Power — Full webinar with Michael Adamedes

0:00Welcome, this is the sixth presentation in the emotional series and it's titled Power, Finding Your Authentic Self. In this presentation there are three parts. Part one, what is power.

0:16Part two, where are you going and part three, who are you? But just before we start I would like to do a one minute centering exercise. And this brings you into present time and can help reduce any stress. So spine straight, head erect, eyes gently closed and absolutely perfectly still.

0:46And take in a really deep breath through the nose and make a long sigh sound out through the mouth. And now take two long slow breaths in and out through your nose. Bring your attention back to the screen.

1:31And over the course of the last 40 years in private practice and more than 50 years of trying to work myself out, I've discovered that there are two life lessons we all need to work out. And one is love and the other one is power.

1:48It's almost like the feminine and the masculine. But the words feminine and masculine are a little bit confusing because feminine is more to do with being receptive and masculine is more to do with being assertive. So you can be a man or a woman and you can be feminine or masculine or both feminine and

2:11masculine. And that's the ideal, you know, that here I am. I'm a man. I have a receptive side to my life, to my nature where I'm prepared to sit and allow things

2:23to come to me and an assertive side where I will go out and do things and try to achieve things. And in this presentation, I'll be talking about power. And in the next presentation, I'll be dealing with love.

2:41I also run a weekend workshop on love and power. But to get into this one, the definition of power I work with is the ability to maintain my position in space. It's the ability to maintain my position in the space I occupy.

3:03It's the ability to be myself. It's the ability to be authentic. It implies that you know who you are, that you value yourself and that you also know what you want and you're going for it, that you know where you are going.

3:24And most people don't know who they are. They don't know what they want and they're certainly not going for it because they grew up around people who were not in their power. And we learn by example.

3:38You know, Mum did her best but she grew up in a culture where women were subservient to men. And she was never given the opportunity to have an education and she was always kind of seen to be someone who would look after kids and look after the family.

3:59She grew up in the 1930s, 1940s. And so she had a very different view of the world and that had a major effect on me. And it all, you know, a huge effect on how I thought about myself and how I was in the world.

4:19And so with people and their power, many people drift along and end up in some situation they don't want and then they have to work really hard to get out of it. And so to get out of it and figure it all out, it's a process of trial and error. I started working for the public service.

4:37I thought that would be a good place for me to work. It was something that was secure. They paid reasonably well. But after 12 months of working there I just couldn't stand it.

4:47And then I went into teaching and became the school teacher, a high school teacher and that didn't work for me at all either. And then it was time moving on and just working my way through things until eventually I became a psychotherapist.

5:08So let me explain more about the nature of power. And so power sits in three states. It really is state one is inertia and it's like here is power that you're not in your power.

5:28And then we move over to activity and then eventually hopefully into balance. So power can be thought of almost like a pendulum. You swing from one side to another side and then hopefully eventually you come into balance in the center just like a pendulum.

5:47But for most people they never do come into balance. The pendulum will come into balance. But they just keep going from one extreme to the other feeling, disempower by a situation until it just becomes unbearable and then they react or they feel resentful and they overreact

6:10and then find themselves going back because they've overreacted back into holding themselves back suppressing themselves. But never really finding themselves or never feeling fully fulfilled. And so most people do oscillate between being disempowered and overreacting.

6:34The psychological perspective behind that is that we can see these three states in inertia. I would describe as the victim and someone who's more passive and then you swing across to activity where someone is being and we call it an aggressor.

6:56But aggressor just means they're acting out and they're compensating for feeling put down or missing out or something like that. And that is usually the way it works for a lot of people. going from a victim state to a more assertive, aggressive sort of situation which is a little

7:18bit too aggressive but not fully being in their power. The way to achieve your power is by recognizing the power goes through two steps. You move from inertia to activity from the victim to the aggressor and that requires an act of will.

7:43You need to be able to ask for what you want and go for what you want. And that ability to ask for what you want and be able to stand up and have it is usually formed between the ages of two and four. So if you had a childhood where you were able to stand up and just be yourself and ask

8:08for what you want and didn't go into competition with your mother or your siblings or with other people around you and you were allowed to express yourself, then there's a high probability you would have achieved this state of will naturally. Because you would naturally have that as a child.

8:30The second step is to let go to surrender. It's to accept what is and surrender is not a defeat. It's a strategy for achieving an outcome. It's like being part of a team and I let go of my individual will for the greater will

8:49or good of the team. In order to become powerful, it's a two-step process. I go from this place of feeling disempowered or having no power to then through an act of will wanting it, pushing for it, fighting for it.

9:06I become forceful. I become strong. And from this place of strength, I choose to let go and to surrender. And this surrender usually occurs between the ages of 7 to 14 years.

9:26It's like at that time in my life, I learn to become a team player. I can't have what I want, but having what I want is not always the way to go. I also need to be part of a team and to balance between having my needs met and working with the group and working with other people and having our needs met.

9:52The idea of surrender is summed up by these two affirmations. The first one is because I am truly powerful, I have nothing to protect. Because if I was truly powerful, why is there a need to protect? I have it as it is.

10:11I wish it to be. The more powerful I become, the more gentle I behave. If you really get to see people who are truly powerful, they have it the way they want it.

10:27And they speak quietly and it happens easily around them. They could be forceful if they need to be, but they don't have to be because it's already happening for them. And power progresses from a state of powerlessness and then with an active will to

10:47becoming forceful and strong and then from that strength and I am able to surrender my will to become powerful. But I can't surrender my will unless I have this inner core of certainty that I know that I am okay within.

11:05It requires a sense of trust. And this sense of trust develops again at a very early age and it's feeling that I'm safe in the world, that my parents feel safe in the world. There is this certainty that my life will be okay and that regardless of what I do or what

11:25happens, I am loved and supported. I am loved and protected. Now that's the ideal. If I receive that, if I experience that in the first seven years of my life, I will have

11:38this solid core sense of strength within me, this certainty within me. It will just feel normal. I will be able to go into situations that are unknown to me and feel okay. For instance, if I was going to a party and I felt insecure, I would need to know what time

12:01it started, what time it finished, how they were dressing, what we were eating, who was going to be there, why is this party occurring? If I really felt secure, I would think, oh yeah, the party starts at eight o'clock, see you there.

12:15Boom, off I go. I wouldn't need to know anything. And if I really had that sense of okayness, I could just turn up and it may have been a more formal affair.

12:25I'm dressed quite casually, but hang on. That's all right. Here I am. We're all having a great time.

12:33And if need be, someone would find me a jacket, a tie, whatever. It would be okay. And that sense of being secure and strong within myself is something that would normally develop in childhood, if everything worked well.

12:52But if it didn't, then it's something that I can develop myself. And how do we become more empowered? And this next slide shows that there are three things that are required. Responsibility, control and knowledge.

13:13And to explain them, I'll go through each one individually. With responsibility, I can conduct my life in one or three ways. I can be a victim where they are doing it to me. A situation would be, you know, I can't get a job because the economy isn't okay.

13:37I can't do something because someone won't allow me or they disagree with me. Yes, those situations occur out there. And I have to recognize that ultimately it's up to me with regard to the economy. The truth of the matter is the economy is an abstraction.

13:57There's no such thing as the economy. Fundamentally, it is a relationship between two people. It is an employer and an employee. It is a salesperson and someone purchasing.

14:13It's someone selling someone buying. It really is a relationship. And how do I conduct that relationship? And how do I feel around it?

14:24The second one is the aggressor. The thought that I'm doing it to them. I'm responsible for someone else's happiness. Someone else feels they can't go forward in their lives because of what I'm doing.

14:37If I believe that, then I'm caught up in this pattern. In fact, the aggressor fundamentally is a victim to the victim. They're both victims. One's a passive victim.

14:50One's an active victim because I'm still placing the circumstances of my life, the ability to achieve those circumstances outside of my self, out of my control. It's something to do with external circumstances. If that was true, then there's nothing I can do.

15:10There is nothing I could do. I would just have to wait for those external circumstances to change. But it isn't the case. Those external circumstances are in place.

15:22They are recurring. But I can change the way they affect me. How I feel about them. And as I change the way that I feel about them and how they affect me, they will change.

15:37They will no longer have the impact on me or something will become different around how it's occurring. So my power lies, my creator's self lies, in that I am doing it to myself. And this is the key to personal responsibility.

15:56It's recognizing that in order for things to change, then first I must change. And so it's looking at me. What do I need to change in me for those things out there to be different? So first step in understanding responsibility.

16:14Some further distinctions on responsibility to understand this idea of empowerment. Because if you truly get responsibility, you will step up and become that much more empowered. And this stage of empowerment has two parts. The first part is to disidentify.

16:39And that is to recognize that your behavior and your thoughts are symptoms of your conditioning. And the majority of this conditioning was inherited. And this is not to blame your genetics, your parents, your ancestors for the circumstances you find yourself in.

16:58But rather to examine your life circumstances as an objective observer. I don't need to be down in the middle of it being overwhelmed by it. This stuff is happening to me. I was born into this.

17:13I can see this as a destiny that I have inherited. But because I've inherited that destiny, this does not represent me. This is not who I am. This is a destiny that I have to work my way through.

17:30I am not my behavior. I'm not my thoughts. And I'm not what I say. At the same time as disidentifying and recognizing this is not me, these circumstances and

17:43the way it's affecting me. I still have to take 100% responsibility. Because I'm the only one who can change those circumstances. And the purpose of taking 100% responsibility is to look within myself because to take control

18:04of my life is to take control of my thoughts, feelings and behaviors. And sometimes that means holding back on when I want to say something or do something and also understanding why I think and feel the way I do. And when did it first happen in my life?

18:26And why is this result still coming up in my life? Why am I still experiencing this behavior? Why am I still experiencing people relating to me in this particular way? The purpose of responsibility is to look inward and there is no blame.

18:48And there is no criticism. I'm not blaming the other person. I'm not blaming the circumstances. I'm not blaming myself.

18:56I'm just looking at it doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? How can I fix it? Figure it out.

19:05Get off the emotion. Get off the blame. Blame confuses things. Blame creates stress for you and the other people.

19:16No criticism. You know, we're not going around. They're wrong. They're bad.

19:22And drop the criticism. I'm not criticizing them. I'm not criticizing myself. Responsibility implies that I'm looking at the circumstances.

19:33I am seeing the way they're affecting me. And I am scientifically, you know, like a detective trying to piece it together, work it out so that I can dismantle its effect on me. That is 100% personal responsibility.

19:53You didn't create it. You didn't set it up. And this is not some, most of the time, it's not some unconscious desire. Even if it is an unconscious desire, it's unconscious.

20:06So why does that sort of unconscious desire reside in my psyche? How can I dismantle that? I'm just looking at the circumstances and changing. The power I have is ultimately to change the effect that external circumstances are having

20:26on me. That is the nature of personal responsibility. And that is the step in disidentifying and not seeing it as me. But rather something I have to work through and understand will just make it easier.

20:43Otherwise, I'm just caught up in all this emotion. The next thing for becoming more powerful is control. And the definition of control I work with is the ability to start, continue and stop a process at will.

21:01For example, driving a car. I control a car. If I can turn that car on and get the engine running, when I wish it to, I can put my key in the ignition or press the button, get the thing started and then move it off.

21:16The second thing I've got to be able to do is keep that vehicle going for as long as I wish it to. So I can drive it 100 metres, I can drive it 100 kilometres. So it will go for as long as I wish it to go.

21:31And the third thing is I can stop it at any time that I wish to. So if I have control over those three processes of starting something, continuing something, something and completing something, then I'm in control of that process. And it's a control of a process.

21:51We're not saying controlling people. We're saying the things in your life need to be under your control so that you can have them work the way you wish them to work. The next thing is taking control of your life and being in control of your life requires

22:15four things. The first thing is the ability to control your thoughts, words and actions. And the simplest thing to do there is no criticism, no blame. I might have the shits with something.

22:33I can't stand it. They're driving me crazy and figure out why you're feeling that way and not making them wrong or making yourself wrong for feeling that way. No, this has I've just been triggered.

22:47This trigger here, this person's triggering me. I've got to figure it out. And why is that occurring? If I'm constantly being triggered by a situation or a person, then sure, move yourself away,

22:58give yourself a break. You don't need to be constantly triggered. But once you've moved yourself away and you're not feeling it doesn't mean it's over, you're still going to figure it out.

23:07The other thing is completing tasks. You've got to, that's part of the start, keep things going, finishing. A lot of people don't finish. Simple things, answering emails, paying your bills on time, returning telephone calls.

23:28No, finishing details. Someone's contacted you, respond. Don't just leave it and never go back. Finish it.

23:41You're doing it for yourself. Complete cycles. People get exhausted because they have too many open energetic cycles. Too many things are happening that haven't been finished.

23:53They work in your unconscious, in your subconscious. They drain your energy. You need to be aware of that. What's going on?

24:06The other thing is keep your life clean and organized. Office your accounts, tax, your home. Keep the home clean and tidy, especially your bedroom. You don't want the bedroom cluttered and full of junk.

24:23You sleep in your bedroom. This is a place for you to recover, regenerate. Get the garage organized. Fix things, throw stuff away that you're not using.

24:35The final one there is being punctual. Respecting your time, respecting other people's time. Starting on time, finishing on time. Not just leaving it.

24:47If I'm going to be more than five minutes late, I will send someone a text or ring them. I just wouldn't let them hang. And I would usually do that before the time. The third part becoming more powerful is knowledge.

25:03And knowledge has two parts. One part is knowledge itself, which is acquiring skills and information through experience and education. And so really, you've got to learn about how things work and what's going on in life.

25:21You really need to become competent in which I'm sure you are in your career and in basic life skills. In today's world, you've definitely got to know how IT works and a certain amount of technical skill and driving a car and just doing basic things.

25:42And also learning about why things occur and how things are done. For instance, we're doing a renovation in this home at the moment. And it's really great to be with the builder and look at the way in which the building is put together, constructed, and why certain things are having to be done.

26:03So you're learning through acquiring information from experience, from watching other people, from doing things yourself. And education. And education can be formal education, going to school, college, or something like that.

26:17Then reading books, watching videos and constantly learning. That's been my experience. I've been in my chosen profession 40 years, more than 40 years, you know, actively engaged in that.

26:32And I'm still learning and I'm still educating myself. The second bit is self-knowledge. And this is understanding why you think, say, and behave the way you do. are you.

26:47This is a quote from Carl Jung. Carl Jung was one of the founders of modern psychology. And he says, know yourself. The one who looks outside dreams.

27:01The one who looks inside awakes. To know yourself requires you to understand why you think, speak, and act as you do. And this is to understand where have you come from. What was your family like?

27:20Your parents. Do you know your parents? They're dreams. What did they want to do when they were teenagers and they were going into life?

27:30And what were the challenges that faced them? My father wanted to be a teacher. And when he was a teenager, one of the scholarship he was one of the top kids in his school and went from the island where they lived on Greece to the mainland, which was

27:48a real privilege to take up the scholarship and go to university. But because his mother had separated from his father a few years earlier, and he was the eldest son and he had a younger brother to his younger, she wouldn't allow him to take the scholarship.

28:08So he never had the opportunity to fulfill that dream of becoming a school teacher. And instead he became a tailor. But it was quite interesting. All his children have become teachers in some way.

28:25So understanding your parents' dreams and the challenges they had to deal with. And the culture you were born into. I was born into a Greek culture living in an Anglo-Saxon country, Australia. And so the effect that had on me for a considerable time of thinking, I don't belong.

28:45You know, I'm a foreigner in a foreign land. And this isn't my home. And that took me many years to understand. And that had massive consequences on how I conducted myself, what sort of work I was involved

29:01with, and the sort of people I went into relationships with. So to understand yourself is a big deal. And you need to understand yourself to be able to take responsibility around the circumstances of your life and the way it affects you.

29:21The next section is where are you going? And so where are you going is a really interesting thing. Because power is a contradiction. Because you have to become strong and capable before you can surrender that strength and

29:41capability in order to become powerful. So and it's the same with going somewhere. You have to go somewhere to find out that there's nowhere to go. Another way of saying that is you need to achieve your goals in order to learn that the

30:00fulfillment of your goals can't make you happy. Fulfilling your goals is important as there are many lessons to learn on the way to achieving your goals. Lessons about yourself and how the world works, but manifesting your goals won't make

30:19you happy. There's something else that makes you happy. And you can be happy without achieving your goals. Some people say they don't want goals as they're too egotistic, matcho.

30:35I'm trying to prove something. They're not necessary. They're materialistic. My life's okay.

30:41I don't need goals. And many years ago, that's exactly how I used to think. And for a long time, my life was okay. But by the time I reached my 40s, I was married.

30:54I had two children. I was trying to buy a house and advance my career. And by that time, I was feeling bogged down and overwhelmed. And then I started to drift and things were just getting harder.

31:07And it wasn't until I made a definite decision to achieve the things in my life that they started to work for me. And even then, I wasn't setting goals. And the idea of having a seven-year plan, well, if you said that to me back then, that

31:25was been ridiculous. What? Seven-year plan? You've got to be joking.

31:29That's something the communists do. We're not, you know, I don't do that. I just make it work. I just flow with my life.

31:37And it wasn't until a very successful friend of mine who owned 11 investment properties told me how she did it that I seriously considered it. I thought that I wanted 11 investment properties. But I wanted what she had.

31:51She just had a lot of ease and grace in her life. And things were just happening without it being a massive struggle. You know, it's like this idea of being financially free for one. Financial freedom to me is never doing anything just for the money, but not being stopped

32:12from doing anything because of lack of money. So money isn't the consideration. It's the fact that I'm getting some intrinsic value from it, or I'm providing a service to others.

32:26And so I was 50 years of age by this time. And I was okay, but not great. And then I got into setting seven-year plans, seven-year goals, and things took off. And goals are a mechanism for focusing your attention.

32:44The universe requires you to be proactive. Once you've reached a state of your enlightenment, yes, you can sit back and let go. But you need to do many years of work before you get to that point before you can let go. It's like the person who's never had any money and says, I don't need money.

33:04I can let go of money. But they've never had anything to let go of. And it's easy to say that. Be the person who spent many years achieving it.

33:13And now has a fortune and says, I can let go of that fortune. That is a big deal. That is something that's quite powerful. You don't have to let go of the fortune.

33:25What you have to let go is the attachment to it, what it means to you and how it's affected your identity. You have to be definite with the infinite. Also you need to be successful in something.

33:40So sitting goals and achieving a degree of success. And it can be anything. It can be successful in a relationship as a person, a sports person, an artist, a dancer. You can be successful in playing chess.

33:55You can be successful in your career. You need success in order to build self-worth, self-esteem. And it's like working through a hierarchy of needs. With this hierarchy of needs, it's like this physiological.

34:13You've got the basic needs of food and breathing and feeling safe and being able to just take care of yourself. Then safety, security of employment, health. And then you go into belonging, friendship, family, sexual intimacy, self-esteem, confidence,

34:34achievement, respect, self-actualization, being a service, fulfilling your life's purpose and then transcendence beyond the mind, ego, personality. And you get go of all that conditioning. So the process of empowerment is basically a process of evolving yourself.

34:55And it's taking yourself through achieving and succeeding to a certain extent on the material world so that you can go beyond that. So the first step with goals is knowing your end state. And so if you were to develop a seven-year plan, you would want to know what do you want

35:17in the future. If you looked into the future and said to yourself in seven years, where would I like to be with regard to my health? Would I be in seven years time?

35:34My fitness, my weight, my general health. Be looking at my relationships, my partner, the relationship with my children, my friends, my work colleagues. I'd be looking at my wealth, my finances, becoming financially independent.

35:51My income, property, investments, cash flow, things like that. And then I'd be looking at my career, something that I would want to be working in something that I felt stimulated. I enjoyed, I felt productive.

36:09It was financially rewarding. Or I might be every tired. And what does retirement mean? And if I'm retired, I think it's some state to stop being active.

36:19to just change what you're active in. If you were working full time in some profession and now you've retired, you may find you now work part time in that profession or something allied or completely different. But you must stay active.

36:35What would it look like? And then finally, five, I could call it lifestyle. Where do you live? What's your work life balance?

36:43Are you having fun? What are the hobbies, activities? What are the things you spend time with? To me, this is a man of where I live now.

36:52I live in this beautiful home on the beach on the Sunshine Coast of Australia in Queensland, a place called Kulin Beach. And it's just, I must say, it's paradise here. It's absolutely magnificent.

37:07And this has been a focused effort over a considerable time and a manifestation of an intent. And it was a focused intent. And I would not have thought I could have achieved this and shifting my awareness around it boom, it's now just become a normal sort of thing.

37:27And how I did this was with vision boards. And the top two are my vision boards. And the first one on the left hand side, top I did in 2003. And the second one on the top right hand section is 2015.

37:47But before I did the vision boards, I looked at those five things that I just mentioned about health, wealth, lifestyle, all those things. And I wrote them out in detail. And then I got a piece of core board.

38:04This is, I think it was A2, you know, the sort of size that it is. And then I just went and looked for illustrations, magazines that had images of what I desired, the home, the car, the finances, what I would look like, people who would look like that.

38:26I could have someone's body and cut a photo of my head and stick it on that person's body, put it on the vision board. And one of, at the time in 2003, I was living in Sydney, Sydney, Sydney. And we were thinking, look, it's getting too crowded, it's time to move.

38:49And we wanted to, I always had a dream to set up a yoga meditation retreat. And we just thought it could just too expensive. We didn't have the money. We just bought a house.

39:01But we set the intent. I'm going to have a yoga meditation retreat. We'd be doing this sort of thing. I even had an image of the yoga meditation retreat.

39:10And then in 2009, I managed, we managed to manifest it. And we had a place called Awaaba retreat. And 23 acres and a combination for 20 people with a yoga room. And we ran that for nine and a half years.

39:34And it became very successful for us. And that dream manifested in six years from the time we put the intent in 2003 to 2009. And then after about three or four years of being at Awaaba, we thought, yes, our next step. And then I wrote in kind of code on that vision board, which has meaning to me the next

39:59step. And the next step was to permanently live. Let me go close. I've got to read it.

40:07To live in enlightened life. I gave each of my vision boards a title. The first one was permanently living in paradise, which I achieved by 2009. And then the next one was living in enlightened life.

40:25And this was in 2019 that we moved to the Sunshine Coast, Kulin Beach, and found this house. And this first year and a half just been hectic. It's been one massive building site renovating.

40:42But just getting to the point now where we're slowing down and living in enlightened life is still to be manifested. that will come. And it's just remarkable how a vision board, it doesn't kind of fully, logically, rationally.

41:06But making a vision board, setting the intent and then just placing it somewhere in the office, it's not something I would look at every so very often. You know, maybe once every couple of weeks or something. And that just had this magic ability to draw me to it.

41:27And we manifested it with both times we've manifested it. As soon as I manifest this next one, you know, living in enlightened life, I will consider doing a third vision board for another seven year plan. But this one, we now physically have manifested it and achieved it.

41:46But I haven't emotionally and psychologically fully achieved that. And hopefully that will come, you know, soon. And then boom, here we are. So you've got to make a decision and say yes, I want this.

42:07Recognizing that ultimately it can't give you happiness. What you need to do is to go there, have that. And in the process of getting there, you become someone else. And in the process of getting there, the desires that you held are all released because

42:27ultimately your happiness can only come from being okay in your own skin. You're okay with who you are right now. There is no internal anxiety. There is no desire to be any different from who you are or to have anything different

42:46from what you have. It's to let go of attachment. It's to be here in present time. To achieve that, you know, you can say let's be here in present time.

42:56But I'm still being drawn out by past circumstances that I haven't resolved. I'm still being drawn out by desires. I want this. I would like to be different.

43:06Achieve those and then suddenly the desires for all those go. This vision board is extremely powerful. I highly recommend it. And I'm going to upload to my website, a PDF, which will be a one page spread on those five

43:25items and something you can write down to use as a worksheet for your goals if you did a design to do a vision board. But you could go online and look for vision boards. I went online and just said images for vision boards and hundreds came up and I just

43:43chose two and I have them there on the slide in front of you. And you can do it numerous ways. So go for it. And then the other, so where are you going?

43:57And I use this as my affirmation. I am a seeker in search of myself. I am a seeker in search of myself. That's where I'm going.

44:15And in the next section, who are you? I've spent an entire weekend just asking that question and answering that question. You can go to weekend workshops and they do this question. Who are you?

44:29And typically in a weekend like that, I would say, look, I am Michael at the meetings. I'm a psychotherapist. I'm a man. I'm married.

44:40I'm in a relationship. I'm a father of two children. I'm a grandfather, etc. But and I'd be describing myself according to my life circumstances, what I own, what I do

44:54and what other people think of me. Who are you? But really, who are you? And that is a question that you need to look at and examine.

45:09Because this will give you a power beyond what you would imagine yourself to have. And the way most people see themselves is according to this, be due, have model. So most people only know who they are by, what they own. I have a house, own a beautiful car.

45:34I have all these possessions. I have this much money in the bank. This represents a part of my identity. This isn't exclusively who I am.

45:43But this is a big part of my identity. The classic example of someone being a human having is the stock broker who in the stock market crash lost their fortune, had no money. I had millions of dollars before now.

45:58They did broke. Their bankrupt goes to the top of the building and jumps off. And it's like, because I have nothing, I am nothing. The other one is people who identify themselves by what they do.

46:15You know, I'm a great swimmer. I'm a great musician. I'm a singer. I'm a cinematographer.

46:23And yes, these are great skills. It's wonderful to have those. And it's fabulous to be successful in those. But you are more than that.

46:32You are not just that. The classic example of a human doing when that's ended is a CEO of a very large organization that had tens of thousands of employees and then finally retires with a golden handshake and has millions of dollars.

46:48And he's now retired and he's playing golf. And two or three years after retirement on the golf course, while they're playing golf golf, drops dead of a heart attack. And they are, they were a human doing.

47:04And now they're no longer do that. They are nothing. They are no one. And they've identified themselves with their job.

47:11Politicians are really bad this way, particularly very successful actors and artists with their reach this pinnacle of fame and then the fame goes, they can go into massive depression. But who I am is something else. I'm not a human having.

47:31I'm not a human doing. I am a human being. And who am I? And I am more than my psychology.

47:41I'm more than my emotions. I'm more than my physical body. I am something far greater. And this is the journey of discovering that because that is what ultimately will empower

47:55you. In this next slide, I want you to join me and do this exercise. So I want you to hold up your dominant hand. And for me, it's my right hand.

48:10And I want you to cleanse your fist and shake it and then repeat after me. In spite of all the difficulties of my life, of all the difficulties in my childhood, the difficulties my parents faced, the stress of my teenage years and all the problems I've had to deal with throughout my life, I have never been defeated.

48:53I never will be defeated because my spirit is invincible. And my suggestion is for you to identify with the invincibility of your spirit and nothing can defeat you. And if you step up, you will always succeed.

49:28Maybe not the first time. But if you keep stepping up, you will succeed because your spirit is invincible. From my experience and all the issues and the madness I've had in my life, my spirit has always come through.

49:46And now I find myself in a very privileged place. But this has been a massive effort over a lifetime. So in summary, what is power? Power is being authentic.

50:04Where are you going? I am a seeker in search of myself. And who are you? I am an invincible spirit.

50:17And all you've got happening is the programming you were born into. And your destiny is to rise above that programming. So thank you for watching and are blessing and enjoy to you all. And I would like to thank Radion Sokolov for marketing, production and web design and Aaron

50:48McFarland for camera, sound, lights and post production. And remember, breathe through your nose, put you into present time. Reminds you that you are spirit. The next webinar is the seventh presentation in the emotional series.

51:19And it's titled Love, Trust and Acceptance. It's two weeks away on Tuesday, the second of March from 7 to 8 p.m. Australian Eastern Daylight Time. And if you think someone would benefit from these presentations, you're welcome to invite

51:38them to watch. You can join the members group for five US dollars a month and watch all the past presentations and the future presentations. Go to the website and register for the next presentation and or if you want to join the

51:54members group. Over the next few months I'll be adding more services and information to the members group such as meditations, handouts, there'll be this handout on a seven year plan, illustrations from the slides.

52:12And we've just started a members forum. And so it's available for members to submit questions. And I'll reply to those questions if they're directly to me. And I may be able to help with some life issues.

52:28But I can't give psychological counseling through the forum, but I can answer general questions about life's problems. Also other members of the forum can offer advice. Tonight's presentation will be uploaded to the website by tomorrow evening.

52:45So let's go on to questions. Thank you.