How to relate, instead of dominate or manipulate

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Happy Sunday, Soothers. Most of us know that we live in a world that for the past several centuries has been created by colonization and domination. Where we have to begin the change of this, however, that we may not quite yet be aware of, is in ourselves.

The simple model of colonization is one of domination: one foreign entity comes in and through a variety of submission, exploitation, appropriation, manipulation, violence, dominates and subjugates the entity that was already indigenous to the area.

Where I think many of us don’t quite yet understand is that there’s a very good chance that most of us are working through a model of domination or colonization in our own lives, and to our own selves, to our own bodies and our own emotions. And of course we are. How could we have learned any other way, given it’s the air we breathe and the water we drink?

What do I mean by this? Most of us are taught that we are here to try to bend and force things to our will as a model for moving through life and getting the things we want (or we think we should want).

We should work through pain and exhaustion. Emotions are maaaaybe okay, but only in a certain looking way and in a certain time frame. Our body needs to be subject to expectations, pressure, modifications. We should have more time. We should have more money. We should be able to do more work.

What I’m asking you today is, where in your life have you been acting from attempting to dominate? And where can you begin starting to relate?

Where are you putting pressure on something to perform to your expectations rather than learning how to be the steward it’s crying out for?

Where can you begin to treat something you’ve viewed yourself as waging war on, or in opposition to, and begin to view it as a friend, as its own entity, as a relative, even?

Change starts when you ask the thing, person, concept or part you are trying to dominate, control or manipulate a couple of simple, gentle questions:

What do you really need from me to feel safe, and how can I best begin to give it to you?

How can I best tend to and steward you as a sacred, sovereign entity?

Let’s use a couple of examples.

One area in my life I’ve historically tried to dominate is my creativity and output related to my creativity (my podcast, this newsletter, my coaching, my workshops and courses).

My mind would tell me I should be able to do this, that and the other. (A good clue you’re in domination mode is you’re using “should” a lot.) I would force myself to create and dictate the time periods in when those should happen. When the creativity didn’t come or didn’t perform as I hoped or expected, I would panic. The joy of the process was gone.

I was in domination mode with my muse, with my creativity.

When I switched to relating mode, or what I like to call “stewardship” mode, I began asking a series of different questions, and treating my creativity as if it were genuinely an entirely separate being, not of me. And instead of being its dominator, I became more like its gardener. Its steward.

I asked it questions instead that were more like, “What do you need to feel safe?” “Do you need this amount of time, or that?” “Do you feel like showing up today?” and then — the key! — ACTUALLY LISTENING, honoring and respecting the answers that came forth.

My creativity needed long daily walks. LOTS of time. Way more time than I was giving it. Lotta nature. No pressure to hit “metrics,” only the delight of creation and connection. Sleep — it needed way more sleep. It needed stimulating books and podcasts that sparked ideas. My creativity loooooves Tarot; it needed more Tarot. It needed way less social media time and, crucially, less frequent email checks. A lot less coffee, but like, maybe *some* coffee, some days. It didn’t like feeling like it needed to make me a particular amount of money. And so on, and so forth.

Here’s another example where I see myself and my clients trying to dominate instead of relate: emotions! Especially tough or negative emotions.

One client frequently experiences the emotion of overwhelm. Her strategy had been to try to squash it; to dominate it; to eradicate it; to shame it. She thought she “shouldn’t” (there’s that word again!) be so overwhelmed; she didn’t have enough to actually be that overwhelmed, a lot of people had it so much harder than her.

So every time overwhelm raised its head, she was in domination mode with it.

We began to shift it when I asked her, “What would it look like to treat your overwhelm as your most honored guest?”

Kudos to her for even considering this; most people would have looked at me like they were considering if they should throw me out a window.

But her answers were thoughtful. If overwhelm were her most honored guest, she would listen to it. She would invite it in. She would hear its needs. She would happily tend to it and cherish it.

Little by little, she practiced becoming the steward of, the tender to, her overwhelm.

This model of relating and stewarddship isn’t natural for most of us since we’ve been conditioned to be instead in a model of domination and manipulation to these parts of us, but the key here is to be willing and go slow.

The best place to start if you’re interested in making this shift yourself is to simply name the thing, person or concept you are realizing you’re attempting to dominate. Maybe it’s an emotion, a part of your body, money, time, another person, your inner child, your shame your fear.

Then, ask it, to the best of your abilities:

“What do you need from me so you can feel safe?”

And truly listen.

You can also contemplate: “If I were to treat this thing as a friend, what would that look like?”

But, some of you may ask, what if what that other thing, person or concept needs to feel safe is in opposition with what *I* want?

The real question here is instead, do you want to exert will of your desires on something that does not want that thing? Do you want to be a dominator, or a gentle partner? Do you want to live in relationship, or manipulation? Do you want to be the colonizer, or the steward?

I’ll tell you as somebody who has made this shift in some areas of her life, is in the process of it with many others, and is in active resistance to it in still others:

Being the steward is so much more pleasurable and rewarding than the colonizer, for all parties involved.

I may not get what my mind or ego think it wants out of the exchange, but I often receive what I need.