn't want to get into conflict. And you know what? So there's conflict. I'm allowed to have my own opinion. I can express my preferences. I have entitlement too, healthy entitlement to share my ideas to disagree. If I disagree to make a request to issue a disappointment, I'm allowed to do that because I can tolerate what comes next

Susie Moore:

Where what you're saying can sound simple, but it's actually really mind blowing if you're used to a narcissist overriding the truth, saying this is how it is, and then you're like, actually, I'm allowed to object, or I'm allowed to just quietly not participate. I'm an adult. It's funny how impossible sometimes that is to even let in, you're like, okay, this is the role where I'm a bit subservient, or This is your moment, not mine, which is a lot of the moments, but it's something that I feel like what I've got one big thing that I've got from your book. I've got many things, but is the quiet steadiness of being true to me.

Wendy Behary:

Yes. That's really nicely said. That's nicely said, Susie, because I think what unfortunately the trend has always been, and if you really look at narcissism on the internet, I mean, what you're going to find is demons and devils and Satan and be angry and roar and turn around, and I understand what would propel someone to want to just see them as these hopeless demonic enigmas that you just want to wipe off the universe, the face of the universe, and that you need to be angry in order to be strong. But being angry all the time is exhausting, not great for your body and your nervous system, and it doesn't really reflect the real essence of who we are, which is I'm someone who has rights. I don't have to be angry to convey that I have rights. I just have to stop dancing. I'm not doing that dance anymore. I'm just going to dance differently. You either join me or you don't, but I don't have to roar like a lion to have strength. I can just have strength in my conviction, strength in the power of my words, my actions, my facial expression, my eye contact, my chin held up, my shoulders back. There's strength in that, and I can still talk just like this, and I can just say, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not doing it.

Susie Moore:

There is such strength in this calm, measured, conscious way of being, and you are right. It's easy to be like, I have to put my armor on and get ready, and

Wendy Behary:

Exhausting,

Susie Moore:

Exhausting. You can't maintain it. And that's also just not naturally how many people are. We want to keep the peace. We want to be true to ourselves. We want to be the best fullest expression of ourselves, and when the narcissist in our life kind of shows up or has their way, we can coexist with that, with this consciousness, and it can be even interesting, I think, to observe once you have these tools, you mentioned the internet and narcissists, and I see it all the time, how this person's a narcissist that's celebrities and narcissists. Do you find that that's all a lot of nonsense, or do you sometimes go, oh, there are narcissistic traits in people. Do you just spot them? Do you spot them everywhere? Is it so simple for you,

Wendy Behary:

Narcissist until proven innocent? Yeah, I mean, I think it's hard. It's become such a buzzword for a little while now, and so everyone's a narcissist, and the truth is not everyone is a narcissist. I think that probably everyone can be narcissistic at times, and lots of people have narcissistic traits in their personality. Fortunately, I think many of them in the mild zone. But yeah, there's a whole lot of real narcissism, proper, the diagnostic form or psychopathologic form that we talk about out there a lot more than we realized, and I think that brings a lot of relief in understanding what you're up against in a relationship, whether it's a parent or it's a partner or it's a coworker. It brings some relief in being able to say, okay, now I know what I'm up against and now let me take a look at how I'm responding to that, what I've been believing about myself as a result of this impact. Because as you said before, really beautifully Susie, it is a parallel process, and it's not to say I'm a bad person or I'm at fault. It's to say I've probably played a role in this conflict for a while by not caring for me, not standing up for myself, not figuring out and learning as much as I can. I've bought into these messages that I've been given by the narcissist in my life as opposed to saying, no, no, that's not me. No, no.

Susie Moore:

And it's funny because we do everything for our own survival, and then so sometimes keeping the peace or even getting angry if necessary or if it feels necessary, we're doing it to protect ourselves, but really what I've gleaned from you so much is there can be an easier way, and this intimate relationship with the self that we learned through the schemas, I think allows us to identify the areas. I mean, this is really disarming. It's having the leverage to understand what you are dealing with. I mean, I love how you say this just in your introduction, Wendy, here on page three, you say, it takes more than flawless, elocution and carefully crafted language to bring about successful results. It takes leverage and persistence. It also takes a keen understanding of what you are up against, acceptance of the limits and corresponding adjusted expectations and a readiness to enforce the consequences. But this happens quietly. It's not like, okay, I'm enforcing the consequences and this is what's up. It's a, okay, this is my understanding of myself, of you accepting limits and any kind of expectations that might need to be shifted, and then being willing to not just back down to say, as you said, I have the rights, and you say also about around the masks, there are four key masks when it comes to narcissists. You say the bully, the show off the addicted self soother and the entitled one

For those who are watching who are like, oh, I'd love to identify. Sometimes I think people will go, are they narcissists or am I just hard on him, but she's really caring. Maybe I'm just, I'm a bit too demanding that she should also listen to my needs or whatever it may be. Could we just touch on each of these for a moment, Wendy, the bully, the show off the addictive Self soothe and the entitled one, is there a dominant one here that you tend to see?

Wendy Behary:

Yeah, they're kind of all pretty dominant actually when you're thinking about narcissism, maybe some are less bullying than others. Most are seeking approval, so they'll show off or they'll do it in some self-effacing way, or they'll play the victim to try to win your approval or to get your compliments, to get your praise, to win your favor. Again, it's a deep, deep seated insecurity that often drives this mask or mode that they will be in when they're trying to impress you, and they even can do it just by being very charming. It's another way of trying to win your favor. It's a strong motivation for the narcissist because they don't feel so good about themselves deep down underneath, and so emphasis is always on their performance to try to bring you over to their side to get you to agree with them. And a lot of that is to support the other part, the entitled part, which is So I can have my way, so I can have what I want.

Right? Right. You agree with me, right. A lot of it is about being able to steal the show so they can have their way and they win. Their always looking to win the spotlight, the self-soothing part to greater and lesser degrees. They all have a self-soothing, self stimulating side of them, which really problematic, particularly for narcissistic men who get caught up in sex addiction and infidelities and betrayal, and it's not that surprising given that narcissists are pretty poor on the spectrum of interpersonal intimate connection because it's all about them and because they're not so good at being able to see into the world of others because it's constantly about they're dodging shame or dodging failure, that they're not appreciating what's really happening to the person on the other side of the equation. And so it's not surprising that they would find themselves becoming porn addicts or buying sex through sex workers and betraying their partners because it's all give, it's all get and no give, I should say. Right? You don't have to give, you don't have to be intimate. You don't have to share love. You don't have to have emotional responses. So that becomes, but there's other forms of self-soothing, self addicted behaviors. Even just shutting the door and shutting you out is another way that they detach, they disconnect, they punish you, and they look for solace in their own little activities in their quiet world when they're not winning your approval,

Susie Moore:

Which also feels like toxic behavior. If someone gives you silent, shutting out, I'm retreating for a long time, you're like, one part of your book, which was so eyeopening to me was how you speak about the difference between empathy and compassion when you're working with narcissists and how often that line is blood and people just use those expressions interchangeably a lot of the time. Are you able to explain the difference and then how you employ empathy?

Wendy Behary:

Such a great question, and I am glad you asked this question because it allows me to speak about something that I think is just so immensely important when it comes to dealing with the narcissist in your life. I mean, you've read my book. You have enrolled in learning about this idea about really learning and getting, and I love that. I respect that, and I encourage that. Learn all you can. Empathy is knowing. Empathy is not feeling sorry for someone. Empathy is not even about feeling compelled to rescue someone or help them or take them out of their distress. That's compassion. Sympathy is feeling sorrow. Empathy is knowing, understanding, sensing it in your bones. It's like, huh, I can see why he's in his entitled mode right now. I can see why suddenly the bullying is happening. It's not to make excuses, it's to really get it right.

I can see how insecurity would drive someone to constantly have to be showing off in order to feel like they are special. I can also see how it actually pushes everybody away because they're obnoxious, so I get it. That's not about me. That's not my fault. I didn't cause that. I didn't make that happen. So the more we empathize, the more we get it, we get it in a skin felt way, not just like here in our intellectual zone. We really get it. The more we get anyone or anything, the greater the possibility for us to be in charge of the choices we make from that point forward. So you get a chance to depersonalize it. You get a chance to make decisions that are really yours because you have informed consent that's like no other. Now, you might feel compassionate and you might feel sympathy when you start to look at the deeper story, but it's not excuse making, empathy is understanding, getting it.

Susie Moore:

Empathy is understanding, and like you said, it's not taking that step farther and stepping into help and being like, okay, so I'll help you out with this, this, and let's talk. I can feel why this is true. It is like this understanding, and I actually think it's the most loving thing. This is how the world becomes better when we have empathy about this.

Wendy Behary:

It's golden. It's the golden nugget. I mean, I always call it the golden nugget because if you were a fly on the wall in my treatment room, you would just hear me saying over and over and over again. When I'm sitting with someone with narcissistic issues, I'm saying, look, I get it. You were taught that all you had to do was be like the top performer and you could do whatever you want, say whatever you want without consequence. I get it. I'm not agreeing with it, right? So there's no agreement. I'm not endorsing it. I can say, I get that you rise to this angry level and start storming around in my office. You start blasting people and blaming people. I get how that formed. You had a father who modeled that for you. So I can see not your fault, but it is your responsibility.

You're the only one who can change that, and it's affecting your relationships in a way that's going to drive the people out that you care about the most. So empathic confrontation, empathy, I get it. I see it, I understand it, but here's what happens if you don't change it, it's the most articulate, non-distracting, non challenging, non-threatening way that we can draw in the attention of the narcissist. I know this is important to you. I know you love to have things the way you want them. I know this is part of what you learned growing up, but I get a say too, that's what's fair,

Susie Moore:

And herein lies your power understanding, but there is a line when someone, we have bodies, right? Someone else ends. You begin, you can see, and this is truly, this is love, right? Again, it's not swooping in and saving everyone. I can see why you're like that. I can see why that scares you. I understand, like you said, with the man, with the controller, or you have to be an overachiever to be enough. You can see it, and then I truly believe that's 30% of the issue eradicated right there, Wendy. It doesn't solve anything, but already you're in a place of why are you always attacking me to, oh, I see why you're scared.

Wendy Behary:

Yes. And making it clear that this is not about agreement. Sometimes narcissists will say, so you agree with me, right? No, I didn't say that. I'm saying, I completely understand why this is upsetting to you. I know you and I know that. I even know that you didn't mean you didn't intend to be hurtful just now. That wasn't your intention, but it is hurtful and it's not okay. So I see it. I get it. I'm not agreeing with it. Or I mean, you might be agreeing with it at times, whatever it is that they're saying, but most of the time we're using empathic confrontation to confront because it's a problem and we want to bring their attention to it without the challenges of the competitiveness and the name calling and the fighting and the disconnecting, right?

Susie Moore:

My gosh, Wendy, I have this vision. I'm like, if empathetic, confrontation were a reality in a lot of places, I mean, think about the empty courtrooms there would be, because I think we just feeling heard is so skipped over or having someone else feel heard. Even just taking, which is your work to take the moment to understand somebody, see where they come from, not saving them, but that making sense? I mean, what are a couple of other surprising things to someone who's never been inside one of your treatment rooms, rooms that you'd learned about narcissists? What are a couple of things that surprise you or surprise other people when they learn about working with you?

Wendy Behary:

Well, I don't know that, I mean, I guess I am still at time surprised by what I'll come up again. But I mean, another thing that you would see is I'm pretty self-disclosing. So the relationship, the therapy relationship becomes a really important place from my healthy adult stance to be very honest. When the narcissistic person on the other side says something that is careless or insulting. So I can see that they're starting to get tense because I'm diving in deep to emotions, and they don't like that because there's a whole lot of shame around exposing emotion. And so they'll instead sort of take a right turn and go, your office is noisy or your picture is crooked, or your lighting is weird. They'll do something to be insulting, and I might just simply say, ouch, ouch.

And then I can follow with empathic confrontation that may not have been intended to be an insult, but wow. So what is it you're trying to tell me? What is it you really want me to know? So it's always kind of looking behind the wall, looking behind whatever mask is showing up. The other thing you would hear me say frequently when I do get triggered human, I get triggered. And so you might see me go like this, give me a minute. I need a minute. I just need quiet for a moment. Okay? So I'm going to ask you to respectfully saying this to the narcissist. Just give me a moment. And then I close my eyes and I breathe, and what am I doing? Well, I'm restoring my vulnerable me back to that safe little imaginary place. I'm also remembering the biography of the person sitting in front of me.

I'm remembering that they have a little part two underneath that I have to get to, and that this mode is showing up. So I opened my eyes, and the beauty of this little technique is not only, it's mostly to help me kind of put myself back into my healthy adult position, but it's also a way of modeling that we can run interference when we get triggered because they did. And it's a way of sharing and showing our humanness. So I come back and my client is getting very impatient with me, and I say, look, I was triggered. The truth is I got triggered, and if I go with a triggering triggered reaction, I'm just going to give into you and I'm just going to start apologizing even though I didn't do anything wrong, or I'm just going to start, I'm going to avoid this completely, and that wouldn't be helpful.

That's what everybody else out there does with you. So we're going to do it differently in here, and I'm going to respond a little bit differently to say, you can't talk to me like that. That's crossing a line. That's a problem. So we got to figure out what just happened that caused you to suddenly shift into that mode. So a little use of self-disclosure, really observing, empathizing with intention, right? Narcissists don't typically intend to hurt you. They will hurt you. They will hurt you, but that's not the motivational driver. It's not like this kind of psychopathic drive to bring pain to your world. It's often a reaction to protect their own ego. So whatever it takes, if I have to mow you down, I'm going to do it to protect my ego, but it's not like, how can I hurt you? It's not coming from that. It's a different type of personality,

Susie Moore:

Which is already a lovely relief to know that the intention isn't to upset you, to hurt you, and you are completely modeling everything that you teach in this book. So being yourself, being you also bring this as a professional. You bring this level of transparency. I need a minute. That was a trigger for me. Yes.

And look, this is your area of expertise. People come to you. You are the one place almost that they can go and be really dealt with. Someone who's paying attention, who's truly there to help, who isn't there to experience emotions and react. Do you feel as if a version of that, a version of real life version of that is what you're teaching to people who are interacting with narcissism? It sounds similar, not as direct and completely transparent in that way, but the safe space, calling it out. Maybe if you feel something that's intentionally a little rude, but then taking a minute. I think when you gave me some advice, you can say, you can always even just excuse yourself momentarily. If you need it, you are worth a minute.

Wendy Behary:

You're allowed

Susie Moore:

A minute to go.

Wendy Behary:

Well, setting limits, and again, this is not a punishment, this is a consequence. The one thing lacking so much in the makeup of a narcissistic person is the ability to tolerate frustration. They don't get their way to be uncomfortable. They're not good with limits, and so they need, you're actually giving them a gift, a gift they don't like and they don't want to take, but it's a gift. It's something they need in therapy. It's a need that I make very clear that we're going to work on meeting, but in your relationship, you take that moment because A, you're entitled to that minute, like you just said. B, it's to sturdy yourself. It's in the spirit of protecting your relationship. So you can even say, in the spirit of protecting this relationship, I'm going to hang up right now and I'm going to come back. This is important, but we're going down a bad path, so I'll come back, right? Or you can walk away. I'm going to take a moment. I'm going to take a little walk. I suggest maybe you do that too. This is probably really important because remember, it's big. It's getting intense, and that means there's something small, something in that vein of our smallness, our vulnerability that's getting activated, so we should come back to it, and I'm open to that and the nurses is like, whatever, walk away. Okay, you're welcome to come back. I'd love to hear, but not like this, not

Susie Moore:

This. I'm sure everyone comes back, Wendy, because also just what you're demonstrating just feels like such maturity, being able to, but it is, yeah, not like, well, you always do this, and why do you think you're here in the first place? You could imagine all the things that would just naturally come up unless,

Wendy Behary:

And remember, they love the game. So you do that. You go back into the, no, I didn't say that. You said it like this. I swear you said six o'clock. You did not say seven o'clock. You're telling me I'm crazy Again, don't tell me. You go back into, of course, defending yourself because it just feels so unfair and unjust, and not that that's unreasonable to want to defend the truth, but doing it like that with a narcissist, it's like game on and you've just invited them back into the game where they feel same old, same old. They're not hearing anything new from you. It's familiar territory, and they're in it to win.

Susie Moore:

And they're used to winning too.

Wendy Behary:

Used to winning. They have to win,

Susie Moore:

Have to win. I got such relief from this from you, Wendy, having a narcissistic relative sometimes because it's that person's way, that person's way, that person's way. This is the truth. There is no room for any negotiation or any divergence from the truth, just not telling them everything or in some cases, if there's a point of difference to avoid just the onslaught of repetition and what can feeling can attack, even just saying, which isn't the truth, which is normally out of integrity in any other situation, but if I feel like in a relationship with the narcissist where it's always just a loop of repetition to say, yep, okay, I've done that, or I haven't done that. Whatever it is that they want you to do or not do, go to church or not drink alcohol or don't do this, chill looks, or whatever it may be. Okay, yep. No, yep, you're right. Haven't done it. Don't go. Or I do go, whatever. It just the fact

Wendy Behary:

That, I mean, there are times, particularly when you're not face-to-face with them, but they're doing that questioning thing. They're checking, are you living up to the reputation, which of course is their reputation because living through you, yeah, I mean there are times when keeping the peace, it really does have a value just keeping the peace. This is about protecting yourself. You're doing it thoughtfully versus going into a default mode where you just give in, but thoughtfully you decide, nah, I'm setting limits here. You know what? I'll tell you what you need to hear because I just need to protect me, and that's really what's important at the end of the day, and I'm not willing to engage the conflict. I mean, if you're living with this person and they're on you, you did you take care of this? What did you say to the insurance agent when you called?

What did you say? Tell me the exact words you used, and sometimes just answering the question with the question, which is noticing, put the burden of responsibility back on the narcissist. This is incredibly important to you. You're getting very upset. Oh, I'm not upset. Yeah, well, it feels like you're getting really upset, so I'm happy to talk about this, but not from this tone. Not from this tone. Now, they will get upset. They will be upset. They will be angry. They want what they want when they want to. They will pout. They'll be the victim. They will follow you around. They'll become critical. You've got to be that tree that stands out there in the storm, strong and sturdy, flexible enough to bend a little bit so the wind blows through you and doesn't knock you over, but not just giving in. Change it up, change it up a little bit and put the burden back. This seems so important to you. You're getting so worked up. What is it? What's going on? Nothing's going on. You're driving me crazy. Okay, time for a break.

Susie Moore:

This is so conscious and how you break it down, Wendy, anyone can do this. This isn't a complicated eight step system to implement. It's having a question to a question, having your own boundaries. This is the true love of the self has to come first because we can take on the burdens and want to, and that's a losing battle.

Wendy Behary:

Oh, yeah. It's a losing battle and it's hard to be our own advocate. So you're right. It's not like a cookie cutter step one, step two, step three. It's not that it's more intuitive than that, but we can't be intuitive if we're five years old in this relationship. If I'm coming from my five-year-old position, my only intuition is survive. Survive. Help me survive. If I'm coming from my adult position, then my intuition might be okay, I can protect myself. I've got the resources, and this isn't okay with me, and I deserve to be respected, and this isn't fair, and this isn't mine. This isn't my baggage. I'm not carrying this load. This is yours.

I know you're used to me joining in. Typically, when we get into these conversations you're used to, I'm not going to do that anymore. It's so destructive, and in fact, it just puts a big wedge between us. I don't think you want that. I know I don't want that, so I'm out for now. It's just that's intuitive. When you're in your adult stance, you can see really clearly what's okay and not okay from that position, but it's hard to see it when you're locked in your little girl, little boy position where the only thing you can think about is survival.

Susie Moore:

Wendy, I could talk to you forever about this. There is truly so much in this book, taking the unconscious, making a conscious, very practical strategies that are implementable for anybody. You don't have to be some Buddha who doesn't have feelings or someone who's perfectly articulate. This is for, I mean, everybody, I'm going to be doing a giveaway too, so tuned for that, but this is the ultimate book. I think that even if you have a question mark, is someone an narcissist? Have I experienced narcissistic behavior in my life? This truly builds such an intimate relationship with the self. That's what I got from this book, and it makes me feel powerful in control and calm, and sometimes it calm. Doesn't get an exciting wrap as an emotion, but I know

Wendy Behary:

It's a great place to be though. I like God.

Susie Moore:

Steadiness, steadiness, feeling, calm, presence, and knowing that if you don't have to live on this high alert or waiting for what's going to happen now or what's there going to be an argument about next or where's the next rant coming from, you can just be this quiet, calm, steady human. It's almost like, is it really possible? It sounds undramatic and dramatic at once because I think it's truly the most incredible thing, and you give expressions, mantras. You even speak about healthy adult narcissism, which is something different, which I think, I mean, there are so much here. My friends, disarming the Narciss Narcissist or Wendy Bahari. Wendy, what do you have coming up? If someone wants to work with you, learn more from you, where should everybody go?

Wendy Behary:

Yeah, thank you and thank you so much. Your questions are so incredibly thoughtful, and I've really enjoyed sitting and talking with you, Susie, about this, and I appreciate your beautiful promotion of my book and my work, and the way you crafted your words around that last piece was just brilliant. The power in the calm. I love that. To learn more about my work, the best place to go is, I mean, you can just Google my name, Wendy Beharry. It'll take you to my website, which is disarming the narcissist.com, and on my website, there are a lot of other podcasts resources. I do host a monthly online support community called Loving, leaving Living with the Narcissist in Your Life, and there are lots of members from different experiences, mostly with narcissistic partners, some with narcissistic parents in various stages of being in relationship with them or in limited relationships or out of relationships with them in dealing with the aftermath. So that's the best way to reach me. My email address is there, and welcome to Reach Out to Me via email if you have further questions or would like consultation. That's the best place

Susie Moore:

Ready. You've given us hope. Truly, you are a miracle worker in this world taking this problem that seems insurmountable, like impenetrable, gosh, what do we do with this? I think that you just bring such kindness and humanity and understanding and strength to something that can feel a little overwhelming and too much to navigate, and so it's so easy to avoid, but when we avoid reality, great things don't happen, right? When we learn how to have the right tools to manage our reality, things become a bit less scary, and we, I think just become more fuller versions of ourselves and our strength. So that's what you do. Disarming the narcissist.com. I mean, disarming the narcissist, the book for sure. Total winner here. My gosh, I've read it three times. Not sure if I said that, but love it. Love your work, Wendy. Thank you so much for Be with me for sharing so generously with us, and I'll include all the ways to work with you right here too. So thank you so much, Wendy.

Wendy Behary:

Thank you too. I really appreciate it.