Joy had been married for 25 years to a narcissist. A part of her knew from the beginning that something was wrong in her relationship. She felt it instinctually as a passing thought and a sadness in her heart, but she was unsure what was true.
As the years went on, Joy began to realize her husband frequently lied to and manipulated her. The untruths started out as white lies but over time became much more obvious and damaging. He was obsessed with power and his own self-importance in an unbalanced and emotionally harmful way. He was a master at subtle and not-so-subtle techniques to maintain control of the relationship and control of her. Joy had married a narcissist.
Joy shared with us the hardship of loving a narcissist:
Honestly, I’ve known this for so long, from the beginning of our marriage. But I never allowed myself to go in there and feel it because I was afraid. He controlled my life to such a depth, I couldn’t even imagine trying to take control myself. Whenever I had a conversation, I never knew if this was a lie or manipulation or real. Every conversation we had was to make him feel right or larger. To fulfill his need to be better than me, to have power over me.
Whenever I told him how I was feeling, he’d just change the story through his lens. I began to doubt myself more and more and lose touch with what was true to me.
Then, Joy met her Soul and opened the communication line to her intuition. She began Soul journaling daily and could now clearly hear the voice of those unsettling instincts she’d felt for years.
At first, Joy focused on the rehabilitation of their relationship. She asked her Soul questions like “Can this relationship be changed?” “Is there anything I can do to bring out the best in my husband?” and “Can I help heal his narcissism?”
Soul answered but with an unexpected solution. Joy came to realize that helping her husband face his narcissistic patterns and healing her own wounds would be achieved only by her leaving. If she made this painful choice, he’d no longer have control over her. He’d have to face a reality he’d been avoiding for 25 years—he never had control over her Soul. She knew this would cause both of them suffering, but it was clear from the unconditional love of her Soul that this decision held the most healing potential for them and their family.
Since leaving her husband, Joy has blossomed into a strong and confident woman who is now discovering the vividness of life being lived on her own terms. “I feel clear for the first time,” she says. “There is a joy in the clarity. It makes me feel strong and have a trust within myself.”
Her relationship to her children and grandchildren has opened to new possibilities as well. Joy describes it this way: “As I was playing and interacting, I noticed how much more open and happier I was. My head wasn’t cluttered with stress, thinking about what my husband wanted from me. I was free, clear and open to just be in the moment and take in totally who my granddaughter and children really are.”
We recently received an email from Joy that is a testament to her inner work and progress. “I am not even sure how I got to this point,” she wrote, “but for the first time in my life I am no longer emotionally controlled by another human being. That is true freedom! I really feel good, incredibly strong, peaceful and know I can make the right decisions and choices for myself along the way!!”
It can be heartbreaking to receive guidance from Soul to leave a relationship behind. Even though we may be aware it’s necessary for our own healing and perhaps even the most loving way forward for all involved, we may still feel guilty about abandoning others. It’s helpful at these times to remember what the path of consciousness entails. Consciousness is awareness of what love is and isn’t: we become aware that our beliefs and actions are coming from fear instead of love.
This growing consciousness can be unsettling, but if we choose to ignore it, we’ll have to exert extra energy to repress the newfound knowing. Pretending to not know what you’re now aware of is an exhausting task. Repression saps up vital energy that could be better used nourishing our new Soul-aligned life; it halts our growth. When we finally acknowledge what we’ve been denying, we disengage from our internal battle and are free to expand into the whole of our awareness.
Jung’s battlefield for consciousness
In his memoir Memories, Dreams, Reflections, the pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung likened this process to being on a battlefield for consciousness. On our journey toward consciousness, a fellow comrade might fall. This could be a friend, family member or other loved one who falls prey to addiction, trauma, neurosis or any wound that brings their personal growth to a halt. Because of their wounds, our comrade can’t go on.
If we stay by their side in their final hours, while the battle rages on around us, we may also perish in the shrapnel of unconsciousness. It’s likely then to be the end of our own journey as well. Yet, if we choose to continue our journey instead of sacrificing ourselves, we must face the heartbreaking grief and guilt of leaving behind someone we love.
Do we sacrifice our own well-being and tend to the wounds of our comrade? Or do we allow ourselves to experience the pain of heartbreak so that we can survive and live to love another day?
We appreciate that this isn’t a simple hypothetical. Jung recognized that by leaving someone behind, we may appear uncompassionate. And even if it’s necessary for our well-being to leave, doing so may cause us great grief. Jung understood that sometimes the most loving choice is a painful one, but ultimately a choice we must make anyway. If we choose to stay, we may be sacrificing our chance to fulfill our intended destiny.
Truth breaks us open to soul
Soul’s love is always unconditional, but that love may show up in many different ways. At times it may be socially appropriate, but at others, it’s unbridled. In one moment Soul’s love may take the form of a hug and a long conversation, but in the next, it may roar like a mama bear protecting her cubs.
Love shows anger and even expresses feelings of betrayal when the people we care about are suffocating their connection to Soul and harming themselves. This frustration doesn’t come from an egoic reaction but from a commitment to the higher Soul lessons and love contracts. Every Soul-fuelled emotion, even difficult ones, emerges from deep wisdom and a sincere hope for everyone’s ultimate healing.
Every Soul-fuelled emotion, even difficult ones, emerges from deep wisdom and a sincere hope for everyone’s ultimate healing.
We can rest in comfort knowing the opposite of co-dependency is clarity in one’s own authentic Soul. Soul doesn’t live within a set of rules—who we “should” be, how we “should” act, what we “should” or “should not” say.
In fact, identifying as “a spiritual person” often gets in the way of Soul truth. Spiritual perfectionism has caused many people to ignore their intuition in favour of a set of abstract rules because of the belief that “a spiritual person would do this” or “a spiritual person would never do that.”
To radically listen to Soul, we must leave behind all conventions of who we “should” be to discover who we were all along. This means letting go of the egoic need for approval and setting free the untamable nature of our truth.
We may be afraid of hurting the people around us—and ourselves—if we claim our Soul’s truth. But in the end, Soul truth is where love resides. As long as we keep ourselves separated from what we really want and need, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to know, and show, the meaning of unconditional love.
We can’t predict the consequences of speaking our Soul’s truth. Truth may cause pain; truth may birth a new appreciation for another; truth may break our relationship; truth may lead us away from another, only to bring us back later; and truth may inspire a union for a lifetime. No matter the immediate consequences, Soul truth always leads us to a life of authenticity, a confidence in ourselves and a love beyond measure.
We tell ourselves many stories, but only the Soul has access to the full story of the truth. Every day when we dialogue with Soul, we strengthen the inner connection to truth; and truth, as we’ve said, is the first step to true love.
Tough love inquiry: 9 questions for the Soul
This Soul dialoguing inquiry investigates the subtle or overt ways that co-dependency can hide in a relationship. Co-dependency is fear-based love; it’s unconscious love that doesn’t know itself. Talking to Soul is the best way to transform co-dependency into consciousness.
By asking your Soul for information through the following nine questions, let’s begin to transform co-dependency into clarity and love.
- Is there anything in my relationship I’ve been avoiding saying?
- If so, why? What am I afraid of?
- Is this a realistic fear? What will be the likely outcome if I say it?
- Is there a way my Soul wants me to say my truth? Any specific words or phrases it wants me to use?
- Are there any ways I feel responsible for others that come from co-dependence and not from my Soul?
- Are there any relationships, or behaviours within my relationships, that are energetically and emotionally draining? Are there any of my own values, needs or boundaries that I’ve been denying or avoiding?
- Is there anything Soul wants to tell me about how to clear any co-dependency in my current relationships?
- Are there any ways I’ve been carrying problems for others that I can shift into support of those people instead of co-dependency?
- How can I bring more Holy Love into my relationships?
Elisa Romeo, MFT and Adam Foley are the authors of Holy Love: The Essential Guide to Soul-Fulfilling Relationships and cohosts of the Holy & Human Podcast. Together, they help individuals awaken and deepen their soulful nature within relationship. Visit them online at www.holyandhuman.com.
Excerpted from the book Holy Love: The Essential Guide to Soul-Fulfilling Relationships. Copyright ©2022 by Elisa Romeo, MFT and Adam Foley. Printed with permission from New World Library—www.newworldlibrary.com.
