Cheesy Economics: The Currency of Betrayal

• Have you ever shared something personal, only to feel it used against you later — directly or indirectly?

• Are there people in your life who seem overly curious, but strangely absent when you truly need support?

• How do you feel in your body after certain conversations — lighter, or heavier? Safer, or more guarded?

• What would it look like to reserve your trust for those who have proven themselves with action, not just affection?

• Where in your life could you quietly pull your cheese — your heart, your hopes, your honesty — back into safer hands?

When Clarity Becomes Freedom

It’s a hard truth to face — that not everyone who sits at your table comes with clean hands or kind intentions.
But recognizing it isn’t bitterness.
It’s clarity.
And clarity, when held with compassion for yourself, becomes a form of freedom.
It allows you to step back, realign your boundaries, and choose more wisely who gets the sacred gift of your trust.

Why Minions Trade Your Trust for Approval

There’s a sick economy operating under the surface — one you didn’t sign up for, but one you were pulled into all the same.
Here, loyalty isn’t love. It’s leverage.
And trust isn’t treasured. It’s traded.

Dr. Robin Stern, author of The Gaslight Effect, reminds us:

“When people are deeply invested in a manipulator’s approval, they can become complicit in the gaslighting without even realizing it. Their need for acceptance outweighs their ability to see the harm they’re enabling.”

Approval becomes the drug.
Recognition, the fix.
They don’t show up to understand you — they show up to harvest you.

Each laugh, each vulnerable truth you share, isn’t cherished.
It’s tucked away like a bargaining chip, pocketed for a rainy day when their standing needs a boost.

If it feels like they’re gathering intel instead of growing closer, you’re not being paranoid — you’re being perceptive.
This isn’t friendship. It’s resource extraction.

Inside the narcissist’s world, every interaction is weighed and measured.
There’s no real intimacy — only transactions.

Dr. Craig Malkin, in Rethinking Narcissism, exposes this warped dynamic:

“Narcissists create social hierarchies where information, loyalty, and attention are traded commodities. In these systems, closeness to the narcissist becomes a false substitute for real self-worth.”

Minions don’t just admire the narcissist.
They orbit them like moths around a cold flame, desperate for the illusion of importance.
What they can’t build inside themselves, they try to earn by association —
even if that means handing over your trust like a crumpled dollar bill.
To them, your honesty isn’t sacred — it’s leverage in a game where only proximity counts.

If it feels like loyalty is always shifting, if you sense invisible trades happening behind your back, you’re not imagining it.
You’re witnessing a marketplace where human hearts are bought and sold.

And here’s the most unsettling truth of all:
The narcissist doesn’t even have to move the pieces anymore.
The system moves itself.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula, in Should I Stay or Should I Go?, captures it bluntly:

“Narcissistic ecosystems thrive on triangulation — the manipulation of information and relationships to sow distrust and maintain control. It’s not just the narcissist you have to watch. It’s their entire network.”

Triangulation infects the air like a silent toxin.
It turns allies into informants.
It twists conversations into currency.
It fractures communities until no one feels truly safe.

If you feel like you’re being watched, tested, or “played” even in innocent conversations —
you probably are.
Not because you’re broken.
But because you’re living in a system designed to feed on your sincerity.

The good news?
Once you see the pattern, you’re no longer powerless.
You can stop feeding their hunger — and start nourishing your own.

Returning to the Only Approval That Matters

In a world that tries to buy and sell your worth, it is an act of sacred rebellion to remember:
you were never for sale.

You don’t have to chase the crumbs of false loyalty.
You don’t have to barter your light for a seat at anyone’s table.

As Dr. Wayne Dyer often taught:

“You are not stuck unless you decide to be.”
Freedom is always closer than it feels — because it begins inside you, not outside you.
You were born worthy.
You were born free.

Ram Dass reminds us with deep tenderness:

“We are all just walking each other home.”
And those who betray you?
They are still lost on their way.
You do not have to carry them.
You do not have to be traded like cheese in their unfinished lessons.
You can bless them — and move on.
You can choose peace without seeking permission.

Sadhguru brings it even sharper into view:

“If you allow situations to control your inner world, you are a slave. If you can remain joyful no matter what happens around you, you are free.”
The betrayal was real.
The manipulation was real.
But so is your capacity to rise above it — to step out of the system altogether.
Not hardened.
Not bitter.
But clear, radiant, and sovereign.

As the ancient wisdom in Proverbs tells us:

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23)

The approval you sought from them was always a pale reflection of the approval you were meant to find within yourself.
You are not a wedge of cheese to be traded.
You are the whole feast —
complete, abundant, and untouchable at your core.

They Don’t Get the Final Word — You Do

You are not too sensitive. You are not overreacting.
You are waking up to the truth — and the truth is yours now.

Let them rewrite their version.
Let them spin their story.

You are free to write your own.

And it begins here:
With clarity.
With courage.
With you.