Rule #1: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233
Rule #2: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. National Domestic Violence TTY Hotline 800-787-3224
Rule #3: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. Abuse Victim Hotline by state www.avhotline.org
Do you feel safe?
Do you feel safe in all your relationships?
Do feel safe in your home?
Do you feel safe at your employment?
Do you feel safe in your social circles, friendships, affiliations, clubs, including social media?
Do you feel safe when you are alone?
Do you feel unsafe in some situations?
Do you feel unsafe around certain people?
Do you feel threatened or intimidated by anyone legally, physically, financially, morally, or even spiritually?
It is most important to feel safe in your own skin, safe in your own mind, and safe in your own soul.
Much has been written about promoting tolerance, getting along, defusing situations, and compromising for the greater good that can be experienced in this beautiful and amazing life. But those of us who have more tender mental constitutions, and weaker willed individuals can be bullied beyond belief by strong personalities, louder and more demonstrative characters, bowling over any and all attempts that might possibly arrive at a healed and more whole relationship.
These are lessons school children learn, how to get along. But sometimes we carry this attempt at being “normal” too far, trying to apply tolerance and compromise to abusive and dysfunctional relationships, when we really should be running for the hills.
Your feelings and emotions are your accurate, internal measure of what you should do next. Emotional abuse feels bad, makes you nauseous, gives you anxiety attacks, with a generalized feeling of malaise, depression and low energy. The intensity of your feelings and emotions is a signal that things need to change if you are going to re-gain your mental, physical and spiritual health.
There is never any reason to tolerate physical, mental/emotional abuse, or bullying as a normal behavior. This seems like it is common sense, but it is not that easy to the person who is being physically abused, emotionally blackmailed, and threatened by law suits or any other kind of manipulation. The longer bullies bully their victim, the more debilitating fear cripples the victim.
On a personal level, freedom comes when you gather your courage and STAND UP. Stand up for yourself, speak out to someone you can trust. Do not remain silent. Silence is not golden. Silence is deadly, literally. Bullies do not go away. Bullies get stronger the longer they stay at it. The longer a bully stays a bully, the more brazen they get, and the more their bullying tactics escalate.
An important point to make here is to realize that people with destructive personality disorders most often look just the same as you and me. Mass murderers do not look like mass murdereers. They look like regular people, for the most part. Abusive partners also dress in expensive clothing, can be financially successful, and have no tell-tale marks that make them stand out from no-abusive partners. They might even appear to have wide circles of “friends” around them, but the truth is, these are usually superficial trophies. Do not be intimated by any of this. This presentation of how bullies portray themselves is a facade. However, the vengeance the bully feels is very real, and must be dealt with, not ignored.
The question is how to stand up and deal with bullies, emotional blackmail, and threats of mental, emotional and physical abuse. Again, go by how you feel. You need to get to a safe place on all levels: mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. If you feel unsafe addressing these problems yourself, seek immediate help from a counselor, police, fire or shelter. Do not wait. Your health and well-being depend on getting help not only for yourself, but also for the abuser.
Manipulating behaviors tend to show up ever so subtly in the earlier days of the relationship, but can also manifest later in the relationship if stressors change. Pay attention. Pay attention to how you feel when certain things happen. You might even keep a journal of your feelings, if you feel safe to do so.
The important thing to know is there is no tolerance for abusive behaviors. Verbal abuse can be even more detrimental to the health and well-being of children, spouses, and everyone living or working under the same roof.
Sometimes abusive behaviors manifest over time, after the relationship is well-established. The person being abused knows that even the abusing person has a good side from time to time, and at the good times, has earned their love. The person being abused wonders if they have done or said something to trigger the abuse. Most often the person receiving the abuse is told it is their fault that the abuser is abusing. Know this is not true.
Everyone is in charge of their own feelings, emotions and actions. There is no way you are ever in charge of the abuser’s feelings, emotions or actions no matter what has happened.
You count.
You matter.
You are a gift from God.
You are beautiful, and I am so very glad you are here.
This most likely will strike a chord within you because you already know this. This is a reminder to let you know that personal safety is important and something for you to protect.
“She wanted me to share with you that she is a survivor of the worst crimes someone can commit against a woman,” Lively said in her speech. “I’ve watched her conceal her raw and undeserved shame my entire life, so, as her daughter, being asked to share this today is monumental. If we name it, we change it.”
US actress Blake Lively poses for a photocall during the premiere of the movie “It ends with us” in Copenhagen on August 9, 2024. (Photo by Nils Meilvang / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT (Photo by NILS MEILVANG/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
When do women get to speak their truth?
Blake Lively bravely spoke of the reality of what many, if not most women experience, surviving abuses which many women do not survive mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I have personally experienced the very point she was making, both in my personal and professional working life. She was not wrong.
She spoke at times with her brave mother sitting beside her squeezing her hand, and proud of her daughter who not only spoke of the stark truth of what many women endure but encouraged all women to shine a light on the life altering cruelty of it.
At the brave attempts of women to stand up for themselves, men scoff and ridicule, as if they assume to have the upper hand. When that does not work, complete denial is what women have come to know. Jobs are lost and relationships break in this strangle hold of past power.
It seems as if some men think they are giving a gratuitous hand up into the working world. What kind of work are men thinking of? This is defamation of character.
In my case, I paid a dear price, a total oblation of who and what I am, beginning in my teenage years, and during my metanoia into adulthood. Feeling the pain and injustice of life first-hand has made me be a better holistic health counselor and minister, allowing me the courage and fortitude to reach out in the ministry of my blog, www.lindahourihan.wordpress.com, that has reached more than 125,600 views in all 203 countries, territories, and protectorates worldwide. My blog got to all of the beautiful islands all over the world because of the friends I made on my first cruise.
The price I paid for choosing to get pregnant and married at 16-years old did not happen without gossip, slander, public humiliation, and the stripping of the honors I had earned in my life. Victims often get blamed for the moral failings of others, repeating the fake news scenario of placing blame on all women because Eve supposedly enticed Adam to eat the forbidden fruit bringing death to all humanity.
lindahourihanhhcp.com
This book is part of the trilogy that won the 2024 INTERNATIONAL IMPACT BOOK AWARD. The following excerpts are from this book:
It is hauntingly familiar to every other woman getting advances she did not ask for, like the raping of women by the fallen angels in Genesis 6:1 assumed to be the fault of the woman. This is the reason why some women in various religions still wear head coverings, to hide their beauty, to not tempt the fallen angels nor human men beyond their lack of self-control. Evidently to this warped way of thinking, this also is the fault of the woman, not the man, who is not able to control himself.
Part of the ridicule I experienced happened at more than one incident of my life prior to my certification as a holistic health counselor and practitioner. Everyone in life reaches this point where your life’s mission, dharma, and karma either makes or breaks you.
At fifteen years old, I got my learner’s permit. The first and last time I ever got to drive the family car, was to drive home from the Registry of Motor Vehicles in Milford. Later that night after I got home, my adopted father very inappropriately backed me up against the kitchen sink as I got myself a glass of water to drink.
“If you ever want to drive the car again you need to give me some special lovin’,” he said in his thick southern drawl while pressing himself against me.
“Then I will never drive the car again,” I said.
“No, you won’t,” he added and walked away.
I froze at the sink, grabbing the counter in shock, fear, and simultaneous anger. My knees were shaking. My mother was asleep.
The next day after my father had gone to work, I told my mother exactly what had happened.
“Are you sure you didn’t just misread the situation?” my mother asked.
“No, Mom, there was no question.”
“Ok, I will handle it.”
Handle it she did. She spoke to my father when he got home that day. I was told he denied everything. I was not physically harmed, but I knew I was no longer safe in that house. From that moment on, any time I was in the same room with him, I looked directly into his eyes. We both knew he lied. …
Standing up to men making unfair advances on me was a life lesson that repeated more than once in my life until I learned how to stand up for myself. Soon after my teenage wedding, a male friend of a friend was sitting on the top step to the new apartment we were going to rent. My new husband was at work.
“I will let you walk by me if you give me a kiss,” he said.
Rage instantly ignited me, singeing every single fiber of my being. That man stayed on that step for the entire day. I never went back until the next day when he was gone. …
The next day the male guidance counselor stopped me in the hall before I went into class.
“I know you have the grades to be on the National Honor Society and you have been on the Student Advisory Board meeting with the School Committee bringing student concerns to them, but we will not be able to put you on the National Honor Society because you are married. And you will have to step down from the Student Advisory Board,” he told me.
“But the entire school voted me in to be on the Student Advisory Board and I’ve already met with the school committee about the student body’s concerns,” I protested.
“Yes, but you have to step down now,” I heard him say. My head was beginning to hurt.
“I just stayed up until 2 a.m., after I got home from school and from my job, to make cookies for our class bake sale to prove that I can do it all,” I said. I could not believe what I was hearing.
“None of that matters anymore. We cannot put you on the National Honor Society because we have standards.” …
… The high school algebra teacher, with a hateful glare in her eyes, met me at the door to her room one day shortly after the guidance counselor’s talk with me in the hall.
“You’ll never make it,” she told me in disgust, her nose up in the air, and what seemed like lightning coming from her down-turned eyes as I entered the room. I thought she was just bitter because she was divorced.
I decided that if the school did not believe in me, that I would stop trying to do anything academically also. Until then, I always carried full curriculum college courses, taking extra courses where I could fit them in. I checked what I needed to graduate. I had more credits than I needed. Even though I was an A and B student, I decided to pass the rest of my classes with Cs and take Fs in what I didn’t need. I dropped extra courses like the new data processing course I had been enjoying learning binary code. …
My job at that time after school was in the credit department of a nearby store. I would open accounts for the shoppers who wanted to open lines of store credit and take payments for people who came to the counter to pay their accounts. I also found myself teaching the new male credit department boss about the store’s process for opening accounts and taking payments, and how the front desk of the store’s credit department ran.
I made friends with his wife and spent the year visiting her and their new baby on days when I was not in school. It was nice to have a friend who was also newly married.
One day a new store trainee came to the store. As he and I were leaving one day at the closing of the store, he put his hands on my shoulder and was laughing playfully as he was getting way too close and brushing up against me on the way out, “all in good fun” of course. Flashes of my adopted-father’s unasked for advances raged within me.
The actions of this male trainee bothered me so much all the way home that I mentioned it to my husband. The next day we met with the store manager to file a complaint. That trainee was let go to another store.
I thought I handled the matter professionally, until the Christmas Party, which was held in the credit department in the back of the store. The store manager pulled me to him, hugging me in a huge, tight bear hug I could not get out of, and laughing in front of all who were in attendance. Everyone thought this was such great fun. I was furious but did nothing due to the shock and horror I was feeling. This was my boss’s boss. …
***
How many women have been silent about the atrocities that have occurred to them?
Now is the time to heal. I advise not going into FOG, Fear, Obilgation, and Guilt.
Your past does not define you, no matter what has happened to you. Today is a new beginning. It is time for truth to be told. If you need to get out of harmful situations, here are some organizations, websites, and phone numbers that may help you:
You are born with free will and are meant to live your life in freedom. You are not on this Earth to be under anyone else’s religious, political, physical, and mental/emotional control. It is one thing if you agree to give away your personal power to any other person, club, employment, or group which you think might be good for you.
It is quite another thing to have your personal power threatened and usurped by supposedly well-meaning religious, political, or social groups purposefully hiding information and controlling you by telling you what is best for you, as if you do not know what is good for you without threats to your mind, body, and Spirit.
ESCAPE FROM THESE ABUSERS AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.
The universal hand symbol to let others know that you are in trouble from abuse or abduction is for you to make a fist with the fingers covering the thumb. People who know this symbol are urged to help this victim however humanly possible.
Pathways For Change (formerly known as Rape Crisis Center) – 800-870-5905 English – 800-223-5001 Spanish – bworthington@centralmasspfc.org – 588 Main St. Worcester, MA 01608 – AND 285 Nichols Rd, Fitchburg, MA 01420
This is what awaits you when you finally let go of crippling thoughts, words and actions that have been deceiving you of who you truly are.
Many people sink into victim consciousness after dealing with years of mental abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, and/or self-inflicted destructive habits. This can continue to occur years after the events are remembered by the mind only choosing to remember the horrors, the injustice, and the shame endured.
When these minds finally feel they have had enough of these dysfunctional repetitive loops, conscious awareness of the opportunity to walk forward in dignity, magnanimity, and personal freedom shines through the open door of love without conditions and non-judgment. Once this new concept enlightens the mind, the person can finally heal.
Some people erroneously think that to allow themselves to heal means to invalidate what they have gone through. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth is, to continue to wallow in past abusive situations is to continue the past abuse by bringing it into the present time.
Have you ever begun a sentence with the words, “Ever since … this .. or that … happened to me, … I can’t … recover … heal … or do anything positive?”
Does the mantra, “I hate people,” remain decidedly stuck in your head?
This is giving the abusers of mind, body, and spirit fuel to continue destroying your life. On one hand, you want the abuse to stop. On the other hand, you might have identified with the abuse to the degree that without it, you do not know who you are without the constant memory of the abuse/self-infliction.
If this rings true for you, realize that human beings have a tendency to become self-absorbed. This can be a good trait if one is on a path to self-discovery, learning new things, and exploring possibilities in life. But it can also be a negative trait if one only allows the revolution of the mind to focus on the hurts, the insults, or the inadequacies of life to be the rock on which to build the future.
What you think about, you bring about. It begins with the thinking process. Do you want to heal? If so, decide to stop the self-destructive habits that are equal to shooting yourself in the foot, then complaining that you cannot walk or run, and boasting of that as a badge of honor.
Remember that it takes 21 days to change a habit. Be gentle with yourself. It has taken you all your life to be in the situation you are in at this moment. You can change it any time you decide to. If life situations compel you to be where you are in the same situation at this moment, nothing is stopping you from making new plans of possibility, getting a new job, taking a new class in a new subject, making new friends, or doing all of these things with a new positive attitude. Stay at it. Do not give up.
What are you thinking about?
Life is what you make it. You can make it beautiful. How you do that is up to you.
Rule #1: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233
Rule #2: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. National Domestic Violence TTY Hotline 800-787-3224
Rule #3: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. Abuse Victim Hotline by state www.avhotline.org
Do you feel safe? Do you feel safe in all your relationships? Do feel safe in your home? Do you feel safe at your employment? Do you feel safe in your social circles, friendships, affiliations, clubs, including social media? Do you feel safe when you are alone?
Do you feel unsafe in some situations? Do you feel unsafe around certain people? Do you feel threatened or intimidated by anyone legally, physically, financially, morally, or even spiritually?
It is most important to feel safe in your own skin, safe in your own mind, and safe in your own soul.
Much has been written about promoting tolerance, getting along, defusing situations, and compromising for the greater good that can be experienced in this beautiful and amazing life.
But people who have more tender mental constitutions, and weaker willed individuals can be bullied beyond belief by strong personalities, by louder and more demonstrative characters, bowling over all attempts that might possibly arrive at a healed and more whole relationship. This even happens in political and religious circles and can suck tolerant unsuspecting individuals who get their freewill hijacked down into the sewer drain of manipulation.
School children are taught tolerance, but tolerance toward a bully must never be allowed by the victim, the teacher, the school, the employer, nor online, or the opposite lesson is learned, and the bully rewarded. While children and adults alike benefit from tolerance, no one benefits from allowing the bully to go free, emboldening them to attempt more ruthless self-serving feats. Equally unfair is punishing both the bully and the victim of bullying, as if it is all the same. This is the cowards way out and particularly rewarding to the bully.
Sometimes attempt at normalizing bullying goes too far, trying to apply tolerance and compromise to abusive and dysfunctional relationships, when running for the hills should be in order.
Be honest with yourself.
Your feelings and emotions are your accurate, internal measure of what you should do next. Emotional abuse feels bad, makes you nauseous, gives you anxiety attacks, with a generalized feeling of malaise, depression, and low energy. The intensity of your feelings and emotions is a signal that things need to change if you are going to re-gain your mental, physical, and spiritual health.
There is never any reason to tolerate physical, mental/emotional abuse, or bullying as a normal behavior. Physical, mental, emotional abuse and bullying is not a sign of a strong person. It is the sign a of very weak person who thinks he or she cannot get their way by any other means.
This seems like it is common sense, but it is not that easy to the person who is being physically abused, emotionally blackmailed, and threatened by lawsuits or any other kind of fear, obligation, guilt, and/or manipulation. The longer bullies bully their victims, the more debilitating fear cripples the victims. Domestic violence, violence in the classroom, violence in the workplace, or threats of violence online is never OK under any circumstance.
SILENCE IS AGREEMENT.
Freedom comes when you gather your courage and PEACEFULLY STAND UP. Stand up for yourself, speak out to someone you can trust. Do not remain silent. Silence is not golden. Silence is deadly, literally. Bullies do not go away. Bullies get stronger the longer they stay at it. The longer a bully stays a bully, the more brazen they get, and the more their bullying tactics escalate.
An important point to make here is to realize that people with destructive personality disorders most often look just the same as you and me. Mass murderers do not look like mass murderers. They look like regular people, for the most part. Abusive partners also dress in expensive clothing, can be financially successful, and have no tell-tale marks that make them stand out from no-abusive partners. They might even appear to have wide circles of “friends” around them, but the truth is, these are usually superficial trophies. Do not be intimated by any of this. This presentation of how bullies portray themselves is a facade. However, the vengeance the bully feels is very real, and must be dealt with, not ignored.
The question is how to stand up and deal with bullies, emotional blackmail, and threats of mental, emotional, and physical abuse. Again, go by how you feel. You need to get to a safe place on all levels: mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. If you feel unsafe addressing these problems yourself, seek immediate help from a counselor, police, fire personnel, or shelter. Do not wait. Your health and well-being depend on getting help not only for yourself, but also for the abuser.
Manipulating behaviors tend to show up ever so subtly in the earlier days of the relationship but can also manifest later in the relationship if stressors change. Pay attention. Pay attention to how you feel when certain things happen. You might even keep a journal of your feelings if you feel safe to do so.
The important thing to know is there is no tolerance for abusive behaviors. Verbal abuse can be even more detrimental to the health and well-being of children, spouses, and everyone living or working under the same roof.
Sometimes abusive behaviors manifest over time, after the relationship is well-established. The person being abused knows that even the abusing person has a good side from time to time, and at the good times, has earned their love. The person being abused wonders if they have done or said something to trigger the abuse. Most often the person receiving the abuse is told it is their fault that the abuser is abusing.
Know this is not true.
Everyone is in charge of their own feelings, emotions, and actions. There is no way you are ever in charge of the abuser’s feelings, emotions, or actions no matter what has happened.
You count.
You matter.
You are a gift from God.
You are beautiful, and I am so very glad you are here.
Many people sink into victim consciousness after dealing with years of mental abuse, physical abuse, spiritual abuse, and/or self-inflicted destructive habits. This can continue to occur years after the events are remembered by the mind only choosing to remember the horrors, the injustice, and the shame endured.
When these minds finally feel they have had enough of these dysfunctional repetitive loops, the opportunity to walk forward in dignity, magnanimity, and personal freedom shines through the open door of love without conditions and non-judgment. Once this new concept enlightens the mind, the person can finally heal.
Some people erroneously think that to allow themselves to heal means to invalidate what they have gone through. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth is, to continue to wallow in past abusive situations is to continue the past abuse by bringing it into the present time.
Have you ever begun a sentence with the words, “Ever since … this .. or that … happened to me, … I can’t … recover … heal … or do anything positive?”
Does the mantra, “I hate people,” remain decidedly stuck in your head?
This is giving the abusers of mind, body, and spirit fuel to continue destroying your life. On one hand, you want the abuse to stop. On the other hand, you might have identified with the abuse to the degree that without it, you do not know who you are without the constant memory of the abuse/self-infliction.
If this rings true for you, realize that human beings have a tendency to become self-absorbed. This can be a good trait if one is on a path to self-discovery, learning new things, and exploring possibilities in life. But it can also be a negative trait if one only allows the revolution of the mind to focus on the hurts, the insults, or the inadequacies of life to be the rock on which to build the future.
What you think about, you bring about. It begins with the thinking process. Do you want to heal? If so, decide to stop the self-destructive habits that are equal to shooting yourself in the foot, then complaining that you cannot walk or run.
Remember that it takes 21 days to change a habit. Be gentle with yourself. It has taken you all your life to be in the situation you are in at this moment. You can change it any time you decide to. If life situations compel you to be where you are in the same situation at this moment, nothing is stopping you from making new plans of possibility, getting a new job, taking a new class in a new subject, making new friends, or doing all of these things with a new positive attitude. Stay at it. Do not give up.
Life is what you make it. You can make it beautiful. How you do that is up to you.
About 30 years ago, I took a Biblical Andragogy course through the Worcester Diocese. This was a deep study into the Old Testament taught by a Jesuit priest. I wanted to throw the book at him. It seemed to me that Jesuits pulled apart everything I ever learned about the Bible in all my previous Bible Studies and whatever was left, well, that was what was left of my faith.
This concept was echoed by another well respected priest when I confided in him that the Jesuit approach was disheveling my faith. This priest went on further to say that with the multiplication of the loaves and fishes on the mountain when Jesus fed 5,000 people, that it was possible that the people had anticipated being gone for the day and took their own loaves and fish along with them. Was this humanly possible? Yes, but it was eroding my understanding of Jesus and the Bible.
Today, I can appreciate pulling apart what was spoon fed to me as a child.
Yesterday I mentioned that the first eleven verses of John 8 were a story added later for effect. There was a reason for this.
Remember in the Gospel of Philip, that he writes that Jesus loved Mary Magdalene more than the other disciples. This infuriated Peter and some of the others. Also remember that for the first 364 years after Jesus walked among us, women were allowed to be priests, preach and teach, AND hold the breaking of the bread ceremony, along with being able to baptize people.
It was not until the numerous Councils of Nicaea, Laodicea, Trent, among others, that the voice of women was suppressed in the fledgling church. It seems it began with changing the rules to hold sacred services, by not allowing women to bathe with men, nor could they all of a sudden approach the alter as they had been doing since the time of Jesus. Rules were added later by men with definite agendas.
Also do not forget that at that time, the bishops were working very closely with the patriarchal rulers of Rome. Women were not allowed in Roman leadership positions, other positions women were relegated to, but not public service in any capacity, religious or otherwise.
Suddenly women were expected to know their place, which was behind men. Jesus never sanctioned this change, nor did God, Father of Jesus Christ, nor the Holy Spirit. Rome did not rule all the known world but wanted to. Women had known times of matriarchal society.
Jesus never taught that women were above men, nor that men were above women. He taught mutual respect for every individual, even those people not of Jewish background, such as the Samaritan woman at the well.
The addition of verses 1-11 in John 8 came later, I have discovered in my Bible studies spanning 50 years, to emphasize and place women in a negative light, in the role of the constant sinner, unworthy of equality and religious public service.
Men wrote the story in Genesis, blaming women for what is called Original Sin. The actual Original Sin is the fault of the fallen angels raping women, of Genesis 6:1 fame, then blaming women for “eating the fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden.” Sound familiar?
Being raped by the is not the fault of any woman, then or now. History has been repeating itself ever since.
Equality is the key point that Jesus Christ was revolutionizing the thought of his time. It is just as poignant today.
Women, you are worthy, worthy of love, life, liberty, and equality in this world. You are not less than a man. You are not more than a man. Women, you are equal to men. This is the teaching of Jesus.
Many religions claiming to be the Religious Right, or in the right, are not following the teachings of Jesus, which they proclaim that they do. They are picking and choosing which words of Jesus and the other apostles to follow. If you research this, you will see it is the writings of Paul, who was trained as a patriarchal Pharisee, who changed the words and intention of Jesus, not Jesus himself.
Why is this important today?
The role of women is still under attack 2022 years after Jesus Christ walked among us. Jesus taught everyone to continue to teach, preach, and hold public service, public and otherwise.
Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute. She was the closest, faithful companion of Jesus. She is a shining example to all women of how to breathe, walk, and talk with dignity, respect, honor, valor, peace and love without conditions, rules, and regulations placed as restrictions to Universal Life. It is the quiet, sincere presence of Mary Magdalene, who stood valiantly at the foot of the cross, alongside of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
You are worthy. You are worthy of life, love, and abundance.
If personal safety is an issue, CALL someone. With staying home, abusive situations can escalate. No one has a right to harm you.
What are the signs we need to watch out for?
The other person always criticizing you.
The other person always telling you what to do.
Having to answer to the other person.
Having to keep to the time schedule of the other person.
Always having to ask for permission to think, say or do anything.
Having the other person always manipulating you.
We all have the God-given right to life. We all have the right to live our lives the best way we see fit. We do not need to live our lives under someone’s thumb.
We do not need to live our lives in debilitating fear, obligation and guilt of someone else injuring ourselves or themselves in some way.
There are suicide prevention hotlines. There are abuse hotlines. There are mental health providers.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255
National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 800-799-7233
Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN): 800-656-4673
You and I, unless we are specially trained with degrees in these mental health fields, are not trained to deal with these real life and death matters. Yes, we care about the people in our lives. We serve no one when we shut ourselves down along with the manipulating and/or mentally sick person. That is not helping.
What will lift us out of despair?
1. Acknowledge your feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are.
2. Decide to change your feelings from those of despair, depression, helplessness or any other dysfunctional negative feelings that are binding you into fear and immobilization. You can do this.
3. Realize that deciding not to stay stuck with despair, depression, helplessness or any other dysfunctional negative feeling does not invalidate the feelings, nor you.
4. Make a conscious choice as to what feeling you want to have, the next lighter feeling in freedom which you can think.
5. Focus only on the feeling you are planning to achieve. Notice I did not say “trying” to achieve. The words “trying” is an open door to failure. It is a way out for you to be able to say, “At least I tried.” Do not “try” to do anything. DO IT. Realize that you can be happy, right where you are, in a line waiting for food, and speaking with others in life-affirming statements on the streets, which bring about other possibilities and opportunities not yet realized.
6. Organize your thoughts, words and actions. Be the change you wish to see in the world around you. By encouraging others in positive ways, you encourage yourself. As long as you are living, breathing and moving, you have the ability to change despair into functional conversations with positive plans to help yourself and others. Make sure you use your voice to VOTE. No one can take away your human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
7. Know that you are not alone. Even if you remain wearing masks and social distancing, we can reach out by cell phones and social media, zoom, Skype and many other current ways to build each other up, support noble ideas for the common good of all people; and change ignorance into intelligence. Where there is darkness, shine your light of a smile, encouraging words to yourself and your family and friends, and be the Light on the hill for all to see by.
I only chose 7 suggestions out of a thousand I could mention. Perhaps one of these triggers another thought, which then brings you to an even better thought. Go with the next highest vibration of thought to lift you out of despair.
It all begins with a DECISION to feel better. These times are tough, but they are not the end. You are stronger than you realize. We grow in character when we face tough times.
I used to pray for patience, a lot, until I realized one day that by praying for patience, I was inviting in adversity, so I could practice my patience! That is when I DECIDED to claim and fully realize, that I had all the patience I needed. It worked! I simply needed to act on that realization in order to move forward and create abundance of all good things in my life, compared to only witnessing the adversity.
We can re-build our lives. We cannot bring back those who have lost their lives, of course, but we can take the necessary next steps forward in our healing process. Now is not forever. There is so much we can do to help ourselves, and others, in this time of uncertainty.
Choose only thoughts, words and actions based on LOVE and LIGHT. All else harms you and the whole of humanity.
The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. ~ Malala Yousafzai waving behind Hilary Clinton
Has anyone ever told you that you need to be controlled, put in your place, conform to religious standards, or told others to attempt to do these thing in order to get you in line to their way of thinking? Those are the voices of the weak and fearful, afraid of their own shadows. These are also dominant, over-bearing, and egotistical individuals who, rather than focus on their own character and personal development, seek to usurp your personal power. It’s a power game. It is as if by robbing you of your personal power, they win. If only that were true.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Those are the voices of abused and manipulated individuals, having been burdened by obligation and guilt, perhaps used as a parenting technique for order in the home. Not knowing the proper way to motivate others, what they have learned is how to step on others in an attempt to diminish them, while self-aggrandizing themselves in order to make themselves feel better.
They are also those who are afraid of the light you shine through the chaos, drama, and minutia of daily life. In their eyes, everything you do is wrong, stupid, or incorrect in some way.
Your sense of self-esteem has nothing to do with the erroneous concepts others have about themselves, nor project onto others, including you. It is a learning curve on both sides of this issue. How you respond to others trying to dominate you is key.
Decide what is important to you, what you will allow in your life, and the paradigm you want your life to model. Decide not to react to things. Simply, peacefully leave the conversation or the area. There is no need to match the dysfunction of control freaks.
Why do I mention this? It is because these control freaks have learned how to intimidate, insult, ridicule, and gossip, possibly about you within your family, extended family, neighborhood, and/or work situations. Threatening you and the others around you is their MO, also known as Modus Operandi. Sadly they have sunken to the lowest common denominator in this case, since this phrase, MO or Modus Operandi, is most often used for the working patterns of criminals.
Threatening takes the form of ultimatums such as, “Do not ever mention “So-And-So” to me ever again or I will not speak to you either. The family member who decides to go along with that energizes the bully control freak, feeling they have won. The truth is, the only thing they have done is to cripple their own character development and maturity. These are also the marks of dysfunctional school yard bullies.
Individuals will take abuse from those closest to them, when they would not tolerate the same behavior from others outside of their circle. But dysfunction is dysfunction. Is it time for you to stand up to the bully control freaks in your world.
Again, I stress that this can be done peacefully and with integrity. No one has the rights to your life, and how you live your life but you. If it is time to move on, you can keep open doors to communication if you choose, just simply move on. Your personal, mental and emotional development needs you to be healthy and happy.
They are an inspiration to all women, especially New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who vanquished the first and second wave of COVID-19 by implementing strict lockdown and quarantine procedures; and Taiwan’s President Tsai-Ing-wen who implemented a rigorous contact tracing program in January 2021; as a result, to date, the island of 23 million people has only lost seven people to the virus.
Let’s not forget influential women such as Princess Diana, Mother Theresa, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, as well as Angela Merkel, Kamala Harris, Melinda French Gates, Nancy Pelosi, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, Ellen Degeneres, Queen Elizabeth II, Stacey Cunningham, and Stacey Abrams among the countless other women who have risen to the top and who have had, and those still among the living still have, a positive influence not only in their personal lives, but also with the ability to lift people to higher visions of possibility.
Women do not exist for others to control them, put them in their place, insult and demean them. Never give your personal power away to any person or circumstance. You are greater than you know.
The wind forms all kinds of interesting textures in the sand dunes of Maspalomas in the Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain.
I happen to be a mother whose first child, a daughter, stopped speaking with her over 20 years ago. Obviously I do not have all the answers on solving this situation. But I have studied healing relationships for most of my adult life as a holistic health counselor, and have helped many others on their journeys to healthy relationships after falling into some common pitfalls. An open heart and willingness to heal is the missing ingredient in all cases.
I have found the key to healing begins with both parties, in this case mothers and daughters, wanting to heal. Here are some of the pitfalls to watch out for that will sink any relationship like quicksand if they are not addressed.
Most of us know when we are being manipulated by others using the all familiar tactics of fear, obligation and guilt (aka FOG). But at other times, we can be entangled in the web of other people’s preconceived control-freak game before we are consciously aware it is taking place. This is when others will set up or spin situations to their benefit, much to the infringement of our own free will and immediate knowledge. This is bullying. This is abuse.
1. What is the tell tale sign this is happening to us? 2. How do we make it stop? 3. How do we get control of our life back without threats by others?
If you are being bullied, tell someone. Seek counseling. If you are being abused, tell someone. Seek counseling.
Has anyone ever said to you, “You need to do this, that or the other thing, or else I won’t speak to you anymore,’ or, ‘If you speak to that person, I will never talk to you again,’ or, ‘Stop it, or else I won’t love you, speak to you, or have you in my life anymore.’?” If so, AND YOU GO ALONG WITH IT, you have been or are being manipulated.
Sadly, this is even used as a weapon in divorces. If you go along with the manipulator’s whims, you will only be able to speak with or associate with only the people manipulators say can be in your life, or any other conditions they wish to control. Sometimes the manipulation abuser uses other threats, but there is always a threat involving the relationship you and the abuser share. It’s a control-freak game.
Manipulation and guilt are forms of psychological and emotional abuse. Once it is recognized by the victim, health only returns to the person who has been bullied by manipulation tactics when the situation is addressed. It requires a one-on-one communication with the manipulator, no middle man or referee. Once anyone has stepped between the manipulator and the person being manipulated, no healing can take place until or if the manipulator and the person being manipulated address the situation personally.
Once the manipulation abuser becomes aware that they themselves were often first manipulated by this bullying technique, their mental state can only become healthy when they recognize how manipulation first restricted them, and fully acknowledge that fact. It is quite an eye opener.
At first it is a hard pill to swallow because manipulation abusers want to justify in their past actions. It hurts when the manipulator first comes to the realization that they themselves were first victims of the bullying, manipulating game by those they loved, or included in their lives through work, social and all other human interaction circles.
Families, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and other family relations, work relations, and all other human interactions have been split up by these hurtful words lasting a lifetime. Sometimes it is over a one-way situation, leaving one person in the two-step manipulation dance of avoidance totally in the dark. For non-family manipulation and bullying situations, we simply walk away. But when it comes to family, it is good to know that these situations can heal if both sides care to work on it.
Manipulating in order to get ones way is a childish act, something two-years-old children discover to be very effective. In the maturing process, sometimes we forget to be better people.
Once someone has been the victim earlier in their life in the manipulation game, they have also learned how to be manipulators themselves, continuing the control-freak downward spiral. If they are smart, and many are, and recognize that they do not want to pass on the terrible bullying and manipulation tendencies to continue the victimization cycle, they stop, seek restitution to the relationship, opening the door to forgiveness. This takes inner fortitude. It can be difficult, but it is not impossible.
The victimization cycle can be broken. People can emotionally and psychologically grow up. But it requires brutal honesty with ones self. It also requires a forgiving heart, not just for those we have victimized, but also for the manipulator her/himself. We can be the world’s worst critics of ourselves. We need to learn how to forgive ourselves so we can then forgive those we have hurt by our own thoughts, words and actions. Healing is possible.
Sometimes it is harder for those of us who were or still are victims to forgive their emotional and psychological manipulation and bullying transgressors. But this also can happen, even if the manipulation abuser and bully has deceased. It is the forgiving intention and action that heals the heart.
Most often these situations brew over time. It is less rare that they just pop up over night. It happens in families. It happens in work, social, religious, educational, financial, governments and all human interaction circles. Manipulation caused by intentional fear is at the root of the guilt and obligation we feel.
Sometimes the manipulator succeeds in twisting the truth so much that we are led to assume that we are the ones who are at fault and need to get the blame for the broken relationship. At other times innocent characters get slandered when truth twisting gets neatly spun into a web of convenient lies, as if manipulating and bullying aren’t devious enough.
This is part of the intended victimization process. But once light dawns and we see things clearly for what is actually taking place, we can take a deep breath and begin to do what we can to heal the situation when such opportunities arise. If the possibility for healing does not present itself, WE DO NOT STAY IN THE VICTIM ROLE. We do what we can and move on and live our lives peacefully with faith, hope and love. Those are the only answers.
If emotional and psychological healing is what we want for both sides, then we should first pray. Prayer cannot be underrated, and is the only thing that can work when all else fails.
Healing involves a decision. To move past unbelievable hurt in broken relationships, we need to be ready for reconciliation when it becomes possible and desired, if ever it happens, even when we think this opportunity might never present itself.
This post is addressing emotional abuse, not physical abuse, which include other guidelines and counsel.
It is never too late to mend a broken relationship while people are still alive.
Preston Ni, a professor, presenter, private coach and author of Communication Success With Four Personality Types and How To Communicate Effectively And Handle Difficult People, authored the article in Psychology Today entitled, 14 Signs Of Psychological And Emotional Manipulation. His 14 signs of psychological and emotional manipulation are listed below.
Relationships can be confusing. To help clarify what we are going through and to decide the best way to proceed to a healthier state, it is good to look at the 14 Signs Of Psychological And Emotional Manipulation. It will help to recognize manipulative signs in order to put a stop to them, either by us being the manipulator or by us being the abused victim of the manipulator.
“Psychological manipulation can be defined as the exercise of undue influence through mental distortion and emotional exploitation, with the intention to seize power, control, benefits and/or privileges at the victim’s expense.
“It is important to distinguish healthy social influence from psychological manipulation. Healthy social influence occurs between most people, and is part of the give and take of constructive relationships. In psychological manipulation, one person is used for the benefit of another. The manipulator deliberately creates an imbalance of power, and exploits the victim to serve his or her agenda,” Ni says.
Ni lists 14 tell-tail signs to watch out for:
1. A manipulative individual may insist on you meeting and interacting in a physical space where he or she can exercise more dominance and control. This can be the manipulator’s office, home, car, or other spaces where he feels ownership and familiarity (and where you lack them).
2. Many sales people do this when they prospect you. By asking you general and probing questions, they establish a baseline about your thinking and behavior, from which they can then evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. This type of questioning with hidden agenda can also occur at the workplace or in personal relationships.
3. Manipulation of facts is another sign to watch out for. Examples of this include: lying, excuse making, being two faced, blaming the victim for causing their own victimization, deformation of the truth, strategic disclosure or withholding of key information, exaggeration, understatement, and have a one-sided bias of issue.
4. Some individuals enjoy “intellectual bullying” by presuming to be the expert and most knowledgeable in certain areas. They take advantage of you by imposing alleged facts, statistics, and other data you may know little about. This can happen in sales and financial situations, in professional discussions and negotiations, as well as in social and relational arguments. By presuming expert power over you, the manipulator hopes to push through her or his agenda more convincingly. Some people use this technique for no other reason than to feel a sense of intellectual superiority.
5. Certain people use bureaucracy – paperwork, procedures, laws and by-laws, committees, and other roadblocks to maintain their position and power, while making your life more difficult. This technique can also be used to delay fact finding and truth seeking, hide flaws and weaknesses, and evade scrutiny.
6. Some individuals raise their voice during discussions as a form of aggressive manipulation. The assumption may be that if they project their voice loudly enough, or display negative emotions, you’ll submit to their coercion and give them what they want. The aggressive voice is frequently combined with strong body language such as standing or excited gestures to increase impact.
7. Some people use negative surprises to put you off balance and gain a psychological advantage. This can range from low balling in a negotiation situation, to a sudden profession that she or he will not be able to come through and deliver in some way. Typically, the unexpected negative information comes without warning, so you have little time to prepare and counter their move. The manipulator may ask for additional concessions from you in order to continue working with you.
8. This is a common sales and negotiation tactic, where the manipulator puts pressure on you to make a decision before you’re ready. By applying tension and control onto you, it is hoped that you will “crack” and give in to the aggressor’s demands.
9. Some manipulators like to make critical remarks, often disguised as humor or sarcasm, to make you seem inferior and less secure. Examples can include any variety of comments ranging from your appearance, to your older model smart phone, to your background and credentials, to the fact that you walked in two minutes late and out of breath. By making you look bad, and getting you to feel bad, the aggressor hopes to impose psychological superiority over you.
10. Distinct from the previous behavior where negative humor is used as a cover, here the manipulator outright picks on you. By constantly marginalizing, ridiculing, and dismissing you, she or he keeps you off-balance and maintains her superiority. The aggressor deliberately fosters the impression that there’s always something wrong with you, and that no matter how hard you try, you are inadequate and will never be good enough. Significantly, the manipulator focuses on the negative without providing genuine and constructive solutions, or offering meaningful ways to help.
11. By deliberately not responding to your reasonable calls, text messages, emails, or other inquiries, the manipulator presumes power by making you wait, and intends to place doubt and uncertainty in your mind. The silent treatment is a head game where silence is used as a form of leverage.
12. Pretending ignorance is the classic “playing dumb” tactic. By pretending, she or he doesn’t understand what you want, or what you want her to do. The manipulation/passive aggressive person makes you take on what is her responsibility, and gets you to break a sweat. Some children use this tactic in order to delay, stall, and manipulate adults into doing for them what they don’t want to do. Some grownups use this tactic as well when they have something to hide, or obligation they wish to avoid.
13. Guilt baiting and unreasonable blaming is used, targeting the recipient’s soft spot, holding another responsible for the manipulator’s happiness and success, or unhappiness and failure.
14. Examples of victimhood include exaggerated or imagined personal issues, exaggerated or imagined health issues, dependency, co-dependency, deliberate frailty to elicit sympathy and favor, playing weak, powerless or pretending to be a martyr. The purpose of manipulative victimhood is often to exploit the recipient’s good will, guilty conscience, sense of duty, obligation, or protective and nurturing instinct, in order to extract unreasonable benefits and concessions.
Yes, we have a right to our feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are. But it is also true that whatever we focus on grows. So, if we focus on how hurt we are and how justified we are at being hurt, poor us, then no healing is possible when we cling to the division that separates us. This is a decision we consciously make.
It is just as possible to reach out and consciously make the decision to heal broken relationships, no matter what has happened. Forgiveness is humanly possible, no matter what our insane, puffed-up ego says. The ego wants to be right, but our mental and psychological health needs the healing of the relationship(s) in order to be whole.
We can mature beyond past hurts. This is part of human character development. To remain in unforgiveness, one way or the other, is to remain in a child-like state mentally and psychologically. No one says we have to mature, but what a sad state of affairs it is for adults to remain as children.
We may all see ourselves in one role or another as we look back on our lives. Growth in character and psychological and emotional development is always possible. We can always choose to be better people.
Let us take this opportunity of the Christmas Season, one of new hope, new love, new forgiveness of our shortcomings, to reach out to one another, and heal what is broken.
Most of us know when we are being manipulated by others using the all familiar tactics of fear, obligation and guilt (aka FOG). But at other times, we can be entangled in the web of other people’s preconceived control-freak game before we are consciously aware it is taking place. This is when others will set up or spin situations to their benefit, much to the infringement of our own free will and immediate knowledge. This is bullying. This is abuse.
1. What is the tell tale sign this is happening to us?
2. How do we make it stop?
3. How do we get control of our life back without threats by others?
If you are being bullied, tell someone. Seek counseling.
If you are being abused, tell someone. Seek counseling.
Has anyone ever said to you, “You need to do this, that or the other thing, or else I won’t speak to you anymore,’ or, ‘If you speak to that person, I will never talk to you again,’ or, ‘Stop it, or else I won’t love you, speak to you, or have you in my life anymore.’?” If so, AND YOU GO ALONG WITH IT, you have been or are being manipulated.
Sadly, this is even used as a weapon in divorces. If you go along with the manipulator’s whims, you will only be able to speak with or associate with only the people manipulators say can be in your life, or any other conditions they wish to control. Sometimes the manipulation abuser uses other threats, but there is always a threat involving the relationship you and the abuser share. It’s a control-freak game.
Manipulation and guilt are forms of psychological and emotional abuse. Once it is recognized by the victim, health only returns to the person who has been bullied by manipulation tactics when the situation is addressed. It requires a one-on-one communication with the manipulator, no middle man or referee. Once anyone has stepped between the manipulator and the person being manipulated, no healing can take place until or if the manipulator and the person being manipulated address the situation personally.
Once the manipulation abuser becomes aware that they themselves were often first manipulated by this bullying technique, their mental state can only become healthy when they recognize how manipulation first restricted them, and fully acknowledge that fact. It is quite an eye opener.
At first it is a hard pill to swallow because manipulation abusers want to justify in their past actions. It hurts when the manipulator first comes to the realization that they themselves were first victims of the bullying, manipulating game by those they loved, or included in their lives through work, social and all other human interaction circles.
Families, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and other family relations, work relations, and all other human interactions have been split up by these hurtful words lasting a lifetime. Sometimes it is over a one-way situation, leaving one person in the two-step manipulation dance of avoidance totally in the dark. For non-family manipulation and bullying situations, we simply walk away. But when it comes to family, it is good to know that these situations can heal if both sides care to work on it.
Manipulating in order to get ones way is a childish act, something two-years-old children discover to be very effective. In the maturing process, sometimes we forget to be better people.
Once someone has been the victim earlier in their life in the manipulation game, they have also learned how to be manipulators themselves, continuing the control-freak downward spiral. If they are smart, and many are, and recognize that they do not want to pass on the terrible bullying and manipulation tendencies to continue the victimization cycle, they stop, seek restitution to the relationship, opening the door to forgiveness. This takes inner fortitude. It can be difficult, but it is not impossible.
The victimization cycle can be broken. People can emotionally and psychologically grow up. But it requires brutal honesty with ones self. It also requires a forgiving heart, not just for those we have victimized, but also for the manipulator her/himself. We can be the world’s worst critics of ourselves. We need to learn how to forgive ourselves so we can then forgive those we have hurt by our own thoughts, words and actions. Healing is possible.
Sometimes it is harder for those of us who were or still are victims to forgive their emotional and psychological manipulation and bullying transgressors. But this also can happen, even if the manipulation abuser and bully has deceased. It is the forgiving intention and action that heals the heart.
Most often these situations brew over time. It is less rare that they just pop up over night. It happens in families. It happens in work, social, religious, educational, financial, governments and all human interaction circles. Manipulation caused by intentional fear is at the root of the guilt and obligation we feel.
Sometimes the manipulator succeeds in twisting the truth so much that we are led to assume that we are the ones who are at fault and need to get the blame for the broken relationship. At other times innocent characters get slandered when truth twisting gets neatly spun into a web of convenient lies, as if manipulating and bullying aren’t devious enough.
This is part of the intended victimization process. But once light dawns and we see things clearly for what is actually taking place, we can take a deep breath and begin to do what we can to heal the situation when such opportunities arise. If the possibility for healing does not present itself, WE DO NOT STAY IN THE VICTIM ROLE. We do what we can and move on and live our lives peacefully with faith, hope and love. Those are the only answers.
If emotional and psychological healing is what we want for both sides, then we should first pray. Prayer cannot be underrated, and is the only thing that can work when all else fails.
Healing involves a decision. To move past unbelievable hurt in broken relationships, we need to be ready for reconciliation when it becomes possible and desired, if ever it happens, even when we think this opportunity might never present itself.
This post is addressing emotional abuse, not physical abuse, which include other guidelines and counsel.
It is never too late to mend a broken relationship while people are still alive.
Preston Ni, a professor, presenter, private coach and author of Communication Success With Four Personality Types and How To Communicate Effectively And Handle Difficult People, authored the article in Psychology Today entitled, 14 Signs Of Psychological And Emotional Manipulation. His 14 signs of psychological and emotional manipulation are listed below.
Relationships can be confusing. To help clarify what we are going through and to decide the best way to proceed to a healthier state, it is good to look at the 14 Signs Of Psychological And Emotional Manipulation. It will help to recognize manipulative signs in order to put a stop to them, either by us being the manipulator or by us being the abused victim of the manipulator.
“Psychological manipulation can be defined as the exercise of undue influence through mental distortion and emotional exploitation, with the intention to seize power, control, benefits and/or privileges at the victim’s expense.
“It is important to distinguish healthy social influence from psychological manipulation. Healthy social influence occurs between most people, and is part of the give and take of constructive relationships. In psychological manipulation, one person is used for the benefit of another. The manipulator deliberately creates an imbalance of power, and exploits the victim to serve his or her agenda,” Ni says.
Ni lists 14 tell-tail signs to watch out for:
1. A manipulative individual may insist on you meeting and interacting in a physical space where he or she can exercise more dominance and control. This can be the manipulator’s office, home, car, or other spaces where he feels ownership and familiarity (and where you lack them).
2. Many sales people do this when they prospect you. By asking you general and probing questions, they establish a baseline about your thinking and behavior, from which they can then evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. This type of questioning with hidden agenda can also occur at the workplace or in personal relationships.
3. Manipulation of facts is another sign to watch out for. Examples of this include: lying, excuse making, being two faced, blaming the victim for causing their own victimization, deformation of the truth, strategic disclosure or withholding of key information, exaggeration, understatement, and have a one-sided bias of issue.
4. Some individuals enjoy “intellectual bullying” by presuming to be the expert and most knowledgeable in certain areas. They take advantage of you by imposing alleged facts, statistics, and other data you may know little about. This can happen in sales and financial situations, in professional discussions and negotiations, as well as in social and relational arguments. By presuming expert power over you, the manipulator hopes to push through her or his agenda more convincingly. Some people use this technique for no other reason than to feel a sense of intellectual superiority.
5. Certain people use bureaucracy – paperwork, procedures, laws and by-laws, committees, and other roadblocks to maintain their position and power, while making your life more difficult. This technique can also be used to delay fact finding and truth seeking, hide flaws and weaknesses, and evade scrutiny.
6. Some individuals raise their voice during discussions as a form of aggressive manipulation. The assumption may be that if they project their voice loudly enough, or display negative emotions, you’ll submit to their coercion and give them what they want. The aggressive voice is frequently combined with strong body language such as standing or excited gestures to increase impact.
7. Some people use negative surprises to put you off balance and gain a psychological advantage. This can range from low balling in a negotiation situation, to a sudden profession that she or he will not be able to come through and deliver in some way. Typically, the unexpected negative information comes without warning, so you have little time to prepare and counter their move. The manipulator may ask for additional concessions from you in order to continue working with you.
8. This is a common sales and negotiation tactic, where the manipulator puts pressure on you to make a decision before you’re ready. By applying tension and control onto you, it is hoped that you will “crack” and give in to the aggressor’s demands.
9. Some manipulators like to make critical remarks, often disguised as humor or sarcasm, to make you seem inferior and less secure. Examples can include any variety of comments ranging from your appearance, to your older model smart phone, to your background and credentials, to the fact that you walked in two minutes late and out of breath. By making you look bad, and getting you to feel bad, the aggressor hopes to impose psychological superiority over you.
10. Distinct from the previous behavior where negative humor is used as a cover, here the manipulator outright picks on you. By constantly marginalizing, ridiculing, and dismissing you, she or he keeps you off-balance and maintains her superiority. The aggressor deliberately fosters the impression that there’s always something wrong with you, and that no matter how hard you try, you are inadequate and will never be good enough. Significantly, the manipulator focuses on the negative without providing genuine and constructive solutions, or offering meaningful ways to help.
11. By deliberately not responding to your reasonable calls, text messages, emails, or other inquiries, the manipulator presumes power by making you wait, and intends to place doubt and uncertainty in your mind. The silent treatment is a head game where silence is used as a form of leverage.
12. Pretending ignorance is the classic “playing dumb” tactic. By pretending, she or he doesn’t understand what you want, or what you want her to do. The manipulation/passive aggressive person makes you take on what is her responsibility, and gets you to break a sweat. Some children use this tactic in order to delay, stall, and manipulate adults into doing for them what they don’t want to do. Some grownups use this tactic as well when they have something to hide, or obligation they wish to avoid.
13. Guilt baiting and unreasonable blaming is used, targeting the recipient’s soft spot, holding another responsible for the manipulator’s happiness and success, or unhappiness and failure.
14. Examples of victimhood include exaggerated or imagined personal issues, exaggerated or imagined health issues, dependency, co-dependency, deliberate frailty to elicit sympathy and favor, playing weak, powerless or pretending to be a martyr. The purpose of manipulative victimhood is often to exploit the recipient’s good will, guilty conscience, sense of duty, obligation, or protective and nurturing instinct, in order to extract unreasonable benefits and concessions.
Yes, we have a right to our feelings. Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are. But it is also true that whatever we focus on grows. So, if we focus on how hurt we are and how justified we are at being hurt, poor us, then no healing is possible when we cling to the division that separates us. This is a decision we consciously make.
It is just as possible to reach out and consciously make the decision to heal broken relationships, no matter what has happened. Forgiveness is humanly possible, no matter what our insane, puffed-up ego says. The ego wants to be right, but our mental and psychological health needs the healing of the relationship(s) in order to be whole.
We can mature beyond past hurts. This is part of human character development. To remain in unforgiveness, one way or the other, is to remain in a child-like state mentally and psychologically. No one says we have to mature, but what a sad state of affairs it is for adults to remain as children.
We may all see ourselves in one role or another as we look back on our lives. Growth in character and psychological and emotional development is always possible. We can always choose to be better people.
Let us take this opportunity of the Christmas Season, one of new hope, new love, new forgiveness of our shortcomings, to reach out to one another, and heal what is broken.
Most of us know when we are being manipulated by others using the all familiar tactics of fear, obligation and guilt. But at other times, we can be entangled in the web of other people’s preconceived control-freak game before we are consciously aware it is taking place. This is when others will set up or spin situations to their benefit, much to the infringement of our own free will and immediate knowledge. This is bullying. This is abuse.
1. What is the tell tale sign this is happening to us?
2. How do we make it stop?
3. How do we get control of our life back without threats by others?
If you are being bullied, tell someone. Seek counseling.
If you are being abused, tell someone. Seek counseling.
Has anyone ever said to you, “You need to do this, that or the other thing, or else I won’t speak to you anymore,’ or, ‘If you speak to that person, I will never talk to you again,’ or, ‘Stop it, or else I won’t love you, speak to you, or have you in my life anymore.’?” If so, AND YOU GO ALONG WITH IT, you have been or are being manipulated.
Sadly, this is even used as a weapon in divorces. If you go along with the manipulator’s whims, you will only be able to speak with or associate with only the people manipulators say can be in your life, or any other conditions they wish to control. Sometimes the manipulation abuser uses other threats, but there is always a threat involving the relationship you and the abuser share. It’s a control-freak game.
Manipulation and guilt are forms of psychological and emotional abuse. Once it is recognized by the victim, health only returns to the person who has been bullied by manipulation tactics when the situation is addressed. It requires a one-on-one communication with the manipulator, no middle man or referee. Once anyone has stepped between the manipulator and the person being manipulated, no healing can take place until or if the manipulator and the person being manipulated address the situation personally.
Once the manipulation abuser becomes aware that they themselves were often first manipulated by this bullying technique, their mental state can only become healthy when they recognize how manipulation first restricted them, and fully acknowledge that fact. It is quite an eye opener.
At first it is a hard pill to swallow because manipulation abusers want to justify in their past actions. It hurts when the manipulator first comes to the realization that they themselves were first victims of the bullying, manipulating game by those they loved, or included in their lives through work, social and all other human interaction circles.
Families, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and other family relations, work relations, and all other human interactions have been split up by these hurtful words lasting a lifetime. Sometimes it is over a one-way situation, leaving one person in the two-step manipulation dance of avoidance totally in the dark. For non-family manipulation and bullying situations, we simply walk away. But when it comes to family, it is good to know that these situations can heal if both sides care to work on it.
Manipulating in order to get ones way is a childish act, something two-years-old children discover to be very effective. In the maturing process, sometimes we forget to be better people.
Once someone has been the victim earlier in their life in the manipulation game, they have also learned how to be manipulators themselves, continuing the control-freak downward spiral. If they are smart, and many are, and recognize that they do not want to pass on the terrible bullying and manipulation tendencies to continue the victimization cycle, they stop, seek restitution to the relationship, opening the door to forgiveness. This takes inner fortitude. It is difficult, but not impossible.
The victimization cycle can be broken. People can emotionally and psychologically grow up. But it requires brutal honesty with ones self. It also requires a forgiving heart, not just for those we have victimized, but also for the manipulator her/himself. We can be the world’s worst critics of ourselves. We need to learn how to forgive ourselves so we can then forgive those we have hurt by our own thoughts, words and actions. Healing is possible.
Sometimes it is harder for those of us who were or still are victims to forgive their emotional and psychological manipulation and bullying transgressors. But this also can happen, even if the manipulation abuser and bully has deceased. It is the forgiving intention and action that heals the heart.
Most often these situations brew over time. It is less rare that they just pop up over night. It happens in families. It happens in work, social, religious, educational, financial, governments and all human interaction circles. Manipulation caused by intentional fear is at the root of the guilt and obligation we feel.
Sometimes the manipulator succeeds in twisting the truth so much that we are led to assume that we are the ones who are at fault and need to get the blame for the broken relationship. At other times innocent characters get slandered when truth twisting gets neatly spun into a web of convenient lies, as if manipulating and bullying aren’t devious enough.
This is part of the intended victimization process. But once light dawns and we see things clearly for what is actually taking place, we can take a deep breath and begin to do what we can to heal the situation when such opportunities arise. If the possibility for healing does not present itself, WE DO NOT STAY IN THE VICTIM ROLE. We do what we can and move on and live our lives peacefully with faith, hope and love. Those are the only answers.
If emotional and psychological healing is what we want for both sides, then we should first pray. Prayer cannot be underrated, and may be the only thing that can work when all else fails.
Healing involves a decision. To move past unbelievable hurt in broken relationships, we need to be ready for reconciliation when it becomes possible and desired, if ever it happens, even when we think this opportunity might never present itself.
This post is addressing emotional abuse, not physical abuse, which include other guidelines and counsel.
It is never too late to mend a broken relationship while people are still alive.
Preston Ni, a professor, presenter, private coach and author of Communication Success With Four Personality Types and How To Communicate Effectively And Handle Difficult People, authored the article in Psychology Today entitled, 14 Signs Of Psychological And Emotional Manipulation. His 14 signs of psychological and emotional manipulation are listed below.
Relationships can be confusing. To help clarify what we are going through and to decide the best way to proceed to a healthier state, it is good to look at the 14 Signs Of Psychological And Emotional Manipulation. It will help to recognize manipulative signs in order to put a stop to them, either by us being the manipulator or by us being the abused victim of the manipulator.
“Psychological manipulation can be defined as the exercise of undue influence through mental distortion and emotional exploitation, with the intention to seize power, control, benefits and/or privileges at the victim’s expense.
“It is important to distinguish healthy social influence from psychological manipulation. Healthy social influence occurs between most people, and is part of the give and take of constructive relationships. In psychological manipulation, one person is used for the benefit of another. The manipulator deliberately creates an imbalance of power, and exploits the victim to serve his or her agenda,” Ni says.
Ni lists 14 tell-tail signs to watch out for:
1. A manipulative individual may insist on you meeting and interacting in a physical space where he or she can exercise more dominance and control. This can be the manipulator’s office, home, car, or other spaces where he feels ownership and familiarity (and where you lack them).
2. Many sales people do this when they prospect you. By asking you general and probing questions, they establish a baseline about your thinking and behavior, from which they can then evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. This type of questioning with hidden agenda can also occur at the workplace or in personal relationships.
3. Manipulation of facts is another sign to watch out for. Examples of this include: lying, excuse making, being two faced, blaming the victim for causing their own victimization, deformation of the truth, strategic disclosure or withholding of key information, exaggeration, understatement, and have a one-sided bias of issue.
4. Some individuals enjoy “intellectual bullying” by presuming to be the expert and most knowledgeable in certain areas. They take advantage of you by imposing alleged facts, statistics, and other data you may know little about. This can happen in sales and financial situations, in professional discussions and negotiations, as well as in social and relational arguments. By presuming expert power over you, the manipulator hopes to push through her or his agenda more convincingly. Some people use this technique for no other reason than to feel a sense of intellectual superiority.
5. Certain people use bureaucracy – paperwork, procedures, laws and by-laws, committees, and other roadblocks to maintain their position and power, while making your life more difficult. This technique can also be used to delay fact finding and truth seeking, hide flaws and weaknesses, and evade scrutiny.
6. Some individuals raise their voice during discussions as a form of aggressive manipulation. The assumption may be that if they project their voice loudly enough, or display negative emotions, you’ll submit to their coercion and give them what they want. The aggressive voice is frequently combined with strong body language such as standing or excited gestures to increase impact.
7. Some people use negative surprises to put you off balance and gain a psychological advantage. This can range from low balling in a negotiation situation, to a sudden profession that she or he will not be able to come through and deliver in some way. Typically, the unexpected negative information comes without warning, so you have little time to prepare and counter their move. The manipulator may ask for additional concessions from you in order to continue working with you.
8. This is a common sales and negotiation tactic, where the manipulator puts pressure on you to make a decision before you’re ready. By applying tension and control onto you, it is hoped that you will “crack” and give in to the aggressor’s demands.
9. Some manipulators like to make critical remarks, often disguised as humor or sarcasm, to make you seem inferior and less secure. Examples can include any variety of comments ranging from your appearance, to your older model smart phone, to your background and credentials, to the fact that you walked in two minutes late and out of breath. By making you look bad, and getting you to feel bad, the aggressor hopes to impose psychological superiority over you.
10. Distinct from the previous behavior where negative humor is used as a cover, here the manipulator outright picks on you. By constantly marginalizing, ridiculing, and dismissing you, she or he keeps you off-balance and maintains her superiority. The aggressor deliberately fosters the impression that there’s always something wrong with you, and that no matter how hard you try, you are inadequate and will never be good enough. Significantly, the manipulator focuses on the negative without providing genuine and constructive solutions, or offering meaningful ways to help.
11. By deliberately not responding to your reasonable calls, text messages, emails, or other inquiries, the manipulator presumes power by making you wait, and intends to place doubt and uncertainty in your mind. The silent treatment is a head game where silence is used as a form of leverage.
12. Pretending ignorance is the classic “playing dumb” tactic. By pretending, she or he doesn’t understand what you want, or what you want her to do. The manipulation/passive aggressive person makes you take on what is her responsibility, and gets you to break a sweat. Some children use this tactic in order to delay, stall, and manipulate adults into doing for them what they don’t want to do. Some grownups use this tactic as well when they have something to hide, or obligation they wish to avoid.
13. Guilt baiting and unreasonable blaming is used, targeting the recipient’s soft spot, holding another responsible for the manipulator’s happiness and success, or unhappiness and failure.
14. Examples of victimhood include exaggerated or imagined personal issues, exaggerated or imagined health issues, dependency, co-dependency, deliberate frailty to elicit sympathy and favor, playing weak, powerless or pretending to be a martyr. The purpose of manipulative victimhood is often to exploit the recipient’s good will, guilty conscience, sense of duty, obligation, or protective and nurturing instinct, in order to extract unreasonable benefits and concessions.
We may all see ourselves in one role or another as we look back on our lives. Growth in character and psychological and emotional development is always possible. We can always choose to be better people.
We are told to be more understanding, have empathy for what other people are going through and help each other in this world. When does our care and concern for others overwhelm our need to take care of ourselves? How many of us feed off the responses others give us? What are the signs to watch out for in order that we do not allow ourselves to become victims of psychological, mental or physical abuse?
The Maren Sanchez Home Foundation has been established by Donna Cimmarelli, Maren’s mother. Maren was murdered on the day of her prom. A high school boy asked her to go to the prom. When she declined, he murdered her. Maren was not so different from so many of us, who try to do the right thing, and help others. Were their signs to watch out for that might have saved her life?
Hindsight is such a wonderful thing, which unfortunately does not turn into foresight when we could use it most. Relationships are not always easy. There are always differences of opinions in ways of thinking, speaking and acting. What could help us to recognize that something is off in our relationships?
Our intuition, that inner voice that alerts us to trouble is often the first sign that something is wrong. Any time that someone else infringes on our own selves, our self-esteem, manipulates our time, thoughts or actions through fear,obligation and guilt (aka FOG), ought to be the first red flag alerting us to an imbalance in the relationship.
No one else owns the right to our feelings, our thoughts, our words, nor our actions. This is something we learn all through life. It is not just something children and young adults learn. Adults sometimes take all their lives to figure out that they are not only in a dysfunctional relationship, but that in fact they are in a psychologically and emotionally abusive relationship.
If left unguarded and unattended, these relationships often turn into physical abuse.
In personal relationships, each person is of equal value. Relationships based on neediness are built on sand, not meant to withstand the sands of time. Yes, there are times when we need each other, with a give and take flow. But if one person is always the giver and the other the taker, there is no balance in the relationship. Resentment and a crippling sense of self begins to set in.
This is not the other guy’s fault. That is a faulty concept in which we are giving our own personal power away. It is also our own fault when we allow the other person to usurp our own personal power. Our personal power, like our very own free will, is God-given. Our personal power, our thoughts, our words nor our actions belong to the other person. We can also ask for God to help, of course.
We need to pay attention to our feelings. They are the best indication of whether or not we are on the right track in our relationship growth. Feelings are not right or wrong; they just are what they are. Our feelings indicate whether or not we need to change our situation in some positive, life-affirming way.
What are the signs we need to watch out for?
The other person always criticizing you.
The other person always telling you what to do.
Having to answer to the other person.
Having to keep to the time schedule of the other person.
Always having to ask for permission to think, say or do anything.
Having the other person always manipulating you.
We all have the God-given right to life. We all have the right to live our lives the best way we see fit. We do not need to live our lives under someone’s thumb.
We do not need to live our lives in debilitating fear, obligation and guilt of someone else injuring themselves in some way.
There are suicide prevention hotlines. There are abuse hotlines. There are mental health providers.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 800-273-8255
National Domestic Abuse Hotline: 800-799-7233
Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN): 800-656-4673
You and I, unless we are specially trained with degrees in these mental health fields, are not trained to deal with these real life and death matters. Yes, we care about the people in our lives. We serve no one when we shut ourselves down along with the manipulating and/or mentally sick person. That is not helping.
In Donna’s case, this mother who has been through something no mother should ever have to go through, has come up with a positive solution to a tragic, life-altering event in her life. She now runs The Maren Sanchez Home Foundation, public speaking at schools, clubs, civic groups, on how to recognize the warning signs that could save lives. Donna is an amazing person with a goal to empower young girls and women to find and speak their voice in a world that often wants to shut them down.
Pathways For Change (formerly known as Rape Crisis Center) – 800-870-5905 English – 800-223-5001 Spanish – bworthington@centralmasspfc.org – 588 Main St. Worcester, MA 01608 – AND 285 Nichols Rd, Fitchburg, MA 01420
Beware of modern day cults, especially those that tell you they are not a cult.
I am writing this for the many people in these modern times, who for some reason were looking for that something more in life, and got caught up in a devil’s web of dark human inspiration, a cult, and who desperately wish to get out.
If physical abuse and/or sexual assault become part of the cult, victims are encouraged to contact the hotline phone numbers and/or online services as soon as possible to get help.
People are also encouraged to never hand over their personal power over to any person or group which may at first seem benign. There is never any reason to hand over your God-given free will and/or decision making to any person or group. Your free will belongs to you. Prayer and meditation are your direct lines of communication with God. You do not need any other guru or human being to interpret God for you.
People’s Magazine sponsored a television show about a particular cult called, Word of Faith Fellowship, (under the disguise of religion) which oddly enough is attracting modern day men, women and children into its criminally abusive practices. This cult is one of many popping up these days.
Reclaim your mental, physical and spiritual self as soon as possible. Fear of being abused in any or all of these forms is not the path to the loving God. Fear of being abused is a faulty human manipulation tactic used as social-structural, social-psychological, inter-behavior patterns to get you to submit your will to the misguided will of the cult group. Fear is the ultimate weapon cults use; fear of God, fear of the minister, fear of human rules posed to be from God, fear of being ostracized , fear of being relentlessly “paddled” (hit, beaten) with a large wooden paddle, fear of retaliation, fear of eternal damnation, fear, fear, fear … of everything.
Stop.
God never intended for you to become a slave to someone else’s idea of how to know and/or follow God. Cult ministers are not more worthy of being human than you. They do not know more than you about loving and following God, despite what their forceful words and overbearing stature erroneously imply. One day in the presence of cult ministers, leaders or any other title they use to inflate their own self-worth, is enough to shine a light on the soon to erupt volcano of emotional, physical and spiritual harm they eventually unleash.
Listen to that inner voice inside yourself, your conscience, and realize you are right to escape the cult. Cults are evil personified, no matter what they say to the opposite. Cults are heavy into fear-obligation-guilt manipulation/motivation (known as FOG), but that does not make them right. You already know this.
What cult ministers do know is how to exert concerted effort to influence, bully, control, manipulate, exploit, and in the worst cases to abuse your body, mind and spirit in their unholy aim. This is abuse. This is mental abuse. This is physical abuse. This is spiritual abuse.
Escape from these abusers as soon as humanly possible.
Abuse in all these forms is criminal and must not be tolerated by any human being on earth.
Hitting a man, woman or child with an 18 inch long wooden paddle for four straight hours while getting screamed at as if one has the devil himself inside the victim is not sanctioned by God, no matter what reasons cult ministers give to support their aggressive, self-serving goals.
In some cases, other “parishioners” push, hit and scream at the offending party for hours on end. No one has a right to put their hands on you or scream at you for hours. This is torture and criminal.
All cuts have similar characteristics. Here is a list of some of the characteristics that help to define a cult:
“• The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
• Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
• Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, or debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
• The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (e.g., members must get permission to date, change jobs, or marry or leaders prescribe what to wear, where to live, whether to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
• The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and its members (e.g., the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity). *My note: Some cults use fear tactics teach that their particular “religion” or “Christianity” is the only one whose parishioners will be “saved, be taken to heaven, or live forever on earth.”
• The group has a polarized, us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
• The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders, or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
• The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (e.g., lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
• The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and control members. Often this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
• Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money.
• Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
• Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.” Taken from the online article Characteristics of Cults,” by Janna Lalich and Michael Pantone.
“The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave — or even consider leaving — the group,” say Janja Lalich and Michael Langone in their online article Characteristics of Cults.
Excerpts are from the book, Take Back Your Life: Recovering From Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias at Bay Tree Publishing.
Antidote: Never hand over your God-given personal power or relinquish your God-given free will to any person, place or thing at any time for any reason, ever.
Beware of modern day cults, especially those that tell you they are not a cult.
I am writing this for the many people in these modern times, who for some reason were looking for that something more in life, and got caught up in a devil’s web of dark human inspiration, a cult, and who desperately wish to get out.
People’s Magazine sponsored a television show last night on the cult, Word of Faith Fellowship, (under the disguise of religion) which oddly enough is attracting modern day men, women and children into its criminally abusive practices. This cult is one of many popping up these days.
Reclaim your mental, physical and spiritual self as soon as possible. Fear of being abused in any or all of these forms is not the path to the loving God. Fear of being abused is a faulty human manipulation tactic used as social-structural, social-psychological, inter-behavior patterns to get you to submit your will to the misguided will of the cult group. Fear is the ultimate weapon cults use.
God never intended for you to become a slave to someone else’s idea of how to know and/or follow God. Cult ministers are not more worthy of being human than you. They do not know more than you about loving and following God, despite what their forceful words erroneously imply. One day in the presence of cult ministers, leaders or any other title they use to inflate their own self-worth, is enough to shine a light on the soon to erupt volcano of emotional, physical and spiritual harm they eventually unleash.
Listen to that inner voice inside yourself, your conscience, and realize you are right to escape the cult. Cults are evil personified, no matter what they say to the opposite. Cults are heavy into guilt motivation, but that does not make them right. You already know this.
What cult ministers do know is how to exert concerted effort to influence, bully, control, manipulate, exploit, and in the worst cases to abuse your body, mind and spirit in their unholy aim. This is abuse. This is mental abuse. This is physical abuse. This is spiritual abuse.
Escape from these abusers as soon as humanly possible.
Abuse in all these forms is criminal and must not be tolerated by any human being on earth.
Hitting a man, woman or child with an 18 inch long wooden paddle for four straight hours while getting screamed at as if one has the devil himself inside the victim is not sanctioned by God, no matter what reasons cult ministers give to support their aggressive, self-serving goals.
In some cases, other “parishioners” push, hit and scream at the offending party for hours on end. No one has a right to put their hands on you or scream at you for hours. This is torture and criminal.
All cuts have similar characteristics. Here is a list of some of the characteristics that help to define a cult:
“• The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
• Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
• Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, or debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
• The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (e.g., members must get permission to date, change jobs, or marry or leaders prescribe what to wear, where to live, whether to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
• The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and its members (e.g., the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
• The group has a polarized, us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
• The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders, or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
• The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (e.g., lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
• The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and control members. Often this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.
• Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money.
• Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.
• Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.” Taken from the online article Characteristics of Cults,” by Janna Lalich and Michael Pantone.
“The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave — or even consider leaving — the group,” say Janja Lalich and Michael Langone in their online article Characteristics of Cults.
Excerpts are from the book, Take Back Your Life: Recovering From Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeline Tobias at Bay Tree Publishing.
Rule #1: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233
Rule #2: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. National Domestic Violence TTY Hotline 800-787-3224
Rule #3: MAKE SURE YOU ARE SAFE. Abuse Victim Hotline by state www.avhotline.org
Do you feel safe? Do you feel safe in all your relationships? Do feel safe in your home? Do you feel safe at your employment? Do you feel safe in your social circles, friendships, affiliations, clubs, including social media? Do you feel safe when you are alone?
Do you feel unsafe in some situations? Do you feel unsafe around certain people? Do you feel threatened or intimidated by anyone legally, physically, financially, morally, or even spiritually?
It is most important to feel safe in your own skin, safe in your own mind, and safe in your own soul.
Much has been written about promoting tolerance, getting along, defusing situations, and compromising for the greater good that can be experienced in this beautiful and amazing life. But those of us who have more tender mental constitutions, and weaker willed individuals can be bullied beyond belief by strong personalities, louder and more demonstrative characters, bowling over any and all attempts that might possibly arrive at a healed and more whole relationship.
These are lessons school children learn, how to get along. But sometimes we carry this attempt at normal too far, but trying to apply tolerance and compromise to abusive and dysfunctional relationships, when we really should be running for the hills.
Your feelings and emotions are your accurate, internal measure of what you should do next. Emotional abuse feels bad, makes you nauseous, gives you anxiety attacks, with a generalized feeling of malaise, depression and low energy. The intensity of your feelings and emotions is a signal that things need to change if you are going to re-gain your mental, physical and spiritual health.
There is never any reason to tolerate physical, mental/emotional abuse, or bullying as a normal behavior. This seems like it is common sense, but it is not that easy to the person who is being physically abused, emotionally blackmailed, and threatened by law suits or any other kind of manipulation. The longer bullies bully their victim, the more debilitating fear cripples the victim. Domestic violence is never OK under any circumstance.
Freedom comes when you gather your courage, and STAND UP. Stand up for yourself, speak out to someone you can trust. Do not remain silent. Silence is not golden. Silence is deadly, literally. Bullies do not go away. Bullies get stronger the longer they stay at it. The longer a bully stays a bully, the more brazen they get, and the more their bullying tactics escalate.
An important point to make here is to realize that people with destructive personality disorders most often look just the same as you and me. Mass murderers do not look like mass murdereers. They look like regular people, for the most part. Abusive partners also dress in expensive clothing, can be financially successful, and have no tell-tale marks that make them stand out from no-abusive partners. They might even appear to have wide circles of “friends” around them, but the truth is, these are usually superficial trophies. Do not be intimated by any of this. This presentation of how bullies portray themselves is a facade. However, the vengeance the bully feels is very real, and must be dealt with, not ignored.
The question is how to stand up and deal with bullies, emotional blackmail, and threats of mental, emotional and physical abuse. Again, go by how you feel. You need to get to a safe place on all levels: mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually. If you feel unsafe addressing these problems yourself, seek immediate help from a counselor, police, fire or shelter. Do not wait. Your health and well-being depend on getting help not only for yourself, but also for the abuser.
Manipulating behaviors tend to show up ever so subtly in the earlier days of the relationship, but can also manifest later in the relationship if stressors change. Pay attention. Pay attention to how you feel when certain things happen. You might even keep a journal of your feelings, if you feel safe to do so.
The important thing to know is there is no tolerance for abusive behaviors. Verbal abuse can be even more detrimental to the health and well-being of children, spouses, and everyone living or working under the same roof.
Sometimes abusive behaviors manifest over time, after the relationship is well-established. The person being abused knows that even the abusing person has a good side from time to time, and at the good times, has earned their love. The person being abused wonders if they have done or said something to trigger the abuse. Most often the person receiving the abuse is told it is their fault that the abuser is abusing. Know this is not true.
Everyone is in charge of their own feelings, emotions and actions. There is no way you are ever in charge of the abuser’s feelings, emotions or actions no matter what has happened.
You count.
You matter.
You are a gift from God.
You are beautiful, and I am so very glad you are here.
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UNIVERSAL WISDOM ENLIGHTENMENT MASTERY 