Are you being manipulated through your compassion?

Not such an easy topic this week, but it feels important to offer some perspective (mine) around manipulation and how it can happen through our compassion.

I’m willing to bet if you saw a person in a wheelchair trying to get out of a store, you’d open the door for them. I also think you’d probably carry their packages to their car if they asked you to, right? But how would you feel if once you helped them, they stood on two perfectly healthy legs, folded the wheelchair, threw it in their trunk and drove off?

Would you feel like you’d been taken advantage of? Would you believe you were doing a nice thing—the right thing—and then they used you? Does your good deed now feel tainted? Do you feel less about yourself and the other person? Maybe you even feel a bit angry? How could they do such a thing?

This is an example of what I call manipulation through compassion. You have a big heart. You care about people. This is not a weakness, but it can be a vulnerability if you’re not aware of how your compassion can be exploited in order to get you to think, do, or behave in a specific way.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because many people have shared with me that they have decided to get the Covid-19 vaccine because they feel it’s the right thing to do to keep other people safe. They’ve been encouraged by their doctors and neighbors and co-workers and government to do their part in helping keep others safe…

These are very nice people. People that care deeply about others. People that will gladly open a door if you need it opened and give you the shirt off their back if you ask.

I’m pro vaccine choice and support your individual rights to determine whether the vaccine is right for you—all vaccines and flu shots. But here’s the point I want to make: Don’t allow yourself to believe you can actually keep someone else safe by what you have injected into you.

You can’t keep me safe. You can’t keep me happy. You can’t make me feel love, or hate, or jealously, or anything else. That’s an inside job. Those feelings happen within me. What I eat, drink, exercise, think—all me. You are not responsible for my health, wealth, or state of being. That’s all me, no matter what you decide to do. Don’t distract yourself by thinking you can do anything for me. You can’t. Only you.

You don’t know what experiences I need to help me on this journey we call human life. You can only decide for you and do the best you can for you. That’s where your power is. That’s where your freedom of choice is. Please don’t let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise.

If you believe you can do something for someone else, you are mistaken. Even in our example of the person in the wheelchair, you believe you are opening the door for them because you believe they need your help and it’s the right thing to do.

How much better you’d feel if you understood you are opening the door for them because you WANT to. Something inside you WANTS to do it and they are providing you the opportunity to do what you want. Period. Then if it turns out that they didn’t need your help after all, you won’t feel manipulated. In fact, you won’t care in the slightest because you opened the door FOR YOU because YOU wanted to.

Make all your decisions this way knowing the only life you ever get to live is yours and you can only ever do anything FOR you. Allow other people the same opportunity. That’s true compassion. 

And as always, I’m available for private or gallery sessions if you need deeper understanding, support, or guidance through energy work or intuitive life coaching.

If you’d like to learn a couple powerful techniques for having more energy, watch my free video Take Back Your Energy.

If you’d like to learn how to help bring more love to yourself, your families, your neighborhoods, cities, and the world, watch this video on a simple way to change fear energy to Love by using our waterways.