Learning to Discern Instead of Justifying Toxicity | Dr. Ramani Durvasula EP 593

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11is it even possible to not only heal after narcissistic relationship or abuse that you've experienced in a narcissistic relationship intimacy but also to trust yourself again that you can choose someone who isn't a narcissist 100 it's possible i i see love stories after narcissistic abuse for people all the time but let me tell you it's a bumpy road so what I want to tell people is it's possible it's not easy someone in my healing community brought this interesting line from David Kessler's work I'm sure you know David Kessler if you don't you should you gotta have him on he's great he is probably to me one of the best voices in grief that's out there, right?

0:58And he said, loss is optional. And what he meant by that is, he was talking about his own process of grief. And he said, I could choose. There's one way to avoid losing is to never love again, to never have a pet, to never have a lover, to never have a partner, to never have a friend, and to not have a family. And then you won't experience loss, but you won't experience life. And I thought it was so beautiful because it was that idea of loss is optional. These do, at some level, do become choices. And I think for me, for survivors of narcissistic abuse, feeling the sense of autonomy, which tends to be stripped away by these relationships, grief is a process you go through.

1:39And during grief, it is the most human of experiences, like birth and death. Grief is the experience that unites everyone. And we have some pretty universal reactions to it. And the big mistake we're making now in modern times is we believe we can rush through grief, that we can control our feelings. Get over it quickly. Get over it quickly. Get over it quickly. Move on. I'm not thinking about it anymore. I'm back at work. I'm good. I'm back in my routine. And grief is a funny thing because it's going to come for you. It might be sitting in the back. It's like, be careful. And because people who go through narcissistic relationships become masters of dissociation, and I don't mean sort of the full-blown traumatic dissociation, but like, I'm not feeling that.

2:19I'm not seeing that. They're very good at pushing everything away because that's the only way to survive in these relationships. But you also get good at cutting out the pain, right? Going through in this world in this numbness. Going back to this idea of loss is optional. What you'd have to live, no partner, no nothing. I guess you wouldn't go through that same breach of trust or betrayal and all the pain we go through when we love, but then you wouldn't have love. And what else is the experience of being a human being but to connect to other people? And the reason I say this is that when you're in those acute stages of grief, you're not thinking about, like, good, let loss be optional.

2:57I am not signing up for it. Thank you, no. But then there's a point at which you say, but I want to feel again. And, you know, there's nothing more beautiful to me when I'm working with a survivor when they do say, I think I'm ready to start feeling people again, but I'm so scared. First of all, I remind them, girl, you survived that. Anything else someone brings new, you're going to be fine. You got this, right? But that fear, it is overwhelming for people that how will I survive if this is done to me again? How will I ever have faith in any human being again? And above all else, the point you made, how will I ever trust myself?

3:33And that loss of trust in the self is what really bums me out. Because now these are people who are saying they're still having trouble making decisions or I've got bad judgment. And so a lot of the work and a lot of what I talk about, it's not you, is the fine art of discernment. and my big point there, okay, and everyone talks about wellness, wellness, wellness, eat, drink the right juice, drink the right tea, eat the right kale, do the right workout, do the right dis, discern, discern, pick, pick well, wear the right workout clothes and cotton and all this. I'm like, people, I get it. You do you.

4:05But can we bring that kind of discerning awareness to people? We're not discerning when it comes to the people we let in our life. Oh, you're going to abuse me? Come on in. I'm like, you might as well smoke a pack of cigarettes at that point. You're so careful about what you eat. Stop doing that. Eat junk food for all I care. Just be careful about who you let in. Don't allow emotional abuse to come in. Exactly. And don't enable and don't keep making those excuses. We let toxic people in so close and fast. Why is that so common for people to make excuses for their partner's bad behaviors consistently for how they treat them?

4:41Why do we allow that? Why do we excuse that? Why do we continue it? I mean, you love them. Do we love them or is it a false sense of love? I think that when we get into a philosophical discussion of is it love? Is it chemical bonded? Is it love? You think you love them. Yes. Listen, if somebody behaves badly on a first date and they yell at you and they scream at you and they curse at you, you're like, okay. You're probably not going to be on a second date with that. I'm not going to be on a second date. Second date, third date even. You probably won't put up with it once you get deeper into it.

5:11Why though? Why do we put up with bad behavior after, you know, three, six months to three years, and then we stay in it when we wouldn't have been in that relationship early on if they did that? One, I'd almost say, is more cognitive and almost behavioral economic and sort of sunk cost fallacy stuff. I've already put in three months into this relationship. Correct. Can I look at more dating profiles like, oh, I got to make this one work. It's like you don't want to return the thing to the store. I'm like, we make this one work. Okay, there's that. But that's very cognitive. That misses what I think is more powerful, which is the somatic physical things that happen in us.

5:47Old scripts get evoked. If you were a child who made excuses for an invalidating parent, if you were a child who had to cater to the needs of a parent, all those accommodations in you, those start, intimacy brings that out, right? Because a parental relationship has its form of intimacy. It's a closeness. It's an attachment. So those old scripts start getting activated. and our natural tendency to fix, to rescue, to excuse, to justify in the name of attachment, all of that kicks in pretty quick. Especially if there's things you like. You're attracted to the person. They're smart. They're clever.

6:25You have fun. You've gone on a nice trip. You like the sex. All of those things, which at some level are kind of superficial, they keep someone in the game, right? So in order to keep attached to this person that you're feeling, that you're enjoying, some of us are really good at those trauma-bonded justifications. There's people out there, frankly, Lewis, who are actually good at three months out to say, this isn't healthy, and they can step away. They may not be as vulnerable to those internal accommodations made in family of origin.

7:05Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:55Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.