Week 23 - A person who helps/empowers can also take me for granted/disempower. How do I create my own power? What is the limit of gratitude?

9 of Cups Rx, 2 of Swords, The Devil

Help doesn’t come from someone. It comes through someone.

When we are in need of help, and find someone who is willing to offer it, it is a moment of many possibilities. A relationship deepens when help is exchanged between people. But anything that deepens also reveals layers within us. Layers that are light and layers that are shadow. So wherever there is give, their is an underlying shadow of take. You may ask yourself, “Can I take what I have given? Can I give what I have taken?”

We become powerless when we assume that the one helping us or giving us is empowering us. This is far from the truth. There is a greater force that has empowered that other person to help you. That greater force has chosen the other person to help you. Therefore help and empowerment comes not from this person. It simply comes through them. And so your gratitude must not only extend to this person who became a conduit for the help you needed, but to the Source of all life itself that came to you. It could have come to you through anyone. It gave and you received. And here’s the good part - unlike the human who can have expectations, Source has none. It is infinite. It doesn’t keep a record of how much you received from it. And you cannot give it anything for it needs nothing from you. You can only pass on, pay forward what you have received from it.

Photo by aisvri on Unsplash

What disempowers you is this thinking that you owe the person who helped you something in return. You cannot be blamed for this thinking because this is what the world revolves around. Relationships are largely transactional. And if you continue to see them as that, you will always feel like you owe the other or they owe you. This paradigm is built to make each person feel large or small, turn by turn, transaction by transaction. The score will never be settled. So let that paradigm, that narrative go if you want to feel powerful.

There is no limit to gratitude. But there is a limit to giving back. You give what you have. Everyone gives what they have. From what is theirs at a particular moment. Don’t give based on what you have taken. That is not how giving works. Each person’s capacity to give depends on how much they have and what they are supposed to give is what they don’t need. We give from what is surplus. But of course, this simple mathematics is hard for us humans to understand. We want to create chaos. Confusion. Chains. Obligation. Hierarchy. We want more than we need. We give more than we have. Our wants feed our hunger. The one who has enough is also hungry. And the one who is hungry keeps on giving. You’ve been on both sides. And both sides feel disempowering.

Instead of being on opposite sides, imagine yourself and this other person standing in a queue. Imagine a brilliant star behind you both, its light passing through the person behind you, into you and through you. Imagine another person in front of you, receiving this light from you, just as you received it from the person behind you. This is how we are helped. This is how help works.

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

The brilliant star represents the infinite Source of life that has everything we need. It is passing through us all at all times. Due to an interesting series of events, you and this person ended up in a dynamic where they received the light, transmitted it and helped you glow. Be grateful for this encounter. If you feel gratitude for your experience rather than the people responsible for that experience, you will never have to worry about a limit on that gratitude. It will be what it is. And you will not be compelled to make it any greater than that.

To create power, accept that help comes from beyond the helper. And when it is time, the help will go forth from you. Feel your power in the fact that like your helper you too are a conduit for help and feel gratitude for every beautiful encounter you have with another where the light of help passes through.