Teal Swan: Doing (page 2)

“Manipulation is what we do when we feel we cannot meet our needs directly, so instead we try to meet them in round about ways. We try to influence others to do what we want them to do so our needs are met. This is particularly prevalent today when the need that is not met is emotional.”

“Start to see the things people say and do to you as less about you and more of a perfect reflection of the tragic relationship that they have with themselves.”

“We invalidate and desensitize our children when we try to make them feel better instead of helping them to feel like it is valid and ok to feel exactly how they feel. We do an immense disservice when we teach them by doing this to resist their own negative emotions. Anything we resist persists, and so we trap our children in their negative emotions when we try to help them avoid negative emotion by showing them how to run in the direction of positive emotion. We need to validate (mirror) their feelings and allow them to befriend the way they feel entirely before any action is taken to improve a situation or the way they feel.”

“The single most prevalent form of denial in the human race is emotional denial. We do not want to accept the reality of our own emotions and we do not want to accept the reality of other people's emotions. As a result, we are constantly at war with ourselves and with each other.”

“Having dysfunction within you does not make you bad. It makes you a byproduct of your environment. It makes you a person full of adaptations, some of which do more harm than good… just like the rest of us.”

“Everything that is ever done is done for one reason and one reason only, because the doer thinks they will feel better in the doing of it.”

“Most of us struggle for years against beliefs that have been deeply rooted in our being. We do everything we can think of to try to resist and fight against the beliefs when all we really need to do is sit down and directly pull these roots up so we can see them clearly and then replace them. It may be a bit time consuming, but look at it this way… you have the choice to struggle against them every day of your busy life or to take an hour or two of your time and focus specifically on doing the work necessary to alter them for good so you no longer have to struggle against them.”

“If we spend our lives resisting what happened, which is what we are doing when we cannot accept the reality of what has happened, we are living our life pushing against what was instead of putting our energy towards what we want to create instead.”

“When people are afraid, people become narcissistic. It is not that people are ‘bad’ for doing this. It is simply that the focus naturally shifts to self-preservation. It is a knee jerk reaction… One that is biologically wired into us.”

“You do not need to resist, control or restrict the creations of others due to the fear that they will negatively affect you. There is more than enough room in this universe for any and all creations that could possibly be thought up. This is why for every unwanted thing, there is (or will eventually be) an antidote.”

“With the right person, you will experience someone who is able not only to accept, but also to love the truth of you and meet your needs because it brings them pleasure to do so.”

“Currently, what is expected is that a person does not get emotionally aroused or dysregulated, is not emotionally phased or affected by anything someone else does or does not do, does not blame anyone for what they do or don’t do that causes emotional harm and especially does not defend themselves from emotional harm. What is glorified in society is emotional neutrality/numbness… Not having emotions.”

“When you follow your emotional guidance system with the awareness that your inner compass can be ‘faulty’ you will be able to question yourself in the spirit of curiosity and the desire to be totally aware… You will ask yourself WHY something feels good to do.”

“Your desires do not control you any more than a compass can control you. But ignoring, denying or trying to change a compass to say what you would rather it say, tends to have drastic consequences.”

“Be workable all you can in a relationship, but do not compromise.”

“The worst thing you could ever do to someone from a position of authority is to turn them against themselves. The worst thing you could do is to make them believe that it is wrong to feel how they feel and so something must be wrong with them. It is not malice that makes 'therapists' do this. It is ignorance. But it is ignorance that must end. And I will dedicate myself to ending that ignorance for as long as I draw breath.”

“It is ironic that when the priority is personal safety, the world becomes a very dangerous world. It becomes a world in which everyone is doing things for their own individual best interests. It becomes a society of control, strategy and zero-sum games.”

“If you do not keep your word, you will have demonstrated that you do not hold yourself to standards of conduct. You will have demonstrated that you care more about your own personal happiness and whims than you do about the pain of others. You will have demonstrated that you do not value your relationships and even that you do not value the people you are in a relationship with. You will have demonstrated yourself to be a person who lacks Integrity and honor. You will have demonstrated that you cannot be relied upon and that you cannot be trusted. You will be seen as an unsafe person. You will ruin the way that other people will see you, most especially you will lose their respect. And on the road to this ultimate loss, you will have created non-stop conflict in all of your relationships.”