Introspection
Dealing with the narcissist beast that lives within.
Look and Learn: level 1
This is at this time of year that I get into introspection so that my heart might be prepared for the coming of the High Holy Days and possibly, our Messiah. This is when I do some "ponderous" thinking. I put myself, on trial to see if there are some things that I do not know about myself that would bring harm to the person I am and to any others around me.
"I am created in the image of YHVH and thus, I am not supposed to be a cunning Beast of the field." This is something I must always keep in the forefront of putting myself on trial. In past sessions with myself, I looked at my occasional bouts with "rage. " And I questioned, where did this destructive "rage" come from? And I realized it is inherited.
Rage is different from anger in that it is "shame based." I grew up in an environment of shame. My mother was a shame based daughter of a home where one of her parents was narcissistic. Narcissists are prone to sexual sin and so there were affairs, which Torah calls “adultery” and as such, is forbidden. It was this sexual sin that kept my mother's, parent’s, home seething with turmoil.
It affected her self esteem, so when she married my father, she brought all that “baggage” into her home. She filled the house with rage, because she had married someone like her own father. When he was away, I caught the brunt of her attempt to deal with the shame that was put upon her.
Both my parents are dead now and I am reconciled to the fact that they gave as good as they got. Their lives are spent but mine is not. As long as I live, I am responsible not to repeat my grandparents and my parents failures, so I live a life that gives Honor to my Creator.
Many people today are full of anger and some, even rage. The “One” who should have been the angriest ”emptied Himself of all but love.” Since He took on our form, it must be possible for us to do the same, but we need a little help by asking for “The Mind of Messiah.” You will know you have that mindset, when you can empty yourself of all but love.
The Milder side of Narcissism – “Rejection Issues”
An "inordinate" need for acceptance and attention, in order to feel good about their selves is a mild form of Narcissism. It is a feeling of entitlement, and having to have special treatment and praise that portrays the fact that one might be some what narcissistic. On any level, being narcissistic is idolatry. Anyone who inordinately cares about how others perceive them and in their own words, they are self aggrandizing, to the point of exclusion of responsibility to those around them is basically being, narcissistic.