Today, we build upon the topic of intuition from last week.
By the end of this article, you will get your first glimpse on how to strengthen your intuitive capacity.
More specifically, you get to practice using intuition on people.
I will use three Chinese expressions to show you how to do exactly that.
Why understand people?
As mentioned in a previous article, none of us exists in a vacuum.
However, the world becomes increasingly complicated when you exit the safe cocoon of school life.
After experiencing let-downs, heartbreaks, lies and betrayals, some people become cynical and distrustful of everybody.
Some even harbor contempt towards humankind altogether.
To these people, I’d say: it is time to grow up.
You are not that different from everyone else.
Navigating people is a learnt skill.
And just like any skill, you need to put in intentional and sustained effort towards improving your proficiency.
As Chinese elders always say: 功夫不负有心人 (gōng fu bú fù yǒu xīn rén).
It means your sustained effort always rewards you in the end.
But the reward isn’t necessarily what you have imagined.
Also, your effort doesn’t always produce results on the timeline you want.
So be patient. Learn to understand other humans, so that you become a more wholesome human in the process.
To keep things interesting, let’s dive straight into the dark side.
At some point, you probably felt confused and disoriented when dealing with some people.
Maybe someone offered you an opportunity that seemed amazing, yet you felt uneasy.
Maybe you met a potential suitor whose personality, looks, and career checked all your boxes, but something about them made you strangely anxious.
Sometimes, the discomforts are your insecurities talking: you don’t know if you can measure up. Or, you are afraid of messing up the opportunity.
Other times, it is your intuition catching something that your logical mind hasn’t processed.
Your inner knowing always warns you when someone’s intentions are not what they appear to be.
This is the juicy stuff we are diving into today: understanding manipulation.
What is manipulation?
We are always influencing each other.
Not all influence is for your highest good. Likewise, not all influence is manipulation.
For example, I am very strategic when providing nutrition consultation to my clients.
The strategies help me deliver messages in a way that affects them enough to propel healthy habit changes.
So what is the difference between genuine strategic communication and emotional manipulation? Here’s my take:
Genuine strategic communication:
- The goal is establishing mutual understanding
- There is greater clarity and sharing of information over time
- It makes both parties feel more reassured and empowered
Emotional manipulation:
- The goal is gaining leverage over another to obtain something
- There is greater confusion over time, often involving a hot-and-cold or push-pull dynamic
- It makes at least one of the parties feel more destabilized or disempowered over time
Both are forms of strategic influence.
Yet emotional manipulation is about having power over someone rather than sharing power.
How does intuition help you recognize manipulation?
Through my own experience and anecdotes from others, intuition actually works very fast.
Your subconscious has already clocked essential information about others during your very first interactions.
The problem is not a lack of intuitive insights but our lack of trust in them.
Fortunately, a deeper level of self-trust can be built: by intentionally exercising the muscle of understanding intuitive messages.
Understanding always starts with awareness. So I invite you to consider the following three steps in recognizing signs of possible manipulation:
Step 1: Notice their speech
Example warning sign: 闪烁其辞 (shǎn shuò qí cí)
- 闪烁 (shǎn shuò): describes flickering light or evasiveness of speech
- 其 (qí): their
- 辞 (cí): speech or spoken words
This expression describes a person’s speech as being elusive, shifty and wanting to avoid giving away information.
For example, you ask them a direct, legitimate, and relevant question, yet they brush it aside or change the subject entirely.
Step 2: Notice their actions
Example warning sign: 表里不一 (biǎo lǐ bù yī)
- 表 (biǎo): surface appearance or exterior
- 里 (lǐ): inside or interior
- 不一 (bù yī): not the same; not coherent
This expression describes someone whose actions do not match their words consistently.
There is also a sense of incoherence in the way they act around different people.
Step 3: Notice how you feel
Example warning sign: 满腹疑团 (mǎn fù yí tuán)
- 满腹 (mǎn fù): the entire gut or stomach
- 疑团 (yí tuán): lumps or bundles of questions and confusions
This expression vividly shows your “gut” as being filled with confusions.
The two previous steps involve noticing others. This final step is all about noticing your own internal condition:
- What shifted within you after interacting with them?
- Does your nervous system feel more settled or activated?
Just to be clear, these three warning signs are NOT tell-tale proof that someone is manipulating you.
Instead, treat the steps as starting points to nurture an on-going supportive dialogue between your five senses and your inner knowing.
With practice, you will gather more evidence and things will clarify.
The goal is not hypervigilance, but slowing down.
It is tempting to rush to conclusions about people.
Making someone else categorizable gives us certainty and makes us feel safe.
That’s also the very practice that leads to radical political and ideological divides–because we fail to recognize other people’s complexity and fail to appreciate the similarities we share.
So I will continue to preach the art of slowing down.
Stop rushing to join a new workplace without researching the company’s background.
Stop jumping into business partnerships without thoroughly investigating their history and work ethic.
Stop rushing into relationships without vetting their habits, lifestyle and character.
Good things take time.
And time always reveals what urgency conceals.
Manipulation cannot survive the test of time.
What’s next?
Now that you know the basics of what to pay attention to, I will be covering common manipulation tactics in next week’s article.
Most importantly, you will learn about the antidote to manipulation.
Hint: your intuition is part of the answer.
For now, go check out my very first tarot reading on Chinese Inside Out YouTube channel!
I’m all about practicing what I preach, so I had to put intuition to practice for y’all to witness, yeah? 😉
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Until next week.
Love,
Crystal
