#1. Believe in your capacity to change.
First, in order to take responsibility for yourself, you need to establish your own belief in your capacity to change. Little children don’t have the capacity to go all the way into responsibility yet because they’re little children. They have to be taught right versus wrong. But at some point in an individual’s development, we cross over what we might call the age of accountability. Whether it’s at 8, 18, or 22, at some point in your life, you’re old enough to say, “I have the capacity for change. I have the capacity to make adjustments, and I need to go ahead and take advantage of that and lean into it.”
Narcissists act like they’re still back in that toddler stage, bumping into one irresponsibility after another almost in an oblivious kind of way. It’s almost as though they deny the fact that they have passed into the age of accountability. “No, you need to be accountable—not me.”
Recommended: Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse.
#2: Seek control from the inside out.
When you are a responsible person, you seek to control things from the inside out. In other words, you know that you have certain elements that require self-restraint. You need to have insight and internal strength. You want to have a sense of knowledge, awareness, and wisdom that you operate with. That’s what I mean when I say you control things from the inside out. You think through who you are and why you do things.
Narcissists control things from the outside in: “I need you to act correctly. I want you to do this. I want this to be different. If this hadn’t happened, then I would be okay. If this happens, I’ll be alright.” You notice that they go heavy into that bossy, critical, forceful, or demanding kind of way because they don’t have an internal locus of control. It’s all external. By the way, this sets them up to be highly co-dependent in the way they do life.
Continue reading on the next page
Sharing is caring!
