Are You Darth Vadar?
What is your psychological shadow hiding, that keeps you from fellowship?
Power is a general term used to describe any event or process where one entity (be it a person, corporation, govt. religion, media organization, etc) can change either directly or indirectly another entity’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.
The greatest use of power leads to humility, collaboration, service to others, and fellowship.
Where there is a power, change is precipitated. With human beings, this change will generally take place concerning a belief, an attitude, the possession of physical wealth, and in positive ways the use of influence in its highest form.
In our daily lives influence can be a highly effective instrument of power and prestige. Power and prestige can be achieved through the access to and integration and application of various qualities, the most prominent being the intention, mental clarity, authority, physical strength, and speed required to do something or get something done.
In its most extreme form power and prestige imply the ability to impose one’s will on others, even if those others resist in some way. When influence is employed correctly, it efficiently moves people in positive directions. If you wish to create and sustain positive change in others then you will need to understand how the influence process works.
To be effective in creating sustainable and effective power, you need solid critical thinking skills and great data. The article below by computer scientist and Facebook executive Julie Zhou will show you how to achieve both.
When a person wields power without vision or focus they can determine, shape, give direction to, and affect the people around them as well as the surrounding environment in positive or negative ways. They can create wealth –even legally print money — influence through propaganda, build armies coerce, threaten violence, and create havoc.
“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”
…………Plato
Ultimately, any discussion of power will bring us to the shadow. In Jungian Psychology, the shadow (also known as id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify in itself; or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.
From one perspective, the shadow “is roughly equivalent to the whole of the Freudian unconscious and Carl Jung himself asserted that “the result of the Freudian method of elucidation is a minute elaboration of man’s shadow-side unexampled in any previous age.”
The Jungian shadow can include everything outside the light of consciousness and may be positive or negative.
Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one’s personality, the shadow is largely negative. There are, however, positive aspects that may also remain hidden in one’s shadow, especially in people with low self-esteem, anxieties, cognitive biases, logical fallacies, and other and false beliefs). “Everyone carries a shadow,” Jung wrote, “and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” It may be, in part, one links to more primitive animal instincts, which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.
Jung stated the shadow to be the unknown dark side of the personality. According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections remain hidden, “the projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object — if it has one — or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power.” These projections insulate and harm individuals by acting as a constantly thickening veil of illusion between the ego and the real world.
Anyone who is truly successful has had a mentor, life, coach, or advisor. Why is this type of mentor relationship so important?
I have worked with Presidents, Prime ministers, and Sports legends. All people of power have had mentors and coaches.
When a person wields power with vision and focuses they can educate and effectively influence important decision-makers. It generally accepted that when President Harry Truman was weighing the pros and cons of supporting a UN decision on the creation of the State of Israel it was the influence of his old friend and business associate in the haberdashery business back in Missouri that played an important role in swinging his support to the affirmative
Among the most common types of power you will see, hear about, or experience in your lifetime is:
- Power (sociology) — Here one person may influence another.
- Professional therapeutic influence — The most positive use of power, here influence is offered by mental health, wellness, or medical professionals to help someone to regain or maintain their health and well-being.
- Social access — The ability to bypass “gatekeepers” through interpersonal relationships.
- Power (international) — where one state may influence another.
- Political power — Effecting the affairs of the state.
- Lobbying — An organized effort to influence politicians.
- Bribery — the use of money or similar rewards to illegally influence others.
- Cultural misappropriation — When a person or group from a more powerful culture, steals, manipulates, or takes elements of one culture, without permission to the detriment of the weaker culture.
- Cultural imperialism — When one culture influences another.
Takeaway
All human language is symbolic: Concerning the sound of words — their shape when written has no relation to what they actually represent. Once this is understood language becomes a servant rather than a master.
Access to real power can transform you in the best of ways.
Author: Lewis Harrison is an author, practical philosopher, and seminar leader. He is a creative artist and teaches creativity and innovative thinking to his coaching clients. He is the founder and senior teacher at the Wisdom Path Community, a spiritually-oriented life coaching social network-based Facebook group that focuses on the critical thinking spiritual journey rather than rites, rituals, ceremonies, or dogmatic practices. He is a practitioner of Transmodern Zen
One aspect of power is knowing how to do what needs to be done. For the skilled critical thinker, power begins with small steps. Below Amardeep Parmar offers 20 realistic micro
“My website is AskLewis.com and I can be emailed directly at LewisCoaches@gmail.com…”
You can read my other Medium.com posts at LewisCoaches@gmailcom
………………………Lewis
Here is a simple introduction to traditional Zen by Darius Foroux. When we speak of Zen we are speaking of authentic power.
