My best friend and I were preparing dinner for her mother this weekend for Mother’s Day and we got on the topic of relationships, finances and trust. Do people still share bank accounts? Are people still going all in, in their relationships or do they protect themselves?

Ingrid Roekke once said, “A child that is being abused doesn’t stop loving it’s parents, it stops loving itself.” A lack of self-love is the number one cause of toxic adult relationships. When something isn’t important to us we neglect it, we don’t treat it well and we don’t think much of it. But what happens when that thing is us?

Love Bomb: A psychological technique used by emotional manipulators to exert control over their love interests, by administering intense praise, attention and admiration. Once their target’s emotions have been engaged, the Love Bomber abruptly stops his/her pursuit and becomes distant, cold and may even stop contact all together. This causes the target to have severe feelings of confusion and pain. The abrupt rejection will trigger unresolved childhood traumas in the target and will cause them to engage in obsessive thinking and addiction-type behaviors, all centered around trying to win back their abuser’s affections. 

I spent some time this weekend with my brother Michael and it was very touching to watch him teach his children about finances. They had emptied their piggy banks earlier in the week and he opened up bank accounts for them. He was now in the process of showing them how to log in and check their balances on line.

“When you react, you let others control you. When you respond, you are in control.”– Bohdi Sanders 

How you behave in your interpersonal relationships says a lot about your emotional evolution. The way in which you communicate and how you react speaks to where you are in your development and how far you yet have to travel.

Coping mechanisms are the coping styles we develop along the way to help us deal with what’s going on in our

Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes. – DSM IV, NPD Criteria

if you’ve ever seen a somatic Narcissist walk past a mirror and glance admiringly at their reflection or bore witness to a cerebral Narcissist engaging in a witty adversarial debate and come out the winner, you’ve seen the arrogant bent of their personalities emerge.

Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her – DSM 4

When Jealousy speaks, it says, “I want what you have.” When envy speaks it says, “I don’t want you to have it.”  For a Narcissist both aspects of greed come in to play. Envy is that spark of evil inside the narcissist, that is responsible for that insatiable longing that is never satisfied.