The function of will power is to regulate the flow of emotional energy in the body. To use an analogy, if emotions are like water then will power is the faucet that opens and closes to regulate the flow of water. People with strong will can use it to completely shut down the expression of emotion. This is not necessarily a healthy approach. The other side of that is people with low self will are usually at the mercy of their emotions and will have difficulty using reason when stress gets high. The key here is to find a balance between the two. In understanding that will is used to apply counterbalance to hyper/hypo emotional expression, you can look at developing your strength of will as a skill. Like any other skill, you get better over time with practice. Will power is highly connected to your personal sense of identity and therefore has a deep connection to your ego. In early stages of development, a persons will and ego go hand in hand with each other. As you continue to develop, your will increases only when ego mind is let go of. Eventually to access your highest divine will, all personal will must be let go of.
In order to gauge how effective the application of your personal will is, I present four different stages that people will generally go through in their development process and different strategies to help you to move to the next level.
The stages are as follows:
1)No Will Power, No Sense of Self Identity – If self awareness is very low then will power is also low. Without self awareness there is no counterbalance to the impressions of the external environment. When vitality goes down (due to poor diet and sleep, lack of exercise, high stress, pollution and financial debt) then so does strength of will. When will power is low it will seem like you will be at the mercy of external circumstances. At this stage it is very easy for a person to give over their sense of self to any individual or group. Regardless if it’s beneficial to the individual or not. The most common examples here are religion, politics and cults. Breaking out of this way of being can be terribly difficult since the sense of self is tied to the group identity and personal energy is usually too low to sustain any effort.
There are two strategies to help move beyond this stage. The first one is using your will for controlling lower impulses that cause you to make poor decisions with regard to your health. You have to love and treat yourself better. This serves the purpose of not only changing your mindset but also helps to strengthen physical reserves through proper measures like diet, restorative exercise, sleep and meditation. As vitality increases then so does your will. Secondly, at this level a person will need lots of community support. It will be very important to surround yourself and learn to trust people who have your best interest at heart and to help you make smart decisions.
2) Low Will, Low Sense of Self – As your sense of self (as defined by your ego) starts to develop then you start to acquire general notions of what is right and wrong, good and bad etc.. that may actually differ from the herd. You still generally accept the values impressed upon you but a part of you may start to question them. This is an amazing thing! Keep doing that as it will enable you to break away from some of the external controlling influences that dictate your behaviour. The process of questioning the external imprinted values is a key step to moving beyond this stage. In the mind, the question and the answer always arise together. The moment you ask the question means the answer is within you. You just have to go a little deeper within to find it. To move past this level keep focus on building physical vitality, but also spend more time on self inquiry. Build self awareness and eventually the answers to the questions you are asking will come to the surface. Community support will still be needed. It will be very important to find other people who share some of the new values that are arising within to provide a safe place for expression for new points of view. This will enable you to start breaking away from the complete dependence/reliance on others for your decision making.
3) Strong Will, Distorted Sense of Self – This category represents those who can do, create or achieve much but still have no connection to the deeper aspects of self. Much of their behaviour is still based on unconscious programming however the individual will have plenty of drive to execute whatever those subconscious instructions are. Regardless if those beliefs are positive or negative. People at this stage can appear to be successful in the eyes of others and will attain high material success because of their strong drive. Yet at some point they may have to go through some type of metamorphosis that can be very painful. This is because they are still operating from a place where their values are imprinted and not self generated. It may take years (if ever) before they realize that what they are doing provides no inner fulfillment because they don’t know who they really are. This can be represented by the mid life crisis or proverbial dark knight of the soul. Since self awareness may be low (as focus is based on the external) there can be a build up of emotional energy in the body over time due to lack of expression of yin emotional states like grief, shame, or guilt. These emotions will be terribly uncomfortable (and may be seen as weakness) so yang emotions like anger are often used as a cover for them. As intense yang emotions like anger can often be used to control people and situations to a desired result, others may see someone at this stage as having great will power because of this. That is false assumption because this is incorrect application of self will. It is to be used internally, not externally. When you direct your will against the external world their will always be resistance. There is always an opposing philosophy to yours and to constantly direct your will against the external can drain a persons’ vitality. If the unconscious beliefs that are driving you are coming from a place of fear, then you will be a magnet for conflict. Life will always be a battle, and this will prevent you from developing any deeper self awareness.
To move beyond this stage there must be a greater awareness brought to suppressed emotions. Will is used as a tool to open the channel for the expression of suppressed emotions in a healthy way. Unfortunately, emotions can be so intense here it can cause a major upheaval and loss of personal identity. Not knowing who you are can be a very unsettling place to be for someone with a strong ego. As these emotions get released a process of constantly letting go of the previous self identity and embracing of the new version of you that is emerging is necessary for the transformation to take place. Vitality must be supported at this stage through proper lifestyle habits to be able to cope with the intense degree of releasing that can accompany this stage. If a person has been self reliant then community support may not be accepted so instead look for individual support. Find your mentor. Some version of therapy, coaching, mindfulness will be necessary to help deal with the inner transformation. Moving beyond this stage represents a landmark step in the process of developing your will power. Once you have learned to integrate the shadow aspects of self then you will no longer be subject to your lower impulses.
This is part one of the article. View part 2 of the article here.
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