Who's Pulling Your Strings: A Must Read Book!

A bit about Dr. Harriet Braiker's fine book, "Who's Pulling Your Strings:  How to Break the Cycle of Manipulation and Regain Control of Your Life."


What I love about this book:
It condenses and encapsulates the best and most practical aspects of many books about communication and self-confidence, all without having to read 7 - 10 books on separate topics related to manipulation.  If you find a particular aspect of manipulation comes up for you as you work through the book, it can be a great guide to point you in the direction for further study.  But if you're in a place in life and you need just the short version, it's a great book.

Braiker presents lists of questions related to particular traits and weak points that easily manipulated people tend to demonstrate.  In Chapter 13 entitled "How to Make Yourself a Hardened Target" (echoing details and groundwork presented in previous chapters in the book), the author lists several questions and several solutions to weak thinking that sets a person up for failure and manipulation.  Two sections in this chapter explore in greater depth the problems associated with Locus of Control, a topic recently explored here on this blog.

Read several excerpts from the book (in the form of several blog posts) HERE at UnderMuchGrace.com.


How to get the book:


I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and though it is worth buying (mine is delightfully covered with my own notes and highlights), you can now download it for free!  The download seems to be designed for a particular e-book software, but I was able to read the book in Adobe without any problems.

Order it from Amazon.com.

Enjoy, and I hope the book changes your life in the best of ways.

Breaking Free of Victim Mentality: Narcissism, Patriarchy, and the Locus of Control

Part of the problem with patriarchy involves the idea that by living a certain way, that behavior will have a controlling effect on other people.  If the wife behaves properly, her husband will become more “godly,” and this will not only give her the kind of husband she wants but will provide her with self-worth and identity.

Much of the book by the Botkin Sisters, “So Much More,” promotes this idea, suggesting that men can’t be the men God wants them to be without intervention on behalf the women in their lives.  Women need to prop up their men, be they daughters or wives, but this idea sells so well in the book because the mindset and theology strip women of much independent identity, authority, and worth.  Everyone needs to feel significant and valued, and patriarchy encourages followers to find these things in performance, outcome, and outward appearance.  I suppose this system works well for people who are very physically healthy and are enjoying pleasant seasons in life.  Things work well during fair weather.

On a more basic level, these beliefs suggest that we can have control over events in our lives if we follow “THE” formula, and assumption that life tends to be fair (if you do all of the right things).  Life is even more “fair” for those who are elite among the elect like the leaders and model citizens.   Under patriarchy, following a particular “law” yields particular results when those results have been properly merited, especially concerning spiritual things according to patriarchy’s mindset.

I recently spoke with a wife whose husband has a problem with a particular sin.  She admitted that she became involved with patriarchy because she believed that it would somehow make him stop engaging in this sin.  Her husband didn’t like the ideology, as many men don’t at first, but he definitely enjoyed the benefits that came with his dutiful wife’s submission after awhile.  Soon, he felt entitled to those benefits, just as he felt entitled to his particular sin.  Ahhhh.  There is that “entitlement” word again.