Matching people’s energy is not “petty”. It’s necessary.
Pills of wisdom #4
I used to believe in “not becoming like” the people who hurt me. Why enter the tit for tat dynamics when you can be the bigger person and take the higher road instead?
That sounds nice, but… I’m afraid it doesn’t always hold true. There are two sides to every story. And today I’ll tell you the other side (the negative side) of always taking the higher road when people act malicious against you.
No, I’m not here to encourage petty revenges. Don’t worry, I’m still a Buddhist. Lol.
Instead, I’m here to tell you there’s a difference between retribution and translation.
Yes, translation.
Let’s get started with today’s lesson:
You can’t speak the language of education with someone who only understands disrespect. You can’t speak the language of truth with someone who only understands deception.
And so on it goes… (Insert here your own lost-in-translation scenario).
A coach/casual friend of mine usually tells an amusing story when she’s teaching people about karma (the original Eastern “karma”, not the watered-down newage version people usually think of).
It basically goes like this (summarised and paraphrased by me):
I used to lecture people who disrespected me. I assumed they were having a bad day, didn’t know better, or meant well but ended up stumbling in their words when talking to me. As someone whose main [Jungian] archetype is The Teacher*, my instinct was to educate them, teach them how they should express themselves instead in order for me and others to feel respected in their presence. The problem is… My lecturing never changed their behaviour for the better; On the contrary, it emboldened them to double down on the disrespect. Eventually, I learned I was being self-centered in my “need” to educate them — because that’s what I do best — since the situation was actually asking for a whole different approach, totally out of my comfort zone: cutting ties and not looking back.
*This equals The Sage + The Caregiver in Jungian language. For the pedantic people out there, I know there isn’t “The Teacher” among the main 12, but that doesn’t mean you can’t extrapolate these other (more specific) archetypes from basic archetype combinations. And before we have the same conversation regarding mine, it’s The Sage + The Magician. You’re welcome.
You see… in my teacher’s little story, we have a classic example of a message “lost in translation”. It isn’t that she didn’t notice what was happening (so she wasn’t naive), and it isn’t that she couldn’t read people’s intentions (so she wasn’t ignorant either). The problem is that she was taking the higher road, so to speak, when the situation actually asked for matching people’s energy. This is not to diminish the importance of education. On the contrary, education is a fundamental activity for us, human beings, to live harmoniously in society. That’s why teachers are needed among us. However, you can’t expect a classroom dynamics to happen just about anywhere. There’s a time and a place for it. That’s today’s pill of wisdom: if you disregard context, you’ll put yourself in a pickle a lot more often than you need to.
Another story (my own, this time):
I used to unmask liars and set the record straight about what they were saying (you can still browse old articles here on this blog where I did that). I would shed light on the evidence that their words didn’t match their actions or facts, in such a way as to “win” the argument every time. Indeed, you can’t outsmart someone who has The Oracle archetype. She WILL win every time. But the problem is… I kept attracting more and more liars into my life. That must have meant I didn’t learn the lesson! Well, eventually, I had an epiphany about it: what if I stopped exposing the people who aren’t honest and truthful? What if I got out of this “oracle comfort zone” of mine and chose to simply speak their deceptive language back to them? Surely they would understand it better than truthfulness and honesty. Bingo! Out of a sudden, no more liars.
“But Lucy”, maybe you’re wondering… “Isn’t that petty”?
Well… No. Not exactly. Not in this context.
Consider a game of ping pong. Are you even playing it if you suddenly catch the ball with a glove? No. That’s against the rules of the game — or, potentially, it can turn ping pong into a whole new game, which is no longer to be called ping pong. But the point is: how do you expect your opponent to understand (and react appropriately to) what you’re doing if you get creative like that without a forewarning?
I know it sounds very odd to call truthfulness and honesty “creativity” — if anything, lies are creative. Facts are just facts! But in the context of the existing dynamics, consider that you’re dealing with someone whose idea of normality only encompasses deception. If you speak straight to them, they can’t even compute that, because “speaking straight” does not exist in their vocabulary (kind of like there’s no word in English for hikikomori, or the words “yes” and “no” do not exist in Irish). So, for a person who only speaks the language of deception, they will interpret your “speaking straight” as “hmmmmm… What is this person hiding? Where is the hidden message? Where is the second intention?”. It doesn’t matter how many times you say to them, “I have no hidden agenda”, they’ll keep looking for it anyway.
Is it really petty to speak someone else’s language? I think not. It’s efficient. It gets the point across without frustration or too much wordiness (both traps I used to fall into when talking to deceptive people).
For example:
Let’s suppose somebody lied to me repeatedly, sabotaged me whenever they could, triangulated me with “therapists” and “counsellors” who had no qualms with gossip… And would never admit any of it. The old version of me, naive me, would feel like unmasking the person with the evidence I have that what they’re saying or pretending to express to me doesn’t actually proceed in reality — only to be met with a “you’re so sensitive” or “oh my god you totally misunderstood” or a similar gaslight technique that would keep me trusting them in order to not be a bitch.
Today I know better, though. So let’s use this same example: I might block this person on a specific social media, and I might simultaneously reply to their email that is covertly asking for me to justify myself but pretending to simply be “a friendly catch-up”, with my polite “thanks but I can’t now, I’m sooooo busy. By the way, you’re very sweet. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ xoxoxo”.
“But why block someone and also pretend to appreciate them?” — Why, of course, I’m speaking their own deceptive language. I’m matching the person’s energy. If this person truly wanted to address anything, they’d get off their moral high horse, be vulnerable for the first goddamn time ever, and admit they envy or dislike me in truth and pretended to be ok with my presence in their lives just to “keep the appearances”. In that case, I might consider going back to my usual honest style of communication. But as long as they keep playing this “ping pong”, I won’t be the one who ruins it. It’s allright. They pretend on one side, I pretend on my side, and the pretend game goes on with the ball at full swing.
(That’s just a metaphor. I’ve nothing against literal ping pong. Invite me to play any time).
