A Shaman’s Guide To Understanding Narcissism
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(This was posted in the past and no longer indicative of where I am now as a shaman. However, it might be valid information for where you are in your journey so I still have it publicly available. To get the latest updates, visit my YouTube Channel for daily videos, livestreams and more. To book a session or consultation, visit theconcretetribe.com.)
In my work as a shaman I run across many people who misunderstand two very destructive elements in our modern American society: Narcissism and the Ego. And anyone on a spiritual path has had to battle with these two monsters of human personality that are so now embedded into our cultural landscape.
I must warn you that what follows might cause you to question your own sanity or cause you to feel fearful or uncomfortable and I do not enjoy talking about these topics much at all. But I do feel that pretending these horrible things do not exist is not making it go away. In fact, it’s making it worse. And the only way to truly understand these monstrous things is to a take cold hard uncomfortable look at them. But do not linger too long. Getting into the mind of a narcissist is dangerous. You must be careful to not get sucked in as well… lest we become monsters ourselves.
And if anything in this article causes you to feel negatively about me or another person, contact a therapist immediately. Emergency rooms are open all night. They can help you with what you’re feeling.
Just The Facts
The fact is that true Narcissism is an incurable personality disorder that affects only 6% of the population. In America that amounts to roughly 19 million people. These people are unaware they even have a disorder or that there is anything wrong with their behavior. Narcissists simply lack empathy which is a vital component to a healthy and happy human life. And despite what you believe, narcissists lead sad, horrible lives. And what makes it so dangerous is that they don’t care about anything, not even themselves as their total lack of empathy extends to their own person and own situation in life. They will fuck their own lives up just to fuck up yours.
According the Mayo Clinic and their medical listing for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the symptoms are clearly labeled. They are:
- Believing that you’re better than others
- Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
- Exaggerating your achievements or talents
- Expecting constant praise and admiration
- Believing that you’re special and acting accordingly
- Failing to recognize other people’s emotions and feelings
- Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
- Taking advantage of others
- Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
- Being jealous of others
- Believing that others are jealous of you
- Trouble keeping healthy relationships
- Setting unrealistic goals
- Being easily hurt and rejected
- Having a fragile self-esteem
- Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional
For a narcissist it’s all about getting attention and being thought of as something greater than they are. Early on in my awakening I was accused of being a narcissist for sharing my awakening story and near-death experience that went hand in hand with an event with a known narcissist. I got wrapped up in her nightmare and soon I was entrenched in a classic takedown scenario. It was the worst thing ever as she started telling my childhood friends that I was the narcissisist. She turned my friends against me claiming I was on drugs and all I could do is just watch helplessly.
She ruined my support system by spreading untrue rumors and since she was a mother of two why would anyone doubt her? She was a poor woman just trying to help me. But the fact remains that I was not on drugs and she had effectively murdered me in front of my friends so that none of them will ever speak to me again. They don’t believe me. They believe this random woman who entered my life via Facebook. That’s how bad this is.
You Might Be a Narcissist if …
If you explore the fact that you might be a narcissist, please understand it’s quite a terrifying thing to have to face in yourself. So when I decided to explore this facet of myself in YouTube videos, a shitstorm of epic proportions landed at my feet.
I was bullied and harassed and tortured by people who were exhibiting the same narcissistic behavior I was writing about. They cited the fact that I made videos on YouTube as me wanting attention, but in fact it’s nothing more than my self-talk spirit lessons that others can listen in on. If I do want attention, I want feedback from other spiritual people or shamans on spiritual paths. It’s for the books I have written and the videos I’ve made and for the hard work I’ve done on myself. I didn’t do it for other people. But I have helped lots of people for the work I have done so far and I have lots more work to do.
If I just reach one person in their spiritual path or help one person out of suicide then that’s awesome. I have helped many. I am the opposite of a narcissist. I don’t think all that highly of myself and I live pretty simply and rarely do I demand people bow down and worship me for doing nothing. If I do get accolades it’s because I am willing to do the work. I don’t even understand the concept of envy or jealousy beause if I want something, I will work hard to get it.
The Brain Of A Psychopath
The Mayo Clinic writes: “ When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don’t receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry. You may insist on having “the best” of everything — the best car, athletic club, medical care or social circles, for instance.”
In my path as a spiritual person, I view everyone as the same and I am definitely not conceited or boastful. As a writer and an artist, the very act of me sharing my work online comes across as boastful to those without simlar life acheivment. It’s hard to write a book much less ones that seek to break the mold as much as mine have. To a narcissicist simply having healthy self-esteem is considered thinking “too highly of yourself” and when you refuse to play their games they call you “self-absorbed” but the reality is that they call you those things because that’s the only framework they exist in. You reaching your goals is an affront to the things that they don’t do because a narcissist doesn’t really ever do anything except spend time tearing others down who are more driven and hard-working than they.
“But underneath all this behavior often lies a fragile self-esteem,” writes Mayo Clinic to the Narcissist. “You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better.”
For The Layperson
The clinical definitions and symptoms do little to help us ordinary folks understand what a dangerous disorder this is. Narcissists have invaded every facet of our society and are quietly ripping it apart from the inside. Narcissists have taken jobs of authority like HR managers where they are not hiring the best people. You have narcissist co-workers slowly bullying all the good people away and this is causing companies to fail and talented people left without jobs. We’re rewarding these people for their terrible behavior but since they do such a good job of covering it up, performing blackmail and other such nefarious things, most people are none the wiser. So how did it get this bad? We were taught how to live by psychopath rules of lying, cheating and stealing to get ahead.
We’ve been instructed by those Narcissists in authority that this behavior is not only acceptable but that “everybody” acts this way. and that is simply not true. We’ve been taught ways to live by Narcissists themselves and undoing this damage on a personal level can help to protect us from them. They are like robots that lack human emotion and they just mimic things they see other people do.
People on a spiritual path are the greatest threat to the Narcissist because we can easily see them for what they are. But we must keep in mind that they are still people and they still have feelings but they consistently exhibit the same behavior across the board so spotting them is fairly easy.
They Live For The Applause
Narcissists are very good at getting the attention the desire so naturally people are drawn to them. At first they are likeable and flattering but they consistently push the best people out of their lives because once a Narcissist falls in love you, it’s over. Because no one matters more to the narcissist than themselves and as soon as they fall in love with someone they’ve put another’s needs before theirs and that means that person becomes their number one enemy.
This causes a flood of conflicting emotions in their psyches and they will seize on any opportunity to end the relationship with them and even have it be their fault. Because the narcissist can never be at fault which can be confusing for both the narcissist and their victim. This is how insane it can get because they will not want to talk to the person they love about anything because that would topple the carefully crafted tower of lies they believe about themselves. And because they lack empathy, they won’t care that they’ve destroyed two lives or broke hearts or even caused their own life to completely unravel. By the time this happens, they are using their drama-filled dead relationships as fodder to get more attention.
That’s the self-destructive paradox of the narcissist since they ultimately cheat themselves out of the best things in life even though they constantly demand them. According to the Mayo Clinic, treatment is nearly impossible since they refuse to even understand that anything is wrong.
“ When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may not want to think that anything could be wrong — doing so wouldn’t fit with your self-image of power and perfection. But by definition, a narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of your life, such as relationships, work, school or your financial affairs. You may be generally unhappy and confused by a mix of seemingly contradictory emotions. Others may not enjoy being around you, and you may find your relationships unfulfilling.”
A Skewed Perception Of Reality
Narcissists are overly preoccupied with other people including celebrities. Selfies are a major point of contention for the narcissist. It’s something they cannot understand since they take selfies for one reason only and that’s for attention. A person taking a picture of themselves to share with family and friends is not narcissism. It’s not even vanity. It’s just a person taking a picture of themselves to share with family and friends for whatever reason. Noticing things for what they are is a great way to battle the effects of the Narcissist rules our society goes by. Someone taking a picture of food is someone just taking a picture of their food and so on. If you are a likeable person, a Narcissist will be drawn to you because you get attention for being likeable. Then they will spread gossip and rumors about you in order to ruin your support network leaving you with no one to turn to after they've finished with you.
Their skewed perception of reality is that everything another person does is for attention. If a person talks about their problems in life,and needs help, they are “seeking sympathy” when in reality sane healthy people are never seeking sympathy. Admitting you need help with something is a sign of strength, but to the narcissicist this is just “attention-seeking behavior” which is ironic since the only people who engage in attention-seeking behavior is the narcissicist. So you will start to see who people really are by the language they use. A narcissicist is quite good at revealing themselves by the things they project onto others.
Prime Targets
If you are kind, generous, tolerant and giving then you are a prime target for a narcissist. If you somehow become vulnerable due to finances, a disaster or an illness then you are also a prime target. But never fear. Their behavior is textbook so avoiding them is quite easy. But unfortunately we live in a society that has been taught narcissistic behavior is okay. The difference between what a Narcissistic does and what someone exhibiting narcissicstic behavior does are far different.
Your total and complete annihilation from the face of the planet is what the Narcissist has in mind. They will take you down so hard that your will to live will go along with it. And you cannot reason with them because at that point you are nothing more than a cartoon character to them. Someone who is exhibiting mere narcissistic behavior will stop when they see that they've hurt you. They will apologize and say they are sorry and work to mend the relationship. However, the narcissistic will get a few last digs in and then walk away as if you never existed. Because at that point you don’t. They've effectively murdered you without leaving a corpse.
And since Narcissists are very good at swaying opinions, you won’t be able to call on your friends or family for help because if they’ve done their job. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to have a complete understanding of yourself and to know yourself 100% including your flaws. Because the narcissicist will only focus on your flaws and tell others about your flaws so you must have a really strong self-esteem to get through it. And you will get through it. If you’ve been taken down by a narcissicist all you have to do is wait for them to lose interest and move on to something else. Do not reengage them because they likely won’t be coming back. And whil you may have lost some friends along the way, trust that they were never really good friends to begin with. Do you really want to be friends with people so easily swayed to the Dark side?
Before I close this up, I’d like to touch briefly on the ego. And while it falls in line with what I’ve discussed above. Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth is the definitive guide to the ego.
A Bit About The Ego
Now this is one that many people not involved in spiritual pursuits get flat-out wrong. Your ego is what keeps you sadly human. Your ego is what keeps you from living your best life. Your ego feels negative emotions and your ego keeps you from realizing your true potential.
Your ego is what gets you to work on time and keeps track of the days of the week. It also signals to your body when you are hungry or sleepy. Your ego is nothing more than an on-board computer to keep you existing in day to day life. Ordinary people accuse Kayne West or Madonna has people who have big egos but the opposite is the case. These are people who got where they are by effectively reducing their ego to the point where their true talents can shine and make them abundantly wealthy.
And that’s the sad trick of the ego. It keeps you stuck. It’s like a monster you have to feed. You have to keep it entertained with TV shows and videogames and gossip because the ego does not want to die. It plays tricks on you. It keeps you from meeting awesome people. It ruins positive friendships for you. It gets you into debt and makes you buy nice cars to impress others with out of control egos.
Reducing your ego is the path to happiness, wealth and abundance because with that pesky thing out of the way, you can truly enjoy every aspect of life
Much love from your friendly neighborhood shaman,
Patrick John Coleman
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ALL THINGS GO: How I Became A Shaman
In April of 2013, Author Eric Durchholz had a near-death experience followed by a soul transfer. As a result, he died and was replaced by a new consciousness named Patrick John Coleman. A new soul in a full-grown body… much to the confusion of his friends and family. As the new age concept of a walk-in soul is relatively unknown to the mainstream, a growing army of walkins are coming to this planet in a “Divine Invasion” to set this polluted and hateful world back on a course towards peace. As Coleman struggled to find out where he came from and what happened to Eric, he turned to the great psychic researchers Edgar Cayce, Jane Roberts and Esther Hicks for answers. In doing so he found he had uncanny connections to them while also uncovering a plot by his family to keep him silent. The book also includes several hours of specially produced video footage including reenactments of key events linked via QR Codes so keep your smartphone handy and get ready for a mindbending, soul-expanding thrill ride. To Purchase, click here
