Looking for the silver lining through the darkness of cruelty by understanding spirituality and narcissism.
They belittle you when it suits them. They are incapable of empathizing with you and your needs. They can’t see that they’re causing you pain, and they have little hope of ever understanding what they do, let alone apologizing. They only care for themselves. But maybe there is a different angle that we can use to examine narcissists by thinking in terms of spirituality.
How could we show empathy for these narcissists who are incapable of showing it to us?
The narcissists in my life leave me feeling worthless and without love. They make me really confused about why I am even here. But there are ways of coping, trust me. Some will surprise you, and they’re certainly unconventional. But I try to remember them in my darkest times.
The Narcissist Had Little Chance to Reflect on Themselves
The narcissists I know haven’t been able to experience true empathy because they were never able to love themselves. They were prevented from self-reflection early in life. They were likely parented by other narcissists, and their needs weren’t given priority ever. So they force others to attend to their needs whenever they can, trying to make up for the attention they never got.
And somewhere inside them, the hurt they’re causing is obvious and it’s piling up. It’s a mountain of hurt now. For many of us, dealing with the emotional pain that we cause in others and reconciling it somehow is part of life — we face it little by little. We grow from it. But narcissists never got this chance. Instead, they have looked away, and now the hurt that they’ve caused is so mountainous that they can never look directly at it. It might destroy them. If they understand how they’ve caused misery in others during their lives, and they suddenly begin to empathize with the people they’ve hurt, it will be a crippling shock to their system.
Now, I did write a post a while back about how some narcissists could survive this horrible revelation. But it isn’t a common occurrence. So, I try to hold empathy for narcissists because for them to wake up, it will take a herculean inner strength to deal with all the pain in the world that originated in their behavior.
Maybe They are Higher Beings
I have a friend who told me last year that her mother-in-law was really getting on her nerves. The woman was really narcissistic, unable to give and receive love, and making everyone around her miserable.
Then my friend told me that a higher being appeared in front of her one day. The higher being told her that the narcissistic mother-in-law is a being that’s just playing a role. A loving, pure being has chosen to embody a cruel and narcissistic person in life.
Why would a loving being do such a thing?
Life isn’t supposed to present us with totally easy situations. We are incarnated to learn.
When my friend told me this, it suddenly made perfect sense. Some people in our lives are actually placing themselves here to play a certain role so that we can learn.
If we can learn to love narcissistic people despite their cruelty and forgive them truly, then we have learned a valuable lesson. We begin to wield mental strength. Instead of giving in to hate and allowing narcissists to bring out our worst sides, we can emerge resilient and grounded. We can feel more empathy even when they don’t. We can gain experiences that aren’t learned in any other way.
Try to Stay Strong
We have such an opportunity to show signs of strength and resilience when narcissists abuse us. We can invent our own reasons for keeping our chins up and regaining self-confidence. We have the ability to nurture and heal ourselves. Narcissists, like everyone on this planet, deserve empathy. They weren’t born like this. But also, they may be strategically placed in your path to help you learn a valuable lesson. Think of your life in the triumphs instead of the trauma, and you will always be successful.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
— Winston Churchill
