With great power comes great responsibility… Yeah, I know, sounds really boastful when you think I am saying it to myself… right?
But truth be told, not owning your power is more damaging to you than standing up and declaring it for all to hear.
Withholding it destroys you from the inside, declaring may get you burned on the stake… I prefer the stake, thank you very much.
I am as fearful and as cowardly as most, with one difference, maybe. I HATE slow and long, extended suffering.
Back in 1979, during my stay in a psychiatric ward, I decided that I’d rather get suddenly terrified, surprised, unprepared, and scared to death, than spend the rest of my life in low burning fear, worry, and anxiety.
I have been true to this decision maybe 40% of the time: the rest of the time I didn’t realize I was afraid. Because
FEAR tends to hide behind reasoning, reasonableness, resignation, cynicism, and tiredness.
Back in 1987 a made myself a t-shirt that said: “Fear is an opportunity for courage” and I knew that the job was to find the fear… Without fear there is no need for courage.
So, 60% of the time, since 1979, I didn’t need courage… I didn’t realize that I wasn’t just stalling, procrastinating, languishing, hesitating, not doing much, killing time, day dreaming… etc. etc. etc., I didn’t realize that I was AFRAID.
A lot has been happening in the 35 years… among other: I got conscious that what I felt was not ordinary, but quite special: I felt other people’s feelings.
Back in the psych ward there was a group therapy session every week. We would sit in a big circle, on chairs, all the doctors, psychologists were sitting there with us, and we would speak… much like a support group nowadays, except that we were “inmates”.
One day I spoke. I said: I know that if there were a three-day period when people would get unlimited access to each other and to weapons, most people would kill, if there were no consequences.
I got kicked out of the group: it was too disturbing what I said. But I said it because I KNEW it: I had access to others feelings, and I knew that hatred, anger, and fear of retribution, of punishment, of judgment were the only things that held people in check.
Not a pretty picture, and may not be completely true for all of humanity, and it is definitely not true for how it looks… most people diligently pretend to be nice people, helpful, loving, and happy… on the top of hatred, anger, jealousy, envy, and the other ugly feelings.
Telling the truth can get you crucified or burned on the stake.
With great power comes great responsibility 1
Now… is it necessary for people to have these two faces: the angry one and the happy one to cover it up?
Why is this so important to me to know? Because most diseases come from the gap, in inner gap between their two personas… Neither of those are REAL selves, both are fake selves, but we don’t know that. We think we are bad. We think we are horrible… and then, of course, we pretend to be good…
Let me repeat: Both selves are fake selves!
But they feel real, don’t they? I remember when I lived entirely inside that pendulum swinging from stupid to smart, from good to evil… from weakling to powerhouse…
Only recently I have been able to live, mostly, outside of that internal abyss, the Abyss of Unreality.
An empath’s job is to be the explorer of the inner, so others can know what’s there, what’s what.
I am obviously not the first empath to be getting insights… I found that out yesterday.
I am reading my second Russ Harris book, The Happiness Trap. It’s not as well written as The Confidence Gap, and yet.
I am reading it on a Kindle, so I don’t know what page it’s on, but in it he distinguishes the two selves, the observing self and the thinking self.
That is eerily close to how it is, eerily.
The Happiness Trap…
And even with just getting close to how it is, he is able to produce a result: a life largely independent, a life not hindered by the mind, the collective unhappiness, the collective delusion that you should always feel good, that you should be different than you are.
Because he has already created exercises to create that awareness of the “two selves” as he calls them, because he has already created them, I am going to start to teach them.
If it is so good, why do I need you, Sophie?
What do I bring to the “party” you ask? Just like with connecting to Source, it is very helpful to have someone observe you, from the inside, while you do whatever you do.
You see, an “ordinary” coach will watch you from the outside. They will listen to your voice. They will hear your explanations of what you do or what you did.
And even if they are very talented, they won’t know what you do “wrong”… and they won’t be able to correct your actions, so you practice what works, instead of continuing practicing what doesn’t… and then quit in exasperation and disappointment.
Why this is so important? Because until you learn how to live in your “observing self”, using the mind from there, when needed, you will continue being mired in the worldwide misery, thinking that other people are happier than you… just because they pretend better.
People are not happy, in spite of their smiles. But THEY don’t know what to do, and you CAN learn.
I believe that even reading the books can help you, but the priceless part, the instruction, the monitoring, the personal attention and guidance are the real deal. I can’t and don’t add anything else to the value of Russ Harris’s work.
Although if you already know that you are willing to do the work it takes to become free of the misery of the masses, you may be ready to clean up your memories in the Playground.
Why is it important to clean up the past?
The unexamined past is like the stuff you move from apartment to apartment… you need extra rooms to store all that stuff… You want to examine the past and keep what is worth keeping, and discard what isn’t…
Why does that matter? I’ll try to explain: If your memories of past events were made from the middle of the false self, it will be very very very difficult to not identify with the feelings that arise, the thoughts that arise.
Your degree of difficulty in staying unattached to the internal hubbub is going to be a 90 on the scale of one to 100. Whereas if you clean up the memories from the point of view of what’s real and what’s hubbub, your degree of difficulty drops to manageable.
How do I know? I know because although I lead the Playground, I am also a student there: I share events in each session that are still bothering me. And every week I am better at keeping the distance from the hubbub, from the Universal misery of humans, even from anger I justifiably feel.
And here are my “outside” results: I now sleep with no nightmares 90% of the time (I used to have nightmares every night! sometimes all night…). I am able to follow a healthy eating and sleeping schedule, walk five times a week.
My back is feeling considerably better. My legs are the same length (they weren’t for the past 20 years!) and I hardly have any pain walking.
The healing incurable conditions…
For me, these results are all the more significant, because they have been “incurable” by any known methods, pills, energies, chiropractic adjustments, etc.
And to finish this article: just one more thing: your vibrational frequency correlates with your ability to create a distance between the hubbub, the World, the worldwide misery, and your Observer Self.
The lowest vibration people are like a ping pong ball on a stormy sea… The highest vibration people are like people standing in a shelter on the shore.
Where would you rather live? On the stormy sea or on the shore?
OK, now what? What should you do now?
At this point I am preparing the ground for the trianing, both in the “itch” webinars (fall in love with yourself) and in the Playground.
So these are your two options.
“Itch” webinar: finding out what is your pivoting point, your crucial missing
Register here: https://offers.by-sophie.com/itch
Playground: decide if you want to participate on a Tuesday or a Sunday.
Details and registration here: https://offers.by-sophie.com/playground
The meditation sessions will be announced later when I’ll be ready…
- Despite what Marvel and the movies would have us believe, this epic and powerful quote does not come from a Hollywood script writing team but from the revolutionary ridden and passionate literary haven that was 19th century France.
Credit has been given to Stan Lee writer of Spiderman, Franklin D Roosevelt, and even Winston Churchill at various stages; however, the first literary record of this can be attributed to Francois-Marie Arouet aka Voltaire.
Much like Victor Hugo, Voltaire was disturbed by the sickening abuse of authority and privilege by those in power whilst the poor and deprived starved and suffered around him.
Much of Voltaire’s work reflects on this theme, however it was in “Œuvres de Voltaire, Volume 48” that we first hear the direct use of this phrase.
Of course in Spiderman’s case it was just as apt as when first directed at those who Voltaire believed to be wicked, corrupt and everything that was rotten in France at the time.
