Tip Four: Believe behavior, not words.
I remember distinctly when a counselor told me, “Believe Behavior, not Words,” because there was somebody in my life who had always the greatest words, but the behavior never matched. A narcissist knows how to manipulate you with words, how to tell you what will change, what will be better in the future, but there’s no follow-through. If we put more importance into the words we’re hearing than into the behavior that we’re actually seeing, we will remain confused and stuck and not accept the reality. So, believe Behavior, not Words, and I think this really applies to everybody. But it’s very dramatic when you’re in a relationship with a narcissist. Part of this is also to realize that your behavior matters more than your words.
So, think through, is my behavior actually communicating what I want to communicate? If I tell somebody I won’t tolerate this behavior, but then my behavior is I stay and I tolerate it, even if I’m saying I won’t tolerate it, my behavior is the main thing communicating. So, very important tool; it’s helped me enormously in my relationships and my understanding of relationship dynamics.
Recommended: Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself- By Shahida Arabi.
Tip Five: Validate your own needs.
Do not look to the narcissist to validate your feelings. When we’re in a relationship with somebody and we aren’t feeling good or we are doing something that maybe isn’t seen as all that nice, like we’re pulling away and we want to explain to the person, we want them to understand, we want them to understand how we feel, yeah, probably not going to happen. So, validating our emotions for ourselves, and to do this, it might be necessary to really shift your focus to a support system that does validate your needs, desires, and wants. We can even validate what it is we want. So, validating this stuff for ourselves and not looking for the narcissist to validate this is a very important step toward healing.
Read More: 10 Types Of People Narcissists Respect.
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