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Spirituality
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Be As Powerful As You Really Are Doris Helge
Our society has promoted the illusion that being a powerful person means having power over others. This refers to external authority, such as a person in a certain position who controls or manipulates people so that they will do something that they wouldn 't otherwise do. It is not true that one person must be disempowered for another to be full empowered. It is the insecure person who feels the need to dominate others and attempts to disempower them. Such a person portrays society 's distorted image of power. In truth, this is a person who feels powerless. The most powerful individuals I know express their power by being vulnerable. They are so self-secure that they are real and honest with themselves and with others. They are true to themselves. They do not need to prove themselves or their abilities to others, nor do they make personal choices designed to gain external approval. They may no always be liked by others, but they are generally respected by them. Frequently, they are not identified in our society as powerful individuals. Many have such soft qualities of real power that they are never noticed or understood by mainstream society. Genuine power is an innate quality. It embodies tenderness, compassion and sensitivity, as well as the ability to be firm and tenacious. It includes the ability to be who we really are, no matter who is in our presence. Compare this to "power over" which involves a façade of power that comes from feeling inadequate; in such a case, our self-doubts cause us to demean others or demand that they succumb to our point of view. Once we understand how powerful we really are, we know that our next step is to accept full responsibility for our lives. All of our social training has been antithetical to this concept. Our society, including the news media, glorifies playing victims. The Old Paradigm The framework in which most of us function:
In the Old Paradigm, our judgements of our experiences or feelings as negative or positive create self-perpetuating cycles. We repeat our painful experiences because we keep trying to justify our evaluations of them as negative. We attempt to eradicate our unpleasant feelings or experiences. We either do not express our feelings (we stuff them) or we express them in ways that are not safe to ourselves or others. Examples include being numb to life (the walking dead), withdrawing from others instead of solving our problems, covert passive-aggressive actions, and hiding our problems in drugs or alcohol. As the pattern continues, we may engage in violence, substance abuse, suicide attempts, anorexia and bulimia, or other self-abuse. These behaviors result from our inaccurate perceptions. Some of us fear anger because we believe its natural consequence is violence. We may think grief culminates in the destruction of our open hearts. Many people assume that fear automatically results in shame or running away from a situation or person. In the Old Paradigm, we cheat ourselves out of experiencing the present. We live in the past or the future because we haven 't resolved the issues from our past. We feel victimized by other people or life 's circumstances. If we are using half our energy to live in the past, only half of it is available to function in the present. We incorrectly assume that our earlier experiences will automatically be extrapolated into the future. We allow the past to continue to pull at us like the expanded rubber band, and we are afraid that the band will snap at any moment, causing unbearable pain. If we don 't spend some time with our suppressed feelings, we remain half of a person because we don 't accept these emotions as parts of ourselves. It is essential to process our old issues, whatever they are. The secret is that it is not a life-shattering process to visit our feelings. All that is required is to feel our repressed emotions. When we do so, the past and the old feelings of hurt become just experiences. In the Old Paradigm, we think that we must fix or change ourselves. We over-analyze how our personalities and characteristics emerged. We may spend years trying to decide if our insecurities or our fears of intimacy originated because of abuse or neglect. We label ourselves as victims because we assume someone or something else is responsible for who we are in the present. It is important to feel the emotions that are inside of us, particularly those that have been trapped or suppressed in our bodies. It is also important to advance to our next levels of self as soon as the time is right for us, and each of us knows that precise time. The New Paradigm What we are working toward:
In the New Paradigm, we understand that all experiences in life are purposeful. We know that pain is just a wake-up call and that we label experiences as painful simply because we wish they were different. Once we integrate the wisdom from an experience that feels unpleasant or painful, there is no pain. We don 't feel a need to fix or change ourselves because we no longer resist or deny who we are. Because we don 't judge ourselves, we accept all of our characteristics. Owning our individual attributes, instead of disputing who we are, brings our freedom right to our doorstep. This means that we have our full energy available to us: we are whole instead of half. We have the highest levels of self-respect because we are self-responsible. Therefore, self-love and self-trust continue to blossom in our lives. We have moved beyond blaming others because we have recognized that all of us on this planet are still in school. Everyone is learning by experiencing life, even though some people are more consciously involved in the process than others. Once we recognize that all of us are doing our best given our state of maturation, we feel a deep sends of relief. We have learned the value of experiencing polarities. We know that when we allow ourselves to feel the unpleasant side of a polarity, its opposite will immediately follow. So we embrace, or at least accept, our uncomfortable feelings. We feel our fears and continue to move forward in our lives. We know we have an option to celebrate when we feel our fears and self-doubts because every time we shake hands with "Fear," "Personal Power" walks up and asks for our other hand. The twins travel together. This is the beauty of polarities. We are willing to feel all of our emotions, no matter what they may be, because we have learned that they enrich our lives and empower us. We feel and express our emotions in ways that are safe to ourselves and others. We are honest, real and vulnerable. This automatically gives other people permission to be who they are. Thus, the mirrors surrounding us are others who are also consciously growing. We deal with "Insecurity" and "Fear" by owning them. They don 't threaten us because they are just a component of all of us.= =20 Neither do we adopt them as core identities; we simply acknowledge and feel them. As a result, their traveling companions, "Personal Power" and "Self-Confidence," automatically become more visible parts of us. We fully use our past, as it no longer controls our lives. It has become the catalyst that moves us right into the core of ourselves so that we can take a good look at ourselves and gain valuable insights and understandings. All of a sudden, the experiences we previously labeled as painful have lost their emotional charges. They have become just experiences that we learned from. The energy that was bundled up in repression or judgement is now available for use. It was released as pure neutral energy, and it burst into a profound sense of personal freedom and empowerment. Because of our courage and our understanding of life, we have now allowed ourselves to fully live each moment as it occurs. We no longer live in the future by wishing it were now. Neither do we extrapolate our past into events that are approaching. We have provided ourselves the freedom of a newborn infant kicking its legs, waving its arms, and announcing, "Stand back, world. This is now, and I am fully here!"
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