How do we get manipulated?

How do manipulators convince us to do what they want, especially if we don’t want to?

Guilt: – it is one of the most useful and versatile manipulative tools.

It appears in a variety of manipulative disguises such as:-

• Hurt feelings-when someone tells us they will be badly hurt if we behave differently than they want us to, we usually do as they ask to avoid the guilt we would otherwise feel.
• Lack of consideration-some salesperson are masters at inducing guilt. They use it as lever to ease us into a position where we believe we must buy whatever they are selling. The life insurance saleswoman who paints a nightmare picture of what could happen to our family if we were not heavily insured is an expert at provoking guilt.
• The test of love-some people try to manipulate us by implying that we don’t love them enough, or even at all, if we neglect to do as they ask. They demand we prove our love by doing whatever they request of us, as though it were possible for anyone to demonstrate the extent of their feelings in such a fashion.
• Poor little me-some people approach acting helpless, indecisive and clinging. Instead of spending their time learning to take care of themselves they use it to convince us they are so weak they cannot lift a finger without our help. They appear so pathetic that if we fail to help them, we feel heartily ashamed and load ourselves down with enough guilt to sink a battleship.
• Great expectations-people sometimes try to influence our behaviour by telling us exactly what they expect of us. By doing so they make it clear we have two choice: we can either live up to their expectations and make them happy or fail to meet their criteria and disappoint them.

Approval or disapproval:-people who know we value their approval may threaten to withhold it if we do not do as they wish.

Some strategies based on it are:-

• Anger– being the object of someone’s anger or extreme disapproval can be terrifying. But if someone wants us to behave in a certain way, and all he is willing to offer us in exchange is withholding his anger, we are definitely getting nothing for something if we accept his deal. If others chose to expend their emotional energy, it is courteous of us to allow them the freedom to be as angry as they like.
• Other-directedness-the manipulator brings up an action we are planning to take and then urges us to reconsider because of how negatively she thinks people will view it. They may attempt to bring God or relatives support to prove their point like “if your mother could only hear you”.
• Implying a deficiency-some people threaten to call us unflattering names, like coward or something equally uneven. This approach is effective only if we consider the other person’s opinion of value and believe he will think highly of us if we so what he asks.
• Flattery-if someone is willing to hand out compliments by the bucketful, we soak up every word they say and hope for more flattery makes us feel good about ourselves temporarily and for that reason we enjoy it.it is helpful to bear in mind that people who offer us compliments and flattery is their way of getting us to rise to the bait. In the long run we usually find their praise is not worth the price we eventually pay for it.
• Unfavourable comparison-to use this the manipulator mentions someone who is superior to us in a certain regard and then pressures us to change our behaviour by asking why we are not more like that person.

These are just few methods by which we get manipulated every day. And none of the above methods are unknown to us it’s just that we were not aware of them but now we know them and we could easily find out when someone is trying to manipulate us.

TAKE A MOMENT FOR YOUR OWN (inspirational poem)

YOU! YOU! YES YOU!!

Take a moment for your own,

Lock yourself in your secret room,

Make sure that you are alone,

Just For that moment, forget all your gloom.

Take a moment to dive into your soul,

Just go wherever your thoughts flow,

Lose all your physical control,

And see your soul with unique aglow,

While following the thought’s rainbow.

Take a moment to internalise,

How much you have grown?

What will you reap and

What have you sown?

Take a moment to cherish your memories,

Do Focus on your life’s why,

But do keep check on all the upcomings,

And aim high and try and try,

Sooner or later you will get all your reply.

Take a moment to reflect upon your own,

Forget all the reasons to moan,

What fills your eyes with spark?

Just remember one thing, to leave your footmark!

HOW TO RENEW LIFE?

When things get old. You renew them isn’t it? Similarly you need to keep renewing your goals and life. Otherwise life would get boring and you might deviate away from your goals and dreams you want to achieve in life. Here is the meaning of renew in the below article. Connect with each letter and apply it to your life and see the boost in your mood and instant enthusiasm.

REVIEW YOUR PAST

Where have you come from? What was keeping you going? Review the person that have been in your life close to you, as well as the projects and problems you faced. Review your private practices, your philosophy of life, your value system, and your religion.

Review what was the source of your emotional energy? What turned you on in the past? Why aren’t you excited now? Was it a special person or a project that inspired you before? Has the person left or is the project now complete? Or were you being challenged by a problem, and the problem is now solved? Perhaps you were challenged by an adversary. The spirit of competition motivated you.

Was it a private or public life style that you kept going? Have you forsaken your ideals? Have you accommodated yourself to questionable ethics or a dubious moral standard? And is like a silent termite eating away the youthful enthusiasm?

Was it false expectation that enticed you and led you onward and upward? Shakespeare said that many of our goals in life are really like needles in haystacks: ”you shall seek all day until you find them, and when you find them they are not worth the search.” Too often our goals rise from a defective value system. And the energy to remain enthusiastic in life, marriage, and career is often drawn from the search and the hunt rather than from harvest and the ultimate ingathering.

What was the taproot of your positive emotion that kept your light burning through the years? Review your life carefully.

 

EXAMINE ALL THE POSIBILITIES.

What would you set as your goals if….? What would you do if you had the money, if you had the education, if you had the training, if you had contacts, if you had the support base? What would you do if you had marketing system, if you had the right people on your teams? What would you do if you had the time, if you had the plant, if you had the equipment? What would you do if you knew it could not fail? There are far more possibilities than you think. Examine them.

 

NAME THE PRICE YOU’RE WILLING TO PAY

Are you willing to go school for two or three years? Are you willing to move? Are you willing to go through six to eight months for physical therapy to walk again? Name the price you are willing to pay. When henry ford transported Thomas Edison’s entire laboratory to Dearborn village, he also brought the trash pile. Why? Because he wanted everybody to see how much Edison had to throw away in order to finally have some success. Every successful person knows this. There’s always a pile of rejections in order to get the “yes”. What price are you willing to pay?

ELECT THE BEST POSSIBILTY NO MATTER WHAT THE PRICE.

Choose the best. Commit to excellence with an incredible source of energy. Elect the best, no matter what the price tag.

WAIT AND WORK

Probably nothing is more difficult than to keep waiting. working, plodding ,and maintaining patience through dark times. But we must. And in god’s good time, hope and help will come our way. Oftentimes someone’s unexpected, off the cuff comment or curt answer to an important question can be the breakthrough to a new emotional sunrise.so have patience and keep working for what you want. As tough times never last but tough people do.

How to look at problems?

What is the secret ingredient of tough people that enables them to succeed? Why do some people survive the tough times when others are overcome by them? Why do they win when others lose? Why do they soar when others sink?

The answer is very simple. It’s all in how they perceive their problems. They look at problems realistically and practically.

Some principles which are universal and could be applied to all the problems which exist in this world are :

1. Every living human being has problems.

Nobody is free from problems. A problem free life is an illusion- a mirage in the desert. To pursue a problem free life is to run after a fantasy, it is a waste of mental and physical energy. Every living human person has problems. Accept that fact and move on.

2. Every problem has a limited life span.

Every mountain has a peak. Every valley has its low point. Life has its ups and downs, its peaks and its valleys. No one is up all the time, nor are they down all the time. Problems do end. They do go away. They are resolved in time. If you want examples then look at the history, it teaches us that every problem has a life span. No problem is permanent.

3. Every problem holds positive possibilities.

“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing”. Every problem contains secret ingredients of some creative potential either for yourself or someone else. There are two sides to every coin. What may be a problem to someone can be profitable business for others. One man’s problem is another’s man’s opportunity. Hospitals exist because people are sick. Lawyers are in business because people violate laws in a moment of weakness or ignorance. Cemeteries, colleges, temples, churches, and universities all exist for the purpose of helping people through their problem times.

4. Every problem will change you.

Problems never leave us the way they found us. Every person is affected by the tough times. No one emerges from a problem untouched. Remember pure gold is obtained after passing through heat. You will become a better version of you after going through the problem and learning from it. You will come to know your potential to handle a situation. Your capabilities and much more. In short you will get a better understanding of yourself.

5. You can choose what your problems will do to you.

You may not be able to control the times, but you can compose your response as I always say. “We should always ACT and not REACT”. You can turn your pain into poetry. The choice is up to you. You may not have chosen your tough time but you can choose how you will react to it.

6. There is a negative and a positive reaction to every problem.

People who survive through tough times are those who react to them positively. This is not as easy as it sounds. The positive reaction is the one which would contribute most to the collective self-esteem of human family. One must choose the one that would diminish any shame that could fall upon the human family. It must be something that would make you more proud of yourself as a person. That would bring joy to most people. It should be a reaction that holds greatest possibility of making good contribution to society.

But what if you have got a problem which doesn’t have solution? What will you do? The answer is if you can’t solve the problem, manage it. If someone lost his leg he can’t grow it back. But he can manage his problem, by considering all the possible ways in which a replacement for his body part could be done. He could manage it by determining to walk better, more smoothly, more quickly than anybody else could imagine. In this process he will become an inspiration to everyone whose life is similar to his. One eg is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subhreet_Kaur_Ghumman

Possibility thinking- I do not claim that it can solve every problem. But I have no doubt that the vast majority of problems could be solves if we only believe. And those which can’t be solved could be managed.BE A SURVIVOR.

HOW TO HAVE HIGHSELF-ESTEEM? (changing others)

Do you sometimes feel that other persons should behave according to your standards?

Do you think that if you dislike something in others so it’s their responsibility to change it?

How many times this has happened when others behaviours bothered you and you tried to persuade them to act differently even if you have to exert great deal of pressure to get them do so?

Why we try to change others?

The reason we offer people to support our requests for them to change seem legitimate enough, we tell them it’s for their own good, or it’s the right way to do things , or we want what is best for them, and so forth. The question is not how can we make our efforts to change others more effective, but why we expect them to change in the first place? Why, when our relationship are not as we wish, do we automatically assume change is the other person’s responsibility? The answer to this is simple we do it to convince others that they need to change and we are relieved from changing ourselves. By labelling their behaviour wrong and our behaviour right we try to put them in a position where they feel they must alter their behaviour to correct the situation.

But do we have the right to expect or even ask people to change their behaviour, so we can avoid changing ours? Of course not. It is not anyone else’s obligation to make us feel good, it is our own

What is there to prevent us from changing ourselves? Absolutely nothing.it is no more difficult for us to alter our behaviour than it is for anyone else. The only person over whom we have complete control and the only person whom we can change is ourselves. If we are unhappy with what is going on in our lives, then we need to look inward to ourselves not outwards to others. If we are bothered by another’s behaviour, rather than relying on hi to change we can solve the problem quite neatly by simply choosing not to become irritated.as long as we believe others cause our problems we will continue trying to change them. This will never work, though, because the solution to our problems lies in ourselves not in them. Until we accept that we need to change not others we will waste precious time trying to cure the wrong disease.

What are the problems with changing others?

Trying to change people to change can be extremely frustrating. Rarely do the changes we hope for take place. If we look at urn track records we will find losses far outnumbering wins. If we manage to persuade someone to change, it is usually only at the expense of bitterness and hard feelings between you and those you have ambitiously tried to reform.

Although we may disapprove of others actions when they behave contrary to our wishes they are merely exercising their right to do, be and think as they choose. Unless their behaviour is physically harmful, intentionally disruptive, or infringes on our or others’ rights, what people do is no one’s business but their own. People have the right to be as they are, whether or not we like it. By letting them follow their own blueprint for life, we are not doing them any special favours we are simply giving them the same thing we want- the freedom to be ourselves. We are not required to like what others do or agree with their values but it is essential to our emotional health that we learn to accept them as the reality they are.

What are the benefits of letting others remain as they are?

Both our and others lives will be far more pleasant once we learn to accept their differences instead of complaining about them. Dwelling on people’s imperfections, only prevents us from appreciating their positive aspects.by understanding others rightfully object to modifying themselves merely to make the world more pleasant for us, we will ultimately avoid a lot of unhappiness and hurt feelings. Once we stop trying to manipulate other’s behaviour and drop our preconception about how they should behave, we will stop being disappointed by their actions. By adopting a more accepting attitude.by trying to our understanding and by refusing to judge or condemn others, we become more compassionate and less blaming-not just toward them but toward ourselves as well. Once we have fully accepted that others behaviour is their responsibility instead of ours, we will find we have a great deal more time available to spend on improving our own.

 

 

 

A motivational poem- DON’T QUIT!

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit-

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As every one of us sometimes learns,

And many a fellow turns about

When he might have won had he stuck it out.

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow –

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than

It seems to a faint and faltering man;

Often the struggler has given up

Whe he might have captured the victor’s cup;

And he learned too late when the night came down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out –

The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are,

It might be near when it seems afar;

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?(a moral story)

Once a group of 50 people was attending a seminar.

Suddenly the speaker stopped and started giving each person a balloon. Each one was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

Now these delegates were let in that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written, within 5 minutes.

Everyone was frantically searching for their name, pushing, colliding with each other, and there was utter chaos.

At the end of 5 minutes, no one could find their own balloon.

Now each one was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.

The speaker began: This is exactly happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is. Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness, you will get your own happiness.

And this is the purpose of human life.

HOW TO HAVE HIGH SELF ESTEEM? (PART-V)

GUILT

Do you feel guilty if you do something wrong?

Do you feel guilty if you disagreed on something and that person felt bad?

“If only I would”, “I wish I hadn’t”, “why did I…””I should have…” these phrases sounds very familiar to you?

WHAT IS GUILT?

Guilt is an emotion ,it’s a combination of feelings which you experience when you feel certain actions taken by you were wrong for example anger because you had behaved badly ,shame and embarrassment and much more. So in simple terms we could say that guilt is the wish to undo something you have done or do something which you forgot to do.

ARE WE BORN WITH THE GUILT THING?

The answer to this is NO. We were never born with the ability to feel guilty. Guilt is only experienced when you know if what you did was wrong or right isn’t it. So do you think you were born with the knowledge of what’s right and what’s wrong? Obviously no. when you begin to grow and learn about life then only you were taught to label things as good or bad, right or wrong.

We human beings learned to feel guilty the same way animals are trained. Have you ever seen how dogs are trained? When the dog does something bad we say something like “bad dog! Shame on you” or similar phrases when the dog does something we dislike and it learns what is good and what is bad. Similarly if you did something your parents disliked they would say how awful you are and how shameful you should be for the task you did. At that time you were too young to understand their words ,then like animals do you sensed their disapproval of your behaviour through their facial expressions and tone of voice. Even if it was unclear just why your actions were not acceptable your belief in parents was sufficient to convince you to accept their judgement for your actions and to feel guilty and ashamed.

WHY WE ARE TAUGHT TO BE GUILTY?

Guilt is one of the most powerful and effective manipulative tools ever discovered. It is used by those who believe for one reason or another that they have a right to control you behaviour. The easier others can make you feel guilty, the easier they can get you to behave as they wish. THOSE OF YOU WHO CAN BE ENCOURAGED TO FEEL THE MOST GUILTY ARE THE MOST EASILY MAIPULATED.

Now it’s easy to understand why our parents used guilt as a teaching tool. When you were too young to understand your actions, if your parents would have simply said to not do certain task it would have not worked to alter your behaviour, you needed a stronger tool that was guilt when your parents associated guilt with the behaviour they disliked they tried to insure you would always behave as they wish. And you were trained so thoroughly that you would avoid certain acts they disliked or disapproved even though as adults you are capable of making your decisions about them. If you were given a chance to do an act which they disliked you would feel guilty as if they were looking over your shoulder because you are programmed since childhood for that.

WHY GUILT IS HARMFUL?

Does feeling guilty ever help anyone? Not even slightly. Guilt has no good effects. It makes a situation worse, not better. It is harmful, mentally, emotionally, and physically. It is a waste of valuable time and energy that could be used for something worthwhile. No activity is more useless and injurious than blaming yourselves because you can’t change the past. It reduces your self-esteem. When you feel guilty you automatically start disliking yourselves.

HOW TO DEAL WITH GUILT?

you can learn from mistakes only if you stop blaming yourselves for making them. Guilt rather than helping you remain open to learn from past errors, it limits your thinking and closes your minds to further growth. By constantly associating your painful feelings with the mistakes in judgement you increase the guilt and the chances of making more mistakes instead of reducing them. On the other hand if you refuse to let guilt trouble your minds,you would avoid the same kind of error in the future.

Instead of referring to the past errors to learn from them ,what you must do is recall the lesson and forget the situation where it originated. Always remember that “all the guilt in the world will not help you to go back and change even one thing in the past”. You need to remember that like everyone else you are imperfect human being. Nothing you have done, no matter how awful you or anyone else believes it is, is so bad you should not forgive yourselves for having it done. This is what you must learn to do, because if you are not able to forgive yourselves, it makes little difference who does.

PS: – don’t get offended by the comparison of human being with animals it was an example to explain things.

If you have done something with the intention to hurt or cause damage then guilt is necessary and you should be sorry for that.

what is life and how to deal with it?

Do you often feel overwhelmed or that you lack the control in life to be happy? Does life seem to bombard you with problems for no reason?

There is a Taoist proverb, ” It is only in still water that we can see.”

You can only make sense of anything when you stop trying to control it. So by that nature if you are trying to control your own life, or the world around you; it will always elude you. You will never have the peace of mind necessary to get past what is troubling you. The anxiety over the lack of control becomes a wave that washes over you and disrupts the stillness of your mind.

So let go! This is not something that should cause distress. Life is supposed to be unpredictable, that is both beauty and pain. Without the low points in life, we wouldn’t cherish the high. Wouldn’t it be the greatest pain of all to have all you could want but couldn’t appreciate what it truly is? To see it as something average when so many others see brilliance?

Just be who you were meant to be. You can never be anyone else, and even if you could the world would be less for it. If you could change, nothing would be unique. You are already unique. You are in the perfect place to take your life into new directions, you only have to stop, take a breath and realize that. Because it’s only when we release our control, that the world takes notice of us.

HOW TO GET INSTANT MOTIVATION!

So you want instant motivation read the article below and believe me you will find an instant boost in energy and confidence.

You are unique. So always BE YOU

Think what a remarkable, unduplicatable, and miraculous thing it is to be you! Of all the people who have come and gone on the earth, since the beginning of time, not ONE of them is like YOU!

No one who has ever lived or is to come has had your combination of abilities, talents, appearance, friends, acquaintances, burdens, sorrows and opportunities.

No one’s hair grows exactly the way yours does. No one’s finger prints are like yours. No one has the same combination of secret inside jokes and family expressions that you know.

The few people who laugh at all the same things you do, don’t sneeze the way you do. No one prays about exactly the same concerns as you do. No one is loved by the same combination of people that love you – NO ONE!

No one before, no one to come. YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE!

Enjoy that uniqueness. You do not have to pretend in order to seem more like someone else. You weren’t meant to be like someone else. You do not have to lie to conceal the parts of you that are not like what you see in anyone else.

You were meant to be different. Nowhere ever in all of history will the same things be going on in anyone’s mind, soul and spirit as are going on in yours right now.

If you did not exist, there would be a hole in creation, a gap in history, something missing from the plan for humankind.

Treasure your uniqueness. It is a gift given only to you. Enjoy it and share it!

No one can reach out to others in the same way that you can. No one can speak your words. No one can convey your meanings. No one can comfort with your kind of comfort. No one can bring your kind of understanding to another person.

No one can be cheerful and light-hearted and joyous in your way. No one can smile your smile. No one else can bring the whole unique impact of you to another human being.

Share your uniqueness. Let it be free to flow out among your family and friends and people you meet in the rush and clutter of living wherever you are. That gift of yourself was given you to enjoy and share. Give yourself away!

See it! Receive it! Let it tickle you! Let it inform you and nudge you and inspire you! YOU ARE UNIQUE!