Can my mind play some games with you

There are infinite reasons why people play mind games, and just as many ways how people experience them. It is critical to be aware of the individual playing the mind game and equally vital to understand the context in which that person plays. Finally, how you normally react to these games is crucial in understanding how to deal with them in the future. First, understand that the purpose for a colleague or coworker playing a mind game is distinguishably different from your partner or family member playing a mind game. Learning the multifaceted nature of mind games will better equip you to deal with the extremely complex and mostly illogical reason for such games.

Gain, Preserve or Acquire Control: A chief reason people play mind games is to gain, preserve or acquire control. If they can elicit a particular response from you, or move you to do what they want, then this gives them the powerful feeling they are looking for, which makes them feel in control of you and the situation. If a person experiences little or no control at their job, for instance, this may be their way to make up for the loss of control at work by regaining that feeling with you. In essence, it’s a matter of insecurity on the part of the person playing the mind game. At this point, you have to look within to find out if you are giving up control for a specific reason, inclusive of intentionally satisfying the need of the person playing the mind game, or are you unwittingly being coerced, manipulated and controlled?

Feelings of insecurity might also come with resentment. If your partner is feeling as if they have no control of their lives or imagines himself (or herself) a failure, then it may be that they chose you specifically to take out their anger and frustrations, and sometimes this can be because you symbolize how they want to be. Maybe you exhibit confidence and success that they wished they had, and conceivably by playing their mind games they can feel like the winner for a change. After all, by beating a successful and confident person doesn’t that make them successful as well?

Relationships: Within relationships, mind games can be many times more complex and devious. Here the games are often planned and carried out in the form of testing, in an effort to see your reaction, to gage how much actual control they have in the relationship and to test their beliefs and insecurities. For example, someone you are dating invites you to go out with some friends and then becomes annoyed when you take them up on the offer. Possibly the original offer was a test to see if you would rather visit friends or spend time with them? If they get angry, you know you failed the test.

The above example shows the complex nature of mind games. What your date really wanted was for you to validate that you would prefer to be with them even when the choice is left up to you. Similarly, if your boyfriend (or girlfriend) is upset, they may not actually tell you or explain why, preferring instead to test your sensitivity to their needs. These mind games are extremely detrimental to relationships and often the player is unaware that they’re playing a mind game.

Means To An End: Mind games can purely be a means to an end. If you require something from a person and a direct approach has proven unsuccessful, then manipulating that person might be the only way to get what you want. Everyone has been on the receiving end of mind games, and we’re all probably a little guilty of using mind games at one time or another. We’ve all experienced those who appear to get enjoyment from testing and putting us through the psychological ringer.

They’re our colleagues, friends, family, and frequently, our partners in life. No matter who these people are it can be frustrating and potentially damaging. So how do you deal with them and how can you avoid ending up holding the short end of the stick? Let’s turn our attention to why people play and how we can turn those mind games to our advantage.

Dealing With Mind Games. The absolute best way to deal with a person playing mind games is to rise above them and the situation. Avoid the urge to beat them or come out on top, as this can readily end up with everyone getting hurt. Ordinarily, when mind games are used it’s because the person is afraid to confront you, or they know you would win in an argument. They employ the use of mind games as a manipulative tactic, because they’re insecure, or because you’re in the strongest position. If you call them on their use of mind games, and if you address the issue publicly, they will more often than not reverse their course and back down. In effect, you will have won the war before the first shot was ever fired.

As an example, if a colleague tries to publicly undermine you at work, you could attempt to do the same, and end up with mud on both your faces. Underhanded counter attacks rarely work without marking you as vindictive and vengeful. The better alternative, however, is to tell them you don’t appreciate what is being implied, and they should go through proper channels if they are displeased with your service(s). You’ll find the latter approach, spoken calmly and without any emotional inflection will often elicit an apology followed by immediate withdrawal, establishing you as the disciplined and measured personality. Simple is always better in the end.

In all types of relationships, the above scenario will also work exceptionally well. By this I mean not only responding in a calm and collected manner, but also quickly acknowledging the edge in someone’s voice and not avoiding it until the situation gets out of hand. Ask directly, calmly and without an accusatory tone, what it is that is bothering your partner, and if there is anything you can do to help.

This not only establishes your sensitivity and concern, but also indicates you are not going to engage in mind games that will end up with multiple feelings being hurt. If your partner is not in a talking frame of mind, then the best thing to do is remove yourself from the situation. Tell your partner that you don’t have the interest in playing games and that you will speak with them when they’re ready to openly and maturely talk. Once again, the simplest way is always the best way.

Most of us loves to show our superiority over others. How can we do it? By hurting that person. We can physically hurt someone and that's easy enough. We can gift them some mental/emotional harassment and that's even better. It's so much more entertaining as finding someone completely devastated and they can do noting about it. When one plays mind games and is successful, it is generally you put wrong amount of trust on a wrong person. This is tough as it requires patience, planning and good use of brains. It gives much more satisfaction than anything else. You will always find a good excuse to show that the victim is to blame themselves for this.

People playing mind games are generally people who waste their intelligence on hurting a person in the best way they can do it than making the person really like you. There can be various reason for that: 1. Some are born with it 2. For some it is like game. 3. For some it is a way of entertainment. 4. For some it is rivalry. 5. And for many it is to gain knowledge of the person. If you will try to find reasons, you will get it plenty. Some people are definitely just crazy. I have a friend who does it to confuse others so he can gain some advantage or take advantage of a situation. Me personally I would do that or similar type of mind game out of curiosity to guess the outcomes of certain situations, throw some wrenches in there and see if what I think will happen will happen. Most humans bore me so its a way to make socializing stimulating for me.

It's time for some truth. They want to get ahead, they want to win, they want to have this false sense of security and superiority. They want to know what other people are up to. They want to cheat of off them. They may even want to fool around or show off. In few extreme cases they may even be involved in a conspiracy to usurp your money or job or prove you are insane or criminal. Basically its a long list of things. Bottom line - Everybody is playing games.

Hang strong! Some of these people have legitimate mental disorders such as psychopathy whilst others may just get satisfaction by "having control" of your emotions and attention.This can be difficult to deal with at times but ultimately you are in control of your re-actions. Once you can find a good system (or systems) of blocking out the confusion that comes back to you, you may then feel more comfortable with reiterating your message and finding confirmation of understanding on the other end. Meditation is awesome (not even just blowing steam here!) and it is not what everyone depicts it as (aum).

I met people like that too, and I've never appreciated them. Mind gaming is like a natural ability developed from a smart brain. Most of people with this ability i met had been using it to gain certain self-benefits in communicating stuff, but I appreciated the ones who used it to fight back bad mind games from others. Anyway straight to the point, it is simply their habit in every talk, whatever they would do, be naive like we have never understood what they said. What they want is making our brain hurt by thinking of their implied words, the more we ignore, the fooler they look, not us. Cheers!