Wonder Woman talks about the beauty of people breaking through blocks to keeping themselves small. Another aspect of the breaking through is just the realization that there might be a block - that some aspect of our own, well-known self might actually be powerful, and that we just have not recognized that yet.
I led a workshop the other day in which a woman came to realize that her well-known ability to make friends, to connect with people, might actually be power. I'd say so! What does that do for a person, though?
Well, there's the obvious: it's pleasant to have friends. If you just look at that, though, it is a little hard to see how this could be called power.
Having friends also means having resources - if you're willing to call on them. That's a little more like power.
On a deeper level, though, friends are reflections of us. They can show us, directly or indirectly, things about ourselves that we might never learn without them. They can show us our ability to love, our reactions to tragedy or good fortune, our generosity (or lack of it), where we easily stand strong, and where we are surprisingly weak. Our choice of friends can show us the qualities we value, the qualities we have (whether we acknowledge them or not), the qualities we wish we had (that is, that we are working on developing).
More friends, more opportunities for all those learnings! That's darned powerful.
In the SMSD teaching called the Seven Values of the Everything, the third value is the relationship one has to those in one's immediate everyday environment. This speaks pretty directly to the richness friends bring to our lives, and to our own spiritual growth - but also shows us what we bring to them, and what our responsibilities are.
With power comes responsibility.
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I like how you make the connection between friendship to the power to learn things about ourselves that we might never know otherwise.
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