On Power and Empowerment (Blog #842)

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Last night after blogging I stayed up late and watched The Adjustment Bureau staring Matt Damon. (What a handsome fella.) The movie is about a politician (played by Damon) who unwittingly stumbles upon a group of angels (The Adjustment Bureau) who work to keep humanity “on plan.” I love this stuff, the idea that there’s more going on “down here” than what we can see, that there’s a great drama unfolding of which we get to play a part. I was absolutely riveted and completely amused.

Until three in the morning, that is, when I walked into the bedroom where I’m house sitting and my friend’s dog was on MY side of the bed.

“Scooter, SCOOT over,” I said.

Scooter snored.

So guess who moved sides?

Today has been absolutely marvelous. This morning I read The Adjustment Team by Philip K. Dick, which is the short story The Adjustment Bureau was based on. And whereas there were similarities, there were a lot of differences. For one thing, the short story was, well, short–just seventeen pages. For another, it didn’t involve a politician. Still, I’m fascinated by the fact that a short written over fifty years ago was the inspiration for a modern-day blockbuster movie. This the power of creativity. This is the power of words.

This afternoon I continued to read. First I finished the book I started yesterday, The Cry for Myth by Rollo May. Then I read the (short) play, The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet (because May said it was a modern retelling of Faust). Then I read King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore, about four of the main archetypes (or patterns for thinking, feeling, and behaving) present in men. As most teacher of archetypes do, Moore points out that every archetype has a shadow side. For example, one shadow aspect of The King is The Tyrant. One shadow aspect of The Warrior is The Coward.

Speaking of coward, I just had to stop blogging to let Scooter outside. Never mind the fact that he has a DOGGIE DOOR! He’s just too afraid (at night) to use it. I mean, What’s on the other side?

This evening I ran some errands–bought some new socks, went grocery shopping. Then I came back home (my home for now, that is) and exercised while I watched/listened to a couple episodes of Sacred Power with Caroline Myss. Boy, that lady doesn’t pull any punches. If you’d like a dose of honesty (and who wouldn’t, really?), check her out. One of the exercises she suggested tonight was to notice–just notice–how much time you spend every day thinking about what anyone else may think of you (for any reason). Said another way, notice how easily or often you’re humiliated or embarrassed. Because whether it’s fifteen minutes or two hours a day, that’s fifteen minutes or two hours in which you’re losing energy, in which you’re losing power, that you don’t have to.

Personally, I’m really challenged by this. I can’t tell you the number of times each day I’m distracted by what someone else might think of me. I’m like Scooter–worried. How many likes did my last post get? That photo really wasn’t my best. Does these things really matter? No. I don’t know a single person who would say they do. And yet we all act like they do. We spend so much time finding that perfect selfie angle. You know, the one that hides our fat.

More and more, I’m seeing this not only as wasted time, but also–in Caroline’s terms–wasted energy, wasted power. This isn’t just an intellectual concept. When I’m really concerned about things that aren’t my business, I can feel it in my body. I get agitated, restless, tired. Not too long ago I saw someone I’d really prefer to never see again ever, and it was like my entire spirit got up and walked out of the room. I felt like I was going to shit on myself. Thankfully, I didn’t. Instead, I did my best to pull myself together, to call my spirit back. Hey, get back here. No one else is going to scare us off. We’re a Warrior, not a Coward.

Courage.

Courage, that’s something Scooter doesn’t have much of. Just a moment ago I had to get back out of my comfortable recliner to open the door for him–again. He kept pawing at the DOGGIE DOOR but wouldn’t actually use the fucking thing. So for a moment I lost my cool and was like, What the hell, man? Is it really all that complicated?

And before you say anything in his defense, the answer is no, it’s not. I saw him use it this afternoon.

Clearly, I’m not over it. I’m working on it. Nonetheless, this is a small example of one of the many ways in which a person can lose energy or power. That is, before Scooter took my side of the bed and before he refused to use HIS DOOR, I was perfectly happy. Peaceful. But then when he, oh, simply acted like himself (his owner told me he was a real wuss), I got in a tither and lost my peace. In terms of power, I lost my CONTROL. This is really the issue when we worry about what other people think of us or–on a grander scale–when we hold grudges and resentments over things that happened two weeks or two decades ago. Rather than US controlling our internal atmosphere, we make the CHOICE to let someone or something else control it. Tying everything back to archetypes, this means we act from our shadow or disempowered self rather than from our empowered self.

Is it easy to develop and act from our empowered self? No. It’s the journey of a lifetime.

Is it worth any and all effort it takes to do so?

Absolutely.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Damn if good news doesn't travel the slowest.

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On Anxiety, Myths, and Divine Timing (Blog #841)

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It’s eleven at night, and I just turned on my “blogging music.” This morning started off slowly–I slept in, ate breakfast, then read over a hundred fifty pages in The Cry for Myth by Rollo May. It’s fabulous, about the idea that life is inherently anxiety-inducing and that myths help us not only make sense of our world, but also alleviate that anxiety. Too much anxiety in your life? You need a different myth, a different viewpoint, a different psychological construct from which to see things.

A different set of glasses.

Honestly, I could have spent the entire day reading. I can’t tell you what a sense of accomplishment and joy I get when I finish an entire book in one day. Alas, this was not to be. For weeks I’ve been telling myself that I’d put down my books and finally do a few things–respond to emails, go to the bank and the post office, shit like that. Well, I finally did these things this afternoon. And whereas I started to give myself a hard time for not doing them sooner, I didn’t because recently I’ve been thinking about divine timing.

I’ll explain.

Byron Katie says that when you argue with reality, you lose–but only one hundred percent of the time. This means that if you think you SHOULD be running errands (and you aren’t) or that you SHOULD HAVE run errands sooner than you did, you’re going to experience stress. Why? Just one simple reason–it’s not the truth. The truth is you’re not running errands, or that you didn’t run them sooner than you did. This is what I mean by divine timing. Things happen when they happen. We can SHOULD and SHOULD HAVE all day long, but that just produces anxiety. This is the myth of I’m not doing things right, the myth of I did something wrong, and the myth of I’m a bad person, I’m a worm.

Going back to divine timing, I can’t tell you the number of times things have shown up in my life at just the right moment. For example, not too long ago I got an unexpected check for nearly three hundred dollars in the mail, the result of one of those silly class-action lawsuit postcards that I fill out now and then (and usually result in a check for $2.87). Well, that three hundred bucks totally saved my ass. The same thing happened over Christmas this last year when I needed to pay some bills but couldn’t work because of my knee injury. Someone bought a gift certificate for dance lessons. Of course, this miraculous timing doesn’t just apply to money. My therapist showed up at just the right time. Books and information continue to show up at just the right time.

One of my points here is–How do you know? That is, how do you know you should have said something or done something sooner–or that you should even do it at all (if you haven’t already)? Having been on the receiving end of multiple (hundreds of) perfectly timed kindnesses, it’s not a stretch for me to think that I can play a part in the producing end of perfectly timed kindnesses in someone else’s life. What I mean is that I can beat myself up for not sending a letter in the mail sooner, but maybe the person getting that letter didn’t NEED it sooner. Maybe they needed it LATER. Likewise, I can (and do) beat myself up for not working more on writing my book(s), but again, perhaps it’s just not time. How will I know it’s time to write my book(s)?

I’ll have my butt in a chair and will be writing them.

It’s that simple.

Gosh, we like to complicate things. I like to complicate things. And not that I’m encouraging procrastination or not listening to your inner nudges to act, but I am suggesting that most of our self-flagellation is just that–self-punishment. As if we won’t get things done unless we constantly berate ourselves. I’m not doing things right. I did something wrong. I’m a bad person, I’m a worm. Please, we need a new myth–the myth of I’m doing things just fine, the myth of I did something right (a lot of things right), the myth of I’m a good person, not a worm.

Living by a new myth, of course, is more than simply changing your perspective or putting on a new pair of glasses. For a myth to really make a difference in your life, you have to internalize it and you have to let it change you. May says, “We seem to think that we can be reborn without ever dying.” This means that our old personality structure must be completely torn up (or torn down) in order for a new one to be planted, take root, and grow. This is why Noah was in the Ark, Jonah was in the whale, and Christ was in the grave. Chaos always precedes order, darkness always precedes light, and death always precedes new life–and change always takes time. For me, this is where the myths are most helpful. Knowing that “destruction comes before creation,” rather than be filled with anxiety whenever my life is falling apart, I can be filled with hope. I think, It’s just a matter of time before things start coming together.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If another's perspective, another's story about you is kinder than the one you're telling yourself, surely that's a story worth listening to.

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