In fact, I have had a pattern of attracting narcissists into my life.

❌I’ve been duped out of thousands of euros

❌Called a doormat

❌Allowed my animals to be terrorised at the height of the gaslighting.

But this year I was finally able to meet the man of my dreams.

A man who respects me, cherishes and prioritises me.

I never dreamed I would have a story to tell like this.

But when you’re aligned with your heart´s calling, the universe has a magical way of responding.

Let’s start at the beginning…

It all started with a bout of PMS that inspired me to wonder into the forest…🌳🌳🌳

WHAT DID I DO?

Now I don’t know about you, but I have a history of having severe PMS.

The week before my period I feel

😤angry

😤frustrated

😤anxious

😤like I want to kill everyone

And that’s exactly how I felt in February this year.

During the height of my PMS symptoms, I felt pulled to wonder into the forest by my house in Sant Cebria, Barcelona.

I just wanted to experience peace and I knew the forest could help me with that.

I followed my inution.

Instead of walking straight down the forest path like I usually do, I turned left down a seemingly disused track.

This was the best decision I could have made.

I ended up discovering a beautiful green valley.

I stood there in awe.

The silence & stillness were palpable.

The valley was alive with trees and butterflies. I could see horses in the distance, grazing in their paddock.

I sat down.

I felt held my Mother Nature, like she understood.

And I started to cry.

I cried out all my frustration.

I cried out all my angst.

It felt so good.

When I was done crying, an incredible calm calm over me.

A peace like I hadn’t felt in a long time.

And having released all that frustration and angst, I realised that I actually didn’t want to kill everyone in my sight.

The clarity came.

I was feeling frustrated because I was ready to meet my partner and I hadn’t met him yet.

I was feeling angst because I wanted to have a baby and the clock was ticking.

Up until that point I hadn’t been sure, but the clarity that came through in the forest spoke loud and clear.

I skipped home a new person, enjoying my newfound clarity and peace.

And on the way home a song started coming through.

🎵…I asked for clarity

I asked for peace….🎵

By the time I got home, the song was finished – words, chords, rhythm and all.

It was so catchy – I couldn’t get it out of my head.

I was nervous to share it in my Singing Circle.

What if people didn’t like it?

But when I shared it in my Singing Circle, my friends loved it too!

When I shared it at my beloved Makawe retreat, the ladies asked me where they could hear it.

And so in June this year I raised the funds to record it with my producer Pakandé.

It came out Spotify last Friday. You can listen here.

But the CRAZIEST thing is not the song.

Or that transcendental moment in the forest.

It’s what happened next…

NILTON´S ARRIVAL

I remember a friend suggesting I was probably already friends with my future partner.

I went through my guy friends one by one.

“No!”

“No!”

“DEFINITELY no.”

But in March this year my friend Nilton arrived from Peru for ceremonies.

I had never considered that he might be the one.

In fact, when my friend Desi suggested it would be great if I was attracted to him, I literally shuddered at the thought.

He was my FRIEND. Nothing more.

Looking back, that’s probably why everyone else could see it before us.

I knew that I had a deep love for him.

And that I missed him when he was away.

And that I loved being in his company and he didn’t annoy me after 5 minutes like 99% of people.

But being romantically involved with him?!

It had never crossed my mind…

The 4 weeks we spent together in Spain were so wonderful.

I felt so looked after. So cherished.

And my feelings towards Nilton started to change…

❤️I started noticing how beautiful and long his eyelashes were

❤️I began to recognise how I loved the sound of his deep voice

❤️I really valued the way he looked after me and did stuff for me so I could be in my Feminine Energy.

And on the day he left back to Peru…I told him I had feelings.

I was too chicken to tell him to his face…so I waited until he was on the plane back to Peru.

And to cut a long story short…

…he felt exactly the same. And had done since the moment we met

And to cut an even LONGER story short… now we live together in Peru. You can read all about my move to Peru here.

THE END.

Just joking. As if I would just end it there.

I still have to share that simple trick that helped me manifest my partner don’t I!?

If I think through the process of everything that happened on the run up to falling for Nilton, it’s too magical to believe.

So I try not to think about it.

YES I believe in syncronicities.

YES believe in magic.

But I also like to keep my 2 feet firmly on the ground.

I am also not one for losing myself in stories about past lives or bla bla bla.

I just want to enjoy the present moment.

I want to enjoy this healthy love that I am experiencing.

I want to enjoy my own happiness and give myself permission to live.

And so that´s what I’m doing, one step at a time.

And the trick I used to manifest Nilton?

I didn’t even realise it was a trick.

I simple stated my desire out loud.

I started talking about my desire to meet my man and have a baby.

I shared it at the Makawe retreat infront of all the participants. Even though I went bright red because I felt embarrased and ashamed for the way I felt.

Instead of pretending I didn’t want it…(which was a defense mechanism covering for the fact i thought it was impossible)…

I started to:

💪🏽voice my yearning

💪🏽own my desire.

💪🏽give myself permission to have wants

And it worked.

So how can that work for you?

If you have a desire that deep down you long for…even if you secretly feel it´s a little bit impossible…then SHARE IT.

‼️SAY IT OUT LOUD‼️

‼️WRITE IT IN YOUR JOURNAL‼️

Because words are spells. That´s why they call it spelling.

I can’t wait to hear about your manifestations!!

I hope you enjoyed reading this week’s newsletter.

Love from Abbey ❤️

p.s. – you can check out my new song RELEASE which is out today!!! It’s word-by-word account of what happened to me in the forest…with some pretty flutes and a smokin-hot production.

The post I used this 1 simple trick to manifest my dream partner…. first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post I used this 1 simple trick to manifest my dream partner…. appeared first on Abbey Sykes.

What if you make the wrong decision?

How can you know if a decision is going to benefit you?

There are so many things to consider:

🌟what you think

🌟how you feel

🌟past experiences

🌟your friends’ and family’s opion

And for those of us who are spiritually connected, it gets even harder!

🤷‍♀️what insights did you get from your last ceremony?

🤷‍♀️what is your intuition saying?

🤷‍♀️are the universal signs telling you yes or no?

There are so many factors to bear in mind, no wonder we often get stuck in uncertainty and doubt.

I am of the belief that everything is working for our higher good.

HOWEVER, I also know from experience that taking the wrong decision has cost me:

❌hundreds of thousands of euros

❌my health & happiness

❌the desire to live

When I was heamorraging money and my health was suffering, life got a whole lot harder.

Here is my story illustrating the consequences of a bad decision, followed by what I learnt.

MY STORY

In January 2020 I sat in my first Ayahuasca ceremony.

It was the catalyst for a Spiritual Awakening which lasted a good few years afterwards.

Although spiritual awakenings are often glamourised, the reality is that they are challenging and painful.

During my Spiritual Awakening I got very CONFUSED.

A lot of things I heard in the Spiritual Community sounded very sexy.

–“time doesn’t exist.”

–“no one’s opinion matters apart from your own”

–“everyone’s on their own journey”.

The truth is there is a lot of bullshit & manipulation.

If you are new on the spiritual scene, it’s easy to get confused and put certain people on a pedestal.

People who don’t have your best interests at heart.

That’s exactly what happened to me.

***Enter my ex, stage left***

For the purposes of this newsletter, we’ll call him Arash.

And that’s literally what he was.

A bad rash.

Arash was different from other men I’d met.

Despite only being 25, he was so sure of himself.

He was convinced that he knew the right way.

And he was very charming.

From the beginning, he was showing typical signs of Narcissicm.

But I was under his spell ✨. I couldn’t recognise the signs.

Very soon after he moved into my flat, he persuaded me he didn´t have to pay rent, and started meddling with my finances.

He convinced me to take 60k out of my savings and invest them into crypto with him managing the funds.

He had no idea what he was doing. But he was damn good at selling himself.

Around the same time I noticed he was irrascible – his moods would change from fun to demonic at the drop of a hat.

But he was charming and had a knack of persuading me it was my fault.

And because I wasn’t rooted in myself, I believed him.

Around a month into our relationship we said started talking about renting the local that was up for rent below my flat. Our idea was to have a place to hold drumming circles and the odd kambo session.

As we started looking around spaces, our idea grew and we realised would need different facilitators to hold sessions.

We made some pretty unfair agreements (which, looking back, are clean signs of maniupation).

We “agreed”:

❌ I would put 120k investment in and him nothing

❌ he would receive a 2k/month from the investment but not me

❌ he would be the CEO & take decisions & my job was to put the money in

Looking back…it sounds absolutely crazy.

Even more so when he told me I couldn’t get involved in the interior design because I didn’t have the experience.. He told me that my being involved would slow the project down…(despite him living rent-free in my beautifully decorated apartment).

So he brought in a girl that he’d met through a dating app.

And I had to pay her…

At the same time, Arash was being very shady about my crypto investment. When I asked him how it was doing, he got very angry and said if I wanted to know I had to organise a time to sit down with him.

Later on he said the opposite and said I needed to learn how to manage the crypto.

It makes me cringe now.

But when you knees deep into being gaslight by a Narcissist, you don’t see it.

Until you do.

The crypto market started crashing and I saw how my money was being flushed down the drain.

And how he didn’t seem to care.

His spell was starting to wear off.

The final nail in the coffin came after 11 months. He started screaming at me in the car, calling me his doormat.

By now he had lost the covert manipulation of a narcissist and was just being a full blown wanker.

Luckily for me.

Because it allowed me to SEE what was happening and cut him out of my life.

If you want to hear the whole story about the narcissistic abuse I suffered for 11 months, click here.

But this was only the beginning.

I was left with a huge centre to pay for in the centre of Barcelona.

I had signed the contract for 2 years.

We had just started renovations costing 80k.

The monthly costs just to break even were 4700€.

And we had zero clients.

You can imagine how I felt when the stark reality of what I had got myself into hit home.

The consequences were soon apparent:

❌ I stopped seeing my friends

❌ My herniated disk flared up

❌ I became hard and rigid in my interactions with people

❌ I lost weight

❌ I stopped laughing

❌ I became a rude and unfriendly from the pressure I felt

❌ I started questioning “what’s the point” of life

I managed to keep going for a year before my dad suggested I close Anahata.

He told me Anahata was a drain on me, and he was right.

Not only on my finances, but on my time, energy, health and happiness.

But the investment?

I wanted to find someone to take over so I could at least get part of my investment back.

I spent another 6 months looking for someone to take on the project.

A few people were interested but it came to nothing.

Eventually I set an ultimatum and decided enough was enough.

I realised that my health and happiness was more important than money.

I had learnt a good deal that would ensure I never make the same mistakes again.

I was finally putting myself first.

THINGS STARTED TO LOOK UP

Saying goodbye to Anahata only brought me relief.

In so many ways.

Over the next year I moved to the countryside, recorded my album, and moved to Peru to be with my love.

Since Anahata, every decision I have taken has nourished me rather than depleted me.

And I started to ask myself why that was.

Why was it that in a certain time in my life, when I was feeling lost, I took decisions that harmed me?

Whereas when I was feeling great and centered, I took decisions that fulfilled me?

I started to look into the formula, and I realised there were some thing that all good decisions had in common.

WHAT I LEARNT

#1: Find your own certainty. Not someone else’s.

Here’s why.

Being lost is uncomfortable. To avoid that discomfort, you will hold on to any direction. Even if it’s not your own.

In your desperation to find certainty, you may end up clinging onto any old unwashed vagabond’s idea to find yourself.

Certainty is a very attractive quality, especially if you are feeling UNcertain.

But certainty that does not come from YOU is where it gets dangerous.

It’s important to remember that I am talking in the context of taking BIG decisions.

(I am not talking about little decisions you have to make).

Let me illustrate with one of my own examples.

Last year I was invited to sing on stage with a friend at Mantrafest Ibiza. I was scared and initially said no. But my friend Anita was so certain that this would be good for me, that I was able to lean on her certainty. It turned out great!

But when it comes to BIG, LIFE-CHANGING decisions, like:

❌investing money

❌moving countries

❌having a baby

❌quitting your 9-5

You HAVE to find that certainty within yourself.

Because otherwise you take a decision and it turns out not the be the right one and YOU are the one who has to face the consequences.

#2: Take big decisions when you’re in a good place.

When I was in a bad place, all the decisions I took were coming from a bad place.

A place of:

❌desperation

❌disconnection

❌neediness

And decisions coming from a bad place lead to bad consequences.

In the Spiritual world people will say “there are no bad decisions.”

Well I believe that’s bullshit 💩💩💩

That line of thinking stops us taking the responsability for our lives and learning and sharing.

If I had had more awareness. If I had recognised the signs, I would have avoided losing hundreds of thousands of euros.

Of course in the end everything turned out OK.

I was able to turn my lemons to lemonade.

But having lived this experience, my advice to anyone taking a life-changing decision if you know you are not in a good place, is:

🥇STOP

🥈BREATHE

🥉ASSESS

Don’t rush the decision from desperation.

When you take a decision from a good place, you will not be running away from your problems.

But running TOWARDS your health, happiness and freedom.

#3 ASK FOR INPUT FROM TRUSTED SOURCES.

This is not to be confused with #1: find your own certainty.

You must absolutely find your own certainty.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for input from trusted sources to help you get there.

While it’s crucial to trust your instincts, neglecting the advice or perspectives of trusted friends, family, or mentors can limit your viewpoint.

Go out and seek diverse opinions and weigh them against your values, like, dislikes and goals.

If you are not sure what your values, likes & goals are then do the work to uncover them before taking a decision.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Let me give you an example.

I love working alone. I hate working with schedules. I love working digitally so I can move around. I value freedom, peace, vitality and creativity.

So…WHY ON EARTH DID I OPEN A CENTRE ?!…

…where I had to manage people, schedules and a physical building that meant I couldn’t travel around?!?! Where the pressure of managing a centre meant I had no room for creative expression and my vitality was at an all time low?!

Now that I know myself it seems so clear…but it wasn’t when I couldn’t see the horizon through the trees.

Let me give you another example.

I love coaching online. I love drinking Ayahuasca. I love holding Singing Circles. I love Peru. I value peace, vitality, creativity.

Considering all of this, it made perfect sense that I should move to Peru this year where I can all of the things I love. And where my energy feel strong and my creativity is through the roof.

Once you are clear on your values, likes, dislikes & strengths than you start to know yourself.

And once you know yourself, you know what is going to bring you energy and what is going to deplete you of energy.

So you can ask for opinions and you know in yourself if that opinion resonates with you or not.

From that knowledge, it is much easier to take a decision that will benefit you.

TO SUMMARISE

Taking a decision can be hard. Especially when you are lacking clarity on WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU WANT and WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD:

Gaining the certainty within you is the most important thing you can do for yourself.

BUT HOW CAN YOU FIND THAT CERTAINTY?

Here are 3 tips I have tried and tested, and that I use with my clients to help gain that certainty.

1) Write your morning pages until the clarity arrives. Every day, 2-3 pages. Normally it takes around 2 pages until the REAL emotions start coming out. This is where you want to get to. It’s like the bile in your kambo cermony. Getting in touch with the bitter emotions is what will help you arrive at clarity. If you don´t have time to write 2-3 pages a day…how much is your clarity really worth to you?!

2) Hire a coach. There’s plenty of support out there. Find someone you resonate with and ask yourself if you vibe with their content. If they are walking the talk. If they are investing in their own professional development with their own coach.

3) Pray. I have learnt not to underestimate the power of prayer. The universe is always there conspiring with us. Remember that 50% of prayer is GIVING THANKS. That keeps us in the energy of abundance and gratitude. So ask for what you want…but don’t forget to give thanks for that you already have.

And a final thing to take into consideration.

🚪🌟 WAIT FOR THE DOORS TO OPEN 🚪🌟

You may have the clarity & be connected in with yourself.

But until the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, you will still be pushing a stone up a mountain.

Otherwise you will be forcing things, and that doesn´t feel good for you OR the universe.

The universe will push back and obstacles will arise in your way.

Let me give you a personal example.

I realised I wanted to move to Peru 2 years ago. BUT I still had Anahata and I hadn’t got the financial structure in place yet to justify the move.

It wouldn’t have worked 2 years ago because I would have been running away from my life.

But this year that the pieces all fell into place:

👍🏼My coaching practise was established

👍🏼I had let go of Anahata

👍🏼I realised I had feelings for my friend who lived in Cusco

These were the moving pieces that finally aligned

THAT is what I mean by waiting for the doors to open.

THAT is what I mean by running TOWARDS something.

And when happens, it will be coming from a place of grounded certainty.

There’ll be no stopping you!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter

Love from Abbey xx

p.s.: if you are looking for certainty and clarity in your life, drop me an email and let´s chat.

pp.ss: I have.a new song out on Spotify called GATHER THE WOMEN.. Listen by clicking the link below,

The post Doing these 3 things means you’ll never make a bad decision again. first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post Doing these 3 things means you’ll never make a bad decision again. appeared first on Abbey Sykes.

I believe my interest in personal development stems from the fact I have had so many toxic relationships.

And I have played my part in them.

We all have blind spots and we go on repeating the same patterns again and again until we learn the lesson.

For those who know my story, you will have read my previous experience with a Narcissist. If not, you can read about it HERE.

During this time I lost a lot of money, weight and self-esteem. This period, while very difficult, ultimately led to my empowerment and freedom.

But not without a few tests along the way.

Last year it came as a surprise that ANOTHER narcissist entered my life.

My initial reaction? FFS UNIVERSE. ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH?

It’s possible, as the universe does have a pretty sick sense of humour.

But after navigating the waters and reaching dry land safely, I realise that this was actually THE TEST.

THE TEST

If you haven´t heard of THE TEST, then let me explain how it works.

The Test is the universe’s way of checking that you have really learnt the lesson you claim to have learnt.

Not just a little bit.

I mean that you have FULLY INTEGRATED its teachings so that you can say “I am cured of attracting that type of experience into my life again”.

For me THE TEST came in December 2021.

Here’s how it happened.

I met a guy. We were both into music, rituals & healing.

I thought “great”.

But VERY early on I started to notice strange behaviour and SERIOUS overstepping of boundaries.

I mean SERIOUS overstepping.

I questioned whether or not I should divulge the following information since it is definitely too much information.

But for those who know me, I love an overshare.

And I’m sure I am not the first or last woman this will have happened to.

So I share with a 40% rate of embarrassment but also a 60% desire that it enables you to spot red flags very early on.

THE DISRESPECT BEGINS

This man (let’s call him Hank) disrespected me the very first time we slept together.

I thought the following sentence was clear enough:

“Please don’t ejaculate inside of me”.

But I was wrong.

As he started to come he said “I can’t have babies”.

As if that was justification for ignoring my boundary.

And with that said, he thought it convenient to fire his semen all the way up inside of me.

I was in shock, as you can imagine.

But I didn´t say anything in the moment.

Why not?

Because I blamed myself for not having being clear enough.

I thought I was the problem.

When I later found the power to bring it up, he apologised.

It was a genuine apology. And as I saw his ability to listen and make amends, I put it in the balance bank.

THE BALANCE BANK.

If you haven´t heard of the balance bank, then I think you are going to find it very useful..

This has served me wisely ever since I learnt of the concept.

The Balance Bank is a form of analysis my psychotherapist, Pilar, taught me for when you are getting to know someone.

When you are in the “Eros”, falling-in-love stage, it’s easy to let things slip and put the person on a pedestal.

In this stage you think everything they do is wonderful and it’s easy to ignore red flags.

To keep yourself grounded and alert in this moment, the Balance Bank helps you keep track of everything.

The aim is not to store things up to later hold against the other. But rather to be AWARE and not to lose sight of the things you dislike as well as the things you like.

That way you can never lose yourself in the falling-in-love stage because you are witnessing it all.

Regarding my own Balance Bank, it clearly wasn’t great that the first behavioural concern was weighted heavily on the negative side.

But wanting to discern rather than judge, I allowed the process to unfold so I could clearly see what was happening.

Hank did have many positives. He was attentive and took good care of me. He cooked well and was available for me whenever I needed.

But after a few days of seeing each other I noticed another negative check in the Bank Balance.

Hank had left a toothbrush at mine without asking me. Then a scarf.

Something inside of me didn´t feel comfortable with this.

Now am I saying that his behaviour was all bad and mine was perfect?

No.

Every time there was an issue, I didn’t communicate it in the moment. I swallowed it down and let it fester.

That isn’t good.

But even so, at this point in the relationship it became clear to me that when I DID communicate it was not being received. I also saw that he was constantly overstepping my boundaries.

I didn’t see a future for us.

And so I told him.

I assumed because it was commnunicated that it would be understood….

But once again I was sadly mistaken.

FROM BAD TO WORSE

It was around 2 weeks after we met that I shared that with him I didn’t see a future. I suggested if he wanted to have a casual romantic adventure with me then I was open to that.

He said he understood.

But the next week he started demanding that I message him as soon as I woke up.

He told me how he made me a priority and tried to make me feel guilty because I not doing the same with him.

I didn’t understand. I thought that telling him I didn’t see a future was clear enough.

It was frustrating.

Why were the boundaries I was constantly setting not getting through?

What was I doing wrong?!

It didn’t get any better. Only worse.

Soon the questions started coming about why I had the “message read” sign turned off on my whatsapp…

He started making me feel guilty about every action and decision that I took to protect myself.

When I spoke about male friends his energy would change and he would ask me if I has been with them.

After a month and a half things hit an all time low.

I went to Colombia for 10 days and if I didn’t check in with him he would get very angry and confrontational.

When I reminded him we were not in a relationship he told me he was doing it from love. “Wouldn’t you worry if I was away and didn’t reply to you?”

Erm…no. No I wouldn’t.

The purpose of this journey to Colombia was for healing but somehow he was making it all about him.

I recognised that his behaviour was too much and I asked for space so that I could focus on the work I was there to do.

Did he respect that?

No.

He completely ignored my request for space, sending me songs every morning. He would alternate between apologies and blame when I didn’t reply.

I felt like there was no escape from this man.

It was asphyxiating.

By this time I was reading the signs.

But because his behaviour alternated between extreme control and extreme humility, I still thought that maybe he just needed more reassurance from me.

Looking back, a part of me blamed myself for his extreme reactions.

This is a typical response between narcissist- empath. The empath blames themselves and the narcissist blames them too.

THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN

By this time I was seeing many red flags. But the final nail in the coffin came after a weekend away for his birthday.

During the weekend away he told me how he was going to speak with the doctor to see if he could reverse the fact he couldn’t have children.

We had been seeing each other for 3 months…

We had never spoken about having children together…

On the way home we stopped in a forest for some forest bathing and we got onto the conversation of a romantic night I had spent with someone the year before.

He went ballistic, saying that I had deliberately hidden information from him.

I felt very uncomfortable but as he was driving us home, I felt I had to stay in the car.

When we got home he offered me a massage to make amends (…!)

But the oscillation between extremes continued.

As he was massaging me suddenly he exploded “you’re so selfish. You’re lost in your own world and are not even thinking about me. You haven’t even noticed that my hand’s hurting”.

This was becoming a common occurrence. To offer me something and then use that against me to make me feel guilty and selfish.

This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The illusions were shattered.

Finally, the clarity had arrived.

I wasn’t safe to be with him.

The very next day I ended it.

And so began the next ordeal…

THE BREAK UP

“You broke up with me just for that?!”

“You never loved me”

“You played with my emotions”

He was genuinely shocked and unable to see how his behaviour had caused any of this.

Instead he turned it all round on me as he had done the whole relationship.

But by this time his words couldn’t touch me.

Because I recognised he was mentally unbalanced.

There is one thing I have learnt about narcissists. They are unable to accept that there may be parts of their behaviours that is narcissistic.

That is why it’s best not to use labels when explaining to them: because they use the label to turn it around on you.

“YOU are the narcissist”.

When he said this to me, I took it to my psychologist.

Was I the one who had been out of line?

She reassured me that if someone calls you a narcissist, and you are able to consider that it might be true, then you can rule it out.

In fact, it´s likely that you are an EMPATH, and that you ATTRACT narcissists because of your kind, gentle nature.

I feel fortunate to have escaped relatively unscathed.

I just receive the occasional message laced with judgement and blame from time to time.

But that only serves as a reminder that I am well out of that situation.

From this whole adventure I learnt the following about entering a new relationship with someone:

❌Your intuition is never wrong

❌If someone oversteps your boundary the first time you have sex, run a mile.

❌If you boundary is overstepped again and again, what the hell are you doing staying in that relationship?

❌ the way someone criticises others behind their back is the way they will criticise you behind your back. You’re not special

❌ breaking up with a narcissist is an ordeal in itself, but stay strong. When the torrent of abuse starts coming, just smile and wave 🙋🏼‍♀️

TO CONCLUDE

And so, that concludes my adventures with narcissists.

…I hope…

Even though it was tough, and I doubted myseld a lot of the time (am I really a bad person?!), ultimately it led to my empowerment.

When you’re lonely you are more likely to take breadcrumbs of love.

Especially if you have never experienced what healthy love is.

When you are truly happy on your own, you will NEVER AGAIN associate with people who make you feel worse.

If you are currently in a narcissistic relationship then I have news.

That person is not going to change. Even though they are very good at persuading you that they are.

But YOU are able to change.

And remember:

–It is NOT OK to be disrespected.

–It is NOT OK to stay in a relationship that is sapping your energy and your light.

Healthy love BUILDS YOU UP. It doesn’t knock you down.

I have also learnt something else through my years of narcissistic abuse.

It’s something my psychotherapist and I disagree on.

It’s the question of whether or not you should say something as an outsider.

She believes there is no point telling someone they are with a narcissist because they won’t be able to receive it.

They may even turn against you because they are being so manipulated.

I hear this a lot in spiritual circles too.

“Everyone is on their journey.”

BULLSHIT.

If we really care for others and if we really want to fight the darkness that is so potent in the world right now, I believe we have a duty to SPEAK OUT.

If we want to heal the world, then it starts in our communities.

It starts with our friends. With our families.

It is our DUTY.

I am grateful to my dad when he expressed his concern for me during my abusive relationship in 2021. His words eventually helped me see clarity.

That’s why I always make a point now of telling my friends and family when they are being disrespected.

What would be the point of suffering all these years if I am then unable to pay it forward?

Yes it’s scary.

But being rooted in your own truth is EMPOWERING.

And my inner child is held, as I am now the friend that I needed during my own years of abuse.

I hope this newsletter was helpful to you.

If you have been or are in a similar situation, I would love to hear from you.

Wishing you a beautiful weekend.

Love from Abbey xxx

The post More Adventures with a Narcissist first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post More Adventures with a Narcissist appeared first on Abbey Sykes.

That we choose our suffering before we incarnate in order to learn the lessons we need to learn.

I am not disputing what our souls may or may not decide before we are born.

What I AM warning of is the danger of using the shadow side of this belief to stay in situations that ultimately are causing us harm. Read my past article on the dangers of spiritual new age positive thinking here.

I used to buy into this belief.

The result is that I struggled to take about my experience with a narcisst because:

-I didn’t want to speak badly about anyone

-I didn’t want to play the victim

-I believed it was necessary for my growth

The truth is there ARE victims in this world.

And then there are perpretrators.

These are two sides of the same coin.

In order to move out of this dynamic you first have to SEE and UNDERSTAND the mechanics at play.

In this newsletter I wish to talk about a particularly nasty flavour of perpetration called NARCISSISM.

Narcissism is hard to spot and hard to pin down for the following reasons:

–narcissists are very charming

–narcissists are very good at logic and justification

–narcissists don’t show their real side to anyone else but you

They are hard to spot because they are adept at making THEMSELVES out to be the victim of something they perpetrated.

Narcissism is a difficult one to manage because you are brain washed into thinking that everything that narcissist says and does is right.

Meaning that YOU are always wrong.

It sounds ridiculous when you have not been through it yourself.

It sounds ESPECIALLY ridiculous that it can happen to strong, powerful, independent women.

In the meantime these people wreak havoc on your life and relationships, and tell you that you are to blame for it.

It´s very difficult for me to speak about, even years afterwards, because of the brain washing that I received.

But there were clear signs:

• love-bombing
• sudden, extreme changes of temperament
• saying one thing with conviction and later saying the opposite
• believing that they are RIGHT and everyone else is “stupid”
• using logic and “double binds” to make you wrong.
• Talking the talk but not walking the walk
• Holding you up to impossible standards which they don’t follow themselves.
• Making you dependent on them to take any decisions

I thought I would celebrate my 2.5 years of being free from narcissists by sharing my short, intense, devastating story of dating a first class narcissist.

My story of a narcissist

I met by ex partner in summer 2020 at a retreat.

The way we met was so magical.

He was spiritual, musical and into coaching, just like me.

He had curly hair and played the drum.

I thought I had met my soul mate.

After the retreat he came back to mine to stay for a few days until he got his flight back to the UK at the end of the week.

He never went back and that’s how we ended up living together, a mere 5 days after we met.

At first everything was great. I remember thinking I’d finally found someone that loved me in the way I needed to be loved.

The compliments came thick and fast.

He was charming, attentive and said all the right things.

I thought this was it. True love.

I didn’t realise it had nothing to do with love.

I was actually being groomed by a technique narcissists use to win you over.

I remember very clearly the first time things started to change.

We were in Ibiza and his mood changed VERY suddenly. He was a completely different person. He was very angry and he blamed me because I hadn’t wrapped a cable in the way he wanted.

Because it came out of the blue and I’d been spoken in the same way in the past, I blamed myself and thought this anger was warranted.

I didn’t realise that I had a pattern of attracting narcissists into my life.

Submitting to him was the start of the downward spiral.

He violated many boundaries and manipulated many situations to make himself the victim and me the perpetrator.

Here are 3 examples of him turning things around on me:

1) Disrespecting my rules. He would leave food on the floor. When I told him that was not OK he went to a lot of trouble to persuade me that I needed to relax and chill out. I believed him (even though he had been living in my home just 2 weeks). He even persuaded me that I needed to do a 3 day Vipassana in my room (where I had to be in silence and meditate…but he would come in every day to talk to me whenever he was bored).

2) Making me feel there was something wrong with me. I’m usually up at 6am so when I came into my own bedroom needing something he would tell me I was too much and that it was stressing him out. (…after living in my home for just 2 weeks).

3) Terrorising my pets. He would chase my cats around the house until they were terrified. When I told him this was not OK he turned it around on me saying I needed to support him rather than judge him. He ignored my boundaries and did it again. The next time, seeing that my cat had defected on the kitchen floor out of fear, was the final straw. I was able to connect with my righteous anger.

But still things were declining.

I started to become very confused.

He told me I wasn’t remembering things correctly.

He persuaded me to think that I wasn’t good with people.

I remember thinking “I used to be so good with people…what has changed?”

He made me think that all my decisions were wrong and that I needed to consult him before talking any decision.

Whenever someone spoke to me badly he would agree with them, giving me no empathy and listing all the reasons why I was in the wrong.

Things went from bad to worse when he started involving himself in my finances. He persuaded me that it was stupid to have my life savings in a fund and that I should hand a large amount over to him to invest in crypto. He would be my crypto manager.

He was 26 and had no experience in crypto.

So I handed it over because I TRUSTED him so implicitly.

He had promised to manage it and I had believed him.

But then every time I asked how it was doing or to see it, he would talk back with frustration and resentment. He told me it was my job to make him sit down and look and it.

Around the same time we had the idea to open up a “spiritual centre”. The initial plan was to have a small place to play music and do some shamanic activities.

The idea quickly grew as each commercial space we looked around got bigger and bigger.

Eventually the idea got so big we realised we would have to bring other facilitators on board to lead the classes.

His idea was that we were creating a community that would eventually buy land and be self sufficient.

I wasn’t so excited by the idea but I just wanted to do what he wanted to do.

I had him on a pedestal thinking that he KNEW the way and that I didn’t.

Very soon after Jenny came onboard to join the founding team and help us with Finances (although she ended up supporting with much more than that).

And that’s how Anahata was born. But at this point it had a different name: Temple of Ra.

I put all the investment into the project.

Despite this, he persuaded me and Jenny that he needed to have a monthly salary because he was the CEO. We didn’t get anything.

He told me I couldn’t be involved in the interior design because I had no experience and I would slow the project down. So he brought a friend of a girl he met on a dating app to do that. And expected them both to be paid (from my investment).

During the renovation I started to feel something wasn’t right. Our chief engineer, Dani, messaged me to ask if everything was OK because he hadn’t received an answer from my partner for 10 days.

The rent of Anahata was 4k a month, so not moving on with the project for over a week was a loss of over 1K.

I felt this deeply because I was the sole investor.

When I asked him why he hadn’t replied he said “there is nothing to reply to”.

At that point I realised that things were taking a drastic downward turn.

He started paying a business coach 300€/hour. Apparently she connected with the universe to say if something was a right or wrong decision. Every small decision, including the placement of lightbulbs, he needed to check with her.

Everything was spiralling out of control.

In summer 2021 we went to the Rainbow Gathering. On the way back he started screaming at me, calling me his “doormat” and other abusive terms.

At that point something clicked inside of me.

I told him he was getting out at the next town.

I left him in a carpark and told him to make his own way home.

He kicked the car door and refused to return my ipad.

In that moment that pedestal came crashing down.

I saw him for what he was -a scared little boy – and I drove away.

It was on that drive home, having just broken up with the project´s father, that the name Anahata came to me.

I wanted everything we did to be heart based.

The next day I met with Jenny and asked if she would be up for carrying on the project just the two of us.

She absolutely did.

And that is how Anahata was born.

What did I learn from being with a Narcissist?

Those 11 months were tough and I am grateful to have come out the other side.

I saw 3 things about myself; some things that need to change, and somethings that remind me how strong I am.

1) I saw the pattern I have of justifying staying in situations that are harming me because “it’s good for my growth”. I realise that, yes, it was good for my growth, but only AFTER I had seen it and had extracated myself from the sitation.

2) I have a well of inner strength! As soon as I saw what was happening, I was able to walk away. EVEN THOUGH he was the person I (believed) I loved most in the whole world. I´ll always be grateful to be inner strength and the courage it took me to do that and to be firm that he would not be part of Anahata anymore.

3) I saw afterwards that the signs were all around me, I just didn’t want to listen to them. There were so many signs – from things people said, to changes in my own temperament, to the way people reacted to him. I just wasn’t in a place to accept it.

And that brings me to the most important question of this newsletter.

Just because someone is not in a place to hear something you have to say, does it mean you shouldn’t say something to them?

There is an argument that everyone is on their own journey. That we shouldn’t interfere and that they are learning the lessons they came here to learn.

After everything I have lived through, I actually believe that to be a very damaging belief.

It justifies us not having the difficult conversations.

It justifies us not taking action to support others when they are vulnerable.

And if taken to its macrocosmic conclusion, it justifies us staying silent during a genocide.

I have a friend who is with a narcissist and I didn’t say anything at the time. I regret that so much now. I see how much they are suffering, how much their health has declined and how worried their families are.

I wish I had said something.

Not to be right or even because I believe I could have even changed the situation.

In fact I genuinely think she would NOT have been able to receive my words and would have got angry.

But I wish I would have said it anyway so that in her moments of doubt, in her moments of questioning, she would have had one voice that she trusted in her mind saying “this is not OK.”

We live and learn.

My psychologist always tells me one thing about Narcissicism.

She tells me that ultimately labels don’t serve for anything.

And she’s right.

A person can know they are with a narcissist and accept that about them.

Another person can witness the suffering that a Narcissist creates and enable and justify that destructive behaviour.

It’s not so much about the label.

But about connecting with how that person makes you feel.

Do you like the way they talk to you?

Do you like the way they treat you?

If the answer is no, then something needs to change.

And you have the power to do that.

The first step is to SEE it.

I hope this article was useful to you.

Wishing you a beautiful weekend,

Abbey

The post How narcissistic abuse healed me first appeared on Abbey Sykes.

The post How narcissistic abuse healed me appeared first on Abbey Sykes.