The EVOLVED Guide: 7 Stages of Spiritual Healing After Narcissistic Abuse

While clinical guides and trained therapists are essential and invaluable, my seven stages were created from living the process over many decades. The deeper spiritual and existential aspects of trauma and healing are rarely explored in traditional psychology, but I believe all traditional teachings are meant to evolve into newer understandings as we grow.

My framework offers something clinical psychology cannot. It’s a way to integrate suffering into spiritual meaning without denying its reality or the trauma itself.

This map is built on the belief that pain is not "bad" or wasted, but a necessary force for your unique path. It's impossible to see at the time, but later on, along the journey, you finally recognise the extraordinary beauty forged in the struggle—even when it felt cruel, unfair, and excruciatingly painful.

At its heart, this journey, or you could say my journey, turned out to be about an ancient spiritual process of Tikkun, or “sacred repair”. It is the soul’s deliberate gathering of its own shattered pieces to become a vessel for light.

It is important to acknowledge that these deeper insights—which cannot yet be proven by mainstream science, require the individual's consciousness to be open and ready to receive them.

This seven-stage journey can be remembered by the acronym EVOLVED, signifying the evolutionary growth that results from your healing:

Eye-Opening (Waking Up)
Validation & Voice (Facing Anger and Injustice)
Oscillating Grief (Grieving What Never Was)
Liberating the Self (Reclaiming Yourself)
Vetoing the Saviour (Moving Past the Saviour Complex)
Embodied Purpose (Integrating the Past & Finding Purpose)
Divine Return (Coming Back Home to Yourself)

Healing from abusive family scapegoat dynamics and narcissistic abuse is by no means a straight line. For me, it is a spiral, a long and seemingly never-ending series of awakenings that draw you deeper into yourself each time. None of these stages can be skipped, and each phase takes as long as it takes. Some phases even blend into each other.

You may find yourself running from toxicity for many years, but the whole point is that you eventually run back into yourself and complete the circle — returning to the wholeness of your being.

Before I Begin:

I want to be completely honest with you: The person writing this today, who speaks of Tikkun and spiritual lessons, wouldn't have understood these words back then either. When I was deep in the cycle, I didn't have this language that I speak of today. I pleaded with God on my knees, rocked myself in a corner, and quite simply didn't want to be here anymore.

I share this because if you are in that dark place now, feeling hopeless and abandoned, I understand that, and it's valid. You don't need spiritual wisdom; you just need to survive the next breath and take the next step. These stages are for the person you will become—the person who will one day look back and understand why the struggle was necessary. I know that's hard to believe, but that's how I know how powerful faith is.

For a long while, perhaps decades, you may not even realise what you've lived through. You carry all the pain, the confusion, and the blame. You keep going, believing if you try harder, love better, please more or keep the peace long enough, everything will eventually change. You cling to the hope that one day they’ll wake up and realise they were wrong, they'll finally see you and recognise your worth.

But of course that's not the case or perhaps even the importance of the life lesson you’re experiencing here.

Rather, one day, something changes in you. You begin to see what was really happening.

Now, of course you don't want to look at that difficult truth, but deep down you know you have to, it's the only way out to your freedom and wholeness.

These are the seven stages I’ve developed through years of healing and reflection, they’re a well trodden path of light that leads you back home to yourself.

Stage One: Waking Up

The first stage is waking up to the fact that abuse has taken place. For so long you might have been stuck in dysfunction, used as a scapegoat without even realising it. You spend years believing there is something inherently wrong with you, trying harder, doing more, chasing false illusions of love and success that don’t exist.

Then one day something changes and you finally see the truth. It was never you. There was never anything wrong with you, and you're definitely not crazy. It's what happened to you. That awakening moment profoundly changes everything, because once you see it, you can no longer unsee it.

Stage Two: Facing Anger and Injustice

Naturally, when the truth sinks in, the anger arrives. You begin to feel the reality of the weight of all the years that were taken from you and all the energy you poured into people who only drained and used you. The betrayal hits you very hard. So does the injustice of it all. This is when you are still in the victim stages, and this step can't be avoided.

The anger becomes your teacher, showing you where you were silenced, how much you actually tolerated, and how deeply you wanted to just be loved and treated with equal value and respect. It will feel extremely uncomfortable, but this stage is necessary, because it's the first time your body and spirit is finally standing up and validating your experience.

Stage Three: Grieving What Never Was

Along with the anger comes grief. It is the stage where you begin to understand that what you are mourning is not just the loss of a person or a family, but the loss of what you thought you had. You start to see who the bystanders were, the witnesses, and the pot stirrers and realise that many people will defend the family system and the abusers at all costs - it’s a betrayal that sometimes cuts even deeper than the abuse itself.

You learn that some will never accept, listen to, or validate your truth. This grief runs deep and it can take many years to process all the layers. It comes in waves because this is your brain’s way of protecting you from experiencing the sheer immensity of the trauma all at once. If it all came at once it would be far too overwhelming, the brain paces itself.

There are moments when you think you are now healed, and then out of seemingly nowhere the sadness pulls you down back under again. You feel isolated and alone, but this too is all part of the sacred process. Each time you come back up, you rise a little bit stronger.

Stage Four: Reclaiming Yourself

Slowly you begin to find yourself again. You start to rediscover your likes, your wants, and at last, your needs. You begin to recognise what feels good and what doesn't. You stop people pleasing as much, and as you do, old friends and relationships may also start to fall away. They no longer fit with this version of you who is learning to like and trust themselves. It can be lonely, but it's also freeing.

New people begin to appear, though at this stage there are still repeated lessons, in the form of different people, same patterns, more reminders of what you are still learning to hold firm.

Stage Five: Moving Past the Saviour Complex

Somewhere in this healing journey you might find yourself wanting to help or save others. You see people who are still asleep in their own pain and you want to help them, to show them what you've learned, to pull them out of their fog. You mean well, but eventually you start to recognise that this too is still rooted in trauma. It is the part of you that once believed love meant rescuing others.

Over time you begin to see from a higher awareness that it is not your role to save anyone. Each soul has their own journey. You are not here to fix others, only to walk gently beside them with compassion.

Stage Six: Integrating the Past & Finding Purpose

Then you move into a place of acceptance. You begin to understand that healing is not about overcoming your past, but integrating it. You start to use your painful experiences to guide your purpose. The painful lessons don't come as often now because you move through life with more knowing, more awareness, and a peaceful sense of strength.

This is the phase of the ultimate realisation: you no longer need anyone else to validate or hear your story because you fully understand it yourself.

You finally recognise you are no longer a victim, or even just a survivor. You understand now that healing wasn't about 'letting go' or 'moving on' the way people often insist, as if you could simply erase the years of complex trauma or forget about what happened.

The truth is, you process it slowly, layer by layer, for as long as it takes. Then you've woven it into the fabric of your life. It's always there, like a scar from a healed wound, you can see it, you remember it, but it no longer bleeds.

You didn't have to let go or overcome anything; you integrated it. The pain and the lessons became part of your wisdom, a part of who you are.

Controllers and narcissistic abusers once framed you as the problem, when in truth your light was only reflecting back to them all they could not yet step up to be. You were their mirror, and they were yours.

This is the nature of the spiritual journey. The more love and light you naturally carry, the more others who live in darkness may project their own shadow, or "sins," onto you to avoid confronting themselves. You became the ultimate scapegoat for their denial. It’s the hero's descent to the ultimate sacrifice of the light-bringer.

Those who live in denial cannot bear to look at themselves, so they try to shatter the mirror—you! Yet in shattering you, they inadvertently serve you, not because the abuse is right or deserved, it never was, but because you refused to stay broken. Each time you broke, you actively reclaimed the pieces of your soul scattered by the trauma, letting in more sparks of Divine light. You rebuilt yourself again and again, becoming something purer each time, stronger, resilient, and closer to truth.

You remember that you are whole, you always were, you have always been perfectly and beautifully you.

Stage Seven: Coming Back Home to Yourself

Eventually you return home. The patterns stop repeating because you've learned the lessons they came to teach. The universe no longer needs to send the same lessons back to you. You no longer seek validation or safety from others because you've built it within yourself. You begin to understand that when others project, dump their “shoulds” on you, or judge, it has more to do with them than it ever did with you.

You still grow, deepen, purify and continue becoming. Yet, you're no longer searching for love or validation outside yourself, because you've found it within. This is the homecoming, the moment you realise you were never lost, only learning your way back home full circle to the wholeness of yourself. This is the completion of your Tikkun, your self-repair.

A Note on Soul Perspective

Throughout this journey, you may wonder: why did this have to happen to me? Why did I have to go through this?

From the soul's perspective, which only becomes accessible to you after you've completed the hard human work of anger, grief, and reclaiming yourself, a different answer surfaces. On some level, perhaps before you were even born, your soul chose this path. Your evolution required this particular lesson.

We understand this principle in other areas of life. The athlete knows that muscle growth requires the pain and discomfort of pushing past their edge. The student knows that learning is in the uncomfortable space of not knowing. The artist struggles with self doubt and many failures before finding their voice. Your soul knew that the light you came here to embody could only arise through being shattered and rebuilt.

Narcissistic abuse, scapegoating or any form of abuse still isn’t acceptable. Neither does it make the abusers blameless. On the human level, what happened was wrong. But on the soul level, it may be viewed as the path to your soul’s tikkun.

You don't have to accept this perspective. Some never will, and that's understandable and okay.

For those who can hold both truths, the human truth of unjust harm and the soul truth of chosen growth, there is a profound freedom and release in recognising that you were never a random victim. You are always a soul in training, purifying and becoming.

The pain you endured was the fire your soul chose to forge the light only you can carry.

Closing Message

I have lived this journey of healing since 2011. Through connection, meditation, prayer, reflection, and countless waves of continued growth, I've walked the path of awakening, grief, and self-rediscovery. My lived experience is my qualification, it has given me deep empathy, understanding, and wisdom that can only come from truly living it. I share these words to offer guidance, hope, and companionship to anyone on their way to finding their way back home to themselves.

Healing from trauma can bring up intense emotions, and if you ever feel hopeless or unsafe, please reach out for immediate help.

In the UK, you can call Samaritans at 116 123.
In the US, you can contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialling 988.
If you’re outside these areas, please find international hotlines here: findahelpline.com, which lists free, confidential options in most countries.

You are not alone, and there is help available wherever you are.