https://psychcentral.com/news/2014/08/06/it-takes-just-one-q...
How would it help?
The effects of meditation tend to last well beyond the initial mediation session and seep into your day to day interactions.
I used to take everything personally and be paranoid about everything all the time and meditation helped with that.
YMMV.
I recommend reading The Mind Illuminated by Yates if you're seriously looking to start. I find it to be a good resource for technical people.
For example Satipatthana - or "mindfulness" looks at phenomena starting from sensory experiences in order to prevent cravings or aversion.
Cravings and aversion come from how you react to things you may find desirable or undesirable.
The desirableness and undesirableness are connected to you.
When you are able to reduce cravings or aversion in whatever way, you also affect how you relate to these events, and may also aid in not taking things personally.
Vipassana, another practice, guides you to see the impermanence of all things, as well as how your sensations and emotions are coming from natural phenomena rather than from this object you may call "yourself". By understanding the origin of how these relate a bit deeper, you can see better how there is no need to label a thing as "I" necessarily to be involved in any of this.
To credit my understanding a bit; I have studied and practiced western mindfulness, Satipatthana and Vipassana for years, as well as Buddhism in general.
That said, I am not sure I understand what you mean when you say "cravings and aversion come from how you react to things you may find desirable or undesirable". It seems kinda meaningless, like yeah, I feel aversion when I don't want things to happen and yes, things I don't want to happen are undesirable to me. And yes, desirableness and undesirableness are, of course, connected to me, it is me who decides which things are desirable or undesirable to me.
Like, lets say I fall into sewage treatment tank. Drowning in shit is an undesirable thing and I feel a great aversion to it. And yes, it is me, personally, who finds drowning in shit undesirable, the undesirableness of this outcome is connected to me very directly. But I do not see how meditation might help me.
Let's say you do fall into a sewage treatment tank one day. That day will be bad, that is acceptable and expected. However, if you identify with that experience and let it shape your life so that you feel awful every time you go to the toilet, that is not fine.
With Vipassana meditation, one learns to let go of the thoughts as much as one can while meditating. This, psychologically, teaches you not to ruminate on the experiences.
On the other hand, for the desire aspect, you may deeply wish for good things to continue and that if you do not have them you will be incomplete. You would be happy as long as you have that good thing, but when the time comes and the good thing is no longer there, you may suffer a lot. By seeing the impermanence of things you may be able to enjoy the good thing more without attaching yourself to it, and identifying with it, in terms like "I deserve this" or "this is mine" or "I must have done something bad, that is why this thing is going away". Seeing that both good and bad things come and go lets you go with the flow of the river easier rather than trying to hold on to a sharp rock.
True narcissists won't even have the thought cross their mind or see it as something to fix. They think they are perfect in every way. To admit to imperfection would shatter their sense of self and that is something they must protect at all costs. They can't see how their behavior affects others. They are God's gift to us in their minds.
You're probably just self-centered. Not quite the same as NPD.
Try these things:
* Don't like listening to people? Get over it, practice listening
* Judge situations from just your perspective? Just try to see it from another angle.
* Inflated ego? We all came screaming head first out of a vagina or yanked out of a cut womb. You're not special. We're all going to die.
* Take things too personally? Try meditating.
EDIT:
Been reading through the comments and most of you are uneducated about the true nature of narcissists or have never crossed paths with one in any meaningful way (luckily for you).
Here are the spark notes about narcissists:
The DSM-V defines narcissism as:
`A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:`
To be categorized as a narcissist you have to meet 5 of 9 traits defined here :
https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/materials/Narc.P...
* Narcissists aren't born, they are created and there is a strong link that shows it is a heritable characteristic learned in early adolescence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3973692/
* Generally, it's either learned from a parent in the home or traumatic emotional abuse.
* Narcissists have a very fragile ego and are constantly protecting it, they simultaneously want your approval and despise you for their need for your approval.
* Narcissists cannot self reflect as part of a defense mechanism to their ego, they believe they are perfect in every way, and therefore do not need to change their behavior.
* They have their own world view and if you show them differently they will simply ignore it and subsequently you.
* Narcissists thrive on the attention and adoration of others, this can come from their children, co-workers, friends, family, lovers, really anyone. They thrive on both negative and positive attention. This is called narcissistic supply. Narcs need a constant supply to keep their egos inflated. It's like oxygen to them.
* They will utilize a variety of tactics to entangle new forms of supply and keep them confused and entrapped. These tactics include:
- Love bombing (Constant praise, stroking your ego, constant attention)
- Mirroring (You like snowboarding? I like snowboarding! you like video games? I like video games!)
- Projection (You're going to cheat/ steal/ lie, meanwhile they are doing exactly those things to you. They will accuse you of these things first to muddy the waters when you eventually catch on to their behavior)
- Word salads (complete nonsense, logical fallacies out of their mouths to confuse you when talking or arguing)
- Extreme mischaracterization or exaggeration of what you've said
- Moving goalposts (I'll start helping with chores when my minor injury heals when I'm less stressed when it's spring etc)
- Conditioning (Like pavlovian training: if you're in a good mood doing a certain activity they will start an argument to soil your association with that activity)
- Gaslighting (I didn't say I liked video games, you must have misunderstood me)
- Name calling and aggressive criticism (Usually disguised as a joke or with a "Just kidding!")
- Triangulation or Flying Monkeys (using a third party to torment you further)
- Discard /devaluation (Once you've caught onto them, or they've found a better source of supply you will be ignored or spoken about in condescending terms)
* Narcissists cannot truly generate happiness of their own, so they try to leech it from others and hate them for their ability to generate happiness
* Extended contact with a narcissist can lead to CPTSD
* Narcissists cannot change because they do not want to change since they see nothing wrong with their behavior.
In short, all of this advice to read a book, join a club, start a family, etc is useless for a narcissist. Also, narcissists are highly resistant to therapy. They rarely check themselves in and they only time they end up in front of a therapist is for something unrelated to their narcissism.
If you meet one run.