Empowerment

"Yesterday you saw what didn’t work about that group, but don’t think because you spotted a few things you know all the answers. Do not seek to run where you can hardly walk. If you were leading a group you would encounter all sorts of things to knock you off beam. Leadership is not something you should aspire to. All the most disastrous ‘leaders’ in history have been those who were determined to exorcise their inner fear of insignificance by inflicting it on others. Those with no awareness of the spiritual, battle amongst themselves for domination — the conquest of a hill, a town, a corporation, a country in order to -what?- continue fighting harder to hold onto it. For if they let it slip away their memory will be erased by the new winner.
What a waste of time and energy! Concentrate on your own development. What you achieve on this path can never be taken away from you. At times the process may feel the same: fighting back the indifference/ignorance in your own makeup, only to see it return and overwhelm you.

"But consider, if you could obliterate the habits of a lifetime in one session, the beneficial habits you build up could be equally easily erased. In fact there is a natural rhythm of expansion and contraction in learning, just as there is within the body. Forgetting plays an important role, like the scouring action of the tide. At first it seems to sweep away much of what you learn before you have absorbed it, but as you progress the tide recedes leaving more and more behind. Imagine the response of your digestive system to food in a new country. At first you might only be able to tolerate the mildest of dishes, but as your system adapts itself to the new cuisine you would be able to tolerate increasingly strong ones. Noone is perfect. You readily accept that about others, but find it so hard to accept about yourself. Don’t pretend. Be imperfect! Glory in your imperfections.

"When you have fully accepted what makes you cringe you will have found out the lesson it was put there to teach you — and so be able to release it. Cherish the wonkiest part of yourself, ignore the values that the unenlightened might put upon it. They have been freezing you into immobility.
"Go. Do. Speak. Act.
"Have you said ‘I cant do X /change Y /or become Z because of what A would think?’ You are passing to another the burden of choices that you alone can make. Have you asked them if they want this responsibility? Would it change the balance of your relationship with A? Yes.
All relationships should be based on mutual trust and respect. How can another respect you, if you don’t respect yourself? Trust yourself that I speak within your balanced impulses, even if you are not initially aware of this."