When at a young age there’s either abuse or neglect (explicit or implicit), the finely attuned baby internalizes that he is not loved or welcomed by life..

For our Mother represents our first relationship with life..

We were born within her, through her and NEED to be nourished and held by her if we want to survive.

Narcissistic traits begin therefore as a little boy’s way of coping with the profound pain of feeling left out by his mother.

His heart must be hidden away and self “love” (self-centredness) magnified as a means to constantly reassure himself that he is okay, that he is good and worthy of being alive..

This goes hand in hand with a profound resentment towards women at large – which shows up as either nice guy behaviour (covert manipulation, anger and frustration) or “asshole” behaviour (overt objectification, putting down, using and abusing.)

His mother’s absent love was the source of his primordial disconnection from life so he spends his life getting back at her through the women he meets – unconsciously trying to leech the feminine energy out of every woman he meets in attempts to fill in the void that his mother wound left.

The lack of healthy, nourishing feminine energy in his developmental years becomes his lustful, unquenchable thirst that grasps and destroys all that is feminine. (emotions, women, nature, life.)

So he uses women.

He takes from them, yet no matter how many women, how beautiful they are or how much they are willing to do or give to him – his is a bottomless void that cannot be externally satiated.

Narcissistic traits are 3 things at the core:

1- A profound disconnection from life

2- An unconscious resentment towards life that shows in the objectification of all life forms (including himself)

3- Self-glorifying tendencies as an anxious attempt to tell himself “I’m good enough” “I must be worthy of being loved, look at how great I am.”

So… what to do with all of this?

If you’re a woman and you are (have been) in relationship with a guy who expresses such tendencies, there’s A LOT of work for you to do in owning the wound you carry that is a perfect match to his.

Like sh!t to the flies, you’re bound to these type of men.

Blaming him, judging him, shaming what he does and does not do won’t move you an inch closer to a healthy relationship. In fact, you’re bound to bump into similar guys over and over until you become aware that there’s a part of you that seeks (although unconsciously) this dynamic.

Yours is a wound of deep rooted worthlessness, and the need to be there for others (saviour complex) as a second grade solution to secure connection. (You seek to be needed, to heal broken men, to ensure you won’t be abandoned.)

It’s a lot more complex than that but in essence, you must start with personal responsibility:

It’s not your fault he is/was like that.

But it is up to you to figure out WHY you chose to date him and to be responsible for all that came out of that.

And if you’re a guy (and want to become a Man) and have enough awareness to start to feel that your narcissistic tendencies may be destroying your life, start by exploring your relationship with your mother.

Especially throughout your younger years.

Do whatever it takes to honour her, forgive and accept her.

From the heart; not the mind.

Embracing all she was and wasn’t (no longer merely enduring it.)

And watch how all your other interactions with women start to blossom into a different quality (and how your life and experience of love becomes, for the first time perhaps, available and free from toxic drama / nonsense.)

One thing is certain:

You must do your work if you desire to ever feel at peace with life.

The alternative is to slowly alienate yourself from the world as you destroy everything and everyone you touch..

Until there’s nothing more to destroy than your self.

And when day comes,

know for certain

that life won’t spare you.