To: K-list
Recieved: 2004/03/29 12:12
Subject: Re: [K-list]passive aggression
From: Mia Friedrich
On 2004/03/29 12:12, Mia Friedrich posted thus to the K-list:
Hi there Mystress,
thanks for this incredible posting!!!!!!!!!
I'm familiar and -normally - quite aware of passive aggressiveness, so what
you wrote in your posting wasn't really " new" to me, but you have a way of
getting things to the point and structure the essence which is just
brilliant.
There is not much to add as far as i'm concerned since you've said it all,
but some personal notes of the one or the other person might make some of
the aspects even clearer.
I do believe everybody- unless completely enlightened - has passive
aggressive behaviour structures. It's part of the ego, it's like ego itself.
But not every person is using the passive aggression pattern to the same
extent.
After all ..........there is open aggression too, right?
I found it's quite easy to let somebody define to what degree he or she is
willing to express passive aggressive behavior.
Just ask him or her how aggressive he/she is or can be.
The more this person denies his own aggressive potential, the more passive
aggressive his/her behavior will be........in a was HAS to be.........
The example of Hitler and the Nazis is a good one, Mystress. Many years ago
when i worked in the bookstore, i came across the topic of reincarnation and
people talking about their past lives. What amazed me to no end was that
everybody without exception ( i didn't talk to you then, Mystress.;-)) could
come up with past lives as victims and heroes, but nobody ever seem to have
had a past live as a murderer, as a Nazi, as an aggressor.
This made me think about identification and " being one" as a mystic and i
just logically came to the conclusion: if i claim to be one with everything
there is, i have to be one with the so called " evil" too, right?
Since i grew up in Germany the Nazis are always around in the consciousness
of a German as an example for evil. I took a concentration camp and sure, it
was not difficult to put myself in the shoes of the victims.
How about putting myself in the shoes of the Nazis? And yes, i did manage to
identify with the minds and the motivation of a Nazi person torturing people
in concentration camps.
For my own spiritual development i felt it was /is important to detect this
potential in myself and accept it the way i try to accept everything else.
The famous astrologer Liz Greene wrote in your first book ( sorry, i don't
know the original title since i've read this book in German language 25
years ago, should be something like: soul and cosmos" ): what you don't
touch consciously will happen to you as destiny.
In a birth chart you can see the aggressive potential quite well ( Mars,
Pluto, especially in challenging aspects to personal planets or on house
cusps).
During the last months i was in a close friendship/relationship online with
a man who has Pluto conjuncting his Saturn on his Descendent, which is the
point that " meets the outside world, the point that shows how you relate to
others.
The problem dealing with him - for me- is not that there might be some
passive aggressive behaviour since i do assume we all have it, but his
complete refusal to look at it.
He is a Buddhist and he claims that he meditated for years and years and at
one point ALL motivation for aggression left him completely and now - even
if he would want to- he cannot come up with ANY aggressive potential any
longer and if somebody is unfriendly towards him, ALL he feels is "
compassion"............
Truth is he is very sarcastic, careless, forgetful and shows all the
symptoms of passive aggressiveness as if he would be a comic strip figure
created to demonstrate the principle.
I grew up in a household with a mother who declared passive aggressiveness
to be her life goal. She is a victim since i was a little child......always
sick..........always in tears and weak, depressed and sensitive with a soft,
friendly voice and a shy and gentle smile.....................
When i was a little girl i felt she is a mean and cruel person.........but i
could never prove it.............. what i felt coming from her was " ice and
steal"........ but there was nothing ever that gave her away. To the outside
world she was - and still is- the poor woman who is too sensitive for this
world and just can't handle to go to work and deal with everything everybody
else has to deal with.
The crux with passive-aggressiveness - in comparison to open aggression- is
that it's so hard to detect and to " prove" since it's masked so well.
There is one subjective way to " prove" it and this is when you get mad at
somebody who seems to be weak and gentle. But you will find it hard to
complain about this attack, since the culprit isn't owning the behaviour
obviously and the others won't see or sense it most of the time.
Even with my " early training" ( or because of it????) it took me so many
years of study to be able to see passive-aggressive behaviour patterns more
clearly.
It's so very subtle most of the time and it doesn't come with a
BANG...........
I will give you one example from my mother, the living master ( as far as
i'm concerned) of passive aggressive behaviour. One of millions of little
tiny knives that she sticks into people all day everyday for 50 years or
more.
Since i'm not in a good relationship with my mother ( obviously..*g*), she
decided to " ignore" my daughter, her grand-daughter. She of course wouldn't
say so............. she would simply " forget" her birthdays or misplace the
gift she wanted to send to her for Christmas ( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
She DOES have two other grand-daughters, daughters of my brother, and she
never forgets to mention how much she does for them and how much she loves
them.
Since i have been in Canada for several years now, we didn't have contact at
all any longer. She DOES have email, but she just feels, she cannot express
herself in this medium and therefore she cannot tell me what is going on
with herself or the family. If i really want to know, i have to come " home"
as i was told.(!!!!!!!!!!!!)
After two years of not talking at all, she calls shortly after the birthday
of my daughter. As usual she had ignored it. First thing after she had said
hello is:" I just came back from the post office. I have sent Denise ( one
of her other granddaughters) a birthday package. I got SUCH nice things for
her this year. ".
This is the point where i exploded. I ended the phone call, i wrote her an
email about how i feel about what she does, telling her i sense her being
extremely aggressive and that i don't feel i want to take any more of it.
I got a mail back from her that she never was hurt so deeply in her life
before and that they ( my father sided with her without even talking to me)
have no daughter any longer. They don't know this woman in Canada and their
daughter died many many years ago.
Sometimes when i happen to come over those self-help talk shows........Dr.
Phil and his family reunions............ just getting to talk people with
each other again and change some behaviours and all is fine.......... i
picture my mother being on one of those shows and me being asked to "
forgive" her and give her an other chance.........
i would say no. I forgive her, because she has no clue what she does. She is
honestly and completely " innocent" . But that doesn't mean that i have to
take it any longer and i see no chance whatsoever that she will ever change.
She doesn't even acknowledge what she is doing.
I had to live with it as a child and i was the " aggressive" one, the "
emotional' one that always exploded and was angry and furious and because i
was so trained to deal with passive- aggressive people i married the
charming version of the pattern.
They are not always coming in the " weak" form...........
My ex is a very successful business man................ he is charming as
hell......... he forgets everything.............. does whatever he
pleases............. and if you find out, he comes with red roses and a
charming smile...............oh..............i'm SOOOOOOOOO
sorry.............can you forgive me ONE more time?????????????
same pattern..........same result.............. very peaceful, gentle
person.........never angry...........never aggressive.........never saying
no......................
just ignoring or forgetting what doesn't fit his purposes.
So what does this background and biography do to me and my own
passive-aggressiveness? oh, i'm sure it's there...........*g*
But because i detested this behaviour from early childhood on, i think i'm
quite alert and not as blind as many ( i hope).
I like open aggression and i don't think aggression is principally
destructive. I can throw a cushion against the wall hundred times and it's
not hurting anybody or anything and i can yell and scream and it wouldn't do
any harm - unless i aim at somebody else or yell and scream AT
somebody...........
Becoming friends with aggressive behaviour and the energy behind it is the
way out of passive - aggressive patterns i believe.
During the last years i'm constantly told how blunt and direct and straight
forward i am, so i assume i'm on the right path..................LOLOL
love to all
mia
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