Powerful/powerless
The fake self lives for extremes. It lives for definition: in definition there is safety. Also there is the bait: fix it if you don’t like it.
The Self is fluid. It knows that in the undefined lies the freedom, the ability to live fully, to put all power in all action, to live for no reason, to rejoice for no reason, to love for no reason.
As I have predicted, I am having a lot of stuff coming up. I live in a two-family house. I live upstairs, and I have pay extra for the right to park my car in the driveway.
I don’t have a car, but I feel, that I am paying for the parking right, so I don’t want the downstairs tenant to park his car there… He’s started to park his car there a few days ago. It seems that the landlord is encouraging it. I am seething. I am furious. I am experiencing myself powerless: all known ways of revenge are illegal, outright criminal.
While this is going on, the sink in the bathroom is leaking… the landlord isn’t hurrying to fix that.
I do what all powerless people do: I fantasize about all kinds of revenge, burning the house, flooding the house, smashing the car… violence. This has been using my whole being for about 20 minutes, my muscles hurt, even my skin hurt.
This could use days of my life… I think. Then I have a thought: maybe I should just move. Obviously I am not a welcome, cherished tenant.
I look online for places to move, and calm down.
I get curious about this whole idea: feeling powerless.
I recall a few sessions in Aikido I took a few years ago: there we were taught to act counter-mind, counter-intuitive, and go in the direction the other’s push goes… very difficult to overcome the built-in instinct to fight head-on, to meet a push with a push.
But the moment you suspend disbelief, and do what you are taught to do, pulling instead of pushing, you put the opponent out of balance and you have now all the power.
I have never been able to transpose this marshal arts move onto real life conflicts, but it is a different way to look at life, so I am going with it.
Most of my students report that their dominant feeling about life and about themselves is powerless. I am not alone, maybe it is all about matching the other’s strength, and winning on their terms… exactly what is probably never going to happen.
I see that the landlord is putting the screws to me to move, thinking that he can raise my rent, take away my parking, not repair the ceiling, the doors, the light switches, the sink, and still have power over me. Typical bully.
On the traditional path of war I have no weapons, no strength, no power.
But if I move out, i.e. an Aikido move: move in the direction he is pushing me, he will be hit with an instant 4-5 thousand dollar repair bill… And getting a new tenant that will likely make him work for his money, not like me, too busy to care.
The art is to do this gracefully. I wish I had started thinking about this years ago.
I wonder if this is a move of the personality, or the Self…
If any of you can provide coaching, I would appreciate it. And besides, I like the idea of using his energy to beat him. 1
Getting out of the “traditional” society induced “push back” mentality… returning to power, that sounds totally delicious.
My heart is light. All the drama disappeared.
Which activator would I recommend? Probably the counter-intuitive “Put all power in all actions” activator.
- In Aikido when someone wants to push you, instead of pushing back, you actually pull them further towards yourself, thus using their push to put them out of balance.
Thank you Diane.
Regarding the parking space, I’m the perfect person to give you a reality check, because I recently experienced how that issue ought to be handled. Maybe this will help you get clear about it.
Some time ago, I donated my old wreck of a car to the animal shelter, which left my assigned parking spot vacant for a long time. No one ever parked there, despite there being an occasional need. People parked elsewhere, on the street if necessary, to avoid trespassing on a space that belonged to me.
Recently, due to some construction work blocking off some parking spaces, a neighbor asked if she could park in my space temporarily. I said yes.
Then the management office asked if they could use my spot during the construction work. I explained I’d already loaned it to the neighbor.
End of story. In other words, people who respect boundaries will respect your property and ask to borrow it, and if you say no for any reason, that’s how it is. No one, “spiritual” or not, should over-interpret this. You pay for it, it’s yours to lend or not. Anyone who has a problem with what you do with your property is gaslighting you, and doesn’t understand the concept of private property.
IMO, your landlady and neighbors are creepy and unprofessional, and you will feel so much better when you get out of there.