If you want to empower yourself or others it’s not enough to access your powers. Your internal powers have to work as a team.
“You grace us with consciousness…”
We have the power of will, the power of thought and the power of visualization. What is the function of each?
Our will is our deepest and most comprehensive power. At the core our innermost will is completely good. We cannot even reach the depth of our innermost will but prayer helps clarify: What do I really want? What am I deeply striving for?
The power of thought can be totally abstract and won’t lead to concrete actions on its own. Great philosophers can be despicable people. There is no automatic connection between thinking lofty thoughts and moral statue.
Imagination influences behavior. When someone explodes in a rage he has unconsciously already pictured himself behaving in this way.
Similarly Elizabeth Lukas writes: “As long as they see themselves as sick, they are sick. If they consider help impossible, help is impossible. If they think of themselves as the victims of their childhood experiences, they are victims. Obsessive compulsive patients really believe they are under a compulsion, phobics really see themselves as excessively in danger, stutterers are certain they are not able to speak fluently, sexual neurotics really see themselves as impotent, failing students really consider themselves stupid, depressive patients really believe they are destined to be sad…” (Meaningful Living, Lukas, p. 57)
How can we put will, thought and visualization together in a mutually beneficial way? A fourth power, consciousness functions as the captain of the team, causing thought to positively influence imagination and in turn to guide actions.
Consciousness calls on the power of visualization to depict the true nature of the reality in front of me. It brings clarity to see the subtlest of distinctions. What makes this situation special?
Consciousness then weighs everything very carefully on the scale of balance to do what’s right for the specific situation.
(Pirkei Kinyan Da’at p. 46)
Footnote: If my self-image is false my depiction of reality will be illusory. The trick is to harness the power of imagination to see what’s true about reality right now while at the same time see what can be and to recognize my self-image now in comparison to how I can see myself.
This focus on sensing both what is true about the reality and what is possible is the key to what makes logotherapy both realistic and optimistic. The ultimate winning team employs will, thought and imagination to get what is to play on the same team with what can be and create an opening for change.