Jason Digges - Conflict = Energy: The Transformative Practice of Authentic Relating

Foreword
Strategic and honest communication

We all live in a private world: of thoughts, evaluations, fear, emotions, fantasies. Most of what you experience, no one will ever know. It is uniquely yours. Does he like me? Theres not enough money. Oh my god, I cant believe I just said that. Im such an idiot. Shes looking at me, quick, smile! Act friendly! We send missives to each other across the great chasm of our mental and emotional isolation.

Most communication ends up being strategic, designed to cause the other person to feel and behave in a certain way that fulfills our agenda. Although we may understand that communicating strategically is not the way we want to live, it is modeled to us so frequently that it just winds up becoming our default.

More or less all marketing is strategic. It is designed to make you feel desirous of something you dont have, or to make you feel inadequate in some way about your appearance, or your wealth or your status, with the agenda that you will then give your money to the entity that created the advertising.

Politics, particularly in the U.S., is entirely strategic. Politicians can be bought in various ways, by corporate donors, or just by the immediate needs and desires of their electorate. In order to get into office, you have to be popular, and therefore you need to launch a campaign in order to make people like you.

Sadly, a lot of educational institutions are also strategic, feeding the aspiring student along a conveyor belt of prepackaged knowledge. Each and every step is designed to help you meet another goal, pass another exam, and move on through the process to eventually become an obedient cog in the socio-economic machine.

The media, which long, long ago, in a land we can hardly remember, was designed as a vehicle of honesty to counteract all these forces, has also become, just within our lifetime, highly strategic, competing for the short attention span of its readership. The media has become expert at sensationalist headlines, page-turning copy, often fueled by fear to whip you up into a frenzy, and then win you as a loyal repeat customer.

Flirting and seduction are strategic, whether done with words, body language, or the selective display of naked skin. When we flirt, it may not actually be with the deliberate intention to end up in a relationship or in bed, but instead, it carries the agenda of wanting reassurance that Im attractive and that you love me.

In fact, any kind of attempt to control anybody with rules or guidelines or suggestions or feedback, is strategic. Its designed to have another person conform to my idea of what I think is the best way to live, and therefore to create a feeling of being in control. Any form of harassment or intimidation is strategic. Its designed to generate a feeling of fear in the other person, so they back down and allow you to get your way. The ultimate expression of controlling behavior is of course violence.

Because almost everything we are fed systemically smacks of strategic communication, many of us have come to regard this as normal in our personal lives as well. As a result, too few of us have role models for rich, nourishing, truthful relationships.

Strategic communication is not just about overtly lying. We are also being strategic when we withhold relevant information, which the other person would actually like to know. Having a secret affair, secret porn watching or gambling all require withholding, but not always lying.

The antidote to strategic communication is called being authentic. Its strange, isnt it, that just over the course of a few decades, authenticity has become something we have to deliberately practice. It has become the exception, rather than the norm. Most of us need a strong reminder now and then about why honesty is a good idea. This book offers you the simple tools to restore simple honest authentic communication to your life.