The Direction of Intention

254.
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Power-with-others is quiet; it doesn’t need a trumpet or a drum. It needs no show. Power-with-others is like a mountain meadow during the first snow of the year. It is to stand still with the autumn sun on your face, eyes closed, and breathing deep.

Power-over-others is loud; it needs to dance and prance and make sure everyone knows it is there. It likes to roar and kick things. It is the alpha male beating its chest. Everything is a challenge. Everything is a reason to roar.

Both require agreements with others. The agreement central to power-with-others is conscious, intentional and generative. The agreement central to power-over-others is conscious, intentional and destructive.

What are your agreements?

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249.
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Power is like the sack in this Sufi Story:

Mula came upon a frowning man trudging along the road to town. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

The man held up a tattered bag and moaned, “All that I own in this wide world barely fills this miserable, wretched sack.”

“Too bad,” said Mula, and with that, he snatched the bag from the man’s hands and ran down the road with it.

Having lost everything, the man burst into tears and, more miserable than before, continued walking. Meanwhile, Mula quickly ran around the bend and placed the man’s sack in the middle of the road where he would have to come upon it.

When the man saw his bag sitting in the road before him, he laughed with joy, and shouted, “My sack! I thought I’d lost you!”

Watching through the bushes, Mula chuckled. “Well, that’s one way to make someone happy!”

Power-with-others is not something you acquire. It is something you have and do not appreciate. People rarely see their own power when they have it but are very aware of it when it is missing. They find their great gift when they stop trying to be clever, when they stop trying to have power over others. Power-with is natural; we only have to work hard to lose it.

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247.
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Among his many clients, Mitch Hammer consults with the military. A few years ago he was talking about The Ground Truth and I asked him about the phrase. The Ground Truth is term used by soldiers to describe what is actually happening on the ground (of course) despite what the politicians and generals think or decide should be happening. It is the actual experience as measured against the ideal or the abstraction.

The creation of power begins when you take a look at the ground truth. What is actually happening versus what you think should be happening? Can you let go the ideal long enough to locate yourself in your ground truth? What do you see when you drop the list of should-do and should-be and simply see what is?

The ground truth is often obscured behind a wall of judgments and expectations, manipulations and enabling. The ground truth lives beyond belief and faith. Can you allow yourself to suspend the judgments, set down the expectations, let go of the resistances and simply describe What is?

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241.
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As luck would have it (isn’t that an interesting phrase! Luck personified and with an intention!) this morning I began reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. It is lucky or serendipitous or coincidental, depending upon your belief about such matters, because last night I was working on the sequence for my upcoming class and needed a good story or example that clearly illustrated the power of community and connectivity. The introduction to Outliers is about a little town in Pennsylvania, Roseto.

In the 1950’s heart disease was an epidemic in the United States. Heart attacks were the leading cause of death among men under the age of 65 – except among the residents of Roseto. Heart disease was virtually non-existent there in people 55 or younger. Among people 65 or older the rate of death from heart disease was half that of the rest of the United States. Why?

Multiple studies were done to investigate this abnormality. Diet was considered and ruled out; the people of Roseto ate foods high in cholesterol, higher than most parts of the nation. Exercise, genetics, geography were each considered and ruled out. What was the difference?

As Gladwell writes, “The Rosetans had created a powerful, protective, social structure capable of insolating them from the pressures of the modern world. The Rosetans were healthy because of where they were from, because of the world that they created for themselves in their tiny little town in the hills.”

This little town had virtually no crime, no homelessness, no suicide, no drug addiction or alcoholism, no one was on welfare, no one was dying of stress related conditions. In short, they were actively supportive, concerned and engaged with each other. They created a communal culture in which all members matter, all member care for the wellbeing of the others – no one was racing to be some other place.

Gladwell continues: the researchers “…had to convince the medical community to think about health and heart attacks in an entirely new way: they had to get them to realize that they wouldn’t be able to understand why someone was healthy if all they did was think about an individual’s personal choices or actions in isolation. They had to look beyond the individual. They had to understand the culture he or she was a part of,….”

No one lives in a vacuum. No one creates in a vacuum. No one develops in a vacuum. The health of the community expresses as the health experienced in the individuals. Power follows the same channels: if only the few dominate through power-over others then none are powerful, all are powerful when all the members are supported and supporting each other to realize their true power.

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237.
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As a child you probably asked yourself, “How do I change myself to be accepted?” Although it is a necessary question to ask while figuring out who you are, it is a question that will plague you all your adult life until you stumble into the second question, when you finally ask yourself, “How do I accept myself as I am?”

Resistance, frustration, anger and fear are the hallmarks of the first question if it is carried beyond its usefulness. Placing your acceptance in the hands of another is a recipe for disaster and will make your life’s story a dance for approval.

The second question is always with you. It is your ally, your friend, and your guardian of power. While asking the first question, while trying to change yourself for the eyes of others, you will feel that your life is just beyond your reach; you will catch glimmers of your power but it will sift like sand through your fingers. That is the second question waiting for you to place your acceptance where it belongs. It touches you on the shoulder every so often to remind you that it is with you, waiting for you to place your acceptance within yourself where it belongs.

The absence of resistance, frustration, anger and fear are the hallmarks of the second question, when your life story becomes about creating power with others in all the amazing shapes, sizes and forms available to you when you finally decide to stop the dance.

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228.
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Enabling is one of those words with a double meaning – and the mirror meaning is the opposite of its twin. You can enable 1) to empower, or you can enable 2) to dis-empower: take actions intended to be helpful but actually perpetuate the problem. Knowing the distinction is key to understanding true power. Knowing the difference is vital if you are going to be able to reinforce cultures of creativity instead of cultures of control.

The sticky word in the dis-empowering form of enabling is “intention.” If you intend to protect someone from feeling the impact of their choices, or to mitigate or take on the responsibility for their actions, or to make things easier by constantly moving the boundary or changing the game, no matter how well intentioned, you are actually making things worse. It might feel good – it might feel like love – but you are essentially blocking them from growing and preventing them from becoming powerful. In truth, you are drinking their power from them (Ana-the-wise calls this, “vampiring”); needing weakness in others to feel power in your self.

Feeling the impact of choices leads to the capacity to make better choices. Responsibility abounds in someone who owns their actions and choices, power is easy when boundaries are clear and easily drawn and held (holding boundaries is different than controlling).

Absorbing the impact of bad choices for others will teach them that no matter what they do, you will always swoop in and save the day. You get to be powerful. They get to be free of responsibility. No learning or growth necessary. It fosters dependency (both ways) and dependency is the essential ingredient of a culture of control. Think about it: if you’ve learned to expect me or the teacher of the state or the HR department to control you then you never need control yourself or be responsible for your actions.

Empowered people empower others. Truly powerful people inspire truly powerful people.

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225.
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The other day Ana-the-wise told me that we are now beyond the time when our actions are conditional. She told me it is the time for comprehension. This is what she means:

It is time to make strong offers without the inhibition of doubt. Offers with energy-leaching questions like, “What will they think of me?” or “Does my thought/action/idea have merit or worth?” minimize the offer. Release the investment in the doubt (the condition), make the offer, and see what happens. Make the offer; you’ll never know if it has merit unless you make the offer and make is powerfully. If you make a timid or half-offer, you’ll continue to question the worth of your offer (and yourself) and the only thing you will know with certainty is that you held yourself back. If you’re driving with one foot on the gas and the other foot on the brakes, it’s time to make a choice: hit the gas or stop the car. Either way, it is an action without conditions.

Empowered people empower others by bringing their best – as a choice. Bring your gift without apology or condition – it is your gift and the world needs what you have to offer. Bring it.

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