Lately I’ve allowed myself the grace of honesty to take a look at the games I play with people. I’m referring to the unspoken energetic games that play-out in sneaky ways and that I play dumb to. The level of honesty it has taken for me to expose this within myself is quite a feat, and playing dumb and pretending I don’t know what I am doing is still quite strong within me.
How is the game played? It’s hard to describe, but I’ll give it a go… it is when I try to manipulate my interactions with another so that others do not see the real, full and gorgeous me, keeping the other person at bay.
Instead of allowing what is there between us, I try to control the interaction, to limit my level of connection with another, keeping it superficial and dimming the potential that is there between us. I try to direct the way things go, or so I think, not allowing the person to get to know me on a deeper level. This means that what does play-out is not necessarily true.
The effect of all of this is that my connections with people are less than what they could be – I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth.
I cannot let another in, in full, or really at all, when I am playing a game such as this, and that’s the whole point – to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in-truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind. By adding an element of what is not true and loving to the relationship, the connection that I have with others, and even myself, becomes corrupted with complication.
It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards, but mostly because I don’t let others in, keeping myself shut off from love.
I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games.
The truth is, I’m tired of these games and through this exhaustion I have realised that I can step out at any time. That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them. It is a simple choice but one I cannot make unless I am incredibly honest with myself. It is this level of honesty that is new to me, and that Serge Benhayon has inspired me to get to, but I am finding that the more I live it, the more I love it – far more than the games I have played.
By Nikki McKee, company director, Goonellabah, NSW, Australia
Further Reading:
Building intimacy in your relationships
Relationship games – fear of losing love
True Family
A great question. We know truth, but do we live it?
This is such a great topic of conversation because most of us are playing games,
I can feel how there is a deeper aspect to hiding behind the wall of protection that I was not aware of until recently. It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion (protection) until the hurt or pattern is exposed which is a nonbelief in myself, which is a deeper level of a lack of self worth. Not being worthy enough to be the son of God. But where are these thoughts coming from? If they are not my thoughts whose are they? Is it possible that these thoughts are fed to us so that we stay in the metal constructs of believing them to be true, so that we do not even bother trying to reject the thoughts because we have been conditioned over life times to accept thoughts as our own? We never stopped to consider the possibility that we are being fed lies.
Thanks Nikki, this is a great exposé on how we hold back as a form of manipulation. We can understand the hurt that may have led us to protect ourselves and shut away our essence, but after that we become part of the corruption, so to speak, by adding to the hurt in the world by holding back and calculating our every move with others. We do the best we can in life but at some point a greater honesty needs to be explored in regards to our own behaviours, and how they affect others.
I have been watching an outplay with someone who admits to leading a miserable life, and over the passing of a few days they have been shown a different way they could be with themselves that would make a huge difference to their life going forward. And it has been a fascinating study of human behaviour to see how strong our want of comfort is and what comfort means to each individual. So comfort for this person is that they want to go back to being miserable and negative because it is familiar to them and even though on the one hand they hate their life, they also find it very reassuring and so they will stay with the comfort even though they hate it. I have decided we are very peculiar human-beings because we know we can be and want to live a different way one that is more sustaining but it’s as though something holds us back. What if it doesn’t last? So we stay in the un-comfort of the comfortable because we are afraid to move on and make those changes. There’s no judgement here because I was once in the same dilemma and it is hard to make the first move and to keep saying yes to change which takes us out of our comfort zone into a true way of living.
We play energetic, under the obvious radar games because we want to manipulate & have life be our way.
We all play games, we have different games up our sleeves for different scenarios – to maintain our individuality & cement who we think we are.
I have found the more loving and content with myself I am the less likely I am to play silly harmful games, when feeling insecure then the games begin – they may be very subtable but they are there all the same.
Moral of the story is to work on self love and self acceptance.
I agree with what you are saying and with self love and acceptance there is always more to discover. Sometime we plateau and this is okay before we take the next dive to discover more of ourselves.
The games we play are so intrinsically tied to the way we are as children and remembering when we would pick a dandelion flower and play she loves me she loves me not, what affect has this had on our way of Understanding Love? Love Only Love is a non-transferable or refundable expression of who we are and is innately equal within everyone so we Love all equally from our essences. So patterns as described above is one of many simple childhood games of chance that need our attention so we can heal and let go so we can return to our Essences of Love Only Love, LOL!!
“I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games.” So true Nikki. Learning to become more open and transparent is enabling me to clock when I start to play these games – and make new choices.
Nikki, there is so much in this article to ponder on, thank you for sharing.
Nikki, this is super interesting and I love that it stops us blaming others and instead allows us to take responsibility; ‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards, but mostly because I don’t let others in, keeping myself shut off from love.’
Are we prepared to observe our life, and be honest about everything, including our relationship with self has to be honest? ‘I am incredibly honest with myself. It is this level of honesty that is new to me, and that Serge Benhayon has inspired me to get to, but I am finding that the more I live it, the more I love it – far more than the games I have played.’
Nikki, its great to be honest about this and rather than blame others for not loving us, to actually look at whether we are open or in protection from past hurts and so not allowing love in.
Every expectation I have on another to carry out what is my standard way of being I ask to be hurt; it is therefore me that chooses to get hurt and not another hurting me through me expecting another to behave in a way that I think they should behave… I do not have a right to control another to live their life.
But if everything is energy Caroline then it’s the energy that is coming through the other person that hurts and it is unseen because we have lost our ability to see the unseen world that is all around us. We blame the physicality that is in front of us rather than admit that actually it’s the energy coming through them. There is a level of comfort that we have all fallen into because we do not want to read life, because if we did we would have to take responsibility for our part in it.
It’s so incredibly easy to play games, I catch myself frequently in that I’m measuring or gauging what I should say or do, or how much to go for something with someone, it’s all calculated in our minds rather than led from our hearts and what is truly right for us, the other person and that situation.
We have created many ways to keep ourselves hidden and not allow people to truly see who we are but this causes much pain and misery, so it is really not worth it to hide who we are.
I agree, it is time to let our love out, and to let love in, and say no to the games, ‘I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games.’
When we play games with each other our interactions are not authentic, in the sense they lack the genuine quality of who we truly are.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself’ – the same is true I feel for any emotion- we get angry, annoyed, anxious or sad, but it’s not the other person who ‘makes us’ feel like this, but how we choose to respond to a person or situation. It might not feel like a choice because often it’s so automatic and we’re all human, but we can look at why we got triggered and allowed in an energy that isn’t us into our bodies. We all feel stuff, of course, and can then choose to stay in it, or feel it and let it go.
It is only in honesty and openness in our relationships (with ourselves and others) that we really grow or learn. And I am more and more aware of how mad it is to avoid or resist this in any way.
It is pretty crazy to avoid being who we are and hide our gorgeous essence. By being open and honest this will support us to be more ourselves and more confident to let the world see who we are.
We say so much with no words…our movements can cause major disharmony and harm, and we can fool ourselves that we are in control of life when we play around with other people…but in truth we are the puppet. Anything that is not sincere and truthful, is chosen from reaction and that is being lead by our hurts, holding people at arms length, not our Love. I know because I may have walked this path of playing games and it goes nowhere, but pain, choosing honesty and responsibility, well that makes for meaningful relationships.
Exposing the lies we live is simple but getting to understand why we are so addicted to them is a different story. Could it be the recognition we get from the lies is an addiction that comes from being previously performing for eons so we have had life-time of lies that seem normal and thus the addiction?
In order to construct a well-equipped fortress, one must know exactly what it is they are trying to keep out. This ‘master architect’ that lives within us all is none other than the human spirit – a fragment of light that has separated from a far grander body of light that is our Soul, the place where our true self resides. The journey of the spirit back to the love it has fragmented from is one that requires absolute honesty, bucket loads of humility as well as a willingness to take responsibility for the steps we have taken that have walked us away from such majesty.
The games I have played all my life to keep others at a distance have led to me feeling isolated and unsupported and it has been incredible to discover that the key to turning this around is in my own hands. As I explore the honesty required to do this it has been revealing to see where I am still resistant to building intimacy with another by being truly transparent.
I agree with everything you say, Helen. And realise on an ongoing basis that the more open and transparent I am, the richer and more amazing all my relationships are… it feels like an endless well of potential and learning.
“Lately, I’ve allowed myself the grace of honesty to take a look at the games I play with people. I’m referring to the unspoken energetic games that play-out in sneaky ways and that I play dumb to.” – yes the energetic game is the biggest form of communication and which precedes all else, and yet we favour the written or spoken form of communication the most because of its audibility and visualness. We are doing ourselves the greatest disservice in correspondence [communication] when we don’t consider the energy factor first.
Oh how we can create mass confusion and negativity, really crazy that we do this when we are made of love and truly want love, shows us there is much more to play than we want to admit.
Learning to live the love we are offers the opportunity to feel the equal love in another.
‘The more I live it, the more I love it’. Thank you, Nikki. Being honest about the wall of protection being a cold and separate place to be and that breaking it down, or coming out from behind it, brings us literally into the warmth and potential of true relationships and all the learning and growing that is on offer.
Hurt is a mere chess piece on the game of irresponsibility we play. It blinds us from not only the manipulation we play but also if not more significantly the granderness of who we truly are.
Feeling hurt or fear of being hurt can stops us from expressing who we are. So, once we start healing our hurts we discover that our hurts are not who we are and we do not have to be owned by them.
The power of observation is huge, we have an ability to connect and read the instance of what is going on and why. We can become aware of how we move and what effect it has on our body.. The more we connect to our body and our stillness (our still place within, our inner-heart), the more we are able to see and observe what is going on. We need to detach from the raciness that goes on in and around to actually start feeling what is going on, then our observation starts.
I experience since I started to be more honest I get more awareness and insights of where I play games that are not loving at all, the manipulation, the hiding, the delay in being the love that I am and can connect to when I choose to no longer fool myself and others.
The more I deepen my honesty with myself the more I realise how we are all so so good at playing the game of being small that we have convinced ourselves that this is all there is when there is in truth so much more.
This is something I have been aware of more and more it is like any subtle energy regarding playing any sort of game just has no room anymore. Pretty cool.
Loving the honesty that you bring here Nikki. Exposing the self-protective games is deeply healing and rather than keeping ourselves firmly locked away from love and in separation from others, it is possible to live with joy, emanating from the glorious essence we are in truth.
We may attract attention to ourselves and get others to engage when we play games, but it will never satisfy the true intimacy that we are craving.
It is so true Nikki, as this has also been my experience, that the more honesty we are willing to live for ourselves the more we deepen a true relationship and connection with love and as such naturally bring this openness to all the relationships we share with others. And in all honesty, it feels amazing and so much more real when we are open in this way of being with ourselves and others, as we then are open to learning and exploring the joy of evolving and how we can live with greater love in our lives.
I noticed sometime ago a game I was playing to keep myself hidden, when asked how was I ? I would answer in a mono syllable like good or fine then ask immediately how were they – I found asking questions would keep me safe and hidden while they were answering, it worked especially well with people who loved talking about themselves. As I am coming to realise what I have to say matters I am stepping up to becoming more responsible in sharing what I am feeling, learning to be more honest with myself and then others.
Yes I too have hidden in this way many times but am learning to value that my contribution also matters and it is to the detriment of all when I hold back.
If there is no truth in our interactions then we are not in true relationships, and will not ever really be satisfied or fulfilled in them, because they lack or are empty of us, who in essence are love.
We all play endless games, endless pictures… Imagine a world where we were just clear and true in our expression.
We keep thinking we are winning when our body shows these games we indulge in come at a ghastly toll.
Great sharing Nikki. It is very very very important we are absolutely honest with ourselves about what we are choosing and playing ball with in life. Otherwise we foul ourselves and end up living a lie.
Leaning to trust another through intimacy can be as overwhelming as we are so conditioned to prevent ourselves from being hurt but in the long run we remain in the cycle that allows no reflection for another.
Isn’t it interesting how coldly calculating a person can be in their attempts to keep people away and thus to keep love out. And this shows to me how there must be such a huge depth and well of love there to be expressed for so much force to be used as an opposition to what is already such a natural expression – the open exchange of loving intentions.
Getting honest about the games we play is like fresh air it brings us clarity and space to open up to what is true and valuable.
Many years ago I had a friend who prided herself on playing ‘mind games’ with our flatmates who were all males. I never actually saw the point of it as it just upset the guys. Until I read this blog, I never saw it as a way to keep people out but what I do know is that the behaviour does cause mistrust.
A beautiful honesty and exposure Nikki, of what happens in a lot of our relationships that would serve us all well to take on board, as when we do as you have shared, not only is it liberating for us, freeing us from protection, but in that it allows us to truly deepen our relationships in true intimacy, bringing us all together unified by the love we really are.
All of our behaviours are communicating something to others, and underneath at some level, we do know why and what the behaviour hopes to achieve. Being honest is the first step.
Games do not add up to the incredible depth of endless love that we are.
The games we play in relationships are anything but fun. We attempt to play the game as a protection and end up causing harm to ourselves and others.
No wonder we love sport – we worship and idolise the ‘great’ game players, who can defeat the odds and bend the rules to out perform everybody. But when we do this we totally miss the fact that these games deeply hurt our body and everyone else. And the same is certainly true of the games we play in our every day life where we pretend to not know the truth. Thank you Nikki.
“dimming the potential” the potential is always there and we just have to allow the light of who we are to shine through.
Game playing is so “normal’ in our society that when we meet someone who doesn’t play we are usually at first suspicious as if we can’t work out why. Time for us to drop the facade and instead simply and joyfully be who we are.
Working in a corporate role it is clear there are games going on every day. More time seems to be spent on the games, or politics as they are politely called than actually working. There is on offer now a different way of working together, one that is based on the fact that we are all together in this, and from there everything can change.
Heather I have also noticed these political maneuvers being made all the time in companies and as you correctly state so much time is wasted playing these games that can stop everyone moving forward and growing the business which is what everyone wants to do, or why are we there?
The games we can play unfortunately can be seen in all aspects of public life from our celebrities to our politicians – rare is it that we find true transparent role models.
Sam we do have many role models now that live transparently, and they provide an inspiration for all of us that it is possible that we can move forward and evolve back to our soul as they are doing. They walk the steps ahead of us to show the way.
These games are the hallmark of our spirit. It will try anything to get attention or a reward. In our essence all we truly want is togetherness, simplicity and love.
Yes and one spirit may try and hook in another spirit so we need to be very awake and very very honest. Sometimes it can feel difficult to find the words to express but holding ourselves in love and respect and humility we can usually find a way.
Joseph, great that you have called out the spirit that we all have which is behind all the games that are played. When we talk about our spirit which dominates us most people would say they don’t have one when in fact we do. It is one of the great lies because while the spirit hides it still runs the show of life and we are just puppets to its whims. To me there is a mastery of life and that is to master our spirit so that it is not wayward and rejoins the soul which it separated from to create a false reality we now call life.
Keeping people ‘at bay’ seems to be what we all do, and yet, if you meet any child they are clearly not doing this – so what happened? Why is being an adult synonymous with also being guarded and shut-off from experiencing the love of those around you? My understanding is that it is due to the hurts we experience and this makes us shut down. So then my question would be, if this is the case – then why do we adults allow this self perpetuating cycle to continue generation after generation – surely there comes a point when really we all need say enough is enough?
Shami, I have just been talking to a friend who’s husband is guarded and has slowly shut himself off from life including my friend, so that sometimes she said it’s like walking around on egg shells so as not to disturb the so called ‘peace’. This is not peace at all just someone dictating the rules of the relationship. They are both in their 70’s and instead of enjoying life and each others company they are cut from each other. I fee this is what happens when we do not deal with the hurts that we have that may have started in our childhood and we have carried them unresolved and the consequences of this kind of life is as you say keeping people ‘at bay’. So even though there are two people living together there is such a chasm between them they have become incredibly lonely.
Honesty is like a fresh new inspiration in my everyday and the opportunities to refine and deepen it are endless. I agree, Nikki, it is very beautiful to be living more and more without the complication, exhaustion and subterfuge of games.
I love the opening line: I’ve allowed myself the grace of honesty”. Honesty is very healing and leads to truth which is absolute.
If you’re aware there is a known choice to be made, i.e. the more I Live the Love I Am, the more the responsibility there is with my connection to me and others.
Nikki, it is great to expose the games we play with ourselves and others, reading this makes me more aware of the effect that these games have on our relationships, at the moment I am working on being more honest and open with people rather than just pretending everything is ok and there being a brick wall between us, dropping the protection and allowing others to see my vulnerability and fragility feels very lovely and allows me to simply be me and for there to be a more true connection with others.
Rebecca I agree with you about dropping the protection so that we can give ourselves the opportunity to express what is there to be said. I’m actually finding that I don’t have to say a great deal, there is no need to have the conversation filler I’m settled enough in my body now not to say something just for the sake of saying it, or to massage someones ego so that they like me.
We basically betray ourselves when we do play games of not being true with ourselves and others.. Nothing is more damaging than that – simply because, we are so much more than all these games.
It is a betrayl that we walk around with. It hurts as it is self-betrayl and we know in truth where we are from.
Nikki you have touched on something here I feel, because I can feel the hurt of the self betrayal, this allows the negative thoughts to drip free into my consciousness that I will never be enough. This consciousness keeps all of us from claiming who we are in truth. Currently we believe this negative consciousness over the consciousness of our soul but there will come a time when we will fully understand the extent of the games being played out that keep us away from our truth.
It is a betrayal that we walk around with. It hurts as it is self-betrayal and we know in truth where we are from.
I get a sense that we learn to play these games at a very early age from the example of those who are closest to us, as they learned to play them from watching those around them; and so, the cycle goes on and on. There are all sorts of games, but to me, behind them is the need to control which is sometimes manifested in a subtle way that is hard to identify. But whatever degree of games that we play they are all exhausting, they are all destructive and they all hold us stuck in the past.
Ingrid there is a need to control life when actually we have no control at all. We have all been fed the lie that we have some sort of control of life via security, when we do not feel secure we feel the fear of the lack of control so it seems to me that we are fed more fear and having a society in fear gives the establishment more control over us because we will do anything not to feel the fear. So then we are easily manipulated which is what is playing out at the moment in life.
Rather than showing others how gorgeous I am (and reminding them of how gorgeous they are) I have chosen to be nice and good. As I write this I can’t say I’ve felt the full extent of this, but with honesty I can make my steps to uncovering it in full.
Letting go of the game playing and the walls of protection that keep us separate makes sense, so we can start to connect with all with love and truth.
It is amazing how often we do not simply express what is there to be said and instead try to accommodate other people – which is playing games with them. After all we all deserve love and so fluctuating how much love we present to each person is judging them and is not love at all. Its fascinating how complicated we make life to be!
Yes, James we calculate what can be said, we play the game of being ‘nice’. If we play the nice games then we want the other person to like us and not hurt us, because we are being ‘nice’ to them.
We can play games with ourselves without even realising what is going on. We can take a thought and turn it into a reality, but is this really a truth? Are we playing games? If we stay connected to the body and feel and listen to our true impulses and step forward from there, there is no room for games. The difference is that we need to be willing to know the difference and choose the truth rather than the false reality.
Very true Rebecca, there is a big difference but as you say 1st it starts with being honest and truthful with ourselves as to what we are choosing and not settling for less than the truth we know.
Understanding that no one can hurt me, I can only hurt myself was a huge realization for me.
It helped me take more responsibility for what is going on around me, and understand that my reaction to a situation is what determines its effect on me.
Nikki, this is really important; ‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards’, I can feel that it is very common in society for us to blame each other and think that it is the other person that has hurt us rather than us taking responsibility for how we are choosing to be. I realised this recently when I was going into reaction about someone else’s behaviour, I became aware that in the reaction and because of the expectations that I had, I was hurting myself and provoking more of the behaviour in the other person.
I am tired of this game that many people play. Is this why I do not speak much?
As a child I now realize that I felt the same but instead I thought there was something wrong with me.
I am now 66 and am committed to true conversations. Our world desperately need them.
My partner and I have started a group that revolves around real conversations.
It is amazing the conversations we are having, People are craving for truth and a venue to speak it.
Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for starting the conversation.
I feel that Humanity was so lost before Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine started this conversation and many of us are still clawing our way back into a former awareness that we gave up centuries ago. You have realised Ken that the words that we use are so damaging they are like lethal weapons we use to crush ourselves and each other. The words are fed to us by our thoughts which we do not own but are fed to us from a consciousness that we have yet to fully appreciate exists and controls our every thought and movement, we are completely owned by this consciousness. I now know this because of the conversations Serge Benhayon has with the world, Serge Benhayon, I have deiced loves us all so much he is prepared to expose the rot we all live in, having exposed the rot it is then up to us as individuals what we do with these revelations and teachings.
Ken I can relate to this
‘My partner and I have started a group that revolves around real conversations.
It is amazing the conversations we are having,People are craving for truth and a venue to speak it.’
I went for a meal recently with friends and we discussed many topics. It was such a lovely conversation to be part of because everyone was allowed to express themselves and there was the opportunity to go deeper with the topic being discussed so that we were all left with a feeling of expansion in our bodies which was actually delightful to feel. Rather than getting up from the table and feeling what was that all about? which leaves a sense of frustration because everyone was being nice and the feeling of nice is quite a sick feeling in my body now.
This is so true, and is great when people understand it, ‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards’. This understanding really helps to heal our hurts and let them go.
I can so relate to this, I am becoming aware of how much I constantly look for how someone may reject me and I react to this before it has even happened, I brace myself and then I actually create it but it looks like I have been rejected by the other.
Games are what we feel is running our current world. The games that keep us in protection and playing safely from our end. Any moves that are made are scrutinised, compared and judged when we all seek understanding and openness.
As a collective we have allowed these games to become the norm in our way of living, all so that we are not pulled up when we are irresponsible and hence not pulled to be more love in how we are with each other. I would say allowing the games to run in our lives collectively has great detriment on the quality of our collective way of living.
Honesty…..so truly liberating. And particularly so when our intention is to open our eyes and hearts to the purity of our inner most love and wisdom and the truth of who we truly are, and offer ourselves understanding for the falsities that the world would have us think ourselves to be.
It’s fascinating isn’t it when there so much joy to be felt and shared from truly relating with one another, but instead so much energy goes into avoiding this treasure that is in essence so simple, doesn’t cost a thing (except our perceived sense of control) and is equally available to us all – all of the time.
“By adding an element of what is not true and loving to the relationship, the connection that I have with others, and even myself, becomes corrupted with complication.” I love this line especially the part of adding elements because that is exactly how it feels. At the start of a relationship it is always pure and amazing but then we start to add things. Like today I noticed I saw someone in a certain way for a long time but never questioned my judgement of the other person in that particular situation. Being truly myself I would never mind the situation and the person in that way and that shows me how aware we have to be of our thoughts and things we are adding to a relationship that are not true at all.
Relationships always start out fresh, but often we don’t even allow that as before we even meet the person we bring our baggage with us. Clarity can become muddy quite quickly when we add stuff that doesn’t belong.
Nikki When we start to impose on our current relationships, stuff that has hurt us in past relationships it’s like the death knell, unless both parties are prepared to be open with each other and talk through situations as they arise.
The scary thing is, it isn’t until someone shines a light on our game that we even realise we have been keeping it up for so long and that it’s actually been hard work to play it. That’s what I’ve found anyway. We create a story that we think is normal until we realise we have written a fictitious and draining tale, that hasn’t really worked for us.
I know this game well Nikki, I have played this for most of my life keeping relationships at a certain level. But this way of controlling and holding back love hurts and it is exhausting. Since I have been more aware of this, I am choosing to let go and allow the love to flow more and more.
If we play games with just one other person it is going to affect all our relationships so it is worth getting clear on all counts.
And the games that people play permeate every part of all our lives… And until we have collectively a lodestone of what truth actually use, these ‘ games” will continue at great expense.
I too can relate to your sharing Nikki, especially not letting people get to know me! At first I hid behind the “shy” label that was put on me as a child (I realise I allowed this ). But I am conscious of what I do now and how that impacts me and others and the relationships that I have or could have.
It’s not so hard for people to admit that they might use tricks, tactics or methodologies to control life. But to see that these are often actually at play to hide how gorgeous we are, well that’s pretty much unheard of. It begs the question, what if we’re not in this mess because of our horrible habits but because we are completely freaked out at our divinity? Thank you Nikki for what you have shared and opened up here.
“The effect of all of this is that my connections with people are less than what they could be – I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth.” Looking openly and honestly at how we play the game of life invites us to be more real – and to be true in our interactions. We are all amazing beings, yet walk around hiding this fact. Definitely a game we all play. In the UK people will say ‘you’re up yourself’ if you shine. Is this because they have hidden the fact they too could shine?
The world is the mess it is in today because of all the games we have all played and continue to play. But the honesty you speak of Nikki is key to unravelling these distractions and diversions to come back to what life is really about, our quality of relationship with ourselves and others equally.
Recently I felt myself go into protection. I then had a dream that I was in a box and that I thought I was trapped. But the box was not very high and all I had to do was step out. When someone in the dream pointed that out I tried to convince them otherwise but I was totally exposed as it really was quit a simple choice – to step out or stay in. I felt how much sometimes we want to stay in the box.
Thank you Nikki for sharing so honestly your experience, I can relate to playing small, keep hidden so I am not seen , only allowing a certain amount out, this is being in control of the situation a way of protection so we do not get hurt.
Emotions have got a lot to answer for when it comes to love as they take us on a merry trip down some rather rocky roads and back. Thankfully the most amazing thing about us is that we have our own inner wise counsel at our very fingertips and just need to start appreciating ourselves and who we are more and everything in our lives starts to change.
Years ago I read a self-care book because the title was intriguing, ‘how to get someone to do something for you’. Basically, the premise was, what is in it for them? You are, in all intents bribing them. The self-care was really about caring for your self in a greedy unloving way at the cost of all others. There appears to be no need for a book like that today, for it has become the norm for so many. There can never be any honesty when deception is involved.
It’s a life changing revelation when we see that we are the ones that have created our own ill, so too is the revelation that we are the ones that can cease these same ills.
Thank you Nikki, great to read this today and be reminded to keep returning to letting people in, and to let me out in full for all.
To not let another in or not share ourselves in full is to have measured relationships where we are trying to control the relationships in order to not get hurt.
Just in this first paragraph Nikki, you offer a great opportunity for us to realise just how liberating it is when we embrace honesty in full. As when we are not honest with ourselves we are in fact living a lie, we are not being real and living less than who we are, as such our relationships are not founded on the truth or the love that are the qualities that truly represent who we are.
If we seek to control our lived way, we will never express truth for to do so, we are in disconnection to ourselves and to the Universal whole.
We should always remember and be honest about that we play games to hide and that we are the ones that started these games, it may be years and years ago but we brought them to life but like you say Nikki we can make the simple choice to finish them and to start to express that which lives within, the truth of who we are.
Nikki, I realised that in my relationships I too have played games and held myself back from living and expressing the full me, I had built walls that are now starting to come down and I can feel a warmth in my relationships rather than a protection and coldness.
Those games are in fact prisons we create to have a false feeling of safety. Letting down that protection simply makes us free
Well said Amparo. Relationships lived through cages does not allow us to explore in full the love that there is to discover, where it is in-truth, that true liberation is found.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself ‘ love the responsibility of this and the honesty in your blog Nikki, thank you.
Thank you Nikki, this short simple article has generated a huge response and it is so inspiring to read the comments. Playing games that keep us all less, obviously keeps us from living our lives in full and enjoying life in full so bringing our awareness to this with a willingness to change can change everything.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself…” If this were introduced to children from an early age, it would seriously change the way we relate to each other as we grew up. To have an understanding and acceptance that no one can hurt us except for ourselves, brings a willingness to look at the choices we have made to get us to that point, and then to potentially address our patterns and behaviours. And what a massive shift this could bring to the way all of humanity relates to one another.
Such a deeply exposing and brave blog to share Nikki. Exposing the measured way we can chose to interact with people instead of letting them in in full. We think we are protecting ourselves but we are only feeding the same energy, crazy.
We are used, games are played and people are hurt the moment we don’t choose our true source of energy. We become like a puppet – being used and moved in a way that is deliberately designed to create delay, complications, interference . . . and the list goes on.
Being truly honest and admitting we are playing games to not be our true selves is crucial to catch what we are causing with this game, as every interaction becomes fooling the other and also ourselves. When we start to be willing to see how much is being played out between people we cannot but stop this insidious games and deepen our awareness to become real and raw.
I too know the game of playing less and holding myself back in many ways and also not sharing all that I could with others. Recognising that by not sharing on a deeper level others are missing out on what I may have to offer and vice versa. and this closes the heart.
My favourite game has been playing less, or trying to fit in and so have comfortable easy relationships with people. What we don’t realise is these games actually have massive consequences that effect way more than just that moment. It’s never worth it. All we need to say is – no – this is not who I am and this is not how I want to live, and then going forwards claim who we are in every moment.
In learning to drop the game of I am so busy I can’t really stop and talk with you, I have felt the uncomfortable silence of really having nothing to say at times, but trying to remain open to what there is to be said and felt with another.
Playing games is a very exhausting business to be in and it is played at the great detriment to all involved and the all we are a part of.
The constant games and protection we place ourselves under leaves us feeling very heavy, tired and restricted. When we allow ourselves to be seen, with honesty and from our fragility we become transparent and the rawness actually then connects us to the all in one fine movement, that propels us forward. This then acts as a catalyst to continue to be more honest and open step by step and we begin to bloom from our full expression.
Games often come with an insinuation that they should be fun. But when we are playing another (or ourselves), is there ever any fun in it? Perhaps there is far more fun to be had with no games and the pure joy of true connection.
Yuk, it feels awful to think of all the games I’ve played in my life with people in an attempt to protect myself from being hurt. It’s a default setting that requires some training to undo. Thankfully I feel much more aware of when I’m doing it now, and although it feels quite challenging at times to stop the game, for fear of what it might expose, I know that it’s important for everyone involved.
What you have expressed here Nikki is simple and true. It is indeed our responsibly to not play games with ourselves or others, thus allowing love and intimacy to flow;
“I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games”.
When we look at the way politicians speak, it is like one big unfortunate game, the trouble is, is that countries are at stake!
Irrespective of how worn a path we have forged in protection and seeming security, we have forever the opportunity to connect with ourselves, to allow love in and to express the love we are with others.
In true intimacy there can be no games and therefore no dynamics, it is pure transparency for wherever we are at.
When I look back over my day, I have to admit there is actually very little time I’m not playing a game. It can be to keep conversation ‘easy’ or someone ‘at bay’ or even in the way I shield myself from being seen by those close to me. There’s a constant manipulation going on. Why do I do this? The aim seems to be to maintain control by blocking bits of life out. Imagine playing a game of soccer all day long – no wonder I feel so tired so often! This blog and what it has helped me see inspires me to retire from the field and give being an observer a go – thank you Nikki.
The more awareness we have in seeing the games we play the less hold they have on us -it becomes very obvious what we are doing. I play and could sense very clearly only recently the game of dimming my light but the dimming is becoming less as I allow myself to feel and understand the reactions and where they are coming from in others.
If we are true in our interactions then we will relate with love, decency and openness – the power is in the offering to another and in living our truth, no matter what.
This is such a worthwhile topic to write about and discuss. The games we all play to stop and allow more of a true relationship with all those that we meet is often misunderstood and fed with a myriad of hurts and mistrust. A simple comment can easily be misconstructed and seen a criticism rather than pondering on ones choice to sabotage a moment of truth, honesty and understanding.
So many games we play on a daily basis, and I love how you invite us to deepen our awareness of this behaviour. At the end of the day unless we are really honest and get to the bottom of it, the person who is getting played with the most is ourself.
Ah the games we play, my game has been to play small, it is has been comfortable with all of this hiding, even hiding from myself, but it has been so lonely and empty. I can now feel the difference when I am feeling and sharing all of me and the joy that this love and sharing brings to me and others, but still at times in certain situations I find my self going into the old hiding , playing small game and how horrible it feels.
Playing the games VS letting love and people into my life. Both are a choice and I feel that reading this again has me asking for honesty – which do I value more? and that theres a call to appreciate the choices I have made to let in more love as with appreciation I have found it to be a great nurturer of loving choices.
We are setting ourselves up to remain empty and to forever keep at bay what we truly seek when we close ourselves off to love – both in the letting it in and expressing it out.
It makes little sense really that we construct such walls and fortresses to keep an enemy at bay while at the same time we are calling for true love and connection which is anything but an enemy and our greatest strength.
It’s very ugly and in truth utterly evil what plays out in many relationships. The games are merely an outplay of a contract both have to not evolve and deepen the love that is expressed between them. Ironically, this love is what we all in truth want in all our relationships but instead do not live it so simply because of the responsibility such love asks for.
I love this ‘That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them.’ and it is true we start the behaviours, ways and beliefs to … be accepted, liked, loved, to not shine, not stand out etc so we can stop them too. It really is that simple, it is just a choice. I feel being honest and at first acknowledging that we do these things is the hardest part but once done we have done this we are on the home run to clearing them. It was great to read this as I could feel where I hold back in being who I truly am in all of my relationships still.
I love your clarity about expecting others to be a certain way in order for us to let them in. This is a big game of control that simply serves to keep others out. Acceptance is the key here – acceptance of others just the way they are.
Rebecca acceptance is the key acceptance of ourselves and all others. I’m finding the more I can accept myself the easier it is to accept others, so finally dropping judgement.
Honesty with self is a great foundation for letting go of these games, and we do know what feels right or not. The truth is when we let go of the games we are allowing more of ourselves for ourselves and others.
“I cannot let another in, in full, or really at all, when I am playing a game such as this, and that’s the whole point – to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in-truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind.” I use to do this and had not realised it was a wall of protection, as I have looked at my hurts and let go of them, I have been able to let people in and the wall has come down, thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Hi Amita, Gosh I know that wall I have built a huge wall to hide behind because I didn’t want to be hurt anymore that’s my theory. But energy doesn’t work like that it can like a radio wave, which is energy go through walls. So I have lied to myself that I’m somehow protected behind my wall. Whereas in fact I’m totally exposed. So what the point in hiding? It’s quite ridiculous how we fool ourselves.
Many times I have read this blog and could not quite grasp how I would play these games even though I knew I for sure play them but now I see. It is in the many ways I resist love in relationships and push people away even without saying anything. This is true: “It is a simple choice but one I cannot make unless I am incredibly honest with myself”; it is to be honest about if we are doing things that are true and work towards love or the opposite.
How to arrest the games that we play:
Step 1 – admit we are playing one
Step 2 – know that when we turn our focus here, another game is revealed that is being played at a much deeper level
Step 3 – commit to exposing it all no matter how uncomfortable it may be
Step 4 – ensure we are not comparing our progress to any other person as this will only set in place yet another game.
Step 5 – renounce all the games and our hunger for them, choose love, nothing less than love and the steady expression of it.
Step 6 – be love
This is brilliant, thank you.
I guess step 4 is a big one, at least it has been in my life and still a game I choose now and then. Comparison is an insidious game and one I have played my whole life only to avoid going inside and feel my own power, I rather gave my power to someone else than admitting I was playing a game of hiding and withdrawal from life out of fear being seen and attacked.
That honesty factor feels very key as I read your blog this time around, a willingness to see and accept that what is in my life is because I have chosen it, but not that it’s in my life because it is who truly I am.
Our life is a product of our choices and we can never escape this truth.
I have recently started online dating again, and the games people play is horrendous, now I am not perfect and realised I held / hold back saying things in fear of being rejected which I am working on not doing – an insecurity – but I am one for absolute honesty and truth and not into faffing about. Many people play games such as saying they want to meet up, messaging then ignoring people, this is a horrible way to be and live. It hurts people, you can feel that and it also builds more lack of trust for many. It has taught me not to reject others. Because let’s face it being rejected no matter who it is by, a friend, family, partner , potential date is horrible to feel. It hurts. I don’t mean not rejecting people by going on lots of dates but how I am with them even if I have no interest in dating. What I have also learnt this week that is not to reject people when they genuinely ask for support or help and I am able to support them. There is nothin worse than someone trying to ‘fit you in’. I will never do this to a person to the best of my ability, as I am not perfect. But I am very honest, caring and genuine.
It’s great to read this and be inspired by the honesty in it to look at the silly games I still play with people and the calibrations I make both consciously and sub-consciously to avoid being me 100%. It’s a silly game we all play as when we are just us, people seem to like it and it is when we slip from this and try and be something else is when we unnecessary create friction.
I agree Kevin when we are just us, people love us and we attract more people, its when we slip up we create more friction. We are able to noticed this more when we are connected with ourselves as our body gives us the signals very clearly.
I have played a game where I don’t say what I really feel to say incase I get rejected. I am working on stopping doing this, which feels great, both in my life and body. Yes it can be a bit scary at times, but it far outweighs playing less.
Over recent weeks and months I have been noticing how often I am being given the opportunity to bring love and stay open when I feel hurt by the actions of another. I am still finding that in the moment I withdraw, but quickly come back to myself within a few moments ….. what’s interesting is that whilst I may know that the other person has been ‘abusive’ in their behaviour towards me, even if ever so slightly, by choosing love in my next interaction with them, I can feel that this is felt and they then also choose to return to their true self. The more we see things as energy first, the easier it is to not take it personally, rather, we can address the energy without judging the person.
‘Instead of allowing what is there between us, I try to control the interaction, to limit my level of connection with another, keeping it superficial and dimming the potential that is there between us.’ – the time I may find myself doing this is when I have been hurt and I choose to avoid dealing with that hurt by putting up a wall and separating, rather than bringing the love that I am to express how I feel, bringing an enormous healing to myself, the other person and to the whole. I can feel how irresponsible it is of me to allow these games as I am negatively affecting the whole for us all.
Wow.- it is crazy to think how much energy we put into playing games like this! We seem to let this drain us and spend so much time trying to manipulate others when actually we just have to open up and be the same with everyone. Perhaps we like the complexity because it keeps things ‘interesting’ – but in fact – to let go of this would be so loving on our bodies and towards others.
When we are stuck in old patterns and shut down to love, it feels like this is who we are, but the soul never judges or needs to control, it just absolutely knows who it is, and who it serves, so anything other than, pure love, isn’t being led by our soul.
When we are keeping people out and avoiding intimacy, it hurts us deeply, also the other person can feel this too. At the end of the day, closing ourselves off from connecting to each other is one of our deepest hurts we experience.
This is a fabulous calling out of the control and manipulation used in everyday lives. Not only does this reduce the quality of love, openness and harmony on a personal level, but on a larger scale it also affects groups, countries and in fact our world.
One game I do not like people playing and I find very rude is people ignoring me – it’s abuse. I do not mean this in a demanding way. But in conversation you ask a question, they blatantly hear you and deliberately choose to ignore you and not answer it. Honestly we treat each other like rubbish and it’s very saddening to feel and see. But then I have to say, I need to learn to say no to this, not the person, and not engage with it. What I can do is go into shut down mode, so thats a game I play, and old pattern of withdrawing instead of staying open and loving.
Nikki, thanks for sharing this, it’s great to re-read your article, ‘Instead of allowing what is there between us, I try to control the interaction, to limit my level of connection with another, keeping it superficial and dimming the potential that is there between us.’ What I have noticed is that I can hold judgments on others and in these situations I can go into righteousness and try and control the conversation rather than allowing the other person to express and for there to be a connection between us, letting go of the judgments and control and allowing what is naturally there to be shared feels key.
Nikki, I can feel how painful it is when our interactions lack truth, I notice how empty conversations feel if I am holding back and just being nice and polite and not expressing what I feel to express, when I imply say what I feel there is a naturalness and simplicity there and a beautiful connection with the other person and I come away feeling lighter and more purposeful.
I have experience this too Rebecca. I would much prefer to have a beautiful connection with people than a superficial one and I guess we all do, but then why do we then settle for the lesser way of connecting with each other?
Gorgeous expose, Nikki, thank you. for your open honesty. You show so clearly that we are the ones preventing ourselves from having what we crave the most, love and intimacy. How? By playing these games …. I know I do this myself, maybe to a far lesser degree than I used to, but I can feel that I still do it. Having this prompt is a beautiful opportunity to stop, reflect and make different choices moving forward, by choosing the love and intimacy that I crave, in full. No holding back.
We can get into a game of ping pong with our hurts, batting them backwards and forwards. Anyone can stop this game at any time by quietly putting their bat down. Sometimes it is possible in exposing the non loving communication for there to be a change straight away but sometimes, especially if someone is not able to acknowledge the truth of what is occurring it may take longer. In taking the time to look more deeply into our behaviours we can allow ourselves the space to feel what is really going on and if we can have compassion for ourselves we can build a deeper level of love in our bodies and our relationships can then deepen to a new level of love also.
It’s much easier to stop playing a game when you realise that you are actually playing it. But, not only that you are playing it, but that you set up the board, crafted the pieces and set the timer as you move around the board – even inviting other players to join in. Having a level of honesty as to why the game was set up in the first place and that you are the creator is a fundamental step to dropping the game, as you have done so Nikki.
“the more I live it, the more I love it” so few words but so much wisdom. Choosing to let love in allows us to love ourselves and others equally.
We are fooling ourselves to believe we can dictate an outcome, control another or get the result we seek… true love is allowing and a surrender and a laying down of the sword, unmasking the roles we play and a taking off our shield and opening ourselves up to others.
I totally get what it is you are sharing about Nikki, It is these games that we play that keep us separated, and prolong the wait for a genuine connection, playing dumb, being aggressive or ‘nice’ become the go to tools, but thank you for sharing that with self honesty, these can be seen for what they are and how they don’t resolve us.
Bringing this level of honesty to our behaviours is a real game changer. It is great to catch ourselves when we are ‘acting out’ and question why as you have done here Nikki. Mostly we are only kidding ourselves as we are pretty transparent in truth.
The game of hiding away is exhausting and it’s rewards are short lived and yet we have a momentum of going back to the game again and again, human life is designed to keep this game going. But what I am learning is that the body, when allowed to just be without the pressure or expectation to keep up with the games will tell us loud and clear that it doesn’t want to play. Hiding away as I have learnt is detrimental to my health as such I now feel that behaviours such as negative thoughts, holding back what I feel, ignoring what I feel are sure-fire lifestyle choices that lead to greater illness. Illness that eventually teaches us that we are naturally designed to not hide, to love, adore and appreciate ourselves and others.
Game over – I like it! Saying this makes me think of the actual games we play – sport, board games, etc. Are these really able to bring people together, or are they simply for the purpose of competing against each other – or at best a connection of a kind, but not in truth?
I have found that in the past I have gone into attention seeking games to get what I want and crave. I never truly expressed what I needed but instead would go into sulking, demanding, holding back etc. I came to feel how much this demands of others and is an abuse to them and through this and learning to express my needs and feelings more directly and openly instead of playing games.
When we feel that people are playing games, it is sometimes really hard to not react to that. Even if they are subtle games, we usually feel everything, so we do know what is going on. So calling out what we feel is important, but again not going so when reaction is at play.
I have found that it is the building of the protective walls around us that actually takes a lot more effort and stress on our bodies than it does to live from our natural, bright and shiny selves. Learning to stop and appreciate how I am feeling and sharing that with others brings a greater intimacy and honesty to my relationships and stops a new wall forming. Letting go of the games allows the heart to play at full capacity, now that’s a game changer.
Thank you Nikki, as a man I find honesty has been the key for every change I have made in my life as without it I would still be arrogantly defending behaviours and patterns which kept me in the control and protection of life. Amazing!
When we choose to play games or allow another to with us, we are literally saying, I won’t be the love that I am right now and do what love does naturally which is to call this out and evolve us, instead I will make us all less by just settling or making it about me and give power to the evil that this choice feeds on.
The games we play are not with others necessarily but actually in truth our own personal relationship with evolution, our Soul and embracing oneness and Brotherhood together. I realise how many games I actually create and play with myself through all the little issues, tensions and struggles which actually make no sense at all. For example overeating when my body is already so full and I am no longer hungry and is that salmon really that good?! The games I will put both hands up and say are still running in my life are actually caused by my own refusal to embrace evolution and it is these subtle patterns that then create more issues and games played in my relationships with others.
With the word games almost instantly comes the word fun or enjoyment as I would play games when I was young as in board games etc and would see that as fun time. I can see now though that games are not always associated with fun, especially not the games we play when we are not honest with ourselves or people, I find that actually the most lonely feeling. So thank you for bringing my attention. True joy comes from being ourselves with each other without playing games be it board or mental games.
The only way we can get so called hurt, is to step away from our own love and so then, be open to unloving energies.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself ” . . . this is an important point to remember nobody can hurt us although we can choose to be hurt by another or we can choose to go deeper, observe, read what is happening and bring understanding to the situation.
Playing games with others really is silly because if we don’t stop a behaviour that is unloving towards us because we go into giving up or whatever, then the behaviour that we don’t like is going to continue, and we are going to continue reacting and the other person won’t find out that how they are operating is not working and not loving.
We often discuss the amazing prevalence of sport, the high amount of computer games and the coming trend of virtual reality. But when you put it in the context of what you describe Nikki, surely this stuff can come as no surprise. After all, we have been masters of games for centuries it seems. Perhaps the biggest one of all is the idea that what is we see is all there is. Every cell and sense of ours tells us that there is more to life, yet we like to continue on at ‘face value’ and play make believe. Your blog today has brought to me a new understanding of that old Shakespeare phrase, that we are but players on the world’s stage. Perhaps if we stopped playing games in our head, there would be more room for us to play in all of life.
I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games. Yes, so true Nikki, as when we are playing those games, we aren’t connected to ourselves and therefore the energy that we are running with is all about disconnection and we are then stuck in that until we choose to take responsibility for our own presence and where we are at more, so that we can call ourselves out when we are manipulating a person/situation
We can only stop playing games when we choose to stop, as our willingness is far more powerful then anything else.
When we play games we miss out on the real beauty that is available, the connections we have with people are always less if we play games.
Playing games as we do is very exhausting and keeps our body in a constant tension, that we have to sustain to not give the game away – ironic really!
It really is a whole new level isn’t it. “I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards, but mostly because I don’t let others in, keeping myself shut off from love.” I have witnessed this so often and yet each and every one of us is only willing to see or be honest to the point we can ‘cope’ with what we discover. If it is going to challenge the wall we have built to keep ourself safe then it may be simpler not to even feel it. I am learning to live with grace that not everyone is ready and or willing to see that we have such an enormous amount of power over the things that hurt us.
This is a game that most of us have been playing for a long time. Being able to see that there is a game going on is a great start in itself. Like all games the more of us that stop playing, the harder it is for others to keep playing it.
You expose very clearly the ridiculous paradox we create through elaborate games with ourselves and others, believing we’re avoiding being hurt when in fact we’re simply creating more hurt by withdrawing from the world.
We are very good at creating games that will keep us holding back from all that we are. It is only when we are willing to be very clear and honest about how we are really feeling that the games no longer exist, and it is so refreshing when we experience this from another and likewise are willing to do it ourselves.
I can relate Mary to what you have written here, especially having pictures and expectations of myself that I think will be acceptable to the world, but more and more I am seeing this for what it is and choosing to just stand with me – like you have said no matter what is before me. This played out recently at an interview and for the first time in my life I wasn’t worried if they liked me or I made a good impression, and in fact ended up being more like the interviewer than the interviewee – it feels stronger to just be me than trying to be something I am not.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself’ And allowing the grace of honesty, as you so beautifully expressed, is the way to becoming aware of the games we play, sometimes very subtle, and to let go off. Very obvious, subtle or hidden games in the end they hurt us all.
Another game we play is pretending everything is okay with ourselves and not being honest about where we are really at and what is going on for us. It’s only in this honesty can we get real and make true choices.
Nikki, my sense is that we all can relate to what you have shared. “I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games.” We can all admit we have played games in order to self serve what we need or want from someone. It is in bringing more awareness to how we operate, that we can then let more love out and not be so invested in playing games.
It is great what you share here “It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards, but mostly because I don’t let others in, keeping myself shut off from love.” I can relate to this, I use to play games all the time, and wondered why i was feeling alone all the time.
Feeling like we need to protect ourselves is the ultimate cop out, the perfect excuse to stay small and, to be frank, irresponsible. If we have the ability, the power, the wisdom to live in another way that not only brings us back to feeling true harmony within, wouldn’t we want to shout this from the rooftops, or at least openly live this way in full emanation of what is possible. We all have this choice, a choice to re-connect to the love that we already are. A choice that is present in each and every moment.
Oh, how self righteous we can be. It’s all too easy to blame another for our mis-fortune, or unhappiness, yet in truth, we make our own choices and each choice has a consequence therefore, it stands to reason that it’s up to us to take responsibility for how we are and how we feel, always.
It is the games that we play that keeps everything going as it goes in the world, and even becomes worse and worse if we do not change that behaviour. Until we understand that it is each of us individually that is playing the game and not only ‘the others’, we make a start for changing the word in which we live into a better place where we meet each other in equality and for the real people we are.
The more honest and true full I am in any relationship the more evelotionary it is for me and the other person. Contrary to this I can play small and contract where in the end no one wins.
Step 1 to ending ‘the game’ is to admit we are even playing one in the first place. Step 2 is to observe whether we are actually ending the game or whether we are just slightly shifting the goalposts somewhat in order to fool ourselves we are making progress when really the same structures are still in place, just hidden at a much deeper level. Honesty is the door back to the truth we departed from when we set the rules for such a game to ever be played in the first place. Through honesty we begin to unveil the intricacies of these games that we play to avoid living the love that we are. Through truth we dismantle them.
A real reflection and sharing of the games we all play and the protection we live in and how different this could be . Opening ourselves up to feeling and being seen for who we really are and our amazingness is a real inspiration and joy for us all to live.
I know that I can be protective of myself and others and that this serves no one but keeps us all less than we truly are. Something to be more aware of and change .
Nikki what’s great about your blog is that it shows us that the games we play are not simply to get something from another but more sinister is to hide the incredible glory and power that we each are hiding that strength keeps everything less rather than allowing the world to see and feel the joy we all naturally share.
A great sharing Nikki! This shows how much many of us can relate to what you are saying here, I most certainly can, and it is hard work keeping the door shut and continually pushing others out. If we are all equal and one with each other how do we justify this behaviour?!
Re-reading this blog I have often wondered how many games I have played over the years all in the pursuit to keep myself safe from the hurts. There is so much to appreciate in this piece of writing in the ways we can build walls in order to keep others out when the reality is we are craving to let people in.
People often play small, I know this one quite well. Playing small ultimately is a lack of responsibility. We are all here to do big things!
The question I have to ask myself is, how is pretending not to know benefiting me or anyone else?
Today is the 2nd anniversary of my father’s death and a reminder of the games I played in my relationship with him that meant we didn’t have a loving relationship. It is very painful still to feel how much I held myself from him in a false protection that hurt both of us. I can learn from this and be more open and loving in all my relationships as I truly never want to have someone pass over and feel the mess of game playing instead of feeling the immense love I feel and have for them.
Nikki, I can very much relate to this, ‘Instead of allowing what is there between us, I try to control the interaction, to limit my level of connection with another, keeping it superficial and dimming the potential that is there between us. I try to direct the way things go, or so I think, not allowing the person to get to know me on a deeper level.’ Reading this today I can feel how I do this in relationships, that there are things I do not want to talk about, that I try and control the conversation and that I do not stand in my authority and simply express what I am truly feeling and so allow others to feel the real, full me.
Indeed Nikki its much more exhausting to resist the opening, the love that it is to give oneself permission to let go of our old behaviours and simple allow the love in & out. In physical form it looks so practical and easy yet in energetic terms this can feel like you are breaking down lifetimes worth of this game playing momentum .
Reading this today, I was struck by how many conversations are ‘directed’ away from us getting to know each other and sharing on a deeper level or to remove any awkwardness. I suspect quite a few!
The games we play and have learned to play, very true. It is like the world is one big boardgame and we are the pawns to draw and play the game. But as you point out we have always the choice to stop what we are doing (playing) and with honesty we will find our way back to a life of truth and without masquerade.
You’ve posed a great question – what are we missing out on if we settle for this measured version of relationship with our built walls of protection?
A world without games and drama is a much healthier world. We have over generations allowed games to play out in our personal lives, in our governments in our education to name but a few, we have not said no to this untruth which is so obvious and instead have developed a game playing.
Looking back at my own life, I can see how I have always played games in one form or another. But the more open and honest I get with myself, the more I can be that with other people and there is less space for these silly games. It is very refreshing and life is so much clearer when it is straight forward, and it’s not exhausting either!
Protection is the name of the game and there are no winners – what are we trying to protect? We really are protecting our protection because underneath that protection is our absolute grandness. We have been cleverly tricked!
Nikki, this feels so true, this is a game that I have certainly played, ‘it is when I try to manipulate my interactions with another so that others do not see the real, full and gorgeous me, keeping the other person at bay.’ I am aware that I can withdraw and make myself less and that this is a game because people do not get to feel me and experience all of me and what I bring in these moments, holding myself as less is a game and is not loving for myself or others.
Sports at least have rules of engagement, but still causes separation and on events like the world cup for soccer, do it on a global scale. The games we play, there are no rules! We made up the rules as we go, to get whatever it is are trying to get; that is always at the cost of others!
We are so good at playing games with each other and ourselves. If we were paid for them we probably all be very rich! But these games can be so insidious and harmful and we can get caught up in them way too easily. Its great to expose them in ourselves and in doing so we can then bring our awareness to how to catch them when they start to play out with others.
The games we play with ourselves and others can be many and varied dependent on what the circumstance calls for. We are practiced at manipulating others to get what we want, even though we conveniently convince ourselves otherwise. It’s so great to out the spirit at those times when you feel you simply aren’t being yourself and choose to then come back to you and how amazing it feels just being you in your naturalness and light. It’s something you really can’t beat.
I play games all the time with myself. It depends on how I’m feeling as to what is important for me that day. If I have a need for something I will twist the truth in order to have my need fulfilled. I can find myself bending the rules in order for things to fit in with what I want. It is horrible and embarrassing to admit, but this is what I do, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
The game we play of not being in our fullness literally confirms we are less than we truly are every time we play it. This may be a familiar feeling to start with, but with more honesty lived in the body, it will become more and more apparent that this is hurting us deeply. Wanting to live in protection is a way we think we have gained, but the truth is exposing the opposite.
There is no doubt Nikki that with honesty, openness and true expression comes transparency and divine brotherhood; on all levels. Game playing blocks all of this.
This makes me ask the question of whether it is games we play with others or the games we play with ourselves? The moment we are dishonest with ourselves we set ourselves up to have dishonest relationships with others. Or to be more accurate, dysfunctional arrangements with others.
Absolutely Nikki, ‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards,’ the more people are aware of this and understand it fully and the more they can let go of these expectations and pictures the less they feel hurt.
What I am finding by just being open and honest, I am able to be me, no pretending to be someone else. This allows me to express without holding back and others are able to feel this space which allows them to open up too.
For somebody who absolutely loves people and connecting, it’s pretty painful for me to admit that I have these walls too. Walls of protection and layers to keep me “safe”, which in truth are only hurting me and everybody I interact with…
Playing games is exhausting and it is futile and in fact nobody wins. It so liberating to just be and honour ourselves and to express what is naturally there within us to share.
Playing any sort of game is what keeps us separate in this world, I agree Nikki. It is really a form of manipulation to get what we think it is what we want, but it can never be true if it is born out of a lie.
How often do we play games and then not want to deal with the consequences should it not work out as planned – we will manipulate towards a particular outcome, but sometimes we get more than we bargained for and it can be very easy to play dumb and not understand what a situation has played out the way it has, especially if we are not being honest or aware of the game in the first place.
In a world where games are the norm, what a breath of fresh air it is to know there are people who choose instead to walk the path of being real, being honest, not being perfect, and sharing who they are with whoever they meet.
The problem with so many relationships and why so many fail, whether they are a one on one relationship, or a relationship at work, or a relationship between companies or even countries, is that they are based on manipulation, which is in turn based on an attitude of “what is in this for me?” Such dynamics are what makes the world go round as it does.
You are so right Nikki, playing games and entering conversations which we can navigate and control have replaced true relationship. every choice and expression effects someone else. Respecting this level of sensitivity in a relationship is very beneficial and growing for a relationship.
These games we play with others start when we play/act out what is not true to and about ourselves. If I am hurt by another from experience unless I come back to myself the hurt lingers and it appears to play with me but I am allowing such a game to be played. Everytime I re-connect to my body it shows me how to stop these games as in truth it doesn’t want to nor need to play, so it doesn’t. Giving power to my body is a work in progress but so worth it as these games are so exhausting.
There are a myriad of games that we play to keep ourselves small to play less, to not take the responsibility of reflecting to the world just how powerful we are. One of the games that I have played for most of life is that of naivety. It has been one that I have hidden behind to let myself off the hook and in this naivety I can then blame another. Becoming aware of this habit of mine has been super powerful, in that I am no longer offering myself a get out of jail card, but taking full responsibility for not living in my fullness.
Thank you Donna, I can see how I have also done this at times but didn’t realise that I was holding back on myself and everyone else in doing so.
This is a great one Donna, and well said. I too have done this, using it as a way of manipulating a situation to suit my own needs. Ouch.
Playing games is such a distraction away from the reflections we are all here to bring, it’s become such a convoluted way we communicate even before we open our mouths we are sending and receiving so many messages. So the stage is set either we are open and honest or we are playing a hiding game.
It takes ongoing effort to be that which you are naturally not, to keep up with the Jones’s, to keep up the appearance that you think everyone wants to see. Such is the world, and when one stands in the authenticity of their own being, it stands out like a lighthouse in a dark night – which in itself either inspires others to do the same, or conversely causes people to complain about the light shining in the window of their otherwise darkened room, giving them reason to draw the blinds down even more tightly than ever before.
Great blog Nikki, the subtle and sneaky games we play, be it consciously or unconsciously, are harmful to all. Calling this behaviour out, as you have done, is the key to stopping this game playing.
The games we play to avoid the connection and power that we are, It’s revealing that we choose games over love and connection simply to keep ourselves seemingly protected, when in fact its the connection we want most. A great topic you share and something that could be studied personally and professionally.
Gorgeous blog.. True, Playing games comes from hurts and hiding of not wanting to be seen for what really is. I recognize this within myself and my enviroment.. actually if I loop out – in the whole world. We are so used to play games that we almost do not see the difference. And we are to feel that this is indeed what we play , with all our reasons.. But to look observe and take stock that this is not making us better or healthy and that we must look at a way to stop playing those and become real with eachother again. I am looking forward to my every step on that path – loosing the game, winning true love (connection).
It’s interesting how the games tend to be about hiding our power. Instead we play small in the fear of not wanting to get hurt. Which of course, is just another game as no-one truly hurts us. What hurts is stepping away from love and the games that then follow.
It is so liberating to get to the point of realising that we can only hurt ourselves as you say, Nikki, to no longer be a victim of life but a fully responsible and committed participant. Then the fun begins!
Yes Janet, then the fun begins, a ‘game’ where everyone wins.
Games were such a deceit-full way in which I would run my life. It would be impossible to list the number of ways I would control others and indirectly control myself. To list just a few: I would control conversations so I would seemingly be smart or knowledgeable in an area; play dumb; have a sneaky agenda; tell so called ‘white lies’; and conceal the truth to my advantage etc.
Thanks to the amazing presentations by Serge Benhayon and the blogs by The Students of The Livingness I have done considerable work on exposing and releasing the games I used to play. Coming to the awareness that what I am doing is a game has been a key in me being able to release these game-like attitudes!
I really appreciate your level of honesty with yourself Nikki and you sharing this in your blog. When we bring this level of honesty to ourselves and expose how and why we behave the way we do we enable healing as we peel away the layer we have stuck on. We return to being more of ourselves through taking that which is not of us and can then express and share this with everyone with no games played.
I love what Naren Duffy has shared here above on this also Nikki. That we do know the constructs we hide behind – for we have carefully crafted them and actually invested in them heavily – and all for what reason?
From what the work and teachings of Serge Benhayon have deeply re-awakened within me, we do so in order to protect ourselves – we have lost trust in being fully ourselves, and in a world that we perceive may hurt us. It is only through dealing with why we’ve put up our walls in the first place, and being willing to surrender them, that truly change can occur. And it is, from all that I’ve experienced, worth it beyond measure – for the true richness that is there to experience in all of our relationships, including that with ourselves.
Poignantly shared Nikki, thank-you. It’s powerful that you’ve touched upon how exhausting it is, to hide and actually hold ourselves back – from full openness with each other. It takes a lot of effort to hold our walls up – and equally much tenderness and honesty with ourselves to allow them to dismantle and eventually, drop altogether.
And, we are all the richer for every step taken upon such a return journey to oneself. Beautiful.
Inspiring to read, it is the honesty that is key. Without honesty we never get to see the truth of the games that are there running the show. It is far from honest to each other to keep this games going on as we all in core crave for true connection.
Thank you for your honesty and transparency Nikki, the games need to be brought to the surface and called out like this.
When we try to control the outcome of a meeting, a relationship or a situation – what in fact do we do than? We want to play safe. We play control. But with that we limiting so much what is possible. When we come together different aspects of truth are reflected through us and together we can see more than alone. So we do in fact hold back evolving when we try to control. I see how this is a challenge, as it asking us to ‘play’ differently as we do since ages. It asking us to truly play together instead of playing for individualism.
“I try to control the interaction, to limit my level of connection with another, keeping it superficial and dimming the potential that is there between us” nailed the game Nikki. And connecting with how this feels when I do this I feel the isolation, deep sadness and exhaustion that this game creates.
What an exposure of the games we all play with one another. Thank you for courageously writing this. Reading it I got the image of everyone hiding behind walls and speaking to each other through holes carefully opened to only allow a small part of them to be seen. It might be their eyes, or just their mouth, but on the outside of the wall we have all painted a picture of what we want everyone else to see. So, here we are controlling the image we have decided the world we see, while we try to connect with one another through these little holes we have carefully chosen to reveal.
The ‘grace of honesty’… a show stopper in the first line… and something I have recently afforded myself the honour of applying to my life. What I am noticing is how much gentler I am with myself, firstly because I am not trying to live up to a pretence all the time and secondly because I feel much tenderer and more understanding with myself, accepting and beginning to love where I am at. It is all to do with dropping the games.
Thanks Nikki for this super awesome blog. I have been paying attention and noticing how I have been putting a limit on the level of intimacy I am allowing in various relationships, and how hurtful that is to actually feel it so constantly at play, and how I have managed to find a comfort in that – and how much dulling of awareness it requires for me to keep hurting myself this way.
Hi Nikki, it has just occurred to me that the games we play with others are actually a game we are playing with ourselves that allow us to stay small, to not be all of who we are and bring our flavour of magic to the world. We are all ‘Divinity’ in movement on earth and it is time to drop the facade and to let our inner truth shine.
Wow, there are so many games that I play. The more aware I become and the more I live life with this awareness the more I can see the levels of manipulation I live with. It is a soup that is made out of need, and one that I am stuck in until I am willing enough to be totally honest and then act to make changes. It is a convenient soup that is one of comfort, and one which I don’t want to leave. But the more aware I become the more uncomfortable it is to sit in this soup of comfort.
One of the biggest games we play is that we come from love, we are love and most of the time we be anything else but love.
These games can be so subtle. I am noticing as I am developing a new relationship that I can bring the connection down by going into thinking I need to be something or act a certain way- this I am learning is a form of control and protection. While I think I am being myself when I write a message or email I am actually calculating what I think wants to be heard and not being open and honest about what I am feeling in case it is rejected.
It’s like a game of hide and seek – if someone tries really hard to seek us out from our hiding then we may agree to come out a little. But this is fraught because it is relying on another. The impulse to come out has to come from me, that way it is solid, clear and true and I’m not requiring another’s proof of assuredness that it’s safe.
Nikki, it is great to expose these sneaky games that we play and how we turn a blind eye to them though we know that we are doing them but we don’t want to know that we do know and so we let ourselves get away with it. It’s pretty crazy really – a kind of sanctioned schizophrenia. The thing is that ironically we set up these games to prevent ourselves from feeling something that we actually are longing for but instead we build walls to protect ourselves which keep us from feeling our love, authority and power.
The great thing about honesty is that it allows for a deeper honesty and a deeper understanding with ourselves. it also allows another the space for greater honesty as well.. and this is how we could live and grow together towards greater awareness of the truth of everything. One day we will learn that blame and judgement, of self and others, have never helped anyone step closer to the truth.
It is amazing just how many of our choices and the way we behave is part of games and in reaction to others. It is in allowing the openness to feel this and bring more awareness that I have realised so much about just what a large proportion of my life I am in reaction what I can feel and then the games I play subsequently.
“I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games.” I get the real sense of wanting to deepen my relationships with people and yet what comes up is that I have to deepen those relationships with myself first, and one of the ways I can see is that if I play games with myself I stop my own intimacy and therefore the opportunity of intimacy with others.
Nikki, I can so relate to what you are sharing here, This weekend I realised that for many years I have been playing games in my relationships with people, that I have been controlling in my relationships, that there has been judgments and that I have not allowed others to see the real me, me in all my loveliness, I realised this because this weekend I felt different,I felt more open and I was able to see the amazingness of my friends and family without the judgments and without the control and games, I felt at ease with myself and felt a love and appreciate of me and consequently of them also, it felt very different to how my relationships with these same people have been in the past, the change has been because I have been developing a loving and caring relationship with myself in the past few years.
Thank you for your sharing,. What this as reflected to me is the level of honesty we are prepared to go to, this will then allow us to stop playing games and letting people in, show who we truly are the pure essence of love. When we play the games with ourselves we are confusing everyone else around us. For me its really about going deeper with the level of honesty.
Not long ago I was living behind walls, too. And I needed lots of stimulants to get through the day. It seems that there is a connection between those walls and stimulants. This could be a wise hint for our health care system to educate people to live transparent, with intimacy, as a way out of exhaustion and addiction.
This is a great conversation to begin. We really can walk around life being completely oblivious to the millions of games we play. I am discovering new ones literally all the time, and it blows me away. And all these games are for the sole purpose of keeping me separate to you, me better than you, me less than you. It’s actually insane and definitely not the purpose of our existence.
Well said, Elodie. Playing games and artfully avoiding being us is definitely not the purpose of our existence. Being honest about the games we play and heightening our awareness are the beginning of a very loving journey back into a tender, respectful relationship with ourselves.
Playing games is exhausting and creates an underlying tension in the body as all does when it is not true.
Nikki – what stood up for me reading this again is when you share how it is not possible for others to hurt us we can only hurt ourselves. It is true that when we have expectations in others or even hold back expressing in full, we can feel hurt by another person when really we are just avoiding to look in our own backyard. This blog is very exposing of that and asks me to look deeper and be honest with when I choose to hold myself back.
Thankyou Nikki, a great insight “It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself….” Its a very empowering statement and one that brings absolute clarity to our relationships and interactions with others. It offers the opportunity to truly heal ourselves instead of playing the game of feeling a victim or wanting others to change.
We play these games to maintain the hold we have on our expectations. For a while now I have felt that there is never an issue between or with a person or myself, but it’s actually the hold on our expectations, ideals and beliefs that are the ‘problem’ which are not really an issue when we are willing to be honest and feel what this hold is creating. It becomes less personal and the games drop as they are no longer needed if we drop the investments we have in life being a certain way.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself ” We have so much blame in this world, we have a media system that thrives on it, and a culture of blame that starts from an earlier age. It is inspiring to read it does not need to be this way, when we drop blame and instead become transparent letting others in life opens up to us in many ways.
It continues to amaze me as I realise how many games I have carried ‘up my sleeve’ to deftly pull out for whatever any social situation required. I saw it recently at a family gathering where the weight of expectation was huge… a whole group of us coming together with the rule book laid out and a sign saying, ‘Please comply because otherwise it rocks the boat and we all might have to adjust our positions.’ Colluding in this keeps us all stuck in the distance between each other because of the games. Without rebellion I did not comply… some people melted into my hugs, others were palpably furious at my ‘disobedience’ – for me it was simple, this was a natural expression between people who have shared a lot of life together and I no longer wanted to artfully avoid the relationships on offer by picking from the catalogue of games ‘up my sleeve’.
So cool Matilda! I love how you chose to simply be yourself and didn’t allow the reactions of others to rock you.
“……. keeping it superficial and dimming the potential that is there between us. I try to direct the way things go, or so I think, not allowing the person to get to know me on a deeper level. This means that what does play-out is not necessarily true.”
For me to be true to myself is the first step in order to be able to let go of the layers of protection. Another person can be of such a support concerning what they reflect back to me.
‘By adding an element of what is not true and loving to the relationship, the connection that I have with others, and even with myself, becomes corrupted with complication.’ It requires far more energy to keep people out than it does to let them in. Is it any wonder we are exhausted as a society and our sugar intake is through the roof!?
It is quite a humbling moment when we realize that we have created the very situation that has hurt us. In that moment we can, if we are honest enough, stop blaming others for all our woes and have an opportunity to confront ourselves and look at all the ways that we avoid going deeper in our relationship with ourselves and others. It is a stop moment that allows for a lot of growth and healing.
Yes I feel that the playing of any type of game has left me feeling less than. My life was full of what you have shared Nikki. I have finally reached the cross-road in life where honesty is my only choice.
You’ve hit on one of the biggest ironies of life – that we painstakingly establish a wall around us to avoid being further hurt by life and all it reflects back at us when in fact we’ve simply succeeded in building a wall that keeps people out, keeps us from allowing love in and from expressing all that we are. So hurt becomes the excuse for not being fully ourselves with others and for not letting people in, leading us to feel lesser and ultimately reinforcing the hurt we were originally so keen not to feel in the first place.
I actually find it deeply saddening the way we treat one another and ourselves, when we say we love one another yet and care about each other yet we lie, deceive, judge, talk about each other behind our backs, condemn, criticise, be nice to another when really we may be harbouring a huge amount of anger, this feels vile, worse than a punch. I would much rather people be honest and say how they felt, one it can save misunderstanding, complication or holding onto things we don’t need to, harbouring resentment when all we need to do is talk, or allowing perceived things to grow arms and legs, and two, at least then even if all the rot, and for some very unpleasant stuff comes out, it’s way much better than leaving things unsaid and burying them in our body to come out in what may be very unpleasant ways later on.
I find I am most likely to play these games of not showing the whole of who I am when I am doubting myself, and I am most likely to doubt myself when I have not been taking care of myself, food, rest, gentle exercise and very significantly the quality of my thoughts. Yes I do, as every other person does, want to love and be loved, to let people in and to express myself openly, lovingly and freely. But I often find myself acting out the opposite. In those moments I know there is something I need to refine and very likely there is something to let go of and heal.
Thank you Nikki. As I read your words I could feel that I play less in my relationships so that I can avoid the responsibility that comes with being who I really am. Fortunately this game does not work at all and the resulting interactions are not true. When another reacts to the way I hold back I then use this as a false confirmation that I cannot trust them when in fact the situation is just reflecting my own game back to me.
I cannot think of any justifiable reason that one would like to play these games other than the fact of avoiding the responsibility to not do so and to embrace being who they truely are.
Nikki everything in us wants connection with others, yet at the same time there is so much of us that fights that connection, the games we play and ones that I have very much been part of are, in my experience, the same games that bring us the hardships we say we don’t want. The real key is that choice to not play a game with ourself and then naturally i feel we will not play games with others.
We do tend to hold on to ways of being and relating such as the ones you are describing. And we become attached to them and reluctant to let them go. But as you say – “I am finding that the more I live it, the more I love it – far more than the games I have played.” There is a new and truer way of being and relating that although may seems scary and challenging is far more worthwhile and far more satisfying.
As the base of many of the games that we play is manipulation in the effort to get another to meet our needs. Whilst in the short term we experience relief or satisfaction in the long term we will eventually seek outside of ourselves again.
In the process of becoming more honest with ourselves and allow others to see all of us, we start to let go of the fortress of protection that we have constructed – – which does not protect us at all but rather incarcerate us into a lie of living all that we are not – and so freeing us to once again to live more of who we truly are.
I’m not sure who inserted the word ‘game’ in the saying ‘the games people play’ but no one is ever smiling when these games are played.
If we took ‘the games people play’ out of life then life would be much closer to resembling the natural playground that it really is.
We call it a game but this game is brutal, and can entrap us for lifetimes and for the best part we are choosing to ignore it because underneath it all we know that it is not a true way of living or reflecting to others. It is only when we choose to see more of what is happening, not only with ourselves but those around us, we can start to see the games for what they are.
Nikki, choosing to give yourself this grace of honesty has been a gift to us all through your blog. It has inspired me to go deeper and expose the games I am still choosing to play and ‘outing’ them for what they really are – choices that limit connection to others.
The games we play feel horrible, so great you are calling them out Nikki, ‘The effect of all of this is that my connections with people are less than what they could be – I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth.’
Games also waste a lot of time and energy that could be better spent working and serving humanity.
It is truly exhausting to play these emotional games, for that is what they are, allowing yourself to be played as a puppet on a string, but who’s got the strings, certainly not ourselves. Manipulating people, yourself – needing people to be a certain way, or trying to be something you’re not, all to fit a picture, play a game, that has no end, or to not make people feel uncomfortable in your presence, from your light, truth and joy.
When we play games, we complicate life, when really this is about keeping it all simple. We create the mess, confusions, complications to not take responsibility. If we stopped to feel the level of responsibility and the impact it is having on the world, this would support us in letting go of the games we are playing.
I really enjoyed reading your blog Nilkki, such a truthful and powerful expose on the games we play, with ourselves and others, and the harmful debilitating effect that these games have, on ourselves and others.
This is such a powerful blog exposing the toxic games we play. I know I have been playing with the constantly measured expression of my true self all of my life as a protective measure to keep people out so I don’t get hurt this makes no sense at all, all it does is hurt myself and other and keeps me separated from the depth of the truly intimate relationships I crave more than anything.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself’ It can be tricky when we have that belief running to actually feel that truth, that we can’t be hurt as I know while I am holding expectations around another and how I want them to be, I’m totally in protection and not letting the other in, then all of my movements from then on, hold me in that protection and don’t allow any love out or in.
Diminishing our connection with others is simply a ploy to not bring more of ourselves to life.
Solitaire is a game – a game you play on your own. And this whole discourse about games is equally relevant for me in the games I play with myself. More and more I am managing to find the space to stand back and ask the question – does it have to be like that? This is the thing with games – they have rules. I am seeing that most of those rules are what hold me back from seeing and being so much more.
Every game has a winner and a loser. Not exactly brotherhood is it?
How better to control me than letting my mind run around with all the funny games it plays. So many aspects of my life have been shown to be a part of a false game that I used to call life. With what has been presented here and by Serge Benhayon, my life has shifted away from games to being a finder of truth or at least being honest to start the ‘ball rolling,’ oops that would be another game!
It is crazy how much we play games with each other, whether it is trying to prove a point, win a point, make the other person not win etc.. It is exhausting constantly trying to be something we are not. Naturally when we support each other, work together and stop playing games we all win.
The games we play are often so ingrained we don’t realise they are a game, but as you say when your daily choices become self-loving ones, the games often come to light and can no longer be played.
All the games we play are about protection, protecting ourselves and they obscure the truth and separate us – it’s like digging a hole that just gets deeper and eventually the only way out is to be honest. Honesty connects people even though it is uncomfortable at the time and means feeling tension. This is a great blog that allows for lots of reflection and sharing.
Being transparent is so loving in the body as you are not constantly assuming another persona, putting up walls, and blocking, it then opens up our inner most to express our natural innate wisdom that we all equally have access to, and that is true connection.
We call it a game, but in the end we are the losers as we end up living a measured life. To stop playing the game is to embrace openly every interaction, be it with people or things, bringing an honest open connection is so liberating and joy full.
What hurts us more than anything is the separation we create — which is what we do when we choose to play games instead of letting ourselves be open, transparent, letting our vulnerability be seen, our humanness, our imperfections, our boo-boos and our wobbles, and with all that our divinity, our grandness, the gorgeousness we innately are, that when there in the opening has another melt into a puddle of their own love. Games hurt us because they keep us away from ourselves and all our brothers. It is the sharp turning knife we use on ourselves to reinforce a way of living that keeps us so very very lost.
Being willing to expose myself and some of the games that I play with myself and others only came about after going to Serge Benhayon’s presentations and seeing practitioners. This has built a solid support foundation for myself to go there and commit to uncovering all of those things that stop me from truly expressing the real me.
Letting go of protection allows us to connect to the grandness of the Universe.
We are not alone with the games we play. Many do so. With every game we discover, expose and clear out, we have done a job for humanity. The ways out of the games become discovered and so you place a footstep into the mud for others to have a more easy way. That’s the way love goes.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself’ This is very powerful when fully appreciated. I often play small and goofy and awkward when I feel insecure. Or I overcompensate and try to think myself more accomplished than another (yes, both feel very yucky). I’ve noticed a few of these games and can’t believe I’ve noticed them so much before. It’s great to just see them and drop the facade and come back to myself.
Feeling goofy and awkward at a beginning of a meeting this week I observed I was then ready to catch any sign that someone had judged me. What an incredible game to move out of sync, feel awkward so I could then catch any disapproval so I could bash myself and go more awkward. all this in a second and I’d changed my movements to sitting down with myself ready to start. I’d had never have caught myself in this game unless I’ve been appreciating the truth of who I am. Who I am is so worth investing in because these games keep us all from who we truly are.
Its true Nikki, I am learning that even getting ‘hurt’ in relationships/ friendships etc is a deeper level a form of game that we play, and in becoming more honest about our part in this game leads to far greater awareness of what we have chosen to live that is less than the truth.
This is gorgeous Annie – I can feel how simple and supportive relationships can be if we choose to be honest, open and responsible.
im pretty sure it’s safe to say that at one time or another we have all played the games you are referring to. They come in so many different boxes, with different rules for each one, but ultimately they all do the same thing – keep others away from us. Like all games they might be fun sometimes, but only if we win right? But like all games they are a distraction from feeling life in full. The majesty and the rot. It’s so true that all they do is hurt us all.
Thank you Nikki for writing and your willingness to share where you are at with this; playing games feels horrible. It feels horrible when I do that and it equally feels horrible when others also behave in this way. The more that we become aware and honest with ourselves about what we are feeling, the more able we are to see any game play and call it for what it is. Very often we play dumb to the games and pretend that it’s not happening as we don’t want the other person to leave us, or we’re being nice or we don’t want to seem like a bad person, but all of this is highly irrelevant where Truth is concerned. This is why we have very, very few true relationships in our world; however as each one of us wises up and admits to any game playing and puts a stop to that, the bar for what is truly acceptable in relationships is raised.
I too have been observing whole new levels of “games” I and others “play” to not be all that we are… and yes it is exhausting. There always seem to be undealt with hurts from the past behind all these false ways and our excuses to not live and express the love we are in full. The more I see the harm and ridiculousness of these games the more I want to and am ready to stop playing them and to return to love.
Do we react to what is happening around us, and respond to protect ourselves, prove ourselves right, or do we observe what is going on and be open to others without need to hide or prove a thing….I have been learning that I do not protect myself when I attempt to protect myself, the hard shell I wore for many years to keep myself ‘safe’ only acted as separation. I still felt hurt and the protection got thicker and took me further away from enjoying connecting with other people or myself…
Playing games is totally unnatural to us, deep down we all know that these games truly harm yet we can over ride and choose instead to dig ourselves a deeper hole.
I find that when I am more honest about the games that I can play or have played in the past, it makes me feel very humble. Which in my view is a great thing, because through humbleness I am able to stay very real and current.
With such honesty there is a beautiful transparency. Be willing to expose myself allows others to see me. I am discovering that even when not perfect (!) when I am honest, it does not matter what has come before as the honesty is all that matters. I am also finding that as I build my foundation of self love, honesty comes much easier.
There are a multitude of games we appear to play to keep people at bay and prevent true connection with others.
Is this about the other or does this say more about the relationship we have with our selves and how deeply we are prepared to Love ourselves and surrender to the greatness we all can feel we are of?
The games we play keep us small and there is nothing safe about that.
It has taken much work and acceptance of the fact that the energy of manipulation is at play in order to remain in hiding and playing small in the world, to not let others see the glorious essence within. This developed a mistrust of people and a feeling of deep separation and disconnection from others, whilst ingraining the attitude of being a victim because of being always misunderstood by others! As I understand myself deeper, I know now that this is far from the truth – the separation and disconnection was totally from myself, my body and the divine essence within and blaming others was simply a way to relieve and not feel the huge tension of disparity this caused. What an exhausting prison to choose to live in. In re-connecting to the essence within, the separation between others is continually dropping away to feel the one-ness in all.
“it is when I try to manipulate my interactions with another so that others do not see the real, full and gorgeous me, keeping the other person at bay”.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself’ And it is in living behind a wall of protection that I have done this; keeping myself separate from the love I have to share and the love others have for me.
Its great to re-read this blog this morning – reminding me to pose the question of how real am I being. Do I share all of life, all of how I feel, warts and all, glory and all? Am I transparent so another can feel that integrity and trust it? Yes.. but intermittently and I still catch myself sometimes, rebuilding a little bit of protection… and so I remind myself to put the bricks and mortar down and just be me in the world.
Honesty brings forth the beauty that lies beneath the masks of day-to-day corruption.
“That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them.” As simple as it is it is a beautiful realisation. How often do we get caught up in life and think we have to keep going but what you share here shows that we can always stop and make other choices.
I can feel how I have done this and do this….”Instead of allowing what is there between us, I try to control the interaction, to limit my level of connection with another,” There are layers of it, I am constantly shown in life through reflection that I can be more open, with others, I am learning that the wall I have put up does not protect me, but numbs me. I am learning to feel all of the love, we must be open to observing what is not love within ourselves and others, with the knowing that we are all equally, divinely awesome in essence.
When we realise the game being played, it becomes apparent that we are all players within it to some degree.
Perhaps this is why we seek to never stop, preferring it to play on loop for if we did stop and connect to what is true, we would immediately be at odds with any game and well on our way clear of it.
The games we play with others are the magician’s honed skill of misdirection! We perform to show others what we want them to see, and you can hide your true selves in plain sight behind our invisible walls and not get hurt. The invisible wall also works like polarised sunglasses, and you can’t see that they are stopping the bad UV rays or see it stops our intimacy and tenderness from reaching another!
“By adding an element of what is not true and loving to the relationship, the connection that I have with others, and even myself, becomes corrupted with complication” – yes Nikki, and just how much do we live, and also ‘enjoy’ the complication too…enjoy the game of protection that we play to avoid the closeness and joy that is truth, the closeness and joy that is us.
The games people may play with each other, as shared in this blog, are the tactics employed to not being honest with each other. But really, this is the outward extension of a person not being honest with themselves.
‘ to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in-truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind.’ Seeming protection is simply a prison – offering no sense of safety or settlement at all.
The moment something becomes complicated I am alerted to the fact that there is something else going on and it is often because we want to also protect ourselves from fully investing all of ourselves into what is required – definitely a game we allow. Love the honesty and clarity you have brought to this Nikki – Thank you.
It can be a game simply to do things very well but not in a way that is needed at that moment, for example doing things very slowly and thoroughly when that is not needed or, more commonly, the opposite of that. Games can be very subtle.
If someone kicks you a football and you don’t kick it back, that is the end of the game. Done. So, we can change the games that people play with us, by not playing games with them. Easy.
I love how simple you’ve made this Otto.
Thank you, Nikki…I am tired of the games too. The more I connect moment by moment to my body, the more I am appreciating how simple life can be, and how easy it is to feel what is really going on, so there really is no need for the complexity, the dramas and the playing out you describe so clearly here.
A beautiful sharing Nicki exposing the games played out to protect ourselves when all along we are playing a game by not being who we are in full and sharing this with others by calculating what we say and do. It takes incredible honesty to see this and ongoing commitment as more and more is opened up for us to see from this honesty . Thank you for showing the way possible to open up and see inspired by the reflection of Serge Benhayon his family and the openness and fullness they live dedicated to humanity in there absolutness and love.
Nikki, I love your honesty in talking about the games that we all play on some level. In my experience too I get to see the games I partake in, and what I have found is that there is always someone or something there to remind me that this is not going to work on the long run. There is a reflection I get, and if I am not willing to be responsible then I may find myself adding another game to the first one and ‘blaming’ another person for what is going on, instead of just stopping the games and taking stock of what is happening. My current game is that I am still holding people at ransom and not fully embracing everyone to the level that I know that I can – it is like I hold people at what I perceive to be a ‘safe’ distance without really allowing the trust to open up and ‘let them in’…And this is beginning to hurt…But in saying this, I have to also bring some understanding to why we all play games, and though the main part of it is to avoid responsibility, it is also because we have been hurt and are scared to ‘go there’ again. Perhaps we felt someone let us down, or perhaps we were not loved for the amazing reflection we brought to another etc etc. This of course is not an excuse to ‘not go there’ but in understanding this, we also get to take the pressure off ourselves and see why the game is happening in the first place. So eventually the game will stop, and it will stop when we choose to make it stop, which hopefully for our own sake as well as everyone else around us, this will not take too long.
“I try to direct the way things go, or so I think, not allowing the person to get to know me on a deeper level. This means that what does play-out is not necessarily true.” I can really relate to this Nikki, and have probably spent most of my life playing such a game. The crazy thing is that we think we are being ‘clever’ by doing this, whereas in reality we are not fooling anyone apart from ourselves.
I have asked myself this question many times over… why do I continue to play these games so as to hide my true Light from others. My heart yearns for love yet I continue to play safe. It appears that many of us continue to play games, therefore we never get to feel our true power and amazingness. Life is an ongoing journey and with the realisation that we play games can come the opportunity to make choices to stop.
One game I play is re-interpreting something someone has said. I can turn anything into a negative criticism against myself that keeps me thinking negative thoughts about what I may have done wrong, and that is great for keeping me small, it’s quite extraordinary to clock it. Living with friends as I am at the moment gives me an opportunity to back track and check what was actually said, or intended, and reveals the game I’ve played. My negative thoughts are completely distracting and only when I truly return to a connection with my body can I calm down and realise that it was simply my thoughts, nothing was ‘wrong’. The ability to have honest conversations without judgment is something I treasure.
Let’s not forget to look at the games we play with ourselves first that leave us feeling down, bringing up feelings of discontentment and self worth. These games all begin from ourselves first and then filter out to those around us. Is it not our responsibility to start small and look within in order to feel the full impact we can have on others?
The unspoken game poses a great question which I hadn’t really so much considered so much; does it hold more manipulation and control rather than our actions and what we say?
Thanks Nikki
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself” – hard to imagine this is true when applied to a physical level in the context of someone hitting you or tripping you up and injuring you. But when you consider that everything is energy and therefore everything we do say and think has a very very real impact on the out comes that play out in life, then we do also have a great influence on such situations occurring to us. My partner for instance might react by being emotional angry or frustrated about something small that is said and while what I have said is not an obvious trigger the fact that I closed my heart and held expressing my love to her back was already setting this outplay in motion.
It is great when we are honest enough with ourselves to admit to the control, arrogance and manipulation etc we use in order to not be who we truly are and use as a defence towards others. When we are truly honest with ourselves and start to feel and see this then the healing can begin.
There are definitely layers to the game we play, and sometimes we may feel like we have been hurt by something, but the more deeply honest we become we can see that we too had a role to play, an arrangement we have made, that has enabled the situation to play out as it did.
I returned to re-read this blog again this morning and it feels like perfectly timed inspiration to look at my level of surrender to the circumstance in my daily life which i may be trying to control and or manipulate to achieve an outcome in an attempt to avoid what may be there to feel. Thank you Nikki.
Absolutely, love it and live it or ‘the more I live it I love it’ so much so that The Way of The Livingness has brought love to a new level for me!
‘The effect of all of this is that my connections with people are less than what they could be – I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth.’ – True power lies in honest reviews and exposures such as this. The question is are we willing to see the consequenses of our own choices and way of living?
It is astonishing and confronting to be aware of the games we all play…so much energy is spent on propping up ideas, choices and behaviours which are not sincere and have a selfish agenda, no judgement here, I have absolutely chosen this myself. Honesty about where we are motivated from, where we act from is key to allowing ourselves to let go of the games and being truthful.
Did you ever play a board game with your family on a rainy day, as a way to escape and entertain and get heated up and compete to be the best? To try to get to number one and leave behind all the rest? It’s like it suddenly matters so much who has all the pieces or the cash, like a measure of who is wrong and who is right. And yet at the end of the game, if you had managed not to fight it was like stepping out of virtual reality back to life. For these games have nothing to do with anything real, but are just a distraction from the truth. And so now today I can see thanks to you Nikki, that the games I play emotionally in my day – holding back how I feel, or seeing life as just what we see, getting ‘hurt’ all just distract and fill in space in just the same way. When I do this I certainly loose out.
This is something that I have been pondering, and embodying more deeply over the last few years….”It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself –” I felt confronted by it he first time I heard it, but then began to reflect and observe, how I reacted in certain situations and began to realise that how I choose to respond is my choice, this is empowering. I suggest our deepest hurt from not expressing ourselves truly, that and all else regarding hurt are the games we play.
True intimacy is only possible when we allow ourselves to be seen in our vulnerable and fragile moments not holding back the truth of who we are.
When we are playing a role when we interact with others, neither gets to see the real person and the communicationss can be very limited, protected, and controlled. By keeping each other within the restricted bounds of that kind of relationship, we are basically chopping off any chance of truly opening up and are just living within an arrangement that we both feel comfortable in. There is no chance for the relationship to evolve and grow, it just stays stagnant in the comfort.
Well said Nikki I know these games and they are toxic! They prevent us from really connecting with people. If we hold no judgement and don’t need people to be a certain way then we can stay with the fact that other people like us are amazing- but it is the games we play that are not.
“…having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards” How could anyone possibly know what’s going on if we don’t talk to them about things and get intimate on how we feel. Holding back is the biggest game. Great blog Nikki, thank you for sharing.
“I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth.” Amazing honesty and something that, in one way or another, applies to most if not pretty much all of us. It’s as though we keep an apparently safe bolthole open, just in case – but as you quite rightly point out, these manoeuvres are actually exhausting and depleting us. And they are very demeaning of our true nature and that means – all of us.
What I love about being in the world, with people, in life, is how any amount of game playing can never truly touch the sides of the enormity of the essence of each person. how games can be played, but in truth they are mere follies along the path back to loving ourselves, and this can be seen in any one person.
We create so much complexity when we choose to play games and then we look at the ‘issues’ we have caused in our lives and look for complex solutions to them when in fact the answers are simple as the issues are of our own creation.
I agree Nikki, playing games is exhausting. It can come across as cheeky, fun or sly and superior, but ultimately it comes down to ways we seek to protect ourselves from being the true person we can be in the rawness and openness of love.
When we shy away from our truth, every single one of us is capable of being played and consequently playing the games we see taking place everywhere.
Spot on Vicky, in shying away, we disempower ourselves and hence we get to be played and we end up part-taking in game playing.
This is a great blog reminding the reader to call a ‘spade a spade..’ (not a shovel, or a hoe) to be up front, honest not just with others, but with ourselves. Thank Nikki!
In the fashion industry where I work in, hiding is considered famous. Not being seen, never appearing in front of a fashion label will bring a person mystery and hence more noise. Being aloof, having attitude, being badass, having outrageous behaviour etc are considered rebellious and cool. Protection is literally worked into the fashion collections to gain recognition. This is a game we play, have made normal and even say lead the way in being separate, disconnected and resistant to intimacy. As an industry, are we not heading away from who we truly are?
The entire game we play in life is to not express ourselves in full truth. Our entire purpose in life is to make it worthwhile, but most of the things we do and strive for take us away from our true worth. And when we realize this game and begin to expose it, we are taking off the layers which have dulled our natural shine to begin with.
This is awesome Nikki, the game that we are all playing at some level.
This is where young children can be our teachers, for they have not yet begun to navigate their way through life they are just simply there feeling all there is to be felt and expressing in response to this. My own children have shown me intimacy and understanding that is innately known.
You have beautifully described Nikki how we manipulate interactions to try and hide from others in the hope that we will not get hurt again or be exposed as a fraud or not enough. This however is an empty game for what we are often trying to hide is a false sense of self that we created in the first place when we separated from who we truly are.
I am learning to be loving with no investment in an outcome. So if I walk into a room and it is not up to the standard that I live in instead of leaving it and getting on with what I need to do or reacting to the energy, I am committed to lifting the energy to what is needed for myself and all concerned. Wether that means cleaning, re-configuring or clearing, mostly all three. It does not matter if no-one notices as long as I am honouring what I know is needed to support the all. This is one of the ways I am letting my love out with no conditions.
There is so much to be said about playing games, in truth, they just keep us separate from each other. They don’t truly foster connection or being loving with one another and treating others as equals, there is always a cost associated with playing games, someone feels greater than or someone feeling less than, either way no one wins.
Maybe this is why coffee is one of the most traded commodities in the world, because every one is exhausted from playing games with one and other.
I agree with other commenters that when we play fewer or no games with others, some are uncomfortable but many people seem to feel relieved and respond with far less games of protection themselves or even no games. That is quite wonderful.
Yes, Christopher, of course there can be some resistance as we venture into the unfamiliar but there is something so refreshing about being game free.
I love your absolute honesty Nikki, and it is so true what you so beautifully share, that when we have expectations from another, we are holding back and basically holding them to ransom saying, you don’t meet this so ……….quite exhausting as you say. I have recently started a relationship with a lovely man, and I am noticing more and more when I do judge or have an expectation or need, and how my body changes and I feel quite uncomfortable within it. Much more lovely to let go and just breathe my own breath and stay with my body and how it feels, this way, everything flows so very beautifully, and opens it up for so much more to come in.
In my work place there is often a fair bit of ‘banter’. I very rarely join in and what I have found is how, over time, people start to see this and really deeply appreciate it and see the difference in how a work relationship can be. I try to treat work colleagues exactly the same as I would my friends, family, kids, wife whoever and because I’m not seeing them any differently, then they feel that and open up to a much deeper connection.
Another real skill is not being drawn into other people’s games even when they are being played all around us. This is a gigantic trap for humanity. Nine people out of ten engaging in cyber abuse will very often mean the tenth joins in and this can be extrapolated or translated to almost any part of society.
We do play games and they can be very harmful, creating much complication and emotional drama. Or some can be insidious and very manipulative, either way it is not a loving way to be with ourselves or others.
It is ironic how the walls we are building to keep ourselves ‘safe’ and in control, are the very walls that keeps us disconnected, lonely and separated from everyone, including ourselves.
We can’t really fool ourselves with the games we play because we know full well we are playing them, and we spend a lot of effort dulling down our awareness so that we don’t catch ourselves playing these games.Honestly exposing them as you have done Nikki, brings them more out in the open and makes it less likely that we can get away with them.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself.” This is a great insight, Nikki. It’s empowering once we see this because we can then no longer play the victim and we have to take responsibility for our hurt. We think we are safe when we hide behind a wall but in reality by doing that we cut ourselves off from our own love and isolate ourelves from loving interactions with others.
Playing games will always have rules and conditions that will always have as the number one rule being, love is not allowed that would be cheating!
My first port of call in understanding the games at play is to be really honest with myself about anything that lies behind what I am doing; how I am communicating; my choices etc. and to ask myself, without criticism, why. It is usually some past experience that I have of not letting go of that goes on informing my reactions and if I can relinquish that I no longer have to react to the stimulus.
It is amazing what can be felt if we truly listen and allow…there are layers of communication that can offer a wisdom and perception that is unrivalled if the right attention is paid to it.
Beautiful blog, thank you Nikki, inspiring us to deeper levels of honesty with ourselves and others.
Games in themselves always hold the risk of getting out of hand – competition, jealousy or insecurities often emerge from the innocent intention of playing a game. Playing games with another human being is not dissimilar – it is never true or honest!
We set ourselves up so much by having expectations and projecting a picture or ideal onto a situation or person. How much simpler and more responsible is it to live in a way where we feel what is true moment by moment and let things naturally unfold and evolve? No more games…
Such beautiful honesty in being able to see through your own behaviours Nikki and exposing our perceived need for protection. Reading such open expression as this is totally inspiring to bring the same level of reflection in my own life.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me. I can only hurt myself.” So true yet I spent much of my life blaming others for my predicaments. Taking responsibility for how I feel is a game- changer. I give my power away when I don’t do this. I am choosing how life is to be in every moment, yet in the past I never took any responsibility for this. Learning from the mistakes I make is also more empowering.
I find in my life many possibilities to meet people, already by switching on the TV allows me to meet millions of people without even leaving the house. Am I open to connect and meet these people without reaction or expectation? Have I prepared my body to consciously feel the potential and responsibility that goes hand in hand with that connection?
I have read your blog a few times Nikki and it makes so much sense. In truth no one can hurt us so, why do we often seek to protect ourselves? What you’ve share is so true, it resonates with me, the wall of protection is to hide behind it, I have done this a lot but learning to dismantle this wall and the games I play.
We think most of the games we play are founded from perceived hurts and are there to ‘protect’ us… when in fact they are a set-up to hide the amazingness of who we truly are, an excuse to not show the world the shining light we naturally are and a reflection the world so needs… that is the real purpose of these games.
It is a curious thing thinking we have to manipulate and control our lives and the world around us when there is pure joy in allowing ourselves to be who we naturally are and absolute magic in allowing the Divine plan to be… what transpires is so, so much more than what we could ever plan or manipulate as individuals!
It is in the games that we hurt ourselves, not letting ourselves be seen in full. I recognize this and see that it is a game, but it gets played very seriously… It takes honesty to see and let go, and feel that all is safe, letting people in is filled with joy.
Before Intimacy comes trust. Without Trust, it can be really hard to let ourselves out for the world to see. But trust builds in small snippets and it is about us learning to trust ourselves and what we feel – it is never about giving our trust over to someone else. When we build trust, it then allows us to realise we are holding barriers up and so it allows us to then make a choice to drop these barriers and hence allow intimacy. But we can never ask ourselves to do this at a pace faster that what feels right for us. No matter what. This has to be honoured. Thank you Nikki for sharing this about yourself and your process – in the exploration itself we get to voice honestly what we are feeling and hence develop that intimacy with self and those around us.
If we are not honest we are living a lie which is the game. Honesty is the beginning of being a game changer.
I really love this blog, I can relate to these games no end, we all have our slightly different flavor or style of play but they all serve the same purpose. I love that you are willing to go to the depth of honesty with yourself, no matter how long it takes or how much it exposes, now that to me is brave and inspirational, thanks Nikki.
Games are a form of creation. They are something that we, ourselves have designed and executed. As there is no love in the process, only the satisfaction from creation, we always feel a bit deflated afterwards, even when the game gave us exactly what we wanted.
And it is all of us missing out by playing these games of not expressing ourselves because we all get less.
It is interesting the way we measure how much we show another person of who we truly are or not – a game, as you say Nikki, and great to expose and address this as it leaves everybody short of love.
It can be hard to sometimes admit to ourselves the behaviours and games we can use in life to protect ourselves but what I love is the fact that there need be no judgement – those behaviours we use are not who we truly are.
Staying open, staying Love in the face of what ever we face allows grace to be in every moment.
Game set and match, you have nailed it in one Nikki. I understand what a great game changer love and truth have been in my life.
When I start playing games it becomes impossible to keep up with the lies I have to tell myself to live up to that game!
Hear hear – yes so true, and once realised we can choose if we want to continue this way or make different choices. Very empowering to know this indeed.
Yes me too – how good it is that with the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine there is now immense support in getting to the nitty gritty of these behaviours we may choose so that we can instead start learning and stepping all of who we truly are.
A great and simple truth Nikki – “The truth is, I’m tired of these games and through this exhaustion I have realised that I can step out at any time. That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them.” Only we can make a change to anything that we do or have done, no other can do it for us. And how good does it feel when we do this, step by step, the reflection of others will then allow us to see where we have moved on from and what is maybe left to look at at a deeper level still.
I can feel I play games concerning intimacy, how willing am I to be open and allow someone to appreciate me deeply, I can feel how there is this shuffle between openness and then protection that plays out, a measuring of how safe it is to be seen. Something to continue to ponder and observe.
Yes, Samantha, it’s great to be honest about the subtle ways we still protect ourselves in relationship, and call them out as we become aware of them.
It’s like we think there’s a dynamic we have to gauge and navigate. I have found myself doing that a lot – as if I have to prepare for an interaction, instead of trusting myself or others and letting whatever comes out to unfold – in that, I can tell, there’s no appreciation for myself or others.
I am becoming more aware now of the games I play with myself. How ridiculous is that, we can fool ourselves but we cant really fool ourselves because we are the only ones who know everything we do. Its like hiding the peanut butter from yourself behind something on a different shelf to where it is usually kept. You still know it is there!!! (I have done this:-)
I love this article, thank you Nikki. I am building a more honest relationship with honesty! And it is revealing games and behaviours of mine that I am willingly relinquishing, but would not have been able to do so if the beam of honesty was not revealing what lurked in shady corners.
You have a door in your wall now Nikki and it doesnt need a key, sounds like it is becoming transparent now too and may in fact only be a thin veil which will disappear in time. Go you.
“The level of honesty it has taken for me to expose this within myself is quite a feat, and playing dumb and pretending I don’t know what I am doing is still quite strong within”
I can relate to the level of playing dumb and pretending not to know. It inspires me to expose this more and more and let truth come out.
We are not honouring ourselves or others for who we truly are if we play the ‘games of life’, the games that we are so used to play with one another.
Playing games provides a great distraction away from Living Life and from developing true intimacy with ourselves and others – games pit us against another in many a behaviour of control, manipulation and malice.
Such ‘games’ go against everything we are and our natural inclination to Love and grow one another.
This is very timely for me Nikki, as I’m looking at some games that I play too, mine is about knowing what the truth is but choosing to live what is not truth. This time I can see it clearly for what it is. This time because of the continuing communication with my body I am able to see this as it really is, a game to seek recognition and disregarding what my body knows to be truth along the way.
When you have a moment of clarity, a loving friend like you Nikki who supports you to come back to reality, it is like you can see ‘oh that way I was carrying on, was not really me’. In this moment, if you look at the things that you said and what you did, you can see that beyond the emotion and drama, there was a strategy and a game going on. It is not a pleasant thing to see, but shows clearly how we are run by an energy that is constantly seeking rewards, recognition, and dramatic attention. This is certainly a game where all of us loose. So when we see that we are starting to ‘play up’ what if we can start to say ‘pause’ and take ourselves off the field, and out of the pitch for a brief moment and come back to the truth underneath that the sport of personal drama and intrigue we get sucked into play is not actually real at the end of the day.
Before we play games with someone else we play them with ourselves. Only honesty, understanding and finally truthfulness can end all games so that we are all of what we are in truth.
” I started them and so equally, I can finish them” – I love this sentance, because it is so easy to feel caught in our own behaviour, incapable of stopping them and yet we are their creators and in turn we are the ones with the power to stop them.
Indeed, it is a real wake up call that most of the games we play are more about hiding how amazing we actually are, rather than some kind of fault or deficiency.
Heck yeah, I’m totally going to go for it from this moment forth ‘ so that others do see the real, full and gorgeous me,’ how cool is that as I know from experience with Natalie Benhayon it gives me permission to me to be full of me.
It takes a lot of honesty to be willing to see the games we play in our relationships without judgement.
The ‘without judgement’ bit is the one to really ponder upon, isn’t it, because the moment we go into judgement around the games we run risk of not being honest with ourselves to start with, when judging another or when judging ourselves for the games played.
‘The effect of all of this is that my connections with people are less than what they could be – I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth.’ – The consequenses of holding back our true expression and ‘play safe’ are far wider than we can ever fathom.
We can play a game with ourselves seeing intimacy as only physical only shared with certain people rather than simply how we are with ourselves and how we connect with everyone equally. So we rob ourselves of the opportunity to allow more love in and out by playing the game. This is a great blog to expose the game and really makes me consider how much I play it.
We play these games in order not to show our vulnerability, to not get hurt, yet we are hurting everyone including ourselves when we play these pointless games, standing in our own truth protects us more because there is nothing to hide.
It’s crazy that we can spend so much time trying to protect ourselves when we do ourselves more harm in the process which is in itself unnecessary.
It is incredible that we play games with ourselves, that we pretend to not know how we really feel or think and suppress the truth. Exploring our particular game playing MO would be a very worthwhile, liberating and evolutionary exercise.
‘I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth’. I kept my self separated from others for years believing that I would not get hurt, truth is I only hurt myself because I always found it difficult to relate and connect to people, needless to say I had very poor social skills/ On top of that I would take on the belief that I must be so stupid….. oh how we hurt ourselves. Thankfully I have made many different choices, one of them being; self-care and self nurture which is refining all the time, and I love giving to moi!
It is amazing how subtle the games we play can be. Sometimes often just to prove a point yet being completely void of love. Anything we do with another where we are not being love, for me anyways, means I am playing a game and when I look at the effects that has they are often not very pretty. We effect other people by the way we are far more than I ever cared to imagine.
This is such an important message for everyone to hear. That we can stop at any time the wayward behaviours we have chosen to be who we are, when the truth is that who we are is a far greater and deeply loving being who would never actually choose such behaviours because they keep people out.
Dishonesty in all its layers is one of the main killers of connection and intimacy.
Short sharp and to the point Andrew, and absolutely true. Dishonesty is a deeply hurtful thing for the one that receives this as well as for the one that expresses in that way.
Its interesting – I was just reflecting on how open and available I make myself when I come to speak to people, be that at work or in the family. How often do I stay open to everything there is, or might be? More often than not I arrive wanting to engage at so and so level, try to limit the interaction, and so the interchange is so much less than it could be.
Wow, you make me realise what geniuses we are at playing games Nikki. They come in all shapes and sizes and are all utterly unsatisfying.
A great reminder from this blog: Simplicity. If it does not feel simple, it always feel exhausting. Intimacy feels simple. The complication comes in when I go ahead of myself and think what may happen when such natural intimacy is expressed, so protection comes in and I hold back rather than just simply express. When I am with myself in expression, I am equipped to deal with everything that comes up.
I find I choose to be hooked by these games you describe Nikki more so with people I have an attachment with, I especially create issues with them and will make things complicated so there becomes something to work on and improve. This is an exhausting detour when what the situation is really asking is for me to be aware of the attachment and to deepen the expression of care, love, understanding and patience—and get this, first to myself.
“The Games People Play” – Nikki if you just dwell for a moment on this, then you can see and feel just how every aspect of our life/work, is exactly this, and how we all play games, i mean – game-playing is everywhere, and at every level, consciously or otherwise. Game-playing is dishonesty, manipulation and control playing out to affect outcomes that suit a particular need or desire. Imagine if we could see game-playing in its energetic outplay.. we’d see billions of strands crisscrossing to make things a complete and utter mess, muddle and cobwebbed bind that ‘game-playing’ actually is. There is no joy in such a game.
Ahh… the games we play!
Deep down we know and feel the fakeness we present, but for whatever reasons we run with it anyway.
Your honesty and the detail you bring to these games is very inspiring Nikki. There are millions of ways we try to control and manipulate… we each need to be totally honest, and importantly, come to understand why we have chosen to live this way as it isn’t our natural way of being in the world.
I so enjoy your writings Nikki… so honest, relatable and to the point which is very refreshing to read.
It is certainly an illusion to think we are protecting ourselves from being hurt when in truth we are hurting ourselves by using protection to hold back all the gloriousness we truly are… no wonder most of the world is exhausted – it takes a huge amount of energy to hold back what is naturally meant to be shared with everyone.
If one has not built a foundation that allows oneself to deeply appreciate one’s own self worth, then one is always going to be like a leaf in the wind, and prone to all the games of protection that we all play. And that includes developing a superficial personality or mask to present to the outside world to ensure that we don’t get hurt.
The control and manipulation of our surroundings and ourselves and even others is something I think many will probably relate to if we are honest – I know I can very much relate to the comfort I find in control, and yet the true me is not what gets lived.
It’s so easy to go to the things that will relieve us of the sort of issues and difficulties that come up in day to day life, but to go to the level of honesty you have Nikki, and look at the part we play in creating what goes on around us is far more difficult, or so it seems. In fact what you’ve shared sounds far easier than continuing the games and all that results from this way of interacting with others in life.
Your honesty is beautiful Nikki! A subject that most of us are well aware off – playing games, but choose not tune out to it. Game playing is often about masking something deeper going on, a form of protection. Life becomes about playing the game to not be hurt and in that game we are shut off from something much deeper that dwells within us. Honesty begins to expose the games, and make way for something deeper to start to stir and that is our inner wealth of our loving essence. As we let ourselves connect to that, as we connect more honestly with ourselves, then natural with others, we begin to experience our own sense of loveliness, amazingness, not seeing ourselves as something that needs to be protected and fixed, or even bettered…and we begin to have more real and loving relationships.
I love your honesty and willingness to look at all that is not love in your life and then take this to your relationships with others – inspirational.
Playing games is draining, there is no true intimacy in a relationship where we don’t allow ourselves to be seen for who we are and instead create an arrangement where we cruise through life. Relationships are about reflecting truth to others and to inspire them to be more of who they are.
A timely blog Nikki. I was just writing in my journal that my connection with me has to be there first for there to be a connection with another that is not just a superficial interaction.
So much of my life could have been seen as a game of not presenting who you are, in fact that was the actual game, be a better different more improved version of whatever I was. It seems that is the game that is played all the time superficially on a cosmetic level and also on mental and emotional level. There is very little acceptance and appreciation of who we are. Stopping that game and starting to appreciate myself has been a much less stressful option and even joyful.
I would say that a lot of people try and ‘direct the way things go’ in conversation, and even that this particular game is completely accepted in society. Almost everyone has their own agenda and will thus try and push that when communicating with another; it’s ‘how the world works’, but as you’ve shared Nikki, there is no way to establish a true connection with someone or truly listen to what they say if we play this game.
“…It is when I try to manipulate my interactions with another so that others do not see the real, full and gorgeous me, keeping the other person at bay.” Until I went to a Universal Medicine presentation I had not ever recognised there was a full and gorgeous me…making myself small and lesser was the norm. To consider that this in turn prevented others from being their full and gorgeous selves was, and still is a revelation, such is the depths of game playing.
Playing the game of my way and not The Way, my will not The Will, my order not The Order, my version of everything not The One Life In Full.
I have just caught myself playing this game. How I just abandoned myself in a very sneaky way in an email exchange was just a great example. I thought I was innocently, humbly asking questions, but no – what was playing out was I had reduced my magnificence so minutely I became so dumb and my focus was on what was not ‘working out’ in life (which in truth was actually in perfect symbiosis) and everything that was coming out of me in a form of questions were just a feeble excuse to cop out, to contradict and jeopardize my power – and in that I held back my love big time. The world missed out on that. And my dear friend pulled me up on this. What a great lesson that was.
I love the honesty in this blog and sharing, Nikki. I can relate to what you have shared and my observation is how much I close down when I meet people especially people from my family. This itself is hurting as it does not belong to my nature to close down.
This is a great testimony Nikki, to confirm what Serge Benhayon has been presenting all along – Making life about love.
Recently I have been very loving with others, not expecting something in return or even if they notice how loving I am being… learning to not have conditions on my love. What matters is that I am expressing how I feel and not holding back how much love I have for others. The beautiful outcome of this is that I am appreciating myself loads more and am now seeing myself as the loving woman I am.
The game that we are playing keeps us in separation from living in true brotherhood. In essence we are all equal, so any game played with another person is really just a delay for true union.
One game is to emphasise the negative, even when it is utterly and completely true if the emphasis denies space to the expression of love.
This line says and exposes it all : It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself. Thank you Nikki.
This blog is a huge mirror. I allready know a lot of what’s being shared, but I do see that I allow this to continue. To really be in contact with myself and look (receive) somebody’s presence is something that is still quite huge in the sense that I’m not used to receive the love that I see and feel when I choose the connection with my heart. One of things I noticed is that I find it quite challenging to be able to feel so much about people when I do connect. As if I read and meet them in full – whether they give permission or not. I understand with my head that this intamacy is normal, but for me the opposite has become normal. Thank you Nikki for sharing so honestly!
The aeon old pattern of safety over intimacy, protection over love; it is deeply ingrained and has many layers and facets that need to be honestly addressed and brought to an end and only get exposed when we dare to open ourselves for more in relationship with self and people.
To have no agenda, no sense of manipulation, but to simply respond in each and every moment with a clean, clear honesty is beautiful in its freedom and evolving for our relationships.
I Agree Nikki, we have become very good at playing these games that will give us a sense of control on how we want others to see us, this way of being is based on protection of our hurts -it is an illusion as to live this way we need to harden our bodies and it is draining and exhausting! Letting go of these layers allows us to be transparent in the way we live bringing true intimacy to all our relationships.
Games, “That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them.” It begins and ends with making a choice. Great blog to reflect on, thanks Nikki.
The walls that we build to keep us ‘safe’ only serve to keep us in separation and end up hurting us as a result and damages the relationships we have with those around us
We think we can keep communication in words only where it is safe but everyone has the ability to feel what is under the words, and what we maybe hiding . In fact many of us just choose to stay with words as we are too ‘busy’ to feel another person or ourselves at a deeper level. A sad comment on our society.
Nikki, this is really interesting, ‘Instead of allowing what is there between us, I try to control the interaction, to limit my level of connection with another, keeping it superficial and dimming the potential that is there between us.’, I can feel how I can do this, rather than simply being completely open and honest with people. Reading your article makes me feel how crazy it is that we play these games – no-one benefits, I can feel how it’s time to drop the protection and be real and honest and open.
What are we protecting ourselves from when we play ‘nice’? A reaction? Considering that everybody without exception knows truth, we can all see or feel when ‘nice’ masks an underlying anger, dislike or whatever negative emotions we are trying to hide, so our communications become complicated. Being open and honest right from the start is a far simpler way to be.
‘How is the game played? It’s hard to describe, but I’ll give it a go… it is when I try to manipulate my interactions with another so that others do not see the real, full and gorgeous me, keeping the other person at bay.’ – You have described it very well Nikki, the problem is that most people are not able or willing to see this behaviour in themselves as it is so common in our society and we have twisted the reality so badly, we feel it is more or less expected of us to play the game – we learn to see it as normal and no big deal at all. A very intertwined and harmful game.
Thank you Nikki, for this very honest and real blog – most of us are living lives where we play this game in one way or another. It is an insidious game to play when as you say it keeps us separated and never truly connected to ourselves or others, no wonder hate and mistrust is flourishing in the world.
I can relate to this one Nikki, we are very creative when it comes to protecting ourselves. However these games don’t protect us at all
We play so many games with each other, and it seems that we are willing to let these games play out and continue simply by not speaking the truth. In my work environment there are many dynamics that go on, and any of them can escalate into a big issue at any time. The one thing that can stop this from happening is if people express how they feel. If feelings are left unexpressed the games can continue. It’s that simple.
It is so true Nikki, we cannot let another in to come closer if we are playing games because we are not connecting from our true essence. Nor are we sharing ourselves from a place of honesty and openess because we have an agenda playing out.
I am reluctant to use the word ‘game’ to describe what it is that we are all doing, because it implies that there is some element of fun being had but suffice to say that we are all playing rather a sinister game by pretending to not know the truth of who we all are. The stakes couldn’t be higher, we have created a world that contains an exorbitant amount of pain and suffering. We could all simply end the game over night if we so chose but my feeling is that we will have to go round the board for a few thousand more years before we can pack the pieces away for good.
This is super honest revealing and an amazing reflection to see for ourselves the games we play and the suffering we hence allow by not fully expressing all we are and protecting ourselves .” It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself ” this is a revelation and something that takes a lot to work through but really does makes sense and opens up everything.
You are not alone Nikki, most of the world, if not all the world is playing this game in one form or another. Even when we are honest (and I know I am far more honest than I used to be,) do we offer ourselves in full to everyone we meet. I can feel this game is very old and one that has kept us small and less than who we really are for life times. Great to expose it and like you Nikki “The truth is, I’m tired of these games and through this exhaustion I have realised that I can step out at any time. That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them.” ….it is a choice we can make at any moment to end these games, and being honest with ourselves is the first step.
It may be that we build up a wall because we are afraid to be loved in full, for who we are. Yes, some people won’t be ready or able to see who we are or to love, but many also will. There is a lot to be said for the simplicity of letting ourselves be, letting others be, and letting what’s there to unfold be as well.
This blog has really made me look at all the times I play these types of games, keeping myself small but the craziest thing of all is when I play them with myself.
It’s really interesting to take a step back and observe the choices I make in response to what is going on around me. I allow what is outside of me to dictate rather than staying firm from within and staying true to what is on the inside. I play this game constantly keeping myself less and being at the ‘mercy’ of others and their choices, whilst playing a game of ping- pong as I bounce from one thing to another. This is very tiring! How much more vitalising is it when I choose to be myself and to respond to my inner knowing and live from that place!
It’s a huge thing to let go of the protection that we feel has served us so well, yet has it? Something that can exhaust us, something that can keep us away from truly loving others and ourselves. It seems like a leap of faith yet it is a most loving thing to do.
Yesterday, someone upset me when I was feeling lovely. What I realised about this is – that I had an expectation of their behaviour that set me up, – that I allowed this to affect me almost as an excuse not to show how lovely I am in the world. Then I weighed it up. There were far more great things that happened to me that day. If I let go of expectation and self righteousness I could really just observe the tantrum I had witnessed and understand exactly what it was. I did not need the old protection I reached for.
Then I let it go, came back to how I was feeling, and more gorgeous things came into my day.
Playing games is just misdirection. Wave your right hand above your head frantically and then ask someone to look at your left hand. An important aspect of Magicians, drawing your attention away from what is actually happening. Is this our defense against letting others in? Do we highlight our wall and not who resides behind it? All of this constant hand waving becomes exhausting and causes no end of other dis-ease in our bodies, or, we can just be ourselves.
Nikki, great to have this game exposed: playing small, hiding our true essence from self and others and in so doing depriving ourselves the joy of experiencing who we are and sharing this with others.
I totally concur, Nikki. The exhaustion and struggle that come from playing dumb to the games we have set up ourselves is so not worth it when you experience the true joy of opening up to and appreciating the connection we naturally have with all other people. I know I have spent far too much time playing these games under the illusion that I was ‘helping’ them to catch up when really it was an excuse to play less and allow situations and relationships that were actually quite abusive….especially to me! And you nailed it when you said it was about controlling the depth of the interaction. How guilty of that I have also been and I’ve learned that the name of the game is always “Control”. I’m inspired by your willingness to expose this in yourself, opening up to a big ‘ouch’ but also to more and more intimacy within yourself and with others.
We think we get away with it when we ‘win the game’ we have been playing but we fail to realise we are the ones being played in the process…. and then are left to feel the poison in our bodies of playing against our brothers and sisters. This I have understood clearer today and feeling the affects in my body.
I love this Aimee – “…but we fail to realise we are the ones being played in the process…” When we truly get this that we have been had – then like you said, we become aware of how that feels in the body. This can support us then to look at the game, look at how we have been played to play, and then make new choices. The great thing is, thankfully we can choose any moment anew.
Brilliant. Thank you, Nikki, for exposing the intricacy we indulge in in order to avoid the simplicity of the grandness that we truly are. We play that game in every relationship, including the one with ourselves.
I love that saying “I’m not wasting my energy on that”. Great that you have identified the bucket load of energy that comes with game playing. Calling this out and getting real sometimes brings reactions from others that sends us back into the playing position again. A call to say I’m not playing this game any more is a work in progress for me, and thank you for a timely reminder with this blog Nikki McKee!
There are so many games that we play in order to keep us less than the amazingness of who we are. I often feel the games that I play with others and play them for many of the reasons that you have described here Nikki. At times I am honest enough to call myself out and make a different choice. At other times I am not so honest and I let the games continue. However, from reading your blog I am realising that it is time for all games to come to a stop as they do not serve anyone.
We dodge and side step being intimate with others so often and in so many different ways, and we know what we are doing, no question, all because we label our relationships and then work out how we need to be within them that will give us what we want from them, all at the expense of the greatest love that is right there with us at the same time.
“How is the game played? It’s hard to describe” Very revealing Nikki in that the games we play are often kept ‘secret’ from ourselves even. Our need to play the game over riding the honesty of what is going on.
Well spotted Rosanna – indeed, how insidious are these games we play when we realise that they are actually not so easy to describe.
Playing these games shows us how much we actually miss out on expressing love openly, therefore hiding the grandness of who we are. It stunts our expression of intimacy, our ability to express love and truth. By nominating and recognising we play these games is a huge support for us to be real and honest about our choices. These games can be dismantled in an instance once we recognise what we are choosing and to then choose to surrender, trust and express fully who we are, by allowing people in, opening our hearts and our body to the love that we all are, meeting people in their essence, with acceptance, understanding and equality, this is when we can feel true intimacy and love.
Nikki I love your bio at the end! The practicing sitting still long enough for your nails to dry! I know that one. That’s something worth practicing for sure as it’s simply another game we play when we don’t want to sit still for x amount of time claiming we are too busy and don’t have time, but really we just want to get up and distract ourselves from our loveliness I suspect.
The games hurt us far more than the so called ‘hurt’ we are trying to avoid.
“Lately I’ve allowed myself the grace of honesty”… I was touched by your opening line because it shares so much. The grace of honesty allows us to look at what is going on with an openness and a curiosity that allows us to get to the truth of what is going on. Really. But it needs the grace to soften the edges so we can look at it and see the truth otherwise sometimes we just see what we want to see.
That’s beautiful Sarah – grace with honesty is far more healing that honesty with a whip to flog yourself!
Thank you Nikki – it is a game many of us actually play, often without being aware of it! To dull ourselves down, to not stand out, to not be the tall poppy….so that we can ‘fit in’ and not be ostracised and think that we belong. However in so doing we sell ourselves short, we give up on who we really are, we conform to an expectation rather than blooming and allowing our full potential to come out so that everyone can enjoy and reap the benefits.
There are times I ask myself “can I really let my truth be seen and felt” or is it a bit scary sometimes? As I write this I can feel it is only scary if the honesty with myself is not solid. Thanks Nikki for opening up this deeper level of awareness and responsibility for truth within so I can be all of me and share this with everyone.
‘ keeping myself shut off from love’ is a game I use to hurt myself. I keep myself shut off from my own love. How crazy is that?!
How long are we, as a human race going to continue to choose playing games rather than connect to the Love we hold inside of us? Serge Benhayon has taught me that it is safe to let go of the protection, drop the guard, let people in and welcome another with an open heart. I still play games to varying degrees, and my level of intimacy with others is a direct reflection of the level of intimacy I have with myself, so the more open and honest I am with me, the more open I am with others, it’s quite simple really, be the Love that you are and the games will stop.
These games are exhausting and when we pretend that it is no going on it is even more exhausting. To be able to fully surrendering and let people in and not make it about us but the whole. Here we give everyone the space and grace to be who they are. In this we get to Celebrate this precious quality that we originate from.
This is it Natalie isn’t it – ‘… and not make it about us but the whole. ” This is an important key, how often do we make things about ourselves when later we find out it had nothing to do with us whatsoever. To keep the whole at the forefront can assist us in connecting with people on a much deeper and honest level.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards’. I have so many expectations of others and when they do not do what I have been expecting I turn the expectation into a judgement which makes me feel better about the hurt that I created.
Thanks to Serge Benhayon many people have been blessed to look in someone’s eyes and really fully meet the person.
Oh yes so true. Only yesterday while I was out doing some massage work, the person that greeted me commented on just that fact, the straight and honest look into the eyes when I arrived, it was a lovely felt connection for both of us.
It is very exhausting, continually playing games, constantly measuring and adjusting our expression. I love how children never do that they just are them selves what ever is going on. It makes me ponder on when and why we loose our natural ability to simply be. The art of adulthood is maintaining the innocence of our childhood expression while fully embracing our responsibilities in the world. Those of us who can manage this with ease are a true delight.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards, but mostly because I don’t let others in, keeping myself shut off from love.” Such wise words. I have witnessed this very recently in my life. The fact is playing the games ensures that this keeps happening again and again.
I have been blown away at the sophistication of the games I play with not only others but myself. It is another level of awareness and honesty that I am allowing myself to see and it can be subtle and surprising the lengths we can go to, in protection of emotions.
The games we play are exhausting and extremely tiring! It is no wonder so many seek sugar, caffeine and other forms of stimulation. A good solid dose of honesty and truth within ourselves is here needed.
Indeed Joshua for honesty is great medicine.
Thanks Nikki, stopping to feel and notice life at that subtle level can become quite a revelation about what we say yes to and what we say no to
Such a wonderful explanation and exposure of the games we play to keep small and stay protected. The crazy thing is, we don’t want to let people in in case they hurt us but the hurt of not being fully open and our natural loving selves is the most hurtful thing we can actually do to ourselves.
I have played games too. I don’t want to admit it but I have played them at lengths, and, I always win because it is my own game. The thing is though the game is so cleverly played you end up fooling yourself into the thinking it is your reality, and you are sitting on your own throne of truth, where then blaming another is the natural mechanism to not expose your game. You end up forcing or imposing on another = you loose.
Thank you Nikki. It really is worth being honest with ourselves about the games we play as once we allow ourselves to be aware of what we are doing we can put an end to it. I recently noticed that I entrap people into saying something that hurts me so I can use this against them. An example of this is putting myself down and waiting to see if the person I am ‘testing’ clocks it, agrees with it or tells me to snap out of it. The damage is done regardless of how the other person responds because I have not connected to myself or them when I choose to do this. It is clear to me there is no true protection in playing games.
The games we play certainly take a lot of energy both to perform and to maintain.
It is foremost draining to go against our truth in the first place, to not bring the true us to the fore and connect with others which is our natural way.
It’s key what you’ve shared about how our expectations not only affect other people but also ourselves. We can self-sabotage and upset many of our important relationships if we hold onto images about how things are ‘supposed’ to look.
Yes this is so true and such a pitfall – these expectations and images surely do trip us up. So it’s great if we can start to really look at them and see if they really hold true for us or if there is another way of being that does not come from preconceived ideals and images.
I know the games of which you speak! We simply play them to avoid potential, when we are constellated to another person there is instant potential, a game I have noticed I play is I avoid this by saying something smart or funny rather than feeling the depth of the universe which brought us together.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself”. Once we fully accept this it stops all blame and leads to true responsibility.
Looking at it in the light of the day playing games such as you have mentioned Nikki does seem selfish and foolishly so at our own expense, as well as at the expense of others – clearly no one wins in this scenario. What a total set up to keep us all small and unseen.
One of the biggest games we play is pretending we are not powerful, that we cannot feel energy, and that we cannot read situations. We use our minds to override the clear signals we get from our bodies, and we use our eyes to see only what we want to see and ignore what’s truly there. An honesty in sensing what’s truly going on would leave us unable to make the non-loving choices that we currently make.
It feels so true to me that if we created the game of protection and guard in the first place and we therefore know the rules inside out then we can stop playing it at any time.
Awesome inspiration to allow myself ‘the grace of honesty’ to explore the games I play to hide myself from the world and then feel let down that nobody ‘gets me’! I have been working on my willingness to expose my expectations in lots of situations but am only just realising how often there is an underlying game going on which I can choose to stop at any time. Thank you for unpicking this for us all.
“It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself” – this simple sentence has the potential to turn the world upside down. How many love songs, movies etc are themed on broken hearts and being hurt by another in some way. It is almost as if we thrive on the misery of it! So could it be that this is all an avoidance of responsibility to deal with what gets in the way of us being fully present and committed to life.
It puts the ball back in our court and we know we can’t just dump it in another’s and leave it to them.
Nikki, it’s great to re-read this article, I can feel how there are so many games we play with each other, that we put on a mask and show that to the world rather than showing our fragility, tenderness and sensitivity. We play ‘cool’ or ‘macho’ or like we don’t care, we talk about things often on a surface level and keep others away, so its great to read this and be aware and to change this and allow others in and to be the real us.
It takes a lot of effort to keep up a facade. No wonder so many of us are exhausted. Just as our game playing is a habit we have become good at, we can create a new habit of getting honest and simply allowing ourselves to be intimate and connected with ourselves and therefore also with others.
I know I can easily feel when others are putting on an act, and so the same must be true when I am not being my true self. It causes confusion, because what is felt is not congruent with what is being presented. Bravo for being honest and ditching the game playing Nikki.
Whenever I feel hurt I am playing games. While the hurts are real they are created to be less and so the games play out. The biggest game I am playing out at the moment is complication, creating issues to shut myself down and to cut myself off from others in order to not feel a deeper level of love and intimacy with myself and others.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself’ A little understood truth and rarely expressed. We often focus on hurt we believe came from another, we rarely stop to take stock of all the ways we routinely hurt ourselves. I am very sensitive and felt a lot of hurt earlier in my life. Now I find the more love I build lin my body, the less I feel the old feeling I called ‘hurt’. When something unexpected happens, I feel it in the body first, and with the foundation I’ve built within myself, can work with it and more often than not clear it before it solidifies in my body. The image I have is of stepping away from a cloak that’s fallen to the ground and moving on.
When we drop the masks of protection, complication diminishes also and gives way to the simplicity of being ourselves.
Such profound honesty and open-ness in your sharing Nikki, that initiates the reader to confront and address the areas in their life where these games are played. What a great self study!
Wow Nikki your honesty really got me: “. . . to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in-truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind.” Is this not something most of us are doing??? Your commitment to get a deeper understanding of it is very inspiring and is a wonderful reminder that being honest is very supportive tool.
I remember playing so many games with people and from time to time still find I do, however it now feels horrible to play these games. Compared to before my life seems completely different yet do I protect myself around people? The answer is in many cases yes, is that therefore not playing games? I didn’t think it was but the reality is whenever I am not being me in full I am playing a game. Thanks for brining raising this topic, it offers a much needed reflection for us all.
Wow what a blog Nikki. The games we play are rife in society and just as it is so important to self care and nurture, it is equally as important for us to be honest as you have been about what we do to stop ourselves living our true power.
Games require effort and they seem to have a benefit. When we don’t need the benefit, the effort looks futile.
I thank you for your clear and concise sharing Nikki! You could have been almost describing my behaviour. I hadn’t really considered that I was game playing but I now see how clearly, it is, so there is the opportunity for me now to change this behaviour !
‘The truth is, I’m tired of these games and through this exhaustion I have realised that I can step out at any time. That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them.’ Great point Nikki, we have the power to just be ourselves no matter the situation, but I too can relate to choosing to not fully be myself in many situations, instead being like a little tortoise hiding in its shell. That’s no way to live!
Absolutely Anne. I love the point Nikki makes about exhaustion too, playing games is mentally and physically taxing whereas being yourself is fun,light and much easier on the body and mind.
“to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind”.
What I have come to realise is this wall we build does the complete opposite to what we build it for, for it prevents us from dealing with our hurts. The only way to really let go of our hurts is by choosing to come out from behind this ‘wall’ and begin building trust and acceptance of ourself and it surely follows that as we come to know, understand and build a more honest relationship with ourselves then we are able to understand and have more honest relationships with others.
We waste so much time and effort in playing these small games and we know it! Ah, but it so familiar and so comfortable and God forbid the thought that we are actually perfectly able to play in the ‘Big Game’.
Its very rare to find people who aren’t playing games, be that gauging how much of themselves to show or using behaviours to deflect away from deeper relationships. I love how honest you are willing to be Nikki, to me that is the first step towards creating more meaningful relationships.
I love the honesty in this blog and the personal responsibility and reflection it generates.
I agree Nikki playing these kind of holding back games is exhausting. And they are exhausting because for each person the game can change, to keep up with the facade we have built time and time again. It is so humbling to be open and allow others in and to express honestly with another. I’ve had moments but are still choosing to re-turn to the playing field. Time for a greater dose of honesty and exposing. Thanks Nikki for the reminder!
Nikki, thank you! it can become quite complicated when we feel that the games are our truth of a situation or event, but definitely not the whole truth. Over the last few months I have become more aware of my level of game playing with different people in my life.
Nikki its lovely to ready your blog and for you to be so open and honest is a great inspiration. I know I have games I play with myself too, so this has just inspired me to go deeper in myself.
It is beautiful to get to a place where you are so incredibly honest with yourself that you realise the games that give you the illusion of protecting yourself from being hurt, hurt you far more than just being the gorgeous you ever could.
Really before Serge presented on this I didn’t see the level to which we hold back with each other and what I did see I had just come to accept that this is ‘just normal’ so I no longer challenged it but became it too.
It is great awareness to note that the protection we build around ourselves is actually the most effective way we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to harm.
It’s so interesting how we calibrate ourselves in the ways you describe Nikki. I too can put my hand up for this kind of dishonest behaviour. It’s great to out these things in ourselves and share them on platforms such as this so we all get to reflect. Just one of the reasons I love and appreciate these blog site forums!
Nikki this is such an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the games people play and the games I participate in. Already I find myself pondering the ways I get caught up in these games and the way I manipulate others. Playing games can come down to some very fine detail which we may be prepared to overlook because we tell ourselves they don’t matter and I think this is what you are referring to in your comment – ‘By adding an element of what is not true and loving to the relationship, the connection that I have with others, and even myself, becomes corrupted with complication’. Naming the game is very powerful and bringing the spotlight to how ‘complication corrupts’ is truly a blessing to all that read this article. Thank you.
Its is great when we can get honest about all the different games we play to control and manipulate situations. It is as if we have learnt so many of them growing up but not learnt the most important lesson and that is we are enough just as we are and we don’t need to play any game or protect ourselves from hurt as we are the ones that tend to hurt ourselves the most.
It is the honesty we need to get to, to unravel our games, and see the truth, nothing more but, so often we are scared of being honest, as it doesn’t give us a way out. It exposes our own lies, created to stay in “comfort”. While in the end we all know that the comfort isn’t truly comfortable it is a place of irresponsibility.
Game, set and match to Nikki for this excellent blog! Or perhaps the score is ‘Love all’ as we all equally benefit from the wisdom that has been shared.
Playing games with myself has been a regular occurrence in my life and not so fun. The games I play also dumb me down, reduce me to my seeming ‘issues’ and not allow me to see the bigger picture. The bigger picture being that I am part of the Universe, made of love and totally connected to everything. When I play the ‘small card’ and reduce myself I am blind to the potential of awareness I could be living and remain comfortable in not knowing. But, this game is up and I am taking the blond fold off!
‘The more we live it, the more we love it’… this is a great ‘motto’ for life! I’m feeling the same way with taking responsibility for the quality of energy I am in, at first it seems challenging to be aware but the more I do it the more I realise that NOT being aware and checking out from life is far more exhausting then the other.
Brilliant blog Nikki, it really exposes how playing these games with each other blocks our ability to trust, be open and allow love to flow. I agree, no one can hurt us, so what are we protecting ourselves from? I realised that when I feel hurt by others it is because I have taken things personally and also due to holding onto past hurts which clouds my ability to observe and be loving. By choosing to be myself keeps it real and keep things really super simple.
I have been becoming acutely aware of playing dumb in the last few months. I can feel how I do actually know and that there is a murky energy I have welcomed in, standing between me and my knowing. It is quite uncomfortable to feel but it feels like the beginning of saying no more to this way of managing and controlling life.
I love the way you write Nikki. It is so clear and simple and to the point. You always seem to address something that is very in my face too, so this article is perfect in its timing. I have been aware of playing this game for quite some time now. What I am left with is an ache of not letting myself be me or allowing my relationships to blossom to their full extent. I can feel what seems like a huge chasm between the genuine me and the fake me I present. You are on the money, that it is all about control and protection.
Nikki I love this, and this is so apt for me at the moment as I have been committed to outing my spirit more and stopping myself when I am going to move from an old pattern, or way of being that doesn’t serve me and is actually holding me back. It feels amazing to be truly honest in that moment and out myself when I start to choose to just not do what I did before.
When we have expectations of another they feel a rejection as we are not accepting them as they are – we are sending them the message that they are not enough. This is the same for us when we expect ourselves to be other than who we are we are saying we are not enough. Expectations are charged with emotions, ideals, beliefs and judgements. I agree Nikki, it is of the utmost importance to really examine closely how we are living so we are no harming ourselves and other people.
Honesty pays you good fortune. Being the real you provides space for you and others to understand. What I love about the energetic truth it is either a game of truth or a game of manipulation, and as Nikki describes a simple choice which one you want to play.
Yes, very familiar story Nikki, one that I can observe in myself, observe, and make it about people first not just me controlling the game. It’s an ongoing awareness as I feel to some extent it’s part of the game of life we all play out, when we are not open and honest in every aspect of our lives, but hiding behind some imagined wall.
I have been feeling these games myself today in my relationship with my wife and the tug of war I have internally between really wanting to go there and deepen our connection and our relationship, and the fear of being completely open and vulnerable and letting someone fully in. I can feel however how painful it is to limit my life in this way and the richness of joy, love and connection that is available to me and everyone else at any time if we let go of our protection.
And that richness of when we do go there feels completely like it would be never ending.
Nikki your willingness to be so deeply honest with yourself is always an inspiration to feel, it offers others an incredible reflection and the many who are lucky enough to meet you, a true relationship.
Exactly, an invitation to be love on a deeper level.
I love your last line about loving the feeling of being honest and real more than the game playing. For me I have realised that playing the games you speak of was so automatic that I was hardly aware that I was playing them, and that I can be extremely stubborn about letting go of ways of being that are identified with the game playing. But I do live a far more authentic life than I did prior to listening to the teachings of Universal Medicine and for that I am truly thank-full.
Very beautifully shared Nikki. It is through this degree of honesty that we expose all the subtle ways we hold ourselves back from sharing all that we are with each other and in the world. It is so true what you have shared, that we only hurt ourselves when we separate from the love we naturally are through which we play the games of dimming down, shutting out, playing small, building walls around to supposedly ‘protect’ us from getting hurt. I have realised that whenever I do this, disconnect from my love within, I am avoiding the responsibility of being all that I am and living truth in that moment. This is very revealing but also a great opportunity to deepen my relationship with living in connection to my Soul.
Hello Nikki and this concept you have and are beginning to step into seems like it is very refreshing for you. As you are saying we can choose to be who we truly are or not which then allows a whole range of things to stand in your place. The games you are talking about are true and a control most of the time for us not to be hurt by something or someone. This is all based on being hurt in the past and often has very little to do with whatever you are faced with. The more we allow ourselves, our true selves out the less gaps there are for other things to enter and as you also say Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon are the supporters of this. I appreciate the initial steps you are taking here, thank you.
Oh don’t we all play this silly game to some extent. In superficial conversation we never get to truly know ourselves or truly love and connect to others. It’s like an armor of protection that does not protect us at all. I too am learning that with an open heart you don’t need any protection and you can have the deep intimate relationships we all yearn for.
Thank you Nikki for bringing so much awareness and honesty to the sneaky energetic games that are played when it comes to hiding or protection. The picture of the hearts and crosses describes brilliantly how I can maneuver around people and situations for my own purpose but it can be fairly automatic, like I’m being played like a chess piece. This is where the honesty comes in for me, to be super aware of the moves I make and if they aren’t true and allowing an open honest connection with another then I can choose again.
Beautiful Nikki, it shows that we got so much to give, but we actually can hold it in – hence the disease in the world and wars. Because when we let it out , all we can find is inner trust, inner love, inner harmony, inner divinity and there is no space for anything but All. We can confirm it or hide it, it is up to us!
One game I used to play all the time was a sneaky game of secretly competing against my girlfriends. I would conceal information or launder it, as a matter of course, all with the intention of either me ‘getting ahead’ of my friends or of holding my friends back. Interestingly the behaviours that I have just described have stopped but I am still aware that there is a residue of them in my body still.
The games people play are unlimited and so constant that we have all lost sight of the fact that there are very few truthful interactions between people, be that either at work or at home. We have all learnt to make it up as we go, which is scandalous really when you look at what it is that we are choosing to create!
These games can be almost anything. You can use kissing or having sex which would seem to be the most intimate thing to block out and hold back the connection you are feeling. I appreciate how you say Nikki that these games take two to play, and go both ways as equally having expectations is like being obsessed with the rules of the game. For myself I can see how I create sadness, dramas and intensity to get attention and sympathy but keep out the huge Love I feel with another. At the end of the day, in these game playing cases, we think we get away with it but the fact is everyone looses.
We can only start unraveling the many faces we have mastered to put on when we seek honesty and observe ourselves, as otherwise we are playing dumb, in that we are not consciously registering what is in truth going on.
.Nikki as you have so beautifully expressed, honesty is an absolute game changer. Being honest supports us to take down the barriers that prevent us from getting to the truth.
The walls of protection are the foundation for living the lie of manipulation, dishonesty and separation from our gloriousness and thus others.
True and unshakeable foundations are re-build from re-connection to the innermost essence through honesty, discarding of old momentums, listening to the body and a willingness to make different choices to come back to the love and stillness that patiently awaits our return.
Nikki this a great reminder of how our choices are the origin of these games that we let play out and we have the power to change them from simply making new choices. Complication eventually goes out of the window as self honesty becomes the way.
“The truth is, I’m tired of these games and through this exhaustion I have realised that I can step out at any time. That is, I started them and so equally, I can finish them. It is a simple choice but one I cannot make unless I am incredibly honest with myself”.
The games seem to get more cunning as we grow up. Its obvious when a child is hurt or throwing a tanty, but grown adults throw tantys everyday in much more different ways.
Its great that you are able to nominate these behaviours Nikki – certainly the first step in being honest with the games we play. Its funny how we think we are protecting ourselves but really we are just hiding.
“I started them and so equally, I can finish them.” This says it all for me in terms of the games I too know that I play. And after reading this I wondered to myself – if I have spent so much time hiding away – how would it feel to let people see the all of what I can bring? What if I even opened up to showing what I can bring to myself? and what does ‘showing all I can bring?’ look like? because often if I have a mental image of what something or a situation ‘is’ (as if that image were the truth) then I am redirected from how my whole body feels about the situation and like you shared Nikki anything that does play out has then started on an untrue footing thus everything following is not true.
Awesome article Nikki,
I love the honesty you bring into living life, thank you. Honesty can be rather confronting, but such confrontation is a red flag for me, my own little regulator, as when I feel it, I know that my body is saying to me – Leigh, you may be and continue to be living life in this way, but it doesn’t fit with who you really are, my red flag to me to introduce another way.
‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself.’ I love this truth as I am over people using the excuse that they cannot do this or that because they may get hurt, it’s a load of nonsense and indulgent.
Wow Nikki, I had to read your blog through twice… I can so relate to playing games, hiding behind the wall, not letting people in, playing dumb and if I am honest, manipulating situations so I can remain in the comfort of keeping myself small. This of course, is the ultimate irresponsibility, not letting people see us in our full glory because that way they don’t get the reflection of who they are either. I salute your honesty in coming out and expressing the games you play, but feel you are not alone, we all do it, the difference is that you and I are becoming more and more aware of our behaviour so that we can nut out what is not true and stop playing the game. So thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for teaching us that it is safe to come out from behind the wall, and that brick by brick we will allow the world to see us in our full glory.
It’s interesting to consider that we play all sorts of games with both ourselves and each other. It’s like playing hide and seek, except we play mostly hiding. That’s certainly been my MO. I can still feel myself doing this. I catch myself out sometimes avoiding eye contact and cutting myself and others off with short sharp answers that invite no connection, which feels awful. I am aware of this which is step one, but the important thing has been recognising that this is not me at all. Knowing this is making it much easier to work with when this old pattern arises.
The sense I got from your experiences here was how complicated (and tiring) life becomes when we are playing this game… but not only is it just one game, it is multiple games with multiple people! Therefore I can surmise that honesty is a big fat key to ridding ourselves of exhaustion.
I can totally relate to what is mentioned in this blog. The subtle of digs, playing dumb or being less than what we can bring.
I can relate to what you have shared ,Nikki. I can feel the resistance I have to being open with others at times and of course the main person I am hurting is me. I have felt the hardness in my body when this happens. Thank you for bringing this up as I can make a choice for it to be different.
Nickki I love the honesty of your blog and I can relate to what you share…’to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in-truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind.’ It’s easy to hide behind excuses about why we can’t be all of us, or why we can’t shine. A game we are so invested in that we don’t want to actually see that we have set it up this way!
Yes, Nikki it is amazing to what lengths we will go to avoid letting go of control and as you say this is exhausting us. This is so perverse as when we allow ourselves to let go we can feel the flow of life force expands our body. I have been realising that I will allow a relationship to go so far and then I find a distraction – it’s as though what I am being offered is ‘too much’ when this ‘too much’ is simply a deeper connection to my soul. It’s awesome to have this realisation and to begin to stay with the discomfort of the ‘too much’ as I allow for a deeper connection to unfold.
“I want to let people in, to allow intimacy and to let my love out – but none of this is possible while I am playing these games.” Hiding behind a wall – believing we are protecting ourselves when in fact we are separating ourselves from the rest of humanity, is a game so many of us play. As you say “It is a simple choice but one I cannot make unless I am incredibly honest with myself.” So what do we choose?
Thank you Nikki, it requires a huge amount of honesty to look at the games we play in order to avoid intimacy and manipulate situations to keep people at arms length. And we do know just how damaging this is to both parties, because true intimacy, the openness, love and connection that arises from being transparent and honest is what we are all yearning to experience again. I will ponder your blog throughout my day, as it offers me a way to expose my own games and put an end to the pretense.
It’s true that when we feel hurt by someone, we often overlook the fact that this could actually be because we have put expectations on that person to be a particular way, and thus feel disappointed, let down or ‘hurt’ when they don’t meet our image. What we also forget is the impact our expectations have on other people, who feel that instead of having a relationship with them we would rather be in relationship with the ‘ideal’ them, and thus it makes sense for them to react too, and the quality of any relationship can deteriorate from this.
I can so relate to your article. It is as if, in life, we have mostly been living in a very superficial and selfishly geared way, a way of control and protection. The more we can feel this in ourselves and allow those knots we have tied ourselves in to loosen the easier and simpler and more loving life is. It is an ongoing process that, for myself, I seem to allow in fits and starts but overall I can feel the honesty deepening and the freedom this offers… freedom from those games that lock us in, like a jigsaw puzzle, to the falseness, that we allow to keep us from the truth.
A very honest blog Nikki. There are so many games we play all the time with each other. it takes honesty and dedication to expose them and take a look in order to attempt to change this.
PS. I love your bio – ‘practising sitting still for long enough so that my nail polish can dry without smudging.’ ????
Nail polish: not just self loving, but encourages stillness ????????
Me too!
These wise words: “It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself” are the priceless key to ending the many games, particularly the universal blame game, that so many of us play too often; in fact I know that at times I didn’t even realise I was playing a game, just thought this was a normal way to live, but I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Ouch!
It is beautiful to feel a truer connection with others as I start to let go of the games I have played to keep myself ‘protected’ however it is not my consistent choice. I am more conscious of when I am not being honest with myself and others but I still get caught in the complication of putting a veneer of niceness that is not nice at all. Just yesterday a colleague irritated me with their behaviour and I shut down (not before making it clear that I was not impressed) and the connection that had been growing was instantly lost. Thank you for exposing this continuing pattern and my unwillingness to go there with my level of honesty.
I relate to what you’re saying, Nikki. I have often felt more comfortable when I can control a situation and thus limit or put an unspoken restriction on bringing the full me. But why not bring the full me to everything I do? If I really truly know what an awesome person I am, why hold that back on the off chance I might get hurt?
Nikki, this is great to raise and much to ponder on, I can really relate to this, ‘It is impossible for another to hurt me, I can only hurt myself – and I do this either by having expectations on another person to be a certain way and then I get hurt when they do not perform to my standards’, I do this and can feel how this stops any true connection, I can have a picture or ideal of how I want someone to be and can try and control the person to make them like this rather than allowing them to be and accepting them as they are, the trying to control someone of course does not work and is really hard work.
I could feel the truth when I read the line “to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in-truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind.”. This means to me that I’m actually hurting myself everyday – if I’m honest. There are moments that I let the wall go, but mostly I am protecting myself, which in truth is hiding myself. The difference to me is the focus. If the focus is on others, the outside world I can get away with needing to protect myself. But if I take responsibility just for me, I’m responsible for myself and have a choice to feel me and the world around me or not. Understanding this pattern lovingly is hugely important for me as I’m so used to be critical of myself – which is in fact part of the wall – rather than catch myself playfully and laugh about the game that I was just playing (again).
This is a game I have played too Nikki and it serves no one. By allowing myself to be less than who I truly am, does not offer a reflection or inspiration for anyone to be more of who they are. It is a comfortable place to be or so it seems, because it does not test me or question how I am living. Accepting the status quo of holding back is no longer an option as I learn to push the boundaries of my comfort and explore what it is to me in full. What I do know life is much fuller, richer and more enjoyable when I live me in all my fullness.
A very familiar game Nikki;’to build a wall that supposedly keeps me safe from being hurt but really in-truth, it’s a wall I have built to hide behind.’ And just like you say I have been the builder of this wall so I am the one who can break it down. Breaking the wall down bit by bit I have let in more intimacy in my relationships, it feels quite vulnerable from time to time but that is part of being honest and transparent. With sharing my love I have discovered how much I love people and what a joy this way of living is.
‘I keep myself in separation to others and my interactions lack truth’, this is how I lived all of my life until I discovered Serge Benhayon and attended his many courses….. and over the years, I have developed a deeper connection with myself which has resulted in a deeper connection with others.
We all to some extent play these games Nikki, and for me personally as soon as i perceived I have been hurt I go into an old belief that plays out like this: see I am much better on my own, so in effect I take my distance and lose connection…… but I am also getting honest with this and calling it which will support me to cut the cord to a belief that I have long outgrown!
I am very familiar with these games too Nikki and I am just coming to the realisation of how exhausting they are and that actually being me and not playing games feels so much lighter in my body and an enjoyable way to be that I’m staggered by my persistency not to pretend the games don’t exist.
Ahh, yes, Nikki, I can relate very much to what you share here, especially around putting expectations on situations or relationships and then feeling justified in being hurt when things do not go according to the picture I had created. Such games do we play rather than simply staying connected to ourselves and our bodies and taking responsibility for the quality we live in, that is completely our choice and not determined by another.
I love this exposure of the games we play Nikki. I noticed a lot of games that I play, especially in my relationship with my partner. We noticed that often one of us is open and then the other is pushing away and it would change immediately if the person in ‘pushing away mode’ started to be open again. Really silly. We call it games and games should be fun but I agree with you I do not like these games they are not supporting us at all.
Nikki you hit the nail on the head, yet when I started to read your post I had the expectations the games were about being bad etc.. however what stood out was the truth – the fact we play the games to stop the amazing powerful person we are and halt the depth of love we can hold another in and experience with all others. This is a real wake up call about the reason behind the games, the avoidance of our grandness.
It is interesting that we can easily feel when someone else is hiding behind protection and not being who they truly are but we think and believe that others cannot feel when we are playing this game.
Stopping this game is one of the hardest games to win. However, it cannot withstand complete honesty but are you willing to play that card?
It amazing that before we even open our mouths to communicate, our movements have already said so much, we are either already moving in a way that is open, allowing and reflecting the all or we are moving in a way that has already shut down to the majesty of life and to the divinity we all hold.
Thank you Nikki for sharing it is a great reminder that when we hold back in our interactions with others we all lose out.
Nikki, a profound moment: to finally and deeply expose and feel the games we play with ourselves and how they affect relationships. With self awareness we can step away from old patterns and begin to be truly intimate with self and others.
Thank you Nikki for your honest and truthful expose of the games we play. Your openness reminds me of beginning to unravel a knotted skein of wool so all have the reflection and opportunity to go deeper within to reveal the truth of our being, the protection and consequent manipulation in relationships. Well done you!
The problem with the silent energetic games we play is that we are cool with them because they ‘serve’ us well to avoid going where we could go otherwise. They help us to justify situations in a way that satisfies us. Thus, the games have as a goal to make life about self, not even about us. Yet, in truth is not even about self since when we play these games we even reduce quite a bit the relationship with ourselves.
Great point Eduardo. The first relationship we sabotage in these energetic games is our relationship with our God. How fooled we are to think this is not affecting everything. After all without this relationship, all of our relationships are lesser.
I feel you have taken a very sober step to a next level of honesty which for me and I am sure others is a bit uncomfortable to read as it is asking us to look the times when we don’t allow true intimacy with ourselves and others … what we do to keep ourselves and others at bay! This is definietly a blog to come back to and reflect on.
Great exposure Nikki. We actually get hurt the most when we try to control and manipulate, imagining we are protecting ourselves. The times when we truly do allow ourselves to be seen, and let others in is very beautiful, and we build a depth of relationship that is equally evolving.
To get to such a level of honesty Nikki is very inspiring. It requires taking responsibility for the fact that we are constantly measuring who to let in and by how much. As you so clearly outline we dont prevent feeling hurt by others because we are not relating from the fullnes of who we are.
So easily we get trapped in the superficiality that is our normal. We then wonder why we have bad habits such as overeating or overworking and so on… Then we try all kinds of tricks, techniques and therapies to overcome those habits, seeing them as the issue – whereas the real issue is the superficiality we allow ourselves to live by.
A truly honest blog Nikki as only through honesty we are able to unmask the insidious games we play to withhold us from connecting to one another and to build deeply intimate relationships – something in life we crave the most.
You never played that game very well with me Nikki as I have always been able to see how super gorgeous and powerful you are!
Very honest and succinct; we play a multitude of games and I have noticed that I know how to calibrate them exactly and to the finest detail, depending on the situation and the person/people I am with.
When I start playing games it becomes impossible to keep up with the lies I have to tell myself to live up to that game!
‘it is when I try to manipulate my interactions with another so that others do not see the real, full and gorgeous me, keeping the other person at bay’ ….. thank you for exposing these ‘sneaky games’ Nikki, I can totally relate to what you’re sharing. It feels awesome to be shining the light on these hidden corners of how we try to protect ourselves, when in fact we’re just minimising the flow of love from us to everyone else and, therefore, the amount of love that we receive in return.
The games we play are insidious and lurk in the dark, but when a true torch is shone on them from the honesty that you describe here Nikki they are exposed for the waste of time and energy that they are… and yes, we are in the hot-seat when it comes to saying ‘no more’ to them. Their foundation is a shaky one, based on the attempt of hiding how magnificent and soulfully-deep we truly are and when we choose to not hide this truth of ourselves their base crumbles with ease.
A total game-changer Nikki (I’m sure I won’t be the first to say this!) The more we allow ourselves to see, the more we allow ourselves to be. It is our chosen blindness that keeps us playing small and our choice to be more aware that allows us to play BIG in the truest sense. Our oscillation between these two points exposes our relationship with evolution – our willingness to return to the love that we are and ability to live this in full in all facets of our life. It’s like we get a taste of our true Grandness and freak out because in it we find all that we have so missed; the true joy, love, stillness, harmony and truth we each in essence are, but have not lived for so long. There is a very divine simplicity and natural order that comes with this, but it can be difficult to embrace initially because it instantly exposes the complexity (games) we have engaged with to offset the responsibility that comes with living the great light that we in-truth are.
I love this Liane: “The more we allow ourselves to see, the more we allow ourselves to be”, and of course it follows that by not allowing ourselves to see the truth that is in front of and all around us, we create a life that is full of complications which bury the truth even deeper. It is in simplicity that the truth is revealed and with it the “Grandness” that we are and have always been.
It is so true. We get so offended that people don’t get us but actually they can’t even possibly get us when we don’t show them who we are!
I had to laugh when I read this Lucy! It’s so true – we are often so quick to look at others mis-interpreting us, not ‘getting’ or understanding us or not communicating or connecting with us fully, when often it’s simply because we’re not being ‘all’ of us in the first place!
That is brilliant Lucy it is so true we go around not being us and expressing how we feel and then feel frustrated and upset that our relationships aren’t at the level of love that we know we can live. I feel that is where Serge and his family are such an inspiration of how love can be lived.
Yes right to the point Lucy – how can they indeed! How much more fulfilling can all our relationships with people be when we allow ourselves to be seen and express in full…
You nailed it Lucy! and speaking from my own experience, the times when I am really honest, simply say how I feel and let people see me brings the most understanding and loving response from others.
This is so true Luch Dahill. I had this experience with a colleague at work many years ago where I felt that there was friction between us as she would often ignore me or react to me walking into the office space. I spent some time blaming her as to why she would interact to me. It took some time to realise that I was the one that was holding back from her and living in reaction rather than just being me. It felt incredibly powerful to feel what it’s like be on the other side of the fence.
You are spot on Lucy. We can spend so much time being upset and hurt because others don’t ‘understand’ us, where as if we lived our lives just being who we are there would be nothing for others to not understand! Ultimately we are the ones who bring complexity into our own lives and then try to blame it on other people. And that is one crazy game.