4.0 ENTHUSIASM (Cheerfulness) A lighthearted soul with a free mind. Flexible. A winner
3.5 INTEREST (Amusement) Actively interested in subjects realted to survival. Doing well.
3.0 CONSERVATISM (Contentment) The conformist. Don't rock the boat. Resist changes. Not too many problems. Stops progress.
2.5 BOREDOM The spectator. All the world is a stage, and he's the audience. Neither contented nor discontented. He dndures things. Purposeless. Careless. Not threatening; not helpful.
2.0 ANTAGONISM The debater. Loves to argue. Blunt. Honest. Tactless. A poor sport.
1.8 PAIN Touchy. Irritable. Scattered. Striking at source of pain.
1.5 ANGER Chronic distemper. Blames. Holds Grudges. Threatens. Demands obedience.
1.2 NO SYMPATHY Cold fish. Unfeeling. Suppressing violent anger. Cruel, calm, resourceful, acidly polite.
1.1 COVERT HOSTILITY The cheerful hypocrite. Gossip. An actor. Often likes puns and practical jokes. Seeks to introvert others. Nervous laughter or constant smile.
1.0 FEAR Coward. Anxious. Suspicious. Worried. Running, Defending or caught in indecision.
.09 SYMPATHY Obsessive agreement. Afraid of hurting others. Collects the downers. Sometimes wobbles between complacent tenderness and tears. Always saying they are "sorry".
.08 PROPITIATION (appeasement) Do gooder. Doing favors to protect himself from bad effects. Intention to stop growth or progress. Sickeningly sweet a bit like a venus fly trap.
0.5 GRIEF The whiner. Collects grievances and old mementos. Dwells in the past. Feels betrayed. Everything painful.
0.375 MAKING AMENDS The "yes" person. Will do anything to get sympathy or help. Blind loyalty. A "mop-the-floor-with-me" tone. They often say "no problem" when you ask them for a favor, but don't necessarily believe their own words.
0.05 APATHY Given up. Turned off. Suicidal. Addict, alcoholic, gambler. Fatalistic. May pretend he's found "peace".
If you notice there are numbers going down the page. Each of these tells the energy level of how a person is feeling depending on what level they are at.
We can all be in all of these stages from time to time. We may move through many of them in one day. What we are also looking at is people who stay in on particular stage for a very long time.
If you look at the last one, APATHY you'll notice that this has a very low number. A person at this level has just about given up and you would notice that even their voice tone is very low and slow.
The next one up MAKING AMENDS is a person who is very close to giving up but right now is just coping by letting people walk all over them.
The stage called GRIEF is when we are grieving and feeling sorry for ourselves and seeing only the negative. It is also when we are listing to all of the CRITICAL TAPES that are being triggered by a difficult person or situation. These people create the reality among themselves and others that they will never find happiness. In some ways they seem more hopeless than those in APATHY.
When people around us are in the stage called PROPITIATION, they are doing NEGATIVE NURTURING. If we are in this stage then we need to let the other person make their own mistakes to be able to learn and grow--even if it is child.(unless of course it is life threatening) They need to learn that their are consequences for actions or choices i.e. they will be cold if they don't wear a jacket. They may move into their DECISION MAKING STATE ,draw their own conclusion about how maybe they should have worn a coat. Otherwise they never learn how to make choices; nor do they ever learn that there such things as consequences. This can be a sign or symptom of CODEPENDENCY, where we are more worried about another's needs than ours and we are afraid to let others take their own actions and make their own mistakes.
HOWEVER, there is another side to this stage. It can be consciously or unconsciously the intent of this person to take your power away. They are very condescending and want you to believe that you are not capable of something. They treat you like an object. This type of person very often speaks in a sickeningly sweet voice and we struggle with why we don't FEEL grateful even if they are giving us the message that we should be grateful for their helping us.
SYMPATHY is the stage where people are always saying they are sorry, or saying yes to everything even though they don't want to nor do they intend to follow through. They might be called a YES person.
FEAR pretty well speaks for itself.
The people who trigger us the most are the one who could be referred to as one ones. These people have such COVERT HOSTILITY. They are like the story of Tar Baby and B'rer Rabbit, where B'rer Rabbit gets totally stuck in Tar Baby's Tar because he kept getting angrier at Tar Baby for not responding and kept punching or kicking him and each time got whatever he hit him with, stuck. We get stuck in someone else's anger. They actually get US to express THEIR anger. The angrier we get, the calmer they get. (sound familiar?). One way to recognize a person in this stage who is secretly angry but may not even know it, is that they SMILE a lot. The angrier they are the bigger the smile. These are the people who love to gossip or play practical jokes ( "just kidding". They are the SNIPERS behind the bushes.
The best way to deal with these people is to move to the stage of NO SYMPATHY. This is similar to being like Spock from Star Trek. We just don't buy into their game or get emotionally hooked in. BUT as with other stages, this can be used for power and control. This person is emotionally unavailable when we need them the most. The are the NO person. They love to make people beg and grovel--what POWER.
ANGER pretty well speaks for itself.
PAIN is a stage which is quite misunderstood by others and even ourselves. When we are in his stage we may find ourselves very irritable and scattered. We may wonder "What is wrong with me? Why am I acting this way?" And the answer is healthier than we may realize. We are FEELING our pain and not NUMBING ourselves. Even though this is the last place we'd like to be, it is so much healthier than being at the bottom of the TONE SCALE.
The others pretty well speak for themselves. Any questions--just write and ask. MATCHING TONES is also another way to defend against difficult people or to get someone out of a certain stage. Always be above where others are positioned on the tone scale otherwise they have power. i.e. if you are facing a COVERTLY HOSTILE person they may be ready to put you into FEAR or GRIEVING and so you need to immediately go into NO SYMPATHY. We too often try to get others who are in GRIEVING or APATHY to go up to the top of the TONE SCALE too soon by telling them that things are going to get better and to "cheer up" but this makes them only dig their heels in deeper. What we need to do is to match their tone and agree with them, not in a PROPITIOUS way but to let them hear our voice at their tone level. We will get a lot further with them. They may get ANGRY at us, but that moves them up the TONE SCALE to more energy and determination.
Now you can see how the verbal abuser uses tone to control, intimidate and diminish the perceived capacity of the victim.
Kids deal with this everyday when they have to deal with the bully.
Below you will find a link to a bullying curriculum I have developed.
Back to Verbal Abuse
Emotional Blackmail
Kinds of Abuse & Dynamics of Abuse
Intro to Bullying Curriculum
Unit Course Objectives of Bullying Curriculum
Curriculum of Lessons for Bullying Curriculum
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