Give Me Closure

All social interactions include some form of “manipulation” if we remember that the word manipulation comes from the french word “to handle skillfully”.

I think what we want to pay attention to, is INTENT or INTENTION.

This makes all the difference in the whether the outcome is to motivate and help, or to manipulate and harm.

[Even then, manipulation isn't necessarily all harmful, nor is motivating all helpful. Plenty of generals have motivated their troops to march into enemy lines where their lives are harmed.]

I think about a massage therapist “manipulating” muscles to help bring relief to a person — the intent is therapeutic and respectful.

On the other hand you have a parent grab a handful of a child’s arm to pinch that child if the child has done something wrong — the intent is punitive and not respectful.

Both are manipulation of a muscle part of a person — but done with very different intentions.

Thus it’s not about the actual action in social interaction cases as the intention of the person planning and taking that action.

It’s __ years from now,

and you say to yourself,

‘THIS is why I got out of bed this morning!’

– tell me what’s happened and what’s happening!

Are you suffering from “well-meaning” naysayers who think they are doing you a favor by telling you all the ways why your dreams are wrong and that you should “be more realistic”?

Be very, very careful about the people you choose to share your dreams.

Writers often will not show their drafts to anyone no matter how close, when they are still in the early creative processes: this is because when we are incubating dreams, these dreams may be fragile and need time to develop and shape.

Negative statements from well meaning people will cause tiny cracks in our dreams when they are in this fragile state.

Think about what happens when you have an egg with a chick inside that is not ready to be born: you crack the egg before its time, and the chick dies.

So what I’d suggest is to find someone who you can absolutely trust to listen to your dreams without judgment. Sometimes this is a coach you hire, sometimes this is a counselor, sometimes this can be a trusted friend who is willing to be that listener without judgment. Protect your vision until you are ready to share it, and when you are able to shield this vision against any short-sighted people in your life (however well meaning they are).

In the meantime, for the negative influences in your life, I have a trick that works pretty well: ask them to talk about themselves and deflect that attention from yourself. Listen to them talk about their dreams, instead. If they ask you what’s happening with you or your dream, be cordial: “you know how it is, one day at a time — but I’d love to hear all about what’s happening with YOU.”

I remember one time, I was listening to someone giving an opinion about something.

In my mind, I heard a thought say: “that person is so opinionated.”

Even before that thought had finished its statement, I heard a voice: “as are you.”

The voice that said, “as are you” was the sound of my real self,

the observer of the “I” that I often equate with that I am.

Some of us do deal with biological (neurological) factors that can take one bad emotion and not only knock us down but keep us crippled on the ground.

I’m currently reading a book called The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, and it is a tricky matter when the very organ that helps us perceive our sense of “self” is also disrupted or dysregulated in ways we cannot consciously control as if we can tune radio buttons.

Whether we can do this on our own or need someone’s help or facilitation may be highly individual, but I suspect that we all need “someone” when we are down, but to varying degrees of intensity as individuals.

Thus I as an introvert really don’t want to be with anyone when I am not feeling great, but I know enough about the way my body and mind works to make myself reach out to call a friend or chat with a friendly person.

Few people can bring themselves out of a slump in isolation — connecting with another person can remind us that we are each a vital thread of a larger fabric of existence.

But first I will do other things like watch comedy clips and get physically moving (going for a walk) as first-line of response when I perceive that my mood status has changed in a way that requires close attention from me.