Violence, Coercion and Manipulation in Relationships

Violence, coercion and manipulation are three of the main ways individuals use to control the other person, or persons, in a relationship. We have identified violence as the worst of the three, for good reasons. However, I believe that we overlook the prevalence and significance of manipulation in our relationships. And there are real consequences, on a relationship level, but also on a societal level.

Violence

Violence, whether by deed or word, is utilized far too often in our relationships. (Let’s leave aside those whose pathologies incline them to violence because I believe they are distinct from the general population, in their motives and their ability or willingness to control their behavior.) It is important here to recognize that violence by word can be, and is often, as powerful as physical violence. Think, for example, of a child who is not once struck, but is threatened with physical violence on at least a daily basis. Would we say that this child was less of a victim than one who is spanked? Some might, but I would argue that each child’s neurological development will be affected and each may present, at times, with symptoms of PTSD.

Why, then, if we are able to recognize the physical and emotional consequences of violence, do we utilize it too frequently? My belief is that violence is often brought on by an individual’s inability to express their emotions in a healthy manner. Take, for example, the lover who does not feel secure in her relationship. She has concerns over her partner’s fidelity, but is afraid to ask.  So she bottles up her feelings of insecurity, worry and concern. This goes on until one day, her partner comments on a female friend. She snaps and throws a glass at his head. This happened because she never aired her concerns. The comment about the female friend may have even been completely anodyne, but she did not actually hear the message. What she heard were all of her concerns rushing out to her hand that held a glass. If she could have expressed her feelings of insecurity within the relationship, this could have been averted.

Again, to return to our verbally assaulted child example. What is behind her father’s threats? Perhaps his feelings of inadequacy as a parent. How hard is it for an adult to admit vulnerability, especially to his child? Instead of talking about his feelings, they come out as verbal violence toward his daughter.

I am leaving aside, for now, a discussion of how the desire for control underlies most violence, coercion and manipulation. But you should feel free to think of your own example of violence brought about by someone feeling out of control, or in control of their partner.

Coercion

Coercion is another tactic used to shape our relationships in ways that, for our own idiosyncratic reasons, we desire. I want to be sure that here we are separating the threat of violence from coercion itself, as I do think many people find the threat of violence to be coercive (and it is). Here, I want to focus on what might be called unspoken quid pro quo. Partners or parents do not often explicitly tell their lover or child that if they do not do x that they will withhold their love, affection and companionship.

But we use coercion so often in our relationships that we likely do not even recognize it. Here, a controversial example- if you don’t eat your green beans, you cannot have dessert. How many parents have said something similar? Just about all of us have, at one point or another. We think of this as applying a rule or providing an incentive for a child to finish their vegetables, but it’s no less coercive than any other example we might come up with. We may also think of it as striking a bargain where both parties win- the parent gets vegetables into their child’s diet; the child gets dessert.

That is not unlike “deals” that partners may make with one another. For example, if you go to this concert with me I will watch Orange is the New Black with you. Again, both parties have “won.” Maybe it is not coercion if both parties had some willingness to engage in each other’s preferred activities, and the trade off was merely a sweetener. But, what if neither party really wanted to do the other’s activity? Are we then more comfortable labelling it coercion?

To me, coercion may not always be bad or wrong. I am sure that there are an infinite number of potentially coercive acts that we could all agree were not quite a bad kind of coercion. And, if we are to avoid all such “good” coercion, I am not sure that we could function as a society.

Manipulation

We have now arrived at what I believe to be the most insidious of the three methods of relationship control- manipulation. In general usage, coercion and manipulation are not too distant cousins. I would distinguish one from the other by saying that coercion involves some sort of threat, implied or stated, while manipulation is more covert and deceptive.

Manipulation can take many forms, some of which have pleasant aspects, such as flattery. Underneath the pleasant veneer, though, is an ulterior motive. Maybe you flatter your partner as a way to distract them from some bad act you have done, or are about to do.

More frequently, manipulation focuses on the emotions, thoughts and beliefs of a partner or a child. For example, making a lover feel fat, so that they come to believe they are undesirable by others and have no choice but to remain in the relationship. Maybe a parent making their child feel stupid to reinforce their power and dominance in the parent-child relationship. Sometimes we make others come to believe that our needs, wants and desires are also theirs, stripping away their individuality and personal agency.

That this happens so covertly, and over a long period of time only adds to its power. unlike violence, which is clearly visible, and coercion, which may not be as clear as violence but is still readily discoverable, manipulation is so cleverly disguised. That is what makes it the most poisonous to relationships and to society.

Manipulation, when discovered/detected, reduces our ability to trust a loved one, be they a partner, child or close friend. Multiply that over billions of people, and we can start to see why there are so many problems in our world. What begins in close relationships serves to undermine one of the cornerstones of society- trust.

Without trust, we cannot truly and deeply love others. Without trust, we cannot live peacefully and securely. Think about how little the average person trusts- others and institutions. It’s not a lot.

Bringing It Together

We engage in violence, coercion and manipulation in order to exercise control. Control over our relationships, control over our loved ones, and illusional control of ourselves. In doing so, we betray ourselves and others. We destroy trust, in ourselves and the world around us. Without trust, we find it more and more difficult to not want to be in control. There has to be a better way.

That way is to practice non-possession and acceptance. When we stop viewing our partners and our children as possessions and we accept them for who they are, we can know happiness. We can eliminate violence, coercion and manipulation. When we break free from our need to control, we can truly love, without condition. We can love ourselves and others, for who they are.

It is not an easy task, nor is it a path that is always comfortable. As you make your journey toward your best self, others may not be on theirs. Or they may be at a different point on their trail. You may get hurt along the way, and your instinct may lead you to want to exert control once again. While that may seem like a quick solution, it is not. When you return to violence, coercion and manipulation, you are also returning to heartache, disappointment and lack of peace.

Until you can free yourself from possession and attachment, you will not know happiness. Until we can free ourselves from possession and attachment, we will not know peace.

Sukhi Hotu

Attachment, Possession and Jealousy

As a Buddhist, I take seriously the teachings on non-attachment and impermanence. Yet, I am also a human and am subject to the same human emotions, actions and states of mind. Aside from being present in each moment, much of my practice focuses on overcoming attachment, whether to a thing, a condition or a person.

Attachment is inextricably linked with possession; and loss, or fear of loss, of our possession brings about jealousy, and sometimes anger. We possess many things- our car, our clothes, etc.- to which we may become attached. Maybe you really love your iPhone. You possess it, you are attached to it- how else will you stay connected to the world, and you would become angry if someone were to take it away from you, and may become jealous if your friend has the latest model when yours is two years old.

If I were to speak with you about your attachment to your iPhone, you would, I hope, easily understand why it may not be good to be attached to this material object. But, what if I were to instead focus on your attachment to your partner? You may not think in such stark terms as you possess your partner, but you can certainly recognize your attachment, and are likely able to see that through to jealousy. But think about how we talk about our loved ones- my wife, my husband, my child, etc. Is the use of the possessive determiner my merely a convenient way of talking about a loved one, or does it indicate that we believe, on some level, that we possess that other person? I’m not sure.

How about attachment to something more abstract? Here, a personal example is illustrative. I was, for a very long time, attached to a routine/schedule/structure that I, mistakenly, believed to be a part of my practice and a precondition to happiness. The routine provided me with a level of discipline that I felt was needed in my life. At some points in time, I was probably right. However, I became so attached to that notion that I was unable to see how it was damaging my life and of those around me.

My routine had become something that I was not only attached to, but it grew into a possessiveness about my schedule, which was not to be altered. When life happened, and my schedule was not adhered to, I became angry, even a bit jealous that I was not doing what I was “supposed” to be doing. I struggled to be present, and I had placed my attachment to my structure above the needs, wants and desires of the people who love me.

For me, and I suspect many people, jealousy tends to make itself known in the context of a relationship with another person, particularly an intimate one. And while most will acknowledge the feelings of jealousy they have experienced, very few walk that feeling back through possession and attachment. We are often content to shrug our shoulders and say being jealous is part of the human condition.

I am not interested in an argument over whether jealousy is or is not natural or part of the human condition. To engage in such a debate only gives power to the idea that we, as humans, are hardwired for jealousy. If that is true, then any effort to reduce or eliminate jealousy from our lives is unnatural. The next logical step is to claim that attachment is also natural and something we ought not to pay too much attention.

That, I believe, would be wrong. Attachment, possession and jealousy factor into so much unnecessary unhappiness. Think about the level of distress, sadness, and frustration we feel when we lose our phone, or when the person who we love becomes interested in someone else, or our child makes a decision with which we do not agree. All of that is caused by attachment. We are attached to our phone. We are attached to our lover. We are attached to the notion that our children should always be who we want them to be.

Life, much like the earth, is always in motion. It is always changing. No matter how much we would like to make everything stay the same, it is simply not possible. When we try to hold everything constant, we are holding ourselves, and others, back. We are not allowing ourselves to grow, to adapt, to become the person who we want to be. And we expend so much time and energy on staying the same, on holding ourselves back. We are, in effect, jailing ourselves. Attachment is the enemy of freedom.

Is letting go of attachment easy? Of course it isn’t. If it were, I would not be writing about it here. And millions of articles and books would not have been written; countless dharma talks would have been shorter; countless numbers of artistic productions would not exist.

Maybe I have convinced you to think about your own attachments and how they impact the quality of your life, and of those around you. I suspect, though, that many will still doubt that we can truly become free from attachment, possession and jealousy in our relationships. In many ways, this is the most difficult attachment to eliminate. We are bombarded with messages about love and partnership and responsibility that we have internalized over our lives. The messages themselves have become ingrained into our culture and, in some ways, our laws.

To me, there is no more crucial task than to practice non-attachment with those you love. I do not believe it is possible to truly love someone to whom we hold an attachment. How can two people grow together if they each hold on to a version of their partner from weeks, months, and years ago? Perhaps small changes do not trigger a negative reaction, but anything significant surely ought to. To expect a partner to stay the same forever is to hold them hostage to your attachment. That is not love.

There is a quote from Osho that I think is fitting-

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up.
Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love.
So if you love a flower, let it be.
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.”

When we practice attachment, we are picking the flower.

Living Without Regret?

There is no shortage of quotes about regret and how one should live without it. Those are all fine, as far as they go. But is it possible to live without regret? I do not believe any human can live a life without any regret. The benefits of hindsight are such that we may always find something we wish we had done better, or said differently, or didn’t do at all.

I do not mean to say that we cannot limit or reduce the amount of regrets we have. When we are our best selves, the people we wish to be, we are much less likely to have regret. That means living with our heart fully engaged, and with us in touch with our true self, our best self.

We must not only dare to dream, but to act on those dreams. It is when we do not act in accord with our dreams, our best self, that we experience much of our regret. This is the regret many of the inspirational quotes try to address. The message is essentially- be fearless; act with hope; act with belief; act with confidence.

The other form of regret is the actions we do, or words we speak, that are not rooted in love. Everyone has said something hurtful to someone who they love, or done something vindictive or mean to a loved one. This is also not our best self, not the person who we wish to be. Acting and speaking with an engaged heart, full of love, is one of the surest ways to limit these regrets.

If we are acting and speaking to limit regret, what else can we do to live in a manner consistent with who we want to be? We can transform regret into a powerful impetus for change. Remember, hindsight has its benefits.

We can use hindsight as a cudgel with which to beat ourselves up, or we can use it to appreciate our mistakes, as they present a great opportunity to develop our ability to be the person we want to be. When we go the cudgel route, we not only lose out on a magnificent opportunity for growth, but we may push ourselves further away from our best self. Just as the student benefits from constructive criticism, so do we. When we use the cudgel of hindsight, we tear ourselves down. We have transformed whatever bad action or words that we may have done or said into a knife aimed at our own heart. Does the person who was the target of your words or deed become better off by knowing that you now have beaten yourself up at least as much as you did them? Of course not.

However, when we encounter regret and transform it into a force for change, we benefit not only ourselves, but everyone else in the world. We transform the suffering into joy. There is real suffering when we are not our best selves and we are able to recognize it. By using hindsight, we can see where our actions or words were not consistent with our best self. This knowledge is more powerful than all the learning in the world.

We can take this knowledge and use it as a guide for how to better connect with our best self. We can begin to understand how fear, anger, jealousy, and a host of other emotions, in their extreme, can divorce us from our true selves. When we understand why we acted or spoke in that manner, we can resolve never to do so again, when faced with a similar circumstance. Not only are we able to do better in that given situation the next time, but we begin to understand how we react when faced with anger, fear, jealousy, etc. In this understanding lies the path to living a life without regret. Instead, we live a life where we are constantly aspiring to be our best selves.

Be Here Now

To be present, in this moment, ought to be one of the simplest states of being for humans. Think about that for a second. Then think about how difficult it is for you, or anyone, to actually achieve. We live in a world of distractions, to be sure. Yet, what really keeps us from being present is ourselves.

Why is being present important? Imagine a person driving a car, while texting. Is that person present? Is she able to attend to the task of driving? Maybe not, and she may end up in an accident. Or, a more benign example, imagine sitting outside on a beautiful spring evening with the sun setting, bursting with oranges and purples and reds. But you’re busy worrying about something that happened at work earlier in the day. Are you present enough to not only see the sunset, but to enjoy its beauty?

The difficulty we have with being present can bring about any number of consequences, some of which may be life threatening, while others just diminish the quality of our lives.

So why are we so bad at being present? Is it part of the human condition? My work with young children leads me to believe that we are born with an amazing capacity to be present in each and every moment. As we age, we learn, through our socialization, that thinking is really where it’s at. We tell our children, adolescents and ourselves that we are incredible thinking machines, capable of great mental feats that fuel society’s progress.

Some of that is undeniably true. We ARE amazing creatures, with big, beautiful brains. But we live most of our post-latency years from the neck up. We spend more time in our heads than any place else. And it has disastrous consequences, for the individual and for society.

Living in the mind, we miss out on the little joys that life brings us each and every day. We also create unnecessary stress, which leads to numerous health consequences- physical as well as mental. Our brains are trained to look for problems and for ways to solve them. We are so good at this task that we see or invent problems that do not actually exist anyplace other than in our minds.

And, we are so conditioned to this mind/thought-centric world that to break free and bring ourselves back to the moment is such a difficult task. Think about this for a minute- we have seminars, books and courses on how to be present. We have become so divorced from our true selves that we have to learn a skill that we are, I believe, born with.

If you doubt this, spend an hour with a child under the age of seven. Every moment is a new one to a child. What just happened is in as distant a past as the juice box they had last year. It is this capacity to be present, in this precise moment, that makes children so resilient and happy. The smile you just gave that five year old made their moment. And they will show you how much joy they have, in that moment.

Children laugh and smile at the smallest things not because they are not developed enough to know how little value the balloon has. They laugh and smile because they know the precise value of that balloon to them, in that moment. Children do not yet overlook the world around them. They only begin to ignore the balloon as society tells them it’s a kid’s toy, not worthy of their attention.

What we tell ourselves, as adults, about which things are worth our attention and/or time only serves to further alienate us from the thousands of moments of joy that are there, in our lives every day. Our inability to be truly present in each moment robs us of happiness and connection. It separates us from a true life, one in which we can still marvel at the moon or smile at the stars.

But we can change that. We can be present in this moment and each moment thereafter. We can live a life filled with joy, wonder and connection. All we have to do is be here, now, and not wherever our brain wants to take us.

BE. HERE. NOW. 

The Glass is Always Full…

We pay too much attention to that which we can see and not enough to that we cannot.

I posted that on Facebook last night, and received some likes. But I want to further explore the meaning I take from this saying.

Some read this as an admonition to stop paying attention to looks and start paying attention to personality. Others see it as a call to optimism or even others as a statement about perceptive abilities. They are all correct, as their truth is as valid as mine or yours.

What I mean to convey with this message, though, is different, and may take a piece from each of the other interpretations. For me, the message is that the things we are unable to see matter more than those we can see with our eyes. The glass, and everything else, is always full whether it be with water or air or tissue paper. There are so many things that can fill a glass, yet we focus solely on water. Why?

What if someone presented you with a glass stuffed with tissue paper and asked you whether or not the glass was full? If you are like many/most people, your initial response would be one of confusion. You may think the question is absurd, or that the questioner is playing a mind game with you.

How do we see love, passion, empathy, kindness or other personality traits? They are often the air in the glass. Sometimes we “see” these qualities in the actions of people, thus transforming them into the tissue paper.

As a society, we are focused on the water, the outward appearance, the tangibles. We determine the goodness or badness of a person based upon the easily viewable. How often do we pause for a moment and really think about who a person is?

It is not always easy, to be sure. There is no simple way to determine if someone is good or bad, like you or unlike you. In order to see the unseeable, we must look, and listen, with our hearts. If kindness resides in our hearts, we will see it, hear it and feel it in others.

This all takes time and our society is so fast paced that we have developed an entire toolbox of techniques to make quick decisions about others. Our world is beset with animosity and tribalism. Sure, those two demons have always existed, but our brains have evolved a great deal since then.

It is up to us whether we will use these advanced cognitive abilities to expand our circle or to make snap judgments that further isolate us from one another.