Your Golden Creator Essence
There are times in our lives where something important is hiding in plain sight.
A story that illustrates this is the true story of the Golden Buddha. Located in Bangkok, Thailand, the origins of the statue are uncertain, but some speculate it was built around 1403. It was revered by Buddhists for hundreds of years.
In 1757, the Burmese army invaded the area where the temple and statue were located. The monks at the monastery covered the statue in plaster and bits of glass to hide its true nature of gold. The monks were all killed, and the stucco statue remained among the ruins for nearly 200 years.
In 1955, the statue was moved to a new location. As it was being hoisted into place, a rope broke, and the statue fell. Some of the plaster chipped off and a monk saw the golden surface underneath, which had been there all along.
The Golden Buddha was always there, hidden in plain sight. And so, it is with our human journey to realize our true nature that is always there in plain sight.
Your Creator essence, the central role and mindset of TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic)®, is the “gold” that, too often, has been plastered over by life experiences—especially early in life.
As small children, we figure out how to survive and deal with scary experiences. As infants and toddlers, we looked up to giant and powerful adults and applied our innate survival instincts to secure food, sleep, warmth, love, and safety the best we knew how.
Psychologist Karen Horney studied human nature and, in the 1940’s, identified 3 different strategies that children can develop to respond to fears. She described these three approaches as:
- Moving away from others or the situation to avoid, withdraw, observe, and wait. This is based upon the child’s belief that: “If I isolate, stand back and avoid engaging, I will be safe.”
- Moving against others by being aggressive. Here the child concludes: “If I use control and domination and be assertive, I will manage my environment to get what I want and need.”
- Moving toward people to please, accommodate and be helpful. From a child’s perspective: “If I please others, I will be loved and cared for.”
In the late 1960’s, Dr. Stephen Karpman developed the Karpman Drama Triangle, with its three roles of Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor, which we refer to as the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT).
These roles align well with Horney’s strategies. The Victim role aligns itself with “moving away” and not taking responsibility or believing they have power in the situation. The Persecutor role reflects “moving against” others by taking control and being assertive. And the Rescuer adopts a “moving toward” strategy to use pleasing and appeasing to protect themselves.
With these strategies in place, further life experiences of family dynamics, intimate relationships, schools and teachers, bosses and co-workers, the media, cultural and societal expectations all add further layers.
No wonder the DDT is a default way of being for many people, until…the cracks started to appear. How those cracks occurred in your life is your unique story. But you would not be reading this if they had not appeared. As Leonard Cohen so famously sang, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”
And as it does, you will continue to grow into the fullness of your Golden Creator essence, which has always been in you and hidden in plain sight. Remembering who you are as a Creator, when drama arises, and it will, you will be better equipped to make an empowered choice engaging with life one “chip” and baby step at a time.
