Good morning, Queens. It is Christie and we are diving right into it. I am sick, almost getting over this thing. So if my voice sounds a little froggy, you hear a lozenge tapping around my teeth, that's why. And maybe why this is a little late today. Usually I post it by 6:00 AM and it is now 9:15. So sorry for the delay, but hey, better late than ever? All right. So if you've ever left a narcissistic relationship and thought, how did I not see that? How did I stay so long? How did I do this to myself? How did I do this to my children? Why didn't I trust my gut? There were maybe some red flags. Why didn't I pay attention to them? And maybe now you find yourself second guessing everything. Your memories, your instincts, even small decisions like what to get at the store, what to eat, what to say in a text message.
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If this is happening to you, I want you to hear this. You are not broken. Narcissistic abuse doesn't just hurt your heart. It erodes your ability to trust yourself. So today we're going to talk about why that happens and three ways to start rebuilding your self-trust. All right. So I'm your host, Christie Jade. Welcome if you are new here. Say hello. Follow my podcast so you get every episode. It's Tuesdays and Thursdays. And join the Facebook group. It's private and there's women just like you in there that are going through what you're going through and you can chatty chatsky and I post some quotes, sometimes the links to my podcast, and I'm going to start trying to do some mini videos in there. So definitely join that. That is in the description notes. So if you're here, you're probably someone who has experienced manipulation, gaslighting, emotional abuse, maybe physical abuse, maybe financial abuse from a narcissistic person.
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And hold on. I'm going to spit out my laws and you get to hear this lovely. I didn't do video this week because no one needs to see what's happening. All right. So one of the most painful things that happens after a relationship with a narcissist is something people don't really talk about enough. You don't just lose the relationship. You lose trust in yourself. And often we lose a relationship and think, "Oh, I'm going to find this freedom. I'm going to feel so good. This is so hard, but at least I'm going to be free." But that freedom has a little price tag with it. And that is that often we have lost our trust in ourselves and maybe other people, right? But today we're talking about the self-trust that we do lose. And I hear it from clients all the time. I've been through it.
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They say things like, "I don't trust my judgment anymore. I feel like I missed all the flags." Or maybe they saw a sliver, but all the good stuff kind of overrode it and they tried to rationalize it. Then they wonder, "What if I fall for this again?" That's a big question, right? And so I want to unpack why this happens and how to begin rebuilding that trust in yourself because here's the truth. Your intuition was not broken. It was buried under manipulation. Okay? So let's start with why this happens. Because once you understand the mechanism, it becomes much easier to stop blaming yourself because I really ... None of us look good in the blame crown. We want that shiny, gold, empowering crown that we deserve. So narcissistic relationships slowly train you to doubt your reality, right? This often happens through something called gaslighting, which many of you have probably heard of if you're in this narcissistic realm now.
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Some of you may not, but it's when someone repeatedly denies your experience or they twist reality so you start questioning yourself. You might say something like, "That hurts my feelings." And they say, "You're too sensitive," or, "That never happened," or, "You're remembering it wrong. You're crazy. You're way too much." And when this happens over and over again, something very important starts to happen inside your brain. It's a real thing. Your brain begins to think, "Maybe I am wrong." And eventually you start doing something that feels safer in the moment. You start doubting yourself before they can even doubt you. Your brain learns that trusting yourself leads to conflict. Okay? I want to repeat that again. This is something we don't really know when we're in it. Your brain learns that trusting yourself, which you're supposed to do, but it is conditioned to think, which is your reality in the situation, that it leads to conflict.
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And narcissists design that way on purpose. But questioning yourself keeps the peace. It keeps you safe in your situation. So you begin overriding your instincts. You ignore the gut feeling. You explain away the red flags. You tell yourself, "Oh, you're overreacting. You're just sensitive." And over time, this creates a deep wound to your self-trust. So when that relationship ends, you're left thinking, "How did I miss this? " But the truth is you didn't miss it. You were trained to override it. Okay? You didn't miss it. It was there, but you've been conditioned. And that conditioning takes some time to undo, but it can be done. Okay? So the three self-trust wounds survivors experience. We'll talk about those before we get into, let's fix this junk. All right? Most survivors experience three common self-trust wounds after narcissistic abuse. So the first is constant second guessing, right?
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You question your memories, you replay conversations. You wonder if you're being too harsh or too forgiving. Even simple decisions can feel overwhelming because you're afraid of making the wrong choice. And the second wound is decision paralysis. I'm sure you're familiar with this one. When your confidence in your judgment has been shaken, your brain starts trying to avoid mistakes. So instead of choosing, you freeze. You ask 10 people for advice. You research endlessly. You overthink constantly because part of you is still afraid that trusting yourself will lead to danger as it did in the past, as we mentioned.
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And the third wound is outsourcing your intuition. Instead of really getting calm with yourself, and that's why I'm such a big advocate of prayer and meditation, right? Spending time with yourself and relearning, retrusting yourself. But instead of checking in, you look to others for validation because you don't trust yourself. So what do you think I should do? Am I being unreasonable? Is this normal? And while support is sometimes helpful, healing means eventually coming back to the most important voice, which is your own. And I'm a God person. You don't have to be, but I am going to talk about God here on my podcast because I'm a God person and I relate that your own voice, your intuition to me is the Holy Spirit. So getting connected enough with yourself so that you are open to hearing God's voice.
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So what are the three ways to rebuild that self-trust? The good news is this. You don't rebuild it through huge life decisions first. Okay? We do baby sparkle steps, small daily evidence. Okay? So number one, start with tiny decisions, tiny decisions. And I've done this on some of the somatic healing journeys we go through. I've had a couple people where we go through, we literally envision going shopping together and just choosing things you like because some people are so conditioned. They say they can't even go to a store and pick out a piece of artwork or a new coffee table because they second guess themselves so much because they've been conditioned this way. So somatic healing is an amazing way to recover from this. But anyway, so start with simple questions like, "What do I want to eat this morning? Like what do I really want to eat?
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What would really make me happy to eat right now? Or what actually sounds fun right now?
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Or what would feel good for my body today?" They seem like tiny things, especially to people who haven't gone through this, right? But every time you make a choice based on your own voice, you're sending your brain a powerful message. You're saying, "My preference matters. My voice matters." Self-trust is built through hundreds of small decisions, not one huge one, which is the good news because you can do tiny decisions. You can start with that. So as I mentioned, meditation, prayer goes under the umbrella of number two, reconnecting with your body. So after narcissistic abuse, many people live almost entirely in your head, right? You analyze everything. You think everything through, but your body is actually where a lot of wisdom is held. Your nervous system sends signals like a tight feeling in your chest, a sinking feeling in your stomach, or a sense of calm and expansion, right?
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So learning to notice these signals, right? Stopping and getting in touch with your body. Again, prayer and meditation can be very similar. You're in quiet. You're with yourself. You have no distractions. It's just you and the big man upstairs, right?
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I like to pray first, kind of like, "Dear God, please let me relax and help me not be distracted right now and shine the light on what you would like me to feel and know in this moment." And if there's specific things, you get into that, either in prayer or meditation and notice what's happening to your body. Sometimes your body knows the truth before your mind is ready to accept it. That can happen, right? That's why this somatic work, grounding exercises or simply pausing to ask, "How does this feel in my body?" Can be powerful. I do that a lot. I go, "Okay, if my brain is like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. " Which I had actually a big situation like that recently. Guilt was coming up of saying no to something. And I said, "All right, body, it's time.
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What is my body saying?" And immediately I knew my throat was tight, my shoulders were up to my damn ears. My body was saying, "No, I can't and I don't want to do this. " You have to listen to your body, all right? The body is very, very powerful. We just need to tap into it. All right? So the third thing, keep small promises to yourself.
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Self-trust grows through follow through. Okay? So you make huge commitments or huge, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. " You can set yourself up for a letdown and to worsen the self-trust, right? So a smaller promise could be going for a walk you said you take, right? That self-care. So saying, "You know what? This week, Thursday at four o'clock, no matter what, I'm going for a 10 minute walk. We're talking small commitments. Okay? Next week you can make a 20, a 10 minute walk just to be with myself, to clear my head, to feel my body. It could be speaking up about something small or saying no when something doesn't feel right. Maybe that doesn't have to be a big decision this week, but maybe someone asks you to do a favor and say, Oh, hey, can you meet me up at the church to put together the cupcake, whatever, I don't know, before the bake sale.
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And you are really spread thin and you're realizing you need some more time for you, which is okay. You don't have to be everywhere for everyone. You could say, "You know what? I don't have time for that, but thank you for asking and I'd love to help in the future." Okay? No committing to anything else right now or you're committing to yourself right now or setting a boundary and sticking to it. This could be even with your kids. Maybe you are someone who has some guilt from staying in a bad situation and you feel bad and so you let your kids get away with the lot of stuff and they've been pushing more boundaries lately. And this week your teen is really upset and they think you're the worst because you don't let them do X, Y, Z. Everyone else does this and that, and you always cave.
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This week, maybe you don't cave. Maybe you say, "I love you. I need to do what I think is right for you. " And you can't go to that party when you have a test the next day, whatever it is, setting the boundary and sticking to it. You've got to stick to it. So each time you do that, you're telling your nervous system, "I've got you, baby. I've got you. " And over time, those small moments stack up until one day you realize something amazing. You're not asking everyone else what to do anymore. You're checking in with you first.
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And it's not going to be overnight, but it can happen. Just practice these little sparkle steps, do some somatic healing with me, right? If you take one thing from this episode, I want it to be this, okay? The narcissist did not destroy your intuition. It is not kaboom, boom, bow, gone. They simply taught you to ignore it. They did. They conditioned you. They did it on purpose and screw them, but that's another episode. Okay? Healing is the process of remembering your inner voice was always there. It was always there and it's still there. I always say, right? It's like I have a book called Solid Gold Mama. It's the same kind of idea. We have this solid gold inside of us, right? That's our intuition. That's our Holy Spirit. That's God's word. It's there. It does not go anywhere. You cannot damage or undo solid gold.
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You just can't. It's there. It's beautiful. It gets covered up by dirt. It gets covered up by mud. It might get dinks that pop right back out though. They will pop back out, but you cannot destroy that beautiful solid gold inside of you. And the more you listen to your intuition, the more solid it stays. The more when someone tries to kick it, it can't even get dinked. Okay? Is dink a word? I want to stop saying dink right now. All right? But if rebuilding self-trust is something you're working on, this is the work we do inside my coaching containers, right? Helping women reclaim their peace, protect your power, and rebuild trust in yourself after this abuse. And you can find all the links in the show notes. I do have three programs that are three, six, and 12 months. If you would like to get a taste of this amazing work, there is a one-off call you can do so we can chat, see if it's a good fit, and do maybe a little tapping.
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If you don't know what tapping is, it's so fun.
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We can work on that, depending on how the call goes. Sometimes it's mostly talking. We'll try to fit something in at the end. If it's not a lot of talking, we can have a longer session. It's whatever you need will happen. And you have to trust that. I know that's hard for us, but trust that that will happen. No session is the same. No one session is the same for all my clients and even within one of my clients. I have clients that have been with me for years and none of their sessions are ever the same. And it is amazing work. So when you sign on, we do long-term. In the beginning, it might be a little more talking and some somatic. Some clients come in and where they are, they talk a little and most of the session can be somatic. Or it might be one session, they're really drained and just want to have a quiet somatic session, or they feel really chatty and they want to talk and get out their stuff and then navigate how to work with their co-parent.
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And then the next week we'll calm their nervous system with the beautiful joy ride soul cation. There is so much magic in this work. I just love it. I love it. I love it. Obviously, that's why I do it. So if you're interested in doing one of those calls, whether it's a one-off call or diving right into one of the programs where you do save money, the longer you commit, that's just how these things work, right? All those options are in the show notes. And again, join the Facebook group. There's a boundaries, little freebie pocket guide. If you're not the best at boundaries, there is actually an empowered boundaries course. That's there if you want to check that out. All my stuff's always in the show notes. Okay? And if you have any questions, my email's always there too. FiercemamaC@gmail and you can write me, just say hello.
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I answer every single email myself, which won't be forever. I am getting more emails and more clients and all of that, but while it's there, take advantage of it and say hello and I will write you back directly. All right. I hope you guys have a beautiful Tuesday, Wednesday, whenever you listen to this. And don't forget, Thursday is our Thrive in Five, and that will be a beautiful and related to today's episode, Somatic Healing Experience. So I hope you all can join me for that. So definitely, again, follow the podcast. This is an ongoing journey that every episode builds on the last one. So it's like this stacked journey of joy. All right? I love you guys. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.
