Guys coming in to The Game often say “I wish I’d found this stuff earlier”. They look back through years they feel they’ve wasted interacting with others ‘normally’, and wish they could go back and avoid a lot of the more ‘negative’ experiences they’ve been through.
I found myself feeling much the same way reading Pulling Your Own Strings by Dr Wayne Dyer (Amazon). Many of the issues he raised I felt I’d dealt with the hard way, battling day after day with some self-defeating behaviours, and finally coming up with solutions that seem inferior to the ones he presented.
We are, however, the sum of all of our experiences, both the positive and the negative. If you look in the mirror, and you’re happy with what you see, and you find yourself excited about the future, then wishing you could change the past is pointless - all you can change is your future.
And if you want your future to include rock-tight inner game, this book is an excellent start!
What is a Victim?
The raison d’etre of the book is “avoiding being victimized”. As such, the book highlights many examples of others victimizing you that you may not previously recognized as such, and specific ways in which they do it. The book has a broad definition of victimization. In summary:
“You are being victimized whenever you find yourself out of control of your life. If you are not pulling the strings, then you are being manipulated by someone or something else.”
The book then goes on to give specific example after specific example. Silent acceptance of poor service at a restaurant? Victimization. Being blackmailed in to attending family events you don’t want to be at? Victimization. Feeling compelled to finish your plate of food even though you feel full? Victimization? Boasting? Victimization.
Bringing us back to pickup and dating, being victimized is essentially being controlled by social pressure. It’s not talking to that girl because you’re worried about other peoples reaction to that. It’s accepting flakey or irrational behaviour from a girl because you don’t want to ‘hurt her feelings. Essentially, it’s operating from a position of weakness - something that will absolutely sink your attractive interactions with women.
Not Boasting
I use a rather involved system for reading self-development books to try and make sure I internalize the lessons in them. The first step of this is underlining the points that for me hit home the hardest.
Chapter 5, “Becoming Quietly Effective”, found itself with a disproportionate amount of underlinings. As discussed elsewhere on this site, trying to impress others, or trying to elicit their positive judgment is a sure way to chisel away at your self-esteem. As well as including a great deal of real-life examples of this, Dr Dyer also includes a great little exercise on divorcing yourself from this validation-seeking behaviour:
“Practice being quietly effective by postponing announcements about your achievements. Time yourself on one-, two-, or three hour delays, and then ask yourself if you still have to tell someone. This is particularly useful for handling news that will make you appear superior to the person you are informing. The delay system works because after waiting for several hours, or even days, you no longer feel the urgency to portray yourself as a winner, and once the news does come out (if it does), you will seem like what you are becoming - a person who takes achievements calmly and modestly in stride.”
Beating The Past
One of the most frequent ways used to victimise you is attempting to shame you for past behaviour before trying to get you to comply. A recent example from my life which I recognised from reading the book: a company had canceled an account I had held with them 6 months ago due to inactivity without telling me, but had continued to charge me. When I rang up to find out why the account had stopped working, and was told this, I asked for a refund. I was told that they would only refund me two months, as I should have rung them as soon as the account had been disabled.
Previously, I’d have been annoyed, but silently accepted this. Having recently finished this chapter, I stuck to my guns, asked to speak to a manager, and was able to get a full refund with minimum hassle. As explained in the book:
“Whenever anyone tells you ‘You should have’, look out for victimization. A ’should-have’ will not change a thing you’ve done, but it can be used to get you to admit you were wrong, and to avoid dealing with you about what can be done now. As long as a potential victimizer can keep conversation focused on your past behaviour, you can be certain you will not get what you are looking for now”.
Conclusion
At first glance, the book is not a dating book. It’s not a pickup book, and it has little in the way of specific examples relating to dating. At the same time, as the most excellent Braddock from Love Systems described it to me, “it’s like taking steroids for your inner game”.
A lot of the themes discussed in the book are the same themes found in many of The Community’s Inner-Game products: authenticity, honesty, internal validation, and defining your own boundaries and standards for other people. The focus being away from meeting women is almost a feature: it’s about standing on your own two feet, and being an assertive, confident person.
Highly highly recommended
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:26 am
i love dyer.. i haven’t read this one but recently wrote a post recommending Real Magic and Erroneous Zones