One of the phenomena I am currently observing is the case of an armoured narcissist who holds a lot of power over others (and who needs that to maintain their identity) and has a past that they are now trying to deny, that if revealed would destroy that power.
What happens when they are asked to tell the truth?
This person has long anaesthetised their own heart and is well-practiced in denial. He uses language to put up smokescreens. He convinces himself that what he says is true. For him, smoke has become truth.
We who are working out what is true through our own lived experience become increasingly incredulous as we see this play out. For some time now a concept of truth has been created that lodges it in the territory of the possible – a truth is one possible truth among many, and in addition to this if it is spoken or written then it BECOMES true. This narcissist uses this to his advantage, speaking as he is to an audience of the already confused, people who are looking for someone like themselves to return them to a state of greatness which fuels their fantasies.
Add to this tools like AI where even images can be manipulated and we have no idea who or what is speaking anymore and we have an unregulated social media where everyone can say just about anything.
Behind this smokescreen, of course, lurks the evidence that girls and women have been abused by men with power-over, which if revealed would contribute to the ongoing emergence of Power-With, and ultimately the creation of the more beautiful world (and the destruction of the old order).
Even with this playing out before our very eyes we can take action, no matter how small, to bring this world into being. And it starts with an enquiry into what we are holding to be true.
What is it about our own truths/truth that we notice? Is there something we might think is true but is really based on a false belief that helped us in the past and which now is also a smokescreen hiding a self which is quaking in fear? This frightened self which we hold inside contains, as Jung posited, our shadow and our archetypal patterns of ego-arrangement – formed as we tried to fit in to a world that was unsuited to what we came to offer, and where it was not welcomed.
What about ‘my truth’? If I say ‘this is my truth’ am I actually talking about something which feels true but is not more true than a narcissist’s fantasy?
This is why we have created a notion of ‘deep knowing’ – an embodied experience of truth where we feel our way into honesty? Where we intuitively tap into a deeper reality that is beyond the capacity of the unaided (disembodied) mind.
To say that narcissists are trauma survivors is true on one sense. They have survived – but at the cost of their soft core, that vulnerable space that allows for exploration, and which I believe most babies have before conditioning kicks in. This soft core is now covered in many layers of thick skin, so covered that it as been completely forgotten while also being protected. It is as if a small bird with a beautiful song has been kept in an underground cave deep in the earth. It may even have died, so that all that remains of this shattered self is the urge to survive, by whatever means possible, and mainly the way that was taught to them by their original abuser.
Truth and vulnerability are partners.
So…where do we go now with this. How do we bring out that beautiful bird and let it soar high as it songs its song?
One of the reasons I created ‘Potency’ was to write my way into truth and in some way help you, my reader, to also do the same – to read your way, write your way or speak your way into understanding. Actually it’s all three.
Each piece begins as a an urge to communicate, often when I am about to do something else I have to urgently sit at my journal, phone or pc and write the seed, which then flows into a piece only edited for grammar and fluency afterwards, the content remaining the same – it has an energy of my intention – to flow into understanding about an issue that is like a jigsaw puzzle piece in my quest for a better way for humanity.
I have some questions for you to consider (and maybe write about)
What feels true for you right now?
What do you notice about what you are seeing?
In what ways are false beliefs still having their say?
Please share in the comments below and we can have a dialogue.
My newly re-awakening truth is that I am a small part of a Universal Whole. Unity. That the Whole is part of me too.
I am seeing in myself a settling, a slowing down, an inkling of some clarity.
Last week I spent six days living in a yurt, in a small community in the shelter of a wood, without electricity or the use of devices (though I did get someone to charge my watch for me). Water from a spring, heat from logs on the Rayburn and in the wood stoves. Also lighting daily fires to warm the hot tank for the outdoor showers. Composting toilets.
The experience was nourishing, and re-booted my belief in sharing within a community. Being mutually supportive. Listening.
Although I was and am conscious that this was a privileged ‘holiday’ away from the hustle of my usual life amongst family and strangers in a small town in Wales, I have been able, over the last two days since my return, to continue with a daily meditation practice (that I had previously abandoned for a few years) and continued with my awareness of connection with the Earth, the Whole, Unity with everything around me.
This afternoon I lifted the last few potatoes, and a couple of the first beetroot from my small town vegetable patch, and spread some well rotted compost on the bare soil. Nourishing myself and the Earth.
Gratitude. Life is good in its turning.