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Trauma Rewired
Empathy and Narcissism
00:50:25
Believe it or not, empaths and narcissists have foundational similarities. Not only does the brain chemistry look the same, but empaths and narcissists both struggle with nervous system regulation and look to others to help them regulate their...
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- [00:00]
A
Today we are embarking on a deep exploration of two seemingly opposite yet intricately connected human experiences, empathy and narcissism. We'll unpack the nuances of both, examining their roots in brain function, and discuss how these traits shape and impact our social connections, emotional regulation, and survival mechanisms. Today's discussion is anchored in groundbreaking research and expert insights. We draw on insights from neuroscience to understand how empathy is linked to the brain's reward circuitry, shedding light on why social connections are cruc crucial for survival. However, as we unfold this narrative, we'll explore the divergent paths that these neural mechanisms can take, particularly in individuals with narcissistic tendencies who might sense other people's emotions but not share in them. We are going to challenge traditional views by exploring how the same neural pathways that foster connection can lead to manipulative behaviors in individuals with narcissistic tendencies. By examining adaptive behaviors, attachment styles and interoceptive awareness, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of how empathy and narcissism coexist within the spectrum of human experiences. Stay with us as we unveil these complex dynamics and offer tools to navigate relationships, set boundaries and promote emotional well being. Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system, how trauma lives in the body and what you can do to heal. I'm your co host Jennifer Wallace. I'm a neurosomatic psychedelic preparation and integr integration guide and I bridge the worlds of your nervous system into your peak somatic experiences. And I'm also one of the educators at the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification and.
- [01:46]
B
I'm your co host Elizabeth Kristof, founder of Brainbase.com, an online community where we re pattern the nervous system through applied neurology and somatics for resilience, stress processing, emotional regulation and I'm the founder of the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification, an ICF accredited course for coaches, therapists and practitioners to really bridge the gap from the mind to the body through working with the nervous system. And today we're also joined by Matt Bush, founder of Next Level Neuro and one of our co lead educators in the Neurosomatic Intelligence Coaching Certification. If you think this podcast is a deep dive into neurology somatics trauma resolution, then you may love to experience the course because we really take it to a whole other level and we love to talk about neurosomatic intelligence, but we thought it would be fun for you guys to hear today from of our participants about their experience going through the certification course.
- [02:44]
C
This is my third time through this, like actually participating in the cohorts. I don't know how many times I've gone through the lectures again and again and again and it is just. It gets better and better. That's all I've got to say. And then I have to tell everybody who says they don't want it to end. I've been an NSI member and the value of those lectures, I don't get to attend them a lot of the time in person, but I'm constantly listening to them. And the education just keeps going on and on and on and they just stay. It teaches you to kind of hone in on what to look for and your understanding of the central nervous system and you start recognizing patterns on people, especially Elizabeth. Your last one on the PMFR gait patterns was unbelievable. I know I'm going to have to listen to you about 10 more times but you know, I'll get there eventually. But it's outstanding. And I'm not going to stop doing this because it has opened up my practice with really difficult patients. On the changes have been phenomenal. I know for a fact fact that I would have had no idea how to deal with these people before and that that's set aside from the changes that's made in myself too. So thank you all.
- [03:45]
B
We are enrolling now for the next cohort. You can book a discovery call or learn more about the program@neurosomaticintelligence.com I have so many clients that reach out to us identifying as empaths and talking about how overwhelming that is for their nervous system and just how overwhelming it is to be in social situations as an empath. And I think it's a real big moment for them and I know it was for me to understand that that state is a state of being in nervous system dysregulation where we are operating from a place of needing others for emotional regulation.
- [04:31]
D
It was also slightly jarring for me, I'll be really honest with you because I related my identity was my sensitivity and how I would relate in into the world. And so this is one of those conversations from trauma rewired that's like a little bomb drop could be activating. Yeah. My deepest states of empathy were also my deepest years of dysregulation.
- [04:59]
B
So it's a. Empathy is an important human quality that we all have. I think the difference between like being a quote unquote empath and having empathy is that in an empath, the brain, the body, the nervous system experience the physiological reaction of the emotions of other people. Like, you see somebody experiencing an emotion, and inside your body, you also experience that you get the cascade of adrenaline and cortisol, or the muscle tension or the increased respiration. Your body is experiencing the emotions that you witness in other people. And you're very reactive to the social signals, like reading other people's facial expressions, body posture, vocal tone. There's a. Almost want to say, like a hypervigilance about reading those in an interpretation of maybe a lot of thread or differences in the way that you interpret those signals that have a greater impact on someone who would probably consider themselves an empath. And so I want to look a little bit more beyond just like the traditional. There's the traditional signs of being an empath. You have a lot of empathy. Closeness can overwhelm you. You have a good intuition. You often don't do well in crowded spaces. You have a hard time not taking on emotional responsibility for other people. And these are kind of the signs of how someone might characterize themselves as an empath. But from a neurosomatic perspective, what are we looking at here?
- [06:38]
E
So this conversation, as far as the brain chemistry and connections, is going to be very similar to narcissism because we're back to talking about the insular cortex. So anytime we're talking about self awareness, there's a little prefrontal cortex involved and how we view ourselves and how we understand our own behavior. But as we start to relate to other people, it really comes back to that area of the anterior insular cortex as reading social cues belonging to the tribe, understanding the emotional standing of everyone who's present in the situation. So, yeah, like, empathy is something that should be hardwired into all of us that our brain is able to do. But becoming an empath is kind of when that gets ramped up another level and taken to. If it was a volume knob on the radio, it's taken to a volume that's almost so loud that you can no longer turn it down. You can't ignore it, you can't dampen it. And it's kind of always there with you, often overwhelming. And that's why the difficulty in all the different situations, but still primarily comes from an insular deficit of some kind, just like in the narcissism conversation. That could be something that's conditioned through social interactions or a household where someone's raised, but it could also be triggered by a brain injury, by tbi, concussion perhaps as well by some type of an infection that Affects the brain or the meninges. So like a viral infection, meningitis, bacterial infection, that affects those areas that can throw those things off. So several potential causes, but ultimately it's like a normal sense of empathy taken to the utmost level where we have a very difficult time dealing with it at that point because it's kind of overwhelming our own sense of boundaries and our own sense of self at times.
- [08:34]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I was thinking about this as I was reading and like I think having empathy and being able to connect to others and keep other people's interests in mind is pro social behavior. It keeps us connected as human beings and we've needed that social connection for survival, for reproduction, for protection from predators. So there's a lot of reasons to have pro social behaviors. And so I was trying to think about why someone would develop these kind of antisocial, self interested or very self oriented behaviors that caused a big rift between themself and others. And from a survival perspective from a. The brain is always asking am I safe? Am I loved? And trying to create outputs that ensure that safety. Like why does that happen? And just like you were saying, Jennifer, I thought a lot about maybe someone who had a lot of neglect and emotional neglect and had to develop ways to give themselves the emotional regulation and the affirmation and sense of self that they needed to survive and became very avoidant in their attachment style. Maybe the other people that they were, you know, their primaries and the people around them were unstable and dysregulated themselves. So being too attached or enmeshed to other people felt like a lot to take on. And so there's a lot of protection against being too impacted by another nervous system by somebody else's emotions. And then was interesting as I was reading some articles for this one was talking about in some fmris they could see at a neural level that narcissists actually appeared insecure that people with high narcissism scores had lower connectivity in certain areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, which are associated with the ability to think positively about oneself or about your own self perception. And so that constant need to seek affirmation from others could actually be the result of deficits, inability to have a strong identity and sense of self at a brain development level.
- [10:38]
E
So definitely prefrontal cortex is involved in that self perception and decision making. The ability to create emotional inhibition kind of match others in social situations, whether that means verbally or non verbally. But going a little deeper, there's part of the insular cortex that is involved here. And the insula is the area that we generally associate with interoception, like our perceptions from inside of our body. But the anterior portion of the insular cortex is really important for social cues and social interactions like meeting social norms, reading body language, understanding social expectations, and really fitting in with another group of people, whether that's a small group or a large group. And so the anterior insula is really about perceiving oneself in the tribe and making sure that you fit in. So that's highly integrated with this whole conversation. And you know, that's one of the areas in the research that people who have narcissism as a pathological diagnosis, their anterior insula is often found to be either smaller or less active when they undergo brain scans than people who are kind of considered part of the normal general population. So in the literature you find this corticoventral basal ganglia pathway, it's kind of a mouthful. But basically what that means is that our brain learns when we make certain decisions that are rewarding, we should get a dopamine hit as a response, we should get a dopamine reward. So with someone who's narcissistic, what you find is that their brain has actually learned and conditioned itself to find rewarding behaviors that are either hurtful to others or not connected to the well being of others. But instead, that self aggrandizing and self centered focus becomes the primary driver of dopamine reward. And so it really skews what behaviors will be chosen in a social situation or in a relationship because their own priority, like being at the top of social perception, being at the top of the ladder, top of the food chain, really becomes number one, like their own self aggrandizement, their own recognition. And you know, while we can talk about how that might have come from a deep insecurity or deep feelings of unworthiness, at the end of the day, it has now become more of like a patterned behavior where the brain has learned that those behaviors are the ones that are going to give the greatest amount of dopamine. And that's where it kind of becomes scary because that person's whole sense of rational decision making is shifted or skewed based on that dopamine reward system.
- [13:34]
B
I'm really glad you brought that up. I really wanted to talk about reward circuitry because I was listening to Dr. Robert Malenka on Uberman and he was talking about empathy and how it is really linked to our reward circuitry and that it, you know, it connects us to other humans and There is this quality as human beings that really binds us for the survival of the species. And so there's a lot of positive reinforcement in terms of the chemical reactions in the brain and the body for when we can connect and feel empathy for other people. And as I was listening to him talking about, I had already been thinking about this episode and I was like, how does this change for a narcissist who really lacks that ability to experience empathy and does, are they not being reinforced for that pro social behavior? And I think as you both were talking, I also just keep thinking about like threat and the survival brain. And at some point, maybe the cost of that social connection, it becomes more adaptive to protect yourself from that connection or from those emotional experiences or from the reliance on other people, or to get that validation because it seems so threatening to not get that affirmation or to have that connection or that intimacy. And so the system changes to reward the most adaptive survival forward behavior, which is no longer the connection to other people.
- [15:10]
E
People who have either developmental issues had trauma or kind of learned conditioning that have affected the insular cortex, specifically the anterior insular cortex we talked about before. Their empathy goes one of two ways, and I think we've talked about this before on another episode, maybe last season, but they either become super empathetic where they feel the feelings and emotions of everyone and all the animals and all the plants and all the bugs and everything. They've just become empathetic with every living creature on the planet, or they go the other direction entirely and lose their ability to feel empathy. It's like a split right down the fork in the road. And so the thing about narcissists and their inability to feel empathy. I had a very interesting conversation years ago with a client of mine who had narcissistic tendencies. And what she said was, I'm extremely sensitive to feeling like what's coming at me, to feeling other people's emotions and energy. I can tell what mood someone is in or how they're feeling, or when they're afraid, when they're happy and peaceful, they're like, I can sense others emotions, but I'm totally unable to share in the emotion with them. Okay. And so this is like a recipe for manipulation. If someone can always sense how other people are feeling, but they never share the same feelings, right? The other person in the room is feeling scared, but they're not scared. They're exhilarated by that. The other person is feeling anxious, but they're not anxious. The other person's feeling happy, but they're not happy. And so it's this recipe for disaster because when someone else is on the high, they have the ability to tear them down. When someone else is on the low, they're feeling great about themselves. And so they can always play the opposite piece in the chess game of emotions to have the power in the relationship. And so while their empathy is really low, like probably because of the insular issues, their sensing of energy and emotion is typically pretty high. So like they have these little emotional antennas that are running around, you know, going, what is everybody feeling? How can I use that to make myself appear or feel better in the situation? And when that happens, that's what triggers that reward. So empathy and narcissism absolutely tied to, you know, in all the literature you're gonna see, says they don't experience empathy, they don't feel empathy, they don't share others emotions. And that's true. But they do often sense others emotions and then they can respond in whatever way they want. So some narcissists will fake it and they'll pretend to empathize with others because that's what's expected of them, while others will go, nope, I'm gonna use this to my advantage. And then they continue to play that card of manipulation. And so they end up on top for sure.
- [18:12]
B
You know, emotional expression can become very scary and there can be a lot of detachment, detachment from the body in the form of dissociation, detachment from the emotional experience. And like Matt was talking about too, over time that can actually shape the way the system functions. You know, repeated outputs, repeated pathways that are chosen can then just become the way that, that we function. And I think there's a heavy component to a lot of attachment issues where we either need other people to regulate and to feel safe and we, we really need to feel that we have that connection for our social safety and survival and also for our own. Like we have such a difficult time carrying emotion and, and processing and staying regulated. We need other people. And we maybe had a big scarcity of that growing up. So we put a lot of emphasis on staying connected at all costs and really moving into those codependent patterns. And then there's people who avoid and pull back from that. And I think a lot of times we see those, those two come into play with one another where there is someone who is giving and fighting for the attachment, you know, pushing into attachment at maybe the cost of their own health and to their own detriment, and somebody who, who needs that affirmation and that, that person to be pushing for connection and they continue to pull back and detach from it. And it can get into a real loop of playing into each other's attachment styles and trauma.
- [19:50]
D
I also too think that there's like a level of almost emotional bypassing that's happening for the person because they're not processing their emotions, they're not processing their stories, but they're feeling it through another person's. And so having this person and maybe some very constant emotional dysregulation, ups and downs, feeling this like it could be very triggering and very easily activated. And at the same time, the emotional stress is building up within that body because that's not their emotional work. And then something that Elizabeth brought up earlier that I want to circle back to is like the burnout factor. And I think we see this a lot with coaches, which is why NSI is so supportive for us, because I think there's a. There's something called compassion fatigue. And a lot of coaches, therapists, practitioners, guides, healers, they will experience compassion fatigue because they are empaths working with their clients who are exposing them to whatever stories and trauma and narratives. And then that person is totally taking it on without the emotional regulatory skills. And then they are totally burning themselves out.
- [21:06]
B
Yeah, I think both of you, as you were talking about that, that there's this deep inability to process and regulate your own emotions. So then having that need come through the co regulation. And I think this is really speaking for myself and also what I see with a lot of clients a lot of times when that internal world is very chaotic and just to kind of bring attachment styles into this. As someone who lived a lot of my life in a disorganized attachment style, there was a lot of chaos with social connection and I did not have the skill to process the big emotions that I had experienced in my life. There was a lot of repressed rage and grief and it was wild and I didn't understand what was happening inside. And so then absolutely I found myself many, many times in relationships, then only increasing that stress by not having the ability to set appropriate boundaries, distinguish myself from another person, taking on their emotional experience, being responsible for their emotions all the way to becoming like a full time caregiver for someone that I was in a relationship with. And again, of course, that goes like. It is a. It's a great quality to be able to have empathy, but there's something self serving about that as well, and that I needed it for my own sense of safety and regulation. And it ultimately it wasn't sustainable in this way. Like it's just leading to a life that is really harmful for my health over time because it's too much stress. And there has to come a time where I learn to process my emotions, to regulate my emotions, and to self regulate my nervous system so that I don't have to always find it externally.
- [23:03]
E
Yeah. I think the ability to feel or sense and read others emotions and to experience them kind of is one way that the brain can cope and make the world a more predictable place. Right. Like if I'm on uncertain standing with a social circle and then I'm able to actually feel what they're feeling, I can manipulate my own behavior or help regulate them to make the situation safer for myself or even for everybody involved. So, you know, empathy itself is definitely like a pro survival type of behavior. And I think what you hit on there is a lack of emotional control or a lack of emotional regulation that it becomes overwhelming when we can't inhibit empathy appropriately. And that might sound like an odd thing to say because so much of our culture kind of puts empathy up on a pedestal and thinks being an empath is such a good thing. Jennifer, you might have something to say about that in a moment, but the idea is like, it's not actually always a good thing. There are times and situations where you need to be able to inhibit your empathy to others in order to maintain a boundary for yourself or to protect yourself from being taken advantage of or taken for granted or even from being abused in a situation. That leads me to a thought that it speaks to what both of you were talking about. It's kind of another angle on where this insular deficit and empath type of behavior comes from. So we teach about this thing called sensory mis match, which in the literature you might find terms like sensory integration disorder or sensory processing disorder. Those two are more clinically recognized disorders where the sensory systems of the brain and nervous system are having difficulty intaking and integrating different sensory systems like vision, auditory, vestibular, which is your sense of gravity and equilibrium, interoception, tactile sensation and touch, smell and taste. Right. So you got about seven different senses that are pulled together. I would say sensory mismatch. We utilize that term as a subclinical descriptor. Right. So it's not a disorder, but it means that the brain is having a difficult time taking in sensory information just to figure out where am I, what's going on around me and am I safe? Okay. If I had to really narrow down the seven senses to the Three that are most prevalent, maybe four from the external world. It would be vision, auditory, and vestibular. And then if we added a fourth, it would be that sense of interoception, what's going on inside the body. Okay. Now, a lot of the sensory processing and sensory integration happens in the back bottom part of the brain, like the cerebellum is a great integrator area which brings together vision, auditory movement, sensory feelings. And that's kind of a gross integration that happens there just to make sure that we can move through the world, like walk without falling over and move our arm without losing our balance. But then as you take that sensor information, like the whole back part of the brain, everything behind the frontal lobe, is all involved in processing and integrating those sensory inputs. And then after they're integrated, that information gets passed in the frontal lobe for us to really assign meaning to it and understand what it is that's happening around us. So where this intersects with empathy is that if the back of the brain is having so much trouble or it's so challenged to take in sensory information and integrate it together, that the brain is spending most of its time and energy just figuring that stuff out, then it doesn't have a lot of energy or resources or time to engage in feeling its own emotions. So where Jennifer talked about emotional bypassing, I think sensory mismatch is a big component of that. This type of emotional bypassing that Jennifer's talking about, it's not a cognitive choice. It's not on purpose. But the brain is so busy trying to figure out what's going on. Am I safe? Is this predictable? Am I in a good place physically, emotionally, socially, that it doesn't have the time, effort, and resources available to spin up the insular cortex and experience any true depth of emotion. And so when all energy is gone, resources are depleted because the brain's focus is elsewhere. It's easier to look externally to find out am I emotionally good? And it does that by sensing the emotions from other people. So what I found over the years is that my clients who have the greatest level of sensory mismatch, also have developed the greatest sense of empathy. All right? And I can only speak to a correlation, technically speaking, you know, I can't go so far as to say that the sensory mismatch causes it. But what I'm describing in this process is generally understood as how the brain works physiologically, anatomically. And the areas of the back of the brain that take in sensory information, they have to be given resources and fuel and oxygen first before the front of the brain gets its fuel and resources and oxygen because the back of the brain is what keeps us alive. So there is a high correlation between sensory mismatch and high levels of empathy. And I think it is kind of a way to bridge the gap that goes when I can't feel my own emotions, I'm going to go look for others as a way to figure out what should be going on.
- [29:01]
D
And Elizabeth said because of the way also too like the way that we mirror each other, we will also start to experience because we create the internal sense of reality that that person in front of us is feeling too. Because it's something that maybe we've had that shared experience of. So maybe there's that like shared neural representation of what's happening in the social synapse. But when I hear about these kind of personality disord that we don't believe in that are so talked about like narcissism, empath, like these are both created if we talk about it from the place of cptsd, not the brain injury other way that this is created. But these are both created by like really inflated states of emotional discord within the primary relationship and cultivated by nervous systems that had excessive lack of emotional regulation, attunement and a real dissonance. And maybe that was also physical. So just like Matt was saying, it's just like with the narcissist, like someone who is not shown, modeled or taught emotional regulation by a caregiver and that once again we're back into this emotional place and thread.
- [30:20]
E
Yeah, I think the ability to feel or sense and read others emotions and to experience them kind of is one way that the brain can cope and make the world a more predictable place. Right. Like if I'm on uncertain standing with a social circle, but if and then I, I'm able to actually feel what they're feeling, I can manipulate my own behavior or help regulate them to make the situation safer for myself or even for everybody involved. So you know, empathy itself is definitely a like a pro survival thing type of behavior. And I think what you hit on there is a lack of emotional control or a lack of emotional regulation that it becomes overwhelming when we can't inhibit empathy appropriately. And that might sound like an odd thing to say because so much of our culture kind of puts empathy up on a pedestal and thinks being an empath is such a good thing. Jennifer, you might have something to say about that in a moment. But the idea is like it's not actually always a good thing. There are times and situations where you need to be able to inhibit your empathy to others in order to maintain a boundary for yourself or to protect yourself from being taken advantage of or taken for granted or even from being abused in a situation.
- [31:41]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it can also just be a very heavy stress load on a nervous system all of the time to be so reactive to taking in everybody else's emotional states. It can lead to a lot of dysregulation, both physically and emotionally. And we know that chronic stress over time is not good for our long term health and at worst can lead to disease. But it could also just lead to burnout and exhaustion and fatigue and the lack of ability to go out and engage socially without experiencing really strong protective outputs because there is so much disruption to the system when we're taking all of this in. And I'll never forget when I was taking an applied neurology course that dealt a lot with the interoceptive system and hearing the instructor talk about empathy as being a big deficit in the interoceptive system and that there's a misinterpretation of the signals and there's this overreaction inside of your own body to that and saying like, you might be an empath and have this interoceptive deficit. If you're watching TV and you see somebody get hurt and you flinch or curl up and react like, oh my gosh, my body is being hurt. And I definitely do that. And so there's this weird lack of boundary and misinterpretation of what's going on and how it affects me. And then that can lead to prolonged stress over time. And it also made me think about someone who chronically dissociates and the impact that that has on their interoceptive system. And then why that might lead to more of this, this issue with both interoceptive awareness and interoceptive accuracy that can lead to empathic tendencies.
- [33:33]
E
Yeah. So the interoception angle is really interesting as a classic definition of that. It's your perception of the sensations coming from inside your own body. Body. And so that includes visceral organs, hunger, thirst, fatigue, body temperature, the need to go to the restroom, like all of the internal stuff. And so often someone who has an interoceptive issue will talk about that their level of interoceptive awareness is either too high or too low, that they're either catching all the signals. Right. If it's too high and they can't ignore them. So they're constantly doing body scans and trying to figure out what was that what was that feeling? What's happening inside of me? Or their awareness is too low and they're not feeling anything. And in both cases their accuracy is lacking. So even when they do feel something, they don't necessarily know what it means or what it should mean. And so their brain kind of goes into protective survival mode. Colloquially we might say they're freaking out about stuff, it's not really a problem. So when that interoceptive system is lacking in those ways and it just doesn't know how to make heads or tails out of all the sensations they're feeling, one of the ways that it can cope with that deficit is to start feeling and co regulating with other people that are around them. And so they'll tend to lean into the emotional state of co regulation in order to facilitate the physical co regulation that can come with that at first. That's a great strategy, right? Because it helps me to regulate, helps me. I may not understand at the beginning that it's a little bit codependent because at least it's helping me feel better. The problem is when I lean on that so heavily that emotional empathy becomes the overwhelming sense coming into my nervous system and it becomes the only way that I know how to regulate. Now we have a problem because I'm always in need of making sure everyone's emotions are set, stable, happy, calm. And so I may start, you know, trying to help, we'll use that word. Rather than saying trying to manipulate, I may try to help other people feel better, feel more regulated, feel more calm. And that takes a great toll on me. But I'm doing that in a way so that then I can regulate from that person. It's like a self fulfilling type of behavior. So it can become this kind of self fulfilling deficit where I lean more and more into that empathy type of behavior in order to get what I need from the people around me. Of course I'm talking about this as if we could take a step back and look at it somewhat objectively. I understand. Anyone who's going through this or feeling these things is probably not going to describe it that way. Most people who find themselves being very high in empathy think that it's a good thing until it becomes overwhelming and they can't escape it. So just the perspective there.
- [36:31]
D
I think the interoceptive system is so fascinating. And my favorite, one of the most interesting things I think about the interoceptive system is that it is predictive. And it's not only predictive in a way of like. I love the example that you give but what happens to its predictive nature when you go out into public? What happens when you jump on for a podcast recording or something? That is a big ask for your nervous system. Like, how is the interoceptive then predicting? And then again, another one of the interesting things about it is the awareness and accuracy that the interoceptive system really wants. And so when you look at prediction and then also awareness and accuracy, you can see how these two really, you do want to train the interoceptive system for accuracy and awareness so that you do get the predictive response that is more aligned with the actions in your life that you want to take. Like, it'd be like getting on this podcast and totally getting dysregulated and not knowing what to say and tripping up my words. And it's like, no, the prediction for the podcast is safe.
- [37:33]
E
Right?
- [37:34]
D
I have the tools that allow me to just show up here and sit and have a big conversation. And that's totally due to training for interoceptive accuracy and awareness, for better prediction, more safety.
- [37:48]
B
Yes. And when we talk about those two components of interoception, I think it's important for people, like, stop and think about that for a minute, because interoceptive awareness is just being able to feel the signals. Can I even feel what's going on inside of my body? Can I read that? Can I hear the signals? And for a lot of people, the answer is no. And so the training starts there, right? With can I start to connect to those signals? Can I bring them back online? And then for a lot of other people, or once you do start to have some interoceptive awareness, for a lot of people, there's too much threat associated with those signals. So that's the accuracy part. Am I really having the appropriate response to these signals for the situation at hand, or is my body preparing to, like, run and fight for a situation that that is not really called for? What's the interpretation of these signals? And is it accurate to match the present moment? And again, just like you said, all of this is predictive based on our past experiences. And we can get kind of locked into this place of having a lot of threat connected to that. And when I think of a really clear example of this, it's somebody who wakes up every day in an anxious state, even though they're just waking up to the same day, like, they've gone through this day many times, they're going to go to work, they're going to do the same things, they're going to come home, they're Going to cook dinner like there's nothing actually life threatening most of the time unless you are in a really unsafe environment that is going to be happening that day. But your body wakes up prepared for a day where you're actively in danger in a threat response. And so that is an interoceptive dysfunction. We're predicting too much threat where there isn't and it's on repeat. So every day I'm waking up in that state leading to the anxiety because those signals aren't being interpreted with accuracy.
- [39:50]
E
Yeah, so the interoception angle is really interesting as a classic definition of that. It's your perception of the sensations coming from inside your own body. And so that includes visceral organs, hunger, thirst, fatigue, body temperature, the need to go to the restroom, like all of the internal stuff. And so often someone who has an interoceptive issue will talk about that their level of interoceptive awareness is either too high or too low, that they're either catching all the signals, right. If it's too high and they can't ignore them. So they're constantly doing body scans and trying to figure out what was that, what was that feeling, what's happening inside of me? Or their awareness is too low and they're not feeling anything. And in both cases their accuracy is lacking. So even when they do feel something, they don't necessarily know what it means or what it should mean. And so their brain kind of goes into protective survival mode. Colloquially we might say they're freaking out about stuff that's not really a problem. So when that interoceptive system is lacking in those ways and it just doesn't know how to make heads or tails out of all the sensations they're feeling, one of the ways that it can cope with that deficit is to start feeling and co regulating with other people that are around them. And so they'll tend to lean into the emotional state of CO regulation in order to facilitate the physical CO regulation that can come with that at first. That's a great strategy. Right. Because it helps me to regulate, helps me, I may not understand at the beginning that's a little bit codependent because at least it's helping me feel better. The problem is when I lean on that so heavily that emotional empathy becomes the overwhelming sense of coming into my nervous system and it becomes the only way that I know how to regulate. Now we have a problem because I'm always in need of making sure everyone's emotions are set, stable, happy, calm. And so I may start, you know, trying to help we'll use that word. Rather than saying trying to manipulate, I may try to help other people feel better, feel more regulated, feel more calm. And that takes a great toll on me. But I'm doing that in a way so that then I can regulate from that person. It's like a self fulfilling type of behavior. So it can become this kind of self fulfilling deficit where I lean more and more into that empath type of behavior in order to get what I need from the people around me. Of course I'm talking about this as if we could take a step back and look at it so somewhat objectively. I understand anyone who's going through this or feeling these things is probably not going to describe it that way. Most people who find themselves being very high in empathy think that it's a good thing until it becomes overwhelming and they can't escape it. So just a perspective there.
- [42:48]
D
From what I'm understanding, the narcissist doesn't have any emotional regulatory skills or if they do, they're quite minimal and they use another person for that. But that person is also experiencing dysregulation, either in maybe a codependent or empathic way, just reflecting to attachment. And that those are the two typical pairings that you kind of see in a narcissistic attachment. But in saying that they still, they haven't developed these emotional skills and they likely experience neglect, perhaps even severe neglect, emotional, maybe even physical. The parents could have been abusive. And from the perspective of complex trauma, I think the nervous system of a narcissist developed in chaos and pain.
- [43:33]
E
Yeah, this topic is super interesting for me because narcissism stems from or is maybe an aberrant growth from our survival standards, like our survival mechanisms that are part of our body and part of our nervous system. So, you know, we all have this level of being self interested, which is a great survival trait, right. Keeps us out of danger, keeps us meeting the needs that we have as a human, both physically and emotionally and socially. And then you have a level of selfishness which is maybe a progression from there where someone is, we wouldn't say self interested, but maybe more self centered. And I think that's a survival mechanism as well. That's certainly part of our nervous system trying to protect us and make the world predictable and meet our own needs. And then you progress into this pathology of narcissism. And so when you say, you know, we can see these traits of narcissism in each of us, each of ourselves and our family members and friends and colleagues. I Think there are times where every human has a certain very strong level of self interest that sometimes rears its head and can become a little bit narcissistic. But I tend to connect that with how they're viewing survival. Like how much threat do they currently perceive, how dangerous is the situation or the world around them or the relationships? And the greater difficulties or the greater threat that they perceive, the greater the reaction that will begin to create these types of selfish or narcissistic tendencies. And then you eventually create a pattern of behavior. Right. And it becomes a pre established behavior pattern or pathway that your brain knows it can go to in order to get what it needs or what it wants, or to feel safe or to feel, you know, appreciated or other things. So it's very interesting to talk about it kind of on a spectrum like this and go, you know, everyone has some characteristics, but it doesn't make everyone pathological in the way that they would be perhaps diagnosed as having narcissistic personality disorder. So very interesting topic.
- [45:48]
D
It is very interesting. More layered than people might think. It does come from development. And also, I agree, like, it's just the nervous system. Any, all of it can change. We change ours with intention every day, all the time with purpose.
- [46:03]
B
All of what we talk about on.
- [46:04]
D
This podcast, like these protective behaviors that are learned in childhood are maladaptive in adulthood. So we have to go back to the operating system, we have to reshape it, we have to train it, we have to teach it another way of being and show it the safety. And the best we can do is to know and understand our nervous systems so that we can experience the peace that we want, the calm and the safety and that, that is the container of ourselves. First we learn about our bodies to find new ways to respond that are healthy and safe and regulating that emotional body so that we can have healthy, safe relationships and allow others with a really foundational belief that you can have your own emotional experience. It has no, has nothing to do with me and it has no effect on me whatsoever. You have your own sovereignty.
- [46:53]
E
Yeah, I think the big takeaway for me from this conversation is that, number one, narcissism is not a conscious choice that someone's making. Right. They're not just a jerk or a giant, a hole who wants to be mean to everybody, but it's the way their brain is actually wired and programmed itself through conditioning to feel safe. And so when you're around someone who has these narcissistic tendencies, it really is important that you be able to regulate your own nervous system and that, you know, you can stay regulated using NSI tools or other emotional and stress practices. You also have to have some really good boundaries to know that you're not being taken advantage of or manipulated in that situation. And so you creating your own strong set of personal boundaries, regardless of what type of relationship it is, it's very, very important. So I think for a lot of listeners, this is going to be kind of an educational look into the mind and nervous system of a narcissist. But then the most important thing is to take the information and go now what can I do with it? To make my own relationships and my own emotional life a little bit safer, a little bit more predictable and more sustainable and regulated in the long term?
- [48:14]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's always about, I mean always as we increase the capacity of our nervous system through daily training, through understanding it and knowing how to work with it, then we have greater capacity to care for ourselves, to change our relational patterns, to set boundaries appropriately. Even when that used to feel really, really scary because, you know, losing an attachment or feeling like someone was disappointed in you or didn't like you, or was frustrated, felt life threatening. At one point for me in my life, it felt paralyzing to, to put boundaries in place or to change the way I interacted in my relationships, whether that was familial or intimate or work. And now I can say with relative ease I do those things. And, and the more I do that and the more I train my nervous system to have the capacity to do that, then the less I replay those patterns in my life. And even if there are people out there that I need to interact with that do have heavy narcissist traits, I can just like you guys were talking about, I can take care of myself and I can still have a capacity almost to like, love them from afar rather than getting entrenched and resentful. And it changes the way that I view them and it creates more space and opportunity for them to heal and grow if they want to, or to stay the same. But to me, for me, just to allow them to be who they are and also still take care of myself. If this conversation resonates with you and you want to take a deeper dive into these practices, grief practices, learning tools to move through your shame, finding ways to regulate your nervous system around the expression of anger, then we would love to, to be there with you. Join us live@rewiretrial.com to get your two free weeks of nervous system training and tools for emotional processing working directly with me and Jennifer. We'd love to meet you on the site. So check it out@rewiretrial.com.