#helpforempath

[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]

manipulators and the "elite"

The two greatest talents of manipulators are their acting and psychological abilities. And it's also the reason why they are so dangerous.

Because most of us will imagine the bad guy as someone overtly nasty. Preferably ugly, with greasy hair. When, in fact, it's all the contrary.

The more powerful evil is, the more enticing he will seem. The more fascinating he will look. The more charismatic he'll be.

He'll polish his appearance to the best of the possibilities offered to him by medicine, make-up and sport. He'll deliver your dream on a golden tray, you just won't believe your eyes. Your so far dull life will suddenly bloom with hope and colours. You will be dazzled.

This feeling the world suddenly sparkles is called gas-lighting, and it’s intentional to hook you. It can feel like you are falling in love, on a cloud, breathing pure oxygen... until the illusion disappears. And then, you'll feel like this cartoon coyote, running after the big bird and discovering himself above an abyss.

You are an anti-abortion Christian? What a coincidence, he is too. You are an advocate for ecology and social rights? Marvellous, so is she. The manipulator has no conviction, other that he deserves everything. And it could be the same person who, years later, will present completely different views, adapting to his goals. He'll tell you he has changed. Or that he has grown up. When growing up and changing is impossible to him. He would have to be able to question himself first...

Your eyes full of stars, your dream in the flesh in front of you, it will be nearly impossible then for you to see the hard truth about the person who cynically targeted you.

And this acute sense of psychology allows the manipulator to be a talented writer.

He will know best how to describe a character's personality. Notably villains. And when before the year 2000, when psychology wasn't so precise or known about narcissistic traits, you feel like the writer has read in the head of a psychopath, wonder no more: he found the inspiration in his own head.

The bad guy is mostly what makes a movie or a book interesting, what gives the hero the possibility to learn and be a better person. As my daughter told me once, when we had fun imagining a planet whose inhabitant were only good people, the one advantage of villains, is that they make fiction interesting.

But I'm nonetheless appalled when I read now the eyes of so many writers of romantic books and identify them for what they are: soulless. Above a magnificent cold smile. Writers of love story who don't even know how love feels? That's laughable and could also explain so many cliches you don't find in real life. And I'm quite offended these authors participated in the forming of my young romantic mind, fulling my head with dangerous expectations.

It's my conviction, now, that a majority of books and screenplay writers are manipulators.

And as we stay on the psychological ability, a good portion of psychiatrists psychologists or other psy...s must be too...

And its the same thing for actors: positive people are a minority there.

A good manipulator, especially a psychopath, will know how to perform to a level you just can't imagine. When he has no empathy, he'll seem compassionate. When he hates you, he'll look as if he cares.

A psychopath knows how to wear a daily mask that will seldom slip. You'll have to know him backstage, to see his meltdowns, to watch the volcanic explosions. The psychopath will be his true self in front of those he already has in his power, when no effort is needed. Or when the illusion wears him down.

The manipulator is already an actor. So doing it professionally is just the next logical step.

If he is successful, he'll have the people's admiration, undiluted narcissistic pleasure that will stroke his ego and save him from too frequent rages.

It's all the easier as a manipulator knows how to light the charisma on. This impression, when you meet him that he fills the whole place and sucks the air? He'll be happy with "just" your time, your attention and all your energy. The beast needs the fuel.

And for a talented manipulator without the good looks, the next best choice is to become a politician.

Without any real conviction, he'll choose the most opportunistic program, will make the show and seduce the public.

Of course, manipulators feel also at home with all jobs that have them manipulate people, like marketing or public relations.

And in anything focusing on appearances, without substance. As he lacks a heart and its depth, he'll work on the surface. It's something he has learned to do since he was a child.

So he'll flourish happily on social media, fashion, modelling, merchandising...

And then, his rage, his lack of scruples, his blind ambition and his political flair - walk on naive people, flatter the powerful, exploit the weak - will enable him to climb fairly quickly the hierarchical ladder of any company.

All the more as you have this to take into account: the manipulators know who they are and what their survival entails. Only the selfish, low level negatives, and the positive people don't encompass this human reality. And, mostly, don't know how to identify a predator.

The manipulators know perfectly how to do so. And at the highest levels of power, where they don't need the useful good and naive person, villains associations abound, that will allow only their kind on the pyramid summit.

That's the reason why you don't need to imagine some Illuminati conspiracy theory. They already have Davos, masonic or golf clubs. Or VIP spaces, cocktails, weddings...

And when you put all this put together, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that at least three fourth of what tabloids call the "elite", are in fact predators only interested in their power and concentrated on their greed.

And we wonder the world is not going as well as it should? They have moulded it in their image, superficial and empty. And this world depresses so much the good sensitive people, those with a soul, that the suicide rates or alcoholism or use of legal and illegal drugs have been skyrocketing. The same with what we call "mental illness". When a good portion of them comes from the difficulty people with the full span of human emotions have to adapt to this world of spoiled, heartless, rotten children.

The true mentally-ill person is the manipulator.

And he has made the "elite" in his image.

Upper-class people who haven't changed since Jane Austen, and have seen the world evolve in spite of  them. When they didn't see anything wrong in letting children die in their chimneys to clean them. And if the morals hadn't changed under the pressure of good people, the modern version of upper-class wouldn't see any problem with it.

There are more manipulators in power but, in democratic countries, there are more good people in general.

This has them make marketing efforts to look as if they care.

Let's continue to change the mentalities in a positive way.

And let's take the power back.