Replace the Love of Power with the Power of Love

“When the power of love is greater than the love of power,

the world will know peace.”

Anonymous

Let’s take the above quote, which is sometimes attributed to Jimmy Hendrix, and look at it in this light: When the power of love (for myself and others) is greater than the love of power (to manipulate and control others), the world (I— and everyone around me) will know peace. Is this a winning statement for recovering codependents, or what?

All honest, positive forms of power flow from the heart of Love. When we connect with Love (our Higher Power) we are transformed from within. We do what’s best for us and for others. We flow with life. And we have no further need to disrupt that flow because love overpowers our character defects. We are washed free of feelings of insecurity, jealousy, envy, worthlessness and arrogance by the power of love. Without these and other fearful feelings, we have no need or compulsion to manipulate and control people around us.

We will never know peace without unconditional self-acceptance. And unconditional self-acceptance is a natural byproduct of self-love. Until we gain unlimited self-love and acceptance, we will continue to be controlled by fear. Fear will remain our master. Fear will pull our strings and we will perpetually dance to its dirge of manipulation and control. We will hold tight to our false illusion of having power; power to get from others what we refuse to give to ourselves. And our love of this imaginary power to calculate, manipulate and control others will continue to weave a path of self-destruction and emotional mutilation of everyone we set our sites on. It will never be a pathway to peace, happiness or lasting love.

We can choose love of power, or we can choose the power of love. When we decide to choose the power of love, we will be freely assisted by our Higher Power. But we have to be willing to work with our Higher Power. We need to identify our areas of shame, guilt and regret about ourselves, our behavior and our past. And we need to honestly discuss them with God. We also need to be willing to completely let go of all of these negative roadblocks to self-love and acceptance. In other words, we have to be willing to surrender them to our Higher Power and to fully let them go into oblivion.

Then we need to make this our daily mantra: “When the power of love for myself and others is greater than the love of power to manipulate and control others, I will know peace.” Eventually, hopefully, we’ll be able to modify this statement to “because the power of love for myself and others is greater than my love of power to manipulate and control others, I now know peace.” Work at it and allow your soul to shine!