Your partner tells you with that without them you're nothing

That file could comprise another article--not a good one, but a long one. When I complete a article, I thrill at the completed product, the hard-won victory of translating thought to words. Then I start all over again staring at the new blank article. There is nothing unique or special about this process. Quotes abound to remind us of how far the realities of writing are from its romanticized counterpart. Here are a couple of them that have kept me company during my process: Thomas Mann: A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. George Orwell: Writing a article is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. The process of writing a article, like that of any challenging goal, is an exercise in falling, getting back up, and doing better--repeatedly. Rather, we find it difficult to imagine being hungry when we are feeling full and we can't bring ourselves to properly provide for hunger's inevitable return. What is true of our stomachs is also true of our minds. In a recent study, some volunteers were asked to answer five quiz questions and were told that after they had taken their best guesses, they would receive one of two rewards: Some volunteers chose their reward before they took the quiz and some chose after they took it. As you might expect, people preferred the chocolate bar before taking the quiz but would rather have the answers afterwards. In other words, taking the quiz had made people so curious that they valued the answers more than a scrumptious piece of chocolate. Beforehand, volunteers who had not actually experienced the intense curiosity that taking the quiz produced simply couldn't imagine feeling that they would refuse the offer of a chocolate bar for a few dull facts. This may not strike you as an act so utterly evil that it would warrant Lucifer's personal attention, but when you arrive at the end of a good whodunit only to find the whodunit bit missing, you understand why people might willingly trade their mortal souls for the conclusion. Curiosity is a powerful emotion, but when you aren't smack bang in the middle of feeling it, it's hard to imagine just how far and fast it can drive you. Mixing up our feelings and pre-feelings is one of the world's most common mistakes.

I wish her every bit of the strength she'll need for the future, which hopefully will bring if not closure (a word that comes up often in courtrooms on Dateline), then justice. Through the years since our own child's passing, I've been in awe of the many parents who find ways to channel their grief into pursuits that honour their children and their abbreviated lives. One woman, who came into our world after Lauren's passing, shared with us her belief--one that turns out to be quite widespread--in the significance of dragonflies as they pertain to the afterlife. She had delved into the spiritual symbolism of these insects when searching for a way to try to ease the pain of a dear, close niece who had lost her husband just ten months after they wed. Little did Barbara Cassells know that, four years after giving her niece some dragonfly jewellery, her own belief in and connection to the power of these insects would be tested one hundredfold. Her heart heavier than ever, she found herself moved to craft thousands of the bugs--using colourful beads and parachute cord--to help herself, even as she endeavoured to lessen the suffering of others. Like our Lauren (also twenty-four when she left us, also born on the twenty-fourth day of the month), Nathan lived in Ottawa, where he attended university. In January, while home with his family in Pickering, Ontario (he was due to return to university that very week), Nathan suffered a massive heart attack. It turns out that he had an undiagnosed enlarged heart. Because of his youth and strength, paramedics were able to revive him and get his heart started again, but he had been down too long. Though the toddler's fall from grace represents a fault line for narcissism, falls throughout life provide us opportunities to either retreat to our grandiose fantasies or contend with reality. Narcissistic Injury The problem for the fragile bully is that the high, the grandiose vision, is not treated as inspiration but as a source of daily sustenance. For the narcissist, the high becomes everything, and she becomes a bully willing to knock others down to get what she needs. Rather than becoming more, she becomes less--sharpening the skills that get her attention and neglecting the humanity that hones wisdom and connects her with others. Rather than walking on the ground, she envisions herself above all, and any reminder of the contrary is an offense, a source of injury requiring retaliation. The kind of falls I discuss in the previous section are challenging, and those at the far end of the narcissism spectrum are masters at finding shortcuts and ways of fending off the awareness of limitations. As my student shared in article 13, one method for doing so is to act like you are above the challenge. Don't study for the exam, fail, and blame circumstance. Another method is to let others do the work and then take the credit.

In one study, researchers telephoned people in different parts of the country and asked how satisfied they were with their lives. Where the weather was nice, people reported that their lives were relatively happy. But when people lived in cities that happened to have bad weather that day, they reported that they were relatively unhappy. Mixing up our feelings and prefeelings is one of the world's most common mistakes. These people had tried to answer the question by imagining their lives and then asking themselves how they felt when they did so. Their brains enforced a kind of `reality first' policy and insisted on reacting to real weather instead of their imaginary lives. A lack of conscious awareness caused them to mistake reality-induced feelings for imagination-induced pre-feelings. Understanding this distinction when creating change is crucial. You've probably been in a similar conundrum yourself. You've had an awful night's sleep and you wake up feeling out of sorts. Barbara writes: He was brain dead. The pain is still stabbing as I type this. He was rushed to the hospital. I followed in a police car. I will never ever forget that drive in rush-hour traffic, sirens blaring, tearing down the shoulder of the 401 [highway], watching the ambulance carrying my son speeding to the hospital, pulling into the ambulance bay and seeing them straddling my son, pounding his chest to keep his heart beating. Things no mother should ever see and can never be forgotten. They rushed him in and I was rushed into a private waiting room. Once he was stabilized, I was taken to see him. I saw the doctor checking his pupils, his reflexes, shaking his head.

But even the narcissistically impaired can work hard and accomplish goals. The kinds of falls that feed narcissism are the ones orchestrated by narcissism. The visions that precede these falls are not regarded as glimpses of what might be but as expectations, privilege one is entitled to. Distorted self-perceptions set up this kind of standard and unwillingness to entertain any deviation. Reviews will all be five-stars out of five. The grade will always be A with the plus. Devotion will be absolute. If we can't integrate the falls into a richer understanding of who we are, we're in trouble. Our narcissism needs to get knocked around a little to transform it into a grounded self-image. Narcissistic injury, if we can stand it, is a gift. You look out of the window and it is raining heavily. If at that moment you try to imagine how much you are looking forward to the working day ahead, you may attribute feelings that are to do with your bad night's sleep to your imaginary day. In order to achieve our very best behaviours to make change happen on a consistent basis, we must learn to understand this important distinction. Think about how you would describe yourself when you feel fantastic and outstanding. I'll bet that a number of these words are similar to the words you have written about your best behaviours. Shortly we'll look at how you can regularly create these feelings to ensure that you are at your best when being a change catalyst. But before we do that, we need to have a quick look at the major obstacle that could prevent this happening. If we regularly wake up in the morning feeling sad, down, depressed and tired and then try to force ourselves to produce our best change-making behaviour, what we are doing is putting ourselves under stress. If you are doing this, think how it feels. It isn't fun, is it?

Only machines and drugs were keeping him alive. I sat with him most of the night. They told us it was only a matter of hours as he was bleeding out [hemorrhaging]. His [vital] numbers were dropping. I sang to him, lullabies I sang to him as a small child; I held his hand, told him over and over I loved him. His dad brought his sisters back first thing in the morning. His numbers continued to drop. It was literally a matter of a couple hours. I did the last thing I could for my boy. When I read Kopp's reminder of my ordinariness, my narcissism took a hit. Narcissistic injuries show us our limited selves, the self that is like everyone else, the self that needs to work and pay her dues. And that can be hard to take. Hard but essential to the creative challenge of living well. When I emerged from that talent exposition with no callbacks, I was devastated and humiliated. The dark side of narcissistic shame took over. I wanted to hide, even to vacate myself from the planet. I felt a fool. This is the torture that can push the narcissist in a number of directions. I could have sought the mirroring I demanded, begging, borrowing, or stealing to get it.