(Without Harming — or Socially Distancing — Relationships That Matter)
You’re in a conversation with a family member or a trusted colleague. They sound calm, rational — speaking in measured tones, citing data, articles, or experts that seem credible. You notice, though, that something doesn’t quite match. Their words are tidy, but their body is tight — breath shallow, shoulders rigid, eyes slightly narrowed.
You stay present. You listen. You breathe.
After a while, the performance of reasonableness gives way to something raw. The truth underneath surfaces: fear, disappointment, grief. The “facts” were never the issue — they were the armor.
It’s in moments like this that emotional exploitation — usually unconscious — begins to show itself. Not manipulation in the villain sense, but the everyday human attempt to use emotion to get safety, agreement, or control. We all do it. And we all feel its drain.
So what do you do?
If you argue, you’re trapped in the surface story. If you withdraw, you confirm their fear. If you try to fix it, you lose yourself in their weather.
The practice is subtler. You stay awake. You neutralize the emotional exploitation tendency by remaining aware of your own system. You let their emotion move through the field without absorbing or clinging, maintaining grounding and regulation while staying anchored in presence.
It’s not easy—rather, a trained skill—the nervous-system equivalent of Zero Trust.
You:
- Verify explicitly — sense what’s real beneath the words.
- Grant least privilege — share only the access your body can safely hold.
- Assume breach — expect projections, stay curious instead of reactive.
- Rebalance attention — redirect energy toward what regenerates you.
Over time, something shifts. You stop trying to manage relationships and start training within them. Every conflict becomes a kind of dojo — a mat for refining presence. Every difficult conversation becomes a circle for mutual calibration.
Complete isolation isn’t helpful. Presence requires contact — friction, honesty, feedback. The goal isn’t to become untouchable; it’s to become unmanipulable, while staying deeply connected — without socially distancing relationships that matter.
I’m grateful for those who share the circle and the training mat — the friends, colleagues, and kin who keep showing up, letting practice transform conversation. Through these exchanges, I learn how to remain clear without closing, how to stay compassionate without compliance.
And the surprising thing?
The relationships don’t just survive this practice — they evolve. The old narratives dissolve. The attachments soften.
What forms is a network rooted in trust, not built on shared belief, but cultivated through enhanced individual and collective awareness.
This is Self-Authorship for Me — right now — and evolving.
⛩️🌿
