Greetings Everyone,

Dragon Heart here. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to contribute to this blog as a guest. I can appreciate where you are all coming from and where you’re at. I’ve been there too. I thought I’d start with posting something I wrote almost 15 years ago when I was frantically searching for answers and had begun to put together a list of what I found.  I needed this list so I wouldn’t forget and fall for the lie over and over any more.

I called it “What I’ve Learned About Narcissists So Far” and I’ll post it here just as I wrote it then: (thanks for reading, I hope it helps you.)

Change is inevitable … Progress is optional.

~Jack Welch

This is a statement not only about business, but also about life’s ups and downs. Wholeheartedly, it is my belief that it isn’t what happens to us that matters most, it is how we respond to things that have happened, especially if the circumstances are qualitatively negative.

As I struggle with my own version of the annual Holiday Blahs, I’m also working out ways to overcome them. It isn’t worth the time wasted to slip into a funk that permeates the atmosphere of joy for the loved ones who now surround me and it’s  too much work to fake it.

The only alternative is to change my viewpoint.  Even if there were no others for me to affect, switching my focus to a more positive view is essential for me to reassemble my life.

A pearl of wisdom was delivered while watching the thought provoking movie, The Matrix, last night.  I don’t recall the exact scene, but the words caught my attention. They went something like this:

You must choose between the past that lies before
and the past that lies ahead

It’s that time of year again.  We’re supposed to be festive and joyful.  Our families and friends bring us close and we’re all cheery, right?

I recognize that attitude is everything.  Every day I have a choice about how I respond to stimuli in my environment.  I can choose to meander off into emotional gloom or sunshine .  Aside from the holidays, it is very easy to flush my feelings of disappointment down the drain and recenter my inner peace.

It could be the fact that a friend of mine died suddenly just before Thanksgiving.  She was younger than me.  It could be that her death reminds me of unaccomplished dreams and goals in my life.  It could be that I miss my mother … whose death and funeral memories are all tangled up in the final betrayal that I experienced at the hands of a Narcissist.

Although I take full responsibility for every choice that has brought me to the life that I know today, I continue to stumble over the hurdle labeled acceptance.  Accepting responsibility for one’s part in a drama is very different than accepting the disappointment that resulted from those decisions.

I’m a big fan of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion show.   There is a segment of each broadcast entitled News from Lake Wobegon, wherein Garrison pokes fun at Minnesota styles and behaviors.  Similar to Monty Python’s jesting about the Masons, Lake Wobegon news pokes fun at religious sects.

This week’s program was live from the Minnesota State Fair.  This is an annual program that I truly enjoy because it is a great fair and, by reports from folks in other parts of the USA, perhaps one of the largest in the entire country.  During the Lake Wobegon portion of the show this week, Garrison Keillor explained the reasons why someone should not hire Lutherans (I’m just paraphrasing and truly do not mean to disrespect to any Lutherans among my readership!) as competition judges at the fair in his segment of the show.  He said:

It’s in scripture!  The last shall be first, the first shall be last.

Time may or may not heal all wounds but I honestly can’t describe my present frame of mind any better than this awesome song by Carrie Underwood.

If you’d like to pick up some of her heart-felt and beautiful music at Amazon, check out this link.

Days of festivals and parades are supposed to be fun.  Like my cat, who is disturbed by the noise, I stay in a back part of the house so as to be less affected by Lumberjack Days.
 
As I worked in my office, it occurred to me that there was only one “kind of” happy parade day experience for me here.  It would have been a perfect day had it not been for the upset from the night before with someone who couldn’t remember an agreement he had made with me after blowing off our 4th of July holiday plans that year and scheduling something else in conflict.  Of course, he didn’t inform me of this until all my other friends had plans of their own…   
 
It was always about what he wanted to have and, no matter how much I gave him, it wasn’t ever enough.  This is a Narcissist’s claim to fame, so I later learned.

In a recent discussion, a friend of mine opined about my Narcissist. I heard myself saying that, if he was such a loser, why did his life appear to be going along so much better than mine. And, since saying that, I’ve heard a similar thought from another soul who reads my blog. They opined that the good guys do finish last. I have to say, this resonated with me. So the question of the day is: What is success?

It’s plain in retrospect my Narcissist is a thoughtless and empty shell whose only concern is his own satisfaction and gain at any cost. Clearly, this has worked for him all his life. Even though it seemed unconventional given his age when we met, he explained that he lived off his parents because he was an artist and inventor. I later learned he established relationships with women in his youth so he could live rent free which made me feel uncomfortable.