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I have a whole collection of thoughts from my experiences of this last week, but I don’t know which thought – like a star in a constellation – actually belongs in what pattern with other thoughts. There seem to be three main areas of my observations that are probably divided so: (1) denial, (2) what empathy isn’t, and (3) many people must feel small.
To begin with, I want to say that being around people I do not know exhausts me. Of course if I leave my house and go out there into the public domain, that’s who I encounter: people I do not know.
The tip of the iceberg regarding my observations from last week is that people seem to me to be constantly jockeying for a one-up position when they interact with others. I see nothing that would lead me to suspect people are conscious of how small they must feel that they need to find ways to make themselves feel bigger than other people.
These patterns would be tiring enough to negotiate even without the fact that people seem most skilled at making themselves feel bigger by finding subtle, ongoing ways to make other people feel smaller.
OK, so I see I am beginning with my third point, though I don’t yet know why. How do these three topics connect to one another? If I think about each one of them in terms of being like nets that filter aspects of our human experience, which one of the three has the biggest holes in it?
I am thinking in terms, again, of the vagal nerve system and its connection to the flight-flight response or the calm, connecting, caregiving, compassionate response. What I sense around most people when I have to interact with them is that it doesn’t take very long at all before what is supposedly communication disintegrates into some strange kind of invisible power negotiation. In that power negotiation one person works to feel bigger and more power-full by in some way denigrating, devaluing, and disrespecting someone else. In other words, the OTHER must be made to feel smaller.
Language experts have found that fully two-thirds of human language interactions concern some form of gossip. Taking those patterns as a given, what does it actually FEEL like to be in interactive communication with people? How much of what goes on are we supposed to automatically IGNORE – and surprise! Surprise! Here is a direct connection to my first point above: DENIAL.
Is denial actually the main tender that we use to negotiate most human-to-human interactions? When people are not consciously aware of their own needs, or their wants, and instead constantly denigrate others to get these needs and wants met, aren’t they expertly practicing denial?
And then, on the other hand, the recipient of the denigrative comments is NOT supposed to consciously be aware of the true nature of the interactions. We are supposed to unconsciously, automatically and in a state of denial of our own perceptions ACT our part in return.
Let me give you just one simple example from an interaction I had with a woman who is evidently a spinner. This woman passed by my spot in the hallway yesterday at the public art carnival for children where I was demonstrating and stopped to have what is probably a typical kind of accepted human interaction with me. I had never seen her before.
One of the facts that this woman evidently was oblivious to is that when a spinner is showing anyone, especially a child, how the wheel is sending a twist into the collection of wool fibers being held in one hand so that the twist creates yarn, one has to keep this section of the process clearly visible to the child. This means that when I spin on my own I hold the fibers differently in my hands, usually meaning much farther away from the wheel.
So this woman found no reason at all not to just tell me with a snicker and a snide look on her face, “You are obviously doing that wrong.” And then she proceeded to instruct me on what I was doing wrong – exactly – and to tell me how to do it better. During this whole verbalized judgment and criticism process, during this denigrating, shaming, down-putting ICKY experience, did I tell her to shut the hell up!
I am proud of myself that I didn’t fall into the trap of explaining to her why I was holding my hands in a position other than the supposedly correct one she was asserting. I did not defend myself. But I did not tell her my truth in any other way, either. I just suffered along with her in this transaction.
I have been spinning off and on for 35 years. I know what I am doing. I spin what I want the way I want. My spinning is a part of me. Nobody, and I mean nobody has the right to criticize this process that is a part of who and how I am in the world in my lifetime. I mean that. Literally. Nobody has that right. If they do it, I know without denial that this person is throwing their ugliness at me and I want NO PART of it or of them, either.
This would be no big deal if I didn’t understand what I do now in my heightened sensitivity state. What I DO KNOW, if I let go of denial, is that this interaction is exactly typical of most human interactions I witness. These transactions are meant to victimize someone else. They are bullying transactions. I hate them, and as a consequence, I don’t like to have any more to do with other human beings at this point in my life than I absolutely HAVE to. There is nothing pleasurable or good about constantly having to be on guard against these subtle and no so subtle attacks on one’s selfhood.
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My simplest terminology I use for myself is that many people are just simply passive-aggressive. The truth is, they are geared to fight. I can sense another person’s denied rage in the isle of a grocery store, when I walk into a laundromat, when I stand in line a bank. We are all familiar with road rage. We can spot drivers who are displaying aggression with the way they handle their vehicle. The way people handle themselves in their body is no different. The signals are plain.
On my side of the center line, I can say that it’s too bad I don’t have the energy or the motivation to feel either empathy or compassion, barely even tolerance, when I put myself in any position to have to interact with such people. I do not have the energy for it, the desire to engage, or any hope that anything I can do will sooth these people in any way. I just plain don’t wish to be around them.
The truth is that I can no longer play this denial game. It never does any good to stick up for myself, to take a stand on my own behalf. I find that the only way not to escalate the denied rage in others is to pretend it’s all OK, to remain silent, to let them do their digs and get away with it.
That woman was victimizing me yesterday. She appeared to need to assert her ‘betterness’ by stabbing me in any way that she could. I might feel sorry for her, but I am frankly tired of that! Do I expect that strangers could ever walk up to one another and clearly state, “I am feeling small. Please, I need you to help me feel bigger” in a culture that has somehow managed to create so many of us that feel so small in the first place?
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I happened to meet a young man who came through town for a few months with his wife and children and moved on again last week. He radiated. I’ve so rarely seen such perfect joy, happiness and well-being in a grown up that I’d almost forgotten what it looks like. Never, in one single interaction with this gentlemen (who temporarily took a job working in the local laundromat and cafe) did I ever feel anger. Not his, not my own.
I went to visit my friend there while she did her laundry the other day, and this young man’s position has been filled by a woman who carries around her denied rage that I find absolutely tangible. I cannot escape that she is toxic; nor can I pretend that I don’t notice her rage that fills the expanse of that building. I will never again step into that business as long as she works there.
My thinking travels next to my second point above: empathy. I don’t want to empathize with her. I don’t want to be anywhere around her. I don’t have the energy to pretend I don’t notice, to dodge all the hatred she sends out with her every word and action. I will not be her unconscious target. I spent my 18 years of childhood taking my mother’s rage, and I don’t play that game any more.
For me, these are no-win transactions. Now, the young shining man I mentioned can move throughout his life and his presence heals. There is something about him that vanquishes rage from the space he inhabits in ever expanding circles. I am not strong enough to do that. I know that. I admit it.
Another problem I have being out in public is that these transactions I am describing are not isolated or sporadic events. They happen continually. They don’t happen only in rapid succession to one another, they happen on top of one another and simultaneously! People are at battle with one another in this small-big war and they don’t even know it.
Evidently to be social beings we are all supposed to operate in denial about what’s going on between us. If this is supposed to be a dance, it’s an ugly one. Perhaps if I hadn’t grown up with so much isolation as a part of the abuse I experienced, I would have gradually received some sort of inoculation that would allow me to go through my entire life being able to comfortably negotiate these sad interactions that so few people seem to even notice.
But I do notice them. Like I mentioned in my last post, evidently I am geared to live comfortably in a perfect world where people appreciate one another, respect one another, affirm rather than condemn one another, build something positive when they interact rather than tear one another down as they tear them apart.
I see little that is calm, compassionate or connecting about most human-to-human interactions. Sadly, this makes someone like the gentleman I mentioned appear to me like a rare angel of goodness. Sure, I’d like to be more like him. But cutting out denial, the truth is I am not. Evidently the best I can do right now is sit here alone at my computer and whine about what I see out there without having a single darn thing to offer about how to make things better – except to suggest that honest awareness about our own internal states might let us be more gentle and kind not only with our self, but with other people.
But while the public is out there begging for attention and affirmation by insidiously and unconsciously trying to steal ‘bigness’ from others so they don’t have to feel so small, I would rather just avoid the whole ugly mess. These emotional pariahs, these unconscious beggars will continue to ply their skills with everyone they meet. I, quite simply, have absolutely nothing to give them. I just want to stay out of their way.
I am too worn out to be constantly on guard to defend myself from their attacks. I don’t want to fight back against them and to even try would only escalate every single situation. I have to step back and let the safely and securely attached people like this gentleman I mentioned go out there and walk among the people who seem to be so emotionally wounded. I don’t believe he carries the same kind of woundedness within himself, so he probably doesn’t even have to notice the war that IS going on. He carries a natural immunity, and as a result he can heal just by his shining. I thank the universe for the existence of people such as him. We need to make more people just like him.
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POSTSCRIPT sent to me by my sister:
I think this is related to the ‘one up, one down’ mentality…
Brooke: Your findings related to crime and imprisonment rates seem to be particularly illustrative of the way inequality can lead to social corrosion.
Richard: We quote a prison psychiatrist who spent 25 years talking to really violent men, and he says he has yet to see an act of violence which was not caused by people feeling disrespected, humiliated, or like they’ve lost face. Those are the triggers to violence, and they’re more intense in more unequal societies, where status competition is intensified and we’re more sensitive about social judgments.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/want-the-good-life-your-neighbors-need-it-too
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Here are some photos that go with this post!
+THE LIFE ENHANCING NATURE OF SHARED THOUGHTS
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Stop the Storm 
Oh brother! Linda, just because you encountered an a-hole at your demonstration does not mean the entire human race has an agenda! You could have explained to her why you held the yarn in an unusual way or told her to go f**k herself or simply ignored her. Instead, you became silently angry and held it all in! This woman pushed your buttons in a way that was familiar to you thanks to your mom. I know that when I’m in a situation where someone is dumping on me, I tend to get angry with MYSELF if I remain silent and don’t stick up for myself. Look at the power you have given this woman! You blogged about her-and she does not deserve this recognition. Eleanor Roosevelt said “no one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
I believe most people are good. I teach my kids to look for the good in people. I also teach them to smile at people and most times, they smile back. There are no perfect people and everyone has a story. Look for the good in people and you will find it. Don’t allow yourself to be a victim anymore—take back your power!
My encounter with her is one little example of a pattern I see among many adults. I won’t be the bad victim and believe any longer that it’s just my ‘negative point of view’ that makes me see these patterns, either. Your children are being raised to be like the shiny man in the laundromat. While Eleanor Roosevelt said “no one can make you feel inferior without your permission,” I wonder if she ever had to become consciously aware of how draining people can be of other people’s energy. I no longer have the energy to spare to negotiate these pit-bull human interactions — to fight this “no one can make you feel inferior without your permission” battle continually with humans exhausts me — and that’s a fact.
I don’t think these patterns are either few or isolated. I think they feed into prejudices and affect whole communities, if not civilizations.
I think you’ve said it so perfectly. This need appears to me to exist in western culture, which now dominates the world, because when I’ve visited Third World or native cultures, it is not there. My visit to Africa was the first clear juxtaposition I had of this, despite the fact that I had already widely traveled (but always to western countries before that). It is not only denial; it’s dissociation. Everyone dissociates because the culture itself is split. It teaches us to give to others, to be kind, but then we learn we must make money at the expense of others. There is no way to reconcile these things, so we simply dissociate them. I’ve seen this in my own family, too. When I told my uncle that my own father (his brother) failed to help me when my husband threw me and my daughters out on the street, a veil seemed to pull over my uncle’s eyes and he murmured “Well, all families have problems.” (This was just after he had asked me directly why I wasn’t talking to my dad!)
My family may be worse than others, but I believe denial and dissociation are built into western culture, which may explain why we have done more violence to the world than nearly any other culture in history.
Excellently put! This is NOT an experience of wholeness to be so oblivious even of wholeness itself! It is a sense of brokenness — is it a part of the disease of materialism where everyone and everything is measured in terms of resources and consumption? Eating things us – oh, we the predatory carnivores!!!