When I seek love, acceptance, and appreciation (LAA as Byron Katie calls it), I become someone who manipulates.
I act in certain ways to manipulate others to give me what I want, or what I think I want.
I become nice, avoid conflict, say what I think they want to hear, so they’ll like me, love me, and appreciate me.
Looked at superficially, it doesn’t look so bad. What’s bad about being nice? About being nice to others so they are nice back?
And when I examine it more in detail, it looks quite ugly. I see the manipulation. When I do this, I use others to get what I want. It’s even violent.
That’s what inquiry is about, of course, looking at it more in detail. Seeing what’s actually and already there.
And when I see what’s already here, in more detail, it tends to change.
I can use the Living Inquiries to examine this.
What does it say about me? What person would act in this way?
I am unloved. I lack in love. I need love (from others). I am deficient.
Someone who is insecure. Still a child. Confused. Inauthentic.
Can I find the threat in having someone not like me, love me, appreciate me?
Can I find the threat in X? Conflict. Being authentic. Not acting so people will like me.
Can I find X? (Me, the one who is unloved, deficient, insecure, still a child, inauthentic.)
Can I find the command to X? Be nice. Be loved. Be appreciated. Be accepted.
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Initial notes…..
- seeking love, acceptance, appreciation
- manipulative – manipulating others to get from them what we (think we) want
- violent, in a sense
- pleasing others to get what we want from them
- a game we all recognize, yet play the roles (unless we don’t)