When They Assassinate You (Part 3)

Hello Muses,

Trust your week is going well.  Wow! I got so many emails yesterday that this concluding part was due yesterday. Sorry for not posting.  I was on the move throughout. 

I've gotten quite a lot of feedback on this issue - loads of questions and comments, looking at various angles and positing other viewpoints and some I will discuss in another post. We will continue from where we stopped last week.

Part 3.

Our world is full of contrasts: good and bad, up and down, pretty or ugly, black or white, and many other polarities. For someone to feel good they may need to make someone else feel bad. This is extremely flawed but remains one of the ways someone can delude himself or herself into feeling better.

Note: In some cases, character assassination may have to be addressed either by confronting the person or taking legal action. In most situations, really, slander is tort (civil wrong – you see how useful my law degree is, lol), and can be the basis for a law suit under defamation.  You need to decipher when this becomes necessary.  Often, we confuse every negative comment about us with defamation. Unfortunately, not all negative statements are defamation. Make sure you have detailed and sufficient evidences. 

You need to be aware that in some situations, your silence can be construed as agreement, when you don’t address negative statements about yourself and your business or where your integrity is being called to question. Don’t worry about the mind games people will try to play with you - “you’re being sensitive” or “you can’t take criticism" or "why did you wait this long". Those comments are a way to put you back on the defense, as if you have no voice in what goes on around you and what perceptions are created about you.

So, what should you do when this happens? These do not follow any particular order but will guide you:

1. Don't fight back. At least, don't lower yourself to use the tools the character assassin has inarguably lowered themselves by using. The best defense against any character assassination is to maintain your integrity and take pride in what you do, whatever that may be. Fighting back just feeds the fire, and clouds the issue. It may sound like a cliché but truth is- it is not about you.  It is the person engaging in it that has a problem. Be unshakeable. Be like a rock.  Get better. Go higher.

2. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.  I know!!!! This is the most difficult part to do but trust me it works. Refuse to notice or even acknowledge what they say and do and pay no attention to them. Choose not to comment. Always take the higher ground with negativity and simply do not acknowledge it. Look at it as a spiritual challenge and an opportunity to grow emotionally. No one knows the full story except what your assassin has presented, therefore no one has a right to judge you.

3. Remember, this may not just be a physical assassination.  In most cases, there will be spiritual and/or fetish elements to it. Stay tuned to your spiritual wavelength at its highest and stay safe.

4. Some people will act like they are genuinely interested in knowing the truth, be careful. You need to be quite circumspect as they may be allies of your assassin, trying to get more information.  The ones who know you and are genuinely concerned will show by their words and actions.

5. Develop a thick skin. People will talk and not just talk, even hiss, sneer and whisper when you pass by; – truth be told a lot of people are not busy or doing anything meaningful with their lives and most have domestic issues that hassles their wellbeing, so bashing others is a favorite pastime – let them do so but you remain focused on your own growth trajectory.

6. Where and when necessary, speak the truth but don’t be defensive. Remember your assassin got to the narrative before you and the damage may be more widespread than you can imagine. Refuse to be drawn into telling stories.

7. People who believe the worst about you probably have a vested interest in believing that crap. Remember you can’t control that. I remember someone who was owing me money for over two years being at the forefront of spreading defamations about me, telling people not to attend my events, yet sending me nice, warm text messages of how she appreciates my patience and how she has always respected me. She didn’t realize I already knew she was a snake. Unbelievable mental psychosis issues.

8. People who believe the vilest things about you don’t know you. Not really. This might be one of the single most awful discovery about life you will learn. People who you thought knew you, don’t. Sadly, there are others who don’t even know you at all, have never met you or spoken with you but will also vilify you to high heavens especially if the matter is of a nature that scares them.   

9. Where and ONLY when necessary, speak the truth but don’t be defensive. Remember your assassin got to the narrative before you and the damage may be more widespread than you can imagine. Refuse to be drawn into telling stories.

10.Turn off the reports by anyone who want to daily feed you with what your assassin’s plans are but make sure you on your own, have a detailed diagram of their methods of attack, their schemes and antics. Very, very important.

11.  Always be prepared for the worst. Character assassins are psychopaths and narcissists.  They never get enough. As I said, for them it’s your death or nothing. Remember they always present themselves as the victims.

12.  Finally, and most importantly, Character is revealed over time. Who we are is revealed every day in every little action and decision. No one is perfect, but the arc of someone’s character — how giving they are of themselves, how considerate, how reciprocal — is perceptible. The people who matter aren’t swayed by your assassin’s gossip and trash talk. The shallow people who are? You don't need to worry about those.

Charles Spurgeon said, "A lie will go around the world while truth is still putting on its boots."

Understand this: The first person being destroyed in a character assassination attack is the assassin himself. He’s just not aware of it. Bad-mouthing is a suicide mission: it destroys the source of criticism in the process rather than the one being criticized.

Truth be told, it is not just the talks that upsets us but our interpretation of the situation based on our inner state of mind. So, next time you hear someone badmouthed you, look within your own self and see how you see yourself. If you are feeling confident and happy, bad personal situations will not disturb you as much as it would if you were feeling unfulfilled.

  

Next time you hear someone is trying to assassinate you, just remember that they have no other way of feeling good about themselves so they must indulge in slander and gossip just to feel good. So, allow them to have their moment of joy and you rejoice in the fact that you are important enough for them to spend time talking about you. As Mark Twain said: “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about!”

Till next week, be good, be kind, be careful with your thoughts, words, associations and most of all, fear God.

Mother Muse.....

When They Assassinate You (Part 2)

Hello Muses,

Happy Valentine’s day. Hmmmm, love nwantintin tinz. The over-commercialization of the day makes me worry because if you are in a true and loving relationship, everyday should be valentine's day. Anyways, hope you’ve gotten your gifts and kisses and for those of you given to showing them off on social media, trust you have done so already, lol.  Na love matters.

I got quite a deluge of emails on our Part 1. I was intrigued.  As I mentioned in Part 1, it is no surprise to me that a lot of people can relate to the issues and couldn’t wait for the second part. So share with others not on the mailing list and do send me your thoughts too. Here we go:

Part 2:

The green-eyed monster – Jealousy/Envy - lies at the heart of most, if not all character assassinations. Jealousy/Envy are natural human emotions and can be good if they help you see the possibilities available to push you to achieve your own higher goals.

It however becomes a symptom of a deeper psychological problem when it pushes you to destroy the ones who have hurt you, have what you think you should have or belongs to you. In effect, it is those who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent that tend to be more jealous than others. What happens to the jealous/envious person(s), is that you (or whatever it is that you've done to piss them off) acts like a giant mirror, reflecting their own perceived inadequacies and lame excuses. If you're doing or achieving something they believe inside themselves that they should be doing or achieving -- and they're not -- it forces them to ask themselves WHY (and how could he/she, when I don’t?).

And the answers to those questions are not ones that the person trying to destroy you wants to hear, because their failures and inadequacies are painful to accept. So, what do they do? They tell everyone embellished poop about you.  They sell stories that even you become confused as to how that could ever be possible. In some instances, they ensure they are perceived as the victims and therefore you deserve to crucified and killed. They scour and dig up all manners of information about you and sell to their disorganized listeners and for most of their listeners, particularly those who barely know you, it is “privileged” information.  What they sell is

this: He is not special, talented, holy and nice as you know; He makes more horrible compromises than you know; He is fake and a phony, and THAT'S why he getting what they are getting and they the victims are not. In some cases, the person paying for the assassination does nothing more than a suggestion or tell a simple story to another unwaged assassin. In this case, the person who starts the story, lie or rumors will do nothing more than simply suggest something allowing others to run with the idea that they have planted.

People engage in these ruthless attacks on others in books, on their blogs, Facebook and twitter accounts, WhatsApp groups, and in personal conversations. They aren’t merely disagreeing with others, they are actively trying to destroy them with hazing, mockery, slander and character assassination. There is a profound moral disconnect at work in all this. Invariably those who engage in character assassination to advance their views make all sorts of aggressive and self-righteous statements about themselves and their cause and how much pain they’ve suffered.

Character assassination is far easier to take part in than most people even realize. Just spreading or perpetuating a rumor after it has been started is in fact a method of character assassination and should be avoided. Even liking the comments or agreeing without saying a word is invariable support. It is also important to remember that when someone is spreading rumors or trying to assassinate your character they are likely having trouble on their own. In most cases the assassins are insecure themselves and need reassurance that they are worth something. In many cases, those that are seeking to assassinate your character are struggling and may need nothing more than a helping hand or someone to talk to. Though it may be hard to imagine that someone that calls you names or tries to make you look bad needs help, they are often nowhere near as tough as they seem, and destroying others seem like their getaway trip. The attention they receive from their sympathizers, gives them the needed drug-infused high they so much crave for their inane life. They want to trot on your coffin to their happiness and that itself is a web of delusion.

Using Emerson’s quote above - I’ve realized that the people who slander you are not revealing things about me; in every word, they say against you, they are actually revealing mountains of information about themselves, displaying and demonstrating their own character. They ARE showing the world who they really are at their core being. They are simply manifesting what kind of people they are. They are broadcasting to the entire world that they are people who cannot be trusted, that they are unprincipled and disrespectful. They are telling everybody that they are pitifully so consumed by their own arrogance and bitterness blended together to make them so helplessly unable to get past their pains. They even forget they are sharing things people probably would never have known about them.

Some people will argue in favour of the hurt party – that it is because the person is aggrieved, that’s why they resort to assassinating you. What kind of person engages in character assassination against another person because they are hurt or hurting? What kind of character do they possess? Is slander or engaging in character assassination the best choice of a person of character when dealing with somebody who has hurt him or who he has a conflict with? How should a person of integrity and self-respect deal with someone he conflicts with?

No matter how true or justified the basis for a grouse or conflict is, killing another person with words and destroying their reputation does not in any way make you a better person or give you long life or increase your value and worth to others, neither does it assuage your hurt. Not every one of us considers the fact that life is a wonderful gift of God and it should not just be cherished but be lived to the fullest. Some people do not seem to understand well enough the real meaning and purpose of life. They live life with hatred and jealousy and make the lives of others a nuisance.

So, what should you do when this happens? 

We will continue next week with the concluding part of this story. Send me your thoughts. Till then, love life, live well, laugh more and remember, God made life to be lived to the fullest.

Mother Muse,

When They Decide to Assassinate You (Part 1)

2016 was quite an interesting year. We can all look back at it and some can heave a sigh of relief; others perhaps not so fast. For most people, it was riddled with the language of the season – recession. Lol, everything was recessed and placed in recession. Thankfully and hopefully, 2017 is a good year.

One issue that came up very strongly for me was the issue of character assassination (what were you thinking before? Lol) and reputation damage. We saw quite a bit in the local media with books being written and blogs celebrating all sorts and I was quite distraught at the way people applauded those without looking at the deeper underlying issues. I struggled with writing about this for a long time last year, not only because it hit home, but rather how common it was and we never talk about it.  

It became expedient to write about this, when someone came wailing to my home on Monday morning, beating herself blue & black on what she heard so-and-so said about her.  I laughed in between shock and I shared my experiences with her. I further told her how a dear sister and friend shared her very bitter and heartbreaking experience with me on this same matter last year and how it almost made her a recluse. This is someone well known for her strong views and belief system and for someone to damage her reputation and character so badly, was a bullet to the soul.

It’s quite disheartening when someone or some people decide by whatever measure or feeling of being slighted, that the best way to respond or deal with a conflict is to damage your reputation. It is even much more depressing when you find out that the person or persons involved know they have nothing to lose because they have no reputation to protect and their character is non-existent in the first place. 

So, damaging yours seems to them like they have gained an upper hand in the said conflict or misunderstanding, whatever it may be. You don’t have to be successful, popular, be a leader, have a lot of following or be charismatic, or any of these things for your character/reputation to be damaged. It can happen to anyone.

Character assassination/Reputation damage/Slander is far more common than most people realize and knowing about it is one way to help stop it. Although you may never personally experience it, it is always valuable to learn as much as you can about issues like this because they can quickly happen to you. There are a few basics that you should understand to learn just what character assassination is and why it is so dangerous. From this point, we will refer to them as assassins.

You need to understand the terms so you can easily comprehend what we are talking about here. What exactly does it mean?

Character Assassination is the act of attempting to influence the portrayal or reputation of a person, causing others to develop an extremely negative perception of him/her. By its nature, it involves deliberate exaggeration or manipulation of facts to present an untrue picture of the targeted person.

Basically, it is spreading rumours and talking bad about somebody, to make people hate them.

• Ø  To assassinate someone means to kill, to take life in an underhanded way.
• Ø  To assassinate someone’s character means to kill or damage their character by any means possible. This can be something as simple as calling them names to something as complicated as fabricating stories about them to keep them from advancing or living a good life. It is bloodless murder.

Character assassination is far more dangerous than you might imagine. An assassin can be anyone who has a grouse against you, someone who has a perceived or professed hurt, a business competitor, your ex –whatever, a friend-turned-foe, a devious being, a jealous/envious somebori, or just a confused soul trying to make your own life more difficult; are likely to use this technique to present you as a terrible person, making it easy for them to take advantage of you and get what they want which really is – to make themselves look like a victim and a saint, damage your reputation, wreck your relationships, cost you opportunities both personal and professional, deal a permanent blow to your self-confidence, and fundamentally alter how you and those around you perceive you and your place in the world.

Character assassination is nothing more than dirty fighting, make no mistake about it. In most cases, it is cowardly as they only badmouth you behind your back and can never confront you since even they know their lies. Most assassins are devious and are most likely sociopaths. They may or may not hate you perse, but they wreck your reputation to fulfil their own selfish goals. Some you have never met but they know everything they can use to damage your reputation, even paying for information. Some may be your friends – the ones you trust with all your innermost koko gists and life stories. They distribute the stories, concoct more and embellish it to tarnish you and often, will come by your side in public to give the impression they are still your support.

We will continue in the second part next week, with more clarity on what this is all about. Till then, remember this: Life is to be lived to the fullest as God intends it. 

Mother muse,