Saturn Returns with Caggie - *Moments* What is narcissistic behaviour? With Florence Given

Episode Date: November 20, 2022

Artist, Sunday Times Bestselling Author and podcaster, Florence Given, is the guest on Saturn Returns this week! In todays ‘moment’, you’ll get a sneak preview of Florence and Caggies' conversation about abusive relationships, the reason why some people harbour narcissistic characteristics, and why empathy without boundaries gives energy to unacceptable behaviour. The main episode, which goes live tomorrow, touches upon female friendship dynamics, sexuality and queerness, Florence’s memories of both losing and re-discovering herself throughout secondary school and what it truly means to be a woman in today's society. You can follow Florence Given here. --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

hello everyone and happy sunday i hope you're having a lovely weekend and i wanted to share with you a moment a highlight from tomorrow's episode where i am joined by the one and only florence given for those of you who aren't familiar with florence she is a writer she's written two incredible books, one called Girl Crush and one called Women Don't Owe You Pretty. And I highly suggest giving them both a read. Here is the moment from tomorrow's episode. I hope you enjoy it. And don't forget to listen to the show tomorrow. I've experienced what I now realize through years of research, years of reading books,

years of watching Dr. Ravani's YouTube videos. She's the world's leading expert on narcissism. And I now realize I've experienced it many times. And it's funnily enough, for exactly the reason you just said before about, you said you understand that people do bad things because they're hurting. And while that is true, it's having that belief at the forefront of my mind that has constantly excused the bad actions of other people and have had me keeping my arms open to them. And while relationship abuse is never your fault,

there needs to be acknowledged that there's a pattern forming, for me at least, I needed to acknowledge there was a pattern forming of my own kindness, which is a beautiful thing, actually working against me. And there's a quote around social media about empathy is incredible, but empathy without boundaries is self-harm.

And that is essentially what had happened to me is that I was such a proud, nice woman. And I prided myself on that identity, that even the idea, and again, that's society programmed, but it is my responsibility to change it. No one else is coming to save me. And I think that the really shitty thing to learn was that I had chosen these people. And that doesn't mean it was my fault but there was something in me that wanted to win over their approval um and you know of course that that game of approval seeking is created by the narcissist with the with the love bombing and the affection and then the immediate withdrawal of this you literally have addictive symptoms where you need it back and they're the

only person who can supply you this drug they're the only person you can give you and then and then they give it back to you and then you're so happy and then and then they do the bad thing again and this is kind of the cycle that you get trapped in and the more that these acts of abuse occur the more you become tied to a person and i think it takes women on average seven times to leave an abusive relationship seven attempts that's the average go at it and it's something I'll never stop talking about in my life relations there's so many things I care about changing in the world and unfortunately you can't talk about all of them so I choose to focus on relationships because I think that's where for me at least it's it's the most interesting topic because it involves people

and I have learned over the years to develop boundaries and be okay with being seen as a rude person. And you're never being rude. You're just, there's this book that I've recently just finished called The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. I don't know if you've read it. No? Okay. I recommend this book to every single woman on the planet, every single queer person. Oh, my God. So the whole thing teaches you how to listen to your intuition. And it's basically about personal safety and

how your gut is never wrong and how the worst, the worst thing that can happen if you make a misjudgment about someone, let's say someone on the street is offering you a hand and you say, no, thank you. And they go, oh, come on. You're being a bit too proud. You're one of those feminists. Let me help you guys. No, thank you. I said, no, you walk on. The worst thing that you have done is made a rude impression on the stranger. At best, it has saved your life because this person was trying to kidnap you. And this was something in the book that taught me one of the chapter titles or something is politeness gets women killed. And it goes through all of these cases where women who had gotten into abusive relationships with people because the man persisted, persisted, persisted, persisted.

And we're taught to find that fucking charming right down to the Disney movies we watched when we were growing up. So it's all of these ways. That's so true. Yeah, all of these ways that we're taught and then blamed for being in these relationships. And like I said, it's never your fault, but it is only your responsibility to get out.

It's only because we need to empower women and people, anyone who's in an abusive relationship, that they do have a choice. And though that choice is not obvious, and I've been in one myself, I know how hard it is to leave, but that there is a choice and that you can get out of it.

And when it comes to narcissistic abuse, you can't see it. It's not physical, at least not always. If you want to listen to the full episode, it will be available at 7am tomorrow. That is Monday. And I hope you enjoy it. Sending lots of love.

And remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.