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Best-selling self-realization author
Key Lesson: Nothing created has (a) weakness that isn’t (already) married to a strength that fulfills its purpose. The only exception to this celestial law is found in an unconscious nature that imagines it has some strength of its own, and that – for having become identified with the illusion of this false image – lives in constant fear of anything that comes along to challenge its dream.
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What is it that makes us feel powerless when someone does something and it punishes us, or we hear some unwanted news? Let's examine it.
Something happens that I don't like, and what am I looking at in that moment? I'm not looking at the thing that I don't like. What I'm "looking at" is the whole condition of myself that feels challenged, threatened by, overcome through whatever it is that it sees. But what does it see other than something that it resists?
This means that in the moment that something comes that seems like it's taking away my sense of myself and my power to be happy, what I "see" is not what is there. What I see is what I don't want to be there. What I see isn't what you said. What I see is what I wish you hadn't said. What I see isn't the way the event went. What I see is the way the event ought to have gone, because if it had gone the way I wanted, I wouldn't be feeling powerless at this moment. This is a trick of the mind. The mind instantaneously forms from this event something by which it knows what ought not to have happened, and then it takes the moment and the imagined loss of something I imagined I had and resists it. And it’s an imagined loss, because if I really had it, I couldn't lose it!
What good is anything that lends us a sense of power if the world just has to turn one degree, if we just have to look in a certain direction, if some condition can change in the smallest way, and the basis of our power is suddenly shocked and shaken to its core? What good is power like that? Who has ever changed their life for the better by being engrossed in bitterness over the way things went? All that we have in a moment like that is a surreptitious power, a false power. And what is the false power? "At least I can hate the way I feel. At least I can resent and regret and wish that it weren't that way, because at least now that's in my power."
But what kind of power is it to hate our own life? What kind of power is it to wish that the moment we’re in wasn't happening? Does it change the moment? Or, does it lend credibility to it as being overpowering, and producing at the same time the sense of ourself as someone who has been overpowered by it?
Real power is to be able to choose in the moment – as the moment requires, and as is good for all in the moment – the relationship that we want to be in. To say it another way, real power is to be able to choose the relationship in the moment that we want to be in that serves the good of all.
Real power in the moment of challenge or trial would be for us to be able to remain in relationship with kindness. Real power would be to not fall into a troubled set of thoughts and feelings and instead be able to find our way into relationship with an understanding that everything that comes to us is for the good of us, no matter what it is. That is real power.
It's not in our power to control the outcome of what we do. It never has been, and it never will be. It's not in our power to control the way people experience what we say. It's not in our power to make our relatives into different kinds of human beings. It's not in our power to change the weather. It's not in our power to do so many things, including the power to change what it is that takes place inside of us in the moment.
Power is, at any given moment, our ability to recognize that what we are going through cannot be resolved by the parts of us that don't want it. And not wanting what is taking place may feel powerful, but it is powerless to change what is happening to us except that it will see to it that we remain the same person, punished by our own mind.
We have but one true power, and that is to decide what it is that we want to be in relationship with in every moment in which we can see the relationship we are in. That's the power. In moments where there are problems, where there is anger, heartache, worry, fear, or shame – no matter what happens – we don't have to feel powerless. We have the power to choose to give our power to what we want.
In any given moment, no matter what it is that thoughts are telling you, no matter what feeling is passing through you, no matter what the whole world has done or not done, you are never without power because you can always choose to place your power in the hands of something greater than yourself. You can always do that.
You can do it now. Instead of being tricked into resisting the moment and hating everything that tries to show you that you're powerless, come awake. Remember yourself. Remember that you weren't created without power. You were created with the power to give your power away.
That's right. We were created to agree – in the moment where we feel powerless – to recognize that the condition has presented us with qualities far exceeding our ability to understand them. And it isn't a question of acquiescence or of giving up. It's a question of realigning ourselves and placing our attention where it belongs in such a moment – which has nothing to do with trying to control the condition, but rather with bringing ourselves into a higher level of consciousness through which we can understand the truth of what is taking place.
What a difference it makes just to stop fighting! The reason we fight with life is because we're trying to regain control. The only reason we fight with another person over any question is because we are trying to recover from a sense of loss. Fighting, regret, feeling guilty, worrying… all these are false powers. We can't lose something real, but if we want to gain something real, we must place ourselves in a real relationship with what is true.
"Let go and let God" is not just some empty platitude. It means that I realize, at this moment in my life, I have a choice. The choice is to do what I want to do with my attention, not to have a mechanical nature inside of me direct my attention to its false idea of power. Can you see the difference? The first is a conscious act. It is a moment born of realizing that of myself I am not going to lift myself out of this problem. Of myself I am not going to straighten out these circumstances. So I make the higher choice to give away my power to something higher. To keep my idea of power is how I have tried for years and years to make changes, and not one change has taken place except that I tend to fall into problems more quickly – and then hate myself for it.
Do you want to change that cycle? Begin to understand what it means to call upon the power you possess to give your power to a higher power. Then you're not helpless. You've made a choice. Then you'll receive the benefit of the choice you've made. Presently you receive the bitterness of the choice that you've made because it always proves itself incapable of changing anything except that it makes you angrier, more frustrated.
You have the right to choose. There is never a moment in which you are without a choice relative to the presence of negative states inside of yourself. That is a lie that the negative states tell you to sell you more negative states to lend you the sense of power you've lost. You can choose an altogether different action. You can choose to turn your pain over to a higher power.
Make the choice. This is a real act. This is something that every human being is intended to do. Every day, do what is in your power. There is a God. There is an Intelligence, a bright Light, and it's just waiting for you to hand over your power as a choice, and to remain there. Then let that Light, that Intelligence, lead you to what needs to be done in all your relationships, and you’ll never feel powerless again.
For over 40 years Guy Finley has helped individuals around the world find inner freedom and a deeper, more satisfying way to live. His in-depth and down-to-earth teachings cut straight to the heart of today’s most important personal and social issues –stress, fear, relationships, addiction, meditation, and peace. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and spiritual leaders of all denominations.
Guy is the author of 45 books and video/audio programs including his international bestseller “The Secret of Letting Go” which has been translated into 30 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide.
He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery located in Southern Oregon, with over 40,000 online newsletter subscribers.
https://www.guyfinley.org
Through Life of Learning, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 30 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York and 1440 Multiversity in Scotts Valley, California. He is a regular expert contributor to Beliefnet, Insight Timer, Simple Habit, and many other popular spiritual sites.
Finley holds regular classes at Life of Learning that are held in-person and live-streamed
https://www.guyfinley.org/lettinggo These classes are open to all. For more information about Guy Finley and Life of Learning Foundation visit www.guyfinley.org
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