In this episode we sit down with therapist and educator Chuck DeGroat to talk about the phenomenon of narcissism; what it is, how to spot it, and how to address it in our communities. Chuck is the author of When Narcissism Comes to Church. This is part 2 of 2.
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An emotionally intelligent leader is able to differentiate himself from you and doesn’t need to draw from you for his own ego…
We base our idea of narcissism on appearance sometimes… people use the word irresponsibly… confidence is not narcissism…
We need to understand the many faces of narcissism… sometimes narcissism can look like humility… for instance, an Enneagram 9 can be a narcissist… if you’ve ever experienced the quiet rage of a 9, you’ve felt it…
One of the things that happens to leaders is that we cut ourselves off from feedback… every pastor needs people in their life who can answer the question, “How do you experience me?” and do it without threat of retribution…
The higher up in the food chain you go, the more insulated you become and the more anxious you’ll feel… leaders often think that the higher you climb, the less anxious you’ll be… the more defended you become, the greater possibility there is that narcissism will evolve…
One of the big things we need to wrestle with is, “What is my shame wound?” A lot of people don’t think they have one—especially if they’ve been successful…
Our pain when we’re wounded by narcissists is often externalized by outing or naming people publicly… when it happened to me, I dreamed of ways to hurt the person who hurt me… we need the presence of a compassionate witness…
Oftentimes the way that people think they should heal from trauma is actually retraumatizing (e.g., confronting your abuser on social media)… that’s the wrong approach… you need to go to a good therapist to process what’s happening within you…
I want people to engage the work in an unhurried way… you need someone looking out for you who cares for you and who can help you step back from your unhealthy strategies for coping with the pain…
Metabolizing shame means going back into your story… people don’t want to do this work…