E085 - Who Am I Now? Finding Your Identity & Independence After Narcissistic Abuse
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[00:00:00] By the end of today's episode, you'll know exactly how to find yourself and your independence again after you've been swallowed up by a narcissistic relationship.
Speaker: Welcome to Heartbreak to Wholeness, the podcast helping you heal from the mindfuck of narcissistic relationships and move towards the secure, peaceful woman you want to become. I am your host, Bre Wolta, Relationship Clarity Coach and EFT Certified Practitioner. Let's dive in.
Hello and welcome back. If you are looking around thinking, who the fuck even am I anymore? Totally lost, unsure, and completely disconnected from yourself, wondering what happened and how somewhere along the way, maybe piece by piece, you slowly disappeared how what you liked became wrong and how what they liked became everything. This episode is for you and I want you to know that you are not broken and you are not too far gone. And We are gonna talk about [00:01:00] how you got to where you are and how to begin to find your way back. So from this episode, you will see exactly how and why you lost yourself in your last narcissistic relationship.
You'll discover how knowing you changes what you let in in the future,
and you'll get one powerful next step to start rebuilding your identity today. And remember to stick around to the end of the episode where I will pull an Oracle card to give you a message that you can use this week to stay more conscious and anchored in your healing.
Okay, so let's start with the obvious question. Why do I feel so lost? Why do I feel like a shell of who I was? Where, when did this happen? How did this happen? Okay, that's a lot of questions, but those are all questions that we're asking when we come out of these relationships. So I wanna put this in a visual context for you, okay? I want you to imagine that you were living pre relationship on this island of you, on this island of you were all the [00:02:00] things that you had cultivated throughout your life that you really enjoyed, that you really valued, that you really desired, that really lit you up.
Okay? Maybe you had all your favorite foods on this island. You had all your favorite friends, those ones that you could have those deep conversations with that really saw you. You had the family members that made you feel loved and supported. You had the hobbies that you loved.
Maybe you liked to exercise, maybe you liked to climb mountains, maybe you like to snorkel. All of these things were available on this island of you. And you were thriving. Maybe you still were looking for pieces to really beef up this island of you, but more or less you were, you were on your island doing your thing.
And then one day you see a boat start approaching your island, and as it's farther away, you're kind of wondering like, is that boat coming this way? Where's it going? Who's on that boat? And as the boat gets closer, you see this man on the, on the bow, I think is the front of the boat. Not [00:03:00] important. The man that's on the front of the boat standing there stoic, like all cute in his little sailor outfit with his charisma just oozing out of his pores.
And he approaches your island with a smile on his face. And as he gets to you, you start to talk and he starts to really excitedly tell you how amazing your island is, how he has loved seeing it from afar. And now that he's up close, he's even more in love with it.
And he wants you to tell him all of the things about this island that are so amazing and. All of the things that you love, and as you're sharing all of these precious little gems with him about who you are and what's on this island, he's taking it in and, and giving you back everything that you've ever wanted to hear, how wonderful you are, how special you are, how much he loves this island, and therefore is in love with you,
maybe that you are soulmates and he knew somewhere deep in his heart that he was going to sail across your island, even though he had not planned on going there. And you're drinking it up, you're [00:04:00] like, oh my gosh, this man, I've been waiting for my whole life. My Prince charming finally arrived on my island.
And then what happens is he starts to tell you about his adventures. He starts to tell you about his boat and how amazing his sailboat is and how it's taken him to all of these amazing places.
And he wants you to go on this adventure with him. He wants to take you to these other places that are so amazing. You have to see them promising you these magnificent volcanoes and these turquoise water lagoons and all of these indigenous people that he's met along the way.
Things that you have really been craving that maybe aren't a part of your island. And so you're like, okay, I can take a quick little trip around the islands and go with him and go on this adventure. And so you, you leave the island of you, you get on his boat and you start to sail and as you're sailing, you're asking him like, oh, I thought we were going to be visiting some other islands.
And he kept giving you promises like, we're gonna get to the island eventually. Just [00:05:00] enjoy where we are now. And as the time started going farther and farther, you're like, I'm kind of sick of this sailboat. Like, when are we gonna get to the place? I wanna do the adventure with you. And he's telling you that you're kind of wrong for feeling that way.
And maybe you should just be grateful that you're on a boat at all since you're out in the middle of the ocean after all.
And it starts to not feel as fun. And the farther away that you sail, the more time that you spend with him on this boat, and the more that he describes the new place as the better place, you start to lose kind of the, the anchoring around why you loved your island in the first place.
You kind of start to think, well, maybe I was really giving my island a little bit more than it was worth,
you start to think, wow, maybe my island really wasn't that great. Maybe those things that I liked really weren't awesome after all. And the farther and farther away you get from your island, the more you start to forget those things that really brought you joy. And the more isolated you get from the, even the people that were there to support you all along.
And inevitably as this relationship continues, you start to piece [00:06:00] together that he's not actually going to take you to another island that the, there was never actually another island that he was going to go to. And so you're stuck on this boat in the middle of the ocean. With this man who has become your literal everything, right?
He is providing the, the basis that you're standing on so that you're not floating or drowning in the ocean. He's providing the little bit of food that he has on the boat and you, your entire self has become with him on this boat
so then what happens when this man abandons this boat, this boat that you're on, that you gave your full self to all of your hopes and dreams. You left all of yourself, all of your island, of you behind when he eventually abandons the boat, which he will because he'll see a, a bigger and shinier boat drive by,
you are left in the middle of the ocean unmoored un anchored. With all of these emotions and no land in sight.
And you're sitting there wondering, how did I get [00:07:00] so far away? This is what happens in these narcissistic relationships. When we get in their boat. They take us away completely from ourselves. They promise something more magnificent, more special, and not just something more, but they start to make you discount what you had.
They start to make you forget the little things that brought you joy. They take you farther and farther away from those things and those people so that you become very isolated in the experiences that you're having and isolated from the people who can help remind you, Hey, you used to live on the island of you, come back home.
And I understand that pain so much. I went through this process when I got out of my last toxic relationship and when I finally closed that door for good, I found myself on my living room floor in tears multiple times trying to figure out why I believed this sailor when he showed up at my island, trying to understand why I stayed on that boat for so damn long, trying to understand what [00:08:00] happened to me. To not be able to stand up for myself and say, Hey, take me back to my island. And if you relate to that, if you have felt those things first, I wanna just say that narcissistic people are skilled manipulators.
Their experience, their reality depends on you falling for their shit. And they're very good at spinning their shit so that you will therefore fall for it. So you're working against an expert here. That's the first thing I wanna say. The second thing that I wanna say is that you didn't know what to look for potentially.
You didn't know what maybe wasn't a right behavior in a relationship, and so if you weren't modeled a healthy relationship, how are you supposed to be able to be in one? We have to learn these skills somewhere along the way. So. That is why I'm so happy that you're listening to this podcast and this episode in particular because when you have lost yourself, you now know a lot of the signs to look for when you start another relationship that will help, [00:09:00] you understand if you're losing yourself again,
But before we can do that, we have to find ourself again. And this is why this work is so, so, so vital to do, especially if eventually you wanna coexist in a healthy relationship.
You need this as the foundation to be able to show up healthfully in a relationship. You have to understand who you are. You have to understand what you need, what you value, what you'll take, what you won't take, what are your non-negotiables, what are the things you're gonna walk away from?
What is, how do you receive love? How do you need love given? You need to be able to understand these things and articulate these things so that you can advocate for what you need with your future healthy partner, and to be able to set boundaries around who you are. We can't, we can't reinforce the area around ourselves if we don't know who ourselves are.
So what are the boundaries? What are the things that you need in order to feel safe, supported [00:10:00] and loved?
We also need to know who we are. We need to find ourselves because we need to be able to align with a like-minded person. We need to be able to be looking for compatibility and not just excitement. Sometimes we confuse chemistry with compatibility and if we don't know who we are and therefore what we're looking for, that's compatible with who we are, we will fall for a lot of the tricks and the things that these narcissistic people do in the love bombing stage to try to hook us in.
So when you are looking at a, at a future person with the understanding of. This is what I bring to the table. I wanna see what you bring to the table, and then I wanna see if this meal's gonna be any good. It's not, well, what are you bringing to the table? And I'm just gonna sit down and eat whatever you're bringing.
It's a much different energy when you show up, knowing exactly who you are, what you're looking for, and who you are gonna align with.
I will give you a perfect example of this. When I first started dating my narcissistic ex, he has a very [00:11:00] chaotic energy. He was very spontaneous and at first I was like, oh my God, I love this spontaneity. I myself am not inherently spontaneous. I like to plan.
I like to know what's happening. I like to things to be predictable. I'm a very type A structured person, so. Seeing his spontaneity. I was really drawn to that. I thought that I, I thought that I had met this person that was finally giving me this missing piece of what I couldn't give myself and what it really was was that he was good at selling his spontaneity.
He was really good at wrapping himself in this, in this beautiful package with this pretty bow and try and, and selling to me that that's what I wanted. And as the relationship went on. It became very clear that that was a huge point of tension in our relationship. His spontaneity didn't jive with my need to plan.
So we got into a lot of consistent fights around the specific thing I. Now, if I had taken the time before this relationship to really figured out who I was and what I needed, what I [00:12:00] wanted, how I operated the type of people that I jived best with, then I would've known that his spontaneity was gonna be an issue.
And not that that has to be a deal breaker, but that would've definitely raised a question in my head and not been this like shiny new thing that I was told that I should desire. So we wanna be able to accurately assess the next sailor that approaches your island of you.
And not just romantic sailors. This is, this is for all relationships. When you know yourself inside and out, then you know who to align with in your friendships and in your work environment. Even choosing the type of jobs that are gonna bring you joy and light you up because you're like, this is what I value.
We are aligned in the things that I value, I need, and I want.
If you're listening to this and you're like, oh my God, I have to do so much work around this, I have to find myself again. This is feeling like such a daunting task. The first thing that I want to offer you is a little reframe in just the [00:13:00] language instead of I have to. I want you to tell yourself that you get to, I get to rediscover myself.
I get to find who I am now, and that gets to be a much more empowering adventure for you as you are discovering, like you get to take all of this energy that you were pouring into your ex, you were pouring into making sure that he took care of himself or making sure that he communicated or trying to fix things.
Like it's so much energy all of the time. You're taking all that energy and you get to redirect it back to you. You get to spend all of that mental energy back to finding you. And if you look at it like dating, right?
We put a lot of energy into dating people. So just dating yourself first. We just wanna put all of that energy into figuring out who the hell you are on the inside.
I had a client once tell me that after she got out of her relationship, she was like, I almost feel like there's a part of myself [00:14:00] who's sitting there twiddling her thumbs like, all right, well, my job's done.
What do I do? And what you do is you pour that energy back to yourself.
And this gets to be a really slow and delicious process. This is not like speed dating. This is like sitting down with yourself, having those quality conversations of who are you, what lights you up, what are the things that you need in your life?
What are the things that you want? It's such a beautiful experience when we treat it with reverence, when we treat it like we're meeting ourselves for the first time.
You can probably tell that I'm really passionate about this part of the process because it really is that foundational part of the process that will allow you to build other relationships on top of it if you don't have a sturdy self foundation. Other things are going to be wobbly. As you begin to build your romantic relationship or your friendships or your family relationships.
So I have dedicated part of my longer term program to this, to helping women understand who they [00:15:00] are to cultivate that. And I've created an entire self-guided course that's like a little bite size of my bigger course so that you can start with this really, really foundational piece. The self-guided course is called Find Yourself.
Again, It's under a hundred dollars. It's self-guided, meaning you can log in, log off, do the modules, do the meditations, do the journaling exercises totally on your own schedule,
and it's that first piece. If you're like, I don't know where the fuck to start in doing all of this stuff, this is a great first starting point. I created it for the specific purpose of giving you a direction to go because when we come outta these relationships, there's so many unknowns and so many things that we feel like we have to do and figure out to have something tangible is so valuable
because I want you to know who you are so that you are not tempted by the sailor who's promising to sweep you away to this promised land that he's going to take you to. I want you to be able to start setting your [00:16:00] boundaries so you can protect your peace, so that you can protect those beautiful parts of who you are, and you're only spending time with people who enforce that and light you up.
And I want you to build your self-worth and build your confidence. So that is what find yourself. Again, the self-guided course will help you do it is under a hundred dollars and I have a code for 10% off podcast 10 at checkout. We'll give you that 10% off.
So instead of going out on a date with someone else, without having sturdy foundation, take that time, take that money, take that energy, take yourself on a date. You're gonna love who you find.
So we're coming up on 4th of July. We're coming up on Independence Day here in the States. What a beautiful way to start to reassert your independence, to start to understand your identity. Then by going through this work, by starting with that first small step.
Okay, so let's pull a card. We're gonna see what the message is that is most vital for the listeners to hear today. [00:17:00] And we got look up, precious. This is a card of a woman. It looks like a woman crying.
Let me find the message in the book and I will read to you what it says. Look up precious shame doesn't live here. Raise your eyes and stand tall. Others may have hurt you or sent you messages that you are not enough. They were wrong. You are enough, you are lovable.
You are whole. Look up. Precious reminds you that you are worthy. No need to cast your gaze down any longer. Raise your eyes and find your balance. Be courageous and be bold. Look around and see your place. Look up. Precious gives you the ability to spin and dance with a 360 degree view of this world where you are perfectly placed and perfectly whole.
Perfect message. All of these are always perfect at the end of these episodes. Really. Really hear that, that you are perfectly placed and perfectly whole. Even if you have lost yourself along the way, you are never broken. You are [00:18:00] never like shattered beyond repair.
These are all opportunities for us to find meaning in an experience and see what we need to change, what we need to heal so that we don't repeat ourselves over and over and over again. Finding the meaning in something helps you to find closure,
So I want you to remember everything that we talked about today. When you start to maybe get a little bit down on yourself for feeling like you do, for feeling like you lost yourself, and maybe even down on yourself for having been in that relationship in the first time, or that it's taking so long to heal.
I want you to remember what we talked about ' cause in this episode, you learned exactly how and why you lost yourself in this relationship, how it wasn't all your fault. You've discovered now how knowing who you are changes the game entirely for who you let in next, and you have your next step to start rebuilding yourself today,
The link to find yourself. Again, my self-guided course is in the show notes. Please, please reach out if you have [00:19:00] any questions.
And please remember that you are so not alone. I'm here for you and I'll see you in the next episode.