Managing Interaction
Emotionality Problems
The very notion of managing personal interaction is somewhat alien in the initial . Your focus in interaction here is overwhelmingly on handling your own emotional state: your anxiety, your self-consciousness, your pleasure, your resentment, your hopes. Whatever the issue, you strive to get approval. Because being genuine sustains self-esteem, the notion of 'managing' implies some artifice. A managed personal interaction in is better labeled 'manipulation'.
Everyday social interaction informally and at work does occur, but it is either conventional and pragmatic or driven by emotional states, rather than being self-supportive.
The predominance of emotionality rends you vulnerable in many social and work situations. You find that you cannot achieve your own goals in the face of a determined player. The other party seems not to care about you or your needs and uses tactics that seemingly humiliate, anger or frighten you. When this occurs, you suddenly find that you have to deal with an inner turmoil rather than focusing on why you are interacting or what you are trying to achieve in the situation.
Often the easiest way to reduce or avoid your emotional storm is to soothe and comply with the wishes of the other person, and agree or accept their proposals. But, inevitably these are not to your advantage. The alternative is to explode in anger. That tends to be humiliating. Even if you can justify the explosion to yourself, such behaviour tends to block off future interaction. No one wants to deal with someone who loses control.
The end result is that you cannot achieve goals because your sensitivity interferes with handling people.
Taking a Position
In moving to the , you must recognize that you are entering a world where feelings are important and informative rather than being self-defining. Your self is now shaped, even defined, by social values and related goals. The pursuit of goals must be simultaneously used to build your strength.
In practice, this is handled by «taking a position» in regard to any particular person or interaction. You then allow that position to determine your handling of situations. This position requires you to clarify with some precision things like:
- what is the goal of the interaction
- why you are engaging at this point in time
- what the other party is likely to want from the interaction
- what sort of relationship is realistically possible
- what your fall-back position is if you do not get cooperation
- how you can reciprocate and cooperate with their goals
In presenting and applying your position, you activate certain general and positive emotions: e.g. enthusiasm, positivity, willingness, acceptance. You may also communicate specific and appropriate emotions: e.g. doubt, cooperativeness, persistence, disappointment.
However, some feelings are irrelevant or dangerous and need to be suppressed: e.g. wanting to be liked, irritation at disagreement, anger at being frustrated, pleasure at being flattered.
Mind Control
participation is intrinsically complementary: i.e. your experience controls the other person's experience. Pairing is natural and spontaneous. interaction rejects pairing because each person is considered a separate individual who comes together with a variety of others through sharing interests and values.
As a result, in managing interactions, you can and should enable others to respond to you (of their own free will) and to join or assist you in your endeavours as they think best.
Once you realize that you cannot control what other people will think of you and your ideas or what they will do, you will not try. Attempts to force or control what an other will think or do, e.g. via long explanations in emails or lengthy justifications in a conversation, will backfire and lead to rejection.
Bottom-line: The only "mind" that can be controlled is your own. ("Mind" here can be taken to refer either to 'personal functioning' or your 'sense of self'.)
- Move to Stage-3: Individual Mode.
Originally drafted: 22-Jun-2016.