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Narcissism, Lying, and Evil

Originally posted at: http://applyingmybeliefs.wordpress.com/2014/12/16/narcissism-lying-and-evil/
by applyingmybeliefs

In his book “People of the Lie” Christian Psychiatrist Scott Peck makes this statement:

  • Lying is both a cause and manifestation of evil.

For Christians, the epitome of evil is the spiritual being known as Satan.  Jesus made this definitive statement about him:

Jn 8:44(b) – He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  ESV

I would say that Scott Peck’s statement is consistent with the words of Jesus, and I realized that when I read the book.  The statement stimulated my thinking about people being evil or at least having evil parts or tendencies or thoughts or behaviors, and how we see them manifested in our culture.

Peck, as a Psychiatrist sees the world with a scientific perspective and in the book he explains how the evil inner part of people shows up in their actions, in their relationships and in their personalities.  In fact he goes as far as saying that evil comes out of narcissism.  Again this seems to be supported by scripture; here is the description of Satan supplied by God, together with the reason why he was thrown out of God’s presence and favor.  Does this sound like the ultimate narcissist?

Eze 28:12(b) – 17(a) – You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.  You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire,  emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings.  On the day that you were created they were prepared.  You were an anointed guardian cherub.  I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.  You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.  In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.  Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.

When I consider or meditate on these things I’m left at the place where I ask myself some questions like this:

  • Does Satan really need to talk to us to tempt us into doing evil?
  • Is his self-appointed role one of developing narcissists?
  • Does evil come from a narcissistic personality or a lying character or both?

I have long believed that Satan doesn’t have to do anything for us ordinary folk to commit evil acts; we all have the propensity inside us to do evil.  And I have also long believed that lying is an act of evil.  I only have to look at my past life to demonstrate that!

I have learned that so many of the best liars are narcissists, as I was in my past.  In the ministry I operate I see it consistently in the form of a broad spectrum.  Some narcissists are so far gone that it is almost impossible to work with them.  When they’re confronted with the truth that the world does not revolve around them and they have a destructive effect on people around them, they reject the message and leave.  Mostly though, I see narcissists who struggle with the issue of evil, although it is disguised as compulsive behaviors, bad choices or addictions.

So then, when we come across a person who persistently lies, according to Peck, we ought to assume that a big part of their character is evil, and a major feature of their personality is narcissistic.  Out of my personal experience I find this to be a reasonable generalization, not always accurate, but a good place to start work from.

Why do people lie?  Why does Jesus call Satan the “Father of lies?”  Why does Satan continue to lie (deceive the nations – Rev 20:8), and why will he continue to lie until he is vanquished?  According to Jesus, and Peck agrees, it comes out of an individual’s personhood, or their personality.  The personality trait or type pictured in scripture and in Peck’s book is narcissistic.

Narcissism is one of two forms of self-love pictured in scripture, and interestingly in secular psychology.

Narcissism is an unhealthy self-love.  It is characterized by grandiose thinking, pride and the maximization of self with the minimization of others.  It values its own opinions and dismisses all others.  It elevates personal importance as a supreme truth, and reduces all others as of no consequence.  It believes it is always right.  Consequently narcissists are blind to truth.

It is this blindness that is the source of lies in a narcissist.  This is why Satan can never speak truth; he is a 100% narcissist.  This is also why an addict lies constantly; he or she has the major personality flaw of narcissism in their personhood.  Even when confronted with undeniable truth, an addict will still deny it.  To deny truth is to deny self for a narcissist.

Some people believe that an addict’s biggest struggle is with their drug of choice.  This is not so, their biggest struggle will always be to overcome their own narcissistic personality.  Without overcoming this, the addict is always going to be an addict, and always be vulnerable to a relapse.  The addicts who don’t have a serious narcissistic side will be much more able to get through their recovery than those who have a deeper flaw.  Knowing this helps to explain why some addicts respond to treatment or recovery better than others.

The person who chooses biblical self-love in obedience to Jesus’ simple command is way less likely to succumb to the pressure of temptation to act out with compulsive and addictive behaviors.  This is where the command is located:

Mk 12:30-31(a) – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  ESV

Love God, love yourself and love your neighbor.  Using God’s definition of love:

1 Cor 13:4-7 – Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

As we can see the love described by God is very different from the self-love of the world, which is narcissism.  Real self-love elevates God onto the throne of a person’s heart; narcissism elevates self onto that throne.  Therefore to overcome narcissism a person has to abdicate their internal throne; a decidedly difficult choice and task

What are the “take-aways” from this discussion of narcissism, lying and evil?

  • Narcissism causes a self-blindness which may be the central cause of lying.
  • Narcissism and lying may be the source of evil thoughts and actions.
  • Narcissism is hard to overcome.
  • Compulsive or addictive behaviors are likely to be sourced in narcissism.

For those of us in recovery, narcissism ought to be a serious part of our discussion with our counselors or mentors.  Confession of narcissism and much prayer may be necessary to get to healing:

Jas 5:16 – Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.  ESV

Yes, narcissism is a sin, it does need to be recognized in front of God and others, and it does need to be prayed over.

While we may know we lie, and will confess it, how many of us can admit we have evil inside us and have narcissistic tendencies?

Lying, evil and narcissism are tough things to deal with.  But it is so worth it to get them exposed in our lives and let God be put squarely on the throne of our hearts.

 

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Journal Through Recovery Entry 13: Giving a First Step

My counselor just let me know that he thought my First Step was ready. There were parts I wanted to leave out. Disclosing was hard enough. Looking at my wife and telling her all of my sins, my deep rooted sexual sins…that was excruciating. Now, I get to do it again, this time with other men in recovery.

Step One: “We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.”

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (Romans 7:18)

Powerless is the appropriate word. I am powerless. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know I was powerless. I thought the opposite. I thought I was in control. I thought I could “manage” my life and had managed it quite well. I feel powerless as I read over my First Step, my description of how and why I ended up here in recovery, powerless.

Of all the options, I had to pick Castimonia for a recovery group. First steps are detailed, thorough, written and read out loud…at a group meeting. Other recovery groups make them short and private. Not Castimonia. Nice. (Sex Addicts Anonymous also practices giving a complete public First Step).

I let the leaders of Castimonia know that I was ready to do my First Step. I expected to wait a week or two before it could be scheduled. That turned out to be wishful thinking on my part. My date was the next day.

The room was full. It kept filling up. I hadn’t been in a meeting this large. Maybe it was me just thinking that …nope, its full! We opened the meeting, read through all the readings, finished up, and the leader stated that today would be a First Step, unlike any other meetings. One of my accountability partners introduced my First Step. I could breathe a little seeing my friend there, the one I had read it to already. Maybe I wouldn’t hyperventilate before I started.

So now its my turn…“Hi, I am a believer in Christ and a recovering sex addict and this is my First Step…”

I couldn’t look up. The leader told me not to get too deep in my shame, to focus on the guilt for my actions but not allow myself to be identified by them. I tried hard. I kept repeating the Serenity Prayer in my head the entire time.

Reading those words, my life story, my sexual sin, the damage I caused, how I tried to minimize them in the past and how I try not to think about all of them even now. It’s so much. I spoke out loud the unmanageable parts of my life, the insanity, the costs. And then I finished.

The feedback started…guys identifying with different aspects of my story. I told one guy that I had heard his testimony and it gave me courage to speak out loud an early part of my story that caused me the most shame. He told me that I would get to a point where I wasn’t ashamed to tell my story. I would know that God wants me to use it to show others that He can work in all areas, even the darkest.

I wrote this in my journal after I finished:

“God help me let go of my shame. Help me to not be ashamed of my story. Help me to know you can and will use my story for your glory and to impact others. Give me strength and guidance in how to share and use my story to impact my family.”

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Happy Halloween!

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Anatomy of an Affair – Part Two – Vulnerability

Originally posted at: http://applyingmybeliefs.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/anatomy-of-an-affair-part-two-vulnerability/
by applyingmybeliefs

This is the second part of a blog about the origins or causes of affairs and how we become vulnerable to one.  In this part we look at the actual real life factors that make us susceptible to having an affair.

Now we come to the highly charged aspect of looking at what causes affairs.  How are these intimacy deficits created?  This is a rather complicated subject; in light of that I am going to provide only a basic principled look at that question.

As I see it there are these five major causal factors for affairs:

  • Our past, our cultural upbringing, our current environment, our spouse and our character.

Our Past

When I say our past, I am referring to all the experiences we had as we were growing up and how they affected our intimacy needs.  Let’s look at some major examples.

Some of us were abandoned, abused or neglected.  These kinds of experiences create warped views of what intimacy looks like.  For example an abused person may not even know what comfort feels like; this creates a comfort deficit, and they may also have a high need for security.  An abandoned person might have a high need for affirmation because they live with an underlying sense of rejection.

A girl who doesn’t get appropriate affection from her father might struggle to understand what real affection looks like and seeks it relentlessly even to point of having affairs.  A boy might never know what a mother’s approval looks like and so he starts to go to men for it, eventually becoming a sexual partner of another male.

There are many experiences that can be had in our society which create intimacy deficits.  And these set us up for difficulty later.

Our Cultural Upbringing

By this I mostly mean our family of origin, but it does include our extended family, neighbors and other influential people in our lives.  Together they create the culture we grew up in.

This is not the same as the past.  The past refers to our experiences whereas our cultural upbringing refers to the principles, ideas and attitudes we grew up with.

Some of us learned that it was acceptable to get our intimacy needs met in illegitimate ways.  We learned that certain behaviors made us feel better, or in the context here, met our intimacy needs.  An example of this might be that we manipulated a person, gained some power over them and felt respected; this could be true for men or women and an affair is one place it can show up.  In some cultures women are valued as less than men, so when a man dominates a woman, as in a power-centered affair, he feels affirmed.  There are myriads of examples of culturally based ways that intimacy needs are met, and I’m sure any reader can think of some from their own culture.

One thing that needs to be stated, in case it is not obvious, is that intimacy needs are present in all humans no matter what their culture.  Intimacy needs are basic parts of our psychological design; this supersedes culture.

Our Current Environment

The current environment refers to the social system we actually live in.  This may be the one we grew up in or may not be.  For example I grew up in the UK but live in the US.

Our current social situation affects us in the sense that it provides a framework for getting our intimacy needs met.  An example is that we have men and women working together in everyday work roles.  It has not always been this way, and some social systems still keep women and men apart.  As men and women interact it is far more likely that two people with unmet intimacy needs will find each other and develop the connection necessary to begin an affair.

Some environments are conducive to the development of affairs and some are less so.  The normal social situation in the US is very conducive to getting intimacy needs met in illegitimate ways.  As we have seen God pushed out of our everyday consciousness we have seen more affairs.  Every illegitimate child is conceived from an affair.  Part of the pick-up in divorce is due to more affairs.  Each of these examples is due to not meeting legitimate intimacy needs in appropriate ways although you’ll never see that on a birth certificate or in a divorce decree.

The accepted values, beliefs and attitudes of our social system, our current environment is a factor in the rise of affairs in this country.

Our Spouse

How does a spouse contribute to his or her partner starting and maintaining an affair?  This is a thorny question because in most of the affairs that I’ve looked at there is a part of the story that is recognizable as belonging to the “innocent” spouse.  And if it is brought up as a item of concern the innocent spouse typically denies and rejects that they had anything to do with it.  Sometimes they’ll fire their counselor or push away a long time friend who points this out.  This is unfortunate because the innocent spouse is still not to blame for the poor choices of the guilty spouse.  Let me show how one spouse can be part of the choice of their partner to go astray.

Imagine that we have a woman who is critical of her husband; she is the opposite of an encourager, she is a discourager.  After a few years of being put down through discouragement the husband talks to a female co-worker who encourages him in some aspect of his work.  They click, and develop a friendship.  At home the man feels put down, nothing he does ever seems right, but at work his new friend is full of words that build him up.  An affair eventually develops.

In this example the husband is still 100% to blame for having the affair.  But, the wife is also 100% to blame for her part which is to not do what she reasonably can to meet his intimacy need of encouragement.  Most wives in this scenario will reject this message so counselors will rarely bring it up, they’ll work the issue another way.

This scenario provides us a simple yet powerful example of how when we don’t pay sufficient or reasonable attention to the intimacy needs of our partner we contribute to their vulnerability to an affair.

There are some individuals in the helping professions that might reject this message, but that is a mistake.  The innocent spouse is much better served if they have to answer the following two questions, when they are emotionally ready:

  • Is there any way I could have met my partner’s intimacy needs and didn’t?
  • Have I been doing the opposite of meeting my partner’s intimacy needs?

These are both areas where an innocent spouse has control and the guilty partner does not.  With the first question a spouse can address how well they have loved their partner by addressing their intimacy needs.  This is not something we do automatically; it requires work on an ongoing basis.  The second addresses the actual behaviors of the innocent spouse.  Our example above shows where one spouse actively pushed their husband away through discouragement.

In his book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” Dr. John Gottman tells us that from his research there are four behaviors we engage in within a marriage that are likely to lead to trouble.  He calls them the four horseman:

  • Criticism, Contempt, Stonewalling and Defensiveness.

These are all opposites of intimacy needs (Encouragement, Respect, Attention and Support).

Spouses and how they behave are important to look at when trying to unravel why an affair takes place.

Our Character

If we are the spouse that has had an affair we have a big challenge in front of us because we haven’t been operating as designed.  We are made to be married to one person of the opposite gender and be intimate, living in fidelity with them as long as we are on this planet.  So our question is, “What is inside me that made me vulnerable to an affair?”

All of the factors we’ve looked at so far provide part of the answer, but the biggest is part of the anatomy of an affair is discovered through introspection, looking internally at our character.

Character is the set of moral qualities that a person possesses.  In this context the word “moral” is important.  Moral means, “In accord with standards of what is right and just in behavior.”  And it is God who explains to us in His word what is just and right.  Here is my primary selection on where to look for some scriptural definition of what is right and just:

2 Peter 1:5-8 – For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.  For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  ESV

This scripture promises us that if we are diligent in practicing and applying these things we would be protected from becoming immoral.  In the context of an affair, instead of succumbing to the meeting of our intimacy needs outside our marriage, if we practiced virtue and self-control and brotherly affection wouldn’t we be much less likely to look outside the marriage for intimacy?

So then, for the wandering spouse the challenge is to look inside.  My suggestion is to seek the help of other godly people who can be trusted to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:25).  Ask questions such as, “What must I be believing to do such a thing?” and “What values am I actually living by to an affair?” or, “What attitudes am I displaying through my actions?”  Comparing these inner things to God’s word will help clarify what we have done and where we need to work to not be vulnerable again to having an affair.

Summarizing It All

The core of this 2 part blog revolves around the simple idea that we are designed with a need for intimacy, and when our intimacy needs are not met we become vulnerable to an affair.

Each of us is responsible for getting our own intimacy needs met in appropriate ways.  Primarily this is through a spouse if we are married and also through God, and in some situations through other godly people.  Each of us is also responsible for doing what we can to help meet our spouse’s intimacy needs, and where we fall short, to encourage them to seek God or other safe people for those deficits.

Resources mentioned in this blog.

Emotional Prisons – Prisons, by Ken Gross

The Top Ten Intimacy Needs, By David and Teresa Ferguson

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, by Dr. John Gottman

 

 

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Anatomy of an Affair- Part One – Origins

Originally posted at: http://applyingmybeliefs.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/anatomy-of-an-affair-part-one-origins/
by applyingmybeliefs

This is the first of a two part blog on this difficult subject.  In this part we look at the origins, or basic cause of affairs, in the second we look at the major factors that go into becoming vulnerable to an affair.

I have long said this about extra-marital affairs:

  • All affairs are emotional and some are physical.

What so many people don’t get about affairs is this:

  • Affairs always involve a search for intimacy.

To demonstrate the reality of this last statement I want to go through the anatomy of an affair; how one is constructed and how it feeds us psychologically.  Because once we understand this we can see how each of us may be unconsciously making contributions to the birth of an affair in ourselves or in our marital partner.

First let’s define intimacy:

Intimacy is the emotional state achieved through the action of being intimate.  Being intimate with another person is the continuous and never-ending action of truly revealing one’s innermost being to them.  Feelings of intimacy occur when (obviously) one person is being intimate with another.  These “feelings of intimacy” include closeness, euphoria, peace, joy, security, restfulness, pleasure, connectedness, support and fulfillment.  (From the book, Emotional Prisons – Prisons, chapter 15 – False Intimacy.)

At the core of every person the need for intimacy exists.  We know this because of the two truths that are contained in these scriptures:

Gen 1:26(a) – Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.  ESV

Gen 1:27 – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  ESV

John 10:30 – I and the Father are one.  ESV

John 14:11 – Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.  ESV

John 14:20 – In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  ESV

I don’t have time or space in this blog to explain what is apparent from these and other related scriptures, so I’m just going to say what needs to be said.

  • God exists as three persons in one entity, which we call the trinity, and this is a mystery. (Notice God uses the word “us” in Gen 1:26)  However, what we can say is that they are in complete unity of being and in this they have total intimacy.  We are created in his image; part of that image is that we are designed to have total intimacy as well.
  • Before the fall we had total intimacy as humans. The man and the woman with each other; and also having intimacy with God.

So then, we were created with the need for intimacy within us.  This drives certain activities or behaviors.  It is the core reason for why God created the simple idea of marriage.  Marriage is the union of two physical non-identical adult humans who are incomplete by themselves, one male, and one female with the additional presence of God through His Spirit.  (Gen 2:24)  The need for intimacy that is built into us cannot be met with any other permutation, contrary to what our current culture suggests.  (Such as two males, two females, one male and several females, and one adult with one or more minors, for example.)

When we have complete intimacy we have connectedness because we share ourselves with our partner.  We share hopes and dreams, strengths and weaknesses, fears and anxieties; there is nothing held back or hidden.  This allows love to flourish between the two human partners, but also allows God to pour His love into the situation.

When we have less than complete intimacy we hide things, we are less than honest about our feelings and we don’t share everything.  This inhibits the freedom to be ourselves in the giving and receiving of love, even from God.  And this, of course is the natural human condition that exists and has existed since the fall.

In their book “The Top Ten Intimacy Needs”, David and Teresa Ferguson spell out 10 emotional components of intimacy that help us to understand a little of what might go wrong in a marriage where an affair takes place.  These are:

  • Acceptance, Affection, Appreciation, Approval, Attention, Comfort (Empathy), Encouragement, Respect, Security and Support.

So then, as we are all hard wired for intimacy, we all have these 10 intimacy needs every day.  I also think it is reasonable to assume that as each of us is unique, our relative levels of the 10 needs will also be unique.  For example some of us may need lots of affection and little support.  There are many permutations of these 10 intimacy needs.

Not only do we have our own unique structure of the 10 intimacy needs, but we all also have a unique structure of our ability to meet those needs in a spouse.  For example I might be fully able to provide comfort to my spouse, but be totally unable to provide affection.

I hope your mind by now is going to the logical place of realization that in every marriage we have a mismatch of needs and ability to meet them.  Some marriages have great big gaps, other small gaps.  In every case though God is there, for those that want Him, to step in and fill in those gaps.

Some of us have been to conferences or heard counselors and preachers speak of allowing God to be your spouse, meaning that God can be a substitute intimacy need provider in emotional areas where the actual spouse may be deficient.  Well, that is not exactly what happens, because God does not take a spouse’s place, He simply helps us by meeting our intimacy needs.  It is when we don’t go to Him that we seek other places to get our legitimate intimacy needs met in illegitimate ways.  Some seek emotional relief with drugs, some with perfectionism, some with gambling and as we are discussing in this blog, some through affairs.

We have come to the place when we can say that at the core of every affair is one or more unmet intimacy needs.  Here are some examples of this:

  • An empathetic man has a high need for encouragement and somewhere inside believes his wife, others and God have not been meeting this need. Along comes a woman who is a born encourager, but need some comfort in her life, and they begin a friendship which later develops into an affair.
  • A woman is neglected by her husband and is not given any affection. Instead of turning to her friends and/or God she turns to the very affectionate and charming man in the office.  It soon becomes a close emotional relationship.

Hopefully, we can all agree that affairs are sourced from inside us through a desire to have that intimacy we were designed to have.  The design is perfect but our fallen nature leads us to seek to achieve intimacy in immoral ways.  We often blame our spouse, blame God or blame the devil when we slip into an affair.  The real truth is that we are all vulnerable because none of us get all our intimacy needs met through our spouse, and we don’t believe God will help us with them, so we choose to commit adultery.  Jesus confirmed this when He spoke these words:

Matt 5:28 – I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  ESV

What Jesus called “lustful intent” here is just another way of saying “wanting and working to get my intimacy needs met.”  So even if we succumb to an intimate emotional connectedness with a person who is not our spouse, we are sinning just as much as if we had a physical connectedness.  This is why all affairs are emotional and some are physical; the physical part does not have to happen for it to be an affair – it is the intimacy connection that counts.

For those that don’t believe this just ask your spouse if you are allowed to have an intimate relationship with a person of the opposite sex as long as there are no physical aspects to it.

In part two of this blog we’ll look at some of the major factors that make us vulnerable to affairs.