The Power Of Weakness

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Sounds like oxymoron, right? Power and weakness - almost the perfect polar opposites. How could they ever create anything sensible and useful?

Well, sure. We are all naturally conditioned to associate power with strength and weakness with helplessness. And at a first glance there really seems to be a logical and inherent connection between those pairs. So, why would we ever think about looking for power inside of the weakness?

No, we wouldn't normally, no. But if we stop now for a minute and have a closer look, we’ll see there’s plenty of reasons to do so - there’s something of life-changing importance here just waiting to be discovered.

We’ve probably all experienced a situation or even a period in life, when no matter how hard we fought, we just couldn’t stop the slide. We’ve failed miserably and eventually we’ve hit the rock bottom. Emotionally, physically, financially or otherwise.

Many times - all of that combined.
But that one time, surprisingly, instead of dying in total solitude and anonymity (as we have always dreaded) - we’ve found some unsuspected strength at that very lowest point - that had us rise back up from the ashes. When it was all over, we’ve ended up stronger and climbed higher than ever...

Or maybe some of us simply experienced the burnout - a stage when we were so tired, so weak and so depleted that no amount of reasoning along the line how much time and strength or money was invested in the matter so far could produce a single drop of energy to care about what happens next. We were sure that’s the end of the world. Of our world. When we stop moving - everything will stop…

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But then, that one time - nothing bad happened. The world continued spinning. Some things were postponed, other took some natural course of their own and some were taken care of by others.

We’ve had our time to look around, assess the situation and then we’ve continued our chosen path. Like there wasn’t ever any need to stress about anything… But to not strive, fight and push would be a weakness, it would be laziness right? And we can’t allow ourselves to be weak and lazy...

Then again, maybe not every time things ended up in a rosie garden.
Maybe that one time, the course of all that hard fight to achieve something more took its toll and maybe that one time - the price was really high.

Maybe we’ve contracted an illness without a definite cure or maybe that happened to someone very close to us. Maybe we’ve ended up feeling left alone and excluded, cheated by life and lost...

But maybe, at the same time, the exact thing that seemingly pushed us out of the game - nudged us to look at the situation from a different angle. Maybe it made us ask questions we’d never ask. Maybe due to the new perspective, we’ve somehow came in contact with a stream of new exciting information that otherwise would stay forever hidden from us.

Maybe exactly the kind of information that has the potential to turn everything around - and not just for us. Maybe we’ve ended up solving the biggest problem of our life and finding a new sense and a new purpose in life.

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So, there you go. Sometimes it seems that failure and weakness can be the best thing that happens to us. Something that can ultimately lead us to new inspiring situations and relationships, unexpected knowledge and wisdom - and surprising life results.

And sometimes even, the way things unfold - it can put to shame all our attempts and struggles to prevent the fall in the first place. It can seem as if we were right there working against our best interests. That can be both surprising and confusing at the same time.

And that gets us seriously questioning: what the heck is all that power doing down there, at the rock bottom and enveloped in weakness? How can we tap into it and learn to use it, make it more than just occasional, chance encounter? Can we get hold of it - before we fall?

To get to the bottom of this, we need to take a step back. Or two.

We might have to redefine what we think we know about those two oh so familiar words.

So, let’s go from the start: what is power? Simply put, it’s a capacity to get, achieve, reach, protect or do something. That much is simple.

What is usually overlooked - every power needs a source and there are three major sources in a life of a human being: nature, society and spiritual reality.
We get to use all of the power sources if we want - and if we’re willing to understand their respective laws and comply to them.

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To masterfully combine all of the laws across all of the three mentioned realms in our daily behaviour - it’s an amazing, an awe-inspiring achievement. And it unlocks immeasurable potentials on all levels of manifestation of human life. But it’s a handful. It asks for great determination. It requires a great strength.

While learning and training to behave according to the laws, we generate and develop our strength. Weakness is always what prevents us from unlocking higher levels of our energy manifestation in that process.

But we cannot simply eliminate all weakness by force. It works until certain point, and after that - no matter how much effort we put into it and how many times we tried - it always ultimately fails. We’ve all experienced that. But why?

Simple answer: because our weakness is not our enemy, it’s our teacher. It teaches us about the side of us and the side of life we never knew we needed. So by fighting it, we’re essentially reinforcing it back into our life. We’re going in circles. We need to stop fighting our self, stop doing and thinking - and start listening.

To go deeper in understanding this, it’s time to ask finally: what is weakness?

Simply put - it’s our physical, emotional or mental incapacity or inability to achieve\reach something, resist something or hold on to something. It’s our disadvantage in comparison to someone or something else. And strength is its opposite.

Naturally, we all gravitate towards strength.
Everybody wants to be strong, nobody wants to be weak. And rightfully so. As the definition says - when we’re strong we can reach and achieve things, hold on to things that are dear to us and resist the ones that are bad.

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And we have an advantage in neverending game of social prestige. So, the stronger we are the better for us, right?

Well, not necessarily - not always. Sometimes our strength can get in the way of our relationships with people. If we approach people and situations too dominantly, that will regularly cause reactions, resentment and resistance and it can very easily distance us from our (social) goals. So our greatest strength becomes our biggest weakness.

In any society WE quickly becomes GOD, and I immediately becomes EGO - a symbol of separation. A tool of disruption. A cancerous body that needs to be eliminated to prevent the contamination of the healthy body. Examples are numerous everywhere around us.

So we give up ego of I to get balance, strength, abundance, opportunities and power of WE - we surrender I to WE.

But we don’t always see that clearly. Our real weakness disguises as strength and our strength comes off as weakness. And it happens when we can’t see our goal and our bright-future vision clearly. Then WE becomes the restrictive enemy in our mind and we start fighting the WE for our ego.

But we achieve nothing, because our real enemy isn’t the WE it’s our inability to see, and what we see as our symbol of strength, our fight against WE - is actually just our weakness posing as strength, making us weaker by the minute.

If there was really a problem with WE, and we’re totally clear what we want and that certain WE doesn’t go any more in the same direction we want to go - that’s easily solved. We just need to be ready to lose the WE, to let go of the WE and all or any benefits that came with the WE.

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WE is always more powerful then I. So, if we’re ready to lose, if we’re ready to be weak - then we become strong. If we stay in WE, we become weak. Curious how it works, isn’t it?

Strong ego is not a desirable thing, even if we can’t see it always.
Ego stems from “past messages” - old informations, experiences, impressions, knowledge and achievements. When our limited container becomes full of it - we can’t receive any more. We need to empty some out. More we empty the container - the energy and life flows easier within us.

Since life is always new, ever-changing, ever-evolving - so the informations, impressions and experiences also, naturally, are - and so the knowledge and achievements also have to be. We don’t have time to hold onto the old, as the world will not stop spinning to bow to our ego.

When we surrender our ego to that truth - when we’re humble and make sure we’re always open and ready to learn and receive new life messages at any moment - that’s how we naturally empty our container. By clearing our goal, we define the source of messages we receive.

And so we begin to understand the true power of weakness.

What we normally perceive as weakness is actually us surrendering our ego to the higher truth. Whether it be on natural, social or spiritual level - we can’t go against the truth. We will surely lose. These powers greatly surpass the power of any single individual.

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Of course, that can make our ego feel hurt and frustrated, but there’s no actual danger - energy ALWAYS works for us, after we surrender our ego. And all the results naturally follow.

There’s nothing to worry about, there’s no need to struggle, there’s no need to ‘die hard’ - everything can come to our life peacefully, naturally if we understand this truth. Good thing is we have enough time and opportunities to study that - as that’s what life is for.

There is no strength without weakness and no weakness without strength.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine and philosophy there is Yin and Yang in everything. For every thing, every idea and notion and every term - there is it’s polar opposite. It’s the nature of the Universe. And everything in it has its purpose.

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So what is purpose of weakness?

In Chinese traditional philosophy, Yang is no better than Yin - and vice versa. Day is no better than night, white is no better than black, left is no better than right, up is no better than down. They work together to provide balance, the flow of energy - the ‘life electricity’ itself, the current of life.

Just as the electricity in an electrical wire flows from - to + and back (in alternating current), so does the energy flow from its Yin to Yang and back. That’s life in its essence. So without its polar opposites - this whole magnificent manifestation of life in a material world would be impossible, would be non-existent.

So, strength is no better than weakness and weakness is no better then strength. Strength needs weakness, just as weakness needs strength. They work together to create movement that life needs.

So what is weakness good for exactly?

Finally, we come to the simple part: when we feel strong - it’s our Yang-time - time for doing, achieving, reaching, holding and resisting. Time for creating.

When we feel weak - nothing is bad, there’s nothing to worry about or be afraid. All stress we feel in our head and nervous system - it’s just our old conditioned mind that thinks we should be all the time running around like a headless chicken.

And what’s really happening is: it’s our Yin-time. Time to rest and relax, time to recover our energy, refill and regenerate, rejuvenate and replenish - time to absorb the information we’ve collected in the previous period. Time to chew those subtle informations that our mind didn’t even notice when it collected them - time to digest and store them, time to create new cognitions and conclusions, develop new understandings and awareness, to create new ideas and goals and upgrade our vision of ever-bright future.

We need to practice that - and wire our mind correctly this time.
What definitely helps to begin with is simple relaxation.
Taking time off and closing our eyes to explore the peace of our inner energy flow.

Just do it - 15, 20, 30 min or more as much as you want - breath deeply, from your belly, relax your arms, hands and legs. Open and empty your mind, try to keep you mouth gently open and relaxed - and smile if you can. If you can’t - make it your goal to get there!

One day you’ll find there are but a few such deeply pleasurable experiences in this world - as flowing with energy sitting in your own chair at home or wherever you find youself, in nature of otherwise.
So, what once seemed as a weakness suddenly will become a portal into whole new realm of power.
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Thanks for reading,

Until next time.