From the moment you are born, you are in a power struggle. As an infant because of your needs, you have the power to make your parent's life miserable by your crying. On the other hand, they have the power to fulfill your need in a timely or less timely manner. In infancy, you begin learning about power.

As children age, they know, because of your reactions, how to manage you as parents and caretakers. They learn, through trial and error, what they can get away with and how far to push before you reach your limits.

Often parents attention is divided in a variety of areas, so they do not realize their interactions with their children are all about their children working, learning, and manipulating to get their way. Once they understand how to achieve their ends, children use a system, which includes knowing how to hit your hot buttons.

For example: Have you ever been to a grocery store when a child wants an item--lets say a box of cereal? First, the child will ask. If the parent says no, the child then decides if she should push harder. If the parent has consistently set boundaries, a firm no at the beginning of the discussion will settle the matter.

If the child knows the boundaries are not firm, the she will often raise her voice or start crying to win her cereal. If the parent has flexible boundaries, the child will continue to push until the parent gives in. Often today, a child will obtain her desire, because parents do not want their child creating a scene or being concerned that other shoppers will view them as an uncaring parent.

There are children who will use sweet talk to get their way. Some even just keep asking and asking until parents give in because they are worn down by the request. You could come up with other examples from your own insights on children.

As a parent you show your power by satisfying or denying your childrens desires. Often, when you are relaxed, your decisions are made with more reason or common sense. Sometimes your emotional state will influence whether you show your power to fulfill their desires with kindness or malice.

For example: You are running late and have to prepare dinner. Your child hurts her finger and wants your attention. You can stop and show compassion or just tell the child its ok and go back to preparing dinner.

When you are feeling good, you give more freely. When you are stressed or in an otherwise emotional state you may show compassion begrudgingly or not at all. Again, this demonstrates to your children the negative use of power.

When children move out of the home and into school relationships, the power struggle continues. It becomes an ongoing learning process. If children learn from people treating them fairly, they will learn fairness. If they are involved with manipulative and negative people, they learn the negative use of power. These lessons will begin to mold their behavior for the remainder of their life.

As she moves through her work life, she will encounter bosses and/or mentors who will again establish a system for how to achieve in that organization or area of life. Each encounter will be weighed against the power dynamics learned in childhood.

Rationalizations will occur if a person decides the power she desires will be achieved more easily if one is negative, as taught by someone in business or in life. This type of mentor teaches that the repeated abuses of power successfully works to achieve his ends. Negative use of power can be anything from declaring anothers work as ones own, keeping a person out of the information loop for a project or up and coming idea, politically undermining someone for failure in an organization, etc.

From those who teach positive power use, she can learn that greatness and goodness can be achieved through kindness and compassion. He uses his energy to build, assist, and create for others, mankind, and themselves.

Often in the initial stages of learning to be negative, the person will experience physical and emotional distress at the thought of going against the kind and compassionate uses of power lessons learned in childhood. But after repeating the act of negativity and with the use of rationalizations, she will become more comfortable with her decisions.

Its been said negative people get farther in life. The question is--Is that true? Monetarily, a negative person may achieve more. They may also receive more recognition, but at what price?

The bigger issue is this: How does the use of power, positive or negative, affect their soul. While many people do not concern themselves with their souls, every interaction of their life affects it. The reason we are alive is to learn to deal with our emotions and power in a positive way to achieve our greater purpose of filling our soul with unconditional love.

Every decision, every act, and every thought that moves your farther from your balance point of unconditional love, keeps you stuck in the continuous cycle of learning lessons until you understand the pain of negativity. For some, that understanding may come in a few lifetimes. For others, it may take numerous lifetimes. Each lifetime is an opportunity to move yourself and your soul toward true unconditional love.

The truth is that remaining open to unconditional love is not easy. Negative situations and overwhelming challenges occur during your life to test your unconditionally loving resolve. Emotions, as a force of nature, can take hold of you and cause you to be angry. It would be unrealistic to say you should never be angry. Instead, you should be aware that being stuck in your anger and negativity can lead you to use your power in a negative and/or destructive manner.

For example: If you lose your job, you have a choice as to how to behave. You can be verbally angry and express it to people, you can plan ways of getting back at them for doing this to you, or you could let your anger move you to do harm to others. Anger may be human, but it should not be carried to extremes.

A balance needs to be sought by the wounded individual to move herself past the place of anger, negativity, and/or vengeance. Once that balance is re-achieved, she will have righted herself toward a path of unconditional love.

You have the ultimate power to influence your thoughts, decisions, and actions. You have the power to use your emotions for positive or negative, good or evil, kindness or meanness.

The challenges of your life are many, but the caution is just one: Use your life, make your decisions, and instigate your actions based on the positive use of power. Fill your soul with the maximum amount of unconditional love, so you have less to deal with in this lifetime and in any future lifetimes.