There is much talk these days about experiencing powerlessness (unfortunately, the reality around us is very conducive to it). I want to emphasize that powerlessness is not a feeling, but that it is a state, and states are characteristics of a person’s energy level and ability to act. Examples of other states are sleep/sleepiness, fatigue/fatigue, exhaustion, alertness, excitement. All states are accompanied by certain feelings, of course.
So, powerlessness in this series is not a lack of strength at all (that would be exhaustion). Powerlessness is the lack of strength to achieve any particular and very desirable goal. For example, in physical terms, powerlessness is the inability for me personally to move the tractor. I have the strength, but it’s not enough. This is what makes admitting one’s powerlessness so difficult – in exhaustion we simply stop, and the inability to achieve what we want is obvious, but in powerlessness it is not. It seems like it’s about to happen, and if it doesn’t, it’s just because you’re lazy, not determined enough, and so on.
But there is one more aspect of powerlessness that Alexander Mokhovikov, alas, the now deceased wonderful psychotherapist, pointed out. Powerlessness for him is a very high-energy state, in which, however, the vectors of energy movement are directed in opposite directions. In particular, we freeze in powerlessness when we simultaneously want not to fall in the eyes of other people and not to fall in our own eyes, which in certain situations are mutually exclusive things. “I spend a lot of energy to support some reference group, with its system of values and ideology, and inside myself I feel ashamed because what I do does not correspond to me” (A. Mokhovikov). How, for example, not to fall in the eyes of my parents, who in no way approve of what I am striving for? Either choice (in favor of oneself or in favor of parents) is associated with strong emotional feelings, first of all, with shame (no matter how one chooses, one betrays someone anyway).
“I am powerless over it” often also means that my ability to make choices is blocked. After all, very often I can’t make a choice, not because I don’t know what I want. It’s because I can’t give something up. And then we lose our freedom of choice, and are frozen in powerlessness when what we cannot give up is at least equal in “weight” to what we seek. And it’s impossible to take everything away at once. As a traveler who packs a backpack, it’s impossible to cram everything you want into its limited volume – otherwise you won’t get far, if you pick it up at all.
That is, powerlessness is a state in which there is a great deal of energy and tension. Embrace your powerlessness – is not to state “I’m not capable of anything at all, I don’t have any powers,” but To admit to myself and live-through the insufficiency of my strength to achieve a specific (albeit desirable) goalor the inability to achieve two mutually exclusive goals-and to give up something that is valuable but not authentic to us. Then a mass of blocked energy is released, rushing in the direction where the energy of the “inauthentic” target was not allowed to go before. It is a difficult and arduous process. But in the end – grateful.
