There are three major divine attributes—love, power and serenity—that in the healthy person work as a team. They maintain flexibility amongst themselves so one never drowns another out. But when they are in distortion, they step all over each other. Then love, power and serenity get distorted into their evil twins: submission, aggression and withdrawal…
In our efforts to master our difficulties, largely created in childhood and then perpetuated into adulthood through our wrong solution choices, we find ourselves increasingly bound up by the straightjacket of a vicious circle…It never occurs to us that our real problem is the solution we have chosen…For a child, it is valid to need to receive protective love. But if such a need is carried over into adulthood, it’s no longer valid…When we’re so dependent on others for love, we become helpless; we won’t stand on our own two feet…These attitudes become so ingrained in us, it’s like they’re part of our nature. But they are not…
When a person is inclined to choose love, or really submission, as their pseudo-solution, they have the basic feeling that ‘if only I were loved, then everything would be OK’…We cringe and we crawl, complying with others demands—whether real or imagined—and selling our soul in an attempt to get the help, sympathy, approval and love we crave…We use a fake weakness as our weapon in the battle to finally master life and win…
To avoid getting caught, we hide all this falseness behind the mask of our idealized self-image: we put on a Love Mask…We submit as a way to dominate…It’s not hard to imagine that living this way will keep us estranged from our real self…Our conclusion: the world takes advantage of our “goodness,” abusing us and stopping us from reaching self-realization…Being submissive is a caricature of what real love looks like…
In the second category is the pseudo-solution of seeking power through aggression. Here we think that the answer to all our problems lies in having power and being independent…We believe the only way to stay safe is by becoming so strong and invulnerable that no one and nothing will be able to touch us. Then we cut off all our feelings…Warmth and affection, communication and caring for others—all these are despicable…
The power type is just as dishonest and hypocritical as the submissive type, because in truth, everyone needs warmth and affection. Without these, we suffer…Power seekers are wired to never fail. Ever…We will always be competing and trying to one-up everyone…
The Power Mask requires us to live more independently from feelings than a human being possibly can. So we constantly feel like a failure for not living up to our ideal self…Our pride sticks out like a sore thumb. Heck, we’re proud of our pride…We, the power type, will take pride in how “objective” we are, as opposed to being gullible. And that, we say, is why we don’t like anyone…To show our true loving nature then is a crass violation of all we stand for, and doing so brings on deep shame…
The pseudo-solution of withdrawal is often chosen when we have been so torn apart by the first two options that we had to find a way out…Underneath our withdrawal is a false attempt at serenity…
Both the power type and the withdrawn type have something in common: aloofness…Whereas the power seeker likes being hostile and glorifies their aggressive fighting spirit, the withdrawal type isn’t even aware of having such feelings…
Our underlying conflicts rise up with a vengeance, showing just how artificial our serenity really was; turns out, the whole structure was built on sand…As always, we will fall woefully short of the dictates of our Serenity Mask, leading to self-contempt, guilt and frustration…
If we start to view our problems and our emotions in this light, we will begin to see that neither God nor other people are the problem here. We are the ones making crazy inner demands…All this can be subtle and elusive to uncover, especially since we can rationalize our behavior until the cows come home…We’re so conditioned to straining for the impossible, it doesn’t occur to us there’s nothing to strain for. Because in truth, what’s actually valuable is already there, just lying fallow. What a pity…
We’ll be shocked to become aware of our clay feet, realizing that our limitations land us far short of the idealized self. But we’ll also start sensing values inside ourselves we hadn’t noticed before. Our budding self-confidence will help us walk in the world in a whole new way…We’ll start to trust and like ourselves more, so then what others think won’t matter half as much. We’ll find security within, so we’ll stop leaning on pride and pretense to prop ourselves up.
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Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #84 Love, Power, Serenity as Divine Attributes and as Distortions
