How to become immune to manipulators, seducers, narcissists and other toxic characters

Soul GPS
3 min readApr 21, 2023

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Photo by Rafael Barros: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-squatting-near-gray-concrete-wall-1841423/

It’s the question I get all the time in my coaching practice. People desperately want to heal from the last toxic relationship and ensure that it will NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

There’re many things we can do to raise our chances of recognizing and avoiding toxic people. Among them, the surefire recipes of:

  • educating ourselves about how toxic manipulators operate
  • getting to know ourselves, esp. our vulnerabilities and needs
  • understanding our psychological landscape and history

The list goes on and address each point in my videos on YouTube. But in this piece (and attached recent video) I want to focus on the ONE THING that nearly guarantees that you WILL NOT fall under the spell of a charmer EVER again.

What’s the secret?

The secret is simple. It’s about not needing a partner in the first place.

Let me explain.

Pitfalls of pressures and desperation.

Let’s be honest. We live in a society that pressures us to couple up. If you are single, you are somehow perceived as less. Add to it your parents wanting a grandchild or you wanting a baby, dreaming of a wedding, craving the security of a nest and you have yourself a desperate combo.

And when desperate, we are prone to making mistakes. We all know it but we still resort to the easy, instinctual drive to attach quickly. The key is to cool yourself off and focus your attention on creating an amazing life first.

(Be patient. The dream partner will follow. To pick the right one, you’ll need to have proper filters in place. Filters and standards dissolve when we desperately need a partner. You get the point.)

The Ache.

Let’s talk about the ache. You know, when you are sitting alone on a Friday night and your stomach is churning in knots. When your thoughts are spiraling out of control and making you feel like a failure because you’re not cuddling with your soulmate.

When you feel like your body is sinking and you’re sinking with it.

When your nervous system is freezing to the point that you have no energy to get up and move to change the pattern.

What I’ve discovered after years of observing the ache in myself is that it is largely biological. It’s origin is ancient. It comes from the dread of not being a part of a tribe.

It’s therefore not something that can be fixed with changing your thoughts (or attitude) alone. Although it will sure help to quiet those toxic, racing, lying thoughts as well.

The solution to abating the ache in getting to know what amount of social interaction vs. alone time your body/nervous system needs in order to feel secure.

It will be a little bit different for everyone. For me it’s about 3 social engagements a week. Once I’m filled up, I function much better. The ache is gone and I can focus on doing creative things and enjoying my time alone.

But if I neglect this need for too long, I will start obsessing and negative thinking will come knocking. Therefore, it’s best to plan your social engagements ahead of time rather than operating reactively.

If you wait for the ache to remind you, you’ll end up wasting a ton of time and energy. What’s better is to start to build your life from the ground up so that its design fits your needs and desires for social connection.

This discovery also goes the other way. Being around people all the time can feel stifling and smothering. The key is to know yourself and address your needs boldly and confidently.

It will never be perfect, but it’s not perfection that we’re after, is it? We’re about good-enoughness here.

So how can you make your life full enough, yours enough and satisfying enough that you no longer have the ache, which makes you desperately seek and settle for the wrong partner?

All this and more in the video below.

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Soul GPS

Certified coach and workshop facilitator, sharing tools for healing from narcissistic abuse and chronic pain. #coach #writer mysoulgps.org