Divas That Care Network
The #divasthatcare movement is an ever-evolving movement of positivity and progression. It is a group of cohesive women working toward a common goal as way makers for the next generation. These women also plan to pass on the tools and resources necessary for future generations to eagerly step up to the plate. By defining your purpose, you can do tremendous things for people around you. You can contribute to making the world a better place every single day. The Divas That Care Change makers have walked the walk and are talking the talk and we do it one day at a time.
Divas That Care Network
Reclaiming Peace & Power
Come and listen while Host Tina Spoletini a Success Stylist from In Full Bloom Styling & Coaching chat with Today's guest Scotti Moser.
Scotti Moser is a transformational coach specializing in helping women break free from the toxic affects of narcissistic parenting.
With her compassionate guidance, she empowers women to rediscover their authentic selves, regain their confidence, and reclaim their passion for life. Scotti has created proven strategies for emotional healing, boundary-setting, and building resilience, providing her clients with the tools to live with peace, power and purpose.
Transformational coach Scotty Moser shares powerful insights on breaking free from narcissistic parenting and reclaiming your authentic self. She offers practical strategies for healing deep-rooted trauma and rebuilding confidence after years of emotional manipulation.
• Narcissistic parents treat children as objects meant to serve their needs, not as individuals with valid feelings
• The four unconscious "vows" that keep women stuck: conforming, people-pleasing, staying invisible, and perfectionism
• Why intellectual understanding isn't enough – healing requires releasing trauma stored in the nervous system
• Breaking free from narcissistic relationships requires both mental education and physical/emotional release work
• Setting boundaries with narcissists often creates more conflict initially as they resist losing control
• The importance of watching actions, not words, when determining if someone is capable of change
• Narcissism isn't something you outgrow – trying to "check all the boxes" won't heal the underlying trauma
• Moving from a place of constant anxiety and overwhelm to confidence requires releasing old survival patterns
Be the person you needed back then. Show up for yourself that way.
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It's Divas that Care Radio Stories, strategies and ideas to inspire positive change. Welcome to Divas that Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone. This is a global movement for women, by women engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations. To find out more about the movement, visit divasthatcarecom. After the show. Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.
Speaker 2:One just has to pick up a magazine or turn on a television to see that, as women, we are bombarded daily with media images of female physical perfection, setting up the most unrealistic of expectations as to how we should look. No wonder female body confidence is falling while incidents of eating disorders are on the rise. What's most alarming is the way this affects young girls. A reduced sense of self-worth can create anxiety, stress, even depression, causing relationship issues, while potentially impairing academic and job performance. In direct contrast, confidence in Bloom is designed to reinforce the truth and reassure every woman who has ever felt inadequate, unworthy or tossed aside because of how she looks, that no matter her age, shape or background, you matter. You are enough.
Speaker 2:Now I, tina Spoletini, a woman of substance, insist women deserve to be happy, confident, successful and totally in love with themselves in their own bodies, just the way they are. Through an ongoing series of intriguing conversations with women from all walks of life, who are all extraordinary in their own right, we will embark upon a journey of ultimate self-acceptance and empowerment. Together, we'll share stories, laugh, learn, maybe even shed a few tears when it becomes clear just how far many women have come to realize how wonderful life is when you stand in your own power, feeling fantastic in your own skin. Scotty Moser is my guest today. Scotty Moser is a transformational coach specializing in helping women break free from the toxic effects of narcissistic parenting. With her compassionate guidance, she empowers women to rediscover their authentic selves, regain their confidence and reclaim their passion for life. Scotty has created proven strategies for emotional healing, boundary setting and building resilience, providing her clients with the tools to live with peace, power and purpose. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Scotty, Thank you. I'm so happy to be here yeah so I want to talk, okay.
Speaker 2:So I mean, you're what you coach on narcissistic parenting, that is, um, that's a whole new conversation we all know about. You know narcissistics and and mostly in my experience it's been talked about mostly in like romantic relationships, right, boyfriends, husbands, mainly husbands. I know my daughter unfortunately had a relationship with a boy. You know he was 21. And you know she was 21 or 22, like was super young, and it was like scary, like I was worried for her life, let alone. You know, you know just her feelings and her heart. So I mean, it's a sensitive subject, but it's also something that I think we are all living with in some degree, wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 3:Yes, definitely. It is everywhere, and some would say that it's becoming more prevalent. That's not my view. My view is it's always been here. We're just now recognizing it, so it feels prevalent, but in my view it's progress because our normal. So I think we're really stepping forward for humanity when we start to recognize this type of behavior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good point. I was kind of feeling the same way, like what's happening today that is so like common, I guess is the word right Like. But I think you're right. When we look back, it was a man's world and when a man was narcissistic, you know, the women just sort of played the part to keep him happy, to avoid whatever he might do. I mean, we all know, like women are narcissistic as well. In fact I heard a comment yesterday and I don't remember where it was, but we are all narcissistic, right, like, we're all capable and have narcissistic behaviors. It's just a matter of you know, if you have an open mind and you can explain this even better, I'm sure of it. But if you have an open mind, then you can get control of your feelings or you don't react the way narcissists react.
Speaker 3:Yes, we are. I would agree to that to a degree. It's a spectrum narcissistic behavior. So you have mild narcissists all the way up to really severe narcissists and even lower on that spectrum. Below mild narcissist is our selfish self preservation instinct, right, we all have to have some degree of self and meeting our desires and putting ourself first to survive, and that's not a bad thing. When it crosses the line into manipulating others, dehumanizing others and totally not having anyone else's interest but yourself at heart, then in my opinion that's when it crosses over into a problem, right?
Speaker 2:Absolutely problem, right, absolutely. So now we're going to get into the whole parent part of this conversation, because I mean, we could talk about narcissistics and their traits for hours because there are, like there's such a huge spectrum. But let's, let's dive into the whole parenting aspect of this, because I've never really looked at it as you know a narcissistic parent and how that would affect your kids.
Speaker 3:So let's, let's talk about that and and how it affects, like a life, someone's life yes, the characteristics of um, a narcissistic parent, and how they show up in the child's lives, the first thing being lack of empathy and when I say lack of empathy it's a euphemism. It went over my head for a long time and it goes over other people's heads. It means they don't care about the impact their actions are having on you. Their world is built for them and around them. So, as a child, this is really disheartening and damaging, because you have a parent that's treating you like a refrigerator. They need you to serve them.
Speaker 3:And what's so interesting to me and I've only really started to think about it in this way is this concept was kind of the standard of parenting a generation or two ago. Right, children were to be seen and not heard. They were there to meet the parents' needs, and I think that really caused a lot of damage to our culture and our society as a whole. To treat children as objects to be taken off a shelf and to be trotted out at certain occasions and then put back on the shelf like they don't even exist that's really dehumanizing. You don't feel like you matter and that's a real, that's a founded belief. You actually don't matter that much to that parent, you matter as a piece of a prize for them or a piece of their collection, and so they have that low empathy piece. They also and this is going along they're very entitled. They don't see this behavior as wrong or in any way any problem. They see themselves as superior, which is really easy and often culturally supported.
Speaker 3:And there are a lot of lines to walk when you're doing this as a parent. But narcissistic parents feel superior and their children are inferior. And I'm not saying that parents don't get to be in charge and set reasonable boundaries. It's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about that energy, that feeling, and you know it when you're in it as a kid. Your listeners, if they were in it, they're nodding. That parent was superior, their opinions were superior, their ideas were superior, their thoughts and preferences were superior and you were treated as less than as inferior. And so those are a couple of ways that the narcissistic traits can show up in the child's life If you are experiencing that type of parenting that sounds like actually really scary and I think you know in the coaching world we hear a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Right, like the parents felt it was like they had to make everyone around them happy and so if that was at the expense of their kids, so be it, right.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. And you know you're working with people and you're uncovering their blocks, and I did this for many years before I even had a clue about the concept of narcissism. You know, we go into the blocks, and I was always the parent and I couldn't get a handle on why it was coming up over and over again, until I eventually realized that this was a culture. This wasn't a one of incident or something that instilled this false belief. This is something this person experienced day after day for a couple of decades, and so it really has an impact, and we don't always see that impact, because it's our reality. The fish doesn't see the water right. That's just how life is. That's just how people treat us. That's how people are. So there's a leap to be taken, a consciousness leap, between what is my reality. Is it this crazy town or delusional denialville that I experienced, or is there perhaps a different reality that I can create? Wow?
Speaker 2:wow, yeah, yeah, exactly Like, and that explains how, like I remember growing up and hearing you know, women marry their dads, right, and so it totally explains like if your dad was narcissistic, you know, then you would, you would reach out to that like you're going to be attracted to that because that's all you know, right? Yeah, that totally clears that up for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah that feels really familiar and so you're not going to question that behavior or that reality of what they're putting out. Where someone else that hasn't had that grooming or that experience in childhood to accept that behavior. They're going to get spun out of that narcissistic person's orbit in a month or two, whatever it is six months a year because there's going to start questioning the behavior and standing up to the behavior and the relationship. The relationship is not going to survive any questioning or any anything like that. Any of you standing up for yourself, so groomed by the fathers to come into this relationship and accept this behavior and on and on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, it. Just I mean it, it, it, it, like it's all making sense to me, and especially like with my daughter going through it. It only lasted like three months and luckily, right, you know, but it was you know. That answers that question, too, why she was able to get out of it so quickly, because most stories that I hear it's like marriages, so, like you know, you marry into it and then you raise your kids in that and all the things, and she was, like you know, quickly, was able to pull herself out. So you know, I mean, clearly my husband and I are not not narcissistic, because otherwise she wouldn't have known the difference, right, oh, wow, this is a great conversation. So I want to ask you what led you to specialize in coaching professional women that are recovering from these narcissistic relationships?
Speaker 3:Well, like many of your listeners, I was a box checker, I call it. I checked all of the boxes. I survived my childhood. One of my coping mechanisms was being perfect and trying harder, and so I got good grades. I was in a lot of extracurricular activities. I went to college and got good grades there. I went to law school same. I got the prestigious law firm job after graduation and I worked at that for a couple of years. But I knew it didn't fit right. I knew I didn't want to be there in 20 years. I didn't want what they had. So I quit with my business or business partner who also worked there, and we started our own firm, and that went really well too for quite a while.
Speaker 3:And I found myself really still struggling. I had gotten the house and gotten married and I had had a child, but I still had all of these sensations inside. I was anxious a lot of the time. I was overwhelmed a lot of the time. I was constantly worried about finances and survival and where my next client slash paycheck was coming from, and it was really debilitating. It wasn't minor and I had told myself that I was going to outgrow it, that if I could just check these boxes and get a little older, get these things, create this reality. Then I would outgrow it.
Speaker 3:And there was a come to Jesus moment when I was 36 years old and I was actually had a child and I was pregnant with my second, when it occurred to me, after an anxiety breakdown, panic attack, that this might not be something that I was going to outgrow. Why hadn't it happened yet? There might be something more to this story, and that's when I really wanted to eat, pray, love my way out of this situation. I wanted to go to Italy and Bali and India and really figure it out in a glamorous way. But you have heard my situation. That clearly wasn't happening to me. Can't even imagine a vacation of that magnitude with a two-year-old. That wasn't happening and I realized I had to take my journey on the inside and I started to read books.
Speaker 3:I took coaching classes and it looked like reading or listening to videos and courses while the baby slept on my shoulder and I started coaching other women in the same situation that I was and it looked like pumping and then running up to my office to coach. It wasn't glamorous, it wasn't pretty, but I was able to make lots of headway and figure out what was going on. I was still. I was making progress, but I could feel that I wasn't getting to the root of the root of it. For both myself and my clients. It was like we were trees and we're chopping off unwanted branches. We were really pruning, but they would just grow back and I knew I wasn't getting to that root of it.
Speaker 3:And then one day I was scrolling through YouTube and the universe lives in YouTube sometime right and a video popped up on my screen and the title of the video I remember it clearly was how to set boundaries with difficult people. And I listened to it and I don't remember anything about the boundaries or the steps or anything about that. But what she did talk about was the concept of narcissism and how those types of people are difficult and boundaries are going to be difficult and probably won't ultimately work. You'll probably have to take some dramatic steps. Won't ultimately work. You'll probably have to take some dramatic steps.
Speaker 3:And I thought, aha, narcissism, what is this? And I started researching and educating myself on that concept and that was the root, the structure that ran through my life and my clients' lives, and it was supporting and it was the engine driving all of these toxic patterns of people pleasing, of perfectionism, of anxiety, of being invisible, never good enough at that root. We had been dancing around it up top, but the root was decades of narcissistic abuse that had set up this reality in our mind that we were never questioning.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, right Like so. All this time you didn't even really know what you were facing Really.
Speaker 3:No, I had no idea. I thought I had a tumultuous but fairly and you know, I will truly believe that the truth was that I had a very normal childhood. I did not have a healthy childhood, but I don't think that what I experienced was all that unusual. My parents did not physically beat me, they were emotionally. My father was emotionally unavailable and very manipulative.
Speaker 3:I was definitely that appliance that was there to serve him and my mom was neglectful and enabling. She orbited around him. All of her energies that she had left were focused on keeping him happy, because if he wasn't happy he would rage. He would have verbal tirades, big, scary. He was a big guy and there was these big, scary emotional temper tantrums over the littlest things, if he didn't like dinner, if something was off, if he couldn't find something. Those were all big triggers. So I was not physically abused, but I walked on emotional and psychological eggshells for decades and I hadn't questioned that. I hadn't. I knew in my head that it was unpleasant, but I did not realize that it was still affecting me into my late 30s well, it became your normal right, like if it was like, like you said, you lived a normal childhood.
Speaker 2:And the thing is, you don't, like we all know what's going on in our four walls, but we have no idea what's going on in the four walls that are living beside us, and so you don't know that. You know the guys, the family beside you is really living a life of pleasure and happiness all the time. Right, like we don't know that and we think and maybe it's an assumption that everyone is going through what we're going through. Right, every father is the same, every mother is is always abiding by what the father wants. Wow.
Speaker 3:And that's what they'll tell you. That's calculated. That's what they'll tell you is what. There's nothing wrong with us. This is how everybody is. This is unusual. You think you're so special, you know all of that to justify and keep up the facade and there definitely is a facade, because in my family we were one way out in public, a church and whatnot, and when the doors closed it was completely different situation. So it is calculated and they know when and how to um inflict their abuse and in my opinion, it's very calculated.
Speaker 2:So okay. So that's kind of where I want to ask now. I want to go in that direction. Do you think and I don't know how to ask this without sounding offensive Do you think that they are purposely doing this, or do you think that they just don't consider your feelings?
Speaker 3:just don't consider your feelings. You know it's a little bit of both. They're certainly not going to consider your feelings, but if you bring it to their attention they might make some, some noises, some. Oh okay, you know, if they're in a good mood. I didn't know that that bothered you. But then you have to really watch their actions, because they want to keep you around as their supply, because your presence really serves them. They hate to be alone. They don't like to be alone. They're psychologically unstable underneath of it, underneath it all, so they would never admit it, but they need you around. They want to keep you there, but they want to keep you there in that service capacity. If you say something, bring it up, set a boundary, don't yell at me if you can't find your socks or whatever, or your keys, they're going to say they might say they might just ignore you or give you the silent treatment. But some of them might say, oh okay, I won't do that if it bothers you. But you have to really watch their actions Because if they are on the narcissism spectrum, they are certainly going to do that again.
Speaker 3:They will say one thing and they will do another and it will make you crazy. You will question your reality and they will also deny. You'll bring it up. We had this discussion and you agreed that you wouldn't rage at me when you lost your keys. And they'll say I never said that. I don't know what you're thinking. You must be crazy, you know. And so it goes on and on. And if you've had some experience, if you haven't really been taught as a kid to stand your ground, then you're going to question yourself. You're going to think geez, I am crazy, I am losing it. And so I do think that it serves them, whether it's calculated, or I would. I would go more on the side of it's calculated. It works for them. That's why they do it. I don't know it's widely considered untreatable, and I agree with that. I don't know why. I don't know it's. It's widely considered untreatable, and I agree with that. I don't know why. I don't know why they won't. They won't change.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so terrible. It's just my heart is my poor, heart is breaking so okay. So with professional women, like is there something that you tell them to watch for in their relationships, whether it's personal or business?
Speaker 3:Yes, there's four things that I'm on the lookout for if I'm having a conversation or if I'm coaching someone for very specific characteristics that women, if they really struggle with these, I call them vows. They're the deeply held, unconscious beliefs that form their reality. I'm watching for them and I'll tell them to watch for them also. And the first is I vow to conform, even if it means staying small and struggling. Staying small and struggling. And that vow to conform. It's the trickiest one of the four, because you maybe are exceptional at work, but you have to look at could you be even more exceptional if your family didn't make fun of you? If you've surpassed or are you still below that level that your father is at? So the equilibrium is still in place because he's the CEO and you're a VP. And so we work, we look at whether what you exceeded where your parents ever made it. How would that go in the family? And if you have someone on that narcissistic spectrum, the answer is usually not well, if you're really honest with yourself and it's so hard because we all want to believe that our family is our cheerleaders but getting really clear and honest sometimes they're not watch out for is the people pleasing, and it's I vow to meet everyone else's needs and never have a need of my own. And this comes from as kids we didn't get to have needs. We had to survive by meeting their emotional needs. They were grown up toddlers and grown up bodies and we were running around trying to control the uncontrollable. And so as an adult, and at work and at home, it looks like not being able to say no, people pleasing, not being able to set a boundary. And we can't set that boundary because if we would have set that boundary as a kid, it would have meant life or death. Parental rejection to a kid is death. If you're rejected by that parent, you're not going to survive. You can't make it on your own, and so our nervous system remembers we don't turn 18 and get to flip a switch where I'm an adult, now I can get jobs and take care of myself. It's still going to feel like life or death in your nervous system, and so that is why that people pleasing pattern of behavior is so difficult to break.
Speaker 3:The third vow that I watch out for is the vow to be invisible, and this shows up in an inability to market, an inability to hold our ground at meetings, an inability to really shine and take credit for what we do, and this really shows up in women. Men often don't have the same blocks to shining and taking credit and it comes from having that parent where it wasn't safe to be that big, bold presence and have an opinion and have ideas, because that was viewed as a threat. They will take you down. You always have to be inferior to them.
Speaker 3:And finally, I look for, I vow to be perfect, because perfectionism was something that many of us adopted to keep ourselves safe. We often weren't completely safe if we were perfect, but we were safer. Narcissists like to have something to brag about, whether it's grades, athletic achievements, whatever it is. So that kept us safer if we were perfect and that really sticks with us into our lives and it really blocks us in our careers because it's exhausting, it's draining and perfectionists make great secretaries but poor bosses. At some point you have to let some things go, learn to delegate and do it that way, and so I see it showing up in a lot of my clients' lives as their inner glass ceiling.
Speaker 2:They just can't get that next leadership level because they're viewed and they put out that energy of the perfect secretary, administrative assistant type person that takes care of all the mundane things, and that's definitely a role that we adopted as children wow, and that's, and that's why maybe it's more common that we see it in men more, because women are so nurturing and women are like, you see, like the women want everything to go smoothly, and so they'll do what they have to do to keep that part of life smooth right.
Speaker 3:And if we're people pleasing, invisible, perfectionist, who does that serve? Who really benefits from us staying small? And it's those people in our lives that are are that we're serving. If we're constantly the servant, who are you serving? You're serving someone and whether they're narcissistic or not, they're going to keep enabling that behavior because it's helping them. Right, right.
Speaker 2:What's keeping them safe to some degree, wow, yeah, okay. So, wow, I was like that's, that was a huge list and I mean, in all honesty, I think we all know someone like that, right, we all know someone who's going through that scenario yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I don't know if I draw people in or or if it's just the culture at large, but I absolutely the percentages in my opinion are really high of women that I meet that struggle with all four of these consistently, a hundred percent. And so I think that it's a cultural phenomenon, it's cultural flaws, it's character flaws and some of us are not. The behavior that narcissism is that character flaw that sets us up for this behavior, and I think it's huge. I mean almost every woman I meet.
Speaker 3:I don't know Like I said, I don't know if the universe is just bringing me those people or it's hard to say how prevalent it is, but I'm comfortable saying it's very prevalent.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah it's. I mean, just in my world I can see how prevalent it is and I mean you're, you're helping these women, so you're going to see it even more. So I'm wondering what if a woman wanted to leave her relationship? And because of the narcissism, what are her biggest challenges, challenges that she has to face?
Speaker 3:I. In my opinion, it's that the guilt they had. The narcissists have this crazy. In my view it's almost spiritual, energetic hold on us and even though we recognize it as really unhealthy, actually disconnecting from that energy, we believe that it's our duty and a lot of us are really. We're golden retrievers of the human world, right? We like to do our duty, we're loyal, and so, in my opinion, it's that guilt of leaving this person to fend for himself and he's really going to play that up and the habit of serving someone.
Speaker 3:And it also is a protection, because as long as we're spending all of our energy taking care and walking on eggshells and making this person happy, then we don't have to focus on ourselves. And that's really scary to focus on ourselves, because what if we fail? What if we're, we can't make our dreams happen? What if we're not good enough? And so in a lot of ways, it's just easier to keep the focus there. So, in my opinion, it's the guilt of leaving and the inability to shift that focus to yourself and take that risk to go after your dreams.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's I mean, that's hard for the average person to begin with, right To really look out for their own wellbeing. So what would you say like would be the first steps? Like like you can't just wake up one morning and leave, because that would set off a whole, you know, set of more trauma. So what would you suggest? Like I just hearing what you're saying, I would suggest like like kind of your well being, like become stronger, learn, learn. Like first of all, learn that that behavior is holding you back right, and sort of break free from it as best you can in the relationship. Like how, what would you suggest? What would you tell a woman to do at the beginning?
Speaker 3:No, I wholeheartedly agree. There's two for sure steps before leaving or putting distance between yourself and the narcissist, and the first two steps are interchangeable. They're not. They're not chronological or linear. And I would recommend finding a mind, body and the body is the key word here tool for reprogramming yourself and releasing that energy and all of that traumatic energy that you have accumulated over the years.
Speaker 3:In my program I use emotional freedom technique, or tapping, which is tapping on acupressure points, which allows your nervous system. It allows you to access your nervous system and really get relief there, because we can know something in our mind and it doesn't mean our body's going to agree right. It just means we're conflicted and we're still not going to make a lot of headway because our minds up here doing backflips and the body saying no way I know where I'm safe and it's right here and I don't know what's out there in that big scary world. And so I would recommend that you don't have to use tapping. You know there's a lot of breathing, conscious breathing programs and exercises. Some people can get there through journaling or meditation, but the key is you've got to connect to that body and barf it out, vomit it out, release it, however you want to say it, get it out of that nervous system, and I would do that for a while before you even pressured yourself to take action.
Speaker 3:And the second is the mental piece, which is learning what you can about narcissistic abuse and behaviors so that you can predict what's going to happen because they are very predictable and also what this mental element will do. It was allow you to put psychological distance between you and your narcissist. You can start to see it's them, not me. And for a long time you've been believing and you'll probably still continue to believe for a while until you consciously rewrite it that it's you, that you're the problem. You've been told your whole life that you're fundamentally flawed, that you're not good enough, that you're ditzy or airheaded or whatever they use, that you're the problem. So as you start to learn about how predictable and how ingrained this narcissistic behavior is in them, you will get some mental distance and you can start to see it's not me, it's them. Sure, I have flaws, but not to the extent that I've been brainwashed into believing I'm human, just like everybody else.
Speaker 3:But this relationship situation is actually not my fault and so yeah, doing those two steps for a while will eventually enable you to put some physical distance between between you and that narcissistic abuser in your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and I mean the self work, like we all know that once you start cause that that turns into professional development or personal development, Right, and so with that, not only are you going to make yourself stronger to leave the relationship, but it's going to affect your like outside of the relationship life too right, Like all the other areas of your life.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is. And then you're going to see. The first place my clients see benefit is usually at work and in their money, because that's an easier door to crack open to. To open up, is that flow there? I do want to add a word of warning, because I fell into this trap so many times.
Speaker 3:Don't think that you are going to show up to your narcissistic relationship with your new confidence and your assertive communication skills and that's going to be okay. It's not going to be okay. They're going to see you as a threat. They're very good at sensing energy, so they're going to pick up on it almost immediately and in a lot of cases they will make it their mission to take you down, and so there will actually be more conflict as you continue to develop yourself. So you might have to pretend, you might have to wear a mask for emotional and physical safety reasons for a while around them, you know, pretend to be insecure and survey, survey and whatnot, and you'll have to carefully consider the specifics of your own situation. But it's definitely not going to improve your relationship with the narcissist to show up in a healthier way. I know I tried it. It didn't work. I was just this big fat target.
Speaker 2:Well, and the thing is, once you have like a more self-confident being, they don't like that, because now, if you're confident that I can't control you, and if I can't control you then I'm the weak one, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the weak one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I could see that, I could see that and oh, that it's almost making me angry. So once a woman leaves her relationship, how do you, how do you help them to rebuild their self-trust? Right, because now they, they only know really manipulation and gaslighting. So how do, how do you walk them through that?
Speaker 3:We go through all of those deeply held, unconscious beliefs of what they are believing to not trust themselves. And we hold that in our body and in our nervous system and it's a feeling. So in my program we learned to identify the sensations. I don't even really call them feelings. Sensation is even more neutral. We identify the sensation and where it is in your body, and then that sensation has a story to tell and that, since, if you're in a calm, quiet place, that sensation will tell you its story and you can release it, and then that opens.
Speaker 3:So the trust is there, that inner feeling of that fire, hose of energy is there. It's literally just blocked at a physical level. And so once we release that sensation through conscious awareness and tapping and some peacemaking work, then that truth, the truth in our system, will flow automatically. And so that's how I help my clients. It's a real mind, body system of moving forward and it does take time, it's not? You know, I would probably sell a lot more programs if I could click bait and promise instant results, but this is a process and it took you a long time to be become brainwashed and it will take some time to to reprogram yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. Now, with all that, I mean that's, that's like sounds like deep hard work to begin with, but we also need to remember that every woman going through I mean every woman in the world, but you know in your situation here, like every woman you're dealing with really needs to also focus on self love and self care. So how do you do you help them with that, like? Because I mean they need that to be recovered in the first place, right, but they also need to know that it has to be prioritized. They need to care for themselves. How do you walk them through that process?
Speaker 3:Well, the first is recognizing that this feels really wrong to them because in their childhood home, taking care of yourself and making yourself priority was, like I said, literally a life or death decision and it meant death, whether that was actual physical shunning and not getting to eat that night, or whether it was psychological and emotional death by being given the silent treatment or berated or shamed and made fun of. Just recognizing that going in taking care of yourself is so we see the top of the iceberg, right, but there's this whole host, this whole structure of beliefs that's underneath that ocean, that is holding them back. So, not getting in a hurry over it, but so if I was coaching someone to and I couldn't do this at all, we'll use my story I couldn't do. My coach was saying you have to do one nice thing for yourself per day and I said I don't have time, I can't do it, I can't like that and that point in my life it felt literally impossible to me. I had really tiny kids and I was going from dusk or dawn till dusk and it just felt and it felt impossible to me. That's what my head was saying, but my body, my nervous system, was saying that's not safe. That means death.
Speaker 3:And so what we did is we just took it apart piece by piece. Where in your body are you feeling this? Where my chest, usually, my stomach, whatever it was? And then that block, that thought, that vow that I was unconsciously thinking over and over would come up, and it would be something like he really mad at me, or it's always very childlike and very simple, it's not complicated, but that that it doesn't mean it's not powerful, it's still very powerful. I'm going to get in trouble for this, things like that. And you just work on it piece by piece until your world, that energy, starts to open up. And so I would just work with that. You know, give them one assignment and then be curious when you can't do it.
Speaker 3:And if you're working with a journal, just journal all the reasons why you can't, and go deeper and deeper and deeper until you hit that root of it, that really simple situation or things you were told, or thing that you started to tell yourself to survive, and then you really bring that love and that peacemaking to that piece of yourself. And that piece of yourself. It's really spiritual and requires almost time travel, because that piece of yourself is still alive and it's still screaming I'm going to get in trouble or he'll be mad at me. And it's stuck there and it's literally a little kid in your nervous system holding, holding all of that energy and is bringing that release and that peace to, to that energy and letting it go. And in things like self-care self-care is a huge thing. There's a lot of blocks and beliefs built into self-care. So I wouldn't be in a hurry and I'd be getting to the root of all of these different things and then using the tapping process to release that sensation, that block, out of the nervous system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wow, wow, yeah, wow, wow. So how do you, how do you coach your women, your clients, to set boundaries, you know, to protect yourself and falling into similar patterns after they've left this relationship?
Speaker 3:Right, boundaries boundaries are are another big area and you have to be really cognizant that you're not going to have a conversation. You're not your initial conversation, your initial boundary is not going to work. Right, you have the conversation. To lay the boundary Like don't text me, say you have children together. Don't text me after 8 PM at night.
Speaker 1:They're going to do it.
Speaker 3:They're for sure going to do it. Make sure they do it, yeah, yeah. And so you know you have narcissists, do sometimes respond to consequences, and so if you can install a consequence, I mean that one's pretty simple. You just want to answer and you would shutty, shutty, you would ignore all their, all their franticness and all of their things and all of their emergencies the next day. But that's really scary. Going into conflict, setting a boundary with a narcissist is really scary because it's going to result in conflict. So I would work through with them all of their fears about you're going to do this, what comes up for you, and it's going to be things like he's going to react, he's going to freak out, and I'm going to feel really guilty and I'm going to question my sanity. And then it's the same process, because it didn't start today, it didn't start with this situation and it happened. You know mom or dad did this, or it goes way back and we start releasing all of that energy and they will see shifts in their lives.
Speaker 2:Wow, that sounds so scary. Right, really does sound scary. So, in your experience, what kind of transformation have you seen?
Speaker 3:In my own experience, I have seen myself going from. I don't know how many of your listeners have watched. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, have you ever? Oh, I hate that show.
Speaker 2:I hate that show. My husband watches it and I hate it, I hate that joke.
Speaker 3:My husband watches it and I hate it. Okay, so I was sweet D, I was the woman that got not respected, not um, taken advantage of there to serve, treated badly, and I didn't even realize it for years. I was just so happy to be included and um. So I have went from that type of person to a confident person that is capable of seeing the crazy and recognizing the crazy and getting myself out of the crazy. I no longer try to set boundaries. I'm really fortunate that I don't have to set a lot of boundaries. I just remove my physical presence.
Speaker 3:And my parents are very difficult to deal with to this day, and I tried for two years to get along with them, to bend over backwards, until I ultimately realized that my new empowerment was a threat and that they were going to try to diminish that threat, and so the only solution for me was limited contact. We were never going to be adult friends. We were never going to have that type of thing. Because of them not me, and I've seen clients they are able to build their businesses, they are able to ask for raises and make more money. Those are usually the first steps, and then we move on to relationships where it's just bringing your energy back into a firmer grounded stance here and that's okay, feeling safe doing that. And then those relationships with ex-spouses and parents and whatnot. We start to become free of them.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow. How can listeners know if they're ready to take on some coaching and start healing?
Speaker 3:So just feel into that and I want you to picture yourself five years from now and you're still doing it all by yourself and nothing's changed, and you're still feeling what you're feeling and you're maybe doing some work on the side, listening to the YouTube videos when you get time, but it's not a priority. It's pretty much the same. You're still in the same relationships. You're still people pleasing, doing all of the things. Is that something that feels good to you? And so if you're sitting there and you're thinking to yourself, oh my God, this is not something, this is intolerable, this is not something that I want to continue to experience, then you're ready Because, like you said, some of it doesn't sound that great.
Speaker 3:It is deep work, but this is the truth. You're carrying around all of that energy, all of that burden every day and we go in and we release it, and maybe it's uncomfortable during the session, but the end of it you're free of another piece of baggage, whereas now you're carrying it every day into the foreseeable future. And so if that feels intolerable to you, then you're ready to invest in yourself and make a commitment and do the next thing.
Speaker 2:And if I mean that's a shitty life, like you know, living like that, always on eggshells, always watching your back, that's a horrible, hard life, right. But you get to choose your heart here, right, going deep and going within to better your life in you know, six to eight months, or six to 12 months, or living the rest of your life like this. And it could get worse, Because I've heard that narcissism gets worse as we age. So if that's true, if you hate your life today and you still have 40, 50, 80 years to go, it's only going to get worse. So do the hard work and get yourself out of the shitty. That's I mean, that's the way I see it. I'm not living in that life. I can't, you know, I don't want to speak for anybody. That's I mean. That's the way I see it. I'm not living in that life. I can't, you know, I don't want to speak for anybody, but that's the way I see it, right, do?
Speaker 3:the hard work and gain, you know, more love for yourself. Exactly, and it could be a spouse In my case. It could be somebody else. In my case it was my dad, and I actually went through the same process that you just described, just described. He is in his early seventies and in good health, and I just thought to myself I can't outlive this. He could live for another 20 years and he is not.
Speaker 3:I was seeing him a couple of times a week trying to make him love me, and I just thought I cannot pour another 10. I mean not, it could be 20. It could be 10. Nobody knows. But another five, even another year, six months down the drain, trying to bend over backwards to earn love from this person. This prize I was never going to get. I just couldn't do that for one more day and I felt all the fear and all the guilt, like I was breaking all these rules, and it was a really tough at first two or three months, but it will truly be the best thing I ever did and other people that have done the same thing. You can't keep pouring your life down the narcissistic person's emotional drain because they will take it all as much as you are willing to give, they will take how?
Speaker 2:can a client work with you and how do they start the next, that first step toward this healing journey?
Speaker 3:Go to what my website is, scotty, with an I Scotty, mosercom and there's a application. It's not an application. It's your name and email to fill out and we can set up a time to discuss your specific situation and the best options for you. And I also have a free gift on there if you would like to check that out. It is from Overwhelm to On Fire, and I chose to start with the Overwhelm piece as a free gift because we were stuck in Overwhelm for our whole childhoods. We were always faced with situations that our nervous systems weren't capable of handling, and that becomes our default setting, and so, as a free gift, you can download that and you can set up a time to talk to me. I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that. I have one more question, and I think it's pretty basic what is the difference between narcissistic and control freak?
Speaker 3:The narcissistic person is their adamant refusal to change and a control freak when they're being honest, will admit that it's really hard to change. But yes, they will and they'll take. You have to watch the actions Because if you're not narcissistic and you're faced with some consequences, you're going to take some actions. You're going to enroll in the program, get the counseling or whatever. A narcissistic person will tell you that they're going to do those things and they won't do them or they'll do them halfheartedly for a month, and so you really have to watch out for the manipulation.
Speaker 3:If someone is really trying to manipulate you and just keep you stuck, that's a narcissistic person. It's really likely and you can feel it in your gut. Like our body knows, we're not dummies here. We've been told our whole life that we're dummies. But we know we're intuitive. We can tell if someone's legit trying to change or if they're just not or if they're just manipulating us. We've had to turn off our gut instinct a lot of times because we needed to to survive and we had to believe that we were crazy and messed up. But start tuning back into your gut and seeing what it's saying. You'll know from that.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, Awesome. Is there anything else that you might want our listeners to know and hear before we we end our show here?
Speaker 3:Yes, one last thing on your, on your, as you start your healing journey keep in mind be the person you needed back. Then show up for yourself. Be that person that you needed and start showing up for yourself that way.
Speaker 2:I love that. I'm going to write that down. That's, that's perfect.
Speaker 1:I mean we all we all know who.
Speaker 2:that is right. We all know what we weren't getting at the time that this all started Right. So if we, if we can be the person that we needed, then we can get through this Exactly. That's incredible, awesome. Well, thank you so much for this. Today, I mean, it's kind of, I have to be honest, I feel kind of a little bit down, but I don't really. I mean I love you, know, walking over that path. Right, you go through the journey, you go through all the hardship, but at the end of the tunnel is is that's where the light is shining. Right, you can walk into that light. You don't have to live this life of of hard and unbearable you. There is a light at the end of the tunnel if you're willing to see it and walk towards it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if burden and heavy emotions are surfacing for you, they're surfacing to be let go. They're surfacing for your benefit and healing, and so just be the person that you need. Love that, yes.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. You're welcome. Confidence in Bloom is a celebration of self love. You're welcome. Confidence in bloom is a celebration of self-love, a confirmation that, even though you may not look like a screen star or a supermodel they don't even look like that you are an amazing, desirable, brilliant, gorgeous, talented woman. We offer unconditional love to our partners, our children, our extended family, even our pets. It's high time we got out of our own way and learned to unconditionally love ourselves. Infobloom Styling and Coaching offers an online program combined with one-on-one coaching in confidence building, personal branding and creating your signature fashion look. Chic definitely does come in every shape. So if you want something to believe, in start with yourself. If you'd like to be a guest here on Confidence in Bloom, contact me through Instagram at infobloomstyling, by email, tina at infobloomstylingcom, or through the Divas that Care website.
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