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DGX37 Journal

#11 · June 30, 2023, 12:37 am

Quote from Power Duck on June 30, 2023, 12:37 am
Hello DGX37,
I would say that holding grudges against them is a good step forward (of course emotional detachment while being power aware and taking action is way better, but holding grudges is way better than holding no grudges and forgiving them).
Personally I noticed that as soon as I started to hold grudges and take action to reempower me, my self esteem, power awareness and confidence increased a lot.
Now, what I was going to write. I'm a college student, and the thing is that I experienced the same thing you are. Surfacing, trying to shame them, or acting as an eagle doesn't seem to work.
The thing is that, I've found that surfacing/uncovering the nastiness of a turkey IN a group of turkeys doesn't work that much. If I recall correctly (maybe I'm wrong here) the objective of surfacing is to show to others what a nasty individual the agressor is, but what if the people around you know it but they don't care and actually like to behave in such a way? You aren't shaming him at all, you are rather thread expanding the aggression and the fact that he can and does disempower you. Its a lose for you and win for him.
I experienced this same situation with a frenemy, in my case he babied me and tried to make fun of me. If I surfaced his aggression he would simply affirm that he was disempowering me, but hey "it's all a big joke".
So what did I do?:
I played his game, but better.
He babies me? I baby him, but I do it with low effort and hinting that he's an idiot/immature/tryhard. He kept babying me because he doesn't seem to learn, but each time he tried to disempower me I ended the interaction feeling better, and often I find that when I feel good after a response to an aggression is because I did something correctly.

Now I see a thing that if I'm honest with you, dont agree at all, though I can see the reasoning. (Plus I don't know the full context, given the context I have I would say that I don't agree but If I knew the whole picture I could say otherwise)
Quote from DGX37
And because I see that I have value this is a real problem for them. I don't have to insult, I don't have to hit, I don't have to trip him.
Because I am good and helpful person, even those that disempowered me asked me for advice, wanted to talk, wanted me to do something for them. But if I don't do any of it, they lose real value they could get if they cooperated instead, and because others cooperate with me and know that I am not some asshole that has problems for no reason, they will take me not respecting and being cold to someone seriously and that someone will lose status and power.

Even if they manage, me not giving an inch and treating them as value takers will be a constant lose-lose for them, and what you will do when you are in lose-lose situation? You will try to escape it by either avoiding the situation or trying to make it win-win.
Not everyone does try to make a lose lose situation, a win win. Now, intelligent individuals do try, but not everyone is intelligent enough to realize that.
And even if those guys didn't get the benefits from helping you some of them either won't care that much or they will try to get their "revenge" for you trying to "rebel". I've experienced this firsthand from high school, plus those guys won't fear you/respect you, they will probably think "I'm gonna treat this guy well for today so he gives me this".
So, I would definitely hit them, show them what you're capable of. Plus make sure that you aren't trying to reason your way out of confronting them, I've experienced this myself and keep experiencing it sometimes.
However take this with a grain of salt. In the end you're the one who knows the full picture. Plus I still have lots to improve, so I could be wrong on something.
Hope it was helpful :)
Cheers.
Feel free to disagree btw.
P.S:
What I said about surfacing not working could be summed up as:
Surfacing is used to uncover covert aggression, however their aggression isn't covert, so they don't mind if you say that they're disrespecting you. Surfacing does work but with passive aggressive people/groups where there are some quality individuals who respect you and/or don't tolerate bad behaviour.
That's my take on why surfacing doesnt work and why is counter productive in this case.

Hello DGX37,

I would say that holding grudges against them is a good step forward (of course emotional detachment while being power aware and taking action is way better, but holding grudges is way better than holding no grudges and forgiving them).

Personally I noticed that as soon as I started to hold grudges and take action to reempower me, my self esteem, power awareness and confidence increased a lot.

Now, what I was going to write. I'm a college student, and the thing is that I experienced the same thing you are. Surfacing, trying to shame them, or acting as an eagle doesn't seem to work.

The thing is that, I've found that surfacing/uncovering the nastiness of a turkey IN a group of turkeys doesn't work that much. If I recall correctly (maybe I'm wrong here) the objective of surfacing is to show to others what a nasty individual the agressor is, but what if the people around you know it but they don't care and actually like to behave in such a way? You aren't shaming him at all, you are rather thread expanding the aggression and the fact that he can and does disempower you. Its a lose for you and win for him.

I experienced this same situation with a frenemy, in my case he babied me and tried to make fun of me. If I surfaced his aggression he would simply affirm that he was disempowering me, but hey "it's all a big joke".

So what did I do?:

I played his game, but better.

He babies me? I baby him, but I do it with low effort and hinting that he's an idiot/immature/tryhard. He kept babying me because he doesn't seem to learn, but each time he tried to disempower me I ended the interaction feeling better, and often I find that when I feel good after a response to an aggression is because I did something correctly.

Now I see a thing that if I'm honest with you, dont agree at all, though I can see the reasoning. (Plus I don't know the full context, given the context I have I would say that I don't agree but If I knew the whole picture I could say otherwise)

Quote from DGX37
And because I see that I have value this is a real problem for them. I don't have to insult, I don't have to hit, I don't have to trip him.
Because I am good and helpful person, even those that disempowered me asked me for advice, wanted to talk, wanted me to do something for them. But if I don't do any of it, they lose real value they could get if they cooperated instead, and because others cooperate with me and know that I am not some asshole that has problems for no reason, they will take me not respecting and being cold to someone seriously and that someone will lose status and power.

Even if they manage, me not giving an inch and treating them as value takers will be a constant lose-lose for them, and what you will do when you are in lose-lose situation? You will try to escape it by either avoiding the situation or trying to make it win-win.

Not everyone does try to make a lose lose situation, a win win. Now, intelligent individuals do try, but not everyone is intelligent enough to realize that.

And even if those guys didn't get the benefits from helping you some of them either won't care that much or they will try to get their "revenge" for you trying to "rebel". I've experienced this firsthand from high school, plus those guys won't fear you/respect you, they will probably think "I'm gonna treat this guy well for today so he gives me this".

So, I would definitely hit them, show them what you're capable of. Plus make sure that you aren't trying to reason your way out of confronting them, I've experienced this myself and keep experiencing it sometimes.

However take this with a grain of salt. In the end you're the one who knows the full picture. Plus I still have lots to improve, so I could be wrong on something.

Hope it was helpful :)

Cheers.

Feel free to disagree btw.

P.S:

What I said about surfacing not working could be summed up as:

Surfacing is used to uncover covert aggression, however their aggression isn't covert, so they don't mind if you say that they're disrespecting you. Surfacing does work but with passive aggressive people/groups where there are some quality individuals who respect you and/or don't tolerate bad behaviour.

That's my take on why surfacing doesnt work and why is counter productive in this case.

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#12 · June 30, 2023, 12:46 am

"(laughs) Did you get it just now?"

To this I would reply with:

-Yeah buddy, not everyone is as smart as you. Fortunately we have you to teach us all. (With a smile and direct eye contact, as if saying poor you, you're so dumb yet you don't have a clue. If possible pat him in the back if he's next to you)

With this you borrow power from the group as now the frame is us vs him (the smartass)

The only problem I see is that, If the group expresses their support to him you've pretty much lost. So one could not say the green part.

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#13 · June 30, 2023, 9:27 am

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on June 30, 2023, 9:27 am
Great post, DGX37.
Personally, I saw in the post some room for higher self-esteem and more "self-belief" as one of the answers.
Your new attitude seems good to me.
Rather than "holding grudges" though I'd call it a "drop the idiot/turkey" approach.
If he makes a joke, you don't avoid laughing because you're holding a grudge, but because he's not the type of person who earns your respect. And not the type of person you associate with and support (with your laughter and acceptance).
When it comes to actual techniques:
Quote from DGX37 on June 29, 2023, 7:56 pm
I have a big weakness in my power dynamics that I understood not too long ago.
When others disempower you, attack you, use covert aggression, use others against you, you need to make it visible that they attack you and then match their attack.
But I don't understand where I am going with this, for example, someone says "(laughs) Did you get it just now?" which is a covert move, the correct way is to question him, to bring out his attack.

That is only one way of handling it.
But it works best among adults or truly covert power moves.
If I remember correctly, you're young, right?
Well, that approach is not always the best one if he indeed enjoys and plays the "asshole role" -something more common among younger men, albeit also certainly possible at any age-.
I think PU also says you don't want to frame as asshole people who are obviously acting like asshole because that may actually empower them and disempower you (ie.: you thread expand on the fact that they're being assholes to you).
As for more calibrated techniques, I wasn't there so you know better.
It may be shrugging as if to say "what an idiot", to laughing yourself as if to mimick his laughter, but doing it as if he were a spastic.
You may as well say:
Him: (laughs) Did you get it just now?
You: yeah genius, now I get it
Not the best, but just to show that anything that "hits back", no matter how simple, shows that you're there to just take it and can shoot back.
Or:
Him: (laughs) Did you get it just now?
You: Yeah, next time explain things a bit better please
If it fits the situation -ie.: if he was indeed teaching something- it's a very good one because it completely sidesteps the "humor", it's dominant and tasks him.

Great post, DGX37.

Personally, I saw in the post some room for higher self-esteem and more "self-belief" as one of the answers.

Your new attitude seems good to me.

Rather than "holding grudges" though I'd call it a "drop the idiot/turkey" approach.
If he makes a joke, you don't avoid laughing because you're holding a grudge, but because he's not the type of person who earns your respect. And not the type of person you associate with and support (with your laughter and acceptance).

When it comes to actual techniques:

Quote from DGX37 on June 29, 2023, 7:56 pm
I have a big weakness in my power dynamics that I understood not too long ago.
When others disempower you, attack you, use covert aggression, use others against you, you need to make it visible that they attack you and then match their attack.
But I don't understand where I am going with this, for example, someone says "(laughs) Did you get it just now?" which is a covert move, the correct way is to question him, to bring out his attack.

That is only one way of handling it.

But it works best among adults or truly covert power moves.

If I remember correctly, you're young, right?

Well, that approach is not always the best one if he indeed enjoys and plays the "asshole role" -something more common among younger men, albeit also certainly possible at any age-.

I think PU also says you don't want to frame as asshole people who are obviously acting like asshole because that may actually empower them and disempower you (ie.: you thread expand on the fact that they're being assholes to you).

As for more calibrated techniques, I wasn't there so you know better.
It may be shrugging as if to say "what an idiot", to laughing yourself as if to mimick his laughter, but doing it as if he were a spastic.

You may as well say:

Him: (laughs) Did you get it just now?
You: yeah genius, now I get it

Not the best, but just to show that anything that "hits back", no matter how simple, shows that you're there to just take it and can shoot back.

Or:

Him: (laughs) Did you get it just now?
You: Yeah, next time explain things a bit better please

If it fits the situation -ie.: if he was indeed teaching something- it's a very good one because it completely sidesteps the "humor", it's dominant and tasks him.

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#14 · June 30, 2023, 9:41 am

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on June 30, 2023, 9:41 am
Quote from Power duck on June 30, 2023, 12:37 am
The thing is that, I've found that surfacing/uncovering the nastiness of a turkey IN a group of turkeys doesn't work that much. If I recall correctly (maybe I'm wrong here) the objective of surfacing is to show to others what a nasty individual the agressor is, but what if the people around you know it but they don't care and actually like to behave in such a way? You aren't shaming him at all, you are rather thread expanding the aggression and the fact that he can and does disempower you. Its a lose for you and win for him.
(...)
Surfacing is used to uncover covert aggression, however their aggression isn't covert, so they don't mind if you say that they're disrespecting you. Surfacing does work but with passive aggressive people/groups where there are some quality individuals who respect you and/or don't tolerate bad behaviour.
That's my take on why surfacing doesnt work and why is counter productive in this case.
Exactly, great call Power duck!
Just to be sure, surfacing is a WONDERFUL technique and works GREAT... It just has to be in the right situation.
As mentioned, that works better with:
Adults
Environments where assholishness / value-taking is not appreciated
Groups with other high-quality people
Cover aggression: if it's not covert, you're not surfacing, you're thread-expanding
And it helps a lot if you already have some status, power, and people's respect.
When you already have status and people's respect and you call it out, your power stands beside the technique because the sub-communication also is "are you saying that to me (when you don't have the status/power/authority/prestige to even lay a finger on who I am / have done)?"
If you don't have it, it's still OK often because you can GAIN status and power just by calling out the shitty behavior.
However, it's better if you not have negative status and negative respect at least (but even then: don't refrain from it because if you handle well the post-surfacingit's a great approach to start addressing those deep-seated issues).
Maybe I should make a note on surfacing on PU?
Let me know if anyone thinks it may be helpful.

Quote from Power duck on June 30, 2023, 12:37 am
The thing is that, I've found that surfacing/uncovering the nastiness of a turkey IN a group of turkeys doesn't work that much. If I recall correctly (maybe I'm wrong here) the objective of surfacing is to show to others what a nasty individual the agressor is, but what if the people around you know it but they don't care and actually like to behave in such a way? You aren't shaming him at all, you are rather thread expanding the aggression and the fact that he can and does disempower you. Its a lose for you and win for him.
(...)
Surfacing is used to uncover covert aggression, however their aggression isn't covert, so they don't mind if you say that they're disrespecting you. Surfacing does work but with passive aggressive people/groups where there are some quality individuals who respect you and/or don't tolerate bad behaviour.
That's my take on why surfacing doesnt work and why is counter productive in this case.

Exactly, great call Power duck!

Just to be sure, surfacing is a WONDERFUL technique and works GREAT... It just has to be in the right situation.

As mentioned, that works better with:

Adults
Environments where assholishness / value-taking is not appreciated
Groups with other high-quality people
Cover aggression: if it's not covert, you're not surfacing, you're thread-expanding

And it helps a lot if you already have some status, power, and people's respect.

When you already have status and people's respect and you call it out, your power stands beside the technique because the sub-communication also is "are you saying that to me (when you don't have the status/power/authority/prestige to even lay a finger on who I am / have done)?"

If you don't have it, it's still OK often because you can GAIN status and power just by calling out the shitty behavior.

However, it's better if you not have negative status and negative respect at least (but even then: don't refrain from it because if you handle well the post-surfacingit's a great approach to start addressing those deep-seated issues).

Maybe I should make a note on surfacing on PU?

Let me know if anyone thinks it may be helpful.

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#15 · June 30, 2023, 10:10 am

Great posts, thank you! Learned a lot here.

Agree with you DGX37 on the caveat of surfacing. 100%. And of course with the added precisions from you Lucio. I would just be careful not to « amplify and agree » with the person (« not everybody is smart as you ») though.

Yes I think this important precision and use cases belong in PU. It’s important to know the subtleties when to use such technique I think.

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#16 · June 30, 2023, 6:39 pm

Quote from Gguwad on June 30, 2023, 6:39 pm
Thank you for your feedback!
Quote from Power duck on June 30, 2023, 12:37 am
Not everyone does try to make a lose lose situation, a win win. Now, intelligent individuals do try, but not everyone is intelligent enough to realize that.
And even if those guys didn't get the benefits from helping you some of them either won't care that much or they will try to get their "revenge" for you trying to "rebel". I've experienced this firsthand from high school, plus those guys won't fear you/respect you, they will probably think "I'm gonna treat this guy well for today so he gives me this".
I get what you mean, me "holding a grudge" with them won't cause them for sure to stop attacking you or making them go win-win situation. The idea behind is that it still gives you far greater chances of them not continuing their attack than if you just forgave them until they attack you once more.
Especially if you have status as they lose it when you don't give them respect and are no warmth towards them.
Overall what you shared hits very close to home.
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on June 30, 2023, 9:27 am
Well, that approach is not always the best one if he indeed enjoys and plays the "asshole role" -something more common among younger men, albeit also certainly possible at any age-.
I think PU also says you don't want to frame as asshole people who are obviously acting like asshole because that may actually empower them and disempower you (ie.: you thread expand on the fact that they're being assholes to you).
I noticed that uncovering doesn't work against certified assholes but idea that it even empowers them is very interesting and sounds sensible.
I think it's definitely worth to mention cases when surfacing can backfire.
Even though I understand from all of your feedback that "holding the grudge" is not the ideal behaviour, just as Power duck said, it gives me far more confidence that I can give someone trouble if they decide to disempower me. For quite a time I was getting exhausted from looking for power moves as I thought that I need to address them when it happens or it's a lost game, but now finally I am simply going my own way and I don't feel much of need to scan my environment all the time, as I know I can just punish them later if they decide to attack me from nowhere.
As I gain confidence in my ability to defend I will for sure look to find a better way to think and to address those situations.

Thank you for your feedback!

Quote from Power duck on June 30, 2023, 12:37 am
Not everyone does try to make a lose lose situation, a win win. Now, intelligent individuals do try, but not everyone is intelligent enough to realize that.
And even if those guys didn't get the benefits from helping you some of them either won't care that much or they will try to get their "revenge" for you trying to "rebel". I've experienced this firsthand from high school, plus those guys won't fear you/respect you, they will probably think "I'm gonna treat this guy well for today so he gives me this".

I get what you mean, me "holding a grudge" with them won't cause them for sure to stop attacking you or making them go win-win situation. The idea behind is that it still gives you far greater chances of them not continuing their attack than if you just forgave them until they attack you once more.
Especially if you have status as they lose it when you don't give them respect and are no warmth towards them.

Overall what you shared hits very close to home.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on June 30, 2023, 9:27 am
Well, that approach is not always the best one if he indeed enjoys and plays the "asshole role" -something more common among younger men, albeit also certainly possible at any age-.
I think PU also says you don't want to frame as asshole people who are obviously acting like asshole because that may actually empower them and disempower you (ie.: you thread expand on the fact that they're being assholes to you).

I noticed that uncovering doesn't work against certified assholes but idea that it even empowers them is very interesting and sounds sensible.
I think it's definitely worth to mention cases when surfacing can backfire.

Even though I understand from all of your feedback that "holding the grudge" is not the ideal behaviour, just as Power duck said, it gives me far more confidence that I can give someone trouble if they decide to disempower me. For quite a time I was getting exhausted from looking for power moves as I thought that I need to address them when it happens or it's a lost game, but now finally I am simply going my own way and I don't feel much of need to scan my environment all the time, as I know I can just punish them later if they decide to attack me from nowhere.
As I gain confidence in my ability to defend I will for sure look to find a better way to think and to address those situations.

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#17 · June 30, 2023, 6:58 pm

The asshole power dynamic at the core is:

I can disrespect you
(and you may have to take it, depending on how you react)

If you "uncover" he's being an asshole, yeah, he can own it.

And the more obvious it was, the more likely it is he will (and your example wasn't very covert).

Once he owns it, unless after that you do something about it and handle it well, then yes, you lose.

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#18 · July 1, 2023, 9:23 pm

We talk quite a lot here about assholes (also recently in Bel’s journal) for good reasons. I think this clip fits the topic.

Here is a comedy clip where an asshole disrespects his « friend » for social climbing and ostracization. He frames himself as the leader through the judge role. He ostracizes through body language (turns to others). He social climbs by framing the other person as « stupid » and therefore himself as superior. He covertly attacks through expressions that imply the other guy is stupid without saying it openly.

The other guy used surfacing as a defense.

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#19 · July 9, 2023, 7:47 am

One of a great things that happens when you do PU course is awareness.

It gives you access to whole new dimension in life. Now when I watch movies, play games, read books, talk in real life I can't stop but see the power dynamics behind each move. Instead of looking at a conversation "Okay, this guy said this and that" I see it as "This guy set this and this frame, let's see how the other will deal with it".

What it means is that after you reach this awareness you can't stop becoming better, as you will see power dynamics behind each situation and see how different people respond to it, you will analyze what it means and step by step, interaction by interaction, you learn what choices are available, which work and which don't, what effect they have and when to use them.

Knowledge from the course itself won't teach you how to be powerful, there will always be gaps in knowledge caused by either forgetting, not understanding, your mind skipping them that will make the whole thing awkward. But thanks to also giving you awareness, you can fill those gaps at a astounding rate, simply by knowing overall rules and ways to act you become better just by observing how people interact.

For example when a amateur is looking at a football match, he may say this was a good play, this was a bad play, have fun watching it and that's how far it goes. When a pro watches a match, he knows the framework, tactics and reason why this and this guy played this and that and just by learning how each player responded to various situations and comparing it with his own idea of how he would respond, he is getting better.

In reality it makes the whole world your training ground, when you get this awareness, you don't just learn by reading the course, your abilities to learn overlap with your whole life and each time you talk or hear conversation you become better faster than normal guy that will do whatever feels appropriate.

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#20 · July 9, 2023, 8:04 am

I don't know if I shared this before but I thought of the world as populated with submissive people ( lack understanding of power moves ), people who power move on others ( good power dynamics used for their own good ) and eagles that are grew beyond power moving on others ( high quality, know of power dynamics but will find a way of going forward without attacking others ).

And that's not wrong. There are people that fit to each group, the mistake I made was thinking that the distribution is somewhat equal ( e.g. 40% submissive 40% power movers 20% eagles ). But right now as I look at the world and each interaction with it, nearly everyone uses power moves or is defenceless when someone uses it on them. When looking with awareness from above post, in real life I can't find a person who is both skilled in power dynamics and doesn't try to power move on you, talk about dog eat dog world but that's what I see.

I know in fact there are people like that, take this forum for example, and I am sure I will meet of have already met people like that that I just didn't go into a stronger relationship to see their true character. The distribution seems 40% submissive 59% power movers and 1% eagles. Just now I see how hard it is to find a true eagle.

It may just be an illusion that submissiveness and power moving is very visible and being an eagle is hard to see for anyone that doesn't know you well, but when I look at my previous classmates, in a group of 30 people there was not a single eagle, and I talked with them and saw how they all interact with each other. That's not to say everyone is bad, but a person that both sees the dynamics, can defend against them and doesn't use them on others is a rarity.

If you have opinion about how you see distribution of people within this framework or have other feedback feel free to post it.

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