How to Find Your Power and Why You Lost It


In this article, I will explain why power is taken away from us as children and how to recover it and find your True Will.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.  

— Carl Jung

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. 

— Aleister Crowley 

We are born into a world of other people's desires and intentions. As babies, we absorb these energies without question. Whatever exists within the parent's unconscious is transferred to the child. There is no firewall to protect the child's inner world. It is up to the caregivers to monitor their inner world while nurturing their developing Will.

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The Inner Force of Spirituality

This 'inner force' is found in all life forms. It is the Will of the universe. Any interruption of this Will distorts the psycho-emotional growth of the child. This is the energy that grows within human beings into a lotus flower.

In Hinduism, the lotus flower represents self-realization and spiritual enlightenment. We are all born in the dark waters of the womb, destined to transform into beautiful, powerful life forms, just like a plant.

Listen to Zzenn narrate his Spiritual Journey or Buy on Google Books and Amazon 

It is not a "special" path but a "native" one. It only becomes unique to those who have been alienated from life, dissociated from themselves, and split in two by trauma. Finding your true self is a path of uniting the opposites. Finding your true essence is a process of undoing what is not yours. 

The destiny of a human being is to bloom like a flower.*

Finding my True Will

When I left my family at the age of 17, I was suffering from two mental breakdowns. I could not function on a social level without monitoring sudden flashbacks imprinted on my face and nervous system — I was plagued by grief. I hated who I was and became suicidal.

I used alcohol and drugs to manage my psychosis so I could participate. I was broken, isolated, like a grounded kid looking out a window and watching the neighborhood kids play. I couldn’t be normal like them. I was an outsider.

My Will had been crushed, replaced by the Wills and personalities of my parents. I was forced to be their “obedient version of myself” to survive. They made me create a false self that catered to their proclivities. I was a slave for their dark complexes.

Like vampires, they transferred their shadows into me. I became a prisoner trapped in a love/hate relationship with myself, desperately fanning the flames of sanity.

I despised the fact that I was ashamed of my parents and that they lived within me. I did not want this shame. I hated that my soul was buried deep within a blackness inaccessible to me. I hated that I had NO SELF. I was a shell of my parent's energies.

Shame is a soul-eating emotion.

― Carl Jung

I was traumatically attached to my parents, yet I knew they were suffering too. Guilt, grief, sorrow, anger, depression, and terror were the glue that held me to them. I wouldn’t be free until I could access the reason for my psychic wounds and release the fierce rage trapped there.

My daemon was myself, that evil Will that challenged my parent's demons. They were traumatized adult children, raging against the mirror of my innocence. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t feel what was underneath the trauma. I couldn’t remember what had happened to me. I was possessed and reached out to God for deliverance. 

I became a born-again Christian in 1983 and spent five years following the gospel through missionary work and evangelism. The Jesus archetype saved my sinful soul and forgave my sins. And because of my submission to the cosmic plan, I was given a new Father in Heaven, and a new Mother named the Holy Spirit.

As time went on, I worked my way into New Age metaphysics, Scientology, Zen Buddhism, the Occult, and everything I could get my hands on to find this Will that was banished to the dungeon of my unconscious. I eventually made it to the other side of my trauma through years of psycho-emotional work and retrieved my inner child from its psychic prison.

Watch my short documentary, or you can read/listen to the entire story on Amazon or YouTube.

Original Sin

At a certain point in a child's development, they learn the word NO. This declaration is their first step toward autonomy — a sacred act of defiance — the biblical "original sin" in the garden of Eden. The child wants to become like their parents, just like Eve wanted to become like God through her own choices. Eve said NO to God and initiated her own Will. Thus, the young organism initiates Selfhood to survive adulthood. It is the first time the germinating seed of individuation breaks through the soil.

This affirmation of their Will threatens the pedagogical (child-rearing) power structure. If this act is negatively interrupted (shamed, punished, etc.), the child's ability to care for itself is thwarted. It becomes an enemy to itself—a split personality. A conflict is born within that infects the child's life forever.

Our original sin was the first time we said NO to our parents. Only through honoring our rebellion do we become free as adults.*

The unrealized parent takes the child's declaration of defiance personally. Because they have no True Will and individuation has not occurred, they are bitter, jealous, and envious of other people's authentic power. The child's innocence becomes a threat to their authority and an easy target to take out their aggression.

The child learns to question their own natural impulses. They learn to reject what their Gods (the giants) reject. If their hands were slapped for reaching for the cookie jar, they become enslaved little people rather than emerging gods — they feel (irrationally) bad about themselves. Reaching is an act of Will motivated by desire. When punished, both Will and Desire become soiled with shame.

This act of rejection is the root cause of why religious systems demonize desire and promote God's Will, which is a projection of the child's lost Will.

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.

         — Carl Jung

The interesting paradox of the word NO is that it invokes respect. Parents must respect their child's boundaries and, at the same time, teach the child to respect theirs. The child must learn to respect the parent's NO as a guidance system, and parents must understand that the child's NO is the evolving Will to genuine power.

For example, the healthy parent explains to the child that crossing the street is dangerous and could cause them to get seriously hurt. The parent takes extra measures to protect the child, knowing it will most likely test those boundaries due to its lack of human experience.

The toxic parent reacts by spanking and shaming the child for chasing the ball into the street because of how it made them (the parent) feel. The child will relate their actions with their identity and become wrong. As they grow up, rather than feeling "natural rightness," they will identify their mistakes as themselves — faulty.

Mistakes are the learning experiences of righteous little beings. They want to prove what they natively know — that they "belong" with or without their faults. When children are shamed for their mistakes, they become anxious and may even obsessively fail to test their parent's love.

Unconditional love is the rain and sun of inner seedlings. Parents who inject the poison of shame are not qualified spiritual teachers and should do their inner work before creating a family Ashram.

An ashram Sanskrit: आश्रम, āśrama) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions. An ashram is a place where one strives towards a goal in a disciplined manner.

In other words, it is a safe place where one grows.

The most important spiritual teacher is a parent. Adult children are no more qualified to be parents than seekers are of being a Guru. Creating a family should be treated with as much reverence as forming a monastic community. Parents are the original Gurus.* 

Defiance Punished

Punishment and rejection twist the child's Will into a deformed version of their parent's narcissistic rage. Without Will, there is no Soul. Thus, the child has become soul-raped. The abuse comes in many forms:

To the last point, the child's bedroom is weaponized, further damaging their need for security and autonomy. They have been stripped of their rights and accused of crimes they never committed. They are sentenced and punished with no recourse, incarcerated in their home. There is no justice for them, no one to represent them.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

— Carl Jung

The next time you meet someone who chronically relocates and can't settle down, even in the best of situations, consider that they may suffer from feelings of betrayal and confinement.

The tragedy is that they grow up believing they are guilty, undeserving of life, and faulty. Unconsciously they feel alienated. They learn to think they don't belong, even with themselves.

A growing body of research suggests that trauma (like childhood abuse, family violence, or food insecurity, among many other things) can be passed from one generation to the next.

— psycom.net 

Betraying the Self to Survive

There comes a point in the battle of Wills where the child must betray itself to survive. They give up. Their Will is broken like a horse. This induced self-betrayal is soul rape for the child. Their energy is absorbed to feed the narcissistic image of the toxic parent.

The child then takes their parents' Will as their own to protect themselves from their tyranny. By mimicking their parents, the reflection is transferred. In the beginning, the child looks to their parents to mirror back their authentic Self, but instead, they become the reflection their parents require of them. The child becomes possessed and falls asleep.

To awaken, as adults, they must give their inner child what was withheld from their parents. They must fall radically in love with their soul. They can awaken from their slumber if they commit to doing the inner work.

Every Will that is not True Will is psycho-emotionally parasitic.* 

The parent needs their child's agreement, assurance, and obedience because they are "mirroring" their child's acceptance. It is not the child's needs but theirs that are primary. The parents' delusional self-image needs affirmation (to keep it alive) through the approval of innocence (reversed mirroring).

The child, at some point, will rebel through self-harm or projected violence onto others. But during the early dependent years, they will faithfully serve their captures, blaming themselves for their parents' discomfort.

This interchange goes undetected because the giants must protect their secret to maintain their sanity. Alice Miller, author of "The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self," states:

Their [the child's] tolerance for their parents knows no bounds. The love for their parents ensures that their [the parent's] conscious and unconscious acts of mental cruelty will go undetected.

— Alice Miller

The child's dependence on their parents' love also makes it impossible in later years to recognize these traumatizations, which often remain hidden behind the early idealization of the parents for the rest of the child's life.

— Alice Miller

The greatest cruelty that can be inflicted on children is to refuse to let them express their anger and suffering except at the risk of losing their parents’ love and affection. The anger stemming from early childhood is stored up in the unconscious, and since it basically represents a healthy, vital source of energy, an equal amount of energy must be expended in order to repress it.

— Alice Miller

In some cases, people aren’t aware of being infected with “Wills that are not their own” because these psychic forces can be so subtle that they pose no threat. They are not suffering on the level a woman would who was raped by her father. These parasitic Wills have integrated into their personalities. This is why people become defensive when you poke their psychic identities. They will overtly attack or covertly manipulate if threatened with the truth.

I recommend that if you are not struggling in a debilitating way, enjoy your life. But for those who are suffering from self-hate, depression, conflicting emotions, confusing thoughts, or are feeling a longing for ultimate inner freedom, then doing the work of finding your True Will is a necessity.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.

— Carl Jung

Remember that the reason humans seek out freedom through religion and spirituality is to regain their lost Will. In Christianity, they seek to align with God's Will. In New Age ideology, they assume the Will of a spiritual being (typically connected to grandiose metaphysical stories). Once they look directly at their lives and unpack their emotional history, they uncover their True Will.

Your True Will is the Evil One

For some people, Aleister Crowley was an evil person. But if you can "eat the grapes and spit out the seeds," there's some valuable fruit to be gleaned from his message.

Aleister Crowley was an occultist who considered himself "the beast" of the book of Revelations. He was well known for his debauchery and rebellion against Christian Orthodoxy.

I find his work significant because he confronted the authoritarian biblical system and brought the Will of the Child to the forefront. Keep in mind that "Willfulness" is a sin in the eyes of the religious God. Thus, a child's Will is "of the devil" because humans are born in sin.

As crude as Crowley was, he broke through thousands of years of suppression and subjugation and started a revolution.

The first thing you will hear from staunch religious people is, "Man is not God. We must obey God's Will and not our own." This thinking is at the bottom of abusive child rearing, usually found in religious families. But it infects society through the systemic influence of religion. Parents don't always know why they do what they do. They don't realize that when they spank their child, they are operating from inherited programming:

Do not hold back discipline from the child. Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.

— Proverbs 23:13

You shall strike him with the rod And rescue his soul from Sheol.

— Proverbs 23:14

The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

— Proverbs 29:15

Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.

— Proverbs 22:15

He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently.

— Proverbs 13:24

Notice how these verses focus on breaking the child's Will. It's all about obedience rather than respect and communication. This thinking is at the root of generational child abuse. But in no way am I suggesting that parents cater to their children. You can easily harm a child's Will by being a weak parent. Children need wise spiritual parents, not foolish adult children.

Following your True Will is not about becoming a tyrant. It's about wielding your sword with Wisdom, Love, and Honor*

Despite his wicked ways, Crowley became a force to be reckoned with in the Victorian age of poisonous pedagogy. His message spoke to a generation emerging out of the authoritarian nuclear family.

Love him or hate him, he became the rebellious messiah for the child of the New Aeon. He lifted the suppressed human Will and put it front and center. No more "submission" to a Godhead projection of our abusive parents. He knew that father and mother god were archetypes and that the Will of a child was the Will of nature.

The daemon, the doubter, and the evil one are the child's True Will rebelling against external authorities. It is considered evil only because it threatens what is false in parents — their inauthentic power. It is a threat because it exists within the psychological shadow.

When the concrete jungle of external authority crumbles, then shall we see the beauty of the flower arise from the rocks of our imagination.

— from unSpiritual: A Spiritual Journey 

I am not suggesting that you become a follower of Thelema (Crowley's religion), although I see nothing wrong with that system. I suggest you dive deep into your life and retrieve your inner child from the dark rooms of your childhood. At the least, begin the process of paying attention to what you are thinking and feeling, and use the Focusing Method to become self-realized. I also recommend my teaching series "How To Awaken and Become Who You Are."

Self-realization is about becoming who you are — an authentic force of nature. This process will always threaten insecure authorities possessed by every Will but their own.

Every man and every woman is a star. A star is an individual identity. 

— Aleister Crowley

Be true to yourself, be honest, enjoy yourself. Go your own way, the way of the stars. 

— Jack Parsons

To free yourself from parental possession, you must rebel through the act of doubting and questioning. You must disobey. You must violate the rules of your psychic programming, go against set beliefs and invasive commands, and explore new territory.

I knew early on my path that I was to break the chain of abuse in my family. The hero enters the ancestral line and saves the transmigrating soul by breaking the chains that transfer to the next generation.

The point of self-realization is to undo other Wills and intentions and find your own. Once you find your own, a deeper realization unfolds as the Will of the Universe. This is an epic awakening — Self as the universal energy — a force of nature.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

— Carl Jung

Your dark guides are guilt, shame, self-hate, criticism, and judgment. Without them, you cannot find your True Will. By following the Wills you have been possessed by, you can unearth your True Will underneath them. The key is to start a personal protest, an act of rebellion against everything that contradicts your desires. You must break through the commands within you that subjugate and force you into submission.

Never forget that everything dark within you is a subjective language helping you to become free. Recognize that all sacred paths lead to your inner world, for you are the God you seek. Undo what is not you with radical honesty, retrieve your inner child from the corridors of time, and discover your True Will.

— Zzenn

If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are — if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

— Joseph Campbell