Campaign advice
If you can’t win by being who you are, you’re not gonna win by being somebody else.
People will smell fakeness. And people don’t like that smell.
“I love to be the listener more than the talker. Please… if you will… talk…
How can I know you better?”
[And don’t even bother with these questions until you get them to tell you something about them. THEM!]
“If you don’t vote, and I lose, do you?”
“Please talk. Please vote.”
“Is there something I can do to make it easier for you to vote? If you don’t vote, and I lose, … I don’t want us both to lose… To lose this time we have listened together.
…
If you can’t win by being who you are, you’re not gonna win by being somebody else.
I believe _ _ can win because _ _ is a listener, more than a talker.
Make your talking, questions that lead to listening.
…
Don’t get sucked into your opponent’s conversation. You will if you listen too closely and plan retorts. As you listen, listen for fakeness. And don’t respond with fakeness; respond with who you are. Sometimes it’s lighthearted and silly. Sometimes it’s, “I don’t have simple answers about that, but I would like to know more from complex people I represent.”
If while you are listening, you are planning a retort, that gives the opponent control of the conversation. Then you too sound like a know-it-all. VOTERS don’t want her or you to control the conversation. Don’t get trapped. Return the conversation to questioning and listening.
Have your own conversation, with different words, with different directions, with different vibes. Your vibes. Your authentic vibes. Not borrowed or pretended:
“That’s a great and complicated question. I’m listening for great, not simple, answers.” People smell fake.
Make conversation, not a monologue about who you are:
“I am _ _, and I’m NOT here to tell you who I am – UNLESS *YOU* ASK.
I’m here to HEAR who YOU are, and to hear your questions.”
[Your opponent’s favorite topic to talk about is herself.
Make your voters’ favorite topic THEM, not YOU.]
People smell fake. And it’s very easy to get sucked into fake. But people with a nose who is not ours can smell it.
DON’T ANSWER QUESTIONS THAT AREN’T ASKED!
…
People smell fake.
They smell fake and simple answers like pandering. Let your opponent give the simple answers. If you are honest with yourself, you don’t have simple answers to complicated questions. So don’t go there. Why would a single person answer questions that a community might have better answers to?
The smell of fake sounds like boasting.
The smell of fake sounds like having simple, rehearsed answers to questions that are not simple.
People are not simple. Most people don’t believe that they are not simple. Most people think they’re simple; they’re treated that way. By asking them questions, you reveal to them their own complexity:
People make complicated buys from people they like.
People cast complicated votes for people they like.
People smell fake.
Simple AND complicated people smell fake.
ALL people smell fake.
Don’t be fake. That appeals to all people.
…
“I am not here to tell you what you *should* think. I am here to HEAR what you *do* think.”
“THAT’S what I *should* hear. So the question to you is, do I hear you?”
“I’m not running to hear what I want to hear.
I’m not running to tell YOU what I want to hear.
I’m running to hear.
Talk. Ask. Both. Either.”
“We are not running to tell people what we want THEM to know.
We are running to hear what they want US to know.”
“I am not running to discover simple answers. I am running to represent complicated human beings.
If every question were simple, every question would be answered!”
People smell fake.
People think they are simple, until you show them that they aren’t. I know of no other way to show people how complicated they are than to ask them questions about THEM, not give them answers about you.
People smell fake.
“I don’t have anything to tell you. But I do have questions to ask you. YOU tell me what those questions should be?”
“I’m not here to give you answers. I’m here to ask you questions. I’m here to hear what questions I should be asking.”
People smell fake.
If you want them to believe that answers to your questions are important to you, perhaps all you have to say is, “Thank you for talking to me. I love to be the listener more than the talker.”
…
“If I talk too much, do I listen? Are you heard?”
“If you don’t vote, and I lose, do you?”
…
Neil D. 2023-08-31
Making sense of the sensors of ego and soul
“The more we grow true to who we are as unique human beings, the more we grow into the calm that, although we are mere stitches in the fabric of creation, our thin and frayed thread is no less or more valuable than those over and under which we are woven.” [source]
Definitions can make things fun and interesting and discussable. Yet, my, how often are metaphors more?
Ego: Our sensor of agency, uniqueness, individuality
Soul: Our sensor of connectedness
How can they actually be talked about in any way but metaphorical? Uniqueness and connectedness?
Leave your comment
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Neil D. 2023-08-29
Some people don’t deserve access to us. Codependency. Entitlement?
I saw a post:
“People who consistently and consciously hurt you do not deserve more chances.
They deserve less access.”
I entirely encourage defending ourselves in the vulnerable states many of us may be in.
I also think what we “deserve” is the trickiest question in our lives; it exploits our cultural inability to confront the foolish futility of “entitlement” mentality.
I think it’s fair to assume that any outsider could look at our failed relationships and spin the tale that it was senses of entitlement which were central to the downfalls. The narcissist feels entitled because he is grand. The pleaser feels entitled because she has given everything to the relationship.
Transactionalism, quid pro quo, give-and-take… these are the building blocks of codependency. Compromise and balance are mortar in the bricks.
After our failed relationships built on codependency, it should be no surprise that we seek the secret formulas of compromise and balance – if that is how we want to be in our next relationship.
What if we got love wrong? What if it’s none of these things.
We are entitled to that transactional “form” of love no more than anyone is entitled to receive that form of love from us. It’s unrealistic to believe we are capable of the required balance, so it’s unrealistic to believe a partner is.
Wisdom writers call undeserved love “grace.” When giving involves conditions, it’s not unconditional.
So many of us feel unable to love our own selves because we also do not feel entitled to (deserving of) love from anyone – self included.
I can’t see room for entitlement conditions in authentic love any longer.
I can’t see the covenant of marriage as a transactional contract any longer: That promise is invariably worded to love without conditions til death.
It’s plainly evident that that was a promise half of us could not keep before; our hearts long for it to be one we now can. After all, it is the foundation of the faith of many that they are loved unconditionally by a Higher Someone by grace, not because of what they have earned or deserve. Any faith founded on certainty absent doubt is not faith! Yet there’s a sense of steadfastness in believing in our lovability – by Another.
To long after an unfailing formula of balance and compromise and give-and-take is to long for certainty. To long for entitlement. Not faith.
Without faith, I cannot honestly – deep down – believe I am loved (https://feelwithneil.com/2020/05/28/i-am-being-loved/)
The longing is a longing. Certitude terminates it. When the longing goes, faith goes. Faith is “Aching To Know”
…
“People who consistently and consciously hurt you do not deserve more chances.
They deserve less access.”
Warning: Have you consistently and consciously hurt yourself? I sure as hell have and do. Do I deserve no more chances, no more access, to my self?
Is egocentric self defense masquerading as self compassion fatal? “How we do one thing is how we do everything.”
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Neil D. 2023-08-29
Be loving with your self (Richard Rohr)
“We think fear and anger and judgment and punishment are going to achieve love—but show me where?”
Restorative justice and retributive justice are common topics for Richard Rohr. While this article of his (https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-big-picture-of-love-2023-08-24/ ) is not explicitly about those themes applied to our inner life, it’s no leap. In our psyche, it’s tragically common for our ruminations to involve retributive justice. As he insists, we cannot transform our selves nor anyone else without “loving [our selves] more and loving [our selves] more deeply.”
“Almost all of us in Western civilization were educated with the notion of retributive justice… if we sin this much, we get this much punishment…
“Many…grew up with the threat of…sentences doled out for various sins… Please tell me how that makes us love God more? In fact, what it’s done is make a high percentage… fear God, not love God. It certainly did not make us love our neighbor. [nor our selves]
“Show me anyone whose heart was changed by punishing them! … the more we punish people and imprison people, the worse they become.
“It’s a pretty sick system… nothing grand, transformative, or godly about it.
“We think fear and anger and judgment and punishment are going to achieve love—but show me where?
“Here’s the great surprise of the Hebrew Scriptures… People are not going to get what they deserve, they’re going to get much better than they deserve… God says, ‘The way I punish you…is actually going to be by loving you more and loving you more deeply.’
“Love is the only thing that transforms the human heart. Nothing else.
You think self anger and self judgment and self punishment are going to achieve love—but show me where?
Neil D. 2023-08-24
Back to school
A 9th-grader shared some wonderful reflections that made me think of a poster this student shared with me a couple years ago:
So I replied:
“I believe it delights God that every single one of God’s children has their own beliefs. If God wished us all to believe exactly the same things, that would be a lesser god, and your poster in my kitchen, “the world needed one of you,” would be crap. You might not enjoy seeing all the people you’ll see on your first day back today, and I sure as hell can’t understand many things about the world, but I believe God thinks the world needs all of them too. Not everything can be sugarcoated, but I believe entirely that our world is oozing with goodness, and you make it safer for me to believe that.”
Let’s spread that kind of safety.
Neil D. 2023-08-24

Feel with Neil 