"Butter", 8 x10 Watercolor
"Power" is a powerful word. I know I am not supposed to use a word to define that same word. So what other words are conjured up when you think about POWER?
My head and heart used to turn toward FEAR when I considered the idea of POWER. "Run away! Run away!" like Mike used to say when he imitated Monty Python's Holy Grail knights of the round table.
To be powerful I was sure I needed to know all about everything, because it was what I did not know that would ultimately get in my way. In living this creed I unconsciously set boundaries and limited the heights to which I was allowed to soar because I never knew enough!
To me this is the landscape of the powerless.
And to manifest power I had to control things. This is a given - right? To be in control is to be powerful. It is strength in action to make sure all things were perfectly done without error or mistakes. Because when all things are in proper order for the right reasons, my prescribed notion of what is correct, my world cannot collapse - now that is Power!
But this is rather hard to sustain over long periods of time, over our physical world and more importantly over people who are not - frankly - me.
These days I am turning toward understanding my own personal power and turning away from trying to seize or manipulate those things that are external to me and I have absolutely no power over. And I never had any power over for that matter!
What I have come to observe is that real power, the stuff that grounds me and never fails to result in good things happening all around me is born of being confident in the core of my being. My warm ET place, you know the movie ET, is flashing bright red as I write these words. Cultivating an awareness to that which warms me takes the place of trying to make things happen my way. I call this living from inside out!
Letting go of old paradigms has empowered me. I have let go of the notion one must be toiling to get anywhere. And I now know meditation is NOT only done on mountain tops in Tibet under the guidance of someone holy, old and mysterious. Let me tell you there is nothing more mysterious than that silent small place inside yourself you have never been to and have no idea how to reach!
Yes - I know this is all squishy woo-woo talk! But why can't woo-woo be win-win? Why can't non-purposeful silent breathing once a day for 20 minutes be enough to increase my own sense of personal power? Why can't trusting that setting a highest intention for myself and my life will out-picture in real ways in the physical world? Why can't "not struggling" be as effective as toiling long and hard? Who says life has to be hard?
Mark Nepo says it this way "...who's to say that the budding of wings from the ribs of a small bird doesn't begin with the impulse within them to live? Who's to say that the butterfly breaking through its cocoon isn't the result of its being tired of living in a tight weave of it's own making? Who's to say that the migration of flamingos from South America to Africa doesn't begin with a yearning to eat the yellow ribbon that keeps lining the horizon? And who's to say the color of passion doesn't line our faces the instant we grow tired of living in a tight cocoon of our own making?..."
What if life is only as hard as YOU make it?
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