Wisdom — Elizabeth Hayes

Recognizing and Surviving Relationships with Narcissists

If you’ve ever known a narcissist — and chances are you probably share your DNA or your bed with one — you’re not in the minority. In fact, in case you haven’t noticed already, narcissists are everywhere. They’re often at the center of many dysfunctional relationships. Perhaps we didn’t recognize these narcissists at first because they’re often charming and intelligent, even kind and caring. If you’re dating them, you may initially believe you’ve won the lottery; if they’re family, they may appear to be the Golden Child. Unfortunately, it’s those who are closest to narcissists that are often the last ones to see them for who they really are.

Elizabeth HayesSeptember 9, 2021life lessons, personal growth, relationships, narcissism, love

Virtual Insanity

At the beginning of every dystopian film, there’s always a story about how a society or civilization reached its breaking point. We have now entered our own dystopian reality. Our lives have been upended, although for many, our daily demands of family, work, school and other responsibilities continue. The world as we know it appears more or less like it had on the surface, yet it has now become an empty shell waiting to be filled.

Into the Unknown

2020 is giving us one huge wake-up call after another. It’s telling us it’s time to confront our fears. As a society, we’ve become adept at not facing reality, seeking out virtual realities in order to escape the painful one and developing detrimental coping mechanisms. It had to be something big like the Coronavirus pandemic to shake us from the somnolence of our complacency.

Fear Factor: Why We Need to Stop Using Fear to Motivate Us

The more conscious we become, the more we can see how fear has been used to manipulate, enslave, suppress, control, and even destroy us. How our primal need for safety and survival has led to our own demise, like lambs to the slaughter. Even if it doesn’t kill us, fear kills our spirit, numbs us to our purpose, and forces us to surrender our power.

Ignoring the Labels: Looking Within to Discover our Self-Worth

So much of today’s world runs on validation, with people seeking it in the number of likes, thumbs-up, friends, followers, subscribers, applause, swipes, matches and media engagements. We’ve been conditioned to believe that our individual worth can be measured by any of these, that such external validation ultimately justifies our very existence.