In Episode 22 of Unseen but Not Untold: Overcoming Covert Narcissistic Abuse, Dr. Christine C. Zacharia, MD, integrative covert narcissistic abuse recovery expert and board certified endocrinologist, explores the kind of joy that emerges after covert narcissistic abuse and how it is fundamentally different from anything experienced during survival mode.
She explains that this new found sense of joy does not come from circumstances, achievement or control, but from alignment with God’s truth and divine purpose.
“After covert narcissistic abuse, joy in general can feel almost foreign at first… even unnatural.”
When someone has lived for years in emotional depletion, confusion and survival mode, joy is not something that is immediately accessible. It must be relearned through healing and reconnection with God.
“You are no longer the same person you once were. You’ve been refined… rebuilt… and recentered in God.”
Soul Level Joy and Identity Restoration
Dr. Zacharia describes a deeper transformation that occurs in healing: the emergence of a soul level joy.
“You’re not just experiencing the return of joy. You’re encountering a completely different kind of joy. A soul-level joy.”
This joy is no longer anchored in survival or external validation but in identity rooted in God.
“When your life is no longer defined by what you endured… but by who you are becoming in God.”
She emphasizes that this joy is directly connected to purpose.
“This kind of soul level happiness doesn’t come from a job or a title… it comes from purpose itself.”
Medicine, Collapse and Divine Redirection
Dr. Zacharia reflects on her career in medicine, describing it as meaningful but ultimately not her final calling.
“My career in medicine was deeply meaningful in many ways… but it wasn’t the soul-level assignment God ultimately called me into.”
Her experience with covert narcissistic abuse at the hands of Jessie, a malignant covert narcissist, in that environment became a turning point. She had not only infiltrated Dr. Zacharia's professional life, but multiple layers of her personal life as well.
“What Satan intended to destroy me with… God used to elevate me.”
This experience dismantled her former life and initiated her full surrender into divine purpose.
“On paper, my medical career represented stability… but the thought of returning stirred something very different in me. Not peace… but exhaustion.”
Divine Flow and Surrender
Dr. Zacharia describes learning to trust God’s unfolding rather than forcing outcomes during the wilderness season that followed leaving her career in medicine behind.
“With God… there are no hidden motives, no performance metrics you have to meet. What He gives is what is true.”
She emphasizes that peace comes through surrender.
“When you surrender control and truly know—not just believe, but know—that God wants the best for you… peace begins to take its place.”
Symbolism: Boat Ferry, Balance and Clock
Boat Ferry
One key symbol highlighted in the episode is a boat ferry, representing transition in healing and purpose.
“Healing from covert narcissistic abuse… can feel like standing on a firm shoreline… and then choosing to step onto a seemingly unstable ferry that God is guiding you onto.”
The ferry represents an in between space of transformation.
“You are not swimming across by your own strength. You are simply being carried.”
It symbolizes trust, surrender and divine navigation through uncertainty.
“You are not the one navigating the current. You are not the one deciding the route. You are simply being carried.”
Balance: Doing and Receiving
In this section of the episode, Dr. Zacharia discusses the balance of doing versus receiving. She reviews her struggle with this in her wilderness season.
“I needed to learn how to receive more.”
She explains that covert narcissistic abuse conditions survivors to perform, anticipate needs and maintain control through action. In turn, the capacity to rest, receive support and accept provision becomes diminished.
“One of the things God will often allow to be tested in your wilderness season is this very imbalance.”
God brings this imbalance into awareness so it can be healed at the root rather than managed superficially.
“Balance is essential in your walk as God’s chosen one.”
Here, balance refers to a restored internal rhythm where action flows from alignment rather than compulsion and receiving is no longer associated with weakness but with trust.
Receiving is this case is reframed as a posture of surrender rather than passivity. It requires releasing the belief that provision must be earned and instead allowing God to provide without striving.
Dr. Zacharia draws the listener's attention to Matthew 11:25-26 (NLT)
“O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way!"
This scripture reinforces that restoration often comes through openness, humility and trust rather than constant striving or control.
Dr. Zacharia also frames balance as energetic restoration, where the nervous system is gradually moved out of survival-based overdrive into a regulated and sustainable rhythm.
This includes:
- rest without guilt.
- support without resistance.
- action without urgency.
- stillness without fear.
Balance becomes internal rather than external—reflected in a life where doing and receiving coexist in harmony and where peace replaces constant urgency as the default state of being.
Clock
Another key symbol discussed in the episode is the clock. Dr. Zacharia discusses how the clock symbolizes divine timing and staying present.
“It was a reminder that I am not meant to live ahead of what God is doing today.”
She cites Ecclesiastes 3:1(NLT) to reinforce this point:
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every activity under heaven.”
Dr. Zacharia emphasizes that anxiety often arises from future focused thinking.
“You are not behind...where you are right now is not random—but right on time.”
Dr. Zacharia identifies anxiety and urgency as entry points for spiritual warfare.
“They were entry points where my anxieties and fears were most active… around the future, around uncertainty.”
“Not in what was already surrendered… but in what was still being held tightly.”
A key point made in the episode is that joy is found in present alignment.
“It was about learning to be fully present in the joy already found within the journey itself.”
She emphasizes that wilderness seasons are not only about stripping away but about cultivating presence.
“Joy is not absent, but instead is being gently cultivated within you.”
Alignment Through Symbols
Dr. Zacharia closes the episode by tying together the symbolic framework of the episode.
“The ferry reminds you that you are being carried…Balance reminds you that you are not meant to live in constant overextension…The clock reminds you that nothing is late.”
She emphasizes that life is unfolding in order even when unseen.
“You are not behind. You are not off track. You are being carried and guided in real time.”