Arrogance: The Fear of Vulnerability Part 1 & 2___4417
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Arrogance: The Fear of Vulnerability
Posted: 28 Oct 2009 06:40 PM PDT This is fourth in a series on expanding the chief features of the
Michael Teachings framework. In this channeling, the focus is on
Arrogance. Arrogance is built upon the fear of vulnerability. We have defined
vulnerability in the past as a "coming forward" with the complete
Self: It has nothing to do with allowing another person unrestricted access
to your energetic core. Vulnerability is about bringing yourself
forward as you are. In Arrogance, there is a constant sense of defense against
vulnerability. Walls are erected around the Self, often in the form of
an image given to others, and much attention and focus is given to the
creation and maintenance of this wall. However, when such attention
and focus is given to a space outside the Self - unless what is inside
is just as full and complete as what is within - then there will
always be a pervasive sense of emptiness. In other words, the person with Arrogance is constantly feeling empty
inside. Because of this constant feeling of inner emptiness, there is
huge fear of being seen and of being found fraudulent. The emptiness
will be perceived by others. There is an awareness of the apparent
discrepancy between this wall (and image) that is being maintained and
the sense of emptiness deep inside the wall. Manifestations of Arrogance
There are, as you can imagine, different ways of manifesting
Arrogance. One is more cardinal (outward facing or extroverted) and
one is more ordinal (introverted). Cardinal arrogance, or exalted
arrogance, will have a constant sense of pushing outward to maintain
that wall. A personality construct is thrust outward and an image is
maintained strongly. Yet there is still always the knowledge of the
inner emptiness and the fear that someone meeting that wall will see
the inner emptiness inside - and therefore the cardinally arrogant
person will be found fraudulent. The king will be found to have no
clothes.
Ordinal arrogance is a little different. There is still the creation
and maintenance of a wall, but there is not the constant sense of
pushing outward to maintain it. The wall is more like a cloaking
shield, giving the illusion of invisibility. The wall is a defense
against anyone coming inside - and so the wall is put up hastily, at
the last minute, to prevent anyone from coming beyond that point.
There is a knowledge of where the wall would exist when a threat is
perceived, but it's not a constant outward pressure. Instead, it's
hastily erected in order to defend against a perceived threat of
someone seeing that empty core that's always perceived as inside the
arrogant person.
This is the root of shyness. This wall of defense that the ordinally arrogant person uses can take
different forms. In shyness, it's a retreat into that sense of
emptiness. In this case, the ordinally arrogant person can only see
that emptiness and assumes that everyone else can also only see that
emptiness. They immerse themselves in the sense of invisibility that
they have in being in that emptiness: They feel empty. They sense
emptiness. They assume everyone else sees them as empty - and
invisible. On the other hand, the cardinally arrogant person is more afraid of
being found fraudulent. Ordinal arrogance is for the most part chosen by those already
exhibiting more ordinal energy. There is no rule of thumb here, but in
general ordinal roles or an overall choice of overleaves are more
comfortable with ordinal arrogance. This is not always the case and
not always tied to a role; it's an overall energetic choice. Ordinal arrogance is still based on this pervasive sense of emptiness,
but rather than it being a "defense by offense", which is the function
of cardinal arrogance, it is more "pure defense" When an energetic
assault is felt on that outer shell of identity, then the person who
uses ordinal arrogance attempts to become invisible. It is a function
of stealth rather than a projected image. In these cases with ordinal arrogance the conscious awareness of the
emptiness of Self is typically apparent more often than it is with
cardinal arrogance. In the latter, the focus is on that outer shell of
identity. Thus the person's sense of identity becomes lost in that
focus. But the movement outward is always to escape that sense of
inner emptiness. With ordinal arrogance the inner emptiness is felt
because the persona is in many ways identified with that smallness of
invisibility. The Emptiness Within
Often the word "emptiness" is used more to relate to people with
Greed, where an emptiness is attempted to be filled with more and
more. The inner sense of emptiness in Arrogance, on the other hand,
has to do with the Self - a feeling of emptiness about one's own self,
it's value, and the identity as such. The emptiness of Greed on the
other hand is always seeking outward. Greed is always wanting more and
more of some thing, even if that thing is intangible, in order to fill
up an inner emptiness. The fear of that emptiness in Arrogance
manifests in two specific ways - the cardinal and the ordinal. Rather
than a gathering of more and more experiences, things, or
relationships as with Greed, with Arrogance there is the creating that
wall of a persona (cardinal arrogance) or a focus on creating that
wall of invisibility for protection. The feeling of emptiness exists for both: in Greed the perception of
emptiness is attempted to be filled, whereas with Arrogance the
emptiness is attempted to be denied by blocking access to it. When
coupled with Self-Destruction this results in very overt addictive
behaviors. How the Wall is Erected: Childhood Beginnings
Arrogance is created when a child begins to develop unreasonably high
expectations for himself. High expectations are often developed when a
child feels a sense of competition with others in the family. In other
words, there is a constant sense of comparison between the child
developing arrogance and other people around them, such as parents or
siblings. The energy of arrogance is often associated with damage to the third
chakra. When the third chakra is damaged by other people around the
child developing arrogance and if there is difficulty expressing the
extent of the pain that results from the damage to the chakra (if the
sense of competition is too great or the child is being silenced for
any reason such as by power struggles) then the damage to the third
chakra will result in a change in the child's energy flow. This energy
flow, rather than being self contained, will always feel like the
power center is missing. The power center relates, in the child's
mind, to the sense of Self. If there's something missing in the
energetic power center of the child, then there will be a sense of
inner emptiness. High expectations of the Self tend to be formed when there are
frequent assaults made from another trusted person's third chakra to
the child's third chakra. Because there is a desire within the child
to maintain a connection to the person who is damaging their third
chakra, there is a desire to please. However, because of the nature of
power interactions, there can never be any true pleasing of the other,
and so the child takes on this dynamic of power and competition and
transforms it into setting very high expectations within themselves.
This results in people who get straight As, become child prodigies, or
throw themselves into anything in particular in order to excel. Interestingly enough, it is from a sense of inner emptiness that the
majority of people who excel in one way or another act, and they can
never satisfy that sense of inner emptiness because their expectations
are always set higher and higher, no matter how good they get at
something. Understand that not everyone who has the energy of
arrogance is going to be excelling in anything in particular. The
sense of competition can sometimes result in competing to be "worst".
But even without excelling, the dynamic is still the same:
expectations, power struggle, and a sense of inner emptiness. The
wall, this image of an identity, is created in part to be as big as
the person that they are competing with, in order to be as good as
this parent or older sibling. But at the same time, there is a feeling
of certainty that they can never be as good as the person that they
are competing. It's a lose-lose situation. Relationships Within the Wall of Arrogance
In general, relationships with people in Arrogance can be frustrating
if you are of a person who wants to have a very close, intimate
relationship that's not also codependent. People with Arrogance want
to be close, yet they have an intense fear of letting anyone see who
they are. They become accustomed to setting up all kinds of defenses -
or self-destructing relationships when they feel that people are
becoming too close. In other words, they break up with people in a
relationship as they advance on and become more intimate, or they
completely shut down emotionally. People inAarrogance tend to take on roles rather easily in a
relationship: "The Protector," "The Nurturer" and "The Provider" are
some examples. They take on roles and they find it difficult to move
out of those roles. They tend to choose partners who help feed the
identity roles that they take on within a relationship. They are
particularly susceptible to performing the same relationship patterns
over and over and over again. They tend to be the ones who have a
pattern of serial monogamy, affairs, and have difficulty staying with
one person for a long time - unless that person is very content with
there being an element of distance or a power imbalance in the
relationship. A person in Arrogance is likely not going to be
comfortable in a long-term relationship with someone who wants a deep
sense of intimacy. Note that these generalizations only apply to unquestioned and
unexamined Arrogance. You truly have no limitations. Chief features
can be let go of - as we shall address later. People in Arrogance can have very satisfying long-term relationships
with other people - as long as those other people are they themselves
comfortable with relationships where there is an element of distance.
We know of very highly functional, long-term relationships where one
member is an arrogance and the other person is not and is happy
interacting with that image that's created rather than the person
inside. Yet Arrogance also leads to a strong disconnection with the Self.
People in Arrogance can be highly functional and highly helpful to
others - but they don't necessarily perceive that there is a problem
or the nature of their sense of inner emptiness. The Social Rewards
Just as with Martyrdom, there are social rewards to Arrogance in
modern Western culture. Western culture admires a sense of being
bigger than you already are. It admires the John Wayne swagger. It
admires bravado. There is an element to the energy of Arrogance that
has that - especially the cardinal arrogance that pushes outward. What
is not seen on a social level is that fear of being found fraudulent.
Because of this fear of being found out to be empty inside, the
Arrogant person is pushing out even more, daring himself to do greater
things and be ever bigger. Ironically it's the most cardinally Arrogant person who is most in
denial of the Self on an inner basis. It creates a lack of self
awareness. Within this irony, it's often the very cardinally Arrogant who lead
self-help workshops. These people can be very much in denial of
themselves, because they fully believe themselves to be the image that
they have created. They can walk in that image, put a lot of energy
into that image - or "I'm a guru and I'm helping you" - without ever
attending to that sense of inner emptiness. The admiring energy from
students reinforces the pattern of Arrogance and creates even more
fear of others seeing the inner emptiness. Perceptions - and
perceptions of students in that area - are therefore unconsciously
repressed until there is little awareness of the nature of the Self. It's not as if these people are hopeless and can do nothing because of
this pervasive fear; in fact it often leads them to be very helpful to
others. But there is always a constant, deep fear of being found out,
even if it's on a subconscious level and they are unaware of it. There
is damage to the power center. Often those with Arrogance appear to have a very large energy and seem
powerful. This is because of the model they had in terms of their own
childhood and the relationships that they built based on their
interactions with their family. They were trying to be bigger than
them energetically because of that power struggle dynamic. This is the
dynamic that they know in terms of interpersonal relationships, and
this is what they will be focusing on and teaching others. In essence,
even when the person with arrogance teaches very positive information,
there will always be a power struggle. We will give example of two well known personalities. In our view, Wayne Dyer has re-written his own childhood history in
his mind. That's the extent that the identity he has created for
himself has taken for him. He will tell you, if you ask him, that he
had a very loving heart-centered childhood, when in essence he had an
emotionally absent father, a domineering mother and was constantly
trying to be as big as they were energetically, creating for him the
energy of Arrogance. You can see this dynamic as well in the interaction with Esther Hicks
and the channeling of Abraham. Esther uses a commanding big presence,
and if anyone tries to come up against that image and the energetic
wall built around it, she will immediately expand her energy (together
with that of Abraham) quickly and violently to cause the other person
to back off. This happens during both channeling sessions of Abraham
and during Wayne Dyer's presentations. If anyone were to question him
in a way that triggers doubts in his image or engages that sense of
inner emptiness, then he would violently push his energy outwards and
cause the other person to back off. This is the classic description of
a "power game". Question: What's the difference between helping and leading others
from within Arrogance and helping others as you are? Because the idea of being bigger than you are is rewarded in modern
Western culture, many people are attracted to "larger than life"
personalities. Thus there is a magnetizing effect for the teachers who
have exalted Arrogance. The things that they could be saying may have
great Truths to them. It's not as if their Arrogance is negating the
truth of what they are teaching. The energy of Arrogance does have a
magnetizing effect and allows others to see them as "larger than life"
which fits in with their ideas of how the world should work and that
they should be "on high". This in turn feeds the energy of Arrogance
by having an adoring crowd of people who are very willing to buy into
that larger than life image. It's a self-perpetuating cycle. How does this differ from a teaching that is not centered around
someone with Arrogance? It will attract different people. When you
need to look outside yourself to find Truths - when you don't trust
your own inner guidance - then you will be looking to someone who has
a larger than life energy, which includes teachers with arrogance.
There thus tends to be a pairing of Arrogance with other chief
features which disconnect you from that sense of inner guidance. When people feel more comfortable about at least checking in with
their own inner guidance, they they will tend to seek teachers without
much arrogance, who are "walking the walk" more and are more like
themselves in terms of energetic structure, and who are more in touch
with both their inner Truths and their own inner fears. As you all
know, when someone is very much "out there" with who they truly are -
including their doubts, insecurities as well as their strengths - then
it will feel more ultimately complete. Especially when you yourself
are more comfortable validating things on your own instead of looking
outside yourself for the answers. Because of the length of this channeling, it is be continued on Oct 29
in Part 2: Healing Arrogance and Letting Go, which deals with various
methods of letting go of the associated fears and learning to truly be
one's Self.
Arrogance Part 2: Letting go and healing
Posted: 29 Oct 2009 06:40 PM PDT This is Part 2 of the channeling of Arrogance, expanding the chief
features of the Michael Teachings framework. For the previous
article, dealing with a full description on the dynamic and energy
flow of Arrogance, see Part 1. We will start by briefly repeating what arrogance is and then move on
to healing and balancing methods.
Arrogance is built upon the fear of vulnerability. We have defined
vulnerability in the past as a "coming forward" with the complete
Self:
It has nothing to do with allowing another person unrestricted access
to your energetic core. Vulnerability is about bringing yourself
forward as you are.
Healing Arrogance In this case, and in the case of any of the chief features, when we
talk about healing, we simply mean acknowledgment of that energy
without the fear that it is driving you. It is awareness that heals,
because within that awareness is Love. Trying to "kill' any source of
arrogance within you is the surest way to create another wall of an
identity, even more elusive than the first. The easiest and quickest way for those using the energy of arrogance,
whether it's cardinal arrogance or ordinal arrogance is simply to
become more accepting of the reality of one's Self. We repeat: The easiest and quickest way to heal the energy of arrogance is to
become accepting of your own energy - of who you are. The implication
here is that you have to be willing to look at you are. From that
perception, you must then be willing to work through all the judgments
that you have about who you are. There is a great deal of courage involved in the process of looking at
who you are from a realistic basis, acknowledging the judgments that
you have about yourself and simply letting them be: not running,
screaming in the other direction. We do not underestimate the terror
at the root of the arrogant. It's a difficult thing to do for many
people, because the overall the overriding typical first response in
arrogance is to move as quickly away from the perception of Self as
possible - which then becomes either the cloak of invisibility or the
wall of projected identity. Even if there is some movement in seeing the Self for who you are, it
is also very possible to simply change the wall of identity to a
different one, such as being one "on a healing path", "a screwed up
person" or even as someone who "has had an enlightenment experience".
Either way, it's still an identity that isn't the totality of who you
are. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has fears. Everyone
feels judgments about themselves. The more willing a person with
Arrogance is to look at some of the realities of themselves and be non-
judgmental about them, the easier it is to blur the lines of that wall
of identity and to not feel the necessity to be invisible. Healing Arrogance Aid 1: Mindfulness.
Mindfulness meditation is the most useful tool that we know of to
consistently look at things - whether it's themselves, others, or the
state of the universe - with nonjudgment and equanimity. Understand
that by examining your physical body which is your tool for
interacting with the rest of the universe with dispassion and without
judgment - whether a judgment to good or bad. By employing whatever
aspect of mindfulness that you can, you learn to stop looking at
yourself with a state of judgment and to stop seeing yourself as
eternally empty. We also give a visualization to help this: Aid 2: Visualization
With this audio visualization, we are attempting to assist you with
feeling this sense of inner identity that you have as a person in
different situation. This takes away the attention to the outer shell,
it takes away the attention to the cloak of invisibility, and it
allows you to re-experience in different situations the being that You
Are. Click Here to Download (Note: you can automatically download this into iTunes by clicking on
this iTunes subscribe link) Aid 3: An Exercise with a Partner
Ideally this exercise would be with any person that you trust:
Stand and face your partner from about three to four feet apart. If
you know that you are the person who has the energy of arrogance, then
this exercises is focused more on you; your partner is simply
assisting you. Look each other in the eyes and imagine the connection that extends
from your heart to theirs - and back again. Vividly see this
connection, running back and forth to strengthen this connection. As you imagine this connection that extends from your heart to theirs
and back again ask them to say the following : "I don't like you". It is very, very important that you keep this heart connection at the
same time they are saying this. After doing this once, you can do this exercise once without imagining
that heart connection and a second time while imagining that heart
conviction, and feel the difference in your own internal response.
The heart connection, as you will learn, your lifeline to a
vulnerability that does not crash down your world.
You can also do the essential part of this exercise at various points
in the day at any time you are interacting with another person, even
if they are unaware of it. It can be your partner, a child, a parent,
a boss or a colleague: simply imagine the connection that extends from
your heart to theirs and back again. Again, it's very important to
imagine the connection back to your own heart. Simply fixate on that
for a few moments at the beginning of an interaction that you are
having with that person; it can be difficult to focus on the entire
time so it is fine if your awareness shifts. Simply imagine that:
picture in your mind and affirm to yourself: "my heart is connected to
their heart and their heart is connected to mine."
We guarantee that doing this will help you feel more comfortable
within those interactions and keep those immediate protective
responses that take you to the energy of arrogance to a minimum. In
other words, you begin to be reacting less arrogantly in various
interactions that you find yourself. If you feel you are ready to listen to someone else's judgments about
you - their perceptions about you - and if you feel that you will not
immediately start piling your own judgments onto yourself as well,
starting a "criticism fest" then there is an advanced version of this
exercise that can be immensely healing and freeing within the confines
of a particular relationship. It can bring you closer and help you be
more true to who you are:
Sit in a meditative state, dropping the cares of the day.
In this meditative space, face the other person and concentrate on
that heart connection that you have. Now simply listen - without jumping to any conclusions - to one, two
or three of their perceptions they have about you. Simply listen.
Take it in to your heart, feeling that connection go back and forth
between you again. Feel their perceptions coming in part from their
heart, coming back to you to help you be in a deeper connection with
your own heart. We don't recommend having them make a long list, because you could end
up getting lost and overwhelmed by it. Simply listen to one, two or
three perceptions of theirs about who you are. Listen to that and take it in without adding your own judgments,
without defending yourself, and without doing anything in terms of
responding. Concentrate solely on the connection from your heart to
theirs and back again. Allow whatever reaction that you have and do your best - simply in
this moment , to let go of any desire you have of anything different. This is an exercise that we would recommend only after you've become
accustomed to some mindfulness practices and after you feel
comfortable being present with the energy of this person: trusting who
they are and trusting the process in yourself. Conclusion
There is the perception when talking about any of the chief features
that it's a negative energy that has to be gotten beyond. Arrogance is
an energy of movement. It's a more dynamic energy. It can be highly
effective in drawing other people to you. Because of that, Arrogance
is highly useful in anyone who is overtly teaching others. This
extends to all kinds of questions from politics to medicine to the
obvious self-help field. In our experience - talking to hundreds of thousands of people in
various energetic combinations and permutations - we've found that
people tend to live happier and more joyful lives when they are simply
aware of who they are, aware of their perceptions and allow themselves
to become accepting of their perceptions. Looking at the multitudinous
network of different energetic combinations in people, we see chief
features as a harmonious pattern that evolves along people that's
constantly flowing, moving and juxtaposing. Every one of the energies
that a person might take on in a given lifetime has its own
perfection, beauty and completeness. The more you see the utter perfection and beauty of your limitations,
the more you can transcend them.
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