Personal power, that inner feeling we have that we can do or be anything, that nothing is impossible and the world is truly our playground. It's a feeling that I associate very much with childhood, and certainly with being child like, and its a power I've only used sparingly as an adult.

Growing up, I found myself buried in messages of fear and distrust. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" screams of a belief that man cannot trust himself and his own innate sense of being. Another one, being a generation X'r raised on comic books comes from the pages of  The Amazing Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility." It's the bitter lesson Peter Parker learns after refusing to use his newfound abilities to stop a robber, the same robber who later on kills Peter's Uncle.

The message in Spiderman best sums up how I've always used my own personal power. I grew up with a very real fear that if I used my power carelessly, I might hurt somebody, so I learned to be gentle, using physical force only when completely necessary.

As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, the only alternative demonstration of power was completely anathema to me. The only men who seemed comfortable with their power were the physically aggressive, macho types, whether it was the adult men who frequently hit their kids or wives, or got into bar fights regularly, or their children who became the local bullies. I can see now that these men were just as afraid of their own power as I was, only they were more afraid of NOT using it, lest they be labeled a wimp or something similar, something like me.

As an adult, I had always had an aversion to driving. I didn't learn to drive until I was 29, this was easy in NYC with an abundance of trains and buses to rely on. I also had my bicycle, which was one area I could feel safe expressing my power.

On a bicycle, I was god. I was fast, agile, and confident that I really couldn't hurt anybody, at least not in the same way that a car could. I wasn't worried about being hurt myself, even before learning about conscious creation, I had decided that the risk of being hurt was part of what made zipping through traffic on NYC streets so exciting.

When I finally did learn to drive, true to my Spiderman beliefs, I used my power sparingly, only driving when I found it absolutely necessary. I found driving to be extremely stressful, mainly out of fear that I would hit something or someone. I created a car for myself that had lots of minor problems, the kind which made long trips impractical. Once again, I could use my power, but sparingly.

The move to California seemed to be a big change at first, Kristen and I drove cross country to get here, our van Behemoth was a big powerful machine, and I was comfortable with my share of the driving cross country.

However, once we were settled into our new house, Behemoth quickly stopped working. Some sort of electrical problem kept draining his battery. In short, he was out of power. I also allowed my NY driver's license to expire before getting a California one. I wasn't too concerned because Kristen liked driving, and we had her car to get around in.

Unlike NYC however, the town of Paicines does not have a public transportation system. Oh sure, we have cows, but even if you manage to climb on one, they never take you in the direction you want to go. <G> Over the months, I really began to feel stranded, being 12 miles away from the nearest general store, and 20 from the nearest real town, I had put myself in a position where owning a car was the only practical means of transportation, and I allowed myself to believe that a new car was impossible with our current financial situation.

When I got the job in the hospital, Kristen began driving me. This arrangement worked very well at first, the hospital was air conditioned and it was mid-summer, Kristen had several hours a day in which to focus on her current book, which she soon finished and whisked off to a publisher. There were other interactions too, she met various people in the hospital and enjoyed talking with them.

I realized though, that I wanted to be able to drive myself back and forth. It bothered me to feel dependent in this regard, so I got myself a California license, and despite our financial condition began looking in newspapers for a used car.

Kristen was unhappy with this at first, because she didn't want to see me just buy some piece of junk. Since I had always just bought the most affordable car I could, I really didn't understand her point on this. However, I did notice that most of the cars I saw either for sale or on the road, didn't really speak to me. I felt like they were built to impress somebody else, and I definitely wasn't that somebody.

Finally, I stumbled across an advertisement for a Pontiac Fiero, something about the shape of the car caught my eye immediately. I had no idea at the time that it was the only mid engine car ever made in the U.S., or that it had no practical purpose besides being sporty and fun. I just knew that I liked it.

After some internet searching, I found one that I wanted to look at. It was a manual transmission, something else that I had never been comfortable with, so I only test drove it in a parking lot. The power of its engine though blew me away immediately. The owner of the car had a lead foot, and I could see that when he drove it, this car really moved! The power of the car actually scared me, but I decided to buy it anyway. I knew that I could learn to accept this power as my own.

During that week I had a series of dreams which involved my sense of personal power. In one of them, Kristen and I were in the yard, when we heard two large animals fighting. They turned out to be lions, and they were on the hill just across from our yard. I climbed over the stile to our road to get a better look. At the same time, one of the lions broke off fighting, bound over the fence and ran directly at me. He paused in front of me and looked as if he was about to pounce. I closed my eyes, and said that I trusted that I was safe, the lion jumped up, and pawed me a little, but his claws weren't out. It was more like a playful cat than a ferocious animal. At this point I woke up, feeling very positive, though I still alternated between loving my sense of power, and being afraid of it.

One of the basic tenets of conscious creation is that if you really believe in what your fears are telling you, you will create that experience. The first night I had the car I got to experience just how much I believed that I could hurt someone with my power.

We live on a country road with lots of wildlife in the area, one of the things I was most afraid of was hitting something on the road. I didn't want my power to turn me in to some kind of killer. It was far safer, and easier to console Kristen whenever something chose to leave physical reality by jumping in front of her car.

I was determined to drive the car in the dark that first night, so that I would be familiar with our road for the trip home from work. I was out on the road about 2 minutes, when a coyote jumped out from a nearby bush and directly in front of my right headlight. I swerved, snapping the car to the side as hard as possible, but I was too close, I felt the side of the car strike the coyote, at least I hadn't hit it straight on.

Strangely, I knew that the only thing I could do at this point was to keep driving the length of the road. I could have stopped, although I didn't feel I could actually help the coyote if it was still there, and except for my headlights there was no light in the area at all.

So I continued my strange trek, without further incident. On the way back, I noticed that there was no body lying in the road, or blood visible anywhere. I consoled myself that since it was only a glancing blow from the side, the coyote may have very well survived.

That night I had to deal with the feelings of guilt I had over the incident. It appeared that the lesson of Peter Parker had come back to haunt me. It also revealed to me how hollow concepts of conscious creation can seem, when we are busy punishing ourselves for some believed wrong. Reminding myself that there are "no victims" wasn't helping me at all, it was more consoling for me to remind myself that I had been driving at a responsible speed, and that I had reacted very well to a random situation in a random universe.

From a conscious creation perspective, it was easy to see just how I created the event. I had spent an inordinate amount of time believing in my own fear, believing that if I used my power carelessly, I would hurt someone - a combination of belief and focus that brought the event into physical reality. I recognized this, even while still beating myself up over the incident. In some ways this made it even feel more like it was "my fault."

I realized that if I was willing to accept my power with love, and trust myself that I wouldn't continue to create such unwanted events. When I set out to work the next day, I focused on loving myself in the moment, remembering to relax, and to "see" with my heart, knowing that I would have plenty of warning before something was in the road. Overall it has worked great, I have become a much more relaxed, confident driver, and on several occasions I've received intuitive warnings to slow my speed only to see some animal moving off the side of the road as I reached the next bend.

(c)1998, John McNally.  Published in the December 1998 issue of the online Conscious Creation Journal, except the images of Spiderman, which are the property of Marvel Comics.  Feel free to copy this article for personal use - please include this copyright notice. http://www.consciouscreation.com/