This may seem limiting. A label. Not to me. It’s like saying that every life is a poem. The words aren’t always a prison, but instead are a beacon, a lighthouse, a cry that lets others know what the rallying call is. It’s like an archetype that brings in the numinous. It’s both a lesson and an energy source to the deepest soul. It’s like the recognizable “hook” in a song or a symphony. Beethoven’s Fifth has thousands upon thousands of notes and progressions, but we all know it by just four notes. Those four notes conjure up an entire world of emotions and ideas when we hear them, even out of context. To me, a life’s phrase can be like that.

One of my inner rallying calls is, “Power is achieved by surrender.”

At first this sounds trite. It’s a common spiritual aphorism. It’s simple and may even be simplistic. But that’s also what archetypes are — through the simple we can access the numinous. It is easy to take words as limiting rather than accessing the preternormal. I first heard this concept that power is achieved by the deepest surrender before I was ten years old. I heard it without thinking about it at all. I saw more of the energy behind it when I watched the movie Gandhi in my teens. Something ineffable touched me in the moment when I saw how powerful that man was. He invited others to show the violence in themselves upon his own body, surrendering to their physical power but in the process bringing forth something exponentially more.

Gandhi had shown me a different side of Power, but at this time it was limited to an intellectual concept. It lacked any sense of the sacred, that access to thaumaturgic change that touching something transcendent can bring. This took time to access for me, through my childhood into my adult life.

In my childhood I was surrounded by family members who seemed overly powerful — at least to a child. My mother was a very aggressive person who didn’t respect boundaries at all, and even took them to mean a personal attack. “I’m your mother!” she would yell, as if that meant she had rights over every aspect of me. Every aspect of me: my body, my space, my mind, and my emotions. I was her life.

Acting powerful in an outward sense did not help. Screams or a stubborn “NO!” made it worse, even to the point of threats of being kicked out to the streets at a young age. So I became a bit of a martyr; I gave in before conflict could arise. I split myself; a part of me would be the mother-pleaser, The Explainer, who would present me to the outside world in a logical, sensible fashion with no rough edges. The appeaser. The rest of me could be screaming, hurt, or could be feeling any other emotion including joyful ones. I was still there, but unconscious. I was filled with a kaleidoscope of exploding emotions, but through The Explainer’s voice those emotions came out as reasonable and confident, and explained things so they wouldn’t trigger much in the people around me. There were times when the glass walls around The Explainer wouldn’t hold, but largely they did. I survived.

This was the beginning of my focus on Power. This was an intensely disempowering state. I walled away much of myself — and thus my power — in order to be safe.

After I left home, the sense of imbalance related to Power was palpable almost all the time, like a steady drop of acid within my stomach. I accumulated skills through universities and I learned more about social interactions and transactions of status. I studied the times when I felt powerful and when others felt more powerful than I. I wasn’t interested in being upwardly mobile or accumulating money — I simply wanted to experience what it felt like to feel powerful, irrespective of what others did and irrespective of what importance they accorded me. This was what made me notice the difference in a few spiritual teachers, such as Krishnamurthi and Ramana Maharishi, whose ashram I stayed in for a while in India.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

- Walt Whitman

One of the barriers I felt was simply in how little I connected to myself. I explored my splits, the cuts I made in myself. These were the subpersonalities in me, or even sometimes what Jung would call a complex. These are far, far more common than we think. Who is truly whole within themselves, in all their selves? For me, The Explainer excelled in mathematics and computing, the dry emotionless presence that could be as close to a computer as a humans can be. I grew up in an autistic household — it seemed natural to me. Other parts of me also wanted to feel powerful, so my inner protector emerged that could ward off others by planting bombs that scared them away.

But other parts of me also wanted to come out and play. I studied acting to give expression to many other emotions and the selves connected to them. I studied monologues that helped bring these aspects out. The abandoned child raging for a connection. The schizophrenic looking for something solid to hold onto. A man stepping off his heavy-trodden life and starting anew, boarding the nearest ship that would hire him.

My teachers never taught it as such, but I would say now that great acting is all about surrender. It takes great surrender in order to let a very real but different self to come through. This was why I was never a great actor then — only a good one. I wanted to drill holes in my psyche to access myself, tight steel lustrous pipelines that would erupt emotion on command, like a geyser. Others were supposed to feel that it was real, and feel awe. But something made of steel is always built around control. To surrender would have been to turn the world upside town, to bring the underworld into unbounded air, not to send emotions through a rigid pipeline. Surrender would have meant not treating the director as God, but treating being real as God. Truth is God, whatever it may be in that moment.

You can see the idea of surrender appear here in my life. Surrender is connected to acting for me because this is where I was first taught it on an experiential level. My best example was through a clowning teacher. I saw many spiritual teachers, read many books, and got involved with many groups such as Gurdjieff and the Michael Teachings, but surrender goes beyond any teaching. It’s like diving off an airplane.

My idea of surrender has changed through time. It ranged from the physical, to the emotional, to the conceptual. That is, it held the ideals of ultimate relaxation, peace, and seeing all sides and beauty in everything. But these were ideals, and so The Explainer clung to them and protected the inner selves in the only way it knew how. Words can be a defense when they protect you. They don’t have to be at all, as I’m learning.

Now I’m going to another level of surrender: the surrender to myself. To allow the different selves in me, that label of subpersonality, to dissolve those glass walls and roam free. And it is scary, like all freedom is. Going to London Drugs in the post-Christmas rush, did I really know if I would bring someone out from inside me who panics under that Group-Think rush to buy? I looked down and noticed my arms protecting the shell of my chest, but I didn’t feel like screaming.

Part of me resists: “I am a teacher. I can channel great wisdom. I can help others. I can see others clearly. The labels I put on what is underneath imply that I am screwed up for the rest of my life, and I refuse to be that.” We think teachers should conform to a definite image.

So now, if I feel like a drowning man within my ocean of emotions, I let myself feel it and cry desperately to be saved even if another part of me knows it is already perfect as it is. It is All That Is. It’s about the experience, not desperately clinging to the part of me that truly does know. I already am the teaching I seek — but there’s more wisdom in letting go to the unknowingness.

This is how my life has shaped around that phrase, “Power is achieved by surrender.” Saying that to myself has as much power as the mantra “I AM”. Or for the gnostic Christians, “I AM THAT I AM“.

What are some of your life phrases?

One of the disagreements I have with what some people write about forgiveness is the idea that it??s about letting go of hatred. ?Hatred, in that mindset, is an evil which must be expunged. ?To me, that??s a misguided idea of what hatred is.

Forgiveness is simply letting go. That??s it. ?No more than that. ? And by this, I don’t mean “getting rid of”. ?Letting go means a positive non-attachment. ? It beings being ok with things being there, but letting go of the need for anything to change. ?Being fine with the present moment – whatever it is. ? Hatred can still be there. Hatred is not incompatible.

When we think hatred has to go for forgiveness to exist, we pretend forgiveness.

If forgiveness has to look a certain way, of course we’re going to fake it. ?We want to look that way too.

I went through years of wondering about forgiveness after my childhood of abuse. ? “I shouldn’t be feeling hatred”, I thought. ? When I expressed pain or hatred about my mother, the suggestion to forgive was often automatically given. ?The word ??forgiveness?? was a word used against to me that meant ??those unpleasant emotions should not be there??. ?What I was feeling was wrong, somehow. And yes, there was hatred in there.

What I learned, after some time, was that deep inside hate is beauty. ?What hatred really says is ??I want distance??. ? If there’s something incredibly unhealthy going on, hatred results, because the body and soul speak up about it. ?The flower hates the volcano, in its own way, because it cannot live near the volcano. It doesn??t dwell on it, and there is also love there ?? but it still wants distance.

Does hatred feel bad? ?Not always! ?Not when there’s acceptance of it. ?As I said, hatred is not exclusive of love. ? Just like anger doesn’t exclude love. ?I love this table of the seven levels of anger. ?What’s interesting about it is that while the first level, the most separate, is fairly destructive, the final level of anger is essentially love. ?The anger is still there, but when it shows up it comes out in harmony.

In my experience, every emotion – including anger and hatred – is a fundamental, unchangeable energy of the universe with a wide spectrum of manifestation. ? ?That’s sort of theoretical, so let’s put it this way. ?Hatred Is. ?Anger Is. They are here, within us and everyone, and there’s nothing we can do to rid ourselves of them. ?What we can do is allow them completely so that their manifestations are more ?flowing, peaceful, and respectful.

It??s very loosely analogous?to ?the levels of energy in ??Power vs. Force??. ? In that book, each emotion, person or perspective has a basic energy level. ? To me, emotional love can manifest as clinging or it can be utterly accepting. ?Anger can be rage or it can be used for a loving, positive change, like Gandhi. ?Hatred can be used to do violence (which involves a certain us-vs-them ?perspective) or it can be used to generate positive distance (from a more accepting, flowing perspective). ? No matter how it looks to others, it??s the same fundamental life energy of the universe appearing in each of those emotions, albeit manifested differently. ? As anyone seriously hurt knows, the hurt never goes away – but it can manifest very differently and even lovingly. ?The energy of hurt is expanded and flowing, or contracted and blocked.

Most people see different ways an emotion appears as being very different emotions. ? Our minds likes to do Aristotle’s trick of separating and categorizing. ?That makes us feel in control. ?But if you watch – really watch – someone when they’re talking about something in which they are very emotive, you can see the beautiful fluidity of it all. ?I began to see that it wasn’t a battle royal of emotions, each one jousting for supremacy, but instead an oceanic maelstrom that comes from the oneness of the deepest soul. ? All those different emotions were simply different faces of the same energy.

How does that help? ?It has helped me let go of some judgments, I suppose. ?Because when I try to use the knife point of categorization, I find I do violence to myself. ? Just like violence is done to others when I try to counsel them to deny real but painful parts of themselves. ? When I try to say hatred has to leave me for me to forgive, that is violence. ? And even more hatred within myself is the inevitable consequence of that violence.

But the times in which I’ve surrender – and forgived at the same time – to my own emotions, the process doesn’t make them ?go away, but instead makes the same energy manifest differently. ?It makes it feel more loving to others.

From experience, I know that any attempt to say that an emotion, like hatred, should not be there, simply creates intractableness. We end up fighting ourselves to be that image of forgiveness. The goal is wholeness, which includes everything inside ourselves, even the parts we don’t think of as “good”.

Forgiveness is not achieved in spite of hatred, but through it.

Now that I’m focusing on this, I see just how ubiquitous it is. Just yesterday, when staring out the window, I could see a child being curious about something in the grass, perhaps a little bug. Her eyes were alit with commodious wonder. Mother didn’t want to spare the time, and so pulled her along with a forceful word, and the child lost the look of vastness in her face. There was nothing abusive in it, nothing a normal parent wouldn’t do; but the child submitted to authority and lost something in that moment. A?despondency?came over me for a few minutes. I could put myself in the life of that child.

I’ve been well trained in this practice. I can think, “Other people know better than me. I should just focus on what I “should” be doing.” Or I go to the flip side of it and try to be the parent: “Hey you – I know what I’m doing! Listen to me!” I know how to speak with authority, at least in my voice and posture. That can cover up my own doubts and pain.

I can’t say I’m above any of it now. But I can say I’m a little less carried away by things. I notice my own reactions.

This morning I noticed my own reaction to several videos, which I’m including here. They are from two spiritual teachers who speak of somewhat similar things, Eckhart Tolle and J.Krishmnamurthi. I wanted to share these reactions.

First, let’s listen to Eckhart, who of course is very well known from his books and Oprah.

I listened to this Eckhart clip from a facebook update, and I experimented with simply surrendering to the energy, trying to let the stream of thoughts permeate me and experience it that way. To be honest, it wasn’t the most pleasant thing. I couldn’t find anything I disagreed with in it at all. There were no untruths spoken. I could take a different perspective, or not simplify it so much, but it’s all valid. However, at the end of it what I felt was that Eckhart knew all about ego and spaciousness – but I didn’t feel I did. I felt myself wanting to learn more, to reach out to get that feeling of spaciousness, like it was an emptiness in me that needed to be filled.

Now this is my own subjective personal reaction, but perhaps it resonates with you. We’re so used to authority, someone who knows more than I, that it’s so easy to jump into that dynamic. Perhaps it’s not Echkart himself, but the hype surrounding him. We can think that someone else is more knowledgeable about our own psyche, our own well being, than ourselves. I’ve seen this in groups of many spiritual teachers, especially of the Monty Python “you must think for yourselves” variety.

Here’s a video from the?library of Krishnamurthi

If I let the energy of this inundate me like I did with Eckhart my reaction is that I laugh. I lighten up. Something in the glint of the eyes and his passion bring that laughter from a place within me. He’s talking about conflict, about going beyond thought and the past – similar things to Eckhart – but for some reason I think that we are discovering this together. In that moment I’m not learning, I’m not accumulating knowledge, I’m simply seeing something.  I remember this reaction from other videos I’ve seen of him.

I think this is something universal about what a teacher is. This applies in all sorts of teaching, including high school – “A Teacher Creates Peers, not Fans“. A true teacher creates knowledge, not followers. They help you see, feel and think for yourself, not?imitate or thirst for more from them. They help you experience spaciousness and knowing, not simply want it.

I’m not actually saying that one teacher is better than another here. I’ve also seen people do the Monty Python thing with Krishnamurthi. too. I am saying that judging by my own reactions, I find him beneficial for me. Solely for me. But the process to get there is universal. Does someone help you hear your own voice? What does it truly feel like? Does someone feel like a peer to you? Does someone speak with you (even if via a video it is still with, not to) beyond power, beyond status? That is also what a friend is.

I think we need to unify the concepts of teacher and friend. I don’t know of any dear friend I’m not learning so much from.

I also think the issue of authority to be universal, at least in how we run our society today. It’s a process I’ve seen in so many journeys: First, we see how little we know and look for people to learn from. Then we learn from someone or something, becoming a follower or student. Then we want to rise above it and become a teacher, an authority. We want followers ourselves. (Notice this about bloggers?) Sometimes this is very subtle from without, but recognizable within – “hey, no one responded to this! Don’t they see I offer something of value here?!”

Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of the Shambhala Centers of Buddhism of which Pema Chodron is a teacher within, writes “The problem is that the ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality”. It’s easy to learn about awareness, spirituality, and love, and then want to be the authority on it.

But finally, if we are willing to let it all go, we can go beyond the interactions of power and worth, and simply become ourselves, with whoever we are, whatever we know, and all that we see. There is nothing needed to become except more of who we are. No external authority can help with that.

What is your relationship with authority?

My love of acting has little to do with the adulation that comes from the applause for a good performance, but it has everything to do with acting’s relationship to an inner exploration.? In acting, you explore your very identity.? You explore creation.? You explore going within yourself in order to be someone else.? You find other beings and energy inside yourself. By doing this, you expand yourself – and expand everyone else who watches.

All of the other actors I know who value this aspect of acting as I do are also very spiritual people.? We may not write inspiring prose and we may not belong to any congregation, but we see a temple in the exultation of unhibited emotion.? Having surrendered within to our many selves, we’ve received a firsthand glimpse into the oneness that we all share.? And through all this, we’ve learned incredible amounts? about ourselves through the intricate tapestry of our most visible measure of ourselves: relationships.

It would be too much in this one post to recount the many lessons in the playfulness that is theatre, so for now I’ll focus on one critical element any actor learns quickly: status.

Status as a Flow of Energy in Interactions

It may be unfashionable to mention status in the politically-correct culture of the “land of the free”, but we are all influenced by it on some level.? We know when we are speaking to an “important” person.? We are affected by this knowledge.? The energetically sensitive feel how energy naturally flows to the “higher status” person.? There’s always a reaction to this.? Sometimes the effect is on our emotional reaction, from admiration to resentment.? Sometimes the effect automatically creates a dynamic in the relationship: subservience or combativeness.? Not everyone reacts the same way, but everyone feels it.? We react to it even more because we’re not supposed to notice it.

Education, on the level of status, has made us blind.? We’re supposed to believe that the homeless person living in a cardboard box is a human being with the same value and perfection we have, but I have yet to see someone interact with a homeless person on that level.? In my experience there’s disgust, aversion, or pity – all signs of the perception of status and the flow of energy from it.

In this competitive world, the cultural model is built around status.? It governs the intrinsic framework of relationships.

Most of us notice status but don’t think of it consciously.? We want to “succeed” but in order to do so we must go up a rung on the status ladder.? Being “successful”.? Owning a house, or a nice car.? Being respected by others.? Showing mastery in something and being able to come across well at social events.? Academic success.? Even spiritual mastery is subject to the concept of status — the idea of “ascension”, or “old” souls being somehow better, are perfect examples.? Being accepted as “enlightened” is very high status.? But we don’t think of what status truly is, and especially not what the ultimate expression of status is.

Exploring Status Yourself

One exercise in theatre is to “play” status.? Everyone is awarded a different number between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest status.?? I invite you to play this at a party; it’s great fun and a wonderful tool for growth.

Number one, the lowest status, takes as little space as possible.? Shame is the sea in which this status swims.? It’s as if you were homeless and were just waiting to be rounded up.? You make little eye contact. Your motions are hesitant. You are beaten before you even begin.

As the status scale increases, there’s increasingly less shame and an increasingly strong, proud, engaging bearing.? Yet while going up the scale, you’re always in a state of comparison.? You notice your relationships with others: who is lower status and who is higher?? You need to please the ones with higher status.? You give in and give them energy.? Life force flows to them, leaving the lower status empty. At the same time, you must protect your place from those “lower” than you are and maybe even get some energy from them. Yet you remain ever vigilant against them, happy when they appear to be in their “place.”

As an aside, it is for this reason that it’s no accident that it’s those on the lower status of society that are most angry towards illegal immigrants.

What is interesting in this game, and is the reason I’m mentioning this here, is what happens at the top of the spectrum. These are the people with ultra-high status.? If you’re close to the top, you know you’re above most of the world, but there’s still insecurity and full of comparison.? There is still someone above you, somewhere, somehow. You are still comparing. In our society, this might be the ultra rich — they know they have status, but they are still in competition and are looking for some way they can finally feel above it all.

At the very top, however, is a paradox: the ultimate status is with those who move beyond it. ? To these people there is no such thing as status.? The person with the “highest” status is unconcerned with games of comparison or worthiness.? They know their value.? They see their importance.? It is indisputable.? There is no question and no game.? They can be who they are without any reluctance, guile, or mask.? They can relate to others as they are. They can be in torment and doubt, and yet still be they are, without shame, and know it has absolute value. ?It is as if they were born into unspoilt royalty.? Life is full of bounty and beauty, and there is no question that the universe finds them full of value and their desires welcome.? This is true status.

Why do I mention this?? Because it is inextricably linked with the western spiritual quest.? There are thousands upon thousands of blogs on personal growth and advice giving.? In my experience, very few of them give from a sense of complete fullness.? Instead, there is a desire to feel good from having others appreciate the inspiration and insight.? (One of the reasons I stopped writing for a time was because this impulse was very strong within me.)? This is status: the more others appreciate you and give you applause and energy, the higher your status.

And yet, part of this is the problem of Arrogance: when you gain energy from putting forth something that is not fully who you are, not from true vulnerability, then you keep yourself from the highest levels of status and worth.?? By trying to raise your status out of lack, you entrench yourself as “lower status”.

The idea of the ‘evolved person’, the manifested man, the enlightened one, is also intrinsic to the highest status.? The manifested person is at the highest status, wherever he is.? He could be among nobles or beggars — it doesn’t matter.

My ‘ideal’ of how to live within status is the ideal of living in the highest status and treating every other thing in the Universe as also in that status.

Imagine this for yourself.? You are at the highest status.? Everything supports you and naturally gives you energy without depleting itself.? The universe responds naturally to you.? And yet you interact with everything as equals.? You see the smallest blade of grass as also of the highest status.? There is nothing to defend against, no lack, and even no status.? There is only plenty.

In short, the ideal is to live in beingness — fully vulnerable as who you are. This is the ultimate expression of status.? Think of Siddhartha by the river in his old age. He shows his perfection as he is whether he is surrounded by adulants or insects.? It is an expression of completeness.

Many people on a western spiritual path use the greeting ‘namaste’ without really considering what it means, but it is another way to express this ideal. Your highest nature welcomes and greets the highest nature of that which is around you. You welcome and embrace all that you are, and you treat every other thing in the Universe as reverentially as your own highest nature.

So I say to you all:???????? Namaste

I now ask you: from your own deep honesty and vulnerability, what is the truth of how you view your status in relationship with the world?

I was listening to a speaker once, some time ago, in a community room at the top floor of a hospital. He spoke passionately and vehemently about mental health, about meditation, about positive thinking, and above all about community. I could hear his thoughts: I know the solution for you. I have overcome all you can dream of. I can be your guide.

His voice entranced, and I found myself wanting to believe. Surely there must be a simple solution to discontentment, to anxiety, to feeling isolated – these are with me still. The heartaches inside were in that moment were no longer beautiful, but the enemy, a cloud of terrorism sniping at me. And yet, after 10 minutes of a guided meditation, I found myself less peaceful. Feelings gathered: Resentment. Feeling manipulated. You don’t listen. Voices of my childhood, compounded with interest. Gathering myself later, I realized that this reaction wasn’t a problem, but a reflexion of the actual dynamic, to the timbre of his voice and how things were said.

The voice is the primary means of relation we have. It’s how we make connections. It’s the impetus for learning how to truly listen to others, to be loving. It’s also how we influence and try to find a sense of power in this world. As such, everyone has tactics and communication styles they use when they’ve been disempowered, to try to find a sense of power again. It’s the double horns of a defense that can also be manipulation and control. Some do this unconsciously, some consciously. In response to others, we then have our own reactions to these games, or at least unconscious until we see what’s actually going on.

One of my favorite skills I’ve learned from acting is in the studying of people. What is someone’s goal when communicating? What’s the subtext of what they are saying? One of my favorite statistics is that only 7% of communication is through the words; the rest is nuances in the voice and body language. Being conscious of the other 93% is the best tool I have for understanding dynamics and people at their essence.

The times I love both in watching others and in being with others are when things seem real. Conversation flows at its flowing, unmodified pace, without a seeming effort of anyone to appear to be someone else. The pace, tone, and intonation changes in sync with the emotion and what’s being communicated. There is a dynamism, flexibility and fluidity involved. When there’s anxiety, the voice is shaky and unprotected, perhaps quicker. When there’s disappointment, there’s that sense in the voice of having tripped, of falling down. When there’s joy, there’s a sunlight beaming in the voice.

It’s that sense of unprotectedness, ingenuous honesty and transparency of whatever’s there that makes me feel connected. Seeing another’s despair communicated makes me appreciate rapture even more. It’s the beauty of the human condition, a connection to a raw state. It’s not the forced connection of someone molding themselves so as to relate, but the manifestation that it’s our bare humanness, as we are, that connects.

And yet, most of the time, we limit what we communicate. We put on masks. We have styles where we’re trying to protect ourselves or get something.

Tactics

I want to identify some protection mechanisms I’ve noticed in the voice. These are ways of manipulation and control, the ways we aren’t natural. I find identifying them helps me let go of my own tactics and be gentle with myself in my reactions to others. (A gracious thanks to the theatrical vocal teacher Patsy Rodenburg for many of these concepts) Being aware of protection mechanisms can help one see “oh, I’m doing this, so maybe now I can let go – or at least laugh at myself for keeping doing it.”

Not all tactics are aggressive. In fact, most people in western culture have learned ways to defend themselves by non-aggressive or even withdrawing mannerisms. We have been taught suspicion of the used car salesmen, yet often have little awareness of how most subtler strategies can affect us strongly. Perhaps you can recognize yourself or someone you know in these.

I’ll start with the easiest one to recognize:

The Aggressive, Overbearing Speaker

This is the prototypical drill sergeant. The voice is usually deep and resonant, but always with confrontation at least implied. The chest is puffed up and the body leans forward, as if the person requires another to push back to keep their balance. While resonant and full, there’s little gentleness, nor room for warmth or sadness.

While this is the prototype for strength in military fashion, it also makes sure the environment is too unsafe for vulnerability. There is little room for compromise or friendship, but certainly room for fellow soldiers. Often it is a cover for emotions never felt and constantly kept at bay by the image of toughness and pushing others around through the voice.

The Hesitator

While someone who hesitates and stammers may seem to be powerless, there is a hook – that the listener is left hanging, waiting for the next word, dangling onto a potential completed idea. In the pause that follows, the hesitator can gauge the audience and draw others in the direction they desire, albeit unconsciously. Even though there is discomfort in the hesitator, there is a power in making others feel they need to tread lightly for fear of blocking the next phrase. If a room is feeled with kind, gentle people the hesitator can steer a conversation in a manner that a clear, fluent speaker never could.

The manipulation is that we are made to think that words and thoughts are being created organically before our eyes and ears. We excuse the habit in order to be generous and because we think the person is naturally shy or reserved. Yet this hesitation can constructed carefully over years – even if unconsciously – in order to learn about others without revealing one’s self. It is useful in that it leads others to vulnerability and openness without having to reciprocate. One sided vulnerability is also an imbalance of power.

The Whisperer

Otherwise known as the “de-voicer”, this is someone who goes quiet, either via a quiet voice or by simply not speaking. This is often used by guru-figures as a way of drawing people in.

It may not seem aparent as a way to manipulate others until you observe your own body in response to when you are trying to actively listen. By withdrawing and speaking more silently, the whisperer forces listeners to strain, to lean forward and to figuratively bow at his or her feet. It is de-centering to be around for a long time.

It can indeed be a hypnotic technique and is often used by executives, politicians, or theatre directors. Because it is more subtle (quiet voices are rarely perceived as dangerous) it can be more effective than being overbearing.

The Waffler

This kind of vocal manipulation involves abandoning clear and succint language in favor of rambling thoughts. Buzz words obfuscating real meaning are often the norm. The language used can be learned and embellished, giving the impression of education and erudition, yet leaving the listener with no clear idea to latch on to.

Even more so, the listener can easily feel that they are at fault for not deciphering the message, and so can try to argue using the same language form which they are not nearly as comfortable with as the waffler. It can be a useful defensive habit to avoid answering direct questions or avoid unpleasantness, or even to convince others of something using impassionated, yet unclear words. This is a habit often cultivated by politicians, so-called experts in talk shows and doctors trying to avoid telling the whole truth.

The Role Player

The role player communicates as if everyone around them was the same. They have chosen a role –  e.g., mother, helper, or coach, to use positive roles – and infuse their voice with this at all times.

Imagine the feminine presence of someone who addresses everyone around them as if they were a pre-pubescent child. The automatic reaction is either subservience or rebellion, both dis-empowering states. Or the counselor who, through a lifetime of practice, has learned to infuse their voice as someone who truly loves and accepts all others, who contains nothing but love and compassion, irrespective of what they are feeling. I am not talking about a natural voice infused with compassion, but rather a constructed voice, an artifice. This creates a pied piper, hypnotic effect where the listener reacts as if it were true, that the speaker is indeed showing love at this moment and can be trusted.

Not all roles appear “positive”, but they all have one thing in common; it is an attempt to control how others react to you by inviting them strongly to jump into the role that matches what is played.

Deeper Connection Through the Natural Voice

All of these styles of communication are at the same time both weaknesses and sources of power. They enable us to make an impact of source, but also limit that impact to a vastly restricted playing field. They have usually developed over a lifetime, and as such they are not let go of easily, especially if there are rewards.

The problem is that in each of these, there is learned helplessness. There are always times where a soul-driven cry to speak is heard – and at these times, if our habits are too entrenched and opposite from the silent voice inside made vocal, we will be helpless. They atrophy our range and full humanness of expression. When we surrender to the monotonous use of a single habit in communication, we surrender many of our vocal rights and abilities to connect with others and be an active member of a community or family.

Again, it is through being ourselves, as fully as is humanly possibly, that we discover basic truths: We are connected at a deep, visceral level not through doing anything, but through being true and natural. Feeling loved grows from a foundation of being genuine. Warmth comes naturally when we’re being simply human, showing that there is basic goodness in however we are.

I stopped writing because I felt that how I wrote (not what I wrote, but how) wasn’t helping me or others. Sure, people said lots of great things – when my blog was on myspace (remember when people actually used it?) at one time each post got around 100 comments. It gave quite a buzz; I don’t think I got one really negative comment. I had thought carefully about what I created and some of the thoughts were unconventional. Hell, I even got a few dates from some local women that perhaps thought I must be a great guy. But it became more and more effort and less rewarding. The praises felt empty, and it wasn’t self-fulfilling.

One really big reason is that I wasn’t being that real. I of course didn’t want to show how f***ed up I am, who I dislike, my own neuroses – and perhaps that I was trying to escape from my own problems by playing healer to others.

That last one is IMO probably the most common motivation for everyone in the healing, counseling or personal growth field. It’s so common it is generally overlooked. So much ‘help’, in whatever form it comes in, does little more than convince the ‘helpee’ that they are being helped and then prop up the egos of both sides. The Bowen family systems theory called this the “overfunctioning-underfunctioning” dynamic. It’s a form of connection that seems to feel good to both sides at the time, but reinforces the escape from deeper issues. From my experience, I think the writer gets to feel admired and like a ‘healer’. The reader gets to think they’re improving and doing good work – but all at the cost of ignoring some deeper voices.

I read a lot of Alice Miller a couple years ago, and this quote stuck with me:

“In the last few years I have learned more than ever about the situation of the child in our society and about the blockages in the thinking and feeling of psychoanalytically trained persons.  These blockages often result in patients being subjected to lengthy treatments that cement the blame that had been leveled at them as children, a process that can scarcely lead to anything but depressions.  The most successful means of escaping such chronic depressions is to enter the profession of psychoanalysis oneself; this permits a continuation of the cementing process by using theories that protect one from the truth – but now, of course, at the expense of others.”

- Alice Miller, Banished Knowledge

If you’re a regular reader of personal growth writing, ask yourself if any of it really helped with the inner shame and blame that you might have. I’ve been to a number of counselors, coaches and other forms of healing in my search for inner peace and harmony, and I had to admit (after months of reflection) that they were generally counterproductive. I went there because subconsciously I thought something was wrong with me – there was something that needed to be solved in me. Fixed. Gotten rid of. Perhaps it was pain, or maybe that a normally quiet voice inside me suddenly screamed “NO!!!” at certain times when I was supposed to act ‘normally’ or when I needed to follow through with something. And so I wanted the quick fix; within a few session I wanted to be able to relax, not get in my own way, feel better, and succeed. Even if I knew it didn’t exist, I wanted The Quick Fix. But part of this inevitably meant that I thought a part of me – the part of me that resisted or said no – was bad. And so I increased my shame. I reinforced patterns of suppression and avoidance, not listening to the part of me in pain, which lead over the years to physical symptoms.

Now, in all honesty, I hate any sort of ‘healing environment’ which advocates pushing through barriers through some sort of peer pressure, firm rules and groupthink. It may get things to move in the short term, but that sort of forcefulness always has violence of a form in it, and violence is never the road to peace and harmony.

I stopped writing because I felt that I didn’t want to pretend any more. I didn’t want to play healer or imply I could help others. I didn’t want to hide my own traumas and symptoms out of fear of judgment or that it meant I was worth less or that I shouldn’t be listened to. You don’t always know the reason you do things at the time – it just doesn’t feel right or true. Writing from the same place didn’t feel true. I edited my thoughts way too much before they came out. It was the same editing I did as I child, walking on eggshells to make sure I didn’t say the wrong thing and a blow up would happen.

Now I just want to let go of all that. I don’t want to review my postings, combing words for ways I could be judged. It turned my mind into fog and exhaustion from the effort. Literally.

So here I am, and I think I’ll keep writing, but from a different place. I don’t think I’ll review it too much, so it might not be as smooth. But perhaps you’ll be able to relate to me a little more.  Even if I get judgments or suggestions of people trying to heal me (which now I realize are the same thing) I think I’ll be in a better place.

This post is of a very personal nature I’m still processing, so please forgive me if it rambles a little…

A short while ago, I was at the wake for my mother, Diana Mary Carsten. She died early in the year. On a Tuesday night, I drank wine at the local Odd-fellows hall in Corvallis, Oregon while listening to her husband and many activists in say how lucky they were to have her in their life. My brother was there and said something banal about how she believed in mind over matter. I didn’t speak. In an environment where you’re supposed to say positive things, I didn’t want to say anything when my feelings were so mixed.

She was a fighter. I heard this over and over again from representatives from all her causes. She was a great advocate and board member for social movements: the League of Woman Voters, the Odd-fellows, the Oregon Green Party, a court advocate, the local symphony, her Christian Science church, and the Peace Vigil. She loved hiking in nature and would travel around the world. When she felt something was wrong, she would fight and not back down, stubborn as hell. You were glad to have her on your side. One young mother might have ended up on the street if not for her.

It was surreal being there. The woman who influenced my life by far the most of anyone was talked about, and it was all about the last 10 years of her life. There was nothing about her family or earlier years. Her second husband, my step dad, had his family there, a group of Mormons. I had never felt any connection to them and they showed no warmth to my emotions or lack of desire at the time to engage in social niceties. When commanded by my step dad’s mom to arrange pictures before the ceremony, I didn’t feel like explaining and quietly walked off and stood on her porch and let my tears come. My brother was the only family there, and by family I only mean in the biological sense; with his Asperger’s syndrome, it’s impossible to hold a conversation with him. He won’t look me in the eye or volunteer anything. He spent the evening staring into space only talking briefly when responded to. When I talked and hinted of what was going on, he simply didn’t respond. At any sign of emotion he freezes and stops talking.

I’m grateful that my girlfriend Aleksandra came down with me.

Neither me nor my brother had seen (or talked, for all I know) with my mother in years. Too many bridges burned, trusts betrayed. I still wished her happiness in that time. Just not at my expense.

Hearing all those stories about what a fighter she was brought it close to home. She was a fighter. Perhaps that’s why she found her home in American politics rather than in Canada. She was a fighter through and through. It was how she approached life.

The thing is, sometimes in a family you have to know how not to fight. To just breathe. To listen. To bring warmth and gentleness. To show that no matter what happens, the connection is there. No one spoke any words of that side of her. I tried to remember some of it at the wake and couldn’t.

My memories of my mother were radically different from the others that were voiced. Aside from my brother, no one had met her in the 70s or 80s. Back then, she didn’t have any causes to fight for. She was a single mother with few friends and very little emotional support. She fought for herself, worked hard, and found solace in her children. I was for many years her only support, her confidant, her comforter. It just got too much way too quickly.

In Oregon, she had an incredibly beautiful house on the hillside. I love that house. There were always the sounds of birds, from starlings to hummingbirds, and deer walking by regularly. You could see a pair of mountains called the Sisters in the far distance with caps of snow, bringing a sense of the seemingly unattainable within sight. The house was open aired and spacious and it was at least 200 feet to the nearest other home.

On that Tuesday, I stood on the porch looking at the landscape and hearing the birds swirl around me for an hour or two. I couldn’t always tell what I was thinking or feeling; it was a maelstrom of many emotions and thoughts, bursting free from wherever I’d put them away.

How numb I’d forced myself to be around her. How I’d watched what I said, what emotions I showed on my face, how I moved, all to try to avoid that fighter. Over the years after I had moved out, my body started speaking out and I started listening. I did not want to be touched by her. There was no feeling of safety or comfort near her, no matter how much I thought there ‘should’ be. She’s my mother, after all!

This hit home a couple years ago when I was standing alone with her in the ICU unit of a hospital, watching her helpless body and blank eyes cope with 3 major bleeds in her brain. In a strange way it was only then that I felt safe enough, in a peculiar way, to realize how terrified of her I truly was. How broken and beaten I felt regarding her.

My mother was truly a fighter to the end. And that was her response to everything. I was her son and she took my state incredibly personally. I was her blood. If I felt hurt, she couldn’t take it. It hurt her too much. If there was any possibility that she might have caused the hurt, she simply couldn’t take it. She would fight for my healing, for me forgiving, for me feeling better. She longed for the days of a 5 year old child saying “you’re the best mummy in the world” with eyes that saw nothing that could be wrong. She wanted to be perfect, to be seen as a good, loving human being. And so she would fight for it. She would fight for me to be happy, for me to be warm. She would fight for me to trust her. She would fight for me to support her, because that’s what children should do to good mothers out of gratitude. She would fight with everything she had, with her MA in Counselling Psychology knowledge, with pleas, with threats, with sudden withdrawals, with all her relentlessness and stubbornness – with everything that served her so well as an activist in her later years. In the end I gave in, telling her what she wanted, touching her how she wanted, and trying to feel what she wanted me too. It was the only seeming way to get the battles to end. But there was a price for me always controlling myself – trauma. Body issues began to appear over the years. Sleep disorders. Anxiety. Debilitating back pain. Dizziness. Chronic Fatigue. All of which can get into the nice term of “Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” or C-PTSD.

But in my visit, in that space of beauty that was her house, I felt for a moment what I must have felt as a child. Cared for. Safe. Surrounded by beauty. I remember feeling that as a very young child, and I did feel it around my mother before things went sour and into a negative feedback loop. And I knew it was me feeling it, not just because it was what I was supposed to feel because she was my mother. I cried and cried. The truth is, I loved that house. I loved being in that house – so long as my mother wasn’t there. I could feel her presence still – but for 30 years I haven’t felt safe or relaxed with her near. Of course there’s love there. It felt so good to feel some of that love without feeling that sensation of no man’s land, a war zone of impending attack.

A week later in a strange way, standing alone by a rushing river, I talked to my mom. I actually felt that wherever she is, she is sorry. That was a word I never heard from her. She would rather fight than say sorry. But this time I felt it. I never wanted to hear “I’m a bad mother” from her. I wanted to hear it wasn’t my fault, which was what I heard over and over. I wanted to hear that she cared enough to listen to my hurt without trying to fight or change me, to just listen. That’s such an important part of love.

I’m still processing that she’s gone. What does it mean? How will all the defense I built up react when ther person they were created for is gone? But maybe things are moving. For years I didn’t remember any good feelings in my body, and now I can, like waking from a bad dream. As my previous post stated, I’m more committed now to just being where I am, letting go as best I can and taking the next breath. Pretending to have more answers than that just hasn’t served me.