In our rush to heal, to get past it, we often forget to stop and feel it, and it is essential we do. Otherwise, we remain disconnected from the experience and are doomed to ruminate and perhaps even repeat it.

The things in your life you are willing to take the fight for, to go into the tiger’s cage for, are your True North. Your True North can be your child or a family member, your work, or an ideology or a belief.

Don’t explain. Because narcissistic people are so manipulative, you may feel compelled to explain yourself whenever they gaslight you. The difficulty is that they will distort your explanation, and before you know it, you will be defending yourself.

When you practice not going DEEP you do not: Defend Engage Explain Personalize

Yellow rocking includes warmth, forces you to stay in the here and now (you don’t bring up old topics and hurts), and is still concise. I find yellow rocking to be a far better compromise in nearly all situations, because to people looking in from the outside, it feels more “normal” and undercuts the narcissistic person’s argument that you are

Gray rocking entails being as uninteresting as a gray rock, with minimal response, flat emotion, and simple answers. It’s as close to no contact with a narcissist as you can be while still having some contact. In essence, you are no longer a source of good narcissistic supply. Gray rocking can be used in real-time conversation, texting, and

Waiting for a narcissistic person to finally get it and honor your boundary is like waiting for a submarine to show up at a bus stop.

In narcissistic relationships, the best way to manage boundaries is to not engage, banter, spar, or take the bait.

The key is to remember that boundaries are an inside job. It becomes less about you waiting for the narcissistic person to honor a boundary and more about you setting one for yourself that you can honor.