Hi iza,
Before I started writing to you, I lit a candle and said a prayer:
“May I say something useful.”
It’s so easy to feel small, overwhelmed, and immobilized by what’s going on in the world right now. I’ve felt all of those ways off and on in the last month.
I thought (and wrote and deleted) for a long time about how (and if) to contribute something useful right now.
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Our business exists to help humans like you heal and upgrade their relationship with money.
Why? Because money is a stand-in for power in our society.
Our relationship with money has everything to do with our relationship with power.
And when we find our way to a healthier relationship with money, we’re automatically in a healthier relationship with power.
Not power over. But power with. Personal power. The ability to impact change in the world around us. Power we can use for good. (Brene Brown posted about the origin of the term “power with”, giving credit to Mary Parker Follette and the whole carousel is a beautiful sermon and reminder.)
What we’re seeing right now is a slow collapse of the way our dominant culture has related to power for thousands of years (a messy, devastating collapse that’s burning way stronger in these last blasts before it burns out).
A new kind of power is emerging – power with – and we get to be part of the dawning of this new way.
You and I both know I’m not an expert in geopolitics or immigration policy, so I’m not going to speak to those things, except to say that I stand for families being allowed to stay together, for due process, and for parents, teachers, health care workers, and all innocent community members having the right to safely go about their lives.
I stand with humanity, meaning the part of us that’s all connected and the presence of love that can always be amplified by putting our attention on it.
But I do know the body. And the body is where we plug back into our true source of personal power.
Our power isn’t something that’s ever existed “out there.” In fact, the very systems that are in the painful process of collapse depend on us continuing to live in the delusion that someone or something outside of ourselves has the ability to give us power or take it away.
I believe we were all born at this time in order to be part of the Transition Team. On some level, we were made for this moment.
That doesn’t mean we don’t get to grieve, shrink, wail, and rage. In fact, letting all that emotional energy move through our bodies rather than trying to suppress it is a critical step toward restoring our personal power.
“Losing” and Restoring Our Power
Here in Nashville, there are thousands and thousands of people whose homes are without electricity after intense snow and ice storms.
And as I texted another local friend to check in on her this morning and asked, “Do you have power?” I was struck by the synchronicity.
Some of my friends and neighbors have temporarily lost access to the power that comes from outside via the local power service.
But it would be impossible for them to actually lose their power because it can never be given or taken away.
The amplitude of the power that we always have access to inside of us may get turned down. And we’ll forget a million and one times.
Yet, our power is always right there, as soon as we remember to plug back in.
On Monday afternoon, I left the house for the first time since the storm to pick up a few groceries before Publix closed early. At checkout, I looked the two guys who were cashing me out and bagging my groceries in the eye and said:
“Thank you for coming to work today.”
Their response was so genuine and kind that I teared up and could have easily dissolved into a complete puddle had I not been in a public place listening to announcements that the store was closing in 5 minutes.
The simple human exchange of open-hearted presence amplified the energy of love in my body. And, as a result, it restored my power.
The energy of love in the body does things that are truly beautiful physiologically–and these things have everything to do with restoring our personal power:
- Love is characterized by coherent heart rhythms and a felt sense of safety.
- Love increases our vagal tone (meaning our nervous system goes into a parasympathetic dominant state where we’re alert, but not collapsed)
- Love decreases electrical charge leaks in our body (like less gripping with our muscles, less ruminating, and less fighting with ourselves internally)
- Love synchronizes the electrical signalling in our body (our heart, brain, gut, and fascia all communicate better)
Here’s what’s amazing about love:
It doesn’t increase energy (aka usable power) in the body through adding more fuel.
Love increases our power through removing resistance.
Because at our core, we are love. We just need to remember to remove the barriers to it.
Since love doesn’t rely on force or pressure, it’s the most sustainable source of personal power – it lets energy move through us without burning us out.
Love allows us to keep showing up for the long haul.
Love doesn’t exhaust the body–it regenerates it.
Love doesn’t fragment our attention–it allows us to keep our attention on what matters without getting flooded.
Love doesn’t require self-abandonment–it allows us to be fully whole as we share our wholeness with the world.
Love doesn’t collapse relationships–it repairs them.
Whether the headlines are about borders, uprisings, or climate collapse, our nervous systems can't metabolize it all. But our hearts can still choose where to open. This is where our power begins again.
One of the most powerful ways we can explicitly use our power is by choosing where we spend, donate, and invest (or divest.) Our society responds to money, so right now is an ideal time to take inventory of where you can give and also where you can stop supporting what you don’t believe in.
As they say: money talks.
This fall, while I was researching how the body conducts electricity and its physiological use of power, I learned that the measure of usable power is Watts.
My married name is Watts. Perhaps that’s why my prayer has always been: how can I be useful?
So today, if it feels right, I invite you to join me in asking how we can let love be our primary organizing principle.
Love restores our power, and what the world needs now is loving people plugged into Source.
It reminds me of the quote from my favorite movie growing up:
“You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.” –Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz
