The quote above is from the book, “Power vs Force”, by David Hawkins but this concept has been on my mind long before I stumbled on the book. Here are questions I’ve been observing in the world and within myself…
How do healers and people in positions of power utilize that power (serve everyone) versus engage in force (serve ourselves) and all the grey zones in between?
Do we heal/help others by intellectualizing the process, using subtle (and not so subtle) force in order to ‘fix’ someone (or ourselves)? Or do we utilize our power in a way where we are accessing our intuition, connection with our body/emotions simultaneously with knowledge of what to do in the specific moment?
How do we use power to make our services financially accessible to everyone yet also be paid fairly for our time, skillset and care provided?
How can we shift our words to create positive patterns (eg: “energetic”) versus negative patterns (eg: “agitated”) when working with others?
We ALL have experienced and projected both power and force. It’s a wide range… from asking or being asked to pay a butt load of $$$ for a healing service when we couldn’t afford it (but did it anyway), not creating an office or business model that is welcoming to the BIPOC, LGBTQIA community or people with disabilities asking questions to empower people to take ownership for their health instead of telling them what to do, marketing ourselves to make it feel we can guarantee an outcome versus market our confidence in navigating the healing process with others, etc.
I think as healers, elders, and leaders the subtle and delicate lines can get blurred over time without consistent accountability and self reflection. We’ve all been there. It’s easy to miss if you don’t look closely. If there isn’t time spent for a self audit of our subconscious biases and habits, how can we know when we are misusing our power?
We can navigate this process with compassion for ourselves and others knowing no one is perfect and mistakes will be made but we can start to make small changes every day.