The Passionate Narcissist and Its Compassionate Victim

On some level, we all seem to know that this is all just an act--a game of "Let's Pretend."

How many times have I asked someone about themselves, and I stand there listening to them blather on about this and that about themselves while my own inner conversation with them sounds like this: 

Ahem! What about me? Do you even care about what I'm thinking and feeling, or am I just a giant ear with lips that speak all the right responses that appear to make you the center of my attention? Actually, I can tell you don't care one whit about me except for whatever attention you can get from me...I know this because I'm doing the same thing with you. 

And I blab on and on with the best of them about my own life, and my cats' latest antics.

You and I do care about each other, but when I look at it honestly, I see my caring is to the extent of how whatever happens with you affects me. I hurt seeing someone else in pain, and I feel loss when they cross over. Road kill still makes me wince. I truly don't wish anyone harm--I am benevolent after all--so dark deeds and energy-feeding are not even an issue here. I wish you all the best and most joyful of lives. My point is about how politically correct it is to appear to care, when basically what's really happening is I'm wondering if I'm acting the role of "caring person" convincingly enough.

I know all this sounds cold and hard-hearted. My old parent-teacher-preacher tapes are recycling through my mind yelling at me that that's no way to be. You're being selfish and self-centered, Penny. But I didn't get to where I am--finally pretty okay with myself--without being honest with myself. Tip-toeing around, trying for some warped idea of perfection doesn't cut it. I've learned to temper it all with compassion. I always get to compassionate wisdom in the end of these runs. 

Lately I've been feeling irritated by what I realized was a narcissistic, self-involved-exclusion-to-all-else behavior in the people and world around me. I was ticked off--and that's putting it nicely. I was even experiencing it with my beloved cats--my absolute best friends.

And then I had a shift in perspective. Instead of playing Victim to the other party in these seemingly it's all about me and you don't matter, one-sided interactions, I asked myself, "What gift are you bearing me by being exactly the icky way you are? What aspect of myself are you reflecting back to me that I'm having such a struggle with?"

I hit the clarity jackpot with those questions. Of course, I was internally struggling with the narcissistic aspect of myself! Turns out, my soul is quite a bit of a narcissist, according to the human definition.

My soul--my pinpoint of awareness that I exist--is ETERNAL, and because of that, my divine self knows that no matter what I experience, I will always exist. My soul has no knowledge of consequences or cost. It loses nothing and constantly gains in wisdom and compassion through all its human experiences. It's simply passionately discovering all that I am, and in this Earthly reality, it's using a highly sensitive and feeling temporary human costume to do so. My human form is pretty much a robot--a means to an end--and when it's worn out, it's easily replaceable. My soul delights in me--its humanity--and celebrates me and all our excursions--but I finally now understand that it doesn't mourn me because it never loses me, not really.

"God doesn't love you."

So, my soul is basically a big ol' narcissist. It doesn't care about me or what happens to me. It didn't even love me in the beginning of all this, because it didn't know what love was or that it even existed until it was discovered through its human vehicle. Humans discovered love--this ability to care for and about others--to feel loss. The unconditional love a mother has for her child comes to mind. That old adage seems more profound now: It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. 

Humanity is the compassionate and loving dance partner of its passionate soul. We humans are the experiencers for our souls. We lay down our lives for the soul. Because of the extent to which we had to lower our vibration to take on a biological body, our human facets lost sight of our higher vibrational selves for awhile. We were like the bridegroom in the Song of Solomon, searching all over outside of ourselves for our elusive bride, that missing something, only to realize she was within and always with us through all our trials and joys.

"God loves you."

I remember at the tender age of nine overhearing my grandpa tell my beloved dad that he didn't care about him. Granted, that was all I heard so it probably was perceived on my part totally out of context--but it impacted me hard at the time because it colored how I saw my grandfather. Not in a good way either, because no one was going to say that about my dad and not feel the repercussions! I'm telling this particular anecdote because I realize that my limited awareness at the time equated "God" with being a man--a father figure--and it just went against everything I understood about God and his son and their supposedly loving relationship. Wasn't God supposed to love you unconditionally and care about what happened with you?

I know someone telling you, "God loves you," is supposed to make you feel better, but I've heard it in the midst of heated arguments being thrown out as a desperate means to get the last word in--and in such a way that says, "I don't love you, but there is someone or something else out there that does." It's a bit of a slam, if you ask me.

Frankly, I guess I don't need "God's love." 

The Passionate Narcissistic Soul vs. the Compassionate Empathetic and Loving Human Victim

Everyone and everything around me has been reflecting back this narcissist soul vs. its human victim conflict within me. I have felt this inner revulsion at the word narcissist for as long as I've known the meaning--but not because of it being a reality. I never liked hearing anyone being labelled a narcissist--it's a crappy thing to do to anyone. To me, it was slamming someone in one hell of a jail cell with no hope of growth beyond.

From  the standpoint of: If it's in my life, then I put it there, and I'm the only one that can un-create it--I need to be aware it's there and understand what benefit I'm getting from it being in my life.

Every time I incarnate into a human form, I'm sacrificing my human self to my soul's passionate desires. Most of the lifetimes, I've been unaware of this. I've experienced awful, painful, gritty and sensually traumatic acts--and committed some of those same acts against others. All for the joy of my soul's passionate quest to know thyself. Is it any wonder then that after so long and so many lifetimes of trying to simply survive in such a cruel environment that I might, as a human victim of it all, fall out of trust with myself--with my own soul?

So, all these years of deep and profound introspection, all these words written, have been about learning from the human standpoint, to truly love my own soul--to care about my own narcissistic self.

I am a Body of Consciousness: A Soul, a Human and Master (the Observer who distills all the wisdom from all the experiences). Instead of keeping them separate, I need to perceive it all as one. That way, I have it all...

I've come to the conclusion that I really don't need my soul to love me. It delights in me and accepts me without judgment. I'm celebrated at every turn, and I do know that my soul experiences gratitude for all its human has experienced for it. To the soul, there really is no such thing as forgiveness. Forgiveness is but a human stepping stone to the soul's eternal gratitude--a profound gratefulness for all parts played, whether right or seeming all wrong. Maybe, just maybe, we're now on the same page. 

As for this human facet? It's been put through the ringer lifetime after lifetime as the Experiencer for my soul. She's felt so separate--so alone. It feels like it's time to quit trying to monitor and control her. She's no sinner. She's a gift, and it's time I love my human self from that respect. She came in with a limited awareness of who and what she is. She's died and been reborn many times over. She's played the good parts and the bad. She's been terrified and was just trying to survive and handle things the best she knew how. She's explored the heights and the depths of this thing called Love. Just like Job in The Old Testament, she's experienced loss of everyone and everything, over and over and over again.

Through it all, she blessed my soul with these amazing, sensual experiences of love and empathy, along with wisdom and compassion. And it's time for my soul and wisdom (Master) to step up and not let her feel so alone and like such a loser. It's time for me, the human capable of it, to love all of human me...truly.

Who'd a thunk it? I am a narcissist...and I'm okay with that...I'm actually chuckling at a the very idea of it...because, hey, I'm a compassionately loving human, too, discovering what it's like to fall in love...with me...

and ALL that I am!