MANIPULATIONS

MANIPULATIONS Psychointegration Session: 11/JAN/2008 By Jorge Raul Olguin How many times we depend on the approval of others? How many times we feel bothered with the lack of approval from those who do not think like us? How many times we feel uncomfortable when we believe that a person hinders our way? How many times in life we suffer obstacles from third parties? I will not deny it because it’s true. There are many people who seek to manipulate us through roles of ego and this manipulation becomes a great obstacle in our performance or the path we want to travel. However, How many things depend on us too! How many times we are the ones who stick the neck out so that others take advantage of that? How many times we allow this manipulation because we have an excuse to argue, to invalidate due to our own ego that competes with the one who manipulates us? Allowing that somehow we are driven or conditioned in a narrow path, it does not stop being a concealed manipulation that we play. How many times? I know there are many people who manipulate. I have said it countless times. People manipulate through victim roles, inquisitive roles... People who tell you: -Oh! Look at the time you have come! If something bad would have happened to me...You would be the culprit! We have heard that many times. There are people who live manipulating us in that way. What I have not said in many times is that sometimes we are the ones who induce that situation so that the other person manipulates us. But why? How come? How can that be? Because we are not free from ego and somehow that could help us to play a victim role. - Do you realize that? I cannot be with that person, because that person wants to manipulate me! I am a wretch!  I have said it many times, and there are people who coincide with it, we learn more from a person who manipulates us, who conditions us, who seeks to discredit us or leave us aside, we learn more from these people than a teacher. -Oh , no, no! But what are you saying, Professor?  Yes, I've experienced firsthand and you can call it a virtue, but one of my virtues is precisely to convey to others what I am learning and I have truly learned more from negative people than teachers. Yes very nice teachers. They have taught me many topics; I have countless titles which I have obtained thanks to the teachings of those teachers. However, I don’t know if these topics have taught me things in life, how to live my life! I humbly believe that most of the things I've learned about how to behave myself, what not to do or what to do, I have learned them from negative people. -Ah! Perfect! So, this means that negative people should be applauded? Or they have to receive a prize? No. These people are somehow God's tools who are useful to us to in our learning. But that does not mean that these people have a merit! They have no merit at all! They are tools...Indirectly! Because they don’t care about serving others. Quite on the contrary, what they want to do is to put obstacles on the path. Tremendously! But from these people we learn how not to be. We learn how not to behave ourselves, we learn what to avoid, we learn the risks. We learn to put on the scale what weighs more: the mistake or the virtue. We learn that from these people. These people are indirectly God's instruments, but that does not mean that these people don’t create karma, because they are negative people.  They help us unintentionally, but we learn from these people. When I say that we learn more from some negative people who seek to manipulate than to a teacher I'm talking about many teachers that each one of us has had. I'm not talking about a great teacher whose message has been instilled in our inner self. Obviously that Jesus was a great Master, as an example, I learned from him everything with capital letters. However, in my personal life, and I’m not talking about myself, but I refer to what each one of us has had in his private life, and sometimes we have learned more from a relative or a friend, or from a conflictive partner, we have learned more. It is not true that experience is always useful to avoid mistakes, because in friendly and romantic relationships, or employment relationships when we meet a new boss, a new friend, a new partner... Perhaps the previous experiences will not be useful at all because each person is different! Because the friend you had before used to like coffee, and your new friend enjoys coke. And the partner who used to like a certain caress, the new partner does not like it at all. Then, a person who boasts with pedantry saying: - You don’t know the experience I have in romantic affairs. - Do not talk to me about that job because I know it very well. Everything is like a clean sheet, because a new job, a new friendship, or a new romance is quite different to what you knew before. Then, it is pedantic to say that your apparent experience is a guarantee, it’s not a guarantee of anything. Returning to the main topic, it is true that we often seek to be manipulated to indirectly manipulate as well, as if it were a kind of feedback, action and reaction, so that we can also manipulate the other person. Then, we are the victims; we are manipulated, but basically "thanks" to this manipulation we also manipulate. It does not stop being a role of ego. How can we cut off this dependence on manipulations? Understanding that we all are important. I understand that each one of us is important in his/her own self. Understanding that there is no one similar to us. For even though with the new technology we had the capacity to clone a person, that double would not have the same soul, he/she would not be the same. And I give the example of twins, who although they are physically similar, they had the same upbringing, perhaps they were born minutes apart, and one of them becomes a chemist, a physicist, a teacher... And the other twin becomes a criminal because he had traumas. And why not the other, if both of them had the same upbringing? Then. That's the proof that the spirit exists and each spirit is unique. That’s why I say that we all are unique. At the moment we realize that we all are unique, nobody is going to manipulate us because we will not allow that situation. It’s true that sometimes we have to bow our heads down, because we have no money and we have a single job and a despotic boss, either we endure that situation or we lose the breadwinner’s income for the family. Or perhaps we live in the house of a relative, a father-in-law or a mother-in-law and we have to stand the negative character of that person or we have to go out to the street and we don’t know where to live. -Oh! Professor, but you talk so much about dignity. Dignity compels to say NO. Of course, but sometimes we have people behind us. Sometimes we have family and we have to provide for them, because if we have children... I cannot say ‘No’ to my despotic boss, I will have to tolerate the situation or else I could lose my job and the support of my family, or instead of living with that bigoted mother-in-law who lives insulting me, I walk away, but if I have one responsibility I cannot do that. And it does not mean that I'm going to lower my head to humiliate myself, because my dignity will keep intact! Because nothing is going to stain my spirit! Nothing! My spirit will not be stained! The way to stop the wheel of manipulations: he manipulates me, I manipulate her, she manipulates me, I manipulate him is feeling that we all are important. Important deep inside us. Important from service. Important to be useful to the other. I’m not talking about the self-centered being, who closes his eyes to the others. No, no, no. Because I must be important, and I've said this many times, the aphorism of the Master Jesus: Love your neighbor as yourself. Look at the second part of the sentence. He says as yourself! Then, you cannot love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself in the first place. Because when you say, love your neighbor as yourself, it means that I can give love to another person if I love myself. If I don’t love myself, if I don’t respect myself, I cannot respect or love the other person. I cannot even do that others love me and respect me! Love your neighbor as yourself. Love yourself in order to love your neighbor! And you must understand that your neighbor is not everyone. Because in the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus explains that your neighbor is the one who raises the fallen. The Samaritan who was despised, the Samaritan who helped and gave money to the needy until he returns the next day. That's your neighbor! Then, I’m not going to love the despicable person. You will try to trap me and you will tell me: - Yes, but Jesus also taught another phrase. It is easy to love your friend, but hard to love your enemy.  Maybe that phrase is taken out of context. Perhaps what Jesus meant to teach was tolerance. That we learn to live with a person who is unbearable. This does not mean that we applaud the unbearable person. -Viva! (Applause). Congratulations on your nasty gesture! No, I don’t mean that, but being tolerant makes us better people. For whom? For us. Because everything has to do with us! Because my spiritual part said it once: “We cannot help others and lend a hand if we are lying on the ground.” First we have to stand up. Once we are on our feet, then we can lend a helping hand to the others. It's a matter of coherence and common sense! Then, thinking first in us, to be well, is not selfishness. It’s coherence. I have to be strong in order to help others. Otherwise What am I going to give to others if I'm weak? If I'm falling apart, What I'm going to give to the others? I'll spread weakness. I'm going to contaminate everything with weakness. No, I must be strong in order to help others, because everything is based on the other, but I have to be fine first. If I cannot swim, I can’t be a lifeguard. I will not be able to save someone who is drowning. I have to learn to swim first. Learning to swim in life means to learn to be useful. But everything has to do with one in the first place. I need to be strong in order to lend a helping hand to the other. And I know that there will be people who will put obstacles on the path. We must be tolerant. Not to confuse being permissive with being tolerant. Because I will not be permissive with wickedness. If I am lenient with evilness, I am part of evilness! If I see someone who is committing a criminal act, someone who is robbing an old man or a gang that is stealing, I may not have all the strength to face them, but I can grab the phone and call the police. If I don’t do it, although I did not steal, I will be an accessory of robbery because I remained indifferent. One should participate to the extent that his strength allows it. If one can participate actively one does it. Otherwise, if one sees that his forces are not enough, one can call to the authorities and ask for help. But we always have to have COMMITMENT! And the commitment is not with the other. The commitment is with oneself. Then, just as I said before, you have to be strong to help others, in the same way to have a commitment with others; I have to commit with myself first. Everything has to do with myself first! If I have the will power, I'll transmit it to others with desire; if I don’t have it I will not transmit it to anyone! Instead I will contaminate laziness! Because one of the best acts of service is COMMITMENT. Then I must commit. But first with myself. And being tolerant with the other. That’s what I mentioned before, not to confuse tolerance with being permissive. Perhaps I live with a negative person. Perhaps I understand this person from my understanding, not from the ego, but if I see that this person commits acts that are opposite to my way of being, surely I’m going to react, I will certainly say it, because I will not be permissive. But if these acts are not so serious... Well, I will be tolerant with that person. Tolerance does not mean permissiveness. No! They are two different things. I can be permissive, I can have permissiveness, Am I tolerant or that person is permissive because he/she cannot say no on time? Because sometimes the roles of ego make us so weak and we are afraid to say ‘no.’ - No, but if I say ‘no’ I will lose this opportunity. If I say ‘no’ she is going to leave me. If I say no etc... Sometimes it’s necessary to say ‘no’, because our dignity makes us say ‘no’. We have to evaluate each case based on our criteria and our common sense. A very important thing, and this is a topic for another Psychointegration session, but it’s important to approach it now. A person who is very reactive does not reason. It is very difficult to convince that person with our understanding. A person who is reactive does not listen. He/she will hear us, but he/she will not listen to us. Then, let’s not commit the imprudence of arguing or debating with a reactive person, because not only will he/she not listen to us, but there will be a great argument. If possible we will try to avoid the debate with a person who is reactive. We can be tolerant, if we see that the situation gets out of control, we will move away from that person. But let’s not allow that they manipulate us. Because sometimes we have the TEMPTATION that they manipulate us so that we can manipulate too, this is the issue with this session of Psychointegration. To cut off the string of manipulations by realizing how important we are. Being Important does not mean that we get on a narcissistic pedestal and look everybody with contempt. No! We can be humble, we can have our dirty hands with thorns because we worked with soil and cutting the roses and we are not going to lose anything, and yet we can have our dignity in front of us. Because any work is worthy! Dignity means also learning to say ‘no’, but we must also see the moment, because, as I said before, if we have a single job to support our family and have a pedantic boss, we have to tolerate that situation because our family depends on that job... -Oh, no! But the professor told me that I have dignity, then, I have to yell at my boss and quit. - And What will I eat later on? Then, we have to see the moment.  We have to be smart, because intelligence is not the amount of numbers and multiplications we can calculate, or if we work with quantum physics, intelligence is applied at things every day, at the right time in life and if that bring us benefits. Because those benefits will always be shared unless the person is mean. But the true person, who thinks he/she is important, knows that he/she is important and shares. He/she knows his/her importance and gives; otherwise his/her life is meaningless. There is a beautiful comment that says: How good is that person who embodies crying, and when he disembodies those who are left mourn him! It means that this person did his job. Service is not a tragic duty. I've said it on countless sessions. I give the importance of being a doctor, but I also give importance when one gives the seat on a bus, or helps an old lady to cross the street; that is service. If anyone says:  -Ah, but I will not be a doctor! With that approach there would not be service. Let’s not choose the comfortable path. Service means always to be with good vibe or mood, always with a smile, and there are people who do not even know your name and tell you:  - How are you cool man? How beautiful that is! Thank you!