Living With Paradox
Making Room For What Doesn’t Make Sense After Narcissistic Abuse
Our minds are reason-making machines. We only have to witness how they bully us into worrying, ruminating or obsessing to understand that. Our compulsive research into narcissistic behaviour trying to understand their model of mind is a classic example.
The greater part of the mindfulness-based therapies is acceptance. And it is acceptance of paradox and uncertainty that is perhaps the greatest part of acceptance. Learning to live with “I don’t know” as well as “I don’t understand”, rather than, “there has to be a reason for this”.
In narcissistic abuse recovery, in addition to our own personal paradoxes, finding a place where we can accept the non-sensical paradoxes of narcissistic behaviour can stretch us way out of anything resembling a comfort zone.
Survivors can grapple for a long time with their own cognitive dissonance - holding two conflicting beliefs at the same time. Our minds can keep us busy all day long and wake us at night with, for example, “how can someone say they love me and treat me with such abhorrent cruelty?”
Some psychologists have answered this for us by telling us that Dark Personalities are not really capable of love. This answer can at least satisfy a reason-making mind, and also relieve us of any further responsibility. But this answer can then lead us into a new dissonance to grapple with if we also hold a belief that all humans are inherently good, or love conquers all. Now, we have evidence to the contrary!
Our minds are such that we also believe we have to settle on what we believe. We have to make a decision. Are things this way or that way? What, in all this is true?
But what if we were able to accept that paradox exists, plain and simple, and there are some phenomena that simply have no solution? What if we were able to drop the mind’s compulsion to find a reason for everything? What if we could drop the struggle against paradox, and simply make room for it in our hearts and minds?
For example:
This person loves us AND hates us.
I love this person AND fear this person.
This person is charming Dr Jekyll AND evil MR Hyde.
This person believes they are being kind AND they are being cruel.
I am feeling completely lost AND I can keep going without giving up.
The ‘acceptance’ referenced in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has nothing to do with any idea of accepting or condoning the diabolical behaviour of the person who abused us. It is more to do with accepting the fact of our traumatic responses – accepting the whole catastrophe.
ACT and Buddhist Psychology teach us that when we are able to stop the internal struggle to suppress or deny the thoughts and emotions showing up after a traumatic event, we are able to reduce our own suffering. When we are able to simply recognise that “this is what anxiety feels like”, and yet continue to move towards alignment with our own values, we make room for positive achievement and improved wellbeing.
This kind of radical acceptance doesn’t usually show up as one giant moment of enlightenment when everything suddenly changes. It shows up in slow, steady, incremental growth in wisdom and maturity.
Namaste.
©Nicki Paull
