Quick tip for you awesome creators and teachers and musicians today.
There’s a quality I think of as “sticky” that we human beings sometimes demonstrate. It involves clinging, complication, innuendo, subtle and not so subtle manipulation. Some call it passive aggressive. I just know that it feels – well, sticky.
My suggestion: get a bead on the “energy signature” of sticky so that you can avoid getting ensnared in the stick. How do you do this?
Recognize it by your response to it first. You may feel unwittingly drawn into complications you would not consciously choose. You may feel some pressure to take care of another adult’s feelings. You may feel cornered. You may also just feel a sense of ICK: I don’t like this.
Recognize it also by outward behavior. Pressure, passive-aggressive ploys, boundary pushing – and also by too much praise, or praise that you know implicitly comes with the expectation of your complicity. As in, “Keep doing what I say to keep these good words coming.”
Only you can know what is “sticky.” We are all sticky at times, so this isn’t about being hard-edged or unforgiving. It’s also not always conscious on the part of the sticky person, and it’s rarely meant as malicious. It’s just a way of getting needs met. That said, “sticky” is a huge energy drain and it feels awful.
I have wrangled with this and am still learning. From hard experience I can say that it’s better not to take the gig, the student, or the work if there’s any “sticky.” If it’s there at the outset, it will be there later – and probably more of it.
In my experience, almost on cue after we politely and firmly decline an “offer” of this kind, something much better comes along that feels 1000% better.
Hold out for the better!
PS – The “fingerprint people” are from my journal. Cheerful, non-sticky presences. 