To Speak or Not to Speak

To Speak or Not to Speak

Perhaps for some people teaching, helping, giving advice comes easy. For me there is angst. As a professor I would spend sleepless nights grading every small assignment. Do I give someone a “B” to encourage their effort when it is clear they have tried hard but ultimately hand in poor work? If I give them a “D” or “F” will it so wound them they will give up instead because of discouragement? If you give a “B” will they not realize it was only awarded to them to encourage them to keep at it, and not give up, but instead they will now be satisfied and stop working to get better, to improve? As a friend, do you ever give unsolicited or even solicited feedback or opinions: ”You are taking supplements that are useless because you are still smoking, drinking, and eating fast food, so you are just burning money.” Then you are told “We are all doing the best that we can” or sometimes the friendship ends.  Do you lie instead? Dodge the question?  Say positive things like “I’m sure you are doing the best you can do.” Don’t you crave, long for, specific feedback from healthy people who care about you and care about your growth and development? How else does one improve, or consider other options? Surely people are strong enough to hear opinions, feedback, critiques that are clearly being given in the spirit of love and concern for another without having a meltdown.. Hearing an opinion does not mean one has to unconditionally accept or follow the feedback or opinion.  Furthermore as a sensitive aware person, as an empath or clairsentient, you “feel” and know when people are “not saying” something and then when you ask, and they deny, it makes you feel crazy that you are “perceiving” yet being told there is “nothing” on their mind (Doesn’t this remind you of gaslighting?). Then if you are told some platitude instead it makes you wonder what must be so bad that it cannot be said.  If you are not strong enough to hear opinions, take feedback or critiques given to you by people who care about you, given in the spirit of love, of helping you grow, especially when you ask for feedback, does that mean everyone in your life has to find ways to complement you and dodge every subject that might be controversial?

Then there is the other side of the argument. Allow people to “be”, without comment or “judgement”. (Does that also mean “Have no opinion”?) Then when and how do people get the skills needed to have the conversations one typically needs to have when in an intimate relationship or friendship, or when raising children, or mentoring someone, or supervising staff? There is a balance for sure between being invasive and giving space, between rocking the boat and being in denial. Dr. George Simon (40 years as a clinical psychologist) writes, and I agree the age of neurosis is over; we are now in the era of character disturbances, or disorders.  It is the era of entitlement where everyone gets an award just for existing, graduations from kindergarten, and everyone gets a prize. Effort is no longer rewarded. No one is allowed to feel bad. People are growing up with no idea how to handle setbacks, failure, restrictions, loss or even face the fact they may not be good at something, at least for now, or without effort on their part. Dysfunctionality now primarily presents as people creating false “positive” narratives about themselves with no shame about doing that, and lying to get what they want with no accountability. No one is allowed to ask questions, get specific, and look at motives, or even cause and effect. In the name of being “non-judgmental” people can say and do anything knowing no one will question them or their story, their integrity or their choices.  It is the age of “presentation”, the age of the con-man and the con-woman, all talk, all story and no one looks behind the curtain. Therapists have to learn a whole new set of skills to treat a new kind of population.

As a Spiritual Teacher I am invested in people learning for themselves. Making an effort to learn, to look, investigate and learn is a much more powerful way of gaining wisdom (applied knowledge) than “telling” someone something. People tend to treasure what they have worked hard to get. Part of what I do is to reflect back to people what they are actually saying (so they can hear their own stories), point out their actions and choices, ask questions and present alternative perspectives for consideration.  Asking questions is the time honored Socratic Method of teaching that leads students down a path of self-investigation. It also teaches people to art of asking questions for themselves and about themselves. Asking questions is a way, perhaps the only way, to learn. Now there is a conundrum. These days most people will not answer questions honestly, they will shine you on with their “narrative”. So in this age, the art of asking questions will only get you so far. Furthermore, our current society no longer accepts asking questions; that is now seen as “judgmental”, critical, invasive and some will go so far as to (incorrectly) label it as gaslighting. A Teacher’s job is to encourage and to criticize and correct, and encourage. That is not gaslighting. That is the process of education, of learning, trial and error, progress and mistakes. Gaslighting is to obtain and maintain control off another person by deliberately “making” another person feel crazy by twisting the facts of someone’s life experiences until they no longer trust their own reality. A Teacher’s job is to get you to stand on your own two feet, think for yourself (instead of telling yourself stories), use your talents of both critical thinking and intuition to lead a self-aware mindful life that leads to growth and Soul Evolution.  That cannot be done only with positive affirmations. People grow through challenge and either life will challenge you or you will find ways to challenge your Self, such as working with a Spiritual Teacher (which is not for everyone).

In personal “friendships” the same holds true, only positive affirmations do not a friendship make. Instead of platitudes, avoidance, or denial, you can choose to speak honestly as kindly as you can knowing the risk that someone still might react poorly, at first. You can speak authentically while still respecting boundaries. You can ask, “Can I ask you something”? Or “Can I share something with you that might be a difficult conversation”?  No critiquing, meaning no starting sentences with the word “you” without direct permission. You share your impressions of what you observe or experience. In general, we should be able to ask questions of the people we are close to. One can always answer with “I don’t want to discuss that right now.” No passive aggressive behaviors tolerated.  No “vibes” and then denying anything is wrong.  No evasive answers or making comments under your breath. No strange behaviors that you then refuse to talk about it or even acknowledge it happened (either at the time, or later) to all that had to observe your suppressed feelings.  Instead, “I don’t want to answer that.”  Or, “I am going through something. It’s not about you.” Or doing anything to take responsibility (acknowledging publically for example) for the fact you are currently going through something so others do not have to suffer through your repressed or suppressed issues and feelings. This also is not saying you should isolate, or leave.  Speak. You were given language for a reason; use your words.

Yes there is timing. But there needs to be a balance between timing and avoidance or shutting down (as if everyone doesn’t feel all of these vibes anyways!). And  yes it is appropriate to consider that not everyone in your life is a “close” friend or someone you even want a relationship with so not every relationship has to be that revealing or even that authentic. You can shine on those who are not in your orbit and choose to be authentic with your chosen circle. Just be clear (as you can) with your choices. Know that getting into complicated or challenging conversations with someone is part of any loving intimate relationship including close friends, counselors, healers and Teachers. You can also choose to be authentic with many people, but know this, in this era, and being around people who have not healed and especially if they have turned to religion or new age religion instead of, or in place of, healing their own childhood and confronting and authentically living their Life Path challenges as well as blessings, you will be short on friends. The walking wounded often cannot tolerate being around people that are authentic, that have embraced their path of healing. They also cannot tolerate their coping mechanisms being questioned. They have lived long with their stories, their avoidance, and being shut down and they have a right to remain untouched in their world. Just make sure you understand your own choices of who to interact with, and who you can appreciate and love from a distance or at the very least, with boundaries.

Culturally middle-easterners, Jews, Italians, Armenians, even many European and Slavic countries, and many others have no problem speaking out and working through the nuances of relationships. For those of you who live in non-ethnic areas such as the Inland Empire in California you will have no experience of interacting with other cultures, or even asking other white people about their background, assuming they are just like you. If you do not have culturally diverse friends, you can reference examples of cultural diversity in popular media such as Moonstruck, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding to name a few. These cultures have a different issue regarding communications among friends and loved ones, and that is having the same kind of boundaries that the white cultures, descendants from the Puritans (and other strict religious sects) that fled their country to “settle” (conquer, take and dominate) the New World to “spread” their culture as the “right” culture, and in fact the only culture.  In the non-Puritan very vocal cultures, everything is discussed, and discussed publically. Living among white non-ethnic people which are from predominantly some version of Catholicism (Protestant, Episcopalian, Methodist, Lutheran etc. etc. etc.) literally forces you to “become psychic” (or feel crazy or believe you are crazy) as sub-text, implications, inferences, avoidance, clichéd platitudes and positive quotes from some kind of scripture are used as the normal form of conversation. Everyone has secrets, feelings they don’t want to admit, actions and choices they are ashamed of.  In these Puritan based cultures no one will admit to or discuss, well, anything because the primary concern is “looking” like or presenting as a “good” person as defined in some kind of scripture written by some human of that era. And the culture of scripture is that of people behaving in a passive aggressive manner in order to maintain the narrative or façade that one is a “good follower” of their particular scripture (including new age beliefs that are now voiced as a religion).  The new age is primarily a non-ethnic white people’s movement based on the principles of Catholicism, just “updated.” (Yes I am generalizing; this is a short article. So yes there are exceptions.)  With the repressed cultures (as opposed to the outspoken ones) you always have to “guess” at what is going on, as to what are people really feeling or believe, what they actually want or don’t want.  If you live in a white area with little diversity among whites, if you are white yourself, everyone will assume you are culturally “like them” and that you should inherently “know the rules” of behavior (keeping secrets and presenting “well”). If you are visibly different (Chinese etc.) people will “make an exception” (a small one) for you because you are “different.”

People no longer have a “tribe” to hold them accountable, no longer have “elders” of the tribe to model good behaviors and pass on wisdom. In indigenous tribes people lived closely and peer pressure held people accountable for their behaviors, for their integrity, and secrets of bad behaviors were hard to keep secret. In tribal life people had to accept the differences of people (as keeping secrets was almost impossible) as long as the well-being of the tribe was not threatened by those differences. And tribal members were raised to think of the well-being of the tribe as well as their own individualistic wants, needs and happiness. Without the intimacy and the resources of a tribal culture (elders, women’s council, men’s lodge etc.), where does one go these days to hear the hard things one needs to hear from someone you love? How will you be able to consider other perspectives? How will you learn? (Just by trial and error? Ouch!) How will you be able to hear the things you need to hear in love, and not have comments slip out in a toxic manner during a fight or in some passive aggressive manner, or having to suffer through “vibes” while the person ”denies” there are vibes (now there is an example of gaslighting). What happens when your life is so isolated from others, as is true for so many people these days, and you don’t have any role models in front of you, so you no longer even know the questions to ask any more? In some cases, you don’t even know there are questions worth asking.

As a Spiritual Teacher, clairvoyant, clairsentient, and having studied theories of multiple learning styles and teaching methodologies as well as practicing what I have studied learned for over four decades, I still consider Teaching a Sacred Art requiring Mindfulness, and self-awareness combined with wisdom to achieve balance. And I am not saying I have it down perfectly; it is always a work in progress. Every day I risk “losing” students when I ask tough questions and risk speaking “bluntly” as an elder and honor those in front of me by not treating them as too fragile to grow but rather knowing they have the strength, fortitude, willingness, and passion to take on their life with an open heart and courage. Every day I work to make Earth a better place by having honest straight forward conversations rather than using meaningless platitudes to discuss “nothing” (unless I  do not want to have a relationship with some person).  Is this right? I don’t know that answer for everyone, only for myself.

Something to think about.

Journey On

Dr. Marie