If your mother has narcissistic tendencies, you probably experience shame.

Here are five things you can do to help yourself:

#1 Let her have her alternate reality (and notice what happens inside you when you do).

I once had a conversation with my mother in which she recounted a situation that not only do I remember very differently, my husband does too.

I felt myself reacting. Anger was rising…defenses were triggered. “She’s gaslighting me!” and underneath that, “She thinks I’m stupid!” and underneath that...

“Maybe I am.”

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get to the shame-based thought you may be having about yourself – the one that’s underneath all the other thoughts.

[Having these thoughts isn’t your fault. Seeing them for what they are
can help you step out of her narcissistic dynamic and choose freedom]

Having identified what was happening inside me, I took a deep breath, asked myself “who do I want to be in this moment?” I chose to lean into dignity, which is one of my antidotes to shame (the other two are expression and audacity).

I didn’t try to correct her. I didn’t share my memory of the situation. I didn't engage.

I stepped out of the dynamic and freed myself from the shame.

#2 Don’t engage in rehashing the past with her in order to get to “common ground.”

This is related to #1. Rehashing the past, even the recent past, tends not to end well.

You can’t make her understand.

You can’t make her take responsibility for herself or her actions.

You can’t make her see what she did and how it impacted you.

What keeps you in the rehashing-the-past dynamic is your hope that if the two of you could just come to some sort of agreement about what happened, then there’d be apologies, forgiveness, and compromise, and you’d move on.

But that (pretty much) never happens.

She doesn’t have to change in order for you to feel better. <—— YAY!

She doesn’t have to agree with you, she doesn’t have to understand you, she doesn’t have to apologize to you, forgive you, or compromise with you.

Nor you with her.

#3 Focus on yourself, not her opinions.

Focus on being a joy and a delight to yourself, rather than on being a disappointment to her (and notice what happens inside you when you do.

When I typed those words, I noticed what happened in my body. My face grinned and my chest expanded and I got truthbumps.

Put another way…the more you know yourself and what you value, the less her opinion of you matters. There are SO MANY ways to get to know yourself. What lights you up? What captures your imagination? What has you doing a double-take and leaning in closer?

It’s only when you believe her and worry that what she’s saying is both true AND bad (as in the example in #1), that you want to fight back.

Instead of fighting back, disengage. Or agree with her (and then disengage). Notice what it feels like to agree with your mother that you’re [fill in the blank with whatever her opinion of you is], and take a deep breath and feel the freedom. And delight.

#4 Accept yourself as you are (and you will no longer need or want to blame her, besides, blaming keeps you “engaged”).

You are worth your own respect and regard…right this very second. There’s nothing to fix or improve in order for that to be true. This isn’t just some new-age pablum. Think about it for a second…who benefits from you seeing yourself as wounded and pathologizing yourself to the point where you feel there’s no hope for you?

This is one of the things we do together in Shame School. And you know what? What we end up accepting about ourselves isn’t something awful or shameful.

We accept the truth about ourselves, no matter how beautiful it is (thank you Macrina Wiederkehr).

That is the “harder” work...the work that heals, both personally and collectively.

Tend to yourself as a healthy, well-equipped and well-resourced Mother would. You’ll do a better job of it!

#5 Establish and maintain healthy boundaries.

Yes, it is possible to set boundaries with a mother with narcissistic tendencies. If you haven’t yet received the most recent version of my boundaries guide, click —-> ​​​The Mother Lode - A Definitive Guide To Setting Healthy Boundaries.pdf​

And be prepared for the maintenance part.

Much, much love,

Karen

​A sixth thing you can do is join the Shame School Community. We start March 1. The Shame School Community is an open-ended