Power and
Powerlessness
Anger arises from a sense of powerlessness. We feel powerless when we turn our backs on what we know to be our highest truths.
Empowerment has more to do with taking action than producing certain results. We feel powerful when we take the actions that we desire to take.
In the process of writing this article, I feel powerful when I act on the impulse to write, and let the message that is unfolding flow through me. I feel disempowered when I doubt what’s coming through and I hesitate.
It’s natural to get angry when we perceive that another person is more powerful than us. For me, the perception that another person is more powerful than me (and the anger that comes along with that perception) leads me to withhold my truth. I try to avoid saying anything that could come off as defiant or annoying. If I’m asked a question, my answer tends to be very vague and vanilla.
Sometimes rather than focus on the other person being more powerful than me, in situations like this, my focus is instead on my supposed powerlessness. On the surface level, the perception is basically the same, which is that the other person is more powerful than me. However, in this case I tend to feel more sad and weak than angry.
The Battle
For my whole life, being myself when in the presence of others has proved to be a worthy challenge. Over the years I’ve met this challenge in a variety of ways. I’ve outright avoided everyone. I’ve tried pre-scripting answers to certain questions. I’ve tried waiting until I can be alone with a certain person, since I’m more functional one-on-one than in a group. I’ve tried actively dumping people from my life, particularly if I feel like they are draining to be around. I’ve tried being considerate and placing my focus almost entirely on the other person. Among other things.
None of these things has worked on its own—and, of course, some of them are obviously bound to fail.
For a long time, I regarded group consciousness as basically being against me. I “knew” that whenever another person came into the room, or when a group of people was gathered nearby me, I was doomed to lose. Not only was my perspective doomed to shrink down to the petty matters of life, but I was bound to both experience the pain of hiding as well as the pain of embarrassing myself, when I actually did talk or do anything. All in all, I would feel trapped.
In many ways I have overcome group consciousness. I’ve made many choices that wouldn’t be considered normal, and that defy what seemed to be expected of me.
However, this overcoming of group consciousness has been dreadfully incomplete. While the presence of a group doesn’t lead me to drop my standards in some areas of my life, such as my diet, in other aspects I do allow a drain to take place. I’m not as articulate or thoughtful as I could be. I resort to hiding and embarrassment. I’m not my true self.
It always felt like a battle where I could make some good moves, yet where I inevitably would still take damage.
Raising Consciousness
Now, what I’m seeing is a way around this battle. The most functional approach I’ve met with so far has been unveiling itself to me lately. This approach almost isn’t an approach: there’s nothing methodical or strategic about it, nor does it have a concrete agenda. The approach is to basically keep my own level of consciousness as high as possible.
One of the keys to this approach is certainty in myself. Certainty is more powerful than trust. Trust is equivalent to believing in myself. Certainty is knowing myself. And what I know of myself, and of life, is that I can’t be damaged. I can’t fail. Ultimately, every experience I have serves to expand my consciousness and helps me to grow. Not only that, but I am the source of my own experience. The way I experience the events of my life results from my thoughts about those events. And if I see those events as being for my growth, then there’s nothing to be uncertain about—nothing that is truly important, anyway.
A few months ago I wrote in Caring vs. Cruelty that I don’t have to allow others to drag me down—that I can experience enjoyment of life no matter what the people around me are saying or feeling. This is important to remaining authentic when with others, but I now am finding that it is not all there is.
What I can do, in taking this new approach, is remember that state of self-certainty and enter it. When I do that, I feel fantastic about life. I’m focused on what I want, which is to express the highest idea I have about myself and about life in the present moment. In this state, I’m in tune with life’s inherent joy.
When I have such certainty about myself and about life, I’m able to deliberately raise my energy. I can simply notice the things that are all around me, and in so doing, appreciate their beauty. I can take a deep breath, and feel love and appreciation flow through me. When I do this, I’m basically filling myself with love.
This energy-raising ability arises from a certain mindset about life— that everything is divine, that we ultimately all share one purpose and are one and the same, and that we have the free will to experience anything of our choosing. What inspires me in particular is the premise of experiencing who I really am, which is that highest idea about myself I mentioned several paragraphs ago.
Appreciation is particularly powerful—especially gratitude in advance. Whatever you know is going to happen, you might as well be grateful for it now. Thank you for the understanding that this problem has already been solved for me. Thank you for the experience of life I am bound to have. Thank you for all those delicious meals that are coming my way. ;)
When I use certainty and appreciation to raise my energy, at a certain point it’s natural for me to smile. Like any skill, doing this is easier and faster virtually every time that I do it. Sometimes I have the sense of being pulled upward, as though there is an energetic string running through my body. This is enjoyable.
Once I reach that point, I can focus the energy in my heart. I then have a sense of the energy beaming out from my heart. Sometimes in my mind’s eye I’ll “see” the energy coming out of me in circular waves, like sound waves, which expand as they move farther away from me and out into the world. The waves encircle everything that I can perceive in my surroundings, one wave after the other.
I can send this energy out into the world in general, or I can send it to a specific point, such as an object person. When I focus on an object, I usually intend to share energy with it. When I focus on a person, I usually intend to raise their energy.
There’s the new piece to my approach. Rather than resisting what’s around me or trying to avoid or ignore it, I can uplift it. When I do this I indeed feel powerful. But it has nothing to do with overpowering others. It has everything to do with empowering everyone, and experiencing the power that is all around me.
To my pleasant surprise, when I do this I tend to express myself congruently and naturally, in a manner that I can respect and that is enjoyable to experience. I move into a higher vision of myself. As long as I maintain this state, fear is virtually non-existent.
Sending energy to another person has absolutely nothing to do at all with getting them to think a certain way or take certain actions. There can be no hidden agenda.
Simply uplift the other person, and do no more. Intend to send them the general experience of love, inner peace, and joy. See the person as being one with you. Beam your energy out at them. Quietly invite them to join in the experience of love you are having. Whatever needs to happen from there will happen. You’ll know what to do.
Remember that ultimately, we cannot hurt each other. You can’t hurt me, because even if I feel upset I’m just going to grow from whatever happens. And I have no intentions at all on hurting you. Even if I end up succumbing to fear and draining your energy, I’ll snap out of it in due time. Plus you can grow from the experience you’ve had with me, too.
In the end, we are safe with each other. We can only benefit from the experiences that we have together.
Aligning with Truth
In this state of being, everything that comes my way is an opportunity. Every word, look, or smile someone sends my way is an opportunity to express- to push out into the world- truth, which I am naturally in touch with in this state of being. It is the truth of who I really am. It is the truth of the love that I experience with life.
Obviously it’s hard to say how I look on the outside, but from the inside this experience is wonderful. I feel lightness and pleasure. I smile and laugh a lot. There’s no need for concern about what to say next: words arise naturally. The words aren’t the point anyway—the energy is. So, if there are no words for some time, that’s perfectly fine. As long as I keep coming back to this state of being, nothing can throw me off balance.
This should come as no surprise to you: when I am in this state, expressing the best of myself, I simultaneously am not worried about myself at all. It’s not about me. The way to express myself authentically is to have no concern for myself at all.
How this works follows from one of my highest truths, which is that I already have and am everything I could possibly need. The experience of anything I could want lies within me. If I want to experience love, for instance, I can generate that experience at will, regardless of what the external circumstances of my life may be.
Of course, it is true for all of us that we already have and are everything we need and want. It’s simply a matter of how certain we are of this truth. Like all truths, understanding this particular truth isn’t a mere on-off switch: rather, the extent to which we align with this truth generally increases over time, as long as we are committed to our growth and to the highest experience of ourselves that we can have.
Facing Fear
In this high-energy, loving state of being, it’s natural to be intuitive. The actions you feel compelled to take are in line with your highest truth. You don’t have to think about what to say or what to do: instead, it’s more effective to feel your way into action. Especially in social situations, you can trust what arises naturally.
The key, then, is to keep your energy high- which is accomplished via certainty and appreciation- and to then act in line with your intuition. To do so is to be in a flow state.
Every moment presents an opportunity. What is challenging is staying in the flow and meeting each one of those opportunities. Sometimes, for instance, my intuition might tell me to hug the person I’m talking to. But I hesitate, let fear creep in, and I stand still, and the moment is lost.
Overall, I’m finding that there’s no need to deliberately exit a state like this. Self-doubt- and by extension, all negativity- is totally unnecessary. I don’t think I have ever benefited from arguing with myself—aside from ultimately realizing the power and truth of self-certainty.
It likewise is impossible to find nothing that I can appreciate in the present moment. All things carry beauty, because all things are life. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be here.
This high-energy state of affairs is effective even for removing myself from other people. If I want to leave wherever I’m at, or I’m in the middle of a task and want to continue with it, it’s easier to let go with love.
I’ve previously assumed that if I want to get away from someone or someplace, the best way to do it is to exude the vibe of, Get me out of here. But now I’m starting to experience the opposite, which is that when I keep my energy high and send it to the people around me, it’s easier to simply speak my truth and then exit the situation.
We don’t have to fight with the energies that we don’t resonate with. We can remove ourselves from them gracefully and even with love and appreciation. We can thank it for having presented itself to us, and then politely and simply inform it that we’ll be heading elsewhere now—if that’s even necessary. Sometimes it goes away without us having to announce anything at all. Problems have a way of disappearing when we no longer view them as problems.
Uplift the World
The overall premise of this article is this: the way to deal with group consciousness is to raise your own consciousness to as high a level as you can, and then share the energy of that state of consciousness with the people around you. This way, everyone will be more in tune with the ultimate reality of love, and therefore with what is best for us all. It will be easier for you to express your highest truths; and, in turn, it will be easier for everyone else to express their highest truths as well.
In other words, if you can’t beat the world, make it awesome. J
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