1,000 small things we do to HEAL from narcissistic relationships 

Anything I bought for the house, my husband would criticize...whether it was a lamp, a cushion...whatever. If he didn't like something he would damage it. I am divorced now. I love spontaneously decorating.....deciding one morning I wanted to change the colour of my living room (I LOVE my new colour!). Yesterday on a whim I bought patio lights for my patio. Not having to agonize before or after 'feathering my nest' feels great.

My joy in 1,000 small things is watching and listening to Dr Ramini every night. She gives affirmation which I don't get. She gives hope. She helps heal. Thanks Doc.

as kate winslet said in The Holiday, "Someday you'll go somewhere new and meet new people and little pieces of your soul will finally start to come back."

I would have a batch of Levain Bakery chocolate chip cookies hidden in the freezer and when every few months when I know she would not be around I would bake two cookies and just close my eyes…. It may not mean much to some, but to me it was something to look forward to and savor the moment of peace.

Self-recovery and therapy is brutal. You are trying to purge yourself from all the pain and trauma from narcissistic abuse. And you feel everything. Even worse when you have to do this alone

Sexlessness. Sharing a bed with someone who doesn’t acknowledge you are a sexual being hurts so much. I was in a sexless marriage for years. Being a woman with a high libido, I felt inadequate. Worst I feel invisible. The man who was “supposed” to want me, just didn’t. We talked about it many times, more than I can recall now. It was always me. I wanted too much - once a week was too much for him. I didn’t initiate - he was always complaining of headaches, stomaches, always stressed, always tired. I was too sexual - when being subtle doesn’t work, what is next? Explicitly saying I wanted sex. Oh but then it was not appropriate. Conversations would end up with him saying he didn’t feel desired or I made him feel emasculated because he didn’t want sex as much as I did. Yeah, it was always me. I could never win. While we were dating we would have a decent amount of sex, it was good. The first huge red flag was not having sex in our honeymoon - which I ignored. It rapidly decrease to once a week, then every other week. Years gone by it was months in between, by the time we divorced it was over a year with no sex. I cried myself to sleep more times that I can count. I didn’t understand what was wrong with me. Was I that undesirable? Was I repulsive? After those conversations, I just stopped trying, initiating, mentioning sex. We were still loving - holding hands, hugging, kissing - but sex was off the table. He then cheated on me. Swore he had sex only 4 times in a year (or more) long affair. It didn’t matter. For years my self worth was damaged by him, years of low self esteem, years of feeling less of a woman, the marriage that was more than over, waiting in hospice, really ended. Funny how things are, I asked him for a divorce, he manipulated me into staying, next day his infidelity came to light. I was out as soon as I could. Best thing of my life. Additionally, That feeling when your partner cheated and you don't have the courage to leave him / her so you just death with the pain and live everyday asking questions about your worth. This pain is different from the cheating one_living and seeing him everywhere anticipating when he or she do it again. The best thing is to hire a private investigator digitalinvestigate@gmail.com to help you spy on their cellphone remotely just like he did for me...

All my life53 years , I tried to please my mom who was never satisfied, .D Ramani you saved mylife I thank you so much .

Since my 92 year old. mother died this past December, the weight of the narcissistic world has fallen from my shoulders. I cannot believe how different I feel, and it's amazing and wonderful. I will not inherit a penny from her estate and I do not care one bit. I am really really free.

Dr. Ramani, I started watching your videos and listening to your podcast 3 years ago, mere weeks after the death of my son. I started seeing a man about a year after his death. Lol it's ironic that I stopped watching your videos because that man's dirision and "light" contemptuous comments about you, your videos and your podcasts became exhausting. I've given myself permission to start watching you again, since I left him 6 months ago. One of my thousand small things that help me heal is watching you again. Thank you. 😊

I went to the mall and walked around by myself for an hour. It was wierd

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" -- Laozi (千里之行，始於足下 -- 老子)

My ex-Narc started with verbal abuse and eventually led to every type of abuse. It felt like I was being slaughtered. The word didn't even exist on the "Feelings Wheel" I was given in counseling for me to describe, so I had to write it in. Narcs are the absolute worst! "For their tongues shoot lies like poisoned arrows. They speak friendly words to their neighbors while scheming in their heart to kill them." Jeremiah 9:8

❤I am so thankful for you Dr.Ramani ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

*I love the grounded reality of this channel!!!* Retirement took a toll on my finances, but with my involvement in the digital market, $27,000 weekly returns has been life changing. AWESOME GOD❤️❤🎉

Literally everything i do is wrong to him. I used to feel guilty but learned that this is my oxygen. I just pulled out my yoga mat (he calls it idolatry 😂) and did 10 mins because this video reminded me

Wow. I remember laughing while at a theatre watching a comedy. It was a stage play and my narcissistic boyfriend squeezed my thigh until it hurt because he apparently didn’t want me to laugh in public. I finally dropped the boyfriend, now laugh as much and as loudly as I want, and occasionally act in comedies myself. There’s no better feeling for me than delivering a line that makes the audience roar with laughter. Thank you audiences for laughing with the abandon we all deserve to experience. Thank you wonderfully talented playwrights for letting me play with those words of whimsy. Thank you Dr. Ramani for reminding me of my right to laugh and authentically experience my emotions.

You are truly a life saver! I am able to sit in a meeting at work and not worry about it going over making me late. Where I would have to hear for weeks that I was meeting someone or doing something sneaky. These videos keep me honest about the truth of that relationship and how awful it really was.

It’s totally different to be raised by a narcissist verses being an adult & choosing to stay in relationships. A child doesn’t have a choice & we don’t know it’s not normal until maybe once we are an adult if even then. I was 23 before I realized something was very wrong & started to try to figure it out but it got so bad I had to get away 4,000 miles away & I was almost 40 when I realized my mom was a narcissist & had everyone in the family as minions & I am the only one that has broken away from her hold oh no that’s not true my oldest brother just died a few months ago from hardcore alcoholism because he couldn’t handle it 😢

It's so true that it's the small things. The small defiance and independences kept me alive through my childhood. And the small things make me happiest, today!

1,000 cuts and 1,000 things to do to heal and all I can think of is Homer teaching Bart how to shave 'Next we take some toilet paper and put it everywhere we're bleeding. There..and there...and there...and there..'

Brilliant. Compile a list of 1000 Small Things we do to Heal. Powerful!

I want to heal , but theres just to many narcisists in my life, i get anxious , nervous when i encounter them, i stand my ground but it takes a toll in me.

The description of what happens over time -- death by 1.000 cuts == is so spot on. You don't realize how you are gradually losing more and more ground to the narcissistic person (phrasing deliberate, as they don't have to be a really full-blown narcissist to do this to you). No one thing seems big enough to really wake you up; you get "used to" the pattern. One day, though, you realize how bad you feel about yourself -- all because of this situation, and you blame yourself first. You are so used to criticism, you blame yourself for having not dealt with it sooner. They are just who they are, you say; but you yourself feel like a failure.

I do everything behind his back. It works. I disengaged from him. I tell him nothing, avoid him and ignore him.

I cried lots yesterday from the heartbreak and grief of what’s happened to my family thanks to the narcissists. I feel like I have been used and abused by my family, doing what I could to help, only to be stomped on and feel like my life has fallen apart. Reminding myself I deserve better and it’s not all my fault. Slowly taking myself back. Thank you Dr Ramani ❤

He said I am a covert narcissist. I'll be whatever he labels me as long as I am not who I used to be. A caring, giving empty shell of a person who felt so alone. It feels so different to not want to live to please anyone but myself. I was so exhausted and weighed down in sadness and disappointment. Now that I am a bit more selfish I feel alive💓🌱 and a bit more peace.

After experiencing narcissistic abuse, spending time with flowers brings me a sense of peace and healing. Their beauty and tranquility help to soothe my soul and remind me of the beauty and resilience within myself

Having grown up with a narcissistic step mother who called all the shots at home, it was even more damaging because she never let me be me. Protect the kids in your life from the narcissists! It IS abuse! ❤

Practicing gratitude can really change your focus. Thanks!!

G'day Dr Ramani, thanks for sharing.🐨

Playing the music I like in the car while still in the relationship 😉

I always keep a glass of water nearby. Any negative remark I toss the water out the door. A thousand cuts makes me cringe but true. Ty for sharing❤

Sitting in my van resting with the air conditioner on until I had the strength to deal with the anxieties caused by the mere thought of going home. Much more capable of dealing with it all when I had the rest I couldn't get at home. Thank you Dr. Ramani, you have been a blessing. My you be blessed with strength & peace as you continue in your journey. May you be uplifted by all the lives you have lifted. And may you be remembered fondly by all those you love & who love you. Many many blessings.

🙏💜🇿🇦 I just hope it doesn't take 48 years, as long as it took to get there. 😂

I'm going over newer videos since I broke free 15 mos ago. The same voice that helped me navigate my way through the disapointment, grief, fear, anxiety and anger is now reassuring me that 'I did good'. Proud of getting to the other side.

Indeed Dr Ramani, I was in a relationship with a narcissistic person for two years and it’s taken 12 years to heal but finally I have done it! Thank God for Dr Ramani! There is hope for all 😊

I would buy headphones every two days to listen to Dr. Ramani and he would fly into a rage and break them but i never got tired. Today i listen to her without earphones. That's just one of of the 1000 small things💪

I'm 10 years out of my narc relationship, but I still remember the little healings that helped me so much. Examples: - Taking baby to daycare early so we could stop off and let her pick out some stickers to stick on her arms (a waste of $ in the narcs opinion) - Keeping old bread to "feed to the fish" at any random pond - Not getting out of the car when I got home, so I could finish a phone call with a person the narc didn't like - Wondering around the grocery store, reading labels, singing to the store music - Upholding relationships with people who the narc said were "just using me" or that "needing friends is a weakness" I also related a lot to being ridiculed for laughing or singing out loud, for licking the sauce from a ramekin (at home, not in public), etc. so I still did those things, but only when I wasn't under his scrutiny.

It may mean going to Walmart parking lot with a good book and staying all day going in once in a while to use the restroom…. Or the kids knowing where the hidden taboo box of macaroni and cheese lives. Mom always secretly replenishes it when it gets used. They clean dry and replace the pan used too cook it. He never finds out until maybe years later that there was a secret coup behind his back!

Hi Dr Ramani from Australia 😊

So very true. Those small things make big changes in our healing. Thank you 🙏 so much dr Ramani ❤ God bless you ❤

I finally burst and did all of this. Guess what...you can even fall in love again once you open the door to YOUR life. Thanks Dr. Ramani.

Shepherd Church Porter Ranch uses the Thousand Little Cuts so no one can definitively point to any one act or deed they're doing against a person(staff calls it Plausible Deniability) So how does one heal from the Thousand Little Cuts from COMPLETE strangers who make comments about things I do in the "privacy" of my own home and when my husband and I are out shopping will repeat parts of our "private" conversations as they walk close by me?

Wow!! I felt bad for doing things to heal myself behind his back but now I see that what I was doing was normal! I recently took a morning off to go to my favorite National Park an hour away (I am not "allowed" to go without him) while he was at work so I can go for a nice hike, have a picnic and just relax without him saying he's bored. I fit in all these little things I'm not allowed to do by myself while he's at work since I lost my job, and its making a huge difference in my healing :)

Self compassion, self love, self valuing. It feels like a big deal for me to get a massage, pedicure or even a haircut. Medical care, dental care, vision appts, chiropractic care, mental health care, it’s all so important to restore our health after being emotionally battered for years or even months. Ridding oneself of narcs is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. What a triumph! 🎉Congratulations!

I really thought I had lost my capability of feeling joy. It wasn't lost, just held captive and gagged. Now that it's free again I can't believe how happy and grateful I am

Ironic really how you can put words to what we/I was going thru to "be a Godly & good, obedient wife". I had no words. I just did it, losing myself little by little and not knowing it. Today, I am divorced and healing everyday. Ty Dr Ramani for helping us understand what happened and how to find ourselves again. Thank you

Also, to do these things with little thought of how you couldn't do them before. Just do them. And hope the remembrance of when you could not do them, goes away.

In my case, it meant quietly helping my son with his mental health challenges by myself rather than getting the man who was his stepfather for 19 years involved.

I use to go into my basement and play my favorite music and dance. It was my thing...dance the stress out!💃

I've started doing the holidays the way I, my husband and kids want to do them - rather than the way we've always done them. I spent so much effort trying to please unpleasable family members in the past and now I am feeling free to change things. One of my inspirations for this was when my father's dementia worsened. I was storing Christmas cookies at his house as I made them (larger house) and the Sunday before advent, he decided that he could't wait any longer and declared, "I'm starting a new family tradition. Everyone gets one cookie the Sunday before Christmas." Now, when I try something new, I think of my Dad and say to myself, "I'm starting a new family tradition."

I chuckled so many times recognizing the things you said that were the things I did to exercise my independence. OMG. I did that too!!!!! After 2 cardioconversions and 2 surgeries to correct Afib, I realized that staying with him was actually slowing killing me. Highly motivated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I found myself a lawyer. I am emerging as a gorgeous butterfly. And I laugh when I watch a show I Like on my iPad in bed with a carton of ice cream. Life is Good.

I love your energy. Your book and your videos is really helping on navigating the grief about my narcissistic fathers and siblings. I am into radical acceptance and total acceptance of their true faces. They're the crazy one and I'm going to remember it. I came to realize how useless they are in my life and the fact that they will always try to sabotage me out of jealousy and meanness. I am living this house asap and going no contact with all of them.

Or it could be watching shakira and JLo's clips on utube and dancing at his absence.🎉🎉🎉 What I'm currently doing.. Athens,Greece

Thank you for an amazing video, Dr. Ramani❤ this made me happy today and gave me HOPE!

Yes, it's rejection in a 1000 different ways from a 1000 different hurtful moments. My mother was a covert narcissist. My husband and I were her live-in caretakers for 20 long yrs before she passed away and it was the most difficult thing we ever did. But what hurt even more than that is that my daughter is also one. I spent her whole life trying to please her and gain her love and to have a loving real relationship with her. But once she realized she couldn't control me anymore and I was of no use to her any more she threw me out of her life. That's the hardest thing because she's my child even though she's in her 40's and even though she did a lot of bad to me, she's still my daughter and I can't just be content with not having her in my life. I feel an empty spot in my heart and I don't think any advice can take that away. Just God. One thing I believe he showed me that has helped is to stop looking at her in the past as my adorable baby and toddler and little girl and just see her for who she is today. A selfish malicious woman who uses people.

Dark critical judgemental cloud is a good description of how it feels.

You make me smile Dr. Ramani ✨️💖 This is where I am in my healing prosess now. I have made new friends with 3 of my neighbours 🤩 We are different ages. I'm the youngerst 54. We have all survived narcissistic abuse! And we sit outside, talk, laugh, connect! It's amazing. And I talked to one of them yesterday about the freedom of being no-contact and finding out who we truely are ❤️ And two of them got your book as well 🙏 And I buy myself a new green plant for my appartment almost everyday 💚✨️🪴 They are my friends as well. Watching whatever I want too on TV and eating whatever I choose too eat. Next year I will travel to Holland to meet my dutch family whom I've never met. You save lives everyday 💜 Thank you 🌈🫶✨️

This is most important, thank you Dr Ramani. Because the “death by 1000 cuts” is even worse when you have no choice but to continue engaging, while they escalate control and put your elderly parent at risk.. which is a HUGE thing on your head while you hope & pray that you will be able to negate the risk to your elderly parent.. and the risk to YOU..

Whenever Dr. Ramani talks about a time she was in a relationship with a narcissist, I want to kick the narcissist's ass! How dare they hurt our Dr. Ramani! She is a treasure! I once read a quote that said: Asking yourself, “Would someone who loves and care about me do that to me?”, and being very honest with yourself, will save you from going back into the wrong hands. It has been very helpful for my healing and I hope others can find that mindset helpful.

After I left, I started with little things, I didn’t know about your channel then. But I was trying to follow my intuition and needs. I started with putting on lipstick and lip gloss again. I started drawing again even when I didn’t know what to draw. I bought things for myself without apologizing. I started writing a journal again. I started working out and trying new things. I started going back to places he had ruined for me and reclaiming them by making new memories. It really is 1000 little things but they add up over time. And finding someone new that you can trust and love who WILL reciprocate is amazing.

So true! This woman has a very deep wisdom. I am over eighty and have never been married But I have been exposed to narcistic patterns as a child. Listening to people who is animated by a scientific world view, who are always trying to spread truth and realism are always worth listening to. Dear dr Ramani thanks for your important work, so much needed in our modern society. All the best Kaj :-)

Thank you for the videos. I needed help seeing my light inside the darkness. Here's a joke that helped me make sense of my life: A narcissist and an empath wake up in a dirty hotel room together. The empath says "Will you help me clean up after us?" The narcissist says, "Who the fuck do you think you are? I want a divorce!!!"

I am so grateful for you Dr. Ramani❤

Or it could be drinking coffee in your car, parked at your secret place, while.listening to Metallica really loud😢

I have been sleeping in another room. I started not cooking. I bought things that he would bitch at me about. And guess what, the world has not stopped going around the sun. I am getting a divorce! Hallelujah!!! He has to move in with his best friend and his girlfriend with 3 kids. Ha ha. He thinks living with me was difficult. But that’s ok I will be long gone and I will not look back.

How do you know it in so much details - if often feels like you are reading my life like a book and swells up my eyes even when I don't want to , I am trying to heal and its not teh big steps but the small ones which i am trying to do - grabbing a cup of coffee and enjoying it, cooking something for myself - singing aloud ,randomly dancing - everything which made me, Me and which i just forgot in last so many years , sometimes it feels i will never be me again but other times I also tell myself this too shall pass , I will be alright someday 100%.

Small things...mine currently includes allowing myself to have a messy kitchen and not worrying about it. It gets cleaned up the next day. Now I can allow myself to see how that mess affects the energy in the house, and without guilt or shame start to keep it clean. Sometimes not. I enjoy a clean home. Here's to the freedom to clean my home because I enjoy a clean home and like to provide my son a clean healthy home. Because it lifts us up, instead of because of the desire to gain approval and accolades (fake), from the narc. Yay. ❤

Priceless

Thanks Dr. Ramani!!! You dropped this video the same day i desperately needed to hear all of this. 😊

Another description of how it happens is like the drip drip drip of a faucet and once the kitchen is flooded, you realize what has occurred and how much life has been drained from you, drip by drip.

Thank you Dr. Ramani for your wise encouraging ways to a healing journey. My life's journey of 30 years, knowledge of narcissistic relationship in 2023. I enjoyed my small joys, recently watching cricket, fun, blessings to us to be totally healed. Luke 8; Psalms 1-150🙏🇯🇲👑🌹🙌🫅

one of my thing is i watched shows like The Hoarders that somehow showed a lot of Narcisistic Parents in their old age, when their kids leaving them and they are no longer have supply so they are looking for it in stuff? am I reaching?? anyway, I like watching them, and just shout at my TV because I cant shout at mine..hahaha

If they won't physically attack you, definitely do these things while still in the narc relationship! Over and over, until they leave you. When you leave them, they'll try to Hoover you. When they leave you, it'll take longer before they try that, if they try it at all. If they truly hate you for being you that much, they won't try to come back, and you're off the hook! If you have to, you might want to have the conversation I had with an ex of mine on the phone: Him: "You want to go to xyz with me tonight?" Me: "Maybe, but before we talk about that, I need to ask you about something." Him: "Oh, what?" Me: "Well, it seems like you're pretty unhappy with me lately. You don't like my clothes or my laugh, you complain about these other things [I forget what they all were anymore]. Would you say that's about right? Him: "Yes." Me: "Well, the way I see it, we can do one of three things: 'Keep seeing each other and you being unhappy with me, break up and stay friends, or break up. Which would you like to do?" Him: "Break up." Me: "Ok, well, thanks for calling! Bye!" (Here I just hung the phone up on him.) He did try a couple months later to Hoover me, but it didn't work and he left me alone after that. That was almost 30 years ago. I eventually accidentally met his fiancee' a little while after the break up who told me that she didn't mind being treated the ways he'd treated me. Poor little thing - she'd been brainwashed to be a 1950s housewife type, and had only gone to college to find a husband instead of an education and a career she could use to support herself and live at no one's behest but her own if/when she wanted to. I truly feel sorry for her, wasting all that loan money that way. He was definitely not worth $40,000.00. On top of it all, he really was not physically attractive. He was just looking for low hanging fruit - anyone desperate for a ring on her finger. Disgusting is what I say!

i see it clear, but i have no one else. Disengage and be completely alone, the idea of this is destroying me.

I'm going to cook carrots my way.

I am pure shining light that is never ending and invincible. They may try to taint and steal it but my fountain replenshises everyday i can feel the divine light in my veins pulsing through me. Narcissists hate it

I also got criticized for laughing loudly. And this man had the disgusting habit of picking his nose in public.

Hey 👋🏻

I greatly appreciate you Dr. Ramani!!!

I read vedic culture or I'm in my thoughts and I know souls exist it's not a sickness of the mind.I felt they want to keeping me in dumbness.They tell they didn't want to.But I think they did.And I have the right to being intelligent without their permission.

3:49 she is ABSOLUTELY right. Doing this is what saved my life essentially( the not telling them part)

How are they all so similar that I experienced so many of the abusive things in your list? How did I manage to see the trees and even point them out, but I never realized I was IN a forest? How did I experience the little heals you mentioned here before I even could understand what I was healing from? Your insight empowers me by illuminating my progress and guiding me to where I can go next. Thank you.

So this is why I enjoy small things and my hobbies so much 😅

Getting through a divorce, beating myself up for being a doormat for so many years.

you are truly amazing, thank you for all you do!

Thank you for this video! I just became free after more than a decade with the narcissist! I needed this video! Now cleaning out and cleaning up for a month is tdious until I can make it all about the healing I need!

I am going to do this and write down 1000 things I do, or even more important to me, no longer do. First will be not waiting in my car anymore for 10 minutes before entering my home, and second will be not panick when I put my key in the front door. Third will be changing something in my home just because I can, even changing a pot plant out makes me teary.

I still think its the funniest thing that my ex showed me your channel cause his mom is highly narcisistic and in the end I'm here healing from his narcisistic tendencies learned at home. I truly don't think he has NPD at all, but his trauma response is acting in the same way his mom would treat him but towards me. INSANITY. And now that I'm gone, doing these tiny rituals are 100% so effective. I hope he can find the healing he needs and becomes a better person, I still wish I could be his friend. I loved him so much

Thank you, Dr. Ramani. As I was listening to this video, it really struck me how soothing your voice is. (I can see you guiding meditations.) Sometimes, the tone of one's voice can add or detract from what is being said. Your never ending great information along with your calmness is very cathartic. Finally, I hope that you come to Canada in the near future!

I didn't quite get to a thousand because your wonderful book "Should I go or should I stay?" helped me to take the best decision Doc! But it's absolutely true that as soon as I begann to disengage and enjoy little things for and by myself I got enough strength inside of me in order to go forever 💃❤🙏🏻

Queen Ramani🥇👸🏻

SERIOUSLY,Couldn't have described it any better!!!

Yes, I can relate to this . Super sad to have come to this, super bummed that I did not choose a different path

My ex would blow a gasket whenever I spent money, even a dollar on anything we didnt “need” (by “need” it was the very barest of essentials). I remember the first time I bought myself a can of coke, I felt so naughty 😂. He was away for work, and thankfully not constantly hovering over me constantly! I did utilize that absence to reconnect with myself & break away from him. He had this habit of giving a “pfft” coupled with an eye roll whenever he wanted to subtly let me know my behavior (whatever it may have been) was unacceptable to him. It often worked to keep me on egg shells. But after being away from him for a while, another thing that I did, that he absolutely crushed him, was ask “did you spring a leak or something?!?” because I ignored his first couple of “pfffts” so they got louder & more frequent.

Great video!😊

I recently skipped work without telling him and went to Disneyland for the day by myself. Best day ever. 21 years of not being allowed to do things that don't interest him, I finally needed a break and to see if I could find a small piece of myself again. Although nervous of being caught I found that I'm not indecisive when by myself. I ate whatever I wanted, rode whatever I wanted, and watched a parade. I will never forget that day. Hoping to have more days like that.

How can we attend either of your North Carolina or London workshops, please? Would you please share the link, Dr. Ramani. I would like to go to NC in November to hear you speak.

This is beautiful ...benefitting from these bandaids, It feels so good to have your summary of what it was like and now... wowza, so much bettah

Spouse and I are recovering from what my MIL and a couple other abusive relatives did to us, for decades. We call the thousand little things our "small joys." Spouse says "the small joys come more often" and that's why we are learning to pay attention to them now.