🎙️ Still Doubting Yourself After Narcissistic Abuse? Here’s How to Break the Cycle Are you stuck second-guessing yourself, even after leaving the narcissist? In this episode, I’ll show you how to break the guilt loop and start trusting yourself again. 👑 Resources & Links Mentioned in this Episode ✨ Freebie: Grab your Boundaries Pocket Guide here → https://www.facebook.com/groups/2420729361374989 💻 1:1 Coaching: Ready to go deeper? Work with me privately: Reclaiming You Session (90-min deep dive) → 00:00): Ever catch yourself replaying arguments in your head, wondering if you overreacted or feeling guilty for protecting your peace. That's not because you're broken. It's because narcissistic abuse trains you to doubt yourself. So today I'm going to help you break that cycle, rebuild that self-trust and step into the peace you deserve. Have you finally broken free from that narcissist creepy crawly web, but still feel stuck in fear? Wish you could trust yourself again and take your life back. Well, you're in the right place, queen. I'm Christie, wife, mom and narcissistic abuse recovery coach. I've walked the messy road, wasted money on the wrong therapist and dry advice, and had to come to Jesus moment to get me here to feel free. I had to reconnect with me, set boundaries that stuck and find healing methods that actually lasted. Now I've created a plan that's empowering, doable, and yes, even fun because I'm sparkly and fun. (01:07) So of course it's going to be fun. So if you're ready to break cycles, reclaim your peace and trust yourself again, this podcast is for you. So steep, that chamomile tea, silence, all that crazy chaos out there, and let's cue your royal glow up. Alright, queen, let's get real. One of the biggest wounds after narcissistic abuse is the constant questioning of yourself. You say no to someone and then you lie awake at night thinking, was that too harsh? Should I have said yes? You might block their number and then feel a rush of guilt. Just this overwhelmingly off feeling in your body. You're not alone. Here's why. Narcissists actually condition you to doubt yourself through their gaslighting. If you don't know what gaslighting is, it's when they make you question your own memory, your own feelings, or even your sanity. So this is a real thing, and over time you start second guessing everything, even after you've left them. (02:19) The echo of that doubt, it still lingers, but let me remind you that echo, it's not true. This is not your truth. It's programming that we can undo and we can rewrite. So let's talk about the guilt aspect. A lot of you in my community and my Facebook group, whatever, if you're not in that, by the way, go to the show notes and totally click the link and join us. Said guilt is what holds you back. You're finally setting a boundary or you go no contact and that wave of guilt hits. Here's the truth though, guilt doesn't always mean you're wrong. I'm going to say that again. Guilt does not always mean you're wrong. Sometimes it's just an old alarm system going off because you did something new and different than the old you would've done to stay safe, right? This new you is feeling weird doing something different even though it's the right thing to do and it's okay to do and you shouldn't feel guilty. (03:31) That old self did it to feel safe. So you are comfortable in that feeling, right? In the saying yes, in the people pleasing and the walking on eggshells, and now you're like, I got to stop doing this. So we're not doing it. And your body's just taking a little time to catch up. Okay? So think about it. If you were raised or conditioned to believe your worth was in pleasing others or this specific person, then standing up for yourself will feel unnatural at first, right? That makes sense. But that guilt is a sign that you are breaking these maybe even generational patterns. That's some bad ass shit, queen. Okay? You are rewriting your story. That guilt shows you are changing for the better. So the next time guilt shows up, instead of asking, am I a bad person? Try asking yourself this. Am I protecting my peace? Am I acting in alignment with my healing? And that's okay to do. Absolutely. It's not wrong. It's actually right. It's the right thing to do is to have peace and love and be peace and love and heal these wounds we have, right? Flip that script. (05:00) So here's where we start breaking the cycle for good, rebuilding yourself. Trust this. A lot of you have this issue I did too, right? Rebuilding after you've gone through abuse and been betrayed. Okay? So there's three key steps you can do. There may be more, but these are some good starters. Okay? Number one, a daily check-in. So one of the tools I swear by, and you may have heard it already, I talk about it a lot, I love it. It's simple, but really, really successful is a hell yes, hell no list. So you can write down what feels good in your body and life and what drains you. Writing it down is huge. Don't just think about it, write it down. When you make choices from that list, you start training your brain to trust your own signals again. So if you're writing what's really working, be very honest in this exercise, what's really working the hell yes side and then what is not working and then making a decision based off either side. (06:16) It can be like the hell yes list. Maybe you have been making occasional even self-care going to get your nails done or taking a relaxing bath. You could even do something to that effect. Adding more of that, right? Making that choice going, Hey, I know that makes me happy when I do that, so why don't I try to do more? And then you'll notice, of course you will end up feeling better and better. You take even more steps to exercise a little bit every day, get your body moving, whatever it is, you'll know that you trusted yourself enough to give yourself more of that self-care. Then on the other side, which I feel like a lot of my clients and myself, when I started, I loved getting those hell nos off the list. So making choices to get rid of the hell nos. One of mine was even just let's say, so look, I cut a narcissist out of my life and then I realized I had a couple friends that were also controlling. (07:26) Maybe I won't go as far as narcissists, but there were traits, but also just controlling, manipulative. I kind of felt like I to, I was almost afraid of them in a way. I had to answer the phone. So one of my big things for me, my hell no, was I feel like I always have to answer to people on the phone in general. So I'm going to stop doing that. Do you know what a lifesaver that was? And I realized I was in touch. I paid attention to my body, listened to my body, like that visceral reaction when the phone would ring and I'd be like, oh God, but I'm doing this, but I have to answer. Or they might get mad at me or this or that. So paying attention to my body, saying, my body's telling me it speaks to you. So listen to your body. (08:12) My body's telling me that this isn't healthy, that I'm making myself at a beck and call to people. So that helped me. I mean, there's many, many more things on the list that helps you build the self-trust. But that even shows, right? You can start to be like, oh, I listen to my body and now look, I feel so much better. And that reinforces your self-trust. And that's a small example, but hopefully you get it. Okay. Number two, nervous system regulation. So again, listening to that body, the nervous system is a very big symbol of how we are mentally, physically, and spiritually. So when fear or doubt pops up, your body doesn't always know the difference between actual danger and discomfort or what it thinks is danger. So a quick grounding practice can put your hand over your heart, take a slow breath in through your nose, out your mouth. (09:18) It's called a halo breath and name one thing you know is true right now. What is true right now. And this helps your body calm down. So you can tell the difference between fear and intuition. And I teach you all my clients when we do one-on-one work, I teach you all of this stuff and we customize these exercises for you. So if you're like, that sounds great, but I don't really know what to say or do, we can work on the hell yes, hell no list together for you to really get clear for foundation. And then we also do these somatic healing exercises together. And then you get these tools that you can take on your own as well. So always look on ways to work with me one-on-one in the link in my show notes. Alright, number three, redefine normal. So one of my clients shared about not even knowing what a normal relationship looks like after her abuse. And I hear this, this is not the first time, but it's something I heard more recently again, and it's a good reminder. So let me say this. Normal doesn't mean perfect, but normal can mean, should mean safe, respectful, and consistent. And maybe you want to write those down. So if you are entering a new relationship in the future, or maybe you're in one now, depending where you are in your journey, safe, respectful, consistent. (11:02) If someone messes up, they apologize and they don't just apologize, okay? We're not going to take just words anymore. They must follow up with a changed behavior. So the people who apologize and give lip service but no changes next, and they don't give excuses, they might give a reason, but not excuse it, not be accountable. They show accountability and they make the changes. So that's a good start as the baseline. Okay? Safe, respectful, no name calling. There shouldn't be yelling. I will tell you right now, do my husband and I ever disagree? Yeah, we're literally opposites. He's an introverted, logical, just solid rock, right? I'm an A, DD, extroverted, wild, hyper nugget. (12:11) I am extra all around. Somehow he married me and we really balanced each other out. But do w
