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Thomas Lee Abshier, ND
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Manipulation

By: Thomas Lee Abshier, ND

 

Avoid Selfish Manipulation: Avoid taking advantage of another person's feelings.  A person with a delicate conscience may be susceptible to manipulation by guilt, a weak person sensitive to fear, and an opinionated person reactive to anger.  Knowing a person’s sensitivity gives power to those who wish to mobilize action.  Only use such power to motivate a person toward right thought, speech, and action.  

a) Human Weakness: Humans have an innate susceptibility to many spirits.  Some spirits make people weak and susceptible to the influence of other people.  These spirits include: insecurity, loneliness, and fatigue.  When in relationship with a person who appears overtaken by the influence of one of these spirits, resist the temptation to use their weakness as an opportunity to manipulate them for your benefit.  

b) Bribery, Flattery, Seduction, Insults, and Threats: Money, lust, and power will cause many men to cast aside their principles for the promised reward.  Be aware that people can be the pawns of evil.  Identify the threat, see the end from the beginning, know the price that will eventually be extracted, the gain vs. the cost is the net gain of the transaction, the long term pain is usually greater than the short term pleasure.  Say no.  The person using these tactics is not your friend, there is no need to worry about losing his friendship by saying “no”.  He is actually an enemy, and if “no” is not adequate to stop the advances, then confronting him about his motives and his relationship with truth.  People acting in the service of evil will put on faces, pretend emotions, and attempt to enroll.  

c) Hypnosis: By using soft and reassuring tones a person can tap into the natural reactions of a man’s emotional reservoir and elicit responses that are favorable.  We all use hypnosis on each other to reassure and bypass the thoughts and resistance of a friend, mate, and patient.  In the ethical therapeutic setting the embedded thoughts and behavior patterns are beneficial.  But, in the hands of a politician, he could hypnotize a person or a nation to adopt policies and mobilize support that would normally be resisted, considered irrational, or poorly supported by evidence and reason.  In the hands of the unethical salesman, peer, or pusher, these techniques can be used to move people for personal benefit.  Look for behaviors that are asking for or assuming unwarranted trust and counter it with reason, questions, and facts.  No hypnotic command is irresistible, simply say no to suggestions or directions that violate your ethics or do not follow facts and reason.

 

Avoid manipulation by using painful words: Avoid the pain-inducing tactics of:

 

Sarcasm: The word means, “cutting the flesh”.  The mocking of a person’s foolishness, character, or habits.  Such harsh weapons should be used only as tools of discipline to the mocker and rebel against Godly principles.  Showing the fool his foolishness by inducing pain can be a needed form of discipline.  But, in polite and loving relationships, using sarcasm to obtain compliance in delivering needs produces an alienation of the heart.

 

Blaming: There is always a reason everything has happened, but the reason may not be agreed upon or obvious.  Blame can be an offensive tool used to relieve responsibility, cow someone into submission, or enhance the feeling of superiority.  Blame in its proper context seeks to discover the actual causative sequence that produced an effect.  Blame can be used in the middle of conversation, by imputing hurtful motives.  Blame delivered with a forceful tone is its own trial, judgment, and execution done with in a single sentence.  Avoid such passionate attacks and instead ask questions, get the full OFNR of why the other acted as he did.  Assume there was a positive reason, not a hurtful motivation, that directed a particular response, and strive to draw that out by kind questioning.  

 

Nagging: Nagging is a repetitive asking, reminding, directing, checking for the same item of performance over and over.  Nagging should not be done.  If a single request does not meet the need for compliance or service, then it is time to check in with the person and ask, 1) Is there actually a commitment to perform the task? 2) Is there some resistance or difficulty that is making compliance difficult or fearful?  3) Is there adequate skill, time, energy, or money involved to meet the task?  4) Is there a past memory of failure or hurt that makes confronting this task bring up pain?  5) Ask what is the timeline commitment for starting, and important checkpoints.  6) Ask what support he needs to get started, trained, or do the work.  Asking questions that illuminate the actual issue is more productive and honoring of relationship than nagging, which is the equivalent of inflicting soul pain on the person who has agreed to be a partner in serving you.  A willing partner is the equivalent of a cheerful giver, which is the relative of one who gives love.  Enthusiastic and willing service is the best, and the only one that actually satisfies the heart of the giver and taker.

 

Criticism: It is impossible to do everything the way that someone else wants it done.  We live in a spiritual world, and our imagination is capable of creating impossibly perfect scenarios.  Too many factors arise in life to predict, or combat them all without having unforeseen collisions with reality that change the plan or timeline or performance.  Compassion for the difficulty of service is important so as to not feel betrayed or disappointed.  Criticism has a positive and negative application.  

i) Constructive criticism points out ways of improving, having faith that the craftsman can improve by the feedback.  Constructive criticism may inform regarding changes in style, method, efficiency, and outcome markers.  With constructive criticism the dedicated craftsman can learn from the feedback of mentors and customers.  

ii) Destructive criticism labels a person as defective, deficient, or having little skill is destructive in that it gives the craftsman a command that says, “You are xxx.”  Destructive criticism does not allow for movement, it set the person in a frozen perspective, and it makes it harder for him to move out of that frame of mind and self-image.  Self image can be self fulfilling, so it is better to give feedback about performance rather than make global and generalized declarations about a person’s character and ability.  We are not God, and we don’t know the fullness of a person’s ability, character, or future changes.  Thus, when making declarations about character or ability, we are essentially using our words to make a curse, and condemn them to the box of their past.

 

Guilt & Shame: Avoid using guilt and shame over long past failures to manipulate behavior, obtain compliance, or change habits.  The past may be referenced as a tool for giving validation to the need to make commitments to right behavior.  Guilt and shame are essentially the same emotion.  Guilt may be the emotion we feel for a violation of another person, the law, God’s law.  It may be the feeling we have when we have not been caught.  Shame is the feeling of being dishonored for being a person who has violated God’s Law.  Guilt presses us to confess, make restitution, and ask for forgiveness.  Shame presses us to never commit the act again, so as to avoid feeling this bad feeling, and to pay restitution so as to make the score even with those I have wronged, and to vow to God to never commit the same act again, and to accept the forgiveness of restored relationship with God and man.  Humans tend to use guilt and shame to manipulate another person for some purpose, such as changing behaviors, meeting a need, or punishment.  Guilt and shame should be short-term experiences that highlight our errors with emotional pain.  We should handle the debt, make the effort to change behaviors, and accept forgiveness and let it go into the past as a hard learned lesson that will pay off with valuable good behavior for the future.

 

Avoid Manipulation using various plausibly appropriate tactics, but are in fact unrighteous and unjustified:

 

Avoid Excuses: Do not use excuses to deflect responsibility and culpability to justify an ineffective, erroneous, or harmful action.  Avoid accepting the excuses of others when there has been no strong examination of personal responsibility for the failure.  Excuses reduce future effectiveness if no responsibility was taken for failure.  Identify the reasons for poor performance, accept the appropriate amount of personal responsibility, and commit to adopting new strategies, plans, and habits to produce future success.

 

Avoid sullen silence: Withdrawal of affection and attention, pouting, and sullen silence can be tools of retaliation; covert barbs meant to punish the perpetrator who has wronged and hurt you.  God designed the human heart for fulfillment in relationship.  Thus, the soul experiences pain in the absence of relationship.  The pain of emptiness arises from withdrawal, leaving, separation, and divorce, and the pain of silence is in this family.  Enforced or inflicted silence withdraws the pleasurable and desired emotions of relationship.  

a) Solution: Resist the temptation to retaliate with sullen silence, and instead be courageous and transparent about your hurt.  Ask for a 5-minute timeout so that I can be alone to clean my soul of the desire for revenge.  Take that time to forgive, intercede, re-center myself.  Come back together and ask for what I want.  Simply asking for a timeout is a signal that we must begin the process of meeting each other’s needs.  Discuss his/her needs, and end with a mutual agreement about how and when his/her needs will be met in a mutually fair manner.  Negotiation to mutual enthusiastic agreement leaves us happy knowing that the solution is good and fair, and that fairness is the best we can hope for when there is disagreement.

 

Avoid Lecturing: Avoid preaching or lecturing unless the listener has willingly given you that place of honor, authority, and expertise.  The posture of lecturing and preaching imply the speaker has authority, speaks with truth, and has final judgment.  But, the speaker must first earn the respect of the listener before a lecture will be embraced as a welcome exposition of truth.  Enroll the listener first with a tentative posture of, “this is my opinion”.  Humility gives a place of honor to the listener as having the right to judge truth.  Declaration of truth, without enrollment, implies a superior-inferior master-slave relationship and the heart rebels, therefore lecturing must be entered into only after earning the required honor.  God gave freedom as an inherent state of life, but we only deserve freedom if we control our actions according to the righteous principles.  The parent-child relationship necessarily has strong elements of master-servant relationship, as the parent must shepherd the naïve soul toward adult maturity.  The human heart hates slavery, but it must be humble to deserving authority.  When enslaved, serve your master well, and give God the glory for enabling the endurance.  Do all you can to grow out of that condition and assume your birthright of freedom by continuing in righteousness.  Follow Godliness and freedom may eventually follow.  

a) When long explanations are necessary and desired, use your position of authority and influence to give a fully elaborated presentation of a body of knowledge.  Only wise and willing students should be given the gift of a lecture.  The common man is not interested in deep understanding.  Giving a lengthy discourse on the deep interconnections of knowledge and circumstance to a fool or rebel throws pearls before swine, and they will often attack you.  A child should be given directions in right living, and as he grows, short explanation of the dynamics of life should be included.  When he has acquired a hunger for knowledge and understanding, engage in long explanations in the complex dynamics of life.

 

Avoid Excuses: Do not use excuses to deflect responsibility and culpability to justify an ineffective, erroneous, or harmful action.  Avoid accepting the excuses of others when there has been no strong examination of personal responsibility for the failure.  Excuses reduce future effectiveness if no responsibility was taken for failure.  Identify the reasons for poor performance, accept the appropriate amount of personal responsibility, and commit to adopting new strategies, plans, and habits to produce future success.  

 

 

 

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