CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There are two basic approaches to manipulating people. In one, you manipulate people solely for your own good. In the other, you do it equally for your good and their good. In the second type, moreover, you deeply empathize with and even become more like the people you want to influence. You allow them to work their magic on you at least as much as you work your magic on them. Guess which kind I'm urging you to express right now, Capricorn.
okay, mr. brezsny, this is getting creepy.
i've been learning a lot about manipulation, control, fear, and surrender lately. the thing about codependence is, one and all, codependents came from dysfunctional homes. i hesitate to use the word "abusive," because people usually think of domestic violence, sexual abuse, or something of that nature. there are a lot of forms of abuse, i'm learning. and the root of codependence is equal parts avoiding the pain of those events down to the subconscious level, and making sure it never happens again.
of course, in order to "guarantee" it never happens again, control and manipulation are of the utmost importance. poor things. ironically, those coping and defense mechanisms learned in childhood to survive and adapt to those abusive conditions only serve as tools of spiraling destruction in adulthood. which leads to more avoidance of pain now in the present, along with more manipulation in order to control the environment and reality around them.
example: as i had little to no self-esteem (and never learned how to have it within myself), i want to be able to think nice thoughts about the kind of person i am. but i need other people to believe in me so that i can believe it. i use other people to gauge how good a person i think i am. which is very unhealthy, by the way, but you already knew that. anyway, in order to do that, i have to manipulate you so that i can influence and even change your mind about me --even though i don't even know that's what i'm really doing-- so that you can think what i want you to think about me and therefore i can believe it myself.
fucked up, huh? what breaks my heart is that healthy people don't have a clue what's really going on with a person suffering (and truly it is suffering) from codependence, and so not only do they have no compassion within them for the codependent, but they really treat the person like shit.
i have many personal accounts of that very example in action, and last summer is prime material of being treated like shit due to lack of compassion and understanding.
of course, i didn't know that's what was going on, but you'd think years of asking for help and saying, "i don't know how to get out of this, someone please help me," would have been a clue.
nope!
anyway, so yeah. y'know...every week i stand up, bare my breast, and let mr. brezsny take a shot right at my heart. he never misses. then again, it highlights exactly the ability i'm striving for --radical intimacy. so sayeth the oracle:
"i would like to quote now from the book that, with your help, i hope to write someday. it's called the dictionary of tricky love. please listen to the definition for the term 'radical intimacy.' ahem. radical intimacy is a virtuoso art that requires me and my freaky consort to master two seemingly contradictory skills: naming and nurturing the highest, holiest, best in each other, and thriving on the fact that our relationship will inevitably draw out and ask us to redeem each other's ugliest ignorance."
"so what you're saying is that the deeper you and i fall in love," i replied, "the more uninhibited we'll both feel about unveling our worst qualities?"
"it's a good thing," jumbler murmured, ..."because it will give us great ongoing practice at killing the apocalypse right down at the most microscopic levels."
"yes, i suppose that's true," i allowed. "each of us, even great masters like you and me, carry a little portion of the apocalypse within us."
"jung called our personal portion of the apocalypse the shadow," she said, taking the pen and drawing an oval on the sole of her left foot. within it, she printed "do not look at this" along with a picture of a single eye. "it's the unripe or wounded part of us," she continued. "it becomes evil only if it's repressed."
"so radical intimacy," i replied, curling into the fetal position to stare into the off-limits zone she'd just created, "i get to practice killing off the apocalypse in you, and vice versa? sort of a corollary to jesus' plea to love thy neighbor as thyself. 'love thy neighbor's shadow, and work with all thy tender adrenaline to summon its most constructive expressions.'"
"hmm, i like that. but i was thinking more about how i will kill off the apocalypse in myself because i have such a high regard and attraction to you. and you'll do vice versa."
"so like when i suddenly turn into a jerk because my flaming narcissism has demonically possessed me, i'll rise up with a banishing spell. 'begone demon, for i cannot allow you to trick me into hurting the feelings of my sweet groovemate.'"
"yes, exactly," she laughed. "you won't just naturally assume that the demon to be exorcised resides inside me. which in itself is so contrary to the style of the six billion apocalypticians on the planet that you might just shock armageddon into expiring right then and there."
"...as jung said, we tend to attribute to other people the very stuff we hate and fear most about ourselves."
(and here is what i love the best about this conversation...)
"radical intimacy means we kill the apocalypse at the source."
--robert brezsny, the televionary oracle (pgs 354, 355)
die, apocalypse, die! get behind me, demon! i swallow you down and break you up into your most basic elements so i may then use those materials to construct myself into my own funkiest groovemate, and thereby kill the apocalypse within me by transforming my shadow self into constructive expressions of the Divine Wow! i shall endeavor to find equality, equilibrium, and interdependence with my funkmates in order to allow them to manipulate me as much as i manipulate them, so that we all may work our magic on each other and manifest all of our potential!
so mote it be. amen. a-woman. ommmmm. and hallelujah.
1 comment:
Through the first part of this post, all I could think was once more how alike we are, and why we understood each other so well, so quickly, all those years ago. The line alone 'i need other people to believe in me so that i can believe it' hit so close to home, I might have written it myself. Indeed that need is so strong sometimes that if I think I can't find it, that alone can cause a panic attack. The sickest part of it is, I can have it, and do have it, from several (if not 'many') sources, but it's the one person who DOESN'T believe in me that causes the collapse of self-esteem.
Yes, babe, I AM a woman who loves too much. ;-)
~Greggo
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