Healing From Narcissistic Abuse
A Shamanic Approach To Recovery
by scott Silverston
Have you ever been on the receiving end of gaslighting or other forms of narcissistic abuse? Does someone close to you suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)? Have you been in an intimate relationship with a narcissist? If so, you know how painful and challenging the process of recovery can be. You understand the confusion that comes from repeated boundary violation.
After the trauma of experiencing the basic norms of civil discourse and respect for your inherent psychic and emotional sovereignty being thrown to the wayside, it is easy to begin to think your needs don’t matter… and by extension that you don’t matter.
Fortunately, there is a path to healing and recovery with shamanic healing.
When we look at the problem of narcissistic abuse from a shamanic perspective, we can understand how process unfolds, the core motivation of the narcissist, and why some people are more vulnerable than others to being victimized. From this place of understanding, we are able to chart our course towards healing and recovery.
Narcissistic Motivation
First, we must understand narcissistic motivation; what makes the narcissist or sociopath tick? What is he or she trying to achieve through their abusive behavior? From a shamanic viewpoint, a narcissist’s primary motivation is to feed off the life force energy of other humans. The narcissist’s main strategy is to attack the emotional vulnerabilities of their target and open holes in the target’s energy field that will provide an ongoing source of “nourishment” to the narcissist.
Healthy people derive their spiritual and energetic nourishment from their connection to source energy; Creator and Mother Earth. For emotionally healthy people; the energetic flow between peers is relatively equal in both directions. On some occasions (when one person is needing more support for a specific reason), the energy may temporarily flow more one way than the other; but over time, the energy flow in successful, healthy peer to peer relationships is essentially equal.
With a narcissist or sociopath, this is never the case. A narcissist will insist that the energy flows to him or her almost exclusively. When the energy flows outward from a narcissist; it is usually in an attempt to hook and capture more energy from their victim. To wit, if the narcissist senses their food source restricting the energy flow; he/she will act out in more aggressive or outlandish ways. When the food source pulls back and begins to establish boundaries with the narcissist; this is deeply threatening to the emotional survival of the narcissist. The narcissist will attempt to blow through their victims boundaries and create a situation in which significant negative attention is directed back to the narcissist.
For a narcissist, their primary motivation is securing their energetic food supply; negative attention is equally effective at fulfilling this need as positive attention. The thing a narcissist hates the most is to be marginalized and ignored. A narcissist is so desperate for energy that they will commonly feed off the life energy of their own children which often leads to anxiety disorders and/or PTSD for the children later in life. Narcissism and narcissistic abuse are learned behaviors; passed from generation to generation, from parent to child. The child learns from the parent that feeding off the life force energy of others is the way to meet their emotional survival needs. Once the child agrees (usually unconsciously) to this pattern, they begin to act out, often in bullying ways to other children who are younger or smaller than them. Unless uprooted from its core, this pattern and the child’s response to it will control much of that child’s future behavior.
Narcissistic Target Selection
Narcissists and Sociopaths tend to choose empathetic, kind-hearted, generous or over-giving, altruistic people as their targets. As Masters of Deception, narcissists often play the victim when in fact they are the abuser. When the narcissist is receiving their desired amount of “energetic nourishment” from their target voluntarily, life will temporarily proceed relatively smoothly (albeit in a highly imbalanced way). The empath has bought into playing their role as “rescuer” and to the narcissist’s role as “victim”.
Over time, the target will be drained of their life force energy because of the imbalanced energy flow and eventually he/she realizes that the dynamic is unsustainable because it is too draining. At this point, the target attempts to establish a boundary. Almost immediately after the target sets a boundary; the narcissist will react (often with aggression and fury) at the potential loss of their supply. Having closely observed their target since the beginning of their relationship with each other; the narcissist will have a clear profile of their pre-existing wounds and sore spots and it is here that the narcissist will strike.
When the narcissist strikes, they do so with intent to reel their target back in and destroy the newly established boundary. Often the narcissist will direct their attach at a family of origin wound in the target, and attempt to gas-light their target into believing that because of their pre-existing family of origin wounds it is the target and not the narcissist who is somehow deeply flawed and therefore at fault.
The narcissist is specifically aiming for a sore spot with the intent to force the trapped emotional energy from that wound to the surface where it becomes available for their consumption. Once that energy surfaces in either tears or anger or both; it is a huge food source for the narcissist and also reaffirmation that the narcissist is an “important person”. Remember, to the narcissist, negative attention is better than no attention (just like to a starving person bad tasting food is better than no food at all).
Soul Stealing
After the initial strike has been made; a hole is opened in the energy field of the target. At this hole, the psychic tentacles from the narcissist attach and inserts its suckers; pulling energy from the target to the narcissist. Once the psychic tentacles have been deeply implanted in the wounds of the target; gas-lighting and defamation of the target in the community serve the dual purposes of creating further hurt (releasing more emotional energy for the narcissist to feed on), and disorienting and un-grounding the target so they become unaware of the trauma that is occurring. In Shamanic terms, this dynamic is called “Soul Stealing” and the Narcissist is a “Soul Thief”. Different from Soul Loss that results as a by-product of trauma, Soul Stealing involves the intentional taking of life force energy from another person.
The Path To Healing
Once a narcissist or sociopath has hooked into their target on a deep energetic level, it takes significant effort to remove their psychic tentacles. The first step on the road to freedom is to understand the dynamic as described above. The second step is to change the dynamic so that you can remove their feeder tentacles, reclaim your spiritual sovereignty, and quarantine the narcissist/sociopath so that they are not able to re-infect you with their emotional poison.
Shamanic Healing Techniques To Recover from Narcissistic Abuse
We use a combination of Shamanic Healing Techniques to effectively aid the recovery process:
1. EXTRACTION: Immediately and unconditionally cut all unhealthy cords with the narcissist/sociopath and do not engage in any future behavior that allows them to re-attach. Remove all intrusions and tentacles.
2. UNCOVER & UPROOT OLD AGREEMENTS: On some level, often unconsciously, we have agreed to allow the narcissist/sociopath to attach to us. We have unconsciously given our permission to be abused. This is where our responsibility for the situation lies and the part of the dynamic that we must own in order to heal.
Often times, these underlying agreements allowing and accepting narcissistic behavior were formed in our childhood. Children have limited choice about the situation they find themselves in with an abusive parent, and they will often unconsciously give away their own soul parts & make unhealthy agreements in order to ‘keep the peace’, to try to get their emotional needs met, or merely to just survive in an emotionally and psychically toxic environment. Over time, agreements formed in childhood become entrenched in our subconscious and we are not aware of them in day to day life. Yet even without our awareness, they are running the show and have allowed an opening through which the narcissist/sociopath can attach and feed. After extracting the tentacles from the narcissist, the next step it to discover the old agreements we have within us that has made us vulnerable to this situation. It is helpful to become aware of the origin of this agreement (when and why we agreed to it to begin with) so that we can address the wounding at its core level.
3. SOUL RETRIEVAL: We must recover the lost soul parts both from the time that the old agreement was formed as well as all soul parts which are held by the narcissist/sociopath. Additionally, more soul parts may be ready to return that are related to the same agreement and how it has played itself out in other relationships in our life. What is appropriate will vary from case to case and will be revealed in the Shamanic Healing Session.
4. INSTALL A NEW AGREEMENT: It is imperative to ask to receive a new agreement to replace the old agreement that made us vulnerable. This new agreement will protect us from repeating the old dysfunctional pattern with other people in the future. For example, an old agreement that made us agree to participate in the narcissist’s game might be “I trade my sovereignty and light for security and companionship”. A new agreement to replace it might be “I keep my light & my truth; and I trust that all my needs will be met as I walk in right relationship”.
Conclusion
Narcissistic abuse can be extremely damaging. Often there are multiple agreements and much soul loss from numerous life events associated with this kind of situation. Recovery involves both healing from the trauma that has been experienced and rewriting our patterning to the point where we are able to maintain clear boundaries and keep our personal lives completely clear of Narcissists, Sociopaths and other Cluster B personality disorder types of people, especially in close relationships.
True healing requires that we free ourselves from an intricate and tightly spun web of deception (and self-deception) often targeted at some of our most vulnerable childhood wounds.
Combining all the above techniques in one Shamanic Healing Session provides the most effective, positive results to help clients make their recovery not just from narcissistic abuse; but also from many other types of trauma. A single Shamanic Healing Session can have profound, life changing effects and supports the client to take concrete action steps in ordinary physical reality such as establishing and sticking to new, healthy boundaries regardless of the backlash from others who are upset at the loss of their energy supply.
Go Deeper
If you would like to explore this work at a deeper level, please consider joining one of my Shamanism Classes where I guide each student personally on their journey of learning and self-healing.
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