Despondent

Manatee’s Story

Insights are legion in Manatee’s solitary travels for she is a careful observer. Pity she has no means to promote that knowledge, trapped as she is in lairs beneath the surface.

The Manatee is a resident of both the Savannah of Werth and the Sagesse Ocean territories.

Each provide their own contextual background to the Manatee’s story.

Savannah of Werth - Land of Dignity

The path toward Dignity requires mastering one’s passions on behalf of Courageous Love . The work takes place in the hottest places where water is scarce, conflicts abound and carnage can be expected.

Sagesse Ocean - Sea of Wisdom

The path towards Wisdom draws insights from the depths and applies them fearlessly into the open. Intelligence becomes enlightenment as the inward gazing eye pivots outward, imparting play and connection between the hollow caves of science and the dynamic surf above.

Pleasure’s Bitter After Taste

With Such Delicate Precision

Eyes Ever To The Exit

No sooner have you offered her your company and you will find her sinking away. The darkened lairs that capture Manatee’s interest are deep and far from here.

Yet somehow it’s her very unavailability that makes her so enchanting. The Adventurous can’t help but seek to unveil the ravishing princess hid beneath Manatee’s thick, monochrome skin. They could die trying as far as she’s concerned.

Ignore her completely and you will sense her approaching from behind. She carries with her the drab tokens from the deep that you misplaced long ago. To hear her speak, you will need to learn to wait.

Follow the Song Lines

A Despondent Mood arises from the sensations of being Sensitive, Annoyed, and Avoidant. It carries the special properties of an Escalator.

If you identify with the Manatee mood of feeling Despondent, you will likely find yourself more intensely connected to other Moods which share those sensations and properties.

Level of Fear -

Avoidant

Resonates with 6 Moods

FERUS with TELs of Disgust

Level of Shame -

Sensitive

Resonates with 7 Moods

FERUS with TELs of Sympathy

Level of Rage -

Annoyed

Resonates with 8 Moods

FERUS with TELs of Contempt

Escalator

Escalator Moods, like Despondent, operate as embedded weapons built to guarantee emotional survival. If left unconscious, they act through us as Defense Mechanisms. If acknowledged directly, they can give healthy access to the expression of our most destructive states.

Escalator Moods can also be acted out in the world as Shadow. As Shadow, they work to sabotage the normal functioning of an otherwise pleasant mood. Each Escalator Mood has a particular symbiotic relation with one other Insulator Mood.

The Despondent Manatee functions as

The Shadow

to the Engaged Dolphin

Defense Mechanisms arise to allow incompatible Moods to coexist.
Major Defense Mechanisms, like Withdrawal, are acquired pre-verbally in infancy, and thus are prewired to protect the youngest parts of ourselves. Withdrawal is an advanced version of a babe’s instinct to simply fall asleep when overstimulated.
Even though the urge to avoid is paramount in Withdrawal, the capacity to disappear as needed into a different state of consciousness actually offers nearness to the wildest Moods. (“If it gets too much I can always just check out”) Not participating is not the same as being absent. A Withdrawn personality type might have some of the most insightful commentaries about what they just seemingly slept through.
The drawback for Withdrawal is that it does not make space for interpersonal sharing. The habit to immediately cut off from all things distressing, creates endless tensions in relationships.

The Despondent Manatee offers the unique Defense Mechanism of

Withdrawal

Tolerance for stress can be at an all time low while swimming within an unpredictable and mean spirited world. No Problem! The Manatee Mood of Despondency reminds us we can always escape into our own private headspace! To others it may seem irritating that they’ve lost us once again. Yet direct connection with others is a luxury that we need not always prioritize. Despondency takes perfect refuge in a childlike disillusionment with our place in the world.

Withdrawal allows us to retreat from interpersonal realities while maintaining our sensitivity to them.

Holding on to the deep layers of cushioning that separate her from a hurtful world, Manatee embodies Withdrawal at its purest level. So easily discouraged, she nevertheless ends up combing the depths of human experience - from a colossally safe distance. She might as well be orbiting her own cold star in a galaxy far far away.

It takes careful self inquiry to pause this underlying defense long enough to feel the Mood.

Deconstructing Withdrawal

Self Inquiry into Sensations

Notice the sensations that occur next time you find yourself Withdrawing from a social situation.
Name the pleasurable experiences occurring as a result of your habit of Withdrawing. (gaining a sense of space perhaps, or the actual movement of transporting yourself from one room to another)
Name the un-pleasurable experiences from which Withdrawing offers you release. (feeling enclosed perhaps, or being confused by too much stimuli)
Choose one pleasurable and one un-pleasurable experience from those you’ve named above and try isolating both to a location in your body. (ie. I feel the freedom to move as warmth in my calves, I feel confusion as nausea in my belly)
Imagine navigating the physical distance between those two locations in your body with your attention. Do this slowly - as though gradually making your way along the tissues of your muscles or traveling through your blood stream. Try to imagine it as an actual physical journey. Go back and forth three times.
Now that you’ve established an internalized route between these two sensations in your body, claim this as your own coping technique. You can now voluntarily traverse your internal positive and negative reactions to outside stressors.
The goal in practicing this coping technique is not to avoid your next urge to withdraw but to manage the sensations that arise in your body.
Try this statement out next time in a socially stressful circumstance. “I know I’m feeling Shy because I’m feeling ________ in my body. Instead of withdrawing I can let this feeling come and go while I practice calming my body.”