Are You Will-ing? Chapter 8 IN DRAFT
CHAPTER 8: The Will-ing Skill “Disengage”
- Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash, 1982, evokes the most accurate feeling to introduce this chapter, especially the chorus of the song.
The Limit of Presence and Release
If you were to count up all of the possible kinds of problems you can solve with
A / W skills, you get somewhere in the neighborhood of 60%. An additional 30% of the time, your problems will require a P / R jumpstart in order to earn your way back onto the A / W super highway. But 60 plus 30 only gets you to a 90 percent success rate. That’s not bad, but still, one out of ten times, you could lose life and limb in a relationship with Willee. Those are damaging odds.
If you count up all of your relationships with any different kind of Willee, you can have near perfect Approve and Wait skills AND you can have spot-on Presence skill applied with artfully talented Release, and with one out of ten individuals, you can still find yourself at the end of a road that just dead ends. No matter how hard you try, no amount of balanced Presence can sufficiently create what you need or sufficiently cause what needs to happen. Either that or no amount of Releasing or diffusing your Presence can effectively get Willee or you out of the trouble you are collectively in.
Ten percent of the time, not only will Willee not calm down but what’s tragically worse is that Willee is so offended by your sheer existence that he or she is truly trying to protect himself/herself from you and is getting so exhausted that s/he is becoming downright threadbare and unraveled. All Willee is getting is more and more vulnerable. Willee is telling you, in no uncertain terms, to leave them alone, and yet, you still won’t go away! Right now, the only thing that you’re creating in Willee is a need to escape.
Now, Presence / Release is truly an essential pair of skills; Presence and Release both protect you from all sorts of harm. Presence and Release also allow seemingly impossible things to become possible. P/R is the primal stuff of existence in its most basic and raw form.
And yet, there’s a darker side to the nature of existing, at least, when existing finds itself in a social setting. We all know about it though we may choose to ignore it. We may have no idea what to do about it or how to avoid it, but we know a black hole once we’ve “seen one,” or should I say, after we’ve been sucked into one.
We may have even at one time been victims of the “black hole.” We may now be afraid of it, or we may even secretly use it to do our bidding. But the unavoidable reality is that most “natural interaction” really isn’t forged in the furnace of “Approve,” initially. The lions and tigers and bears, the savannah herds, the teaming reefs, the inner cities, and even the suburban throngs, they don’t really seem to be powered by low-octane encouragement or even mid-octane presence. Interaction runs on a high-octane fuel called abandonment.
Over the course of any single relationship and during the course of communicating the things that are important to you, you are bound to (at certain points) feel ignored, frustrated, hurt, and angry. As a response, you may choose to become pissed off and demanding. Or, you may decide to become defeated and inadequate in response. But, at times, inequality and unfairness will be inescapable. Someone else’s “might will right,” and you will be treated like a second-class citizen. Your point of view will be discarded.
There will also be times when, for a million potential reasons, Willee just really won’t be interested in your approval, your commodities, or your opinion. Willee may think that you have tunnel vision, that you act selfishly, or that you are completely off your rocker. Willee may not even see you at all, so Willee may not see what you see. Willee may not even see an imminent danger about to befall her. And even if he does see those things, he may just not care. But what’s more likely is that Willee won’t actually be thinking about you at all. Willee’s mind and focus will be elsewhere. Your existence will be ignored.
In Chapters 6 and 7, your own gear shifter has been a lever in Willee’s wheelhouse. Although you have been building your own tools and skills, you’ve been largely attached to a piston called Willee. You’ve been in Willee gear, on Stage Right. There, Willee is at the center of your universe, being that Willee is always the puzzle piece you have to match, the dock you must tie up to. There, Willee is usually more central than you are and is what dictates your next move. There, s/he is always more “right” than you are, up to the point that you don’t exist to her/him. But let’s just agree for now that all of this is happening on Stage Right. And that raises the next logical question…
“So what the hell is going on over on Stage Left?” This whole time, in P/R, you have been kind enough to agree that Willee existed. In Disengage/Emerge now all you’re asking is to be given the same regard in return. And if you don’t think you have the right to demand that Willee respect your existence no matter how much power Willee has over you, then I intend to have enough D/E to prove otherwise. If you don’t yet realize that you exist on Relationship Stage Left as well, then the part that’s missing is that you don’t yet exist to yourself.
The Disengage and Emerge Chapters: It’s Time to Jump Into the Back Seat (Bottom Drawer) of Your Coaster Car.
The THIRD Will Dexterity Spans Chapters 8 and 9: Your THIRD and Final Up and Down on The Ride.
Now, you are in the most rear seat of your converted toolbox coaster car. From this vantage point, in this last seat, you will be able to best feel the pull of the car as it sucks you along for the ride. That seat in the back is also the hardest to reach drawer of the shiny red toolbox that we talked about in Chapter 1. It’s way down near the floor and you have to bend over pretty far to reach it. Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 are about the skills in that drawer. It is the drawer of the Disengage and Emerge skills. Chapters 8 and 9 will take you through the THIRD and last up and down phase of the Will-Agility roller coaster ride.
Remember, the sizes of the drawers in this toolbox are not equal. When you are communicating most effectively, you will be using the Approve and Wait tools about 60% of the time, and you’ll use them at many points when solving every kind of challenge you’ll face. You will be using the Presence and Release tools less often, about 30% of the time. But this drawer, this is the drawer you should be using only in a pinch and only in that last 10% of the time when you’ve already emptied out the other two drawers of all their tools and nothing is working. (At least, until you’re really good at using D/E…)
The previous two chapters had you focus almost entirely on teaching Willee that you exist. You’ve already learned something about both how to step, and how not to get stepped on. But these two final skills, Chapters 8 and 9, Disengage and Emerge, these last skill set chapters are all about teaching yourself that you exist. Mostly, the big rubber mallets that are in this drawer are for you to use on yourself (in a manner of speaking).
Disengage and Emerge skills are what make it impossible for Willee to consider you less than an equal. But the worst thing that can happen in the process of communicating is something only you can do, and only to yourself: giving up your own self respect. The Disengage skill makes sure that you don’t give up your self-respect. And the Emerge Skill makes sure that you have a “self” to respect in the first place.
These third drawer tools are used to make Willee aware of the situation that you personally are in, but to do it in a way that is not insulting, frightening, risky, unfair, or otherwise restrictive of Willee’s all important will. For, if you cut off Willee’s access to his own choices, how could you expect Willee to choose to go with yours? The last thing you need when Willee doesn’t give a damn about you is to start challenging her Will and testing his resolve. If you do that, you are likely to make an unbalanced situation much worse.
We all ought to be required to have attained special clearance in order to open this third drawer because it’s the drawer that holds the blowtorches and the other quite dangerous tools. It’s like that painted plywood clown at the carnival says, “If you’re below this tall, don’t even think of going on this ride.” One of the tenets of Will Agility is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you have no business in this drawer. In fact, if you are currently of the opinion that purposefully disengaging from someone is downright dominant, manipulative, abandoning, or otherwise mean, the reason you think that is because this tool is so routinely misused, mishandled, and wielded so dangerously by so many. A majority of people may have only seen the tools in this drawer used incorrectly, as weapons.
Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 are all much more about you, the Willor, than they are about Willee. Presence/Release distilled to its basic has to do with the overlap of your own personal “space” with the personal space of someone else. The Disengage/Emerge conversation, distilled to its basic, is just the opposite of Presence/Release. Disengage and Emerge describe the influence of your own personal escape route (your freedom) on the personal escape route (and freedom) of someone else.
This is not a familiar concept to most of us; so don’t be surprised if it makes no sense right now. But pretty soon you’ll be seeing its dynamic all around you. You know how you aren’t conscious of Volkswagen Beetles until someone teaches you the Punch Buggy game, and then you start seeing them everywhere? Seeing the Disengage and Emerge dynamic in everyday life is much like that. Once you can see it, you’ll be seeing it everywhere.
Roller Coaster Part 3: The Events of Chapters 8 and 9
DISENGAGE ® DISENGAGE / EMERGE ® EMERGE / DISENGAGE ® EMERGE
In the explanations below, everything in lowercase text repeats in all three portions of the coaster ride, and everything in UPPERCASE TEXT are the parts that ARE DIFFERENT from ride portion 1 to 2 to 3. But for the most part, a predictable roller coaster pattern is what happens. Keyword here is “predictable.”
There's no forward movement
Our goal is always smooth sailing in a forward direction. We imagine and want progress over easy terrain, but a different kind of road is what lies ahead of us. Willee “stalls out” right at the very beginning. Everything you’ve tried with Willee hasn’t worked as well as you want; you have a deep-seated feeling that there must be a better way.
What you want becomes uphill climb #3
Until now, you have been focusing on TEAMWORK. But usually, Willee has other priorities. Your own perceptions of yourself are what cause your lack of INDEPENDENCE. Willee begins to BAIT you with some realities or even falsehoods THAT CLASH WITH AND/or NULLIFY YOUR INDEPENDENCE. Now is when you learn to DISENGAGE and REMOVE YOURSELF from WILLEE. This is how you teach Willee to prioritize with you in mind.
Finding the summit of the hill you've created
When it first occurs to you to Drop Willee’s Bait (baiting you with FALSEHOODS), it feels like you’re finally going over the summit of what was a difficult climb. Refusing to take Willee’s bait is what launches you over the Summit of uphill climb #3 and puts you on a new downhill slope, toward direct forward progress. Here, you begin to learn to EMERGE. From here, you discover very broad-based OPPORTUNITY.
A learned progress landslide
Using lots of Disengage with some Emerging thrown in, that toggle works like a zipper, interweaving Willee and YOU together; disengage, emerge, disengage, emerge…. You experience a landslide of forward progress.
The addition of D / E allows your P / R and your A / W to work better than before. **Now you have two opposable skills balancing your Up to Down, your Side to Side, and now you ALSO have two opposable skills balancing Back to Front.**
Ease creates progress
You have made so much progress that you are now coasting on momentum with no friction. This is mostly all forward progress, with no hills and valleys, and it’s easy to cover ground fast.
You don’t expect to be sinking into quicksand
Just when you think everything is finally going well, the ground falls out beneath your relationship.
What you need becomes slippery slope #3
Next, your own needs and your own restrictions are what cause your LACK of LISTENING. You miss what Willee is showing you. You’re careening downhill and out of control, away from Willee and into a deep hole.
At the bottom, let Willee drive
This is when it first occurs to you that either Willee is living in another world entirely. Willee is not actually IN the joint conversation at all. Eventually, you will hit the SCARIEST rock bottom, which forces you to learn to EMERGE first, instead of using in inside your Disengage. Putting your focus on EMERGE is what leads to INVENTING a new YOU for use in Willee’s “make believe” reality. Creativity is the opposite of self-removal.
Time to Climb out of the hole you've dug
Down in Emerge Canyon is where you are most likely to quit on Willee and give up for good. Because this is hard and embarrassing work, you ultimately ask “Why didn’t I see this part before about Willee? But if you don’t quit, pulling your way back up to a level playing field with Willee is done through exploring your own ability to creatively EMERGE. Pulling your way back up to a level playing field with Willee is done through exploring your own creative EMERGE.
Success and forward achievement are the norm
Your D / E Dexterity creates huge forward progress. There is hardly any friction between you both. Success is largely inevitable. Massive forward progress is the norm.
At the crevasse, launch yourself onto…
But now, something familiar is seeping into your conversation.
You feel lost until you remember what Willee is capable of, and you make a leap of faith.
You now find yourself in familiar territory: APPROVAL.
The way forward is now mapped out, because you’ve done it all before.
From here, your relationship with Willee (or anyone else) becomes much smoother sailing.
What Is Disengage?
Dark Matter Is What Lurks in a Social Vacuum
Imagine the Wild West. The town has fallen quiet. There’s talk of an imminent shootout. Tumbleweeds blow by. That eerie 1967 spaghetti western whistling music from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is playing in your head. Two gritty teeth dudes appear from behind now vacant buildings. They face off. They’re ready. And then in a quick draw, they both pull out huge vacuum cleaners and each man tries to suck the other guy into oblivion.
Sound backward? That is precisely what the Disengage dynamic feels like. Bullets and guns are the weapons that most of us readily understand, but the weapon in a vacuum, although not so straightforward, can be exponentially more dangerous.
When someone uses a vacuum to affect you, it sounds something like this… “You’re nothing without me. I don’t need you. I can replace you. I only care about you because I pity you. If you didn’t have me, where would you be? Who would you be? I made you, and I can break you. I’m the best thing that ever happened to you. You were nothing, you’ll have nothing, and you’ll be nothing, without me.”
These mental vacuum soul suckers do a lot of damage and yet, it doesn’t take too much close examination to realize that these tactics are not designed to make the offender appear more powerful. They are designed to very precisely suck the “existence” out of the victim. They are designed to create a sufferer, a Willee who is very small, very empty, and very at risk of the imminent ravages of oblivion.
When a “necessary” actor in a play makes a move off of the stage and out into the audience, the spotlight and our gaze moves with them to keep them “on stage” in our minds. And when a person who defines us proceeds to “exit stage left”, our whole definition-of-self tries to follow them. Our mental stage will follow them out the backstage door, into a cab, and out of town. Most individuals in all social species desperately want to follow the leaver. And if they are additionally afraid to follow, they say, “Don’t leave me.” “I’ll do anything so that you don’t leave.”
Social vacuum effect is very primal stuff.
When someone walks away from a conversation, it’s not the end of the conversation. It’s just another middle part. Everybody knows that. Someone will change their mind, or someone will chase after someone, or someone will re-assess, or someone will forget that the conversation ever happened. But it’s extremely rare that one person’s leaving results in both parties immediately calling it quits.
The choice of leaving a conversation usually just generates either a repeat conversation, or a whole new conversation, but not an ended conversation. Even if two equal individuals go their separate ways at the same exact time, that still creates a vacuum in the place they both were before, and nearby individuals, just like planets, get sucked into the temporary vacuum to begin an identical conversation to the one that just exited. The vacuum, itself, is always sucking brains in.
Even when no victimizers are involved, the dynamic is still present and predictable in everyday relationships, even between species. If you find yourself swimming in the middle of an ocean, lost fish far from home will suddenly show up and they won’t leave your side. You aren’t a school of fish but you’re better than the great big void. When a lost horse finds you on the open plain, they’ll stick with you. You aren’t a herd of horses, but anybody is better than the howling wind. Just about every Disney cartoon in existence relies on the premise that a social vacuum is what naturally draws together unlikely misfits, as new partners.
The vacuum tool is still what’s at work, even in the opposite circumstance, when you’re being left behind. We humans love to put people down when they don’t meet our expectations. We call them weak, we call them soft, we call them simple-minded, but if at any time one of those same somebodys finds enough self respect to tell us they don’t have time for us, that somehow flips a social hierarchy switch in our brains, and that same individual can somehow appear to become authoritative, powerful, and smart, if also rude. If they’re looking at their watch while walking and talking, we instantly feel like we want more from them, whether they are good for us or not.
The Disengage is a very, very strong force to social creatures, even to the social species having “a-social” personalities, and even to “solitary” species. However, Disengage isn’t just good for use in instances when your counterpart is actively pulling on you to move you off of your spot on the chessboard or trying to alter your goal. It’s also the card you can play when the Approve/Wait and the Presence/Release still haven’t gotten your foot in the door, toward your own goal for you, for Willee, or for the collective.
When small guns used with perfect timing still don’t work, we need bigger guns. But never ever forget that bigger guns have the power to make bigger holes, even when you use them correctly. I spend many hours with clients making sure they know how to use all other tools at their disposal before I am willing to teach them how to Disengage.
But the fact of the matter is that we all have our big guns, and we use them every day. People are misfiring all around the joint. The pack of us looks like Wiley Coyote meets the Keystone Cops. Things are blowing up right, left and center. And since you’re going to use the rocket launcher anyway, it’s my intention to help you learn how to aim it with a little more accuracy.
Neo-conservatives have a special superhuman ability to cram the sum total of the human species’ acquired knowledge and awareness back into the denial box. They cram Prometheus’s Fire back into Pandora’s Genie bottle. But I don’t have that special ability. I say it’s better to know how these weapons work than to pretend that these social weapons don’t exist.
The Will-ing Challenge Puzzles
There is a perfectly good reason to skip (and not read) Chapter 8. If you can meet the following challenge, the first time you try it, then you won’t need to read this chapter. If you can complete this task reliably with different Willees, even if you don’t know why you are able to do it, then you don’t need to read about how it works or why it works unless you are dealing with a Willee who is challenging your very last nerve. If you have the skill, you don’t have to explain how the skill works, you just need to be able to use the physical, the conceptual, and the emotional versions of the skill in your daily life.
Mastering these Will-ing Challenge puzzles will not instantly erase every relationship problem you have in your life, but you will not be able to comprehend “the origin” of your trouble until you have mastered each skill one at a time. By the same token, as you assemble each skill, you will begin to see a large number of opportunities to use that skill in many circumstances, and with all walks of life, no matter what Willee you are dealing with.
So without further ado…
Are you ready?
Let’s get to the FIFTH challenge.
Will-ing Challenge Puzzle #5: The “Vacuum Ball” Challenge
Disengage Challenge: This game is called Vacuum Ball. But in this game, the players are the ball. Your goal is to get your opponent (Willee) through your own goalpost. However, in this game, imagine your own goal; it is “located” at any SINGLE location around the entire perimeter of the field. DO NOT DISCLOSE the location of your secret/ imaginary goal. Just one more thing: no one is allowed to get within five feet of anyone else: no touching at all, and no one is allowed to speak. No other parameters matter. The Disengage Challenge will teach you how to listen to Yourself.
[If two people are playing this game against each other, each player is to choose but not disclose the location of their secret/ imaginary goal. After we high five in the middle, the game is on. Whoever puts their opponent through their own goal posts first is the winner.]
I know what you’re thinking. “Damn! What the hell?! I’m putting this book down. You’re crazy! I’m not the Pied Piper, you know…”
Actually, you are something sort of like that. You just aren’t used to doing it. Truly, this isn’t a magical or spooky exercise. This language that you will discover to solve any Disengage Challenge is used every day, subconsciously or consciously, by sales experts, fiancés, blues musicians, clever statesmen, witness protection, scammers, religious authorities, teenagers and more in every country and culture all around the world. You’re not learning anything new. We just have to jog your ancient memory to put that skill on tap again.
The Chapter 8 puzzle is a challenge that can be attempted even if you haven’t experienced the puzzles in Chapter 4 or 5 or 6 or 7. If you have mastered those skills already, they’ll help you learn the solution to this puzzle much faster, but they will not show you the actual path to the solution for this puzzle here in Chapter 8. Disengage and Emerge skills are a whole ‘nother universe entirely. And yet, the way to find the solutions, inside the text of Chapter 8, is still the same method of trying and reading some essays and trying again.
Still, you might be wondering… “What does ‘being the ball, literally’ have to do with relationships?” Well, when covered up under layers of language, our abandonment habits are hard to see. We have a much better chance of identifying any single primal engagement choice we are actually making when we have to summon it in its raw form, in slow motion, and in an uncluttered, neutral context.
During your attempts to meet the above challenge, you can and will feel the immediate effect of creating outcomes with only your intent. You’ll remember your gut reaction to the choices that created nothing good, and you’ll remember the good choices that helped you to win this game. Your personalized solution to the task evolves as you validate your own attempts. You will prove the solution to yourself, authenticated by your own logical discovery path. The puzzle causes you to find out where your tools are buried, when to use them, and how to use them skillfully. And when you finally find a key for a lock, you will put that key in a safe place, right in your big shiny red toolbox. It’s a productive game.
Besides, any game that transforms us into people who are independent and self aware, and that lets us actively and determinedly find the individuality we seek, if that game is as easy to play as “Tag, You’re it!“ then that has got to be a game worth playing.
So if you are a Will-ing participant, it’s time to put the book down. Go out and find yourself a volunteer and try to meet the Vacuum Ball Challenge. When you get stuck, and many, many people will, I hope that the essays in this chapter will get you unstuck.
Put this book down now!!
The Solutions Table for the Disengage Puzzle
A Science-y Technical Description of the Following Table
The chart below can be used as a troubleshoot list that you can refer back to when you are stuck. It’s like a road map. To use it, simply find the line that most resembles your current situation in the game or your current point of view about the puzzle. Then read the few lines just above and just below it to locate a possible solution (+) to your current barrier. This chart traces the pathway of how people learn to apply Disengage to Willee and to yourself, no matter what species or culture Willee comes from. This chart details the entirety of what could and will happen to you when you attempt to meet the challenge that is laid out above in the Disengage Puzzle.
Each skill table is a cluster of inter-related observations that are related to each other in sort of a progression that creates a continuum or spectrum, which can be used as a reference to troubleshoot inter-related problems. But the importance of these charts is that these steps seem to be the generic, primary, building blocks of misunderstanding, disconnect, and confusion.
So it follows that each one of these roadblocks has the potential to be the main crux of your communication issue or learning roadblock, just like each vertebral bone in your spine has the potential to be the one that is throwing the alignment of all the others out of whack. Conversely, each one of the tools nearby in the table may be just the one you need to cause the shift that gets you un-stuck.
It is also my opinion that this is a comprehensive list. While your brain may generate some small variations in the exact linear address of each event in the table, the order laid out here is for the most part the order in which you will discover each lock and each key to fit it. In my experience, this chart shows the generic order in which the human brain most efficiently learns these tools, even though it often seems to be an illogical order. I don’t know why this is so; it just seems to be quite reproducible. The nature of “will logic” just may be quite different from the nature of “rational logic.”
You will also find colors in these charts, called the Will Tables. All of the color-codings will maintain the same meanings throughout all tables and figures and diagrams in this book. The familiar color-coding of international road signage will be the color scheme. And to assist the color blind readers, of which there are many, each color will also have its own designated symbol.
Blue is the color of opportunity and solution, also denoted as (+). Green connotes that things are generally copasetic, neither great nor awful, also denoted as (o). Orange is the color of warning and potential risk, also denoted as (x) And Red is the color of danger and high risk, also denoted as (xx). Also, at key junctures, Purple will be the color that denotes Willee’s perspective, and Turquoise will be the color that denotes the Willor’s perspective.
Key:
+ Solution Sure to CREATE your goal.
O Neutral Result Sure to BYPASS your goal.
X Detrimental Choice Sure to PREVENT your goal.
X X Destructive Choice Sure to DESTROY your goal.
W Willee’s Perspective Point of View and Condition of Will-ee.
W Willor’s Perspective Point of View and Condition of Will-or.
Now Again in Plain Language: A Description of the Following Table
Each super long table at the beginning of each of these six chapters is the boiled down version of thousands of observations of Willor and Willee. All of the stuck points and solutions, and the quotes and notes, from and about both my human and animal clients have been compiled into these tables. This table (only one per chapter) describes all of the Disengage tools that I am currently aware of, strung together in the compiled order that was tried/used by random individuals who were faced with these relationship dilemmas.
This list of common roadblocks is the path most of us go through when learning how to communicate. And yet, the roadblocks can’t be listed separately for Willor and Willee because these steps are a joint-experience, had by both, one causing the other. So whose dilemma was it? Willee’s or Willor’s? Yours or theirs?
So, it helps to imagine that the list below is an actual time lapse video of a conversation between You and any Willee with the camera trained on you, the Willor. In fact, this list has been generated by doing just that, by watching innumerable pairs attempt to meet the specific challenge described above.
For the most part, this is a chart of the Willor’s experience, YOUR experience, and the options that are available to YOU. In Chapters 8 and 9, Willee and You are both reflecting the other.
A back and forth, two steps forward one step back, trial and error type learning approach may be the sequence you see in the “live time video of the experience” of any learning brain. However, the tables and essays that make up these skill chapters have been condensed somewhat, so that they are arranged in a slightly more linear order, a slightly more “hindsight is 20/20” sort of order. And the only reason for that is to avoid the would-be repetition in the essays. Since this book is chock full of content, I aim to never describe the same localized issue or same specific solution twice.
(And if you feel like you have read these last whole few pages before, back at the beginning of any other table, just remember the folks who randomly flip through a book and don’t read it from beginning to end; those people need some critical orientation sometimes. If anything in this book repeats, it’s just to help those “flower-hopping hummingbirds” stay safe.)
How to Use the Following Will Table
This list will be available as a troubleshoot list that you can refer back to when you are stuck meeting any relationship challenge you come across in the future.
Find the line that most resembles your current point of view, then read the few lines above and below it to locate a solution (+) to your current barrier.
Key:
+ Solution Sure to CREATE your goal.
O Neutral Result Sure to BYPASS your goal.
X Detrimental Choice Sure to PREVENT your goal.
X X Destructive Choice Sure to DESTROY your goal.
W Willee’s Perspective Point of View and Condition of Will-ee.
W Willor’s Perspective Point of View and Condition of Will-or.
Range Finder Table for Chapter 8: Disengage Tools
+ Solution
o Neutral
x Detrimental
X X Destructive
W Willee
W Willor
Willor’s General Sequence in Learning the Tools of Disengage
Willor’s Common Quotes
Proceed FWD Until
x x
Eye for an Eye, Deny for a Deny: You choose to lie to Willee
Eye for an eye, Willee.
Pay back’s a bitch.
+
The Best Litmus test for “Your Truth”
If the Devil can’t poke a hole I my argument, it might just work..
Uphill Climb #3
x x
Choose the Opposite: Apply Reverse Psychology
Hey You, do you think you’re cool enough to paint my fence?
x x
Time Out / Silent Treatment: Pretend that Willee Is Not There
Maybe later.
x x
Storm Out: Pretend that YOU Are Not There
Door SLAM!
+
Consult Your Inner Compass: Acknowledge that You Have Your Own Way
Hmm. What is it that I… want…
x x
You Will Not See the Options You DO Have
The devil I know is better than the devil I don’t.
+
When Leaving is Too Hard: Just Rotate Your Own Turntable
Hey, look over there… no, not that way, THAT way!
x x
Choose
I made my choice. Live with it.
+
Your Self Respect
I am worthy.
Summitof Bait Hill
+
Leaving You Breaks My Heart, So I Won’t. “Go if you need…”
You can’t make me hate you.
+
Drop the Disengage Bait
I refuse to abandon you, Willee, no matter how much you need me to.
Landslide Progress
+
Who Operates the Disengage?: Get “Levered” Away
See? You are causing my exit.
+
WHAT to Do when You Disengage: Be the Stooge.
Harrumph!
+
Be Large: Just Make Sure Your Exit is Obvious and Observed
Loud Footsteps
+
Social Vacuum: Be a Tractor Beam
I am the Pied Piper
+
How Does this Feel? : Abandonment in Freeze-Frame
The bunch of us are leaving now.
+
Front Pull: Tips for Winning at Vacuum Ball
We’re all leaving now, Willee, don’t you want to come along?
x x
Your “Fence Post” Foot: Your Literal Stick in the Mud
Why is this all happening?
+
Exit Stage Left & Exit Stage Right
I can go from here…
and I can go from there.
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How Far Away Should I Go? : Proximity is Irrelevant
Can you hear me now… how about now…?
EasyFWD Progress
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Allow Willee to Collide with You
No problem, I’m still fine.
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Making Headway: Saying NO and YES Equal Amounts
No. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No.
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Disengaging from Yourself: An Argument for a Vacation
When I leave me alone, me will find I.
The Will Agility Reference Shelf for Chapter 8:
Anecdotes about Learning to DISENGAGE
Roller Coaster Snapshot: Proceeding Forward Until… There’s No Forward Movement
Innocently, you attempt to proceed forward. You say, “ There’s no reason to believe I’m not capable of this partnership. I don’t know what I will find, but I am willing to find out what lies ahead for us. How hard could it be…?”
Your goal is always smooth sailing, in a forward direction. You aim for forward progress over easy terrain, but a different kind of road is what lies ahead of you. Instead, a predictable roller coaster is what happens. The keyword here is “predictable.”
You Are Here:
The Actual Problem: Willee’s Denial
Willee’s General Denial: A Powerful General Indeed
Again, I believe it to be quite likely that human cultures invented the idea of the four apocalyptic horsemen to be descriptive of the natural forces (of the defending Will) that none can escape. But also, I believe it to be quite likely that human cultures invented the idea of the four apocalyptic horsemen in order to attempt to somehow document the four independent states of “the Will under duress.” These are experienced collectively, not only by all people, but also in commonality with all animals groups, evidenced by the fact that they trace back to the way all of us animals behave.
The names of these forces have changed throughout the history of our written records and through our cultures. But just as the experiences of death, war, unfairness, and false peace still remain with us to this day, so have our original emotional reactions to them stayed with us. And those reactions are as real and as commonly shared as the air we breathe and how we breathe it.
The fourth and last type of exasperated breathing happens to fit right in to the topic of denial, the denial of life-giving breath. Very different from the hyperventilation of generalized Fear, and also very different from the quiet and then huffy breathing of Indifference and then Anger, the fourth and less obvious type of exasperated breathing is what informs us about Willee’s next General.
When Willee is in denial, you will see the evidence of that in his or her LACK of breathing. In denial, Willee will hold her/his breath. It may be hard for you to see it, but if you listen hard, you’ll hear the pause in breath. Willee will display what I call “frozen statue” or “breath hold” breathing, which is a close cousin of normal breathing, but it’s in no way normal. The Will is telling you in no uncertain terms to “look the other way, because I’m not here.”
In a time of stress, Willee calls for backup help from one of her/his four flanks of wartime generals. So let’s get to meeting the last, but not least, of these masters of survival just as we already got acquainted with the other Generals from Chapter 5, 6, and 7.
And as I’ve said before, the platform that is best suited to help us visualize and understand exactly what is going on inside Willee is the impenetrable, Pro Wrestling.
Squaring off against YOU: Willee’s Apocalyptic Horseman #4:
Presenting… In this corner…
Hailing from the West
Weighing in at under __2__ lbs.
Undefeated for Thousands of years
The Super Poser, the Hoser Closer
The Mire Supplier, the Master Liar
The Chief Pretender, the Will’s Offender…
General Denial !!!!
Dong!!
And there’s the bell!
And in these two corners… you and your Will.
You and your Will will be the ones going up against Willee’s denial. It’s not Willee’s job to go up against his own denial, Silly. Denial is Willee’s hired gun, his compatriot, his alliance, his mercenary, his personal bouncer at the door. Willee’s Denial is there to save Willee’s ass from disruption from the over-stimulations of the world. If anyone is going to go up against Willee’s denial, it’ll be someone else, but not Willee.
The fourth and last of Willee’s Generals is the power of General Denial.
Imagining is for inventing things that are not exactly real (yet). But Lying is largely for denying things that are most definitively real. General Denial has a signature battle cry: “Go Away, There’s nothing to see here…” And that battle cry goes back to the age of invertebrates who blended in with their surroundings so as to avoid being eaten.
General Denial commands an offensive flank. We know that because, just like the great science-fiction writers, this General is not just reacting. This General goes through the considerable trouble of altering the whole of the known universe, in order to preserve Willee’s current self as is, untouched and unaffected by the stressors that cannot be managed otherwise. The fact that Willee will go forth into the future unchanged is a given, not by accident, but by design.
We need to understand the immense power that General Denial wields. Denials are not inherently bad or weak or small things. They are often good and strong and big things. But one thing is for certain: denials are not fake. Real denials have a real affect on real reality. Denial is one of the most powerful things a thinking brain can do. After all, if denials didn’t have enormous power, they wouldn’t be so dangerous; if falsehoods were insignificant in comparison to “the facts,” we wouldn’t even notice them. If lies were powerless, they’d be like the bugs that get hit by our windshields.
The purpose of denial is to change “reality” so that we can acquire the un-acquirable things we want and/or need. Kids and adults and seniors all deny the truth in order to acquire or maintain safety, security, food, money, information, power, physical support, emotional support, and any other things we know we want or need. The first three Generals, Fear, Indifference, and Anger are pretty straightforward as to how they get applied, but how Willee uses Denial generally requires quite a bit more orientation, and even re-orientation for the recently (and sneakily) disoriented! If Willee’s denial leaves you feeling disoriented, that’s by design.
The Simulated Willee
The Greatest Gap of All: Between Willee and Reality
My grandfather is or was an appreciated artist and historical raconteur. The Library of Congress holds many of his paintings and drawings from WWII, the civil rights movement, and various noteworthy time periods in organized labor throughout the country and throughout the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Since then he has been making documentary films, writing retrospectives books, and lecturing about his life’s work of being a witness to, and a bit part player in, the story of modern history. So he knows a thing or two about political activism’s role in the democratic process.
At 82 years old, he was out canvassing Pennsylvania (three states away from home), knocking on doors to drum up votes in 2004. The guy could still (nearly) beat me in a sprint, so don’t let his age fool you. Anyway, he’s been around the block a few times. So a year or two ago, I felt like my years of being his very close-knit kin had led me to this one crucial question. And here’s how I put it…
“Gramps… so you’re going door to door… or even trying to educate your friends… when you’ve made a clean argument, once you’ve relayed the statistics, when you’ve shown the charts, explained the equations, asked all the right questions and got all the right answers, when you’ve provided the quotes, traced the timeline, when you’ve submitted the evidence, made the case, and flanked yourself with God … when you have done ALL of these things, and the next thing you hear is:
‘Thank you very much for your time, I have listened to what you’ve had to say, and I require no further information. I have already made up my mind, and I know what is right because I feel it in my heart. I don’t need to hear any more; I don’t need to think about it. I’m not changing my vote. Thank you for coming.’
…. What then, Gramps?”
“So Gramps… you’ve been around that block eon after eon. What have you done in that scenario? What’s your next move? What do you say when belief and faith trumps logic and even their own self-interest? You can’t fault people for having faith. Faith is a good thing, right? It gets people through troubled times. Faith flying in the face of logic also drives invention, drives progress, drives medicine, drives at least the first half of science, and drives exploration. So faith trumps logic because that’s what it’s there for; that’s what it’s supposed to do! That’s what it was invented for! When the chips are down, and when the odds are not in our favor, isn’t faith more important to preserve than logic?”
Here was his answer… “Well… what the hell can you do? You have to walk away!”
Me again: “You know, that walking away stuff works in a small town, in an under populated world, or in a world without nuclear weapons, but we all, even the faithful among us, live on MY global, nuclear, integrated, over populated, and boiling little blue ball, and what happens to them happens to me.”
“Gramps, I would walk away, really I would… if there was any place to walk away to. I love the outdoors, but even the outdoors isn’t “away” anymore. The creep into rural places seems to be entirely complete. I’m not talking sprawl here, I’m talking overall vulnerability to the tendrils of social disorder. The gap between rich and poor is so wide that most of us are falling into the crevasse. The gap between the educated and the uneducated is widening too at an ever increasing rate.”
Gramps: “Well, if you choose to go back to the “conversation,” I guess you have to try to explain the difference between complex problems and simple answers, and how they normally don’t correlate, I guess… I dunno… Is dinner ready? I think dinner’s ready.”
Many of us in the country still believe that you are allowed to be an asshole. When the majority of the citizens in this country don’t believe that anymore, then it will be time to dust off your muskets because come hell or high water, either in the marketplace or from your backyard duck blind, we’re gonna have another civil war. But for the time being, your neighbor is still well within his rights to be a full-fledged asshole and moron.
But here’s the best part. S/he does not have the right to turn YOU into an asshole. Now that’s a country to be proud of, really proud of. In your country, you do not have to turn into an asshole even if everyone else is doing it. And that is the greatest right of all. It should spell that out right there on the first page of the Constitution. Actually, I think it does…
You have every right that life affords you, and you do not have to accept anything less than the highest quality of life you can achieve for yourself. If you are a “right now” thinker, you will check me right here and say, “Yeah, but those idiots have us under their thumb and you can’t achieve anything for yourself anymore the way they are breaking the backs of our __fill-in-the-blank___ people…” I hear you. Read on.
When Willee Just WON’T
Although a Willee who just “can’t” can be a sizeable challenge, a Willee who just “WON’T” is another matter entirely. If you have to pick between them, a Willee who “can't” is so much easier to work with or be around or help than a Willee who “won’t.” When Willee won’t come to the table at all, even to try something, anything, then that is a Willee who is holding you to a very high degree of accuracy in your interaction. But lucky for you, any Willee who holds you to a very high degree of accuracy in how you relate to them is going to be your best teacher by far.
There are many reasons why individuals won’t. Some won’t because they clearly don’t want to. Some won’t because they are clearly afraid to. But with most Willee’s who won’t, the reason is not clear. In fact, usually Willee won’t because they want to hide from you their true reason for not participating, whatever it may be. When Willee is refusing to converse with you or participate in your conversation, Willee is probably trying to prevent you from learning the real reasons why.
When Willee is invested in “won’t,” I call this form of Willee a “Will-Blocker Willee.” Will blockers are operating on a few key principles, and you can use these few key traits to identify the will blockers in the crowd. Willee is a Will Blocker (WB)when Willee has told you that s/he believes every one of the following three things:
a) WB Willee believes that you are wrong, and they are positive that they know better. They’re not trying to be argumentative; it’s just that their whole sum of experience tells them that they are right and that you are wrong.
b) WB Willee believes that you have been playing tug of will with them, jerking them around, or yanking their chain. They accuse you of believing that what they want is not as important to you as what you want. They are convinced that you are manipulative, and self important, and that you consider them to be “less equal.”
c) WB Willee believes that a Presence Wall will keep you at bay. Will blockers are always putting up a Presence Wall for you to hit up against.
But get ready for this; unfortunately, the secret truth to become aware of is that they are right about you. They are correct on all three points. Yes, most of the time, these Will blocking individuals are correct in their assessment. You are likely to find out eventually that it was you who was actually at fault and not understanding.
First, you are not seeing their point of view (no matter whether you think you are or not). No matter what the “objective truth” is, that’s a thing that makes no difference to Willee because remember from Chapters 4 and 5, one’s own perception and connecting ones own dots is the only way a brain learns.
Second, you do indeed consider yourself more equal, plain and simple. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have tried to impose your agenda on Willee in such a dedicated and unrelenting fashion.
Third, they are quite correct that a Presence Wall will keep you at bay. Presence Walls work on everyone. Using one, they can create at least a stale mate with you, which is a good measure better than feeling like they are always on the losing end.
In my opinion, the best teacher you could ever have, by far, is a Willee who won’t, precisely because they are correct on all three of the above points. And because they will hold you to account for your offenses. You ARE in fact wrong on some key issues you’re not seeing yet, they ARE less equal in your eyes, and they CAN successfully prevent you from affecting them. Because of these inequities which you have presented Willee with, Willee has plenty of fair reason to “go up against you,” and frequently. In fact, Willee has no other rational choice than to try to block you before you have an impact on him/her. In Willee’s shoes, you would do the same.
But on the off chance that Willee does temporarily choose to interchange with you, this “WON’T Willee” will be searching for the truth behind all of your “seemingly arbitrary” actions. Expect Willee to change the rules of your dialogue moment by moment to see if you’re paying attention and to see if you yourself are playing by your own stated rules. And do that you must.
If you have excellent A / W Agility, then you are already a fabulous “teacher.” You will have keen radar for Willee’s approach to the goal at hand, and you will have a constant sensitivity to change. The learning dynamic between you will even be independent of any authority imbalance that may exist between you.
All of that may be true, but when Willee couldn’t care less about your approval, about her/his own freedoms, or about his/her own power, then you are almost out of options for any path forward with this Willee. Almost.