The School of Greatness
Family Therapist: The #1 Sign You Were Raised by Narcissistic Parents
Wed, 19 Mar 2025
I'm going on tour! Come see The School of Greatness LIVE in person!Get my new book Make Money Easy here!Most of us unknowingly live under what family therapy expert Jerry Wise calls "the family trance" – a powerful force that shapes our identity without our awareness. After 45 years helping thousands break free from dysfunctional family patterns, Jerry reveals how our adult struggles often stem from inherited emotional programming that creates a "malignant normalcy" within us. Through our conversation, he shares the revolutionary concept of self-differentiation – the courageous process of separating your true self from your family's expectations while remaining emotionally connected. When Jerry states "whatever issues I leave unresolved, who gets to resolve them? My children," I realized this might be the most transformative conversation we've had about breaking generational patterns. His profound insight that "it's never too late to have a happy childhood" offers hope to anyone trapped in cycles of criticism, people-pleasing, or emotional reactivity that originated in their family system.Get Jerry’s Free 84-Minute 'Self-Differentiation' TrainingGet more from Jerry on YouTubeIn this episode you will learn:Why criticizing yourself harshly is often your "family self" talking, not your authentic voiceHow to identify if you had narcissistic parents and what that means for your adult relationshipsThe three levels of resistance you'll face when changing family dynamics and how to overcome themWhy trying to change your parents is futile, but changing yourself transforms the entire systemThe difference between setting outer boundaries and the crucial inner boundaries needed for healingHow the "fantasy" of finally getting parental approval keeps many adults emotionally stuckWhy it's never too late to have a happy childhood through self-parenting and inner child workThe three core elements needed for lasting change: self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-differentiationFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1747For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Gabby Bernstein – greatness.lnk.to/1714SCJason Wilson – greatness.lnk.to/1725SCMel Robbins – greatness.lnk.to/1710SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX
Chapter 1: What is the significance of the 'family trance' in understanding family dynamics?
So many people grow up under the family trance. They don't understand the dysfunction of their family because it's been normalized. Here I am criticizing myself and cutting myself down internally and hating myself. And many will go, don't look at any of that. Let's just try to be nicer to yourself. Versus, wait a minute, let's get mom and dad out of here.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood. So let's start now.
What are the warning signs then that show up in adult children of narcissistic parents? Let's then take a look at that. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest today. We have the inspiring Jerry Wise in the house. And a quick bio about Jerry. He's the leading expert in healing from family and relationship dysfunction through self differentiation.
You've been doing this work for over 45 years. as a therapist and a coach, and you've helped thousands of people worldwide break free from dysfunctional family patterns and discover their true selves. And this could possibly be one of the most powerful conversations we have here.
I'm not just saying that, even though we've done this show for 12 years, because in my mind, we've talked a lot about narcissism and relationships and narcissism, but we haven't covered if you have experienced life with a narcissistic parent and the clear signs of if your parents were narcissistic or on the spectrum in any ways and how that impacts you for everything in your life.
And so I'm curious if we could start, Jerry, with what are the clear signs that you could start reflecting and asking yourself if one of your parents were narcissistic in any way?
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Chapter 2: How can you identify if you were raised by narcissistic parents?
One of the things certainly that I found is that so many people grow up under the family trance. And so the family trance, they don't understand the dysfunction of their family because it's been normalized. And I've used the term malignant normalcy.
Because then if I grew up abused and I'm in an abusive relationship, I've normalized the abuse as not something I like, but I will accept or it's kind of normal. But that's a malignant normalcy. That's not a normalcy you want to have.
And so when people, when I think about helping people see, and really that's what my work is about, is to help people see outside the box and to see in a broader way so much of all the dynamics that are going on within the family. And if you have a narcissistic family, or there's all kinds of other dysfunctional families too, There are some universals that go along with that.
But when you say a narcissistic family, I think when you start to recognize, hey, they've always been controlling. They lack empathy. They guilt and shame. They could be abusive, but they don't have to be abusive to be narcissistic. they love you and they have a plan for your life. And I say love with air quotes.
We used to say that in religious circles, God loves you and he has a plan for your life. Well, the narcissist loves you and they have a plan for your life and you better follow it. Wow. Or else. Or else. And the narcissist will be very self-absorbed. Everything is basically about them. It always comes back to them. That's the whole focus.
And if you have parents who have some of those type of traits, there are other traits, but some of those people will always ask me, am I a narcissist? And I'll go, do you ever feel guilty? Oh, yeah, all the time. Then you're not.
You're just dysfunctional. You're just dysfunctional.
No, right. A narcissist is not going to feel that guilt. What have they done wrong? They're always right. So why would I feel guilt about anything or shame? So if you felt that, you're probably less likely to be a narcissist. But a parent can be a narcissistic parent. They can abuse you. They can criticize you. But they'll never go, oh, my bad. They won't apologize. Why would they apologize?
You made them do it. You made them do it. Or they did it. For your good. So why would I ever need to say, I'm sorry? There's no need to say I'm sorry.
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Chapter 3: Why is it crucial to break the cycle of generational trauma?
That's too superficial. The thing that's going to make them more dysfunctional as an adult is to not break their own cycle from their own past, bringing that cycle to their current nuclear family, and not knowing it.
So bringing the generational trauma onward.
And the generational programming, and the generational emotional Wi-Fi that's been going on and they just bring that right into here, that's gonna mess them up more than ever. Now, does abuse and narcissistic meanness, do all those things affect the kid? Of course it does. Screaming and all that stuff, yeah. Exactly. Of course it's going to.
But it's not the screaming that's the underlying problem.
That's a symptom of something.
That's a symptom of how the family has been dysfunctional and toxic. And it can come out in different ways. Narcissism, alcoholism, abuse, workaholism, sex addiction. It can come out in gambling and all kinds of symptomatic ways. But underneath all of that... is an enmeshment to a family whose trance has never been broken. Wow.
The origin family.
The origin family. It's never been broken. And now you're just living it out. Only John's living it out that way. Mary's living it out that way.
But that's the underlying important dynamic. And if we don't break the trance of the family, the origin family of ours, if we don't break that trance, then we're just going to relive that pattern in our adult relationships as well.
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Chapter 4: What are the steps to achieve self-differentiation from family influences?
And so as adult children, What should we be thinking about if we felt like we had a dysfunctional childhood? Should we be thinking about how do I get myself to be self-differentiated from my parents and my family? How do I block my family completely? How do I heal the past?
Like, what should we be thinking about as we come into awareness as adult children of dysfunctional childhoods or narcissistic parents?
And I think it's a great question. But your question also has within it a certain paradigm, as all questions do. Every question has the answer in it. Every question that someone asks, the answer is in their question. And so you were asking about, so do I separate myself from my family?
And certainly if families are abusive and toxic and have no interest in changing, well, then we have to look at some no contact or we may need to go that far. But self-differentiation,
What I tend to think when someone has a family that's narcissistic, does the person that I'm working with or talking to or the adult child of the narcissist need greater self-differentiation, which is an emotional state and a maturity state? Or do they need to physically separate? If you physically separate, you still need to emotionally separate. Right. It doesn't solve the problem.
It doesn't solve the problem. Right, right, right. Now, but I don't want you there being abused, you know, and being taken. And, you know, there's common sense to this as well. But self-differentiation is the, do you have the maturity and respect for yourself that if you had grown up in a healthy family, this is the way you'd be? That's self-differentiation. And people go, well, how can I do that?
I didn't grow up in a healthy family. It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Really?
So let's start now.
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Chapter 5: How can adult children start healing from a dysfunctional childhood?
Beautiful childhood. My parents love me. They need to treat me right. Maybe someday they'll accept me. Maybe it's not. It's a fantasy. It is a fantasy. And fantasies mess up adulthood. Goals don't mess up adulthood, but fantasies do. And emotional fantasies. Sure, sure. And there's creativity and fantasies and things. But this fantasy of I'm going to have a happy childhood.
I'm trying to have a happy childhood. But every time I go back at Christmas time or the holiday time, it always ends up being a mess.
So they just judge me.
And they judge me and they do the same thing. I try to be nicer and I bring more food or I bring the kids or whatever they're trying to do to get this so that their parents will one day go, you are okay.
So what should adult children stop trying to do with their parents? Stop needing them as parents. Really?
When does parenting end?
18?
Is it supposed to end, though, at 18 for everyone?
I hope. Aren't you going to be an adult?
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Chapter 6: What is the role of the inner child in adult self-awareness and healing?
Even if they do apologize, it still may not solve the problem. Yeah, you'll have to fix it still.
Exactly. How does that fix it? Right. And so they always go back, I'm going to confront them and tell them, and you're just going to get caught up in the system even deeper. Really? You're going to go down in the quicksand even more if you go do that. And I always tell people the time to confront people is when you don't need to. If you need to, you're probably out of sync. Really? Yeah.
So not that we can't confront some people.
Yeah, yeah.
I got to confront if they're not giving me my coffee. Sure, sure. But generally, I'm talking about this emotional stuff.
You know, it's interesting that you say that. I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn't know. And I've talked about it openly on this show many times. But for those that are here the first time, it was something that haunted me for 25 years. For 25 years, I held onto it. I felt shame. I felt sadness. I felt anger, rage, all these different things.
And it was a movie that played in my mind over and over again for 25 years. And it drove me without even knowing it, unconsciously, to protect myself, to defend myself, to... Not trust? Yeah, not trust. If someone's trying to take advantage of me, I'm going to, you know, get big and strong and all these different things. And I need to be right and I need to win.
And in some ways, it helped me accomplish certain goals, but left me feeling very empty as well.
Bad things have upsides. Bad things have downsides. Good things have upsides. Good things have downsides.
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Chapter 7: How can self-parenting transform your adult relationships?
When do you stop having a child inside you? Never. Start your childhood now.
By you becoming the parent to yourself.
Self-parenting, re-parenting. And now I'm going to ask myself, what would you like to go do to play? Because just like with a tree, a tree starts out with a little branch and grows up to be a big tree. But the little tree hasn't gone away. I mean, it's still in there. It's still a part of the growth. And we're the same way. It's called our inner child.
And the inner child we have all the rest of our lives. And many people actually, because of their family of origin, abuse their inner child because... That's what happened when they grew up. And so they parent themselves the way their parents parented them. Wow. And that's the whole story of connectedness. Parents parent you, you parent you, and that we continue on. And you parent your kids.
And then you parent your kids. So if you can get your insides straightened out, generations will be grateful to you. And I literally mean generations because it probably took about five generations to get to here. That's dysfunctional. Probably five to get here. You can change the world if you change you. And even now, I still work on my self-differentiation. I have a 39-year-old son.
And I do that because I want to have as good a relationship as I can have with him. Because whatever issues I leave unresolved for me, who gets to resolve them?
Him.
Wow.
I saw a clip of an interview online of someone, a really successful billionaire entrepreneur, probably in his 70s. And he said the key to success in life was having adult children that still want to hang out with you, not because of your money or your success.
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Chapter 8: What are the benefits of self-differentiation in family relationships?
But particularly in childhood is where we get a lot of that programming going on that carries over to older ages. And so when we think about, would you know if your inner child wanted you to do something? And if you don't know, do you think that could be problematic? Probably, yeah. And many people will go, I don't think I want to work on inner child stuff. That's all psychological mumbo-jumbo.
Okay, well, that's fine. You don't have to. However, when you are hypercritical of yourself and very down on yourself, who are you down on? Hmm. The adult self, the inner child, probably more likely the inner child, because you're going to act like your parents to the child. That's just what we do.
And so knowing that can be helpful because if you become a collaborator with your inner child, it stabilizes you. If you're not, then you're always fighting yourself in business, in success, in money, in jobs, in marriages, in relationships. You're always going to be fighting yourself. And if we talk long enough, I'll prove that to you. You know, I would prove that to you. Sure, sure, sure.
How that's...
So when we are in conflict with ourselves or hypercritical of ourselves, whether it be our adult or inner child self, how is that hurting us or helping us?
The thing is, first of all, I might say you're not being your true self. You're being a pseudo self to yourself. You're being the family super self to yourself. When you're acting that way. When you're acting that way. That's not you, but you think it's you. And I'm going, it really isn't. It's... You're bringing the family trance.
Trance, Wi-Fi, super self, we call it, because all the family connects to this big super self that's all enmeshed emotionally. And we even know biologically. There's a way to describe it.
Yeah, of course.
And that you're now not, you're not, when somebody's going, and I'm fine with being hypercritical of myself. I'm not going to look at my inner child. But every time I hear you being self-critical in a negative way, you know, towards yourself, I'm going, why are you not being yourself? Because would yourself do that? And they'd probably go, well, no, I wouldn't. Then where is that coming from?
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