Twin Flame Relationships: Healthy or Abusive? With Candace Moon

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you heard of a twin flame? To little complex,
So bear with me as I explain it. The idea
of a twin flame is a spiritual concept that one
soul can incarnate into two separate bodies. The belief is
that every person has a mirror soul who is their

(00:22):
perfect romantic match. Those who say they have found their
twin flame describe these relationships as intense, intoxicating, and oftentimes
downright toxic. From a psychological perspective, what sounds like something
out of a fairy tale can actually be a breeding
ground for abuse. Over the past few years, several twin

(00:47):
flame online communities have ignited controversy, claiming to help those
seeking romantic guidance while actually encouraging unhealthy and often abusive relationships.
On In this episode of Navigating Narcissism, I'm joined by
Candace Moon, who got involved in the twin flame community

(01:07):
only to realize they were peddling, as she says, glamorize
narcissistic abuse. Candace was urged to stay in an abusive
relationship rather than risk losing per twin flame from Red
Table Talk Podcasts and iHeartMedia. I'm Doctor Rominy and this
is Navigating narcissism. This podcast should not be used as

(01:32):
a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are
advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy
from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition,
mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on
this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering

(01:58):
to some people. Use and opinions expressed are solely those
of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia,
or their employees. Candice, you have an amazing story. Let's

(02:19):
just start at the topic of twin flames. Can you
teach our listeners what a twin flame relationship is?

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yes, So, the main belief of a twin flame is
that you have this intense soulmate connection with this one
person that literally is the other half of your soul.
So the dogma, the belief is that before you incarnate
into this life, your one soul and then that soul
splits into a masculine and a feminine not necessarily a

(02:53):
male physical body because there's LGBT people that are in
the twin flame community. As well, but it's like an
energy of life, the masculine aspect and the feminine aspect.
So the soul just kind of splits in half and
they incarnate down into the earth and you live your
life separately through many different lifetimes, but you always have

(03:14):
like this longing to find that perfect person, that other
half of your soul. So you're basically living an incomplete
life until you meet this person.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
My first question is, is only one person then that qualify
as a twin flame?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yes, yes, you have that one special person and literally
they're you. You literally share one soul that's split off
and incarnated and is been going around in your human
life lost and confused looking for that other half of
you to complete you. And when you finally do meet them,

(03:54):
you have this intense connection of a spiritual connection, like
you feel like you've come home or you have is
knowing and longing and you're with this person. But then
it gets into once you've met the person, then things
start going wrong in your life. All of your insecurities

(04:14):
and everything are triggered. And this is where we get
into where which I know we'll talk about where it's
actually kind of the narcissism in the relationship, the toxicity
starts to come out, and you bounce back and forth
between what we call a narcissistic abuse, the love bombing,
and the devaluation, whereas in the twin Flame they call
it the love bubble and then the triggering or the mirroring,

(04:36):
and they bounce back and forth through that a lot.
But it's all under the guise of it's your soulmate,
it's your soul connection, and it's a spiritual connection, all
these things that you're going through, But the basics of
it is your one soul and split off. You're not
your own person, and you're searching for this other person
to complete you so your soul can come back together.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Candice, people who hold belief systems, do they believe this
to be true of all people or that only there's
certain chosen people who have this twin flame experience that
they are going to find.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Well, it depends on who you ask. There's many people
that are in the twin Flame community that believe it's
only a special people, and they'll take that number one
hundred and forty four thousand out of the Book of
Revelation in the Biblical text. They'll say that, oh, there's
only one hundred and forty four thousand. Then there's those
that will say, well, everybody has a twin flame, so
it's kind of like in the entire twin flame community.

(05:30):
People will have different perceptions of it and beliefs of it.
But yes, you'd say most of them, there's only special
chosen people that have a twin flame.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
So many follow up questions right now, No, it's not
even that confusing. Actually, I'll tell you, as you were talking,
I got a chill for how frightening this would be.
And from a narcissistic relationship perspective, I want to go
backwards for a second. I'm just going to put on
my straight up statistician hat on this one. There are
seven billion people on the planet, okay, and one of them,

(06:03):
only one is our twin flame. So that's a one
in seven billion shot. If you don't hold to the one
hundred and forty four thousand, then it's seven billion, one
in seven billion, right, those odds are already troubling, But
we live spread all over the planet. In this model,
is a conceivable that a person who lives in Los
Angeles that her twin flame could be on Mauritius or Madagascar.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
And it's funny that you bring this up, because the
majority of people that claim they found their twin flame
a lot of times have never met them in person.
They've met them online, and they're living in another country
or another state. So most of the time it'll be
someone that you haven't even met in person. And there's
even those that believe that their twin flame is out
there and they've connected with them on a spiritual level.

(06:52):
But yes, that happens a lot.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Actually, because that means Candae that this entire model of
twin flame something that feels so primal that even hearkens
back to the Book of Revelations. One would imagine that
twin flames always existed, but the internet did not, nor
did phones, So you know, that would mean that there
were times when it seems like that everyone was walking

(07:14):
around without a twin flame. So it kind of doesn't
sort of hold the smell test, you know, in terms
of it's certainly a very convenient modern model, but it
doesn't work backwards. Another question, given that under this model
most people will never meet their twin flame, is the
assumption then that everybody else in the world who doesn't

(07:36):
meet their twin flame is walking around in a less
than ideal relationship.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
A lot of times they'll just say that those people
just aren't awakened, because what it does, it's almost very
cult like when you're in the community where it's I mean,
it's not kind of it is really, if I'm being honest,
it is very cult like where you are the special
chosen people and all the other people they just don't understand,
not that they they're not a twin flame, so they're

(08:03):
not sharing their soul with anyone. So for them, they
can just be with each other and it's not this
intense soulmate connection. Does that make sense? It doesn't just
a regular person. You're not special like we.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Are, right, So there's that specialness piece, which you're right.
It really gets into dangerous territory. Here's where I'm concerned.
Is this idea that there's only one so whenever that
person comes, there's an assumption that there'll be some level
of recognition you have I have found this person. They've
built into the model of twin flames that you're actually

(08:35):
going to be really kind of chaotic and almost uncomfortable
and insecure and unsettled at that time, and your insecurities,
like you said, are going to get triggered. So what
concerns me is that a person may meet someone somehow
they've convinced themselves that this is my twin flame. They're

(08:56):
told that you're supposed to be uncomfortable, but if you
this is your only person once in a lifetime, you
may actually endure some really really terrible things in a relationship.
And in essence, what they're doing is packaging toxicity in
a way that people might stick it out. That really

(09:18):
concerns me.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
That's exactly what happens. It's glamorized narcissistic abuse because most
of the people that come upon the twin flame are
either in a toxic relationship already, and the twin flame
is very intoxicating because it helps you to rationalize why
you're getting bread crumbed.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Candice, just use the term breadcrumbing, which is a common
experience in narcissistically abusive relationships. Basically, you learn to get
by on less and less. Thus the little breadcrumbs that
they toss you, you can justify those bread crumbs as
being enough. This is a slow process of indoctrination and

(09:57):
the segue from love bombing and exc of attention to
you getting excited about tiny little things like them remembering
to say happy birthday, that starts feeling like a big
deal when you are breadcrumbed. It's so gradual that you
start to lose sight of what actually is a healthy
relationship and how you learn to get by on so

(10:19):
little support, compassion, respect, and basic decency in a relationship.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Why you're getting discarded, why your partner keeps cheating and
doing drugs and you keep wanting to be with them
because you don't really understand what a trauma.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Bond is as a reminder, because you can never learn
this too much. Trauma bonding is the dysfunctional relationship cycle
that forms from the alternation between idealization and invalidation. The
good days keep you locked in, and you find yourself
justifying the bad behavior in the relationship. This is a

(10:57):
particularly dastardly play on the trauma bond because even the
bad parts are being upheld as great because they are
a sign that you're doing it right, when in fact
they should be assigned to pay attention, protect yourself, or
get out. Commandeering the trauma bonded cycle and painting it
as good is a terrible precedent, and.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
It sounds more glamorous to say, oh, this is my soulmate,
my twin flame. You don't want to say, oh well,
I'm trauma bonded and I'm in the cycle of abuse.
You want to say, oh, well, it's this intoxicating spiritual
connection and we're special. So it's very, very dangerous because
in my personal opinion and my experience with the twin Flame,
I would say ninety percent are in some sort of

(11:44):
toxic relationship that this twin Flame teachings and dogma is
helping this person to stay in a codependent, toxic, abusive relationship.
It helps them to justify it because in the stages
of it, oh well, you're gonna be triggered and it's
your responsibility. I mean, we can get into this too.

(12:05):
As the divine feminine, because most of the people in
the twin Flame are women. There's men, but it's the
majority women that they call it the divine feminine. You're
responsible for all the healing in the relationship because the
divine feminine is the one that does all the healing,
all the divine mask going can go off and cheat
and do drugs and do all these things and you're
supposed to do these healing, you're supposed to hold space

(12:27):
for them, So it can get into some very dangerous
victim blaming as well.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Did a dude write this model because it seems to
work real well for them?

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Right, it's you know what this feels like. This feels
like locking down on the trauma bond and throwing away
the combination, like there's no breaking breaking out of that
because what you've now done is as it is. We
come up with so many personal justifications for trauma bonded
and toxic relationships, but now this is a justification almost

(13:02):
being handed down from a system saying oh, this feels
uncomfortable and you're upset and sad and triggered. Keep going,
you're doing this just right? Yes, okay, yes, yes for
you personally, Candice, what did you find compelling about the

(13:22):
idea of a twin flame?

Speaker 2 (13:24):
I was married for fifteen years to a non recovered alcoholic,
and towards the end of our marriage, I mean, I
love my husband, but he just could not and did
not want to get treatment for his alcohol addiction. And
towards the end of our marriage, I started really going
to alan on focusing on me and so starting a
spiritual journey of healing and working on myself. And I

(13:46):
was searching. I was one of those people that was searching.
And I am a cult survivor, so I am vulnerable
to that, and especially back then, I was very, very vulnerable.
So already being kind of traumabized, having lots of different
trauma bonds from my childhood, it was easy for me
to get sucked into this glamorized, toxic spiritual thing. And

(14:10):
I can say that now, but when you're in it, no,
you think it's just the most wonderful thing. And I
read some blogs and I read about it, and I'm like, oh,
this is me. I'm a twin flame. I'm going to
find my twin flame. And so I would do what
a lot of people do. I would get.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Tarot card readings, I would get psychic readings, healings and
different meditations to manifest my twin flame, to call your
twin flame in like you're sending a message and praying
to the universe to send you your twin flame.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
And so then after I separated from my husband, I
met this other man who I decided was my twin flame.
I did not realize that he was a covert narcissist
because I was being love bombed like I had never
been loved bombed before. I never had experienced that. And
of course he was everything that I have, very attractive,

(15:02):
love bombed me based he loved bombed me, and I
fell in love with this person, and I kept getting
bread crumbed. But the twin flame thing was there to
justify for me why I kept getting bread crumbed, why
he would just out of nowhere, just discard me to
go date another woman, why he would treat me like
a friend with benefits. And like I said, I didn't

(15:23):
know what a narcissist was, and I didn't know the
cycle of narcissistic abuse, and that I was trauma bonded
to this person. And I kept accepting the breadcrumbs, and
I kept accepting like he would have a narcissistic rage
and send me text messages and get his rage, and
then he'd be done and then we'd go back to
our little love bubble. So it was like continually the
cycle and the twin flame stages were identical. They are

(15:47):
identical to the cycles of narcissistic abuse. And I didn't
know that until fast forward later healing and my healing
journey I looked back. I'm like, oh my goodness, I
was in an abusive relationship with the covert narcissist and
I did end up after a couple of years of
that push and pull, that constant cycle. And then also

(16:11):
because I was in the twin Flame community, told that well,
you're doing the work for your divine masculine. You need
to do all these meditations. I even created for myself
a private Facebook group for those of us because we
met online. There was a community of women just like
me in the twin Flame. So I created a private
Facebook group where we would all get together to do
meditations to heal our divine masculine. And this went on

(16:34):
for a couple of years, and then there was a point,
and I don't remember the exact moment, but I remember
there was that cognitive dissonance going on. Every now and
then I would get a reality like something would come
in my brain and be like, Candas, this isn't love,
you don't deserve this, this isn't right. But then the
twin Flame thing was there to pull me back in.
But no, it's spiritual. You have to stick this out.
It's spiritual.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Cognitive dissonance is the tension or discomfort we feel when
things that matter to us are in consistent. I love him,
he's mean to me, So we do something to break
through that tension. He just had a bad day at work,
that's why he was grumpy, and maintain the outcome that

(17:14):
we want, which is keep loving the person and believing
that they are a decent person. Cognitive dissonance underlies how
the trauma bond gets formed, because we may want the
relationship to work, but it's very inconsistent and hurtful. So
that's what drives the justification that allows the trauma bonded
cycles to persist.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
And finally, I don't know how, but I just decided
I wanted to stop seeing this man. But it was
really hard to let go of the twin flame teaching
because it was so ingrained in me, and I wanted
to hold on to that belief that it was real.
So I had let go of the actual man, but
held onto the belief. And then I started saying, well,

(17:57):
maybe I was wrong, maybe he's not my twin fling,
maybe there's someone else. It's so incredibly toxic, and you know,
a lot of people in the twin flame community get
really angry when you talk about it, but their anger
is just coming from their cognitive dissonance. They want to
stay in that because it makes him feel better.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
So let me ask you this. When you met this
man and you thought he was your twin flame, were
you already in the twin flame community before you met him,
or was there something about him that made you think
he was a twin flame. I'm just trying to understand
sort of how you came to this idea that this
man was your twin flame.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
Started reading about the twin flame community and what it was,
so I had it in my mind that I was
looking for that twin flame. So when I met him,
and I had met other people, but this guy was
just very He was very compelling. I was very attracted
to this person. And he said all the right things.
And that's what narcissists do, and they love bomb you.

(18:56):
They study you, and they say all the right So
he was saying all the right things, so I thought, oh,
it's him, it has to be so yes, I had
started in the twin flame community already, and then I
felt like I had manifested him and called in my
twin flame.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
So That's the piece I'm trying to understand. So it
sounds like after your divorce you got into the twin
Flame community. You hadn't met this guy yet, but after
your divorce, what drew you to even be interested in
this concept of twin flame? I see that it wasn't
attached to a person, but what even drew you to
that after your divorce.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
That feeling of wanting love and acceptance and being part
of something that was bigger than you? And like I said,
I believe it's because I was a cult survivor already,
So I feel like I was primed for being sucked
into another cult and it was very easy for me
to fall into that. I was searching for a special love,

(19:53):
and everybody searches for that. I understand that. But I
wanted a deep connection because I I had been married
to an alcoholic for so long, you know, my youth,
like two decades of my life, and I wanted something
special because after all of that, I wanted a special
relationship where I was loved and nurtured. And I believe

(20:17):
that the twin Flame thing was where it was.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
And you know, Candice, that is such a human want
to want a special love story, especially after, like you said,
having spent two decades in something where your partner really
wasn't present. That's what alcoholic relationships are, as a person
who's just simply not there. And so it's a human
like a human drive to want to be loved and

(20:40):
want it to be special. And so it completely makes
sense to me why something like a twin flame concept
that there could be a special love story. You said
that the person you met you thought was your twin
flame was a covert narcissist. What were the patterns that
this partner was showing that led you to think that
that's what this person was.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
Because he was never overtly abusive. Everything was like if
he was mad, he was very passive aggressive. So if
I said or did something that he didn't like and
I didn't know about it, what would happen was then
he would get a narcissistic injury and I didn't know
what I did. He would rage, but his rages were
not screaming at me. His rages were texting. He would

(21:26):
get his phone out in text and like dump all
of his narcissistic rage on me through a text. And
as soon as he dumped all that in a text.
He was better. He was like, Oh, everything's fine, I
love you. Why don't you come spend the weekend? So
it was that, and he also refused to have a
commitment with me, but he wanted me around when we

(21:46):
were out in public, it was like we were boyfriend
and girlfriend. But he was always like, but we're just friends, remember,
But he wanted all the benefits of a sexual romantic
relationship with no commitment, and everything was very passive. He
never called me names, but he would rage in his
text messages. But when we were together, it was always

(22:07):
constant love bombing.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
And what did that look like? What does a love
bombing look like?

Speaker 2 (22:12):
That was constant like telling me how amazing that I was,
how we were just so good together. I was his
best friend and he just values me so much, and
he would puff me up and put me up on
a pedestal and tell me how beautiful I was and
how I would do my makeup the way he wanted
me to do my makeup. He would tell me how
he liked his makeup, how I liked my hair, and

(22:33):
if I did my hair and everything the way he liked.
He would just puff me up like it was this
wonderful thing. But then if there was something that if
he just felt like he would just randomly discard me
and say, you know, since we're not together in a relationship,
I met this girl that I'm going to go date,
and he would just discard me, and then I would
be devastated. And then all of a sudden, when that

(22:55):
didn't work out, he would come right back to me.
And I didn't understand the trauma bond or the breadcrumbing
or any of that, but that's when I later. I
didn't know it at the time, but I looked back
later and I say covert because I've been with overt
abusive sociopaths and I know kind of the difference. And
maybe he wasn't covert, but I felt like he was
because he was so charming and so sweet most of

(23:18):
the time. I think the average person would meet a
covert narcissist and think they're a wonderful person because they are.
They're good at hiding it, right.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
So the terminology here gets so muddy. That's the reason
I'm rushing the question because it it becomes a really
important teaching point too, is that you know, with narcissistic folks,
because this guy sort of sounded grandiose, charming, charismatic, controlling, rageful, triangulating.
He almost sounds a little bit like a grandiose narcissist. Okay,
who you know, you're probably right, right, that's what he

(23:48):
sounds like. And the reason I say that is we
often talk about vulnerable narcissists, right, and the vulnerable narcissist
is kind of the upside down of the grandiose. These
are the folks that are more resentful, sullen, and titled,
hold a lot of grievances. They're passive, aggressive, they're angry
at the world, and they're often not charming or charismatic.

(24:08):
In fact, sometimes people feel so sorry for them they
want to rescue them. And the reason I'm asking these
questions is I want to paint a picture so people understand,
you know, what was the draw and that charm, that charisma.
Somebody being really into you, any human being is going
to be drawn to that. And I think that that's why,
you know, and I can understand how that would fit

(24:30):
a sort of twin flame kind of a concept because
it feels special. It feels very special, And that just
as a final teaching point, when we use a covert
overt distinction. One thing that happens is that covert, we're
usually covert narcissism is like the thoughts and feelings, the
things we can't see. It's almost like their motivations, a
little tape that's playing in their head. And the overt

(24:54):
stuff is the aren't I great angry angry text? It's
the stuff we can see, the behavior we can see.
And finally, a final point with you, and this is
really important, is that it sounds like you were in
relationships with people who are far far more malignant and
abusive than this guy. And so then when if you've

(25:15):
had a continuum of narcissists in your life, sometimes we
think that, oh, this isn't as bad as that other one,
so maybe this is a little bit more hidden. And
so thank you for sharing that, because I think it
gives us a real jumping off point to clarify some stuff.
My conversation will continue after this break.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
I appreciate that the covert and the over it does
get confusing when we try to pinpoint and put a
label on because you're exactly a thousand percent correct. This
narcissist was so mild compared to the people that I
had been around, so I thought, oh, god, so he's
a covert narcissist and I just didn't know it. But
what you when you explained it like to me, and
like that makes a lot of sense, because he really
wasn't like, like you said, the vulnerable. And I've known

(26:03):
people like the vulnerable narcissists too. They're constantly victims and
everyone but them is the problem and poor me. This, yeah,
the grandiose make it makes a lot of sense. I
just felt like he was so much better.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And granted he's a better narcissist. And
I have to say, grandiose narcissists often are the better
narcissists because on their good days, they can be a
lot of fun, really charming.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
That's what that relationship. It hurt me worse than even
being with the sociopath, because what the sociopath I knew.
But with this guy, it hurt me so bad because
there were so many happy memories of when he was good.
Yeah yeah, And that's the part that gets you screwed up.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Those happy memories are what really make the glue of
the trauma bond, because you really are justifying the bad
days in the hopes of creating the good days and
blaming yourself thinking, well, if there was a good day,
maybe I'm doing something wrong and that's why today is
a bad day. What you said, though, raised something so
interesting to me is that so you're in the twin

(27:00):
flame world, you're reading, you're learning, you meet this guy,
it feels so special. He feels like you're twin flame.
You end it when you ended it, Candice, was it
because you thought he because it wasn't good for you.
I hear that it wasn't working anymore. But from a
twin Flames model, does it mean that sometimes people get
it wrong and they think someone is their twin flame

(27:22):
and they're not, or are they believed to have failed
at twin flaming.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
I had these two thoughts, like in my head, had
the I deserve better, I'm unhappy, But then the but
it's your spiritual soulmate, it's your other half. Because they literally,
and I forgot to mention this in the beginning about
the twin they literally will teach you that you have
an energetic cord connected to your heart and that person's
heart that can never be broken. That is one of

(27:49):
the teachings that there's an energy connection that can never
be broken. So your conditioned to believe that, and you
kind of do create it, because we can create energy
connections with people, and we literally create that energy cord
tying you energetically to that person. So it is very
difficult to break away from it. And for me, I

(28:12):
did go through both. I believe that. Towards the end,
I'm like, well, maybe I got it wrong, and there's
someone else that's better that is my actual twin flame,
and maybe this person wasn't it. And you find ways
to justify it, like this is part of your spiritual
journey and you've got to go on, and there's probably
your real twin flame, and even if this person is
your twin flame, you just keep going and doing all

(28:33):
the healing work and they're gonna heal eventually and come
back to you. It's like the carrot is always dangling
in front of you, and you never get.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
The carrot correct. It's the carrot being dangled in the
goalpost moving, which is sort of a really lethal combination.
How does a twin Flames universe model account for domestic
violence physical abuse in a relationship depends on the person.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
You're the guru, because there's self appointed gurus. It depends
on who you're asking. Will say, oh, no, that's terrible.
You know there, you're still your twin flame, but you
can't be with them. And then there's the ones that'll
be like, well, it's still your twin flame, and so
you need to self reflect on maybe this is a
past life thing that you guys are working out together.
They'll come up with some toxic spiritual nonsense to help

(29:17):
you justify why. And I remember sitting and watching certain
YouTubers and just like wanting justifications, like searching, like it
was like an addiction. I wanted my fix to be
told that this is okay, this is spiritual. So so, yeah,
they don't handle it well, I wouldn't say they do
it in the right way.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
No, So you talked about this idea of gurus, and
you're saying it in the plural. This isn't just one program.
What I'm hearing is that there's many people out there
that are spewing out this whole twin Flames thing. It's
sort of like it's like a twin Flames universe out

(29:57):
there that.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Multiple It is one of them that's called well, yeah,
there is one group and now I don't know them.
They're from Michigan, the ones that have been written about
in Vanity Fair. They're a couple. I call them just couples.
They're just couples that are, in my opinion, exploiting these
people's pain because they get the pain point, so then
you're in pain. So you're searching for them. They've got
the answers, Oh, you've got to sign up for this class,

(30:21):
or you've got to join this group, You've got to
do this, and then you're always being told to work
on yourself. And they'll say, but you're not doing this
work to get the twin flame. But you know, damn well,
they're only coming to you because they want the twin flame.
So you can say that all that you want, but
you know why they're coming to you. But yes, there's
if you go on YouTube and put twin flame, you'll

(30:41):
find hundreds and hundreds and there's even more since I
have left the twin flame community, and they're selling their
services to help you manifest your twin flame, to help
you heal that. There's all kinds of stuff. So they
that's why I said earlier, it's like a twin flame machine.
It's like this machine that keeps going. It's this big
giant business. There's people that make a lot of money

(31:02):
off of pain. And there's no pretty way to say it.
They're making a lot of money off your pain because
they're not really helping you to get out of a
toxic relationship. They're encouraging you to stay in one because
it's your twin flame. And when I started talking about this,
I got a lot of hate for it, Like people
were really angry people in the twin flame world. But

(31:23):
it's the truth.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Well, I think it sounds like it is a money
making machine, and I think the challenge is is that
it doesn't sound like this is cheap. That people might
be charging people a lot of money, and this is
such a vulnerable group of people, people who really might
be lonely, might be searching for love, maybe coming out
of a breakup or a devastating end of a relationship.

(31:47):
These are vulnerable people and when we are that vulnerable,
we will pay any amount of money to make that
pain go away. Absolutely, you had had a private Facebook
right where you said that that's how you were sort
of connecting with people in this world. That culture, Like,
what would the culture be of a Facebook group of

(32:10):
people who were in that shared twin flame culture.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
It's interesting because Okay, so it was mostly women and
we all got really close. And the funny thing is
the women that are attracted to these twin flame stuff
are the same women that end up with narcissists. They're
not stupid. They're intelligent women, creative women, and have a
lot going for them. But in the twin flame because

(32:35):
I also have a private Facebook group now for survivors,
and it's interesting that you asked me that, because it's
a very similar dynamic, except in the twin flame it's
all spiritual. So what would happen is like, let's say
there's a couple of women in the group that are
dealing with their twin flame who's a drug addict, or
they're dealing with their twin flame who's married to somebody else.

(32:57):
It's some type of toxic dynamic, and we're talking about
it and supporting each other, but it's all under the
guise of well, let's do this meditation healing and we
can send healing energy to him to help him get
off of drugs, or we can send this healing energy
to her so she can stop cheating and let's look
inside of ourselves and figure out, well, why are they cheating? Well,

(33:20):
you're the same person, you share the same soul, so
what inside of you is being dishonest? So that victim
blaming thing, but you don't even know you're doing it.
You think you're supporting each other. And it's not helpful
because nobody's encouraged to like get a safety plan, talk
to a therapist. Like, no one's thinking of it as abuse.

(33:41):
I guess that's what my point is. It's never talked
about that it's.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Abuse, nor does it sound like it's ever being framed
from other points of view, like trauma or anything like that,
the things that could potentially make a person vulnerable, or
a history of trauma, bonded relationships. It sounds like like
you called it glamorized narcissistic use, which I have to
say that absolutely, you're absolutely it's it's beautifully packaged twin flames.

(34:05):
That sounds a lot more glamorous than you know, really
really abusive, you know, emotionally abusive relationships. So it sounds
like it was a really tricky universe where in some
ways people were they were enabling this idea of staying
in a toxic relationship, so you had all these people
around you. Because I think about it, Candice, you know,

(34:27):
I think of how when because I've worked with, you know,
hundreds and hundreds of clients on this and talk to
lots of people, and that they'll say, you know, when
you're going through a tricky time in your relationship, you
want to talk with friends who will say no, no, no,
it's going to work out, like they're really into you.
Don't go to the friend who says run away, right,

(34:48):
because that's not the good feeling. And it sounds like
in some ways these Facebook groups were a lot of
people saying no, no, no, no, it's going to work out,
And so that would almost keep people trying and staying
and self blaming in these unhealthy relationships, because this entire
conversation about twin flames seems to be really embedded in

(35:08):
false hope.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Exactly, the false hope, and that's the dangerous part. I mean,
that's the dangerous part in any abusive relationship. But we
were all lifting each other up and giving each other
hope to stay in something toxic, and nobody was really
saying well, because if you did say it, you weren't
part of the group. You wouldn't been accepted if you
did say I think these are abusive relationships because they'll say, oh, no,

(35:32):
your twin flin can't abuse you. It's not abuse, it's
you're working these things out because there's something inside of
you too. And the women, we were always the female
aspect of the twin was always given like the biggest
responsibility for fixing everything, and we just we didn't do it.
But it goes back to what you just said. We
were giving each other hope and lifting each other up.

(35:53):
But this is your twin and you could, you know,
encouraging each other to take care of yourself, but you're
never in courage to get in the relationship because you
have this energetic tie where you're always going to be
connected no matter what. There was never a healthy like,
maybe this person isn't the one for you, maybe you
know you ought to think about talking to somebody or

(36:16):
just getting help or getting out. It was never anything
like that.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
I'm going to pick up on something you brought up.
You were talking about how the majority of people in
this community were women. I understand that. I understand that culturally,
I understand that from oppressive frameworks. I understand from every
framework you could imagine, but it sounds like, and again
I'm using the binary here, but it seems like some
men did come into it. Were the men looking for

(36:45):
love just like the women were? Was there something different
about them?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
No, they were looking for the same thing. There just
wasn't as many of them. So but yeah, it was
the same thing. They were in toxic relationships with abusive partners,
on available part partners that were married, and they were
really looking for the same thing. But the twin flame
thing seems to attract more women than men. I mean,
it could be different now, but when I was part

(37:11):
of it, it was mostly women and like maybe one or
two men.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Wow, that's a bit like you have a group of.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Like twenty people and then a couple of them were
men and eighteen of them were women.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Okay, so very disproportionate, And that might be, you know,
what you'll often see in terms of people's interests. At
some point in this, especially in this Facebook community and
online communities, you were talking about twin flames. At what
point did things start to go sour? Because it sounds
like you were starting to see it and they were not,
So how did that play out?

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Well, what happened was I was believing in the twin flame,
but I was starting to feel like, okay, So I
didn't want to let go of the idea of the
twin flame yet, but I wanted to let go of
the toxic, abusive behaviors that I knew like I could
not tolerate anymore in my life. But I wanted to
hold onto the twin flame. So I started opening up
conversations with people like, you know, what if it's wrong

(38:07):
that all this time we've been saying that you're supposed
to feel all this insecurity is being triggered. It's supposed
to be hard, it's supposed to be you know, terrible
because you're working out your insecurities and your stuff. And
I would bring up, maybe that's not what a twin
flame is. Maybe it should feel good. Because what happened
was I had started seeing a therapist and she looked

(38:30):
at me and she says, love doesn't hurt. And I
know it sounds like that's a simple statement. I should
have already known that, but with the way my therapist
said it to me, she said, Candace, love doesn't hurt,
and that gave me like this big light bulb. And
so then, like I said, I didn't want to give
up the twin flame thing, so I started opening up dialogues. Well,
maybe these stages are wrong, Maybe it's wrong, maybe we

(38:51):
got this wrong. Maybe you meet your twin flame when
you're whole and healthy and everything is great and in
a healthy relationship. And people were pushing back time with that. Well,
I'm with my twin flame and we went through all
of these horrible things and we're still together. Like, people
got very defensive when I started trying to change the dialogue.

(39:11):
I try to open up a different dialogue too, because
I because I could no longer reconcile and accept the
abusive behaviors as something spiritual, but I wanted to still
believe and the twin flame thing was real.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
So it's interesting that you were still trying to hold
on to that belief that there would be this one incredible,
special love story. But you were thinking, it doesn't need
to be painful. It could be abusive, right, And because
it sounds like what wasn't happening in these communities was
a consistent discussion of what constitutes a healthy relationship. That

(39:48):
was not It was that if this person comes around
and near twin flame and by definition, by definition, the
twin flame relationships were chaotic and confusing and inconsistence and
brought out insecurity. So, like you said, it wasn't just
glamorized narcissistic abuse. It was sanctioning the idea that from
the beginning, you should choose somebody who makes you feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yes, the whole premise is holding on to the chaos. Wow,
And that's part of the relationship that you have to accept.
And that's the part where I was like, I can't
do that anymore. I just can't. Like I've been working
on myself, I had a therapist. I can't hold on
to thinking that this is okay. That if it's a

(40:34):
divine relationship, and if you believe that your relationship is
sacred and divine, why would God or the god of
your understanding send you this horrible person to abuse you
if you believe that it's a spiritual connection. And I
was starting to open that stuff up, and that still
was upsetting people too, because the brainwashing of it is
so deep, and the human brain is able to be brainwashed,

(40:57):
and that when you're in that community and everybody's telling
you that no this is how it's supposed to be.
It's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to hurt. A
twin flame relationship is exhausting, and it's gonna you know,
you're going to have a dark knight of the soul
and all this stuff that it's supposed to be that way.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
So everything you're saying is that it's a way to
contextualize every red flag, every healthy experience and take it
and repurpose it in essence to say you're in something special,
that all these bad things mean you're in something special.
I mean, it's really probably one of the most twisted
sales jobs I've ever heard in my life. So because

(41:39):
these are people's hearts and that phenomenon of defensiveness you
were talking about, you know, you're talking about things like
victim shaming, and then you were actually trying and it
sounds like, in a gentle way saying could we think
of this differently? That defensiveness that people would have when
they were deep in it's a real issue that even

(41:59):
therapist struggle with all the time. Right, this is why
we can't walk up to someone and say, yo, you
need to stop using drugs, or hey, you need to
leave that unhealthy relationship, therapy, substance use treatment, all of
that is about finding the back door, right, So it's
the because otherwise people will always defend their position. My
relationship's fine, you know, just that relationships have stumbling blocks,

(42:22):
like I don't drink that much, you know, And so
that defensiveness really speaks to how it's when a person
is still very much in denial about what is happening
to them. So as you're bringing this up, people are
pushing back. You're hearing more victim shaming, You're hearing this
toxic spirituality. How did you manage this? How did you feel?

(42:45):
And what did you do?

Speaker 2 (42:46):
It took actually it took a couple of years for
me to completely and I got to a point where
I just I didn't completely close the Facebook group, and
well one of them I did, and then I just
stopped going in it. I stopped I basically they went
no content with the twin Flame thing because I had to.
But it took a process. And during this process, I

(43:06):
had a friend and he and I would talk about stuff,
and I started to realize, I'm like, wait a minute,
I can really have a good time with this person
and have a relationship or build a relationship and not
have that twin flame. It was like a relief that
I didn't have the twin flame stuff in there where
I was constantly looking. So it was a combination of
me no longer being able to reconcile with the abusive

(43:28):
behaviors that were being justified, the people pushing back. I
wasn't emotionally really in a place where I could handle that.
It became very The hate and anger from people was
bothering me. So that made it easier for me to
just kind of like, Okay, I'm not doing the twin
flame thing anymore. I'm just gonna like not do it
at all. And I had this friend and we would talk,

(43:50):
and I realized like how much nicer it was that
I felt, how I felt that I could feel good
and be with somebody and it didn't have to be like, oh,
but it's not because you're not having chaos. It's okay
to say, oh, well this is you know, because at
first you're like, well this is kind of boring, but
I was used to the chaos. So as I was

(44:11):
in this other relationship with this person, I realized the
peacefulness of not having all of that not being abused
and not having this toxic spiritual stuff telling me that
you know, if you want this special person, you have
to suffer to get it. So it was a at
least two year process of really letting it go.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
It took you two years what is really And I
hope you do think of this strength because it takes
a lot of strength to hold your ground on saying
this doesn't feel healthy when everyone else had so much
anger and were so stuck in their conviction. Right, It's
really hard to because you for a long time you

(44:53):
kind of agreed with what they were saying. It's not
like you were coming in with disagreement. From the beginning,
you agreed with them. You started having an awakening around
this doesn't seem great, and then you come up against
their anger and conviction. It's really hard to not cave
What helped you, what gave you that strength that stopped

(45:16):
you from caving in and sort of going back into
what they still believed.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
When I started learning what narcissistic abuse was, when I
started watching your YouTube channel, doctor Les Carter, and there
was some other people when I started watching you guys
on YouTube, and I finally I was like, I felt heard,
I'm like, oh my goodness, this is what was happening
to me. And that was a huge component for me

(45:44):
to be able to see the twin Flame thing for
what it was. And it still took me some time
because I went and dissected. I have to analyze everything,
and so I had to dissect all of this. Why
did I do this? Why this, and why that? But
when I learned about what narcissistic abuse was, it's just like, Oh,
this is what's happening. This isn't spiritual. I was being abused.

(46:07):
There was nothing spiritual about it. And I actually got
a little angry. So I probably pissed some people off
because I was like, no, this is abuse. You guys
are putting up with abuse. And I was angry kind
of myself. Of course, that's what you go through when
you're healing. You're like, why did I think this, Why
did I believe this? Why did I let myself get
sucked into it? And learning to just be like, give

(46:27):
myself some compassion.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
When Candice became aware of the abusive dynamics of these
twin Flames relationships, she became angry, and part of that
anger was directed at herself. While this is a very
common dynamic for survivors. It can also be problematic because
even during the process of recovery and healing, this self

(46:50):
blame process can be firmly entrenched, and letting this go
becomes a big part of.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Healing, instead of trying to give all these abuse use
of people, hope and compassion, giving it to myself. But
that was the biggest thing, learning that I was being abused.
And that's a hard thing to say, that I was
being abused and I didn't realize it.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
I find that for many survivors, that moment of when
you say I was being abused. A lot of people
don't even think the word abuse applies to their situation.
So that moment when you say, yeah, I know this
is this word fits, it's a big moment. Did you
herd right? It's very very hard and you did. And
that anger anger is you know, anger is one of

(47:33):
those emotions that kind of gets a bad rap because
I think if people express it in a bad way,
it could be used in a bad way. But anger
is a very motivating emotion, you know, and harness the
right way, it can really help people make some change.
You said that learning about narcissistic abuse was really sort
of catalyst for you to see this clearity and saying, hey,
we're all being abused. Did you ever attempt Did you

(47:57):
ever attempt to share that content video information and have
that conversation about narcissistic abuse with people in your twin
Flames community?

Speaker 2 (48:07):
I did with one person, and she bothered me the
most because I thought her and I were closer than
it was. She's the one that got the most angry
when I was talking about it, and she you know,
of course, as I was talking to her, I'm thinking, well,
maybe she's kind of a narcissist too, Like she really
attacked me, and I did. I tried, and then, like
I said, the attacks were too much for me. I

(48:29):
was still trying to heal and understand that I had
been being abused, and so that was just too much,
and I thought, well, maybe this is not my mission.
And that's when I started moving into wards, like I
know what I'm supposed to be doing now, working with
survivors and helping them. And I still try to bring
in the twin flame thing, and I'll probably start doing
it more because it doesn't trigger me as much. I'm

(48:50):
far enough away from it that the anger and stuff.
I'm like, that's fine, but at the time it really
really bothered me a lot, so I just had to
like cut it off. But I tried to share that,
but it was not received well.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
I think that what you experienced in that twin Flame
community is what a lot of survivors, even outside a
sort of a space like twin Flames, you know, even
in their families, friend groups, church groups, anything that they'll
often put a lot of energy and trying to teach
and awaken people to say, you know, this isn't unhealthy

(49:27):
and really try to teach them about narcissistic abuse, and
they'll get a lot of pushback and that can be
quite heartbreaking, but it's almost the wrong target to chase
that the real work is done on yourself. And also,
like you said, reaching out to people who will benefit
from your empathy, because the people who can't, who aren't denial,

(49:50):
who can't see it. I find in my work too.
I mean, every so often person will say I knew
something was wrong, but now I have a name, thank you.
But somebody who is zealously committed to this concept in
this case twin Flames, there's no turning that around, so
you're sort of switch to talking to survivors. It's like
the people who say I just can't talk with the
people and my family anymore, they're not willing to get it,

(50:12):
and they're actually willing to let me stay in a
really toxic relationship to keep their vision of the world.
It's a really hard moment, whether it's family or a community.
It's painful when you recognize that people care more about
the idea.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, you said it perfectly. Because when I left that
then I started just creating my podcast originally just so
I could talk like I needed to talk. I wasn't
expecting anybody to even like just my close friends and
people that knew I was doing it just to talk.
And it was so much easier than people that were
going to come to me they wanted to hear from me.
I didn't have to convince them like, oh, you're in

(50:45):
an abusive relationship or you're in this. They would just
come to me and just want to talk about it.
And I'm like, oh, okay, this is so much better
and trying to convince someone they already know and they
already related. But it was a long and I'm we're
still healing. I'm still a work in progress, but it was.
It's crazy to look back on that and how our

(51:07):
culture and society kind of actually feeds into this, that
special Disney relationship and that you need to be kissed
to be woken up. And you know, snow White can't
wake herself up, she needs him to come kiss her
and wake her up, and you know all that that's
a big ingrained thing in our society. I think. So
that's why it's so easy, like to find the twin

(51:29):
flame and then oh, I'm special, I've got this special relationship.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
Yeah. Yeah, it is a bit almost childlike right to
want that kind of you know, instead of doing the
hard work of shared values, orienting to growth, compassion, respect, reciprocity,
the stuff that makes an adult relationship. This idea that
I'm going to be sleeping and someone is non consensually,
by the way, going to kiss me and that's going

(51:54):
to wake me up and everything's going to be fine.
It is a very passive and childlike conception. We will
be right back with this conversation. So you've been talking
a bit about toxic spirituality. I would like to unpack

(52:15):
that for a minute, because I think that really really
dovetails with narcissism. Can you talk a little bit about
toxic spirituality and how it showed up here?

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Yes, And I even see it in the survivor community
when they blend it with a spirituality. For me, one
of the biggest things I see is the manifestation thing. Now,
I do believe that what we put out we get
back to us. Yes, that that's the law of our universe.
But then they'll take this manifestation thing to another level
and tell you, well, you manifested that narcissist. I hate

(52:48):
hearing that so much. I just cannot stand it. You
manifested that relationship because there was something inside of you
that needed healing. That's a big one. I hear a lot,
and it drives me absolutely. I hate it. I hate
hearing it and it triggers me, and I'm like, no,
no one manifests abuse. They're looking for love. You think

(53:08):
that this narcissist is love bombing you. They're tricking you
like I didn't allow this or manifest this. And that's
one of the big things. And in the twin flame thing,
the toxic thing is, well, there's something inside of you
basically causing your divine masculine to go do drugs. There's
something inside of you and it's your job to heal it.
I mean, that's the twin flame thing. If we're just

(53:30):
talking in general toxic spirituality, one of the biggest is
that manifestation thing that you manifested everything that's happening to you.
And for a survivor, that is a horrible thing to
say to them, but they do. They say it, or that, oh,
you're an impath and that means that you know, you're
a walking trauma response. I mean, no, being an impath

(53:51):
is everybody has empathy. Every human being has empathy, and
some just have more heightened empathy than others. It is
being a human being, a healthy human And to say
that that means that it's a trauma response. No, it's
not a trauma response. You're talking about like codependency trauma.
Not every single impath has an abusive relationship. There's many

(54:14):
people that identify as impaths that are in healthy relationships
and they're empowered. That has nothing to do with it.
But then I guess it's like putting a lot of
labels on things and blaming you for why these things
are happening. With under the guise of like, oh, well,
you manifested this, so there's something in your past life
maybe that you're working out, or there's some type of karma,
just something.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
The twisting of what the complex notions of karma are.
Because here's what you know interesting. I actually don't believe
people do get back what they put out because I've
seen too many people who are angels among us who
continue to get hammered by life. And I also see
people who are absolutely horrible people and many, many good

(54:57):
things come their way. So I actually think that there's
absolutely no sense in any of this in terms of
just sort of the events that happen that very good people,
even when they keep getting hit with bad things, they
will often have a remarkable capacity to just have really
broad shoulders, cope up under it, find meaning and purpose
of some kind in it. They'll do that. And this

(55:19):
idea of manifestation again, that's almost a whole another episode,
because it's the it is an a, the ultimate ultimate
ultimate and victim blaming and something you said here that
it is something in you needed healing. I it is
just me. I mean, you can watch my hands just

(55:40):
turn into fists. And I've never touched a human being
in my life, But it is how could you, how
could you sort of harness this process? Because one thing
we know statistically in the research, people who have had
histories of trauma are more likely to experience future trauma.
But there's a whole host of reasons for why that happened,

(56:02):
because you may know, it's.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
A lot of times you stay with what you know,
it feels familiar and you think and it's it. I
don't know, but it's not. You didn't manifest.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
Nobody manifest No, And so what they're doing is they're
blaming people for what is a probabilistic process, which is retraumatization.
And we know this is so complicated that they are
traumatogenic environments, there are cultural issues, we know that people
are smaller, are more likely to experience trauma. All of

(56:35):
those things happen, and that then you might literally be
blaming entire classes of people for not manifesting properly. And
hell no, that's not happening when they're in.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
A situation where if it's systemic racism or any type
of thing where they're in that and that's not their fault. No,
But and you're telling them, well, you manage if a
child is killed, or it's like, what do you mean
this child man? That doesn't make any sense, but it's all.
And I always say in a lot of my social

(57:07):
media and like new age spirituality is full of narcissism,
abuse and this toxic spirituality thing. And that's another thing.
People get triggered when you talk about it. I'm like, no,
you didn't. And I'll even hear people actually say and
take on the responsibility. A lot of gurus and teachers
and coaches will say, well, I manifested the abusive relationships

(57:31):
and I'm owning that. And I said to a girl
one time, I go, you did not manifest your abuse.
She got mad at me for saying that I was
letting her off the hook, like you did not manifest
that abuse. Like you're responsible for your healing journey and
going to get help, but you are not responsible for
the abuser and that person coming into your life. And
that is almost to me, even worse than the twin

(57:51):
flame thing is when you're making and there's tons and
tons and tons of these people talking about it and
I do, I get really triggered and it doesn't makes
me am or like you said, you're making fists. I
get really fired up.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
I'm like, no, like, no, I'm curious, Candice, other than
the narcissistic dynamics we've been talking about, which really I'm
hearing now that twin flames relationships are literally a system
that normalizes and even validates relationships that feel unhealthy from

(58:23):
the beginning, and also upholds the idea that a person
should stay in something that is unhealthy or abusive because
it is their twin flame and this is supposed to
be difficult. I hear all of that. Is there anything
like sort of when people come together as twin flames?
Is there kind of a consistent thing you see? This
is what I'm trying. I'm trying to get at, Like,

(58:45):
is it older men in younger women or older women
in younger men, or is there anything we see in
these relationships that allow other sort of dominating dynamics to
also maintain.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yes, And many times there's a huge age difference. There
will be culture differences, but the big age difference is
a big thing where the man will usually be a
lot twenty some years older, and they say, well that's normal,
that's when you incarnate it on the planet. And they'll
make a justification for that, but many types of connections
for that. Yes, but a lot of older men and

(59:17):
younger women type dynamic where they've got the power and
the control.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
That's interesting. And again, you also talked about this idea
of masculine feminine divine masculine divine feminine, and it seems
like the way the Twin Flames model is constructing this
masculine idea is of dominance power, and femininity is about
caregiving and yielding. Am I hearing that right?

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Yes? Yes, the female is supposed to be the most
spiritually awakened and she's got the biggest responsibility for the connection,
whereas the masculine he gets off the hook because he's
not awakened yet, so it's okay for him to be
doing all these things that are not good for our relationship.
And that's okay. You're justifying it because you're the awakened one,

(01:00:04):
so you have to carry him. But yes, they'll talk
about it in the healthy way of what it is,
but the words and the talking never match the actions
of the relationship that you're in, if that makes sense,
Like they'll like, I could buy a webinar and someone's
talking about masculine and feminine energy, and they're saying all
these great things, but then okay, but I'm with this

(01:00:24):
person that's addicted to crack, Like how is that gonna work?
And that's never addressed. It's like, well, you've got to
keep doing the healing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
I want to ask you a question though, because you
know masculine feminine. Obviously you're saying it's energetic, but it
does feel heteronormative to me. How does this play out
in queer relationships?

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Well, and that's a good question too, because in the beginning,
when twin Flames started, there was people that say it's
only can be a natural born male and a natural
born female. And so they've evolved because they know they
have to evolve and accept other.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
People, so trying to make money that works, yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
So they had to go of that dogma and evolve
and accept everybody. So the way they did that is
through energy. Like you could be a lesbian couple and
one in the pair feels more in touch with her
masculine energy and the other one feels more in touch
with her feminine So then the one that feels more
in touch with her masculine energy is the masculine twin,
and then the other one is the feminine twin, and

(01:01:20):
they'll do it vice versa. However, you know, and any
type of.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Relationship same with two men, one is the more, Okay?
And is there any place for a non binary or
trans people in the Twin Flames world?

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Okay, I'm not sure about the trand but I'm sure
that they do. I'm sure that they do because they
un start when I was in it. They want to
tell you what you want to hear. Yeah, that's really
what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Yeah, yeah, And I can see that. It's sort of
like they're building the airplane in the sky to be
able to keep interest. So you continue to talk to people,
you're no longer in the Twin Flames world, you continue
to talk to people. Do you continue to work with
people are trying to get out of the twin Flames world?
Can you talk to us a little bit about how
you're working with survivor.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
I have a couple of women that I would say
I have really good friendships with them, and they've been
on their own kind of journey of I'll let them
tell me on their own. Oh, I'm done with the
twin flame thing. I'm not gonna you know, I don't
press because I know what it's like, so I don't
press them. I just like to I like to just
be there for them to listen. But yes, there are
some women that I will talk to and we talk

(01:02:21):
about it together, and I just let them be where
they're at. I have one really close friend who's wonderful
and she's very much believes you know, she was in
a toxic relationship with a narcissist and she's very spiritually
minded and she really believes he was her twin flame.
I'm just I guess I've learned to approach it in
a more delicate way, like you said, come in the
back door, instead of just being like, now, you know,

(01:02:44):
there's no such thing as twin flames, because she's not
going to listen to me. So I'm just there for
her and I give her information when she needs to be.
But yes, I do delicately. Now have some women that
I'm close to that I can talk to them because
they know where I stand. So I just try to
make a safe space for them so that they can
come to me, like in the future when they realize

(01:03:04):
that they have their own realization that oh yeah, yeah,
you were right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
It's interesting. One thing that twin Flames builds on is
this idea of scarcity, right, if something is scarce. I'm
going to give you a very simple example. If something's
on sale and there's only one of it left and
you don't need it, you might buy it because there's
only one of it left. This idea of that there's
only this one person, that's what creates buy in And
even in non twin Flame narcissistic relationships, pressures around things

(01:03:33):
like age and I'm getting too old to have a child,
I'm getting too old to date. I'm not going to
find anyone. Whatever it is, whatever is happening in their mindset,
it creates that same kind of scarcity. And I think
that part of the reason this twin Flames model has
so much power and it's keeping people so stuck and

(01:03:54):
so subjugated in something that's hurting them, is that it's
built around scarcity specialness. Is twin Flame still a very
robust community out there? Are there still lots of people
getting pulled into it?

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Oh yeah, and a lot of younger people too, So
it's it's even bigger than it was when I was
part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
It's like even bigger wow, and it's all over the world. Okay,
So I want to ask you this because we're coming
towards the end here. First of all, how are you
doing now after all you've been through? How has having
gone through what you've gone through from cultic systems in childhood,

(01:04:35):
a long term, difficult marriage with somebody who was an
unrecovered alcoholic twin flames? How are you doing now? And
how has all of this together affected your perspective on
love and on relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
I feel like I'm finally at a place where I
can be like honest about like everything that I went through,
Like I don't have to be embarrassed to tell people
that I was raised in a cult or that I
got stuck into the twin flame thing. And then it's
given me this wisdom where I can relate better to
other survivors and to be like, you know, I understand,
and I understand where you're coming from where you've been,

(01:05:11):
And it's just a wisdom that I have had that
I from every hardship and all of this craziness, there's
like this wisdom that I have that I feel blessed
almost in a weird way, that I went through all
of this, because now I can understand when someone's like
embarrassed to talk about like I got sucked into this
thing and I'm embarrassed, or I stayed in this relationship

(01:05:32):
and I'm embarrassed. I'm like, there's nothing to be embarrassed about,
because you know, you're human, you went through this experience,
and I can be there to hold that space for them,
to help them feel safe to talk about it, to
know that they're not alone. And that's really the biggest
thing that I've learned to be able to give back
to other people and say you're not alone, because if
I survive that, so can you. But I feel like

(01:05:55):
in my life, I finally know what I'm supposed to
be doing and what you know, a happy relationship isn't
it supposed to be Like everything that's twin Flame said like, oh,
you're supposed to suffer, it's supposed to hurt, it's supposed
to feel like this. I'm like, no, that's not true.
And learning Actually the biggest thing is learning that it's
okay to have standards. It's okay to have standards and boundaries,

(01:06:16):
and that was like a foreign concepts and you know,
what do you mean, it's okay to have standards. You
can have a standard, and your standard doesn't have to
be the same as someone else's and you don't have
to apologize for it either, because it's who you are
and you deserve that. Even if you never meet the
person that's going to meet that standard, you know that's
your standard and to have that, that's what everyone needs
to learn to have, Like, you're allowed to have a standard.

(01:06:38):
You're allowed to have that, and to give yourself permission
to be like, no, I'm not going to budge on
this because I've been you know, coerced and told that, oh,
you shouldn't have that, you shouldn't have that standard. You
shouldn't have that boundary because I was really comfortable when
you didn't have it. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:56):
Do you still believe in love?

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
Yeah? Yeah, but not in the way that I did.
I do, but in a way that I don't think
the fairy tale like Disney Princess Hollywood thing is real.
I don't think any of that is real. But yes,
I still do believe in love, but it's none of
that where you feel like there has to be adrenaline
rush all the time and there has to be all
this passion and anger at this and that to me, no,

(01:07:22):
I don't believe it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
It should feel like that at all, And do good
my mascus, and you don't have to answer it and
we don't have to put it on. Is are you
in a relationship now?

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Yes? You are?

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
And does it feel healthy and good?

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Yes? Yes, And that's why I can say that all
that like Hollywood stuff like that's just a fantasy, like
that everybody's fantasy that's guiding your life to be in
this fantasy. That that's not what it really is, that's
not what love is.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
Well, well, they're in the business of selling fantasies, which
is all very entertaining. But I'm not so sure that
we should build in entertainment when we're making some of
the more important decisions in our life, like who we
want to be in a committed relationship with. So I
think that that's very wise. Tell us this, Candice, where
can people find you? Because I know you work with survivors,

(01:08:15):
So where can people find you and hear more about you?

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Yes? On my website Unlivingthelie dot com. And I have
a podcast It's on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and then I
also write for a publication online called medium. I write
about narcissistic abuse, and it's all on my website. All
the tabs are there that they can find. I'm on Instagram,

(01:08:38):
but it's Unliving the Lie. I came up with that
for my podcast because really, that's what you're doing when
you're getting out of abuse and all of this. You're
unliving the lie that you are living. So yeah, that's
my website, just Unlivingthelie dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
And again, your podcast is also called Unliving the Lie.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
Right, Yes, it's on Spotify and Apple podcasts, those are
the big popular ones.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
Yes. Great, well, I'm so glad you're putting your experience
out there because I think the more that we can
shed light on the humanity of the people who go
through these stories, that these are situations of people who
just wanted very very basic, normal things, and to lift
the shame and blame from these stories, so people can say,

(01:09:21):
you know what, I understand how this could happen, but
also could understand the dangers, especially when we try to
romanticize this idea of chaos and people keep staying in
these situations. So again, like you said, glamorizing narcissistic abuse
is something we never that's something we never ever want

(01:09:42):
to dress up, you know. And even your point about
that divine masculine and divine feminine, I think people gravitate
to those concepts. But you're basically telling me the divine
feminine's awake, the divine masculines asleep, and now the divine
feminine is supposed to be sort of the spiritual alarm
clock for the divine masculine. No thanks, say figure it
out yourself, my friends. So thank you again. That concludes

(01:10:06):
our session. I can't thank you enough for coming on
sharing your story with us on navigating narcissism. Here are
my takeaways from my conversation with Candace. First, the nature
of the twin Flames belief systems that there is just
one person out there, who is this person sharing one

(01:10:27):
soul or experiencing an intense connection is designed to leave
people doubting red flags and other unsettling patterns. After all,
if it's uncomfortable, the twin Flames dogma says, that means
you're doing it right. Candice describes the early days of
these relationships as a love bubble, and they come with

(01:10:47):
a cheering squad of folks who are celebrating your twin
flame connection and reminding you that it is supposed to
be unsettling. This is a perfect setup for an un
unhealthy and even toxic relationship. The real danger of any
model like this is that it gives a person who
may already be sliding into a trauma bonded cycle a

(01:11:10):
sort of guidebook and system of rationalization for uncomfortable and
unacceptable behavior within a relationship. When a person is being
told that confusion and insecurity mean that it is working,
the enabling offered by these kinds of belief systems can
keep people stuck in bad situations. In my next takeaway,

(01:11:34):
organized teachings that rationalize unhealthy behavior in a relationship as
a good thing and that capitalize on and exploit the
basic human desire for a close, loving relationship are simply
unkind and unhealthy. The organizers of systems that spout toxic
spirituality benefit financially, while folks who may be lonely, isolated, frustrated,

(01:11:59):
or coming out of recent relationship losses and breakups can
be a ripe target for financial manipulation and the blaming
dialogue such as maybe you're alone because you aren't manifesting
hard enough. If you ever feel shamed or blamed when
you are experiencing uncomfortable behavior in a relationship, Please stop

(01:12:21):
and take a hard look at the shamers and blamers,
because that is not okay. For my next takeaway, when
a person has had prior narcissistic relationships, as Candace says
she did, it can be a process of indoctrination, whereby
she may have not taken note of milder, antagonistic and

(01:12:42):
invalidating patterns in new relationships or been accepting of them
because they weren't as bad as patterns from the past,
but they're still unhealthy. For this reason, after a narcissistic
relationship ends, particularly an intimate relationship, it is important that
you consider giving your self a minute, cool your heels,

(01:13:02):
and work on your healing and get centered within yourself.
One of the most vulnerable times is when a person
is coming out of a narcissistic relationship, and these are
the times when folks may be susceptible to mystical promises
about finding that one true love, which can distract you
from the much more important work of getting comfortable within yourself.

(01:13:27):
And in our last takeaway, Candice reminds us that it
is so easy to minimize a person who explores this
idea of twin Flames, as though people who are interested
in this are just lost souls or weak. That is
an unkind and frankly dangerous assumption. People are getting saturated
by all kinds of content on how to find love,

(01:13:49):
but in some ways, the mystical hopes and promises offered
by a framework like twin Flames are appealing to anyone
who is trying to find deep and real love. Who
are simply curious and open, but who are also strong
and solid in their lives may also be drawn to this.
All of us are at some level susceptible to simple

(01:14:10):
promises about finding love, And perhaps the greater lesson is
that within all of us are the pieces of our soul,
but they often got so chopped up because we were
so busy trying to be what other people want us
to be. Perhaps that other half of your soul is
simply the part of yourself that you quieted because other
people invalidated it. Instead of looking outside of us for

(01:14:33):
the answers, a story like this reminds us to look
within

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Dr. Ramini Durvasula

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Twin Flame Relationships: Healthy or Abusive? With Candace Moon