There is a self-fulfilling prophecy in how we hold people in our attention. If we only see what they do as insufficient, we will be reinforcing the part of themselves that feels similarly. We will be contributing to an identity in them as a substandard person and that is what we will get from them. They will feel the weight of our judgment. Each time we want them to feel small and stupid, on some level they will. The same principle works in the opposite direction. No matter how clumsy or awkwardly a person is acting, Eros always knows the potential of the person inside. That mastery is part of what you learn and its part in creating the conditions for genius to emerge. Approval and reception of what and who they are right now is the primary condition. We use our attention to lock onto the brilliant person, the one who is right just the way they are, who lives inside each person and to love them into the world. One thing we can do is point out the things they do that we want to reinforce and simply ignore the things we don’t want to. We lead them forward with the positive. There is nothing more powerful to shaping another human being than the sense that they can do no wrong, or the sense that they can do no right.
In OM, strokees make their stroker brilliant by learning to experience every stroke as good and worthy. The feedback loop between the stroker and strokee fills with approval and all the stroker's anxiety can dissipate. Both roles become more of who they are: a stroker becoming more brilliant by the stroke and the strokee finding approval and reception for every stroke that comes her way.
