S2 EP237 – Empowered Healing from Narcissistic & Other Traumatic Abuse

Hi everyone. Dr. Margaret Paul here with the Inner Bonding Podcast. There is much information now about narcissism and the trauma resulting from narcissistic abuse, but not a lot about what actually works to heal from narcissistic abuse and other traumatic abuse, and not a lot about healing from complex post-traumatic stress syndrome (c-PTSD) that can be the result of narcissistic and other abuse and trauma.

In this podcast, I will refer to various articles about healing from trauma, and what I’ve found works and what doesn’t work in my 54 years of working with traumatic abuse. 

Many years ago, I had excellent specialized training in working with deeply traumatic abuse, and that training, along with Inner Bonding, has proved over and over, to be highly effective in healing trauma, including complex-PTSD. The main difference between PTSD and complex PTSD is that people with complex PTSD have flashbacks, well described by Pete Walker in his excellent book, “Complex PTSD: Beyond Surviving to Thriving.” In my training, flashbacks are called an abreaction, which means that the person gets taken back to a time of horrendous abuse and reacts as if it’s currently happening. Sometimes, the body reacts with welts on the skin or deep pain in the body, again as if it’s currently happening. A person in the middle of a flashback or abreaction isn’t in the present moment, and part of healing is learning to know when this is happening and how to manage it.

I’ll start with an article in Newsbreak by Libby Shively McAvoy, who is a relationship and personal development coach. The article is called “Narcissistic Abuse and C-PTSD: Healing from Psychological Trauma.” Narcissistic abuse can happen in childhood from a parent or parents, and it can happen as an adult with a narcissistic partner. It can include emotional abuse such as lying, gaslighting, various forms of manipulation, devaluation, and humiliation. It can include physical and sexual abuse. It can include programming such as, “If you tell anyone, you will be seen as the bad person and others will be harmed.” I’ve had clients so terrified to tell me about the abuse for fear that the people who abused them would know and kill them. In some forms of severe childhood abuse, the child can even be programmed to show no scars from severe physical abuse. 

In the article McAvoy states that (quote) “In my experience, trauma-informed yoga, Self-study, raising emotional intelligence to help regulate emotions and regulate the nervous system, and somatic healing were essential healing tools. EMDR can also be very helpful,” and that “A support group with people who have also experienced trauma is very helpful.” (unquote) There is nothing wrong with any of these tools, but, as you will see, they are not nearly enough to heal traumatic abuse. She also advises you to (quote), “Try to quiet the inner critic.” (unquote). This, of course, is essential, but she doesn’t say anything about how to do this. And she suggests that, (quote) “It can be helpful to journal when you are feeling low. Some journal ideas include things you are good at, your best qualities, and things you are grateful for.” (unquote). These are all good adjunct ideas to help in healing, but they are not nearly enough because they don’t get to the core of healing. And it doesn’t address how to heal from Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID, which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder, MPD, which is a coping mechanism that fortunately can be lifesaving for very severely abused children. I’ve had specialized training in healing multiplicity. 

There are many aspects of healing that this article doesn’t address. Let’s start with quieting the inner critic. We call this aspect of us our wounded self, which is located in the lower left part of the brain, the lower left amygdala. This is where our false beliefs are stored that fuel the critic.

All of us absorbed the false beliefs, judgments, and criticisms from the wounded selves of our parents, caregivers, siblings, peers, religious leaders or others. With narcissistic parents or other severe abuse, the programming is deep in your subconscious and can get triggered by many different fearful, rejecting, or unsetting situations. Because of the programming from the abuse, it’s not an easy path to quiet the inner critic, the wounded self.

In order to successfully quiet the judgments of the wounded self, you need to develop a strong, spiritually connected loving adult part of you. I’ve found in all the years that I’ve been working with trauma that there is no deeper or sustained healing without a spiritual connection. A spiritual connection provides the role-modeling for the loving adult and provides access to a powerful source of truth and love and comfort, letting survivors know that they are not alone in their healing process. 

The wounded self has no access to truth, and each time it treats your inner child – your true soul self who is a beautiful spark of the Divine – the way abusive parents or other abusers treated you, it re-traumatizes you. So, of course, healing the wounded self is vital to stop re-traumatizing yourself, but the wounded self cannot heal itself. It gets healed as you practice Inner Bonding and develop your spiritually connected loving adult. It gets healed as you learn to see, love, and value your true authentic beautiful self. It gets healed as you learn to define your own worth, separate from the false beliefs of the wounded self, through the eyes of your loving higher self. This is also what eventually heals the abreactive flashbacks.

As you learn and practice Inner Bonding, you gradually develop your loving adult and you become a loving parent to your inner child, giving yourself all you didn’t receive as a child. You become a love warrior with yourself as well as with others. This self-love and sharing love with others is a major part of healing trauma.

The basis of Inner Bonding therapy is the concept of intent, and there are only two intentions you can choose from. When you choose the intent to attempt to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe, you activate your wounded self, because this is the job of the wounded self. It comes from many false beliefs about what it can or can’t control, about who you are, and about what it needs to do to feel safe. Of course, the worse your abuse, the more you want to try to control what you can’t control, which leads to re-traumatization. 

The other intent is the intent to learn to love yourself and share your love with others. This intent opens you to the love and truth of your higher self and is the path to healing.

You can use all the tools mentioned in the article, but if your intent is to control rather than to love, healing will not occur. So being aware of your intent is vital.     

There was an excellent article in Psychology Today called “5 Myths About Healing From Trauma” by Antonieta Contreras.

The first myth she states is that (quote) “Trauma can be overcome simply by willpower and moving on.”(unquote) I completely agree that this is a myth. We do have free-will, but the will power we have is over our intent to control or to learn about self-love and loving others. We always have that choice but will power and moving on has nothing else to do with healing trauma, and to think so would be harmful to you. It’s hard for me when authors make superficial statements such as that trauma can be overcome by willpower and moving on. If you try this and fail, then you are further re-traumatized, because now your wounded self has more fuel with which to judge you.

I agree with Contreras when she states that after a current traumatic event, (Quote)” For full recovery after traumatic exposure, there’s nothing better than seeking professional support. This allows you to invest time and effort in regaining the confidence the traumatic experience may have shaken. This understanding is essential because those who neglect their mental health and continue feeling unsafe can see new symptoms arise, previous ones worsen, and a full-blown trauma disorder could develop.” (Unquote)

The second myth is (quote) ”Healing from trauma requires remembering the traumatic events in detail.” Fortunately, this isn’t at all true, and often not possible. When children are severely abused, they often dissociate as a way to survive, and dissociated memories are like dream memories. And the inner child who has the memories might not let you in on them until they feel safe that you will believe them and show up as a loving adult. And even with trauma as an adult, such as in war, you might dissociate as a way to deal with it and not remember much about it.  

Contreras states that, (quote) “My approach to trauma resolution focuses on helping individuals develop internal resources, regain a sense of safety, maintain a safe environment, build external support, and optimize overall functioning. Once these elements are in place, traumatic memories can be processed efficiently, potentially without detailed descriptions.” (Unquote). I agree with this, but I go a step further. With childhood abuse, there are programs and false beliefs that need to be dismantled, and this occurs when you remember the programming and false beliefs. You can learn to do this with a process called ‘revivification,’ which is seeing the abuse on a screen without having to feel it. It’s not healing to go through the trauma and pain again, but it is healing to the critical wounded self to heal the false beliefs. 

The 3rd myth is, (quote) “EMDR is the treatment that heals all trauma.”  (Unquote) I’m really glad she wrote about this myth. She states that (quote) “EMDR’s effectiveness can be influenced by factors such as the individual’s specific trauma history, level of dissociation, autonomic and emotional dysregulation, capacity to experience positive emotions, and personal predispositions. Since trauma affects us psychologically, emotionally, and physiologically in various ways, its resolution often requires a comprehensive, tailored approach involving multiple therapeutic modalities. This myth applies equally if replacing “EMDR” with “psychedelics,” “yoga,” or any other single method.” (Unquote) I completely agree with this. Healing from trauma requires in-depth therapeutic help with a therapist who has much experience with helping clients heal from trauma.

The 4th myth is that (quote) Discussing one’s trauma can be harmful and should be avoided.” (Unquote) I’ve actually never heard of this myth, but it’s the opposite of my experience. Again, it’s not about reliving the experience, but about sharing it and receiving empathy, compassion and acceptance.

The 5th myth is that (quote) “Trauma only heals if we heal the body.” Again, this isn’t one I’ve heard of, but trauma isn’t just about the body. It has to include emotional and spiritual healing as well. Inner Bonding, along with other trauma modalities, is a powerful mind, body, spirit process for healing both past and present trauma.

Another article in Newsbreak that I want to comment on is “Trauma-Based Therapy: Benefits and Techniques,” which was originally written by Fatima Tabti., and originally in Total Apex Sports & Entertainment. I want to comment on most of the forms of therapy mentioned. 

The first one is prolonged exposure (PE). This is about exposing the person to the traumatic source of their fear to show them that it’s not as threatening as they believed. I NEVER recommend this form of therapy. It can be retraumatizing and I’ve never heard of it being effective. 

The next one I want to comment on is Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), which I’ve already commented on. This may work for some people as an adjunct therapy, but by itself it doesn’t heal at the depth of Inner Bonding therapy, because it doesn’t develop a spiritually connected loving adult, which is essential for healing.

Another therapy mentioned is imaginal therapy, where the client imagines the trauma with the therapist. I use a form of this to help a client access dissociative memories, but by itself, it’s not nearly enough. In Inner Bonding, this is just a starting point, not the full process necessary for trauma healing.

Also mentioned is in vivo exposure, which means that the client faces activities and situations, outside the therapist’s room, that they have been avoiding due to their trauma. I have not found this to be effective until the person has developed a loving adult. If they do this as their wounded self, they can be retraumatized. 

Another therapy is Written Account and Impact Statement. I encourage my clients to journal about their memories that may come up and their dreams, and then share this with me. I also encourage them to draw whatever images come up for them. But again, this isn’t stand alone. It’s a part of the Inner Bonding trauma healing work I do with my clients. 

The final trauma therapy mentioned is Cognitive Restructuring Strategies, which helps people to (quote) “restructure their thoughts and beliefs about themselves and the people around them. It helps break any destructive and unhelpful thought patterns so they can lead a much more peaceful and fulfilling life.” Healing false beliefs is a major aspect of Inner Bonding, but again, it’s not enough by itself, and false beliefs don’t fully heal without developing a spiritually connected loving adult who can take loving action for the inner child to create a deep inner sense of safety. A loving adult learns to reparent the inner child, giving themselves what they didn’t receive as children, and learning to provide safety in current triggering situations, including situations regarding past and current narcissistic abuse.

An issue that’s very important in healing trauma is the intent and energy of the therapist. When you are looking for a therapist, one of the things you want to ask is if the therapist has done their own healing work with one or more therapists. A therapist can take a client only as far as he or she has healed themselves, and too many therapists have not done their inner work to develop a strong loving adult who doesn’t make the client dependent on them. A good therapist helps the client to develop their own inner resources so that they don’t always need to be in therapy to be okay.

You need to make sure that the therapist you work with is capable of empathy and compassion. Unfortunately, many of my clients consult me due to trauma experienced with a narcissistic therapist. I had this experience with two male therapists who came on to me sexually, trying to make me responsible for validating them. I will never forget what one of them said to me when I told him, after he had come on to me in the last session, that I was leaving therapy with him. He said, “What about me?” I was stunned. This was many years ago before I understood much about narcissism, but fortunately I understood enough to say to him, “Then you can come to me for therapy. But you are not qualified to help me.” He was a well-known therapist, and I was appalled at what had occurred.

Healing trauma requires that the therapist creates a safe and accepting space for the client and believes whatever the client may vaguely remember from childhood abuse, even if the client doesn’t yet believe it. If the client is struggling in a narcissistic relationship or trying to heal from a narcissistic relationship, the therapist needs to help the client fully accept their participation in the relationship while at the same time, helping the client to understand that nothing they did caused the narcissistic person to act as they have. It’s one thing to explore your own behavior in the relationship, and quite another thing to accept responsibility for a narcissistic partner’s or parent’s behavior. Part of healing is fully accepting that we have no control over another’s choices, and never did have control. 

Part of the role of the therapist is to role-model what it means to be an empathic, compassionate, and caring loving adult with themselves and with the client. The client might never have understood what it means to love themselves – to define their own sense of worth, to take responsibility for their feelings, to discover and heal their false beliefs, and to be able to turn to a higher source for the truth about their false beliefs and for what actions are loving and in their highest good. In Inner Bonding, clients learn to ask their higher guidance throughout a day, “What would a loving adult do right now?” The therapist is a role-model for operating from their own spiritual connection, and for having the courage to speak a truth that can help their client rather than withhold this out of fear of the client’s reaction. And the therapist needs to role model what it looks like to hold space for the client’s anger at them without taking it personally. 

In order to be able to do all this with a client, the therapist has had to do this deep work with themselves. We offer a wonderful Inner Bonding Facilitator Training program for people, including therapists, to become fully immersed in learning, practicing, and helping clients with Inner Bonding Therapy. We are very selective in who we allow into the program. The people who join have already been practicing Inner Bonding for some time, are capable of empathy and compassion, and have a deep desire to take a deeper dive into their own healing and possibly work with others. Not all people who join this training want to be therapists, but they want to become more able to be loving to themselves and to those around them. 

While some Inner Bonding facilitators work with people in person, most of us work with clients online so we can work with people all over the world. If you can’t afford to work with me, you can look on our website under Facilitators 🡪 Find a Facilitator to find a very well-trained Inner Bonding facilitator to work with.

However, no matter how competent a therapist or facilitator is, healing won’t happen unless you have the courage to do the deep work necessary to heal trauma and live a life full of love, peace, joy and a deep sense of purpose. You are the only person in charge of your intent to either control and avoid, or to learn to love yourself and share your love with others. No one, not even a very skilled therapist, can make the choice of your intent for you. No one can make you decide that you want to learn to become a loving adult and heal your wounded self, which is what’s necessary to heal trauma.

Without a loving adult, the wounded self is in charge, which means that you are continuing to treat yourself in the ways you were treated as a child by the abusive people in your life, and you are continuing to re-traumatize yourself. Whether the abuse is from childhood or from current narcissistic trauma or other trauma, the wounded self cannot heal without a spiritually connected loving adult who learns to love you rather than continue to abandon you.

The problem I often encounter with the people I work with is that they are resistant to being a loving adult. They want someone else to do for them what they need to do for themselves, and which only they can do for themselves.

So an important question to ask yourself is, how important is it to me to become a loving adult?

Author Napoleon Hill said over 100 years ago that “Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”

How strong is your desire to be a loving adult? Do you have a strong, keen ‘pulsating desire’ to be a consistent loving adult, that transcends everything? Or are there things that are far more important to you? It’s time to be honest – what is REALLY important to you – more important than evolving in your ability to love yourself and others and heal from abuse?

I’m going to list some statements that may actually be more important to you than learning to be loving to yourself and others and do your inner healing work. Go inside and honestly see if any of these statements fit for you. And please – no judgments! If you judge yourself, you will not be able to be honest with yourself. So quiet your wounded self as you hear these. These things are frequently discovered to be part of the agenda of the wounded self, and most of us relate strongly with some of them.

Is it most important to you:

• To be loved than to be loving? 
• To avoid the pain of rejection or engulfment?
• To have your way – controlling others and outcomes?
• To not be controlled?
• To avoid being duped or taken advantage of?
• To avoid having your feelings hurt?
• To avoid mistakes and failure, embarrassment and humiliation?
• To avoid the pain of loneliness, heartbreak, grief and helplessness over others, situations, and outcomes?
• To avoid the loss of money?
• To make a lot of money, even if others get hurt in the process?
• To have consistent sex?
• To numb your feelings?
• To feel safe?
• To be seen as ‘good’ and ‘nice?’
• To be seen as smart, or not be seen as stupid?
• To be seen as physically attractive?
• To avoid being seen as weak?
• To avoid anger and judgment?
• To avoid conflict?
• To be right, not be wrong?
• To avoid being alone?

Or is there anything else that comes up for you that feels more important than learning to be a loving adult? 

If you found some that you relate to, you might want to reflect on why these things are more important to you than being a loving adult and healing from past or current narcissistic abuse or other trauma.

You might have the hope and the wish to be a loving adult, but it is only when your desire is profound – keen and pulsating – that you can move beyond these agendas of the wounded self.

Do you ever hear yourself say to yourself, “Sure, I want to be loving, as long as …?” What would fill in the blank for you? What are the exceptions? What is ACTUALLY most important to you?

If you have been struggling with healing from trauma, it is likely that one or more of these wounded-self agendas are in the way. If these agendas are unconscious for you, then they can easily get in the way of being a compassionate loving adult with yourself and others and doing the in-depth healing work that is necessary for healing.

The challenge in becoming aware of what is more important to you than being a loving adult and healing from trauma is to take off all judgment of these agendas. 

If these are more important to you, then there must be a very good reason why this is so, and the only way you can understand and eventually release these agendas is to be in a compassionate intent to learn about why they are so important. This is a large part of the payoff of an Inner Bonding practice.

Many of the people who consult with me believe that the most important thing to them is being a whole, compassionate spiritually connected loving adult. But for most of them, the ‘pulsating desire’ isn’t there – and this desire is what is necessary to do the level of inner work required to be a consistent loving adult and heal from trauma.

For me, the thing that brought the pulsating desire was my deep knowing that my reason for being on the planet is to evolve in my ability to love – which has to start with loving me – and to fully manifest my essence on the planet. To me, everything else pales in importance.

Go inside and consider what is really and truly most important to you. Then use Inner Bonding to learn more and free yourself from any subconscious or unconscious motives.

No matter how severe the childhood abuse or current abuse from a narcissistic relationship, or from other trauma, you CAN heal. I know this for sure due to my own healing from narcissistically abusive parents and my long marriage with a narcissist, and from the thousands of clients I’ve worked with all these years who have been able to heal from trauma with Inner Bonding. With all the different forms of therapy I had before spirit brought us Inner Bonding, nothing healed the fear, anxiety, my many false beliefs that led to low-self-worth, my numerous addictions, and my inability to connect with my higher guidance. Nothing before Inner Bonding opened me to my natural inner peace and joy. Nothing taught me how to develop my loving adult who now knows how to truly love myself, which is what ultimately heals trauma. 

I invite you to join me for my bi-monthly masterclass and receive my live help, which you can learn about at https://innerbondinghub.com/membership. 

And, I invite you to join me for my 30-Day at-home Course: “Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships.”

And you can learn so much about loving yourself and creating loving relationships from my new book, “Lonely No More: The Astonishing Power of Inner Bonding” and from our website at https://www.innerbonding.com.

I’m sending you my love and my blessings.