Peeking Into the Finer Lines of Manipulation

Sometimes subjects come up - I mean those subjects that have clearly entered your life in order to teach you something - over and over again, and they come veiled in myriad disguises until you finally sit up and realize there is a pattern.

Manipulation, and allowing yourself to be manipulated, is one of the ones that deserves a closer look. It's connected to boundaries and it's connected to self-love, but it's also occasionally connected to not letting yourself see the reality of people you've allowed into your personal space who appear to be friendly, woolly sheep, but who may, at times, either due to blindness (theirs and yours), or due to outright decpetion and calculation, in fact be wolves in sheep's clothing.

Here are some sample situations:

• You have a colleague who starts on the job in a slightly lower position than yours. He/she flatters you and tells you how lucky they are to be working with you because you have so much to show and teach them. They enter your space deeply as they learn all they can from you. You feel very good about it because - let's be honest - it's wonderful to have someone admire you, and it's also wonderful to teach someone something that you have such a good command of. After some time (you are already imagining the scenario) your colleague manages to get promoted over you, having used all you taught him/her to get there. Were you manipulated (the flattery, the desire to teach)? Were you being blind to the potential for this happening? What went on? Clearly, whatever went on, it's a sign for you to look at it more carefully than just to write it off with pain and disappointment at having been used, or anger and disgust that someone you had been good to could use you this way. Clearly, part of the equation has to do with you.
• You have a friend who has always leaned on you a bit. Whether it's for information, or how to do things, or perhaps even emotionally. Eventually you have come to feel responsible for this individual who is slightly one-sided, or perhaps needs a crutch. And the more you feel responsible, the more you feel uncomfortable. Perhaps you tell yourself you are being unkind. Perhaps you tell yourself you are not being compassionate. And yet, when that friend calls or comes over, or in any way participates in your life, you begin to recognize a sinking in the depth of your stomach. So what is going on? Obviously painting a scenario with words is never the whole story, and this is no exception, but based on the narrow parameters of what I have narrated here, I would suggest that at least part of what is going on is that your friend has abdicated his/her responsibility for his own life, and has gently and lovingly manipulated you into taking it on, at least in the arenas described. Again, clearly, part of the equation has to do with you.

These are only two very brief illustrations of how liking and loving are emotions that have the capacity to move us into that space where we allow another to manipulate us - and certainly - there are many instances where the other is as blind to the manipulative aspect of his/her own character as you are. Nevertheless, it's never about the other (you can't control how they behave), and it's always about you (you can control how you behave), and your responsibility to yourself, to recognize how you are involved, what it may mean about resolving patterns that you have kept alive throughout your life, and especially, about how well you care for yourself, i.e., how much you love yourself.

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch:

Rewiring the Soul

Click here to download the first chapter.

To see the Table of Contents click here

Reviews From the Back Cover:

"The masterwork of a profoundly gifted healer of the soul. Dazzling, challenging, wondrously useful." Peggy Rubin, Director, Center for Sacred Theatre, Ashland, Oregon; author: To Be and How To Be, Transforming Your Life Through Sacred Theatre

"Rewiring the Soul is one the best introductions to the spiritual life I've ever read. Not esoteric but real-world & practical. The implications are profound." Peter Shepherd; Founder Trans4mind.com; author: Daring To Be Yourself 

"The human being's directory to the soul. A breakthrough for those seeking practical assistance, those of a more mystical bent & every soul awaiting discovery." Toni Petrinovich, Ph.D.; author: The Call: Awakening the Angelic Human

The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

To download the first chapter, click here
To see the Table of Contents click here

Praise for The Tao of Spiritual Partnership

“All humans seek the illusive touch of another's Soul, which opens us to the sense of belonging to something bigger than the self. Dr. Kortsch has given us the true "tao" of relationship in this brilliant exploration of emotional tapestry. We will be grateful for this illumination of spiritual partnership for generations to come."
Chris Griscom: Spiritual Leader, Author

“Eloquently and comprehensive, showing how your primary love relationship may be a sacred vessel that transports you and your partner to a place of mutual healing and expansion.” 
Robert Schwartz: Author of Your Soul’s Gift: The Healing Power of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born 


The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self (coming October 2013)

My new book: The Power of Your Heart: Loving the Self, is due out later this year. Here is a brief excerpt from the Introduction:

It is your right to live a life of love. It is your right to understand that loving yourself first is not a selfish way of behavior, but one that allows you to live that life of love. However, it's highly probable that you never got the instruction manual explaining exactly how to accomplish this. Possibly your family - and it may have been a loving family - considered loving the self an act of selfishness. Or perhaps the members of your family simply didn't practice loving the self, and of course, what you didn't see - what was not shown to you - while you were growing up, meant that you just didn't learn how to apply it to yourself. The closer you are able to move towards loving yourself, the closer you will be to living a life of love - quite independently of whether you are in a love relationship or not. A life of love can be lived with or without a partnership, because a life of love implies that you know that it all begins with you by loving the self. The more clearly you understand how to love yourself, the more clearly you will see that it is very hard - if not impossible - to love others in ways that are unrelated to fulfilling any of your needs. Loving yourself first is - for so many of us - one of the hardest things we will ever learn how to do. But know this: the benefits affect you in every particle of your being - body, mind, and soul - and are greater than you will ever be able to imagine.

Note: If you are wondering why this blog is now only appearing on alternate days (excluding Sat/Sun), it is because I also post on my other blog on the others days. That other blog is The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for my new book. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed.