#forempath

[lilaetleloup]

And with that in mind, I choose to be indulgent with myself.

I’ve believed for a long time, that some people close to me were strong because they never really broke down, when in fact they were so weak that they chose, when they were kids, to cut themselves from their difficult emotions, instead of facing them.

[lilaetleloup]

the signs that point to a manipulator VII

28. he sees himself as a predator

And I still consider him otherwise...

But this said, he is not totally wrong. He lurks here, in the bushes, hunting the empath without conscience or remorse for the pain he could cause. He needs to eat energy! And to him it is only nature’s order that the strong are the hunters when the weak are the hunted.

But the laws of the jungle are antithetic to civilization and progress. Political parties founded exclusively by his kind always talk about going backwards, to a time when it felt good living at others’ expenses. With his Neanderthal mind, dooming the weak to an early grave, he is a hindrance to progress. Because the physically weak or the person born on the wrong side of the railroad, can easily be the smarter, the inventor, the creative mind, the genius, the spiritual guide, the wise... the one who will have humanity go forward with him.

If we succeeded in getting out of the Middle-Age it is in spite of the manipulator. Not thanks to him.

And it’s no coincidence, to my mind, if, since he has made a huge comeback these last thirty years, we turn back to the good old days of economic servitude and pandemic. Because too many manipulators in power means a massive return of corruption, incompetence, entitlement, lies and exploitation.

The manipulator sees us as preys and underestimates us. Underestimates the courage and abnegation of those who can fight for a cause bigger than themselves or who fight for those they love.

A difference between the manipulator and the predator, though, is that the manipulator prefers to stay in the shade, when the society isn’t favourable to his kind. Whereas a tiger doesn’t hide his stripes. In North Korea or other China, on the contrary, I imagine it’s party time everyday for a manipulator. And I can’t fathom the hell it must be for the minority of empathetic people there.

But if I’m right about the world’s evolution, this hiding won’t last long. And the sooner the better, because if 100% of manipulators know their “eat and be eaten” game, a very few percentage of good people are aware of the fight and what is at stake. Most of the time, this minority is composed by ex-victims.

Quite easy and no sport, then, to hunt when the antelope doesn’t know her life is on the line.

Once you know where to look, on the contrary, it’s often child play to detect them.

29. he has a paranoid tendency

Well of course, just imagine! We all have this tendency to put our own way of thinking is the other’s mind. And this makes us, empathetic people, more prone to naivete, jumping bambis in the sunset and in the crossfire of automatic guns.

But this makes him paranoid. Others want to rob him, have no conscience, will betray him, will cheat on him...

The world is full of bad guys, he knows it. And the manipulator only sleeps with one eye open. Or can’t sleep at all.

30. he doesn’t like rules

Rules are for the weak, he thinks. If he can despise or rape them, it’s fine. If he can change them in his own interest, it’s better still.

There are too many times when he must pretend to respect the rules. And it’s exhausting.

31. he is greedy and confuses success with financial success

Of course! For him everything turns around looks, power and money. And what is dangerous is when the way he feels become the dominant philosophy. I guess there is only a certain amount of manipulators a society can bear at its head, in companies and politics, before we spiral down in a vicious circle. Because the manipulator will change the mentalities to favour his kind, making it easier for others manipulators to climb, who in turn will aggravate the mentalities...

For ten years, I have this feeling that the world is going faster and faster in manipulation land. Which means darker and darker. And I fear we’ll have to touch the bottom before it gets better.

This overwhelming mentality contributes to the fact that so many good people feel bad, can feel like  they are failing if they concentrate on being a good parent, or a just teacher or a faithful spouse. Hit again and again by these golden and superficial lives on the social media, most good people can get depressed.

The manipulator is also greedy. His overinflated ego is always whispering him he deserves more. And this answers the question I had, as a good naive empathetic person: why would a billionaire choose to paint his tenth swimming pool with god instead of raising wages?

Because he deserves it and the others don’t deserve anything more than the bare minimum to survive and be able to work for him.

So of course, to avoid the possibility that poor people get to the pitchforks and attack his bunker, he’ll give to charities, elegant way of talking with his social peers about the wellness of the peasants around appetizers. And also, to save taxes. And the rich manipulator will always prefer this way of giving money, which allows him to control where it goes, preferably in causes more glamour and selling than repairing roads and will also allow him to build a nice philanthropic image for himself. Also, it will help sustain an economic system that favours him. Because in reality, a good economic system, in a rich democracy, is the one where everybody pays his just amount of taxes and everybody can earn a fair wage, one that you can live on. Where, in fact, nobody should need charity.

Also, the internal vacuum of the manipulator is a bottomless pit that encourages him to get always more. The manipulator isn’t Iron Man, the philanthropist superhero but Pac Man: always hungry, never satisfied.

And he doesn’t care if the planet would die of it. Because as the delectable Duchess of Windsor would have said: “one is never rich enough”.

32. he divides and conquers

He is a master of triangulation, this art which consists in using a third person in the toxic relations he has with you. He will use this other person against you, having told him lies where he is the victim. Or have you understand that this person thinks you are wrong. And have you hate him in the process.

On his chess board, he is the king or the queen and others are pawns.

His hot-air-balloon ego is fragile and he is a coward in confrontation where the adversary isn’t weak and could fight back He will, in this case, send somebody else to do the dirty job.

In some extreme cases, the manipulator can cut you totally from your friends and family. He’ll act like it’s you and him in a fortress, having you believe that everybody else is mean. Enclosed in the tower, the victim is more powerless than ever.

(to be continued...)

[lilaetleloup]

the signs that point to a manipulator VIII

33. the devil hides in the details

Because the cleverest of manipulators, which are, incidentally, the most toxic of them, will talk positively ninety five percent of the time and hide the toxic bomb in the other five.

Some examples?

It's this Reiki master who told me I shouldn't feel fear because fear came in direct line from the one with horns, living underground.

Clever this, very clever.

He didn't say, as the five principles of Reiki advise though to "try today, not to worry", which keeps in mind the fact that human nature isn't perfect, that the most important is to try and that sometimes, it's just normal to feel fear. Or panic. An encounter with a crocodile comes to mind.

And we shouldn't feel ashamed for that, nor drowning in culpability but still try to keep fear at bay if we can the next day.

No, this Reiki master says "fear comes from the baaaaaaaaad one" with the hint that when you are afraid you are on an evil path.

Would you be, by chance, attracted by the dark side?

You also read this undercurrent in the intensity of the eyes this guy is now focusing on you, as if he were trying to look in the deepest part of your soul, looking for the ugly seed.

And so, naturally, you doubt yourself, you wonder if you are truly a good person, you stagger, you are afraid to fail, you are afraid to be scared and to confront your own shadow and you feel you need even more the strong hand of a spiritual guide to help you walk straight.

And this here, having you scared and co-dependent, is intentional.

There is also this famous motivational and well-being guru who declares that you are one hundred percent responsible for what's happening to you.

That NOTHING is happening in your life that you didn't wish there.

Luck hasn't any say. Nor God, for those who believe in him. Or destiny.

Or the help of other people, the support of your family, the financial advantage you had at birth, or the fact you are living in a democratic country... the list of exterior factors is just endless.

And yes, I definitely believe one should take responsibility for one's choices, and one's actions but also be humble enough to know that we don't control everything.

This guru has conveniently convinced enough people to now be a millionaire and I guess his ego is overjoyed to be able to claim the entirety of this success. It must have him believe he is truly a superior being.

Everything he has achieved, in his mind, is thanks to him and he should feel no gratitude, I guess, for the spouse who helped him build his career. He so deserved it.

But the hidden toxicity here, it as follows: if you are responsible for everything that happens to you, absolutely everything, and you haven't succeeded as you would have wished, if you are unhappily single, don't earn enough money, having a hard time, feel over-weighted... it's because you are a loser. It's one hundred percent on you. And you have to wake up.

And you need a lot of help... maybe the guru's help? Buy more books, go to more conferences, participate to more motivational groups?

Of course!

As if it were that easy for everyone. Especially in a world where there are more and more trump cards (pun intended) in the deck. When some people are under daily bombing. Or a child is being destroyed by toxic parents. Or a single parent is fighting each month to put food on the table...

But you can always trust a manipulator to lack empathy.

And the "if he is poor, it's because he made the choice" is an age-old argument for rich people to enjoy their arrogance and avidity, without being bothered by a conscience twitch.

With its self-congratulatory corollary: "I'm rich because I deserve it, other people are just too lazy."

So you should pay attention to details, because it's where the manipulator hides the toxicity.

Those details you don't notice, at first, because the rest of the discourse, roughly, has sense, and can motivate you.

Especially when injected with a good dose of artificial energy and the charisma of a con man. Especially when you feel lost and you need help.

But these details are dangerous. Because there are grenades that explode everything else and have you feel worse and more dependent.

So, to conclude this eight articles series: the manipulator is very simple, when you think about it.

And this is so, however clever he might be. Which can be a good deal, indeed.

Because it's a person who hasn't developed the quality one has to, to be a complete human being, with a heart, a conscience and a sense of responsibility.

He stopped his emotional development, often because of fear, or because of anger, some other times because of pride. In this last instance, the mix of cleverness and the entitlement of a high social status can be very dangerous.

Because a kid, contrary to the rosy picture, from the moment he discovers he is not the extension of his mother he thought he was, around two years old, encounters his ego and has a ferocious wish to assert himself.

Or, as someone I knew who didn't want kids told me: " a child is an never-ending capacity of expansion".

Which makes him closer to savagery than to the natural kindness Mister Rousseau was so fond of.

I guess it's all in favour of the survival of the species. But it is our duty, as parent, to have a kid stop gravitating around his navel.

Because magic is outside the ego circle, in the sharing, the generosity, everything that goes beyond and is larger than us.

The manipulator has remained stuck in a primitive way of life, in the jungle.

And he is proud of it!

He shouldn't be.

And civilization will have to be done in spite of him.

[lilaetleloup]

There are doves, a herd of doves turning around my house, when their owner lets them free, usually in the shadowy light of early evening or after a storm.

Take care ❤

[lilaetleloup]

"Persuasion" of Jane Austen could have been called "Manipulation"

The work of Miss Austen is especially fascinating for the psychological description she paints of the "good" society of her time. With a precise, cutting, humorous and cynical brush.

Of course, when I first discovered this author, I loved her for the romance and Mr Darcy, but now that this coronavirus has me reread my books, I also re-discovered "Persuasion" with a new eye and have been struck by all the negative characters in this story.

The goodhearted people are an absolute minority and I find here a confirmation about my estimation on the current "elite". Who I believe to be composed by an horrific majority of negative people, more than three quarters.

The summit of the hierarchical pyramid hasn't changed its essence, it would seem. Only its appearance.

And to come back to this book, with a few exceptions, quite all the characters of the story can be credited with obscure and sneaky intentions.

The culture of the time, which gave a woman no other mean of survival than get herself the richest husband possible, being the prettiest and the most vapid, did in fact, favour superficiality and cunning.

Also, the abyssal vacuum in people, thinking doing nothing more of their time than putting new clothes on five times a day, added to their conviction that being well born was paramount could enable monstrous egos to revolve around one's navel. In perpetuity.

It's quite a miracle, then, that we could escape this moral abomination.

As for this book, as I won't be describing the too numerous disagreeable characters, I'd like to describe three archetypes, that could illustrate my own classification of negative people. First, there is the father and the oldest sister of the heroine, Sir Walter Elliot ans Miss Elizabeth Elliot. They are introduced, at the beginning of the book, as the absolute worst in the heroine's life but they are, in fact, no more that horrid selfish people. There is no manipulation in these two, so exclusively occupied at loving and pleasing themselves, telling whatever goes through their head. As they make no effort to be agreeable to others, the fact that they don't care for the heroine is clear to everyone, herself included. And it would be easy to loath them but the selfish person is the least dangerous among the negative profiles. As they don't wear any mask, we aren't fooled about the goods. Its the selfish person, on the contrary, that could get manipulated by meaner people : and it is precisely the case in this book.

In a more negative category, you have the other sister of the heroine, a Mrs Mary Musgrove, which is the name she got after her marriage. At first, the heroine declares she prefers the way this sister treats her, as an useful object or a servant : she finds it more gratifying. But I beg to differ. And you have here the faulty and classical reasoning of your typical good person, always happy to be useful, always in danger of becoming the handy saviour of everyone, except herself. Distributing empathy, love and affection, forgetting to take care of herself. And being abused in return. This isn't at all healthy. So this sister, an obvious narcissist, with a poor cleverness, is always wailing and playing the victim to have others do exactly what she wants. And gets it, most of the time. People in these days were so polite and respectful of manners... She always wants to be the centre of everybody's attention and sees everything through the prism of her own advantage. And if the heroine finds in this sister the ephemeral pleasure of being of some use, she would, without any other interference, have finished her life being the unpaid servant, little more than a slave, in someone else's hoe, raising her nieces and nephews, entertaining the family, with Hartshorn at the ready for an ever swooning sister.

There is also a psychopath in this book. Well, there is at least one, as I suspect more but this one is clearly denounced as one: William Elliot, the heir of the heroine's father. He is known at the end of the story as cold-hearted, ruthless and manipulative. Along the way, he was already seen to be adapting to people, lying and using his charm. And this, here, is the most dangerous negative profile because this people are the cleverest and adapt their appearance and behaviour to their objectives and targets. At a time when marriage was unbreakable and women had no more right than chattel, the fate of an innocent young women glued to the toxic charm of this kind of man, would have been dire, indeed. And the author has us know, in fact, that the first wife of this man had been very unhappy and died young.

In this particular book, the heroine was cleverly distrustful of such an apparent perfection and the total absence of spontaneous emotions. And she was already in love of another. She was lucky enough to escape some traps and clever enough to avoid others. She got to marry the good man and together, they will have the chance, to build their own inner positive universe in this world of elitist heartless villains.

[lilaetleloup]

the signs that point to a manipulator VI

24. he brings you down

For the pleasure, to have you in his power, to feed his fragile ego and to get from you the emotions he’ll use to feed himself or discredit you.

And also because, well, the manipulator secretly hates you: you have a heart and he hates you for it.

It can be difficult to differentiate between systemic depreciation and valid criticism.

Because everyone can be critical. And sometimes it’s warranted.

How then, can you know the difference ?

Quite simply: you have to ask yourself how you feel.

If you feel bad, that you lose progressively the trust you have in yourself, that you feel like a failure, never encouraged to do something or be yourself... you may have been under too much targeted criticism.

And the true danger is that in living this alternative reality when you are constantly hit while he presents himself as the victim, you can end up doubting of yourself, of your own perceptions, your cleverness and your equilibrium.

Furthermore, one of his classic attack is to say you’re loosing the plot or your mind. That you’re inventing stuff, lying, imagining things, are hysterical, should calm down, are batshit crazy...

The easiest way to send the problem back in your turf as quickly as he possibly can.

And you can come to the point where you wonder if indeed you are still mentally sane.

If this happens, he’ll use it against you.

And will relish telling the world he was right all along.

25. special attention on the passive-aggressive

It’s a two time movement.

The manipulator will attack you verbally, without reason, preferably with innuendos you’ll be the only one to understand. This is the aggressive part.

The ideal is for you to react but for other people around, if there are, to not perceive the intensity of the attack. And therefore to not understand your logical reaction and think YOU are the aggressor.

Because once the aggressive part has been dealt, the manipulator will protect himself behind his victim mask, giving you the role of the bad guy. This is the passive part.

It’s the bully who hits you and then puts his false glasses on. You won’t be so mean that you’d hit someone with glasses, will you?

#bekind

The two movement can be in the opposite order when the manipulator will preemptively present you as the bad guy before going to your throat.

It can look like this: “You aren’t a nice person, you should be kinder, you ugly son of a bleep, selfish, jealous looser, get a life!”

Yes, I know, written like that it seems to be a caricature but just give a second look at the many comments on social media...

Because the manipulator, as I wrote before, can’t bear criticism and will, if submitted to one, bury you under recriminations, blaming you – the irony! - for not being kind.

Criticism is useful when it’s constructive or when there is a manipulator at the receiving end.

You shouldn’t let him be destructive without reacting. And I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the recent #bekind movement has partly been launched by one or more manipulators: it’s a virtual pair of glasses.

When they get low, he won’t let you go high, though: the manipulator will take it as encouragement and attack you until he hits the mark. He wants to prove you’re bad and meanwhile he can have fun. Pure happiness.

26. he doesn’t want your happiness

At all.

Without a heart, he can’t be happy and can only feed on you or on crowds.  Or know pleasure, this substitute promised to those who abdicated their conscience.

Your happiness is an insult to him.

He can’t bear it.

And then his ego whispers in his head that you have everything HE deserves. That you are robbing him. That you had everything easily when he’s slaving. That it’s soooooooo not fair.

He’s eaten by jealousy, bitterness, envy and hate.

If life hasn’t given him what he is sure he deserves, it’s because you have his job, especially if you are an immigrant. If you are happily married, it’s because you have his spouse. Or the kids she was supposed to give birth to. The money that should be in his pocket. His oxygen...

And he will try to kill your happiness.

27. you don’t feel good

You are depreciated, criticized, attacked, nothing you do is good enough and it’s always your fault.

Your emotions are dismissed, you are not respected.

And after the first love-bombing months, and the subsequent episodes he hopes briefer and briefer when he makes an effort to keep his hold on you, he will do everything in his power to have you feel unhappy.

If this wasn’t enough, the manipulator is an energy vampire.

And I would guess, an inspiration for the bloody one.

Energy is another vital force and as a Reiki master, I should know how important it is to your well-being.

If you live with a intense manipulator, you can feel drained, without enthusiasm, without desire, sad without cause, exhausted without knowing why, and sometimes without any more forces to resist.

The more toxic the manipulator, the more intense the symptoms.

Is the manipulator is only a low range narcissist, you could spend an entire life being slowly eroded,  sustaining him, trying unsuccessfully to please him: daily Sisyphus running behind your stone.

Some manipulators have taken the extra measure to isolate you.

And as you are alone, you feel worse and worse. It can raise to the physical level: you are more easily ill, you gain weight, loose hair...

In some cases, you can go through apathy periods. When you don’t even have the strength to get out of bed. It isn’t necessarily a depression, sometimes getting you out of the talons of the toxic person, can be enough for you to recover.

But it can get you to a true depression.

The manipulator won’t have any compassion for you and will take advantage, again and again, of your vulnerability.

Everything is in his interest and against you.

(to be continued...)

[lilaetleloup]

There are two kinds of charism.

The artificial one the manipulator uses to trap you. And the true one, that comes from the 💓, from your generosity and your love of life.

[lilaetleloup]

we'll get through this

This horrible crisis will pass.

Of course, I can't talk here of personal dramas some of us will have experienced. Some of us risk insupportable losses that won't ever pass or be forgotten. But I can talk about a collective truth: this will pass.

And every crisis we go through can teach us something. Some of them can even save us, hitting us on the head.

Although I know I shouldn't get angry, sometimes I can't control my temper and when the red mood is taking over my brain, it's very frequent, then, that I bang on a door or a cupboard. And I swear. And I understand the sign, the immediate order: calm down. Your anger is wrong.

And anger was spreading worldwide, bitterness was overflowing. In the name of it, many governments, populist ones, incompetent ones, have been elected across the world. Dictatorships flourish where before there was a democracy. And I was beginning to fear a world war. When too many people choose the powder, there only needs a spark to blow everything up.

This virus wet the powder we were stocking.

This virus stopped this. It forced each of us to think about one's survival, more than about the hate towards others. It showed how interconnected we are, highlighted the solidarity, more than the differences.

I don't like dictatorships, obviously, and I don't trust the political intentions of some leaders, most and foremost Putin's, who evidently has wet dreams about dismantling the European Union. But on a human level, Russian and Cuban doctors have come to help in Italy, Chinese ones in England.

And when the virus has been beaten, I hope we'll remember our commune humanity.

This pandemic also reveals, alas, in a terribly sad karmic way, the lies and real incompetence of manipulators in governments.

The virus is a revealing so much. And is a catalyst.

It will be impossible for leaders to lie – even though they’ll try ! - when each of us is living this reality in our body, our job, our life. It will underline the mentalities, the faults and qualities of each country.

It will point to the economic inequalities, more or less untenable, depending on the country. And reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a country’s health services.

This virus also shows how our human arrogance is laughable. How fragile we are.

How important the planet is. It's such a simple truth, it should seem! But so many don't see it who are now confronted to it.

This virus also teaches us how be can do better. Do we need to run like ants all the time? To consume and product frenetically? In Venice, the canals are getting clear and attracting fishes again. The skies in India and China are blue again. Won't we wish, when everything is better, to keep them that way?

The economy must be in the service of mankind. And not the contrary.

And the economy must respect the planet.

Most certainly, we will have to reduce our economic activity. It's a disagreeable truth no government, always elected on a promise of growth, has the guts to tell us. But the planet had us stop.

Quite everything.

Why, then, not learn of this ordeal and slow down? Get a breath? Take the time to find ecological solutions for a safer future?

Make no mistake: this planet, soon, won't give us any choice.

Among other stuff, it has others viruses stuck in the Poles that could be freed if we make the wrong choice. Viruses that could make this one feel like a friendly repetition.

Our global quarantine is also for each of us, a way to learn about ourselves, as individuals.

I feel privileged to live this confinement in a nice house wish an incredible view on the Sierra of Madrid. But even with this good conditions, I felt I was crumbling, at first. I don't take it easily, to have my freedom taken away by others. Nor do I cope well with this feeling of being caged. I had to adapt to this new reality, using my camera in an imaginary safari that had me savour, at my window, each moment and each cloud.

And this is also a time to learn about others, most significantly those close to us.

Negative people are much more numerous than we should like to acknowledge. A good third of the population in most democratic countries. More in some. And I think about those who will get stuck in the same place with a toxic spouse, or a toxic friend.

In some cases, they will risk their health, their sanity and even their life. I hope that for some it will be the incentive, when everything calms down, to be free, to get out of this hell they could only bear because they had some other place to go to.

A time of crisis is a time of reality, when masks slip.

One of my neighbours, coughing so hard since the beginning of March that his lungs must have been shaking, has gone with his family and his camping car when the schools got closed.

Some are fighting for toilet paper.  Others hoard protective equipment hoping to sell it.

Many, on Twitter or in the street, attack people verbally when they know of them or see them going outside. Without wondering about their motives. The same people, or others, will walk their dogs ten times a day if it's the only way to go legally out.

In France, nurses go back to their rented home to find written notes of neighbours asking them to please think about their health - the nerve ! - and move. One got home to a locked door: the owner of her flat just evicted her.

But on the other hand, this virus will also reveal courage.

Of those who take risks to save and feed others. And I hope, when this horror is behind us, we'll keep the true heroes in our mind, those we meet every day: a parent who takes care of the home-schooling of his kid, hiding his fear, a employee fighting with his hierarchy to protect his team from being fired, a delivery person taking the time to inquire about your health across the door, a cashier working for a grocery store, and, of course, the medical staff.

I hope, when all is said and done, we'll remember these heroes of everyday life.

When up till now we were more interested in worshipping celebrities, influencers and powerful people, a narcissistic superficiality that had so many negative people happy. And brought us here.

This terrible crisis will pass.

And, at this end of the tunnel, we'll be happy to meet again, my son will finally enjoy going to school, we'll have a coffee in a café, I will be able to take a walk without having a dog...

But I hope we won't be jumping back in our very same lives, as if nothing happened.

I hope this crisis will stick in the back of our consciences and that we will collectively be able to answer this question:

What can we do, to have a better future?

[lilaetleloup]

the six voices

These are not, of course, voices with different tonalities and sources that would give us the impression that someone else is living with us in our head and Napoleon wants to talk to us. Of course not!

It’s just that as time went by – too much of it!- and maturity is coming upon me, with, I hope, the least possible wrinkles, I tried to identify the source and pertinence of each of my thoughts… And I felt we could attribute each one of them to six different voices.

The easiest one to notice, for example is the voice of intelligence. It’s the one that thinks, counts, evaluates

And we feel its cogs turning. As it’s the voice going through every possibility, it’s also the one which is scared. When you board a plane, for example, and your frenetic thoughts are showing you every chance this could go wrong ? Till the tiniest duck who could tickle the turbines? Well, this is your cleverness going on overdrive.

Being smart enables you to find solutions, but by showing you all the possible disastrous outcomes, it also prevents you from acting, simmering as you are, in a soup of fears.

And I find intelligence is a little over-evaluated in school. The smartest among us are not necessarily the ones who will succeed better, if they haven’t managed to subdue their fear to act.

Dumb people dare anything, I’ve been told. And clever ones don’t dare enough.

The voice of your cleverness has no empathy for others and will clinically analyse situations and people, the better to help you deal with them or manipulate them.

Luckily, this side effect has begun to be more and more taken into account recently and more and more schools give importance to the emotional intelligence.

This emotional cleverness is what I call the voice of the heart.

Which I find, as well, easy to identify because it’s the one that has you feel: love for others, an animal or an activity, compassion for the suffering of others – not to be confused with the compassion some have for themselves which has them drown in everlasting victimhood -, empathy…

The third voice is one that has also been more and more acknowledged lately: the voice of intuition, that is also called sixth sense. Or gut feeling for the less spiritual among us who think with their stomachs. Happens to me when I’m really hungry, though.

This voice is the one that I have the worst trouble identifying when it’s so important to: it’s the wise one, the one that is never wrong. It’s the one you should listen to, for example, when it disagrees with your intelligence. Your brain is whispering all the horrible ways you could die in a plane? Your intuition is assuring you that you’ll arrive safely. And it knows best.

Because the voice of intuition is connected.

To the collective unconscious, the energies, and, for those who believe in them – and it’s my case – to invisible presences.

After some decades on this earth, I only begin to perceive its peculiar tone: it’s much wiser than I would be on my own, it points to a luminous evidence and it’s so immediate, you know you hadn’t the time to think.

When I ask myself something, and in the following silence an immediate answer comes to me and feels right? Most of the time, it’s intuition.

The fourth voice is the ego voice. And this, I also find easy to identify.

It’s the “me me me voice” that rings when it feels someone is walking on your turf and his. It surely has been created, this voice, out of a primitive need to defend you in an hostile world. To give you the impulse to fight, because you deserve everything, and to forbid compassion for others and the lion who would eat you because, poor animal, you feel he’s hungry. He’s hungry, hears the ego? “It means he is feeble. Eat him.”

Your ego thinks you are more important than this lion, the savanna and the whole planet. You are just what has been the most important creation so far. The greatest. Number one.

And to give you the best survival chance, it’s the ego that will blow on the fire of your temper.

Your divine rights have been trampled on? Aux armes! No pity for this fool who hasn’t understood your rightful place in the universe, right in the centre.

The ego voice begins to make itself heard, when a baby realizes that he has a distinct identity from his mother. The famous temper of a two years old? For something or nothing and a toy that has been refused? Ego. And the most part of the education we give a kid, to enable him to be an emotionally balanced adult, is to teach him that no, the stars don’t gravitate around his navel. And no, neither does the moon.

And this voice, made at first for you, to enable the carcass to survive, can drag you easily on the narcissism path. Mainly because to give you self-confidence, it will flatter you shamelessly. The ego voice is also the one to always compare. Do you have more than the neighbour? Less than your sister? No? Yes? Beware, the ego knows you deserve better!

And he will find here another reason to defend you and get annoyed in the process. Why you? Why me? To him, you are obviously a victim of an unjust situation. And that alone should  give him all leeway to change matters. Too bad if others must suffer in the process. “It doesn’t matter, says the ego, you are the most important.”

We all have an ego. Some chose to self-isolate in mountains and pray to get detached from it To dissolve it in a superior energy. Well, I’m not there yet.

Another simpler solution, which I favour, doesn’t include so much meditation: it’s to balance the ego voice with the voice coming from the heart. Which has you think something like this: ” yes, you are important, also imperfect, and this other human being is important too. And so is this animal, and this tree…”

But if Ego, looking for a co-conspirator, despising the heart, finally meets Intelligence, bam, nitro has found glycerine. More often than not, it’s Intelligence, hypersensitive, full of doubts and easily scared that runs to Ego, to have him protect her.

Well yes, now Intelligence is a she when Ego is a he: I’m French and we put a gender on anything.

But whoever went in search of the other, a person, when dominated by these two, permanent victim of some real or imaginary wrongdoing, has now the means to get revenge, to manipulate and obtain everything ego wished. Honours, money, power, disciples, electors, victims, kids, family… he’ll get his fill. Hello, there, psychopaths!

In the process, he’ll have strangled the fifth voice, the voice of the conscience.

It’s the one who reminds me, when I reproach something to somebody – often my husband – that I did the same. This traitor doesn’t like bad faith and can pitch for the other camp.

This voice also tells me to be more understanding, doesn’t appreciate it when I’m angry. He wants me to be a better person. And he is so annoying!

But it’s his job. And I forgive him because I know it’s for me, in a broader sense: to enable me to become the best version of myself.

And the sixth voice?

Well, it’s simply the one from your soul or your personality. The one that is uniquely yours. The paradox being that ego could never be that, as it’s the same in everyone.

Mine has a ferocious sense of humour that prevents me to be too serious about myself and loves having fun.

And when we harness cleverness and its fears, calm ego and its volatility listen to our heart and conscience and learn to recognize our intuition, we can finally become who we were destined to be.

[lilaetleloup]

They stage an inverse reality, where they are the good guys and the victims of your villainy.

[lilaetleloup]

This ordeal can enable us to learn from our mistakes and build a better world. But a negative person won't ever so it: he will never take his responsibilities.

It will fall on us, then, positive people, to take care of it.

[lilaetleloup]

Between the good and the bad, there is a border: the one of our intentions.

[lilaetleloup]

And what is true for mountaineers is true for socialites.

Because if there is "only" one third of negative people in democracies (more like 50% in France), it's a totally inverse proportion as you climb the social ladder. From a certain hight, you just can't breathe.

[lilaetleloup]

And in the absence of real political conviction, they'll just choose the most opportunistic program, do their show and seduce their electors.

There are still a few good apples, politicians with true concern for others, and it's more and more important to spot them.

[lilaetleloup]

I was helping my son with his divisions for his home-schooling this morning.

And I injected some politics/economics in the mix...

"Well, son, the division has us distribute the same amount of money among people. It's a mathematical utopia. Unfettered capitalism, on the other hand, lets one greedy villain have it all and despise others from his new wealth height!".

Be safe ❤

[lilaetleloup]

Wishing you, friends and fighters, the best possible 1st of April. 🙏🙏🙏