STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- In the past three years, we have been through hell, and the most maddening part has been seeing our loved ones succumb to the “COVID spell.”
- In our circles, it is very common to ask, “How do we get through to them?”
- There is no magical formula but there is a way, and it’s rooted in self-confidence, patience, humility, and love.
- Language matters, and we gain more by genuinely respecting their souls, praying for guidance, and trusting the universe to make things right.
- It is a very long journey, we are not the first generation to deal with this—and in the end, there is light.
“How Do We Get Through to Them?”
In the past three years, we have been on a very dramatic roller coaster ride. It is fair to say that we’ve been through hell. And the most traumatizing and maddening part has been seeing our loved ones succumb to the spell of the “COVID response” and behave like their souls have been stolen.Patience Is a Virtue, Alas
There are no magical formulas. We in America are somewhat used to magical formulas, psychological “systems,” and impressive consultants riding in on a white horse with a solution and an invoice.But perhaps, the past three years showed up to strip us of that delusion and to demonstrate to us in the most visceral way that here we are, human beings between the earth and the sky, with a deep longing in our hearts and a clumsy prayer on our lips. And perhaps, that longing in our heart and that imperfect prayer on our lips are all we have—and it’s a start.
Getting through to ideological addicts is a time-consuming and difficult feat, and we get through by being patient, by not despairing, and by respecting their free will—which I think can only be done if there is a total and massive self-love in us, a massive love for them, and a total spiritual confidence in good things.
It is also important to make honest assessments in real-time as to when to talk to them and when to let them be—perhaps for a while. Also, prayer helps, and it doesn’t have to be an institutional prayer. Prayer is prayer. The Creator is intelligent enough to understand our hearts.
That’s the end of that story, really. If one does not have one’s eyes and one’s heart on honest healing and free will, and if one is not prepared to do the work but also relax and trust the universe (God, higher powers, however, we think about those things) to make things right, one is merely torturing himself or herself over what he or she cannot very quickly change.
And, if we are on the good side, we really cannot change the disposition of others by applying “just the right psychological trick.” It takes more.
It is bigger than us! And if we can convince just one person whom we love, and each of us does at least that, can you imagine the impact on the world? “Local, local, local” is where our success lives, I think.
Language Matters
It is not a big secret that in our polarized world, many words mean very different things in different “camps.” What is an innocent and self-evident statement in one echo chamber, in another echo chamber is an insult. And it is not a super revolutionary discovery that if you want the other person to hear you, it is better to talk in a way that does not scare him off or put him in a defensive spot.That means choosing a starting point he can subscribe to, skipping the words that are “clear signs of the enemy” in his world, and so on.
‘Divide and Conquer’
And by the way, the people with not-so-good intentions are fully aware of this psychological dynamic—and so they deliberately “milk” our very real trauma and plant hard-to-ignore reminders of unbearable pain into our thinking so as to dampen our ability to grow our souls or our desire to see the souls in the ones who’ve erred. And often, they get paid to do that.The Rigged Game of ‘Talking on the Internet’
Here is another trap, the “internet” trap. We can be very subtle in our private conversations but when it comes to public talking, we are half-screwed. Go one step too far in one direction, and you’ve scared away the ones whose ears you want to perk up.Go one step too far in the other—and the folks in “our camp” who have married their pain (as well as the people with not-so-good intentions pretending to be “our peeps” in that state) will complain about you being too soft or something along those lines.
That is the overarching circumstance we cannot change if we want to stay in the public sphere all. Which is why there are no universal formulas here either, but the good news is that we are not algorithmic meat bags with linear brains. Human beings are capable—or, let me make the correction, should be capable—of nuance.
And the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that our subjective agency, i.e., our individual choice to act wisely and to use our full sensory ability to navigate the terrain (versus relying on the communication manual titled, “How to Get Righteously Triggered by Wrong Talking Points”) is where it’s at.
More on ‘Trauma Milking’
I’ve made this observation consistently over the years, and I think it’s an important one. Whenever somebody tries to make people focus on their trauma, defend their trauma, marry their trauma, and hold on to their trauma by identifying with it, they are one of two things.They are either sincerely broken people who are being ridden by their trauma and who then have no business being in positions of leadership until taking control of their souls—or they are straight-out metaphorical vampires who find people’s suffering yummy and who want it to never end, and so they try to deliberately prolong the pain. Oh, and they often do so because it’s in their job description to do just that.
Now, this is obviously not to be confused with promoting situational awareness. Having situational awareness is critical. It can save one’s life. However, I believe that when somebody is whole and loves you, they talk about dangers in a way that is distinctly different from the tricky way.
Here is a way to talk about situational awareness that I find helpful: “Be aware of this danger. Hone your senses, up your skills, be strong even in the darkness, be grounded in your soul, and do what’s right. There is no fear. Trust in the higher powers. You are not alone.”
And here is the tricky way: “See those people over there? They have hurt you, haven’t they? Oh, how they have hurt you. I know, I know. I am on your side against those monsters who are subhuman anyway. I sense that you want to harm them for hurting you, don’t you? What a good, righteous thought,” etc.
Situational Awareness
Speaking of situational awareness, yes, it is very important to have it. I have written about it in the past in the story called, “The Synthetic Age: Welcome to the Genocide“:“Yes, there are times and places with many tanks and cannons and nuclear mushrooms and monsters—and there are also green pastures with blue skies and normal clouds. And the humbling and trivial conclusion is that situational awareness is about being as aware as possible of, uhm, the actual situation—and, depending on the actual situation, making good choices.
“There is time for carefree sunbathing, and there is time for battle. Both are real and valid. The wise and most practical path is about keeping a cool head and good balance and orienting yourself in each moment, based on what’s around.
“And what’s around? The bodies are piling up to the happy soundtrack of confidently misleading media chatter—and I want to emphasize that the body count is owed to many things, including but not limited to COVID injections.
Deep Fiction and the Woolly Mammoth in the Room
Let us zoom in on the topic of fiction. Oftentimes, when we look down on others and assume that, unlike them, we got everything figured out, we are oblivious to the fact that we live in our own version of fiction.History consists of layers and layers of actual “misinformation.” It is so because the official history is always written by the biggest bully. And truly, how do we know that the stories we’ve imbibed with our mother’s milk were factual? How do we know that our own parents and their parents had not been lied to?
How do we know that the history we’ve been taught at school wasn’t propaganda? Easy for me to say, I am an expat from the USSR, and I know the answer to this one since the history I’ve been taught as a kid was clearly propaganda—but I think this tragic condition is universal.
Power of Honesty
There is something else that happens when we tackle the tricky “ideological addition” monster within ourselves as eagerly as we go after it in others. It creates a mysterious “chemical reaction” in the world. Our honesty with ourselves grows our wings, and it ultimately makes it easier for us to get through to the ones we love.That is not to say that we'll always see the results right away. That is also not to say that we are going to receive immediate thanks (lol) or that we should aspire to shove our truth down other people’s throats. It is something more subtle and mysterious that happens when we stop clinging to fiction in our own lives.
It is a very long journey, we are not the first people in this world to deal with this—and in the end, there is light and redemption of all our love. I would like to end the story with a very interesting conversation that I had with Igor Chudov, in which we talk about the fictional reality versus the “real reality,” and all it entails.
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