What life has taught me about self-empowerment

Have you ever been in one of those lovely domestic situations where someone is being so difficult and manipulative on purpose that your eyes just glaze over and you feel like you are floating off to Cancun as the sound of that persons voice fades into the oblivion of your frustration ?. . . . . .well tonight was one of those nights for me and I thought, "Ughhh ! Not again, how can this not be my 'mess' to clean up? ".

I talked a little about this in the intro of my blog, how I feel better about my ability to navigate life and really learned my own value and to like myself, partially through a miserable situation with my new home in Wisconsin and ironically from watching my husband move like a linebacker through the social landscape. Sometimes people are just lazy or they are scared, and maybe not willing to look at their own flaws and this can cause alot of misery to sensitive and honest people who will unfortunately take all the manipulation inward and beat themselves up for being , weak, stupid, a pushover, socially inept or worst of all unloveable.

 I highly recommend a technique I learned in a book called, The Gentle art of verbal self defense by Suzette Haden Elgin. She talks about identifying and using different ways of communicating and one of them is called Computer mode( how fitting ). In my particular situation I have learned to, as one person put it   " pull back the lens " on a situation, I give myself a minute to silently say simply, " Wait just a minute".  This works really well because the person who is manipulating and driving at you is looking for an emotional breakdown from you because it makes it so easy for them to then say " See, I can't talk to you when you are like this", Crazy making , Right? . . . . . Well, . . .  not anymore.   Ms. Haden Elgin describes Computer mode as , you guessed it, emotionally flat ( on the outside anyway ) responses that give the attacked person a chance to hold thier ground while they can safely assess the true feelings and intentions of the manipulator. Some people don't realize the extent to which they manipulate.

Or as my husband would say, " Turn it back around on those jokers" He always reminded me that they were just saying cruel things to take the focus of themselves. My husband taught me through both good lessons and bad that everyone is on the same level, everyone feels insecure about certain things and if someone is judging you with particular vehemence, just make fun of them!

This a feel good picture for the evening .  . . .

I love how her whiskers are "smiling"!

Happy thoughts