Giving Away Your Power

Last updated on: June 8, 2015 at 12:55 pm by Teresa Blythe

Giving Away Your Power 2015-06-08T12:55:20-08:00 Teresa Blythe

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Spiritual direction is about claiming your own power and God’s power within you. The code of ethics that spiritual directors abide by expressly prohibits us from becoming gurus. To be the person who gives advice, admonishes or fixes your problem is to take your personal power away.

Never, ever give your personal power away to another human being!

Kumare is a fascinating documentary illustrating this dynamic.

Billed “a true film about a false prophet,” Kumare is a social experiment by filmmaker Vikram Gandhi. He wondered if, because of his ethnicity, he could create his own unnamed religion and get people to follow him. So he grew his hair and beard long, wore Indian garb and began walking around the desert Southwest teaching and praying with people. He found quite a following in Phoenix–not large but loyal. He taught made up yoga poses; unusual (but not particularly dangerous) spiritual practices; and listened as people shared their sacred stories of life.

What is most jaw-dropping is how easily people gave their power over to his guru-ship. The filmmaker was pretty shaken by it—he wasn’t really expecting his social experiment to work all that well.

Even enlightened postmodern people can slip and give our power away. We long for someone with answers, don’t we? Someone to help us make sense of the senseless in life.

This longing is the very reason why spiritual directors are fond of saying, “God is the true director—we are just facilitators.” We don’t want to become the guardian of another person’s path. So if you find yourself in a spiritual direction or ministry relationship in which the person you are working with has a great deal of sway or influence over your decisions or attitudes in life—get out. You will need to find someone who is trained in ways that allow you to keep your power and feel even more empowered. Anything less will do you harm.

For more about spiritual direction as I practice it, please check out my website.

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