I ended last week’s blog with the statement: “How is not about action, but about emotion, and therefore the how is as much up to us as the what. First we have to choose what we want, then we must choose the emotions that will facilitate it.” This week, I’m going to share my thinking about the relationship between emotion and personal power.
The more I work with clients, the more I see the best results come when I can help them focus on accessing their personal power. Situations come and go; skills, tools and understanding go on forever. Knowledge is transferable. Wisdom and power are the keys of creation. So I keep thinking about the relationship between wisdom and personal power, and I find emotion central to both.
Perhaps you’ve had the experience of being in the presence of someone whose emotions are running high. The person might be excited, angry, happy, depressed or in love, and radiating the energy of that emotion until it fills the room. Such strong emotions are often described in energy terms: light or dark, hot or cold, fast or slow.
Perhaps you’ve been observant about your own emotions, and recognize the energy associated with them. When you’re happy or loving, you might feel that as light, or warm or fast. When you’re angry or sad, you might feel that as dark, or cold or slow.
Clearly emotions are energy. Does this mean emotions are also power?
Emotions of Power
A couple of years ago, a model for different modes of personal power began to take shape in my mind. I’ve been using this model with clients ever since, and I’m finding it an incredibly useful tool. I call it the Modes of Mastery Diamond, with five levels of personal mastery identified as Victim, Interpreter, Observer, Partner, and Creator.
The lowest mode is Victim, and the emotions of this mode include (but are not limited to) hate, envy, anger, grief and despair. Someone beset by such strong emotions feels and reacts like a victim.
The strong, intense emotions of this mode tend to overpower the person experiencing them. The defining characteristic of this range of emotions is powerlessness. It’s important to note that an individual operating in this mode becomes victim to the emotions as much as to any physical threat. In effect, the emotions own all the power. Choice is limited to self-protection: to fight, to run, or to freeze.
This extremely narrow range of possibilities is what puts Victim at the bottom point of the diamond. If we were to quantify personal power (which we can’t), we might assign a 1 to Victim power, meaning not much.
Breaking Free of Victim
I see the next mode as the Interpreter Mode because the emotions of this level compel us to make up our stories. The emotions of this mode include frustration, impatience, apprehension, embarrassment, desire and insecurity. In this mode we want to know who, what, when, where, why and how. We assign blame and we take credit. We rationalize, accuse, explain, judge, and defend. In Interpreter Mode we want to fix or destroy, reward or punish. We assign winners and losers.
The defining characteristic of this mode is judgment, and struggle and resistance always accompany judgment.
Whether you are judging yourself, someone else, your situation, or your past choices, when you look at something as bad or good, you are operating in Interpreter Mode. When whatever you’re dealing with seems hard, takes a great deal of energy, or seems like a battle, you’re operating in Interpreter Mode.
On the up-side, Interpreter Mode is perhaps 100 times more powerful than Victim Mode. When beset by an Interpreter emotion, the emotion may still have a stronger grip on you than you have on it, but you start looking for options. You may not like any of the options you see, you may feel it’s a choice between two evils, but you look for alternatives, solutions, and answers. In this mode you will see more difficulty that possibility, but you can envision, aspire, set a goal. If a Victim has the power of 1, an Interpreter has the power of 100.
On the down-side, it’s from the Interpreter Mode that we wage wars, seek revenge, hold grudges, demand restitution, want respect, get defensive, etc. etc. etc.
Stepping into Power
When we’re able to stop judging, we take a giant step up in personal power and become the Observer.
In Observer Mode we experience a significant power shift. We stop letting the emotions drive us. Emotions in this mode include awareness, flexibility, amusement, curiosity, gentleness, and hope. In this mode, we leave the judge’s bench and take a seat in the witness chair. In this mode we’re more likely to say, “That’s interesting,” than “That’s terrible. We’re more likely to say, “It is what it is,” than “If only _____ would change.” We let go of our stories.
The primary characteristic of the Observer is neutrality. There is no good or bad, no winning or losing, no assigning blame, no taking credit, no struggle and no resistance.
The Diamond is wider in Observer Mode than any other because in this mode we see winning as well as losing, success as well as failure, plenty as well as lack, love as well as loneliness. This huge expansion in possibilities and taking ownership of our emotions is what gives the Observer 100 times more power than the Interpreter. On our totally arbitrary and unscientific scale, Observer has a power rating of 10,000.
The strongest technique I know for moving from Interpreter to Observer is to become mindful of your emotions. Notice them. Name them. Acknowledge them. Practice saying, “Ah, I’m choosing to feel frustrated (or angry, or impatient, or sorry for myself, or smug).” By the very act of observing what you are experiencing – and not judging yourself for feeling it – you step into Observer Mode.
Choosing
I call the next mode Partner because in this mode we move from witness to participant. We don’t just step into the game, we help write the rules.
The primary characteristic of this mode is cooperation, and includes such emotions as authenticity, cheerfulness, gratitude, affection and fun. We left re-activity behind in Interpreter Mode, now we become pro-active. We willingly take the first step, go the second mile, find the point of agreement, negotiate the win-win. We welcome the cooperation of our tools and equipment, our associates, our adversaries, strangers, other drivers, our bodies, talents, and the universe.
The Diamond narrows in Partner Mode because we have sufficient inner strength to jettison the possibilities we don’t want. We can discard failure and keep success, we can throw out lack and choose plenty, we can open the door to companionship and shut out loneliness. We thrust aside what we don’t want in favor of what we do want. By our choices, we narrow the vast range of possibilities we could see in observer mode into probabilities. We begin to see that anything we want wants us. We know choosing is both our opportunity and our responsibility. We choose willingness over willfulness.
And as we continue our exponential assent into our own personal power, the Partner Mode is 100 times more powerful than the Observer Mode, which equals 1,000,000. (Remember, these numbers are symbolic, intended to help us get a feel for the rate of expansion in power.)
Creating
I see the final and highest mode of personal power as the Creator, and the key characteristic of being a Creator is harmony. Emotions of this mode include love, joy, peace, delight and awe. When fully operating through the emotions of this mode, anything you choose must happen. You are in a state of oneness with yourself, with other people, with the energies of the universe. You are attuned to best good and you manifest best good. By your choices, and through your emotions, you narrow probabilities into inevitabilities.
Again, accessing personal power at multiples of 100, the power mode of Creator is 100,000,000. A bit mind-boggling, isn’t it?
Most of us move from one mode to another depending on the situation, our confidence in that situation, our wellness at the time, what else is going on it our lives, the strength of our beliefs associated with the situation, any other beliefs that may be in play, and a host of other criteria. Things happen. We react, or judge, or respond, or stay neutral, or choose something else. Sometimes we actually create the outcome we want. The power of the Creator is within each of us. As sentient human beings, living in a place and at a time in history when choice has become our mantle, we have the opportunity to access all the power within us.
We process. We struggle. We try. We practice. We falter. We feel. We learn. We grow. And, of course, that’s what life is all about.
