A Case History of a Soft Orientation

The other night I was lying down, exhausted because of a recent shopping trip (see said shopping trip for socks with hangover below). At the same time that I was taking it easy, I was chatting with my son, and at one point I shushed him for his volume. I wanted him to take it down a notch because the noise was hurting my ears. Unperturbed, he put on a deep, commercial announcer’s voice and said, “Do you have a soft in your family?”

And I smiled and thought, “Thank god for the Elias material,” because we could now joke about something that for a long time was a mystery to all of us—that is, my proclivities and behavior. What’s normal for me is not normal for most of the people I know. What’s normal for them is pretty weird for me (though I’ve tried for many years to make it my norm).

Here’s a typical example of something that comes naturally for me, but can seem strange to others: I can think for hours about a topic, trying to work out logistics in my head. Normally, but not always, it’s some sort of concept having to do with time/space. It looks like I’m doing nothing. I’ll usually lie down, and to the casual observer it seems like I’m staring into space. A few years ago, when I first got seriously involved with ideas of time/space, I began to do this with some frequency because I didn’t understand the mechanics of what I was reading, and I had a deep desire to understand it completely. So I would lie down and try to figure it out.

Now, this was a kind of public thing I was engaging. We live in a one bedroom apartment, and our bed was in the living room. I’d lie on the bed in the middle of the living room, trying to figure out the physics of different mental states. I’m most interested in the translation of energy from one state to another, and as I’d do this thinking I began to notice a pattern. Invariably, my son would interrupt me and ask me if I wanted to read some of his comic books. Often, after I’d said no, he’d put a small pile of them next to the bed, like an offering or plea.

Then I noticed that when my husband was home and I was doing this kind of thinking, he would turn on a movie (we didn’t have television at that time), and then he’d watch the movie until I sat up and got hooked. Then he’d go off and do something else. This type of thing happened over and over, and I thought, “What’s going on here?”

Then I realized that they were worried about me. They thought that I was depressed, and so they were trying to cheer me up. Thereafter, I sat down with them and explained that I wasn’t depressed, that I was thinking through concepts. They sort of nodded, but I could tell that they weren’t entirely convinced. It wasn’t surprising, therefore, when they continued to interrupt me. I decided that the only way they were going to believe me is if I started sharing what I was thinking about.

Every time they’d interrupt me, I’d ask, “Do you want to know what I’m thinking about?” And whether they wanted to or not, I began to explain what I was thinking through, and it was usually complicated and in-depth. It got to the point that all I had to do was utter that sentence, and they’d say, “NO!” because they knew I’d go into a forty-five minute lecture on the nature of reality.

These days, when they see me laying down, staring into space, they joke that, “Mom’s working.” And every once in a while, they’ll ask what I’m thinking about because they’re bored or curious. For the most part, they know that I’m not doing nothing.

Lots of what softs do looks like nothing. But before I go into that, for those of you who haven’t read about orientations in the Elias material, here’s my abbreviated version. I do not guarantee accuracy. Feel free to visit the Elias website for the real deal.

Orientation, in my understanding, is the way an individual processes information. We are not all made alike. Not by a long shot.

According to the Elias material, and I believe it, there are three types of orientations, and our culture, at this point in time, is dominated by the common orientation. Here’s a little rundown. I’ve put my shorthand for the orientations in parenthesis: 

Common (Objectively Oriented)
The vast majority of people are common oriented. That is, the thrust of their attention is on the objective imagery we call physical life. They’re focused on objects: the forms that we call the environment, events, and people. That’s where they get most of their information, from the outer world.

Soft (Subjective/Objective Oriented)
A minority of people are soft oriented. These individuals have their attention split between objective imagery and the inner realm that we call the subjective. They’re interacting and getting information from both at the same time, not unlike having two people speaking to you at once.

Intermediate (Subjective Oriented)
An even smaller number of people are intermediate oriented. They have the thrust of their attention on the inner, subjective reality.

Now everyone is in an objective reality, perceiving objects, and everyone is getting inner, subjective information, intuitions, etc. as well, but the thrust of your attention will be oriented in one of those three directions mentioned above. Thus, the actual experiences and inclinations of an individual will vary significantly, depending on his/her orientation because the individual is literally perceiving in a particular manner that varies.

In other words, each individual, depending on her/his orientation, is wired differently. Which is a great thing, except that our culture is set-up based on the mass orientation, the common orientation. This is an advantage if you’re oriented in that direction, but for me, not understanding that I was hardwired differently, it has been a haul.

So finding the material on softs was like someone giving me permission to be myself. It has been not unlike being led out of a very complicated maze. In light of that, I wanted to share some of my personal experiences with this orientation for those of you who are common or intermediate oriented and want to know what it’s like to be soft, and for other softies who might not know that they’re wired different from current mass culture.


My Inclinations Are Oriented Toward the “Imagination”

I put the word “imagination” in quotes because most people consider the imagination as something that is “not real.” So much of what soft oriented people are inclined to do or think is considered “not real.” Here’s an example of something I’ll never get “credit” for, but happened nonetheless. It’s a typical kind of energy thing that a soft individual might be inclined to do.

My husband called me from work one day a few years ago and told me that his boss was being taken by ambulance to Stanford for emergency heart surgery. My husband knew that I was interested in energy, and that I’d done a lot of reading about healers and so forth, and so he was telling me about this to get my take on the situation because he was worried about her. The first thing I did was to feel into the situation. I think of it as “reading my gut.” I have no idea how I get the information or where it comes from, but I can tell certain things by the nature of the feelings in my stomach.

I interpreted what I was feeling, and I said to my husband, “She’s going to be fine. There’s nothing wrong with her heart. She’s just stressed, and she needs to know that she’s loved.” I asked my husband if he wanted me to help her out, and he said yes.

When I got off the phone, I laid down on the floor and talked to her in my mind, telling her that everything would work out with her business and that she didn’t have to take on the weight of the world, and that she was loved and that I loved her (I didn’t even know her), and then I did a visual of her in the prettiest light I could come up with. Then I got up and forgot about it.

When my husband came home, he said that when his boss had arrived at Standford, they had tested her and determined that there had been some mistake and that there was nothing wrong with her heart. They sent her home. I wasn’t at all surprised, and yet in our culture that whole sceneario is considered a non-event. It’s considered an impossibility or a “coincidence.” And yet:

I knew beforehand that there was nothing wrong with her heart, even though the experts thought it was worth their while to cart her all the way to Stanford, which is quite a hike from where we live. How did I know? Because I could feel it, and feelings aren’t “nothing.”

I knew she was receptive to help. That is, I knew that if someone directed loving energy to her that she would use it to correct the situation.

I was willing to send that type of energy, and did so.

What I knew would happen actually came to pass.

For a non-event, there certainly was a lot of information and directed intent. And yet the reason it’s viewed as a non-event is that it deals with intangibles. It deals with pure feeling, pure knowing, and the imagination.

With the common orientation, the familiar is to translate knowledge (you can call it data or energy) into something tangible such as a book or an objective experiment or a lecture or some other physically tangible means of trading ideas between individuals. It might be done by speaking into a metal object such as a cell phone or over words seen on a screen such as email. That’s the proclivity, to turn information into an object that is then perceived. Which is a beautiful thing. It’s just that it’s not the only way to trade information.

I, personally, have had a very difficult time in this culture because my inclination is not always to turn something into a perceivable experience. I deal heavily with the imagination, and at this juncture in time, this is considered “not doing anything.” Thus, my natural energy is always wanting to “not do anything.” I am constantly torn between doing things that the mass culture believes are real (things you can see) and what I believe is fundamental to my being (things you cannot see). They’re both real, but one is not seen as such because much of it can’t be measured with an objective device.


I Do Not Function Well in A Structured Environment

In one of the recent Elias transcripts about softs, it mentioned that softs have a difficult time with structure, but appreciate order. I say, “Amen” to that. I love order, but hate structure. Hate is a pretty strong word, but I do not do well in structured environments. I have done well in them if you’re just looking at the outside, but from the inside, I rebel, rebel, rebel. Structured environments are completely unnatural for me. I have endured them in a desperate effort to fit in, but even my best attempts to maintain that endurance have failed.

Now, my feelings about structured environments has been really confusing because I love learning, but hate the rigidity of schools. I love mixing it up with people and being useful, but I hate being told what to do and where to do it. I am wildly creative, but that creativity has it’s own sense of timing. I want to fit into the larger culture, but my whole being does not function naturally when it is squeezed into a 9 to 5 kind of thinking. This has made me torn. I want to belong, but know innately that I don’t belong in the major part of the presently established sort of structures.

For most of my life, knowing that I wasn’t built like everyone else, I’ve tried to conform to make up for that “flaw.” I’ve tried to produce tangible outcomes, all the while knowing this was not my inclination. In fact, I don’t even value much of the type of production I’ve done. Some of it, but not most of it. So, I’ve been moving against my own values most of my life. It has been like walking around in a constant state of guilt and rebellion. Because on the one hand, I value my abilities. I think in some ways I’m extraordinary. On the other hand, I’ve felt deeply inappropriate for having the audacity to think, and be, different. How dare I not fit the established structures? Who did I think I was?

Mentally, I’ve taken the attitude: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m not good enough to fit all of this,” while at the same time thinking, “Piss off world for not acknowledging and valuing what I am. I count.” It’s exhausting, that duality. And a not particularly effective way to live.

That’s changed recently. After reading about the soft orientation, I’m giving myself much more credit for fitting in, but in my own way and on my own terms. I realize that different doesn’t mean bad. There’s room in our culture for me to be just the way I am. I can structure my life so that I can do what I want when I want to do it, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It facilitates a kind of creativity that I know is valued by others.

You see, softs are good at a lot of interesting things. They’re good at tapping into information and then translating it in such a fashion that’s usable to others. Mass culture wants that. And softs are also good at sending energy love notes. Mass culture wants that. Furthermore, softs are pretty passionate people. Mass culture wants that.

It used to be that I envied others, others that I now know are of the common orientation. I’ve known people who loved to work with cars, for instance, and you could just feel that love in every motion. There was a genuine appreciation for the form of the car and its function and their own ability to put things together and make things work. I often thought, “Why can’t I have that kind of passion for some ‘thing?’” I had passion up the wazoo, but not for “things.”

I’ve seen the same sort of dedication directed at a business. You just knew these people loved what they were doing. They loved the activity. I’ve wanted to have that kind of love for something like that, something that the mass found valuable, my whole life. Not knowing it, I have had that kind of directed attention, that kind of passion, but I’d automatically labeled my passions as inappropriate because they didn’t produce the kind of outcomes recognized by mass culture, and they couldn’t be structured “properly.” In other words, these activities don’t always come with a paycheck (though they can) and they don’t always respond to a scheduled work environment (though they can).

It can be baffling. For instance, I’ve known that I’ve had a talent for problem solving. I received an A+ in contracts in law school, which is unheard of. But to me contracts were easy because the essence of it was something I’d been doing my whole life. Give me a situation, and I can give you ten ways to deal with it off the top of my head. But here’s the thing, if you put me in an office and try to schedule that ability, I don’t do well. I feel locked in. I will want to blow up the building. My resistance runs pretty strong when you try to harness my talents and fit them into parcels of time.

So I’ve often wondered how I could fit. I can do things. I have abilities that are valued, but structure those abilities and, to put it mildly, I go nuts. What do you do with that?

You build different structures. You build structures based on spontaneity. I’m engaged, at present, in just that.


I Get Overwhelmed With Inner Information

It’s common (no pun intended) for softs to read people with some depth. I know what you think of me the minute I meet you. This isn’t unusual. Everyone gets a feeling from anyone they meet, but when I meet someone I get a lot more information than a one-dimensional feeling. I’ll know the substance of what you think of me, and I’ll know the gist of your main issues. It has made me like a deer in the headlights when I’m dealing with people. Here’s why.

When I talk to someone I’m reading them in two ways. I’m looking at their facial expressions, listening to their words and the tone of their voice, and taking in their gestures. At the same time, I can feel the substance of what they’re thinking. I feel it in my stomach and feel it in the reaction in my body’s energy. In the past, when someone was critical of me (and that’s almost everyone because in our culture we’re taught to compare and make judgments) I’d feel the energy like small lightning bolts being thrust into my stomach. It’s obnoxious and odious, and there’s no mistaking the feeling.

And yet, the person I’m talking to may be smiling and saying pretty words and even intend well. So, I’m taking in the smile and the pretty words, hearing the underlying tone, taking in the small gesture of annoyance (despite their intent), perhaps, and at the same time feeling this hideous feeling.

How do you react? What thing do you react to in this exchange?

Our culture takes the uppermost level: the words and the smile. I’m supposed to ignore the tone, ignore the gestures, and the underlying energy doesn’t even exist.

To me, the underlying energy is the most real part of the entire encounter.

Now, take it up a notch and go to Target, like I did, and do it with a hangover, like I did. I can’t walk into a large store and function if I don’t prepare myself before the event for this reason: I’m flooded with information as I walk by every single person in the store.

Luckily, my husband knows this about me. He knows if my energy is off before we go shopping. He’ll put me in an aisle like a toddler, telling me that he’ll “be right back,” all the while knowing he’s going to find me no better off when he returns, staring at the merchandise in an indecisive stupor. This is because I’m distracted not just by all of the items on display, but by each person in the store. If I was a cloud, then every time I passed a person or three or seven of them, some of that cloud would float away with the person I passed. It’s like having your attention in many directions at once, too many directions to keep track of.

In this, I’m picking up all kinds of information about them, things I really don’t need to know or even want to know. It’s not like I get a laundry list with specifics. It’s the main issues. Invariably, it’s some different tint on the person’s evaluation of their own self-worth. Interesting, but extremely distracting when all you’re trying to do is buy socks.

How To Function At A Soft

I’ve discovered that if you’re a soft and you want to avoid being overwhelmed with inner and outer information, you have to train yourself into two philosophies: