We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tanya-marie Dubé. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tanya-Marie below.

Tanya-Marie, appreciate you joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

As a mentor in my niche, I often talk about how essential spiritual practices and an understanding of adversity on a soul path is essential to our sustainable, long-term transformation.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! Thank you so much for this opportunity to share more of what I do with you and your readers. My name is Tanya-Marie Dubé and I’m a Spiritual Growth and Potential mentor for women entrepreneurs and women in business and I have a specialization in Narcissistic Abuse Recovery.

I have had the honor of speaking in front of over 800,000+ women worldwide since I started this beautiful business almost 7 years ago, I have interviewed over 350 people in various podcasts and interview series I have done, and have mentored hundreds of women rebuild their lives after narcissistic abuse by going within and healing those wounds that were open when they met the narcissist so that they never have to go through this experience again.

This is the funny thing about the universe and the way that lessons land: you will keep going through the same experience over and over again until you get the lesson and heal the wound. It’s why we often say that we keep dating the same guy, but with a different face every time. And I always like to take it a step further and say that if you can help others get through this piece, too, then you are truly understanding the power of connection and why we have these experiences and it’s why I often ask my clients to teach their children what they are learning while they learn from me. It’s a great reinforcer of information when we teach it to someone else and it solidifies the warrior goddess within us as different parts of our true selves start to awaken.

The universe has made it clear a long time ago that my experiences weren’t just for myself but for the greater good of the women who find me, and by extension their children, to get them out of the fog, establish real confidence (and not just self assurance as most of us have leaned on for most of our lives) and start to build a life on a solid foundation of truly knowing herself, why she is on this planet in this incarnation and how to form a great connection with her intuition and let that kind of inner knowing create powerful content in her business in all the creative ways that she can.

Many of my clients and I have a shared thing in common besides a narc partner. Most of us have endured a narcissistic parent. This is where abuse is normalized as we are still developing. And then, eight years, 5 months, 15 days and 7 hours and 30 minutes ago (on this day), I left a very toxic covert narcissistic relationship of 18 years. With the help of a friend, I was able to leave him after all that time together and start over with my two children with nothing but our belongings, no furniture, and no idea how I was going to make money.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I grew up with a narcissistic mother in and out of my life, and like most of my clients, this is how we learned that we were not enough, that we needed to do extra all the time to feel like we were worth basic human kindness and treatment. Not ever having our needs met, we also learned in that toxic environment to people please and over achieve as a means to be validated, accepted and to gain approval that we were “good” in some way.

All I knew as a child was foster care. Although I don’t remember it, I had lived in seven homes by the time I turned two years old, and the eighth home I lived in was the one that I would stay in until I was 10, when my mother resurfaced with a fiancé and a dream of her perfect world for which I was supposed to play a part. When I moved across the country, leaving everything that meant anything to me behind, my step father turned out to be a violent pedophile, and my mother had also become violent and for two years I endured the most toxic environment for a child filled with screaming, shouting, full-on beatings and sexual abuse. I was constantly ridiculed, berated, treated like I wasn’t even a person. And this all came to a halt one day after a beating, I had $18 in my pocket from my savings over two years and as I was standing at the screen door, my heart was beating out of my chest because I knew that in a few moments, I was going to have to burst through that door and run for my life. She just had that look in her eye and I knew that I couldn’t take any more.

She threatened to kill me, which wasn’t anything unusual, but I felt like after what had just happened and how I was covered with blood from the incident and had no idea what my face looked like after being hit so many times, that she meant it this time. She rarely left visible marks and this day she completely lost it. I ran out the door with her screaming and chasing me down the street and it would be the first day of a life living on and off the street for the next six years until I was 18 years old. I was 12 years old when this happened.

At 22 years old, I found myself in a very toxic 18 year relationship with someone who slowly turned me inside out, taking digs at me, competing with me about everything, forcing me to focus only on his issues and behaviours and losing myself completely. I was constantly in a state of panic because of his mental health issues which included an addiction and an affliction which almost all narcissists have, and I was in fear of returning to the way my life was before, so I did everything I could to maintain this relationship that I truly thought was meant to be. It wasn’t easy for someone like me to take that kind of treatment. I railed against it all the way, but the more I wanted to leave, the more seeds he would plant in my mind about how I would fail. Not all narcissists will be outright with their toxicity. Some, like this one, will do it in swift movements and then follow up with something loving. This slight of hand is to make you second guess your judgement. He knew I wanted to leave toward the end and he would point out single mothers everywhere and show their hardships, how lonely they seemed and how nobody wants them. They’re broken, somehow. Poor woman. And then he would tell me I looked nice. The confusion was always the reining element in my language. A call to slow down, what did you just say to me, why do you treat me this way, only to be met with “stop being so sensitive. You always make something out of nothing”, and then a sigh for good measure to show me how exhausting I was.

We do a lot of crying when we are in relationships with these toxic people. We are angry about the treatment and we often beat ourselves up, questioning our own judgement, calling ourselves names, feeling like failures, throwing ourselves into our work only to feel paralyzed and very much like an imposter. I always say that imposter syndrome for women entrepreneurs or women in business lands differently when you’ve been in relationships with narcissists. It doesn’t just mean, I don’t feel like I’m worth this and these people are going to find out any minute what a fraud I am and that I don’t deserve this. It’s that PLUS, I am not loveable, I am not kind, I don’t matter, I can’t sustain this, etc., etc.

I was made to deal with the toxic relationships he created around me with the lies he was telling about me to his family members. Anytime I needed to address things in the relationship that didn’t feel good to me or things that were said or done to me, I was gaslit constantly to make me feel like I was being too sensitive to these things, that I was dramatic and that I was making up conversations that had actually happened as though there was something wrong with me and my past would be thrown in my face all the time. Through tonnes of manipulation, he was setting me up to always fight his battles, which behind the scenes he agonized over, and in the moment, would easily allow me to take the heat and throw me under the bus repeatedly with absolutely no remorse for any of it. I mean the list goes on and on when it comes to narcissistic personality disorder, and over 18 years, while I didn’t know that was what I was dealing with, it made me really look at myself in this relationship, why it was happening and what I needed to do about it.

You see, the thing about narcissists is that they just don’t like themselves. Their #1 goal is to not be alone. They are a bit off, people often see them as weird, strange, and cannot make really deep connections with anyone because they are all surface level people, only giving others what they want to hear and using very specific language with each person to see them as the victim or the hero in their lives and nothing in between. They either save the day by going way over and above for very specific people when they need something from them, or they are the victim of being treated poorly despite all their loving efforts. Let me translate here. They are massive people pleasers and also create toxic scenarios where they swoop in to save the day or they are shocked and mortified at the reaction of the people they’ve abused who didn’t let them get away with it. They always blame their victims for their reaction to their behaviour, and they lack total awareness for the way they behave and treat others. They have no problem using someone for something, and are confused that you are hurt by it.

They pick their partners based on their ideas of success and attach themselves to someone who has it together (for the most part) but who give off a certain feeling that others like and want to be around. By proximity, they think that they will be looked at the same way you’re looked at, and so they love-bomb you to make sure you feel like you’re finally being seen, heard, understood in a way that nobody else ever have. Where we go wrong in this stage, is because someone is finally really really interested in us, we over share and it’s here that suddenly, they have all the same interests and hobbies and want the same things and “wow…we have so much in common it’s hard to ignore, to “we are soulmates and have lived many lives together”. It’s very easy to get caught up with the whirlwind of knowing these people in this stage. It’s incredibly intoxicating. And even though you start to see some chinks in the armour when you start to see bits and pieces of the childishness, it will play on your own self worth, thinking very deeply within that you are not good enough and that you’re lucky to have someone like this. We ignore ALL the red flags. And in hindsight, there are many.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the hardest lessons learned was in a book called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. He talks about the four agreements we get to make with ourselves in order to have a peace-filled, joyous life and each one of those four agreements bears such magical seeds of knowledge and truth that I honestly have taken 13 years to understand most of them as I go through my soul path and really go within to understand myself. This has given me the greatest understanding of others. That lesson that changed my life was the second agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally. This is about not letting the actions of others influence how you feel about yourself because the lesson here is that it isn’t about you. It’s about them and their view of themselves and the world they’ve created around them.

When this concept was first taught to me, I couldn’t understand how, to save my life, I was supposed to not “take it personally” when someone was looking right at me, saying things about me to my face and treating ME badly. I didn’t get it. And it felt like I was bashing my head against a wall trying to get them to understand that they weren’t making any sense. I didn’t see that it was me and my conditioning that wasn’t getting it.

I have my clients do an exercise around this where I get them to close their eyes and imagine a theatre stage with the red curtain behind them and to allow their narcissistic abuser to come onto the stage and begin to recreate the situation where they were being treated as though they didn’t matter, berated, treated coldly. I get them to choose a moment where the narcissist is especially hurtful and I let that play out for about 30 seconds and I get them to pause it like a video, and in keeping their eyes closed, I get them to take themselves out of it and replace their bodies with a mirror and to press play. I get them to then see this hurt child version of their narc in the mirror is really the one taking the brunt of the pain because that’s who the narcissist is REALLY talking to.

I help the victims of narc abuse to embrace the fact that they are not responsible for the actions of their narcissistic abuser and that those hurtful words were never meant for them – they just happened to be the one standing in front of them. It was never about them and for all intents and purposes, the narcissist is always speaking to themselves anyway. When you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, you start to see that what you’re really in is some kind of paranoid schizophrenic neurosis where you’re an extra in their movie and they are the creator, moving people around and things like props. And the things they accuse you of are always, always, always a reveal of what they are doing themselves, behind your back. The world view of a narcissist is really that everyone is not to be trusted, everybody manipulates so how can it be wrong and they are the most entitled people you will ever meet. Every single thing they do and say is to win favour and support and to get ahead. They use everyone. Double underline that. There is not one relationship in a narcissists’ life that isn’t there for them to win something. To be revered. To gain trust. You might think you know one, but you never really know a narcissist until you are behind closed doors with them long enough for them to slip. Then you see that narcissists are like gremlins. They’re warm and cuddly in front of people they’re trying to build an image with and they’re like the crazy toilet dwellers when you water them and feed them at night.

I digress. The point of not taking things personally, in this context, is that we are not rehabilitation centers for our narcissists. It is not our job to take responsibility for their behaviour, their actions or their fake feelings. We are not going to be shamed into hiding anymore, or feel like we’re too old or that our lives are over. it’s time for a new level of understanding of what this lifetime is all about, and it’s about getting out of our biggest fears and really start living. I will say here that yes, it is absolutely 100% okay for you to walk away from any toxic relationship you have in your life and you don’t even need to say why. You can just get up, walk out and start over at any age. It’s entirely up to you.

I do know one thing for certain, though, and that is that you will always get 100% of what you believe. So if you believe you can’t, you need to do some work, because that’s just a belief that belongs to the old you – the one that took shit. It’s not for this new version of you – this profound ageless soul that is using her life’s wisdom to cultivate a beautiful light inspired life, filled with possibility and beautiful magic. If you believe the conditioning you’ve been raised with which tells you that healing from this needs to take a tonne of time, please do some work around that, too, because this is one of the things that keeps us stuck after these kinds of relationships. I have seen women (myself included), make the decision to let go of what was no longer aligned for them (this would be the negative thinking, feelings and lack of action) in a literal instant. A second. The snap of a finger, as the saying goes. What keeps us trying to heal for sometimes decades is the thought that this is what it takes to heal. It’s not true. Once you understand your soul purpose and your reason for being, knowing that, as a spiritual being in this human body you’re in, there is no time. There is no gender. What there is, is vibration. Energy. Potentiality. Co-creation. Profound and utter inner power as a light being. The universe can only work with what you give it, so we must learn to clear our energy centers, remove blocks and allow what is meant for us to come in. We must learn how to raise our vibration out of the low, dense energy of this planet and keep that high vibration so that are a match for the good that we are meant to experience. All the time. Not some of the time. All of the time. And when that becomes an intention and a priority, everything changes. Fast.

I learned a long time ago that our bodies regenerate billions of cells every single day and when I learned this, it made me stop and think that every single time I’m telling myself a story from my past and reliving being victimized by it, seeing it so clearly on the screen of my mind, and getting so emotionally involved with it that I’m right back there with it…what I learned was that the abuse happened to a past version of me that no longer exists. So why do I keep telling myself this story and making it so real that I’m getting sick because of it. I started to see the power in my body and mind to make something from so long ago come alive to the point where I could feel it so clearly, forcing myself to stay in that low vibration of toxicity and darkness. It made me think: what if I was able to use this incredible ability to start to create a life of abundance and beauty for myself and my children, take my business to new levels and take my relationships to new levels. What if that profound ability we have to keep those old stories alive was shifted in the direction of possibility and I stopped with the old stories and I started to rewire my brain for success instead of what’s lacking. What if I could turn what’s happened to me into a lesson I’m meant to learn and help others with that lesson so that I could get onto the next level of growth that I’m meant to have. What if I could focus so hard on what I want for my life that I shrink down my adversity to absolutely nothing more than a speck on the wall and just got for it. Live. Be filled with joy. Experience real abundance and start to harness my own personal power. Interesting, right?

This is what I teach women who have been through narcissistic relationships. I teach them to see beyond their circumstances and learn to create their own circumstances. I teach them how to look at what’s happened and how the brainwashing of the abuser and the conditioning of life has us living a life that isn’t ours. And that we can create the world we want to live in one step at a time.

Is it fair what has happened? No. It’s not. Is it okay that they get away with it? Babe, if I could show you a visual of the chaos that is going on in your narcissist’s head 24/7 while they are in there creating all the fake scenarios where someone (this used to be you)…where someone is hurting them, planning on hurting them, or has hurt them in the past, and all they see is ways to use and torture other people to have their own needs met, despite the utter pain they cause, despite the generational trauma they cause with absolutely no remorse, you would see that if nothing else, they are NOT getting away with anything. What’s going on between their two ears is nothing short of hell.

And that low vibration toxicity is not for you. Give it back. If you can imagine your life looking completely opposite to where it is now – everything positive and always working out for you, seeing the experiences as lessons instead of failures, aligning with the beautiful things you want for your life by being able to raise and hold your highest frequency, to see opportunity instead of lack, obstacles as learning opportunities to become quick and calm in your decisions and choices, building solid and healthy relationships with emotionally stable people, and coming from great internal and external gratitude and love for this life, then I want you to know that it IS possible. I’ve done it. I know how it’s done and how to sustain it. And I’ve shown hundreds of women how to set themselves free, too. And now, I’d love to show you.💗

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tanyadube.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanyamariedube/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanyamariedube
• Other: Get started with this free resource: The 5 Key Steps to Put Narcissistic Abuse Behind You For Good.

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