Question: Could you share your wisdom about narcissism? 

Perhaps it would be nice to answer this question with an image. An image that is sometimes linked to the word narcissism.

Imagine a beautiful person living in a world where there is no mirror at all. A world where the person can experience everything he sees around him with his senses. 

One day this person walks to a beautiful lake. It is a day without wind. The person sits in front of the water and sees his or her reflection reflected in the water. And instantly that is the most beautiful thing this person has ever seen. That image is so intensely beautiful that the person walks back into the world and compares everything to that beautiful image, reflected in the water. 

When you look at the concept of narcissism, it is in itself difficult because almost every person has their own idea of ​​​​what this means. We will not approach this from your psychology point of view, but we want to tell you that it is possible that someone has created a self-image for some reason and that that self-image becomes idealized. You could imagine that a person who exhibits narcissistic behavior in your eyes focuses on the reflection in the water without experiencing the whole human side of himself. 

When you only see the mirror image, it is only an image. If you would see yourself through the eyes of someone else, you would see a person with emotions and feelings, dark sides and sunny sides. A colored Being.

From the point of narcissism you could say that someone has created a self-image in order not to have to come to her or his feelings. Because so much pain is carried that it would mean that there would be a rejection of the self. 

The dualistic here is that someone with narcissistic traits ultimately has the greatest fear of being exposed. In other words, that someone sees that that image which reflects in the water and is so beautiful in its true form could be human. With shortcomings, with shame, with guilt. with fear. 

And to ensure that this is not unmasked, the person will ensure that he or she continues to monitor loved ones and that the image he or she holds up remains visible to almost everyone in his or her environment. However, it is a blank image.

For example, you can imagine that the person does not experience self-love and thus cannot give love to others, because the source of love is filled with emptiness. This often begins in childhood because as a child they had someone in their environment who experienced the same. 

And often people with this kind of behavior attract people who overcompensate in love, who will do everything to give love to the other, at the expense of themselves. People with less self-esteem and also people whose own source of love is not completely filled. You could say that the narcissistic person sees him/herself as the most beautiful in the mirrored image in the water. And that the one who lives with this person only sees the shortcomings of him/herself if he or she would look into the water. This way you have two people who essentially don’t have a full source of love and can’t fill it eachother’s either. Although they are the very ones who wish to receive this from each other. 

What is really needed is that that mirror image is no longer seen as a mirror image, but that the person can actually see himself. In all shortcomings and in the greatest beauty. This applies to both the narcissistic person – as you call it – and the one with low self-esteem. 

The divine greatness of every human being is the infinite source of love that you really are, through which you know who you are in essence, through which you remind yourself what it means to be in love with yourself and for yourself. 

To transform this phenomenon it is necessary that all children can experience a filled source of love in their childhood. Because then such characteristics as narcissism will no longer exist. The wells of love would be overflowing. There is nothing that the other has to give to you or that you have to give to the other in order to be perfect.

It is good to realize that when you meet someone who’s source of love is not filled, you can choose to feel the deepest compassion and at the same time that you are aware that you fill your own source of love completely. Then you are not dependent and do not let yourself be influenced negatively by people whose source of love is not filled. It is important that you stand in your own power, that you know who you truly are and that you can be compassionate towards others.