Manipulation, I found this text interesting!

Outsmarting manipulation

The manipulator knows what they’re doing… they’re like a predator, and you’re their prey. So what if you stepped out of that role to watch this predator approach… to throw them off by slipping between their paws, leaving them dumbfounded like an animal stunned by the glare of headlights…

Here are a few keys that are probably simple… but so effective!

• Key 1: Identify whether you can become prey!

Are you sensitive to compliments or to criticism and judgment from others? Do you expect to be encouraged to continue an action? Do you need support and validation?
Do you realize that the more you value others' opinions, the more you will be subject to the pressure of manipulators and the more you will be an ideal target?
Indeed, if you are sufficiently confident in your actions or when expressing an opinion, well, attempts at manipulation will fail, and it can even be imagined that you would not even be aware of them.

• Key II: Ask questions to clarify.

Are you dealing with a smooth talker, an altruist, or a shy person? Something about the person in front of you doesn’t seem right, and a hint is making you suspicious… Beware, you are not necessarily facing a manipulator (see “Who are manipulators?”), but test the truthfulness of their statements and ask them about their intentions: What do they want? What do they expect from you? What exactly do they want to tell you? What are they really talking about? These simple questions will put them back on the right track…

• Key III: Grieve!

You feel bogged down, you lose your train of thought, you no longer remember what you were talking about just a moment ago… Tell yourself that you are dealing with a manipulator. Do not try to change them or make them see reason… work on yourself! The result will be better, more reassuring!!! And to do that, grieve the loss of ideal, direct communication with these people. So, clearly tell yourself that the only means at your disposal is to keep questioning, over and over, to get answers!

• Key IV: Distinguish Facts – Opinions – Feelings

The manipulator may try to convince you. Be vigilant. Clearly identify what they are talking about. Let’s take a simple example: they try to convince you that it’s too hot in this room… Tell them that you understand that it’s too hot for them (that’s a feeling or a perception), but that you are fine. If they say it’s hotter than usual, we are then in the realm of opinion… it’s up to you to return to the fact, which is “it’s 21 degrees in this room…”, which is then indisputable.
But do not try to convince him that it is the same temperature as usual; you will have no objective way to persuade him, nor to tell him that he is wrong to feel hot…
Respect opinions and feelings, identify them as such, and return to what is indisputable: the facts!

Key V: Avoid Distortions - Omissions - Generalizations.

These three linguistic phenomena are called the NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) meta-model and deserve a chapter of their own.
But if we want to keep it brief, here are a few key points to remember:
Distortion is an incorrectly established link between two elements or events. Example: “The road to La Plagne is dangerous.” This is false. It is a distortion. The road to La Plagne is not inherently dangerous. Simply, driving fast, in fog, or while intoxicated on the road to La Plagne can lead to accidents. In this sentence, the link is incorrectly established between the road to La Plagne and danger. It is a distortion.

If from this distortion I say “all mountain roads are dangerous…”, I am deriving a law and making a generalization.

After all, if I say “this can’t go on any longer…”, I am in the register of omission: I do not specify what I am talking about and I leave it to my interlocutor to guess… at the risk of being wrong.

This meta-model is one of the key tools of manipulators. They establish links between elements, assert generalities based on a single personal experience, and above all do not tell you everything in order to let you make mistakes and then reproach you for it or point it out. Fighting this manipulation is easy: ask questions! Do not fall into the Jeopardy of opinion! Ask them what they are talking about, to get back to the facts, to clarify their thoughts, to provide details, to tell their story, to give specifics (where, when, how, with whom…) and you will see that your manipulator will be quite embarrassed…

Key VI: Identify your needs and respect them!
Know that manipulators completely disregard your needs! So if you don't respect them yourself, you're heading straight for a crash!
So identify your needs, and when a manipulator tries to pull you off your life path and tries to convince you to say or do something that YOU know will make you unhappy... resist! Say NO. If you give in, there is a strong chance that you will later resent them for it... but you gave in. You therefore share some responsibility! Whereas if you say NO: yes, you will frustrate the manipulator, but you will be in alignment with yourself, and isn't that ultimately the most important thing? Because if there is one person you will never leave... it is yourself!
Warning: not all requests are made by manipulators… and some requests may put you in a state of internal conflict. But we will call that a concession or a compromise… and if the person in front of you is not manipulative, you will never regret it!

Key VII: The Rational Emotive Strategy
Rational Emotive Strategy is the result of the work of Dr. Albert Ellis, a Doctor of Psychology and psychotherapist in the 1960s. It is based on the principle (simplified here) that our emotions override our reason in specific systems and interactions.

The SRE is developed in several stages:
1 - Identify the inappropriate attitude or behavior you wish to change.
2 - Identify the emotion associated with this behavior (anger, fear, worry, jealousy, etc.).
3 – Identify and listen to all the thoughts that come to mind, and write them down on a sheet of paper using the exact words that come to you. Do not censor yourself! This document will be read by you and you alone!
4 - Question yourself using the following points (you may even memorize these questions!):
(This SRE will be the subject of a separate article given its importance and, above all, its results)

• Key VIII: Limit limiting beliefs!
Be aware that the manipulator establishes their power on a large number of so-called limiting beliefs. For example, “You don’t do that when you’re a consultant!!!” and my response is then “But who says so? And if I do it, what happens???” If you give in to the pressure of limiting beliefs, you hand the power to the manipulator! Moreover, they will use the belief in whichever way suits them. For example: if you have changed your mind, they will tell you “You are unstable… people who change their minds are unstable…” but if you stick to your position, they will use the opposite belief saying “Only fools never change their minds…”
Be autonomous, independent… own up to your changes of mind and, above all, when facing a manipulator, do not justify yourself!

• Key IX: Do not give out beads!
The manipulator uses everything they can get. The more personal information you share, the more they will try to twist, mix, and conflate it to counter you. Do not share information about your activities or your life. Share your opinions, but only to a minimum. Protect yourself all the more so, especially since the opinions, views, or judgments of others matter to you.

• Key X: Do not respond to vague requests!
The manipulator who wants to use your skills, your time, your belongings… will phrase their questions indirectly. For example, “Do you have any plans on Saturday?” If you answer “no” and they then want to borrow your car… you’re stuck. It will take some nerve and self-confidence to manage to say “no” without feeling guilty… Make them clarify what they have in mind… “What do you mean by ‘something’??? I don’t have anything specific planned, but I have things to do! What exactly do you want, what is your request?”

Key XI: Take note!
The manipulator plays on the fact that you won’t remember! It will be their good or bad faith against yours, and it’s a safe bet that they will make you doubt!!! Take notes. Note everything… Is that procedural? Sure. So what? Why is it important? If you’re reading this, I bet you want to fight a specific manipulator. So take notes. While your memory is still faithful, jot down in a notebook: date, time, nature of the request, response given, proposed solution, and the solution ultimately adopted… so as not to go back on it.

Key XII: Remain upright.
The manipulator will try to get you to take sides… for or against, it doesn’t matter, a situation, a person, an opinion. Identify what they are talking about and stay out of it. Example: “I’ve heard about your disagreement with So-and-so, listen, I have no opinion on the matter, I don’t know the situation, I’m keeping myself from making any comments, handle it yourself with this person and don’t ask me to take sides, I don’t have the information and even if I did, I don’t want to get into this debate.” And just like that… we change the subject… and if they bring it up again… you play the broken record “as I just told you…” and you repeat it!

• Key XIII: Use the key phrases!
Here is a list of key phrases to use to avoid any conflict with a manipulator:
That’s your opinion, and know that I respect it… mine is different.
That’s what you think, and you have the right to… my opinion is different.
What are you talking about? Clarify your thoughts, give me some details…
It’s an interpretation… It’s your interpretation…
We can see it that way…
You're allowed to think that...
If you say so…
Everyone has their own tastes
My experience is different…
My experience leads me to say that… / Everyone has their own experiences / it must be your experience that makes you speak that way
Oh really? Oh yes… but still… and so… and then? ? ? And what do you think about it, you?
I don't know… I'm not familiar with the details of the case…

To be meditated upon

LOLLY POP

Hi Lolly pop!

Thank you for this text.

In my opinion, manipulators are above all liars who take advantage of others' weakness or naivety.

Kisses
The magician.

Hi Lolly and Magic

Thank you, Lolly, for this text filled with advice for the pure and fragile souls that we sometimes are.
Sometimes blinded by feelings that are too intense..

Yes, Magic, manipulators are liars, and I would add that they are very weak beings themselves who would steal your strength of soul.

I once posted the title of a very interesting book on the subject.
I'm handing it back to you quite by chance

Moral Harassment
Everyday perverse violence;
MARIE-FRANCE HIRIGOYEN
at Pocket Editions

Thank you Lolly, Thank you Magic
Kisses to you both

Marie

Hello Lolly Pop, and thank you for this interesting topic,

I find it surprising that manipulation is still always presented as something negative, yet it sometimes allows one to say: “Look, you were sad and now you’re smiling.”

Kind regards,

Fadi

What is permitted has no charm; what is forbidden is exciting. [Ovid]

Hmm...
Questions come to mind:

• Why look for a prey like a manipulator?
• Is it unconscious or conscious?
• and that with a specific purpose or not?
• And in the “love game,” weren’t we unconsciously in agreement to be “manipulated,” and at some point we realize it and… “the game is over.”
  How do the victim and the manipulator feel afterward?
• And the professional manipulator who charms just to get what he wants from his secretary, or even his assistant? Even when his aim is purely professional rather than physical? Once under his spell, it’s all too easy to turn a blind eye to a shady deal, but the awakening can be brutal, and it’s time to fix everything.

Are manipulators really liars? Do they lie to themselves or to others first?

Don't we sometimes change the mind of someone in our circle to bring them around to our point of view? Can we already speak of manipulation in that case?

When and where is the limit?

The subject is vast to debate.

…

In short, all of this concerns only me, of course, and is not directed at anyone in particular, just a few fragments picked up here and there.

This text isn't mine, it's just that sometimes I mess around with things I don't even understand myself.

I am just as vulnerable in that regard

Freud would say that I am just as manipulable as I am manipulative; I try, like any being, to avoid heading toward what is harmful in life.

And it's not easy.

and at the same time I understand my identity and my desire to remain free in every encounter

This text is multiple and mutable at the same time.

We remain free in our choices, and that is precisely the difficulty of loving and being loved: what is love if we cannot make it meet the other?

What is love outside of oneself

A lot of questions and confusion

and at the same time of truth in what one is

in every confrontation in life

You are admirable no matter what you do, because in every moment you are there to varying degrees.

You spread this word, whether it be of solitude or comfort, it remains love.

And I have no word but silence to provoke this vigil

Maybe that's my problem

I kiss you.

You know, Claudia

You're a great girl

Magic is in a different context, and in that one, I touch it every day.

One should not be ashamed of who they are.

vulnerable and malleable, for that is where one finds the keys to one's being

Every day we are confronted with who we are.

Learn to love it

and create…

Thank you

Lollipop

There is no limit to love

It’s just that the ego is a deception to be understood within the limit it reveals to us.

That is called envy, covetousness, and above all fear—fear of not understanding—and yet that very same fear can trigger a positive movement within one’s being, this protection inherent to one’s substance.

This is impossible in its progression.

What can I add to your questions

if it is only fear that disguises itself at our expense and at the same time helps us withdraw from what is impossible for us to understand

I'm hugging you

lolly

Text found on a Zen tarot card!

To meditate...

Anyone can be a good so-called, a hypocrite, and will become your leader in politics, your priest in religion. All he needs is hypocrisy, all he needs is deceit, all he needs is a facade to hide behind.
Your politicians live double lives, your priests live double lives; one on the street side, the other on the courtyard side, and the one on the courtyard side is their true life. Those facade smiles are simply fake, those faces with such an innocent gaze are simply cultivated.
If you want to see the reality of the politician, you must meet him from his back side. There he is in his nakedness, as he truly is, and the same goes for the priest. These two types of skilled people have dominated humanity, and they discovered very, very early on that if you want to dominate humanity, make it weak, make it feel guilty, make it feel unworthy. Destroy its dignity, distance it from all glory, humiliate it. And they have found such subtle ways of humiliation that they go unnoticed; they leave it to you to humiliate yourself, to destroy yourself. They have taught you a low-dose suicide.

Marie

And here's the rest!!

Comment:
Do you recognize this man?
Even the most innocent and sincere among us have a politician lurking somewhere in our minds. In fact, the mind is political. Its very nature is to plan, scheme, and try to manipulate situations and people so that it can get what it wants. Here, the mind is represented by the snake, shrouded in clouds and “speaking with a forked tongue.”
However, the important thing to understand about this card is that both faces are false…
The gentle, innocent face: “trust me” is a mask, just as the malicious face: “I’ll have you at my mercy” is a mask. Politicians have no real faces. Their entire game is a lie.
Take a good look at yourself and see if you have been playing this game. What you will see may be painful, though not as painful as perpetuating this game. It serves no one’s interest, least of all yours. What you might achieve this way will simply turn to dust in your hands.

Excerpt from the Hosho Tarot

Happy reading
Marie

Hello to you, my friends!

Are we being manipulated, or are we the ones doing the manipulating, or both at the same time?

I am not omniscient, and I will not present here a truth I do not possess, only my humble opinion.

For my part, I think that each of us has been more or less manipulated, just as we have all had occasions to manipulate others.

When we are manipulated, we are usually aware of it, but out of weakness or fear, we let it happen.
Weakness of not knowing how to react, or fear of losing the other person's love (lover, child, or parent, since children also know how to manipulate their parents).

In the same way, we have also, at one time or another, manipulated one of our loved ones in order to get them to share our point of view.
Even here, it is very difficult to distinguish between manipulation and service, manipulating in the interest of the person we are manipulating.

I admit that I myself used to be like that. Now… it certainly still happens to me, but I have learned to respect others. And respecting others is not necessarily about doing what we think is best for them, because we are not them. Even their illness, their psychosis, their depression—which we see as a state of distress and something to be cured—may not be. They may need it to avoid things getting worse.
And in such cases, it is very difficult to stay on the outside without trying to act, to manipulate the other person to make them change.

In a romantic relationship, which woman, which man can sincerely boast to themselves of never having wanted, at one point or another, in one situation or another, to change the other person, in the sense of how they would like them to behave?

Now, my personal experience, a better self-mastery, and the loving energy I immerse myself in every day mean that I increasingly remain in respect for the other in their own being. I try to moderate my advice much more.
I’m not saying I never try to manipulate anymore, but as soon as I become aware of it, I try to correct myself.
Instead of trying to change the other person to give them the image I would like them to have, I work on myself and my self-awareness.

And I realize that the more I work on myself, the less I manipulate others, and the less I am manipulated.
You cannot love everyone, but at least you can have respect, and respect, just like love for others, begins with self-respect.
Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

But as I said earlier, I remain humble: it’s just my opinion, and what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for my neighbor.

Yours sincerely.
Sincerely.

I would add the following:

Knowing how to say no,

But also knowing how to accept the other person's NO without being hurt.

It is very important, for mutual respect.

Friendship

Hello everyone
Lolly, you’ve outlined the main traits of a manipulator. Yes, one day, maybe we’ve all been one. But there’s a higher category.
Can I express myself this way about these "bastards"? They are narcissistic perverts. My advice is that as soon as you feel uncomfortable, RUN. Don't try to understand. Because they are cunning, intelligent beings.
Are they aware or not? Even today, I don’t know. I lived with a NPD for 12 years. I know what I’m talking about.
They completely destroy you.
E

I sent the message without meaning to.
I had read about moral violence at least thirty years ago, and at the time, I thought it only affected children and vulnerable people. Moral violence? We talk about it a lot at work, but it also exists in couples and in everyday life. Now we talk about moral harassment. The term has changed. Has the violence remained the same?

Thank you, Pearl, for this testimony in which we can still feel the emotion in you.

You are very brave, and talking about it is not easy.

Healing is there, and know that ultimately, there are people who have very heavy karmic pasts and present circumstances; you tried to heal this person through your love, and it is up to them to understand that one day...

Yes, to flee or simply to set this inner will, which is tied to me, aware of never finding on its path the shadow, but that every encounter or situation is placed in the light, the source of love, and there is no need to flee, for the light is fled by the dark one in deeds.

May you be blessed during these joyful Easter holidays

lollipop