Regardless of Circumstances, I Am Never Powerless

In the last post I talked about what was for me a major “Ah-Hah” revelation when I first became aware that there is more than one aspect of me. In fact at least three: (lower self, higher self and “decider”) and how that lower, ego-self always attempts to prevent me from making any positive changes In my life. In this post I want to talk about another mode of action of this ego self which is initiated when something bad happens.

Not long ago, I ran across a teaching that said that no matter what the circumstances, no matter what other people say or do to us, we are never powerless. We can always control, we can always take dominion of our reaction. Yes, free-will is the over-arching law on earth. And so other people may mis-use their free-will and do something that we experience as hurtful or offensive, we cannot stop people from exercising their free-will. But, we can choose whether or not we will allow that action, situation or circumstance to define us.

I find it very useful to frequently remind myself of who I really am. I believe that I am a child of God. God is Spirit. What does Spirit “look” like? Well for me the most useful description is the way Paul explained it when he defined the “fruit of the Spirit”: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control. That is who I AM. That is what the authentic me (and you) that the Creator created looks like when it is expressing its true, authentic self. So whenever I observe myself and see that in response to some person or situation or circumstance, that I am not feeling and expressing love, joy and peace but something less like anger, resentment, fear then I make consciously ask myself this question: I am love, I am joy, I am peace. Am I willing to allow the person or event or circumstance to redefine me?

Now, so far so good. My guess is most people would agree with what I have shared so far. But when something does actually happen, when we are hurt somehow, or experience loss, our ego/lower-self will immediately insist that we must react the way most people react, the way we have always reacted in the past. It will convince us that anger, judgment, resentment…even retaliation/retribution and maybe most common of all: self-pity (victimitis) are justified and even necessary.

To provide an illustration, imagine you were with a group of people, maybe having dinner. And your table had a bird’s eye view of the parking lot. And somebody at the table said, “Oh, no look down there. Somebody just backed into a parked car. How upset, or angry, would you be about this unfortunate circumstance? Most people would probably say that the fender bender would really not be that upsetting to them. But now what if the person at your table looked down and said, “Oh, no look down there. Somebody just backed into YOUR car.”

When it was impersonal, when it was someone else’s car that was damaged, we would reason, well accidents happen all the time and that’s why we have insurance. We wouldn’t mourn over it or get to upset about it because it really is nothing more than an unfortunate inconvenience. It’s really no big deal. You just contact your insurance agent, take the car in, get an estimate, get it repaired and it’s done. No big deal.

But when it’s personal, when it’s me, when it’s MY car, then for some reason, everything is different. Most of us would immediately react with anger, rage. We may even entertain thoughts of retribution, maybe even fantasizing bashing the other guy’s car up. I feel that this was very unfair, that this just should not have happened to ME. My whole disposition changes. I am for an hour or maybe even days, not the same person that I was before this happened.  I have allowed an outer circumstance to redefine who I am.

Naturally it is the lower-self/ego that is making the difference here between the calm, rational response when I thought it was someone else’s car that was damaged vs when it was MY car that was damaged. I could see and accept that accidents happen all the time and it was no big deal, until it was my car. Then my response was that this should not have happened …..to ME. But did I have to respond that way? Years later I would have a first-hand opportunity to find out

We bought a brand new mini-van. After a few weeks I began to wonder if we should keep it because the seat aggravated my chronic back problem. After about three weeks we took it for a road trip and on the way home we decided that the best thing to do was to just return it, get as much of our money back as possible and just continue to use our older vehicle. About three miles from home, we were rear-ended at a stop light. After calling the police and getting everything documented we got home. We were both in a very, very down mood. We felt like everything was going against us. It was bad enough that the vehicle didn’t work out and it would probably cost us thousands to return it, but now it was damaged. Then a light came on. I said to my wife, “We’re not going to let this drag us down. We don’t have to let this depress us. If we look at it in steps, how bad is this? We’ll call the insurance agent – that’s not hard. We’ll get an estimate to repair the vehicle – that’s not hard. Then we’ll take it in and get It repaired (no major damage, the bumper had to be replaced). Then we’ll take it back to the dealer and negotiate the best deal to get the most back we can get. Whatever it is, it is. It will cost us a few thousand dollars, but that won’t kill us. None of any of that is a big deal. Let’s refuse to let this situation drag us down. Let’s choose to be happy anyway”

This not only gave us immediate peace with the situation, in place of mourning and self-pity, but we actually experienced a sort of spiritual “high”. We actually felt better about ourselves than if the accident hadn’t happened. We felt more joy, and felt good about ourselves because we had taken control. We had exercised dominion over our selves. We refused to let an outer circumstance define us and that felt good. We found that it is indeed true, we are never powerless. We can always choose our reaction.