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Page 6 of 10
Chaos for chaos includes "Hide and Seek." Hide and Seek is a conversation style where the speaker hides and the listener seeks. It's another set up. The speaker will engage in the conversation in a limited fashion in order to bait the listener into coming back for clarity. The speaker will offer information, but not enough for the listener to participate in the conversation. In this way the speaker hooks and baits the listener into coming back for more. Then when the listener comes back (by asking questions in order to participate) the speaker withdraws, leaving the listener frustrated or as if they have done something improper or not asked the right questions. Clarity will be void in this kind of conversation. Metaphors or similes may or may not be used extensively by the speaker in order to maintain a level of obscureness (which baits the listener into asking for clarity). When I'm feeling hooked, helpless, and unable to participate in the conversation, I'm most likely engaged in a game of Hide and Seek. "It's a distorted type of come-rescue-me game or a self-fulfilling-prophecy game, i.e. I believe myself to be inadequate so I'll converse in an inadequate (vacant of info) way so that the listener will react and respond (probe to fill in the missing info) to affirm the perception I have of myself."
In almost all listening situations I can choose to be in or out of chaos . I can choose to vacation from a conversation as I need to, in order to stay out of creating chaos. I may choose to participate in the chaos and know that I am there. I can choose.
I may also choose to create chaos for fun. Sometimes I see that the situation I'm in is the "Ain't it Awful" game; and I choose to play. I can choose to make up some totally outrageous "Ain't it Awfuls" and play (this is another way I vacation as I listen).
Conversations that are intimate will not feel like a hidden agenda, or pull, is occurring. Intimate conversations feel like: action on my part is not required. I will not feel attacked or like I need to detach. The information feels direct and clean. I will feel like moving toward the person who is sharing. That is to say I will not feel like running away from them, discounting them, or punching them out.
Hang up the phone
When ever a conversation becomes abusive or painful to listen to, I hang up the phone. If the information I'm choosing to listen to, makes me ill as I listen, I excuse myself and hang up. I lie if I need to, but I need to get off the phone. People who care about me will respect my right to take care of myself.
Walk away
When ever a conversation becomes abusive or painful to listen to, I walk away. If the information I'm choosing to listen to, makes me ill as I listen, I excuse myself and walk away. I lie if I need to, but I need to walk away. People who care about me will respect my right to take care of myself.
Keep in mind that the perceptions I have are going to differ from the perceptions that other people have
My perceptions are uniquely my own. How I experience my life from inside my body is uniquely my own experience. The perceptions I have of myself are different than the perceptions that other people have of me. The perception I have of someone else is different than the perception they have of themselves.
Occasionally someone will choose to "take my inventory." If I allow them to have their own perception, I may choose those parts of the information which I consider to be kind and nurturing. The rest I discard or walk away from.
Words, which are descriptive judgements, are "concepts" open for interpretation or debate. Concepts are open for debate because they are given definition by the user or users perception(s) of the word describing the concept. Words are a way to summarize a concept. When I hear judgmental words of description which summarize a concept, I quitely say in head, "What's that mean? I have no idea what that means," immediately after I hear the word. It's a way for me to detach from and remove power from words which are summary-concepts that judge; especially if the words are used in a non-nurturing way or were used in a non-nurturing way when I was a child. Groups of people give meanings to words.
Which group did I first hear the use of the word and was it in a nurturing way? Each person has a list of judgmental words which is unique to them. Some of the words on my list of non-nurturing and judgmental word concepts are: selfish, grow-up, inappropriate, smart, talented, good-looking, femme, irresponsible, late, wrong, still-dirty, that's terrible, that's a terrible thing to do, stuck-up, half-assed, smart ass, conceited, queer, stupid, behave, weird, that's a strange thing to do, messy. When I find myself responding uncomfortably to a word, I use the "What's that mean?" technique to detach. I need not listen closely, hypervigilantly, on guard, or in a way to analyze each word in order to make a decision about whether or not to detach. I need only detach from words that trigger me or produce a response in me that makes me uncomfortable to listen to. Is the word being used to be unkind? I trust myself to decide which words, in the group I am presently in, are being used to be unkind. This is another part of "Present Moment Living" discussed later in this section.
What I say is good enough the first time it comes out of my mouth
On occasion, someone will respond to me in a way that leads me to feel like they don't believe what I've said or that what I've said was not good enough. As an example: Say I share something about myself like, "It scares me to drive fast." And the response by the listener is something like, "How come?," or "What do you mean?," or "Don't you think if you just _____________, you wouldn't be scared?"
By remembering that what I said was good enough the first time I said it, I respond by restating the same thing again. "It scares me to drive fast." I continue to repeat the same thing as long as they continue to imply that I need to elaborate or improve on my original statement.
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