There are many types of abuse, as I discovered very recently. And knowing less about Manson-Wood’s story than you, I will use it to explain what I think about abuse. Let’s start by saying that it’s complicated. Reality is too complicated, and one of the reasons is because there are many points of view. And the only common denominator to align these points of view, so we don’t eat or kill each other, are ethics. Or morality. Or whatever you want to call it. A personal list of principles based on human interdependence and respect for life. We need to share some common rules about what is right and what is wrong so we all have a common ground, a reference to read and translate the world around us. But this changes with each frontier, gender, ethnicity, age… According to the NLP theory, everyone has their own map of reality. This just means that everyone interprets reality in a different way. Every single one of us. To get started, we do that by having different predominant senses. Some people tend to see things, others hear things, while some actually feel them. The same speech in front of the same audience will have, of course, different interpretations, but also different perceptions. Starting to see now why I say it’s so damn complex? Now, on top of the main Representational System (visual, auditory, kinesthetic…) we all have different filters. Cultural filters, geographical filters, gender filters, and on and on. Imagine them as glasses of colors, one right after the other. Anyway, the point is, when we know that not everyone shares the same essential values on what can hurt a person and whatnot, well, then shit happens.
…these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality
Which reality are we talking about here? His reality or her reality? There is a reality map for each of them but in this particular case, there is clearly one person that has more power and is also older than the other. Here is where the Reframing takes action: The dominant, or the one who guides the interaction, imposes (or persuades with) his reality map to other person. Now her map is superimposed by another external map, and this will have priority when interpreting reality. Until the charm of the other person disappears. This happens often and harmlessly when we communicate with other people and we truly listen and understand. But it can also be misused by people who enjoy a privileged position to manipulate other people’s realities. And the only boundary between what is right and what is wrong here is… you guessed it: the ethics or morality of the privileged individual. This leaves the other person in the interaction in a second weak place where they can’t do much, or in the end, just leave. Wait, they can also leave, get away from that imposed reality and then look back at it and realize what happened there.
Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.
In any case, it seems that we all have some moral job to do when we reach some positions of power. This was just a simplified explanation of the why, and the internal mechanics of it.
