How Not To Be A Spiritual Narcissist

In spiritual circles around the time Donald Trump was elected president, there was a lot of hype about narcissism.  I was researching it because I noticed a pattern of clients coming to me who were suffering after getting rid of a narcissistic person from their life.  Although the person was largely gone, the chaos, anxiety and confusion left behind was draining.  I thought I would be writing a book about narcissists “out there” and give a step by step guide to healing from a narcissistic relationship. 

What became apparent during the pandemic was that spiritual communities are prone to narcissistic traits.  The belief in their own specialness and access to special wisdom.  The QAnon cult thrived on this.  But this kind of spiritual narcissism was there before the pandemic.  It’s how religious and spiritual groups have become charistmatic and powerful around the world.  And it’s how valid alternative spiritual views can get pushed out.  

What I’m realising more and more is that part of my book is really about facing spiritual narcissism within and realising the hurt underneath it so that we don’t end up becoming spiritual narcissists who dismiss others beliefs and lived experiences from a place of arrogance, but instead honour and encourage people to go within and tune into their own deeper unique truths.  And doing that from a place of empathy, equity and compassion. 

So what is narcissism?  And how do I recognise spiritual narcissism in myself?  Let’s dive in and explore. 

What actually is narcissism?  What’s its opposite?

There are tons of definitions of narcissism online and it can get confusing.  But the definition and explanation that makes the most sense to me is Dr Craig Malkin’s from his book “Rethinking Narcissism”.  In his system, narcissism is about specialness.  But the opposite of narcissism (a lack of specialness) is just as much a problem as believing too much in your own specialness. 

Dr Malkin and his researchers have developed the Narcissism Spectrum Scale to help people see their own levels of narcissism and its opposite.  Its opposite is Echoism – from the original myth of Narcissus and Echo.  Narcissus was cursed and became so transfixed by his own image that he died.  Echo had also been cursed to only ever be able to repeat back what someone else had said.  She loved Narcissus but couldn’t tell him.  She ended up dying alone in a cave and all that was left was the Echo of her voice.  It’s a pretty tragic story all round, isn’t it?  

The Narcissism Spectrum Scale is a really useful tool to reflect on your own levels of narcissism and echoism.  Fascinatingly, there’s such a thing as healthy narcissism at the centre of the scale where you believe you’re special but so is everyone else.  You’re confident AND have empathy and genuine intimacy with others.  The scale goes from 0 (echoism) to 10 (narcissism) and healthy narcissism is in the middle at 5.  

Spirituality and Narcissism

Narcissism and the need to feel more special often compensates for some kind of inner wounding.  Spirituality is a place where people can feel less broken and battered by life.  Spiritual by-passing is where you jump to “love and light” instead of facing pain.  It can also be a way that you minimise others’ suffering through spiritual ideas like “your thoughts create your reality” or “it’s karma”.  They may have grains of truth in them, but they are too generic and ignore that much suffering is nuanced and complex and unique to that individual’s circumstances.  None of us can control life’s storms.  

Feeling like our own beliefs are the sweet, sweet healing nectar that the world needs can make us feel good and keep us going during tough times. But they can wreak havoc on relationships.  People don’t feel love in our presence, they feel oppressed by our spiritual superiority complexes and boy will some of them let you know it! 

Perhaps you’ve been an echoist in lots of areas of life and spirituality helps you swing up to the other end of the scale to bring some more balance to a psyche that’s been out of balance.  It’s important to remember that both echoistic parts of us and narcissistic parts of us can co-exist in our internal system.  It’s one or the other, it’s both.  

So it’s up to us to embrace both the echoistic parts of ourselves and the narcissistic parts. 

How To Move Beyond Spiritual Narcissism 

Part of not being a spiritual narcissist is accepting that you probably have been one, or at least that you have the capacity to become one.  Deeper healing is a huge part of overcoming spiritual narcissism and making sure that you’re coming from healthy narcissism.  Finding the deeper wounding and trauma that strong echoism or strong narcissism helps to create the sense of safety inside that takes the power out of these parts. 

And a huge part of healing is feeling.  In particular, the capacity to feel into and process hatred is how we identify shadow parts of ourselves.  I once spotted that I hated a coach I worked with.  When I explored what it was about them that I hated, I realised it was their attitude of “I know better than you what you need”.  It was quite a narcissistic attitude feeding into specialness!  It felt oppressive to be around that strong attitude.  

But I knew that my hatred around it meant that it was a part of me that I’d abandoned and shoved down into my own shadow, out of awareness.  It was the kind of attitude I fought hard not to have with my clients, but to my horror, I couldn’t deny that I had that attitude in other areas in my life – especially when it came to spiritual beliefs.  Part of it was a kick back against the catholic beliefs I’d been conditioned with – that lack of space to think for myself and decide my own beliefs.  But instead of really thinking about beliefs, I’d just repeated the same pattern of absorbing someone else’s beliefs and philosophies without critical thinking and it got inflated with spiritual narcissism. 

Shame is another important emotion to embrace to diffuse spiritual narcissism.  Shame in its healthy form helps us stay in integrity.  When we’ve done something that might hurt someone else or break our own code of values, shame will come up to let us know.  It’s when shame is used to try and control others’ behaviour that it’s a problem.  Shame means that we can share what we believe in ways that give other people space to explore our ideas for themselves.  Instead of insisting on our own rightness or specialness of belief, we’re curious about what others believe and relax into our belief choices.  

Spiritual Narcissism As A Part Of Spiritual Development

Many people who are on paths of spiritual development have got there because something painful happened.  We want to stop someone else going through the same pain or to help speed up recovery from that pain.  And so that means there is pain inside that we have to heal.  Spiritual narcissism can be a coping strategy along the path of healing before that pain gets fully healed. 

So spiritual narcissism is something that needs compassion.  The irony is that a lot of good people who go through a spiritual narcissism phase (like me!) are terrified of narcissism or becoming a narcissist.  For many, there are enough healthy parts inside that it’s not too destructive or harmful.  Most of the harm is self-inflicted from the inner conflict between echoistic and narcissistic parts. 

Expanding your awareness to hold both opposites inside at the same time is an act of power.  The capacity to integrate both and draw out their gifts to your inner world is to live wholeheartedly – with confidence, humility and peace.   

So to not be a spiritual narcissist, first accept all the ways that you could unwittingly be believing that your spiritual beliefs are special or superior.  And from that more expanded space, have compassion for yourself and your hurts.  That compassion is a superpower that will support you in opening your heart and moving beyond the spiritual narcissism phase of development.  And it will create deeper empathy as you embrace all the different parts and pieces of who you are.