Tag: health (Page 2 of 3)

One of the effects that narcissistic individuals tend to have on everyone around them is that their behaviour can have major impacts, typically in a negative way. I liken it to dominoes, where the narcissist’s negativity begins the process by pushing over the first domino in the line, which then bumps and knocks over the next domino, and so on and so forth until all of the dominoes have fallen. Picture the narcissist then smiling because they have controlled the game and ‘won’. All of the dominoes are down and the narcissistic individual stands victorious. Dominoes of dysfunction.

In real life, narcissists often have this type of impact on those around them. Their negativity, manipulation, use of triangulation, and often bad moods radiate out around them to one or more people (dominoes), sometimes unintentionally, but, more often than not, quite intentionally. Why? Because misery loves company. And the more people (dominoes) they can knock down (essentially bringing people down to make themselves feel ‘more than’), the better, as far as they’re concerned. If they can triangulate family members, friends, romantic partners or co-workers (see prior post on triangulation) to create issues between them (siblings triangulated by a parent, romantic partner and new interest, people within their social or employment group, etc.), it gives them the control that they need to manipulate people while still appearing to be the ‘good’ one. Domino after domino (person after person) falls while they stand back and smile at the chaos they’ve created. They might even jump in to reset the dominoes, just in case anyone were to get the idea that they had initiated the sequence of negative events, only to give them another push when they decide to make it happen again.

So, how do we protect ourselves from the narcissistic domino effect in reality? Either 1) defend yourself to the momentum of their negative forces by educating yourself about narcissistic behaviour, along with strengthening yourself with self-care and confidence while taking the power away from the negative behaviour with knowledge (in domino terms, place a gap between yourself and the domino in front of you so that you won’t be impacted, or brace yourself from falling if you’re the first domino in the line), or 2) remove yourself from the game entirely with the use of low contact or no contact (ie. take your domino out of the container and never put it back), if possible.

Once we have educated ourselves about narcissistic behaviour and have seen it for what it is – disordered, dysfunctional and damaged people with fragile egos who are hellbent on protecting their egos from anything and everything – it is possible to better deflect and cope with it. If you have the option of going low contact or no contact, you can then take the time to recover and clear your mind. It’s amazing how much our perception can change without the constant onslaught of drama, manipulation and negative, controlling interactions.

One way or another, we can remove ourselves from the domino effect by ensuring that we are braced and can’t be knocked down or simply by not playing the game.

Until next time,

Heather ~Natural Clarity Coaching~ www.naturalclaritycoaching.com na********************@***il.com Natural Clarity Coaching on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter