Where Your Power’s Hiding

The One Place You’re Not Looking

We live in age obsessed by power. It’s no surprise. We feel powerless. And we feel powerless because our way of being powerful is impoverished. It is about little games of manipulation, control, resistance.

So we think: maybe, if we can just this find this one clever trick, this tactic, line, then I will be powerful. We read the books, attend the seminars, recite the affirmations, and so on. Still, we don’t really feel — or especially act — powerful.

What is the mistake we’re making? Power is not “out there” at all. Power in its truest form is already right there within us.

Power is just the ability to truly connect with people. For people to believe in you, respect you, love you. If you can truly connect with people, you can accomplish more than you ever believed. You will be supported and nurtured and rewarded, right? If you cannot, then you will not be able to accomplish very much. You will be stymied and thwarted at every turn.

You believe that. It is elementary, right? Now let us see what happen when I put one little twist on it.

Power is just the ability to truly connect with people beginning with yourself.

Now you know where your power is hiding. It is in the parts of yourself that you keep hidden from the world.

We all hide parts of ourselves from the world. And that is exactly how we diminish our own power. You are easily angered, prone to jealousy. You are meek, easily overwhelmed. You are desperate with the futility of it all. You are easily upset.

Now you hide these parts of you from the world. What happens? You never quite connect with yourself, right? You don’t feel worthy, valuable, capable. Because you have already devalued yourself by telling yourself that you cannot be seen. Now you will always feel weak, incapable, alone. So how can anyone connect with you? You are hiding from you in the first place. How can anyone else see you? You won’t even see you. That is why you have no power.

What we hide from the world always contains our power. We hide our wounds. But our wounds are our gifts. You are easily angered. But that also means you are passionate. You are meek. But that also means you are deeply compassionate. You are desperate with futility. But that also means you can find deep meaning. You are easily upset. But that also means you can see what people are really feeling.

You are hiding all these gifts. These gifts are your power, are they not? If you would just take a moment to really see the beauty in them, the possibility of them, then you would instantly know your power. Feel it. Experience it. And so be able to live it.

Your power is right there in the hidden parts of you. You are hiding your wounds from the world, and that is why you are not powerful.

So be naked. Just show your wounds to the world. Your gifts will then unfurl. I don’t mean it in a childish, uncaring, self-centered way: “say whatever you think”, and so on. Here is what I mean.

We are trying to be powerful like the mountain. Controlling, resisting, never moving. But there is no mountain in us, is there? We are movement, change, growth. There is a seed in us. The seed is more powerful still. It is so powerful that it can break even the mightiest mountain.

But that seed cannot grow if it does not receive any light. If it is always kept in the dark, how can it grow?

You are seeking the power of the mountain. But you are not a mountain. You are a living thing. You must seek the power of the seed instead. The seed needs light. It needs to be seen. The seed must be naked if it is ever to be planted. So be that seed. Be naked.

Yes. It always takes courage to be naked. To really stand there without your masks and your tricks. Now you can be seen, right? And in being seen, your mind shrinks, thinking: “But what if I am rejected, refused, dismissed?”.

You will be. There will always be people who do not want to see you. But it is not you that they don’t want to see, is it? It is being naked. You having the courage to be naked reminds them that they don’t. Now they are afraid. You are shining so brightly that they are a little blinded. That is OK. That is what true power is. Do not let it worry you, frighten you, or stop you.

Just go ahead and be naked. Show your wounds to the world. You will be surprised. Because people will receive them as gifts. And then you will see each other at last. In that seeing, you will be something mightier than the mountain. You will be the seed.

Now you know. The seed can only grow when it is naked in the light. And that is all power really is.

Umair

London

June 2016