[reprinted from Shyguy’s How To Get A Girlfriend Blog, March 28, 2009]
All too often, in our lives we find ourselves being manipulated or influenced by other men, by women, and sometimes even by the damned television.
Of course, as a kid against a schoolyard bully, perhaps the only options are the Charles Atlas course, karate classes, or a tactful withdrawal. But in later life usually we’re not influenced by physical threat.
HOW DO ‘THEY’ MANIPULATE US?
It’s done with worths, with images, and with social pressure.
If you’re being influenced this way … what that tells you is that you DO NOT actually understand how it’s happening. Oh, you may have theories and opinions about those bad people.
But if you’re still being manipulated, either “having” to go along, or even resisting but feeling upset or angry about it .. then you DO NOT fully understand how it works.
But here’s how to change that …

What is it about taking a shower that causes new ideas to pop into your head?
The ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can regulate your body in a thousand ways (all normally below your consciousness), and the ‘Non-Conscious’ mind can automatically serve up learned actions like a tennis-serve or automatically serve up your opinion of the President or automatically make you feel anxious on a date. Some of this is swell, and some of this is occasionally awful, but the Non-Conscious mind is looking out for you as best it can, and everything it does is automatic.