The Erotic View on Narcissism

We talk about narcissism as if it were a fixed, immovable trait rather than a dynamic tendency. And even worse—we ascribe mal-intent. How dangerous that is!

You do two terrible things:

1. You create a monster because people grow into
the way they are perceived, and
2. You create the helpless because people forget they are not at the mercy of another’s behavior.

It’s a mutually-influencing dance: I change you, and you change me. But when you cling to 
a rigid label—especially one so damning—you make it real. You give it power. Call someone something enough, and they become it. Like the old expression: If you believe you can’t, you can’t. If you believe you can, you can.

We developed these debilitating labels as a way to work
through ordinary suffering. And women, especially, fall prey to this. We hurt because he’s not interested—so we call him a narcissist. But in doing so, we fail to see that we have deactivated our own power by refusing to acknowledge our influence.

People are made up of moving parts—many drivers, many motivations.
What we call “manipulation” is, more often than not, an unmet need. A need someone does not know how to ask for directly.
Most often because they feel undeserving.

That is the karmic seed. And from that seed, all kinds of unsavory things grow—from the compensation of entitlement to the quiet sneaking of deception. But the root is always the same: a lack of deserving.

And yet,our prescription is the opposite of the cure.
Instead of healing, we condemn. Instead of meeting lack with understanding, we meet it with blame. “You’re a narcissist!” we shout, when what is needed is deep-listening compassion.

But that would require something of us. That would mean we couldn’t simply label and discard. We would have to
look at ourselves.