Discovering Your Power

There once was a boy called Jack. He lived with his mother, and they were very poor. The only income Jack’s mother had was from the milk that her cow, Milky-White, produced. One day Milky-White didn’t give any milk and Jack’s mother was desperate. Jack saw her anxiety and he told his mother not to be afraid because he would go into town to sell the cow. His mother was re-assured that at least they would be able to buy some food with the money from the sale of the cow. On the way to town, Jack met an old man who managed to convince Jack to give him the cow in exchange for five “magic beans.” He told Jack that if he planted the beans they would grow right up to the sky. Jack was impressed and made the exchange. When he got back home, his mother was so enraged that she sent Jack to bed without anything to eat and she threw the beans out of the window in a rage! The next morning, Jack looked out of the window at a massively tall beanstalk that reached up to the sky. So Jack climbed out of his bedroom window, jumped onto the beanstalk and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed until he reached the sky. When he got there, he saw a “long broad path straight as a dart leading to a great big tall house and on the doorstep was a great big tall woman.”

You see, deep inside you are these magic beans, enormous power. You aren’t weak and powerless; you are all-powerful. Jack’s mother needed money for food, but Jack chose to discover prosperity, and freedom. He took a decision, he made a choice, to exchange his mother’s cow for five magic beans. In making that choice, Jack already began to discover his power. He used his True Will, his power to choose.

To use your Will sometimes takes great courage. Why? Because your Will is often in complete opposition to your fears! Most of us have not been taught how to choose for ourselves, while at the same time we have been taught how to be afraid! We haven’t been encouraged to use our intuition; we’ve been taught from childhood to “be sensible” to use our intellect, to enter a profession or career that will give security and status, prestige. And we have been taught to fear failure and not being good enough.

This is what I call a Philosophy of Brokenness. Through it we have been led to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. We are broken and in need of fixing. This philosophy, of brokenness or being wrong in some way, was an inevitable side effect of the misunderstood doctrine of original sin, which follows that there must be something fundamentally wrong with the way in which we come into being, with sex itself. Religious doctrines such as this become dogma and accepted as fact. Lacking the keys to real understanding, such doctrines as these are dead doctrines, producing belief in judgement, fear and death.

The majority of the Western world suffers from the effects of this, flawed philosophy. It’s corrupted our relationship with sex, ourselves and with others, has deeply penetrated the collective psyche and much suffering and enmity in the modern world can be attributed to it.

What if there was nothing wrong with you? How would it feel to be instantly freed from all sense of being flawed, broken and in need of being mended? What changes might become possible if you were to discover that you were already fully accepted, loved and completely whole? What if you were not weak, but all-powerful? That’s the first step in discovering your power: to disown your belief in weakness and powerlessness. Conventional treatment programmes for sex or porn addiction have been built upon a premise of powerlessness. In step one of the twelve-step recovery programme for “sex and love addicts” the patient has been told to “admit that I am powerless over addictive sexual behaviour, that our lives have become unmanageable.” The new treatment paradigm begins from a completely different premise. Step One is to choose the truth: “I am not weak, but strong. I am not helpless, but all-powerful. I am not doubtful, but certain.”  This is a conscious choice, to start from a premise based on your innate power, your true Self. This choice requires courage, the exercise of your Will. You won’t feel strong, all-powerful and certain. You must make a decision to climb the beanstalk, not knowing what you might find when you reach the top.

What do you want your life to be like? What do you want with regard to intimate relationships, or from your love-life? What do you want your sex life to be? There is magical power in using your creative imagination and your power to choose by first of all deciding what you want!

Jack’s mother knew what she needed; money to buy some food. But how much money would be enough to free her from fear of starvation or poverty? How long would the proceeds from the sale of her cow last? She chose a course of action based upon fear and weakness. Jack made a very different choice. He chose to do something courageous. He chose to trust in the magic beans!

He climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed until finally he reached the sky, where he took a path that was as straight as a dart that led to a great tall house where there was a great tall woman on the step of the house. After entering the house by pleading with the woman to give him something to eat, Jack encountered a giant ogre, like an inner demon, wanting to kill him and eat him for breakfast. We all remember the roar of the ogre:

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead I’ll have his bones to grind my bread!”

Afraid, but courageous, Jack managed to steal the giant’s bag of gold and escape down the beanstalk before the ogre could catch him and eat him for breakfast. Once safely home, Jack proudly presented his mother with the ogre’s bag of gold that was enough to feed both of them for quite some time. Over a period of “once upon a time” Jack would return to climb the giant beanstalk leading to the sky. He became more familiar with the path that led to the great tall house and he was able to trust the great tall woman more and more to protect him from the giant ogre. On one journey to the sky Jack managed to steal the ogre’s golden hen, and then the ogre’s golden harp on another adventure. The golden hen laid golden eggs at the command of “Lay!”  The golden harp produced gold in response to the command of “Sing!”  With the hen and the harp at their disposal, Jack and his mother would be able to live in wealth, prosperity, and freedom for their entire lives. Jack had managed to turn his own inner darkness and fear into wealth and freedom. This is a story of complete transformation that would have been forever missing if Jack had chosen to take the action his mother prescribed, and simply sold the cow to meet an immediate need.

But wait, the story isn’t quite complete here. On Jack’s last recorded climb of the beanstalk, while escaping with the golden harp in his possession, he was chased by the giant ogre. Jack ran as fast as he could, but the ogre came rushing after, and would soon have caught him except that jack “dodged him a bit and knew where he was going.” Jack had become familiar with the ways of magic. The story goes on to say that when the ogre was not more than twenty yards away from him, Jack now knowing his way, suddenly seemed to disappear. Jack had leaned how to climb on to the beanstalk and begin the descent. But the giant was so angry that he swung himself down onto the beanstalk, which shook with his weight. “Down climbs Jack”, we read, “and after him climbed the ogre.” By this time, Jack had climbed down and climbed down and climbed down and climbed down until he was very nearly home.

Jack called to his mother, “Mother! Mother! Bring me an axe, bring me an axe!” His mother came rushing out with an axe in her hand, but when she came to the beanstalk, she stood stock still with fright for there she saw the ogre coming down just below the clouds. That is what fear does; it paralyses. It maintains the status quo. And this is the next important step in the new treatment paradigm: to recognise and destroy limiting beliefs and negative thought forms. Fear renders the fearful powerless. Power on the other hand, renders fear powerless.

Jack jumped down from the foot of the beanstalk, got hold of the axe and gave a chop at the beanstalk which cut it almost in two. Then Jack gave another chop with the axe, and the beanstalk was completely cut in two and began to topple over. Then the “ogre fell down and broke his crown and the beanstalk came toppling after.” Jack had taken an axe to the root of the growth, the beanstalk, and destroyed it by cutting it in two. This action, taking an axe to the root of the problem, is mirrored in another famous myth, that of David and Goliath. In that story, we are told of Goliath, a famous giant reckoned to be about ten and a half feet tall who threatened the security of a nation. When challenged face to face by the giant, David put a stone into his sling and with it he struck the giant in his forehead and killed him. But not content with that, David ran and stood over the giant, took his sword and cut off the giant’s head! In the story of Jack and the Ogre, the root of the problem was a belief in powerlessness. In the story of David and Goliath, the root of the problem was negative thought forms that produce fear. In both stories our heroes not only defeat the threat, but they cut it off at the roots. In Jack’s case he cut down the insidious plant that grows inwardly, making us fear that something is wrong with us. In David’s case he cut off the container of thoughts and negative thinking by removing the head of the giant.

This is where the new treatment paradigm for sex or porn addiction begins. First, to choose to own your inner power, your true Self. This is not a feeling, it’s a decision. Positively deny that you’re powerless over porn or infidelity. Choose to own your power, that of your own True Will. Write on a card “I am not weak, but strong. I am not helpless, but all-powerful. I am not doubtful, but certain.” Carry the card with you wherever you are, every day and read it to yourself, aloud whenever possible. Let it be the last thing you repeat to yourself as you are falling off to sleep every night. Let it seep into your subconscious mind. Meditate upon it. Say it to yourself in the mirror. Even say it to your partner or a special close friend if you have them.

Second, take time to make a list of what you want your life to look like in six months’ time. The changes will start immediately but total transformation may be gradual over the next six months. Don’t limit your desires or aspirations because of the doubts and fears of “Jack’s mother” in your brain. The new treatment paradigm will guide you to manifest the desires and wishes that you write in your list.

 We are working with the unseen magical forces of the Universe. Don’t limit them.

Watch for my next blog: “Turning Your Greatest Fears into Friends"