The Remarkable Power of Opening to Others, Episode 457
It is not our power to remain unaffected, or even the power to control others, that makes our lives richer and more valuable.
It is our amazing capacity to be affected by the incredible richness and complexity of the relational web in which we live…
A conversation about the remarkable power that comes with staying open to others.
Hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
Our source for this week:
It is not our power to remain unaffected, or even the power to control others, that makes our lives richer and more valuable. It is our amazing capacity to be affected by the incredible richness and complexity of the relational web in which we live… Relational power includes three components: (1) the ability to be actively open and affected by the world around us; (2) the ability to create ourselves out of what we have taken in; and (3) the ability to influence those around us by first having been affected by them… Everything actual exercises some power - either to affect or be affected. [But] there is a crucial, life-shaping difference between the power to control others and the strength that enables us to be active and open to the world around us. There is an equally vital difference between the power to control others by shutting them out of our lives and the power to engage the lives of others in ways that enrich us all… The world of the individual who can be influenced by another without losing his or her identity or freedom is larger than the world of the individual who fears being influenced. The stature of the individual who can let another exist in her or his own creative freedom is larger than the size of the individual who insists that others must conform to their own purposes and understandings.
From Process Relational Philosophy, Chapter 8 on ‘Relational Power’,
by C Robert Mesle
Photo by Yuri Antonenko on Unsplash