Goal
From New Age Village
By Shepherd Hoodwin
Our goal is our primary motivation, what drives us, the general bottom line we want to accomplish in any situation we’re in. As with the other overleaves, our goal normally stays the same throughout our life. Having a goal, however, doesn’t mean that we achieve it.
For example, people with a goal of acceptance do not necessarily find it easy to accept difficult situations. In fact, they often find themselves in situations that are difficult to accept. Nonetheless, they usually bring to the challenge tools that can assist them, such as open-heartedness and agreeableness. (The positive pole of acceptance is agape�, but one doesn’t have to achieve total unconditional love in order to be in the positive pole. A certain magnanimity or even tolerance is adequate.) Also, other overleaves, such as the attitude of cynic may abrade, making the challenge greater, and the chief feature is always an obstacle to meeting the goal. However, when acceptance is our goal, it is a major issue whether or not we achieve it. Similarly, those with a goal of flow may not actually be relaxed people who let things come to them gracefully and easily, but that is what they most aspire to be, and if they are blocking that experience, this, too, will be a major life issue.
This applies to the other overleaves. Having an overleaf does not ensure that we are good at it. For instance, an emotionally centered person is not necessarily in touch with his true feelings, although he does tend to react emotionally. An intellectually centered person is not necessarily intelligent. And only in the positive pole is a pragmatist truly practical.
Our goal is more about our relationship with our life situations than about our relationship with ourselves. For example, people in the positive pole of flow seem to have an easier time making a living and otherwise getting along in the world than those with other goals. I sometimes joke that flow is the goal that the rest of us wish we had chosen. I know one scholar in flow, for example, who receives disability income for a relatively minor injury, and has flowed from one house-sitting or other rent-free situation to another for a few years. This has given her more opportunity to study and do deep inner work. However, I don’t think that her inner process has been easier than anyone else’s. We all have parts of ourselves that need healing.
Although flow is sometimes chosen for a rest from outer stress and striving, it can be chosen for other reasons as well. For example, a person may choose flow, which is the neutral goal, simply to slide to other goals, giving him a lot of flexibility as to which goal energy he will use at any given time.
Growth, at forty percent of the population, and acceptance, at thirty percent, are the two most popular goals. Growth is a state of movement, of seeking new experiences, new stimuli to which to respond. To move, we must be unbalanced. When we walk, most of the time, we are “falling” forward. Acceptance is a state of stillness and balance, being peaceful about what happens. People in growth tend to be in motion, and those in acceptance tend to “plunk down.” I would imagine, for example, that adult education classes are filled with people in growth, who tend to be busy and continually trying to learn something. I am in acceptance, and I don’t have much motivation to go out and do those types of things. I probably feel overstimulated more easily than those in growth. Still, those in growth can become overstimulated and, as a result, go into the negative pole, confusion.
Acceptance is a “natural overleaf” for sages, since both are on the cardinal side of the expression axis. When sages have a goal of acceptance, it can be “overkill,” since sages tend to naturally seek acceptance anyway in order to have an “audience” for their self-expression. In the negative pole, a sage in acceptance can go to extremes in “bending over backward” to win favor, and have a tendency to obsess about those who don’t seem to accept them rather than focusing on those who do.
Bill Clinton, an obvious sage, has been criticized for being ingratiating. I channeled that he is a young sage with a goal of growth, but others have channeled that he is a mature sage in acceptance. (Incidentally, Ronald Reagan has also been channeled as being a mature sage in acceptance, although he was said to be a young sage in Yarbro.) Clinton’s public behavior is certainly reminiscent of acceptance, but it is unclear whether acceptance is actually his goal. His behavior may just be a result of his political survival instinct, perhaps stemming from an overwhelming young-soul need to succeed. He had been more willing to hold to unpopular stands before his 1980 defeat for reelection as Arkansas’s governor. Also, in his private life, he has been known to have a quick temper and may be less accommodating than he appears to be publicly. In addition, part of what is seen as ingratiation may be his sagely diplomacy, attempting to integrate opposing points of view, and a common sage trait of collecting insights from others.
A friend who is a mild-mannered old scholar with a distaste for authority figures is also in dominance, which troubled him when he learned of it. Nonetheless, he had to admit that in every situation in which he finds himself, people spontaneously come to him expecting him to lead. I suggested that he regard the positive pole as leadership by example and by finding win-win solutions.
The positive pole of submission, devotion, is reminiscent of servers, whose positive pole is service. However, submission, like dominance, is on the action axis, so it involves doing: someone in submission devotes himself through action. Servers obviously also act, but for them, service is more a state of being; action is a means to inspire more than an end in and of itself. Mother Teresa, who was channeled as being a server in submission, combined these traits. Since, in this society, we have expected men to be dominant and women to be submissive, a woman in dominance may seem more masculine, even with higher female energy, and a man in submission, even with higher male energy, may seem more feminine. However, submission is also a natural overleaf of warriors, and manifests in their devotion to their principles (and, often, their leaders).
A friend of mine with a goal of submission is a woman artisan with higher male energy (and a feminist); however, she would probably strike most people as being higher in female energy if they didn’t really understand what male and female energy refer to. Her artisan softness and love of fashion and beauty, her imprinting, and her goal all conspire to emphasize what is considered feminine. In the negative pole of submission, subservience, she feels subservient to her circumstances—helpless and stuck—even though she would not likely allow herself to be overtly subservient to another person. Her devotion to spiritual truths, particularly as represented in the books she reads (she is intellectually centered), is a manifestation of submission’s positive pole.
Discrimination and reevaluation are the rarest goals. Discrimination motivates someone to discern and be selective—people in discrimination sometimes have a squinty look in their eyes, as if they’re trying to discern visually—but the negative pole, prejudice, causes people to indiscriminately reject others from their lives. A mature sage I know who has this goal was described by his ex-wife as driving everyone away from himself—an especially painful thing for a sage (sages being the most social of the roles). Even in the positive pole and even for sages, people in discrimination tend to be “picky” about who their friends are, as well as about everything else important to them. It is a good idea for those in discrimination to deliberately slide to acceptance once they decide to open to friendship so that they can accept their friends as they are.
Clients in reevaluation tell me things such as “My dream is to have a cabin in the mountains (or a cottage by the shore) where I can be alone.” However, wanting to escape from the “big, bad world” is not the same as being motivated to reevaluate. Those with a goal of growth are prone to overstimulation, and often slide to reevaluation in order to “catch up” on processing all the input they have received. People who are autistic or who are institutionalized much of their lives sometimes have this goal; it appears that nothing is happening with them, but they may actually be unconsciously processing a lot of unresolved experiences from past lives. Of course, when processing is conscious, it can be accomplished more quickly and efficiently, but not everyone is capable of conscious processing.
In the following, Michael answered a question about how those with various goals approach service.
- There are no hard-and-fast rules about this, but in general, those with a goal of submission are more interested in service than those with a goal of reevaluation or discrimination. Those with a goal of growth are likely to be more concerned with their own process, but may be interested in serving others if that supports their growth. Those with a goal of acceptance may serve others, especially in terms of helping others accept themselves, perhaps by simply being a loving presence for them, but will not tend to do as much in service as someone whose goal is on the action axis, submission or dominance. Someone in acceptance is more likely to offer kind words, for example, in service, since acceptance is an expression axis goal. Since growth and reevaluation are inspirational goals, people with these goals tend to serve others, if they have a service thrust, through inspirational means, wanting to help others with their own growth or reevaluation, for instance.
- Spiritual growth is not the same as the goal of growth. Spiritual growth results from being in the positive pole of any overleaf, which allows for essence contact. The goal indicates the type of growth experiences a person tends to look for. With a goal of growth, you set up challenges and attempt to meet or overcome them. In acceptance, your emphasis is accepting what you cannot overcome or change. To truly overcome, accept, flow, discriminate, lead, devote, or reevaluate can contribute equally to spiritual growth.
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