starfishlife

Over the last few years I have worked with Pick Up Artists interested only in one night relationships, out and out Narcissists who do incredible damage to their victims often over a number of years, and Players who are somewhere between those two and only capable of short term or unhealthy relationships – just because it lasts for a while does not mean it is healthy. I have worked with both the perpetrators and their victims, men and women on both sides, and there are considerably more victims as most of the perpetrators, especially the narcissists, cannot see what they are doing let alone want to make changes.

There are of course common themes with all the abusers, they are invariably emotionally detached and unavailable, they are only ever interested in their own gratification, they will use your insecurities against you and tear down your Defenses, they do not see any harm in what they do and may well take great satisfaction from it, and invariably they will harm the Targets/Victims/Projects that they prey upon.

The more emotionally connected you become to them, the more they will hurt you. The longer the relationship the more scope there is for harm. The more insidious they are, the harder it is to get away from them. The worst ones will burrow their way into your family and friends network and slowly isolate you from them, then turn your previous supporters against you. The clever ones, and Players often are, may well keep in close contact with a number of EXs and potential new targets to Supply their need for attention and admiration while they are between Projects. And most importantly of all, most of the time you do not see it coming at all.

I’m no expert in these matters, only in finding my own painful way out of years of abuse. But I know that it is important to be aware of the tactics that they use. The difficulty being that some of the things they do are very effective in getting dates and starting relationships and that many decent people do those things anyway – hence why it is often difficult to differentiate abusers / users from the ‘keepers’, at least early on, and by the time there is a noticeable difference you are often ensnared.

But even being aware of the abusers behaviours is not enough. I’ve known lifelong victims of emotional detachment from childhood and subsequently subjected to various forms of abuse, who at one point found themselves in ‘healing relationships’ and then ended up mirroring back all those abusive behaviours to their partners. As with many forms of abuse, the victims became the abusers.

Please don’t ever think that you are fully recovered from years of abuse. It requires not only healing of the emotional pain, but also an ongoing awareness and vigilance not only in your partner’s behaviour, but particularly your own as you may end up enabling abusive behaviours or even hurting those who love and support you.

In this age of easy information, you will find a vast array of resources online by way of websites, YouTube channels, and Facebook groups & pages as well as the more traditional route of personal therapy (which I highly encourage). As a starting point I have put together an array or memes found on Facebook and put them into a Facebook album “Abusers” for you to flick through to get a sense of what happens:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/…

By all means also go direct to the source pages for more memes as I’ve only included those that have simply popped up in front of me. While these memes often show the more extreme examples of abusive behaviours, I have seen and experienced them in a minor form many times and sometimes a whole host of them from a single person. If you start to notice a lot of them even in a mild form from either your partner or in yourself (or your partner brings these things up), you may want to be more alert.

I would also suggest that you look up Trauma Bonding as that is a common tactic which may start off as no more than ‘being unavailable’ or simply ‘playing hard to get’.

Personally I would be more concerned if I couldn’t see any of those warning behaviours in either my partner or myself than if I saw a couple. Seeing none of these things might suggest that you are kidding yourself – and there are none so blind as those that don’t want to see.

Be Safe, and here’s to Healing Ourselves.

I was recently having a chat and laughing with my dad about how when I was very young I loved the story of Goldilocks. I would insist on hearing it every night for about 2 years and woe betide him if he changed a single word. I thanked him for his time and patience and in giving me an insight to helping a client a couple of years earlier. He asked me to explain…

… I had a lady come to me who said that she was destroying her family with her OCD, or Compulsively Disordered Obsessions as she put it, because the letters had to be in the right order…

She told me accounts of how she’d asked her husband to make some (instant) gravy, but she ended up throwing it away because it was too runny; of the time she’d asked her daughter to arrange some flowers, but had to do it again herself because some of them were the wrong height; of the time she’d asked her son to neatly pile up the magazines in the living room… and so on.

After two or three of these stories, I would say to her “Don’t worry about it Goldilocks, carry on.”

After a while she became annoyed, “Why do you keep calling me Goldilocks? She has long blonde hair, mine is short and ginger, but no way golden!”

So then, with a couple of minor modifications to the old classic, I began, “Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Goldilocks…”

When I’d finished, I just sat and watched her. I could see that she was thinking deeply, you could almost hear the cogs whirring in her head as she tried to bring to conscious understanding something that clearly resonated at a deeper level. A few minutes later her puzzled look and shaking of her head told me that she wanted a little guidance.

“So when mummy bear was making a fresh batch of porridge for baby bear, what do you think daddy bear was doing?”

“Most probably eating his porridge.” She replied.

“What, the porridge that was too salty and lumpy for Goldilocks?”

“Well that would be the way he likes it…” she paused “Ahhh I get it, you called me Goldilocks because I like things just my own way, no other way is good enough for me.” I smiled. “I think from now own I should be called mummy bear.” She continued. I deliberately gave her a puzzled look to draw out further explanation. “Because she realises that everyone has their own preference and there isn’t just one right way.”

My dad laughed and said, “So even at the age of three you were learning that different people like things different ways, but just remember one thing, I’m still your dad.”

“That’s quite alright Goldilocks.” I responded.

We both roared with laughter and hugged each other.

Please note, certain details of this story have been changed to disguise identities.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of facilitating a small discussion group. There were no set topics, but each person there brought their own version of spirituality to the mix. We discussed various topics but mainly self identity (in the psychological sense), how this changes with changing life circumstances, and the reasons and methods of the connections we make with others.

We all had different ways of connecting with others and different reasons for doing so. One person wanted to build deep, meaningful, & mutually supportive relationships, while another person just liked to connect on a very superficial level with people who floated into his life in passing – greeting strangers in the street and saying hello with checkout operators.

This week I’ve been making those casual connections with a number of waitresses and checkout operators. The lady who served me in the DIY store had just had an encounter with a grumpy customer and was clearly upset by the episode, so I smiled at her, engaged in light hearted banter (avoiding reference to the previous customer), and thanked her for her service. I even made a joke about the multi-buy discount I received. I doubt that it made any difference to the time it took to process my order, but the end result was 2 people who were in a happier mood than either had been moments earlier.

This wasn’t a ‘one off’ event either. The responses I’ve been getting are quite dramatic – they suggest to me that even this level of human connection is greatly appreciated, often leads to a better mood by all, and usually leads to better service wherever I go. So if you are being served by someone say hello to them, if you are serving someone do it with a smile and a happy manner – then observe the differences to what usually happens, or what you see happening elsewhere. You may come to like the effect it has.

The Life Improvement Centre is pleased to be able to host 2 Shaballa Multi Dimensional Healing courses in October 2011.

We are hosting a 4 day Master Healer playshop on 13-16 October 2011 and a 3 day Basic Teacher playshop on 18-20 October 2011.