Laura M. Taylor, MFT Counseling

Can you recognise any of these traits in you? I believe there are certain common traits shared by virtually everyone who has been narcissistically abused. Once ...we understand these emotional susceptibilities, we can work at repairing them, and finally, change our relationship patterns beyond description. 1. You have already suffered abuse, you fear abuse or you have a strong aversion to abusers. When we still carry the pain of past abuse, we unconsciously seek out people who represent what is familiar to us. The abuse we previously suffered becomes the version of attachment that creates the most emotionally charged feelings for us and becomes part of our inner programming. 2. You find it difficult to speak up, stand up for yourself or create healthy boundaries. If you suffer from an inability to assert yourself because of your fears of criticism, rejection, abandonment or punishment (CRAP), this means you will hand your power away. Rather than confront, investigate and honour yourself when needed, you would rather go along with others despite how wrong this feels for you. 3. Your integrity level is high and you are dismayed if anyone questions it. When we believe our worth is dictated by what other people think of us, rather than what we think of ourselves, we are in for a very hard time. Life will feel precarious, especially if you are attached to a narcissist who accuses you of things you would never fathom thinking or doing, while you frantically try to force them to think differently about you so that you can feel okay again. 4. You work hard to sustain a sense of security, and you clean up the mess made by other people that could threaten your security. When you take financial responsibility for people who refuse to take responsibility for themselves, it is like watering their garden while your own is dying. You are being drained of your energy, sanity, and resources. The narcissist syphons out your resources while you are busy sorting out their mess. 5. You feel, deep down, that you can only be loved for your efforts and accomplishments. If you keep trying to prove your worth by taking on the burdens of others, being generous to a fault, giving till it hurts and doing all the things we do when we don’t believe we are loveable or worthy simply in and of ourselves narcissists will be magnetised to you. You are the perfect source of narcissistic supply. 6. You unconsciously feel others will only love you and care for you when you tend to their needs first. If you grew up in a household where you tried to placate or keep others sane so that they would have enough resources to love and care for you, you are likely to be attracted to unsafe people. Rather than identifying your own needs, asking for what you want and laying down boundaries that define how others treat you, you will have a high tolerance for unacceptable behaviour and a propensity to cater to it in order to stay safe. 7. You are very hard on yourself and are never happy with what you have achieved. You continually feel anxious about what you haven’t accomplished yet. It is a totally false premise that people will treat us how we treat them. The truth is that people treat us in ways that reflect how we treat and truly feel about ourselves. If you are your own terrible inner critic, then you will gravitate towards relationships with people who deem you as ‘never good enough’. 8. You have a tendency to want to fix and sort out other people’s problems rather than examine and sort out your own uncomfortable emotions. If we have never learned how to self-partner, self-soothe and heal our own emotional triggers, we will tend to look to the outside world for relief from our uncomfortable feelings. Yet if we try to control others in a bid to assuage our own out-of-control emotions, we will become more vulnerable to being controlled. 9. You see yourself as an empath and put other people’s needs before your own in the belief that this is virtuous. If we are an empath (i.e. we feel the energy of others intensely and we try to assist others as a way to feel better about ourselves), we may pride ourselves on how we show concern for other people’s needs and wishes, and cater to them. However, if we are not capable of defining our own needs and wants we will not receive back the care and love we crave. It can be such a revelation to understand how many of us to possess a lot, if not all, of these nine traits! My video series - How to Clear your Susceptibilities to Narcissists is the perfect accompaniment for this post - https://bit.ly/2zhJ0ha You will discover how to clear and heal the following - Scarcity Consciousness Crisis Consciousness Being an Empath Not Being Able to Receive Self Abandoning Fixing People Seeking Approval People Pleasing Poor Boundary Function - 2 parts And start your recovery with the complimentary 16 Day Recovery Course - https://bit.ly/3ccn1sI Much love xo

Attachment trauma is real.

Hold on to yourself, and know your value, enough to know when to let go of others.

TO THE WOMAN WHO IS SLOWLY FADING AWAY To the woman who has lost her spark. To the woman whose get up and go, has well and truly gone. This is for you.... This is to remind you, that you don’t have to be everything to everyone, every day. You didn’t sign up for that. Remember when you used to laugh? Sing? Throw caution to the wind? Remember when you used to forgive yourself more quickly for not always being perfect. You can get that back again. You really can. And that doesn’t have to mean letting people down or walking away. It just means being kinder to you, feeling brave enough to say no sometimes. Being brave enough to stop sometimes. And rest. It starts the moment you realise that you’re not quite who you used to be. Some of that is good, some of that is not. There are parts of you that need to be brought back. And if anyone in your life is not okay with that they are not your people. Your people will be glad to see that spark starting to light up again. So, if you have been slowly fading away my friend, this is the time to start saying yes to things that bring you joy and no to things that don’t. It’s really pretty simple. From ‘to the women’ https://www.amazon.co.uk//ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_fabt1_OYLVFbX Donna Ashworth Ladies Pass it On. Art by Rita Loyd #tothewomen #ladiespassiton #ritaloyd #tothewomenwhoisfadingaway #lostyourself

#narcissisticparents #youarenotalone

It’s important to speak openly of death and dying.

If you find yourself in a toxic relationship, with repeating cycles of pain, watch this video... https://youtu.be/POq_YcMB9CU

Individuals who are isolated and stressed suffer from more serious illnesses. (These stats include children.) https://youtu.be/erZhTPkOLb0

This podcast explores the Vulnerable Living model for creating healthy adult relationships. This is the astronomically helpful approach I use in my work with couples. (It is an audio podcast which has also been fully transcribed here.) Thanks to Dan Mangena and Duncan.

When you meet your special someone, unconsciously, the vulnerable child is activated and moves into magical hope that all of your pain and lack from earlier yea...rs will be taken care of now by this new person. However, your new partner didn’t cause your pain,and they certainly cannot cure it. Your person also has their own deep vulnerable child needs, and are unconsciously hopeful you will ameliorate their pain. Each person unconsciously expects the other person to meet their longings and unmet needs for being accurately seen, felt and heard. And often those vulnerable child needs seem to conflict with our special person’s needs. It’s so upsetting when our special person acts in ways that don’t match our expectations for love and care. And then we often start to wonder if we are with the wrong person, or why we chose someone who actually activates so much disappointment. In actuality, we always choose the perfect scenario to reflect back to us what our vulnerable child needs by how we feel unmet by the other. Our person is the perfect mirror for what we need to give to ourselves. When I work with both couples and individuals I teach them that they will always feel not understood or met by other. That the work is to develope a present loving self, practiced daily, in order to meet needs that were long ago unmet. Once an individual starts to lovingly care for their vulnerable child’s sensations and feelings they begin to learn to be nourished by their present inner parent self, and are able to be more present in life in general. It’s an exciting adventure to move from unconsciously reacting from the past and start to be fully present with oneself and with one’s special person!

Grief is the cost of love.

Diamond in the Rough.

Dan Mangena, thanks for sharing this beauty! #VulnerableLiving