11-13-2012, 05:01 AM
Excellent response, Carla, Jim, and Monica. Thank you very much. Because Carla asked, I will provide more details:
My discomfort lies with adding to the entropy of the situation. I know that in staying calm, I am preventing the total "temperature" of the interaction from rising too much or too quickly, and that is my primary motivation. Not getting angry is not so much a strategy to stay in my comfort zone as it is a dsicipline that I adhere to out of an awareness of the intensity of my own anger. I mean, I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I do not feel human when I am angry. The only metaphor that I can use to explain it is that I feel like a massive gravitative force, something that could eat a planet without any hint of emotion or remorse, only a calm knowing and acceptance that this is "the next step" and what "must be done." I will begin speaking out loud the observations about people that I usually keeep to myself because they are not ready to know that these things are being communicated. This scares people.
Call it self-preservation, except that I see the two of us as the self. I know that should I give in to anger, I may emerge from the argument "correct," but our union will be put in jeopardy by the force of my emotion and the shock of what the other will interpret as lack of care or compassion on my part. I actually enjoy being angry - it feels very pleasurable, seductively so, even - because I was not allowed to show anger as a child. Being angry is unfortunately very much in my comfort zone and this is not something I am terribly proud of. Being yelled at is what I do not enjoy, because it is illogical, a waste of energy, and, in the case of people I love, a disappointment. I would have thought that they were better than that. That they were more aware of and in control of their baser impulses. I mean, I figured out that anger is nonconstructive and set about regulating and controlling it in myself when I was twelve. Why hasn't this person figured it out yet? What have they been doing with their time?
...is basically where this behavior is coming from. So, it may be out of fear of hurting the other-self instead of a fluffy, feel-good "love," but there is still quite a bit of sacrifice going on for the sake of the other. The reason I asked the question is that this is becoming my default behavior, and while the behavior is not changing, its reliability is becoming apparent. I am not staying silent or disengaging. In fact, I am taking every opportunity during the argument to express love and try and bring the other into this state of appreciation with me. But this just makes it worse, because I realize that these statements of love, while what a perfectly STO individual would extend into the interaction, are precisely what a smart enough STS individual would also extend. And with this realization, I know that I am now actually controlling the situation by accepting it. So I feel that I have come full circle, so to speak. I am becoming "skillfull," and perhaps this is simply me coming face to face with my shadow, and I should accept it, allow these polarities to coexist and balance each other out, and follow that path to wherever it leads me. Or should I give up the behavior that I chose in good-faith service to the other simply because it could be seen simultaneously as an STS tactic? And if I do, would it not have to be in favor of a more ill-suited way of doing things? Simply for the sake of staying away from the mere possibility of being STS?
This is what haunts me most recently. I feel that I am becoming "skillful" at a lot of things having to do with my interactions with other-selves, not just in the above case, but in everything. I notice small things that I did not notice before. Pauses in speech, eye movements, shifts in anxiety level, that sort of thing. I am deconstructing coworkers psychologically in my spare time almost as a reflex, making guesses as to their psychological make up and dependencies, testing and getting confirmation, finding out what they seek most intently from others, and then giving it to them - out of the belief that this is the most appropriate thing to do for them, the best service I could provide, but one could then argue that I am also teaching them to depend on me. For example, I can tell which of them had less attention than they needed growing up, which had weaker-than-ideal attachments to their parents, which are looking for "big brother" figures etc., and I "feed" them attention when they "ask" for it. And to my horror, this is working. I know I am doing this to help them, but at the same time, I also feel them putting more and more trust in me, thinking more and more highly of me, and entering into something resembling a growing sphere of influence. I feel that I am becoming able to "shape" people, and the sensation is perhaps too new and too heavy.
And this is quite scary. I know that I could do extremely self-serving things with this if I wanted to, and thank God for the time being I don't feel tempted, but perhaps I do not trust myself completely. This is a new thing, and I may eventually feel an urge to "open her up and see how fast she can go," you know?
My discomfort lies with adding to the entropy of the situation. I know that in staying calm, I am preventing the total "temperature" of the interaction from rising too much or too quickly, and that is my primary motivation. Not getting angry is not so much a strategy to stay in my comfort zone as it is a dsicipline that I adhere to out of an awareness of the intensity of my own anger. I mean, I don't know how to explain it exactly, but I do not feel human when I am angry. The only metaphor that I can use to explain it is that I feel like a massive gravitative force, something that could eat a planet without any hint of emotion or remorse, only a calm knowing and acceptance that this is "the next step" and what "must be done." I will begin speaking out loud the observations about people that I usually keeep to myself because they are not ready to know that these things are being communicated. This scares people.
Call it self-preservation, except that I see the two of us as the self. I know that should I give in to anger, I may emerge from the argument "correct," but our union will be put in jeopardy by the force of my emotion and the shock of what the other will interpret as lack of care or compassion on my part. I actually enjoy being angry - it feels very pleasurable, seductively so, even - because I was not allowed to show anger as a child. Being angry is unfortunately very much in my comfort zone and this is not something I am terribly proud of. Being yelled at is what I do not enjoy, because it is illogical, a waste of energy, and, in the case of people I love, a disappointment. I would have thought that they were better than that. That they were more aware of and in control of their baser impulses. I mean, I figured out that anger is nonconstructive and set about regulating and controlling it in myself when I was twelve. Why hasn't this person figured it out yet? What have they been doing with their time?
...is basically where this behavior is coming from. So, it may be out of fear of hurting the other-self instead of a fluffy, feel-good "love," but there is still quite a bit of sacrifice going on for the sake of the other. The reason I asked the question is that this is becoming my default behavior, and while the behavior is not changing, its reliability is becoming apparent. I am not staying silent or disengaging. In fact, I am taking every opportunity during the argument to express love and try and bring the other into this state of appreciation with me. But this just makes it worse, because I realize that these statements of love, while what a perfectly STO individual would extend into the interaction, are precisely what a smart enough STS individual would also extend. And with this realization, I know that I am now actually controlling the situation by accepting it. So I feel that I have come full circle, so to speak. I am becoming "skillfull," and perhaps this is simply me coming face to face with my shadow, and I should accept it, allow these polarities to coexist and balance each other out, and follow that path to wherever it leads me. Or should I give up the behavior that I chose in good-faith service to the other simply because it could be seen simultaneously as an STS tactic? And if I do, would it not have to be in favor of a more ill-suited way of doing things? Simply for the sake of staying away from the mere possibility of being STS?
This is what haunts me most recently. I feel that I am becoming "skillful" at a lot of things having to do with my interactions with other-selves, not just in the above case, but in everything. I notice small things that I did not notice before. Pauses in speech, eye movements, shifts in anxiety level, that sort of thing. I am deconstructing coworkers psychologically in my spare time almost as a reflex, making guesses as to their psychological make up and dependencies, testing and getting confirmation, finding out what they seek most intently from others, and then giving it to them - out of the belief that this is the most appropriate thing to do for them, the best service I could provide, but one could then argue that I am also teaching them to depend on me. For example, I can tell which of them had less attention than they needed growing up, which had weaker-than-ideal attachments to their parents, which are looking for "big brother" figures etc., and I "feed" them attention when they "ask" for it. And to my horror, this is working. I know I am doing this to help them, but at the same time, I also feel them putting more and more trust in me, thinking more and more highly of me, and entering into something resembling a growing sphere of influence. I feel that I am becoming able to "shape" people, and the sensation is perhaps too new and too heavy.
And this is quite scary. I know that I could do extremely self-serving things with this if I wanted to, and thank God for the time being I don't feel tempted, but perhaps I do not trust myself completely. This is a new thing, and I may eventually feel an urge to "open her up and see how fast she can go," you know?