Better definition and rename of Lightworker/Darkworker is in order

[impaul99]

I think one of the reasons it is so frustrating and confusing for people in this forum to discuss lightworkers and darkworkers is because nobody really has a clue what they actually mean. In some messages I see people talking about darkworkers as being self-centred and loving towards themselves, and in other messages I see people describing darkworkers as people who committ crime and have to lie in order to protect their "darkworking ways".

I think the biggest problem is with the label DARKworker, which implies EVIL. Steve's example of the Evil Emperor in Star Wars didn't help either. "Hey kids, who would you rather be? Luke Skywalker, the HERO of the movie? Or the EVIL Emperor with the ugly wrinked face?" Maybe he didn't mean it that way, but a lot of people here took it that way.

I propose we re-name the two labels to SELFWorker and WORLDWorker. Here would be my definitions of the two:

SELFWorker: An individual who's primary focus and intention is to work on improving HIMSELF first, and who's reasoning is that by helping HIMSELF he will be able to make a positive change in the world.

WORLDWorker: An individual who's primary focus and intention is to work on improving the WORLD first, and who's reasoning is that by helping THE WORLD he will be able to make a positive change in his own life.

Both SELFWorkers and WORLDWorkers can act out of FEAR and LOVE. If they act out of FEAR they go down the consciousness scale, if they act out of LOVE they go up the consciousness scale.

SELFWorker syndrome = failure to realize that helping the world helps oneself, and therefore being drawn towards fear-filled things like greed, hoarding, etc.

WORLDWorker syndrom = failure to realize that helping oneself helps the world, and therefore being drawn towards fear-filled things like martyrism, powerlessness due to no focus on self-improvement, judging the world without looking at oneself.

Does that make sense to everyone? I'd like to use this thread to hash out the actual DEFINITIONS of the two polarization paths, rather then whether or not it is actually useful to polarize completely etc. I dont' think we can continue any fruitful conversations on here with everyones current definition of polarization being so varied.

I think using Darkworker and Lightworker is kind of like trying to read two resumes of people who you are considering as babysitters for your kids, one named Mr. Heart and the other Mr. Pedophile and trying to be unbiased. Good luck.

[peacefulmind]

I like these terms, it makes sense.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by impaul99

SELFWorker: An individual who's primary focus and intention is to work on improving HIMSELF first, and who's reasoning is that by helping HIMSELF he will be able to make a positive change in the world.

WORLDWorker: An individual who's primary focus and intention is to work on improving the WORLD first, and who's reasoning is that by helping THE WORLD he will be able to make a positive change in his own life.

Both SELFWorkers and WORLDWorkers can act out of FEAR and LOVE. If they act out of FEAR they go down the consciousness scale, if they act out of LOVE they go up the consciousness scale.

SELFWorker syndrome = failure to realize that helping the world helps oneself, and therefore being drawn towards fear-filled things like greed, hoarding, etc.

WORLDWorker syndrom = failure to realize that helping oneself helps the world, and therefore being drawn towards fear-filled things like martyrism, powerlessness due to no focus on self-improvement, judging the world without looking at oneself.

Nice - finally something I can understand about this polarization idea. Why couldn't the original articles come across with this kind of clarity? It also seems to throw out the definition I was holding on to - darkworker:service to self, lightworker:service to others - since you have encapulated self or others in each case very nicely.

Your definition seems to include awareness of the side effect of the other side - like a worldworker is motivated ti help others and also has awarness or expectations this will help him/her self.

I also like how clearly you put the fear and love stuff. I think I have been harping on fear being the dark/selfworkers realm and love being light/worldworkers. But lots of Steve's ideas seemed to say fear was the selfworker's motivation. So we'd be tossing something that Steve felt, perhaps.

Does that make sense to everyone? I'd like to use this thread to hash out the actual DEFINITIONS of the two polarization paths, rather then whether or not it is actually useful to polarize completely etc. I dont' think we can continue any fruitful conversations on here with everyones current definition of polarization being so varied.

Yeah - whether or not it's useful to polarize is something else and can only be discused once we really understand what it is to polarize.

On that note, and with your definitions, I would ask to see some clarity about what motivation is and how it is to be described or classified into self or world feelings. And how polarized motivational feelings are able to not have the feelings of the other side be part of the motivation but still is part of the equation in some way (expecting or knowing the other side will be taken car of too?).

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Nice - finally something I can understand about this polarization idea. Why couldn't the original articles come across with this kind of clarity?

Because Steve didn't have that kind of clarity yet. He had a starting point, threw it out there to see what others thought so that he could get clearer.

It also seems to throw out the definition I was holding on to - darkworker:service to self, lightworker:service to others - since you have encapulated self or others in each case very nicely.

Yup, both serve both. THe difference is which one you intend to serve first.

I also like how clearly you put the fear and love stuff. I think I have been harping on fear being the dark/selfworkers realm and love being light/worldworkers. But lots of Steve's ideas seemed to say fear was the selfworker's motivation. So we'd be tossing something that Steve felt, perhaps.

Yup, the statement that SELFWorkers are motivated by fear is where I think Steve took a wrong turn. I think he corrected himself in the article where he said SELFWorkers can reach enlightenment too, but he didn't make the connection that it involves using love energy not fear energy to accomplish that. It's just SELF love vs. WORLD love.

Yeah - whether or not it's useful to polarize is something else and can only be discused once we really understand what it is to polarize.

Exactly.

On that note, and with your definitions, I would ask to see some clarity about what motivation is and how it is to be described or classified into self or world feelings. And how polarized motivational feelings are able to not have the feelings of the other side be part of the motivation but still is part of the equation in some way (expecting or knowing the other side will be taken car of too?).

Oh, that's an easy one! Since I think I'm a SELFWorker, however, I'll have to charge you $29.99 for the answer though. Just kidding. No, the answer to that is that BOTH sides contain the motivation within their intention but they leave it up to "the universe" to figure it out.

This might not be the best example of this as it's just describing context, but a SELFWorker might set an intention like this:

"I am attracting $5,000,000 to me right now." Now, because this SELFWorker is love oriented, his beliefs of "To get $5M in value from the world I will have to provide much more of that in service." He would expect the universe to bring him a project or something that would provide $5M worth of value to the world in order for him to get paid on it.

In other words SELFWorkers would start with what THEY want and then let the universe tell them what they have to GIVE in order to receive that.

A WORLDWorker would do things differently... They would set an intention like this:
"Universe, allow me to help the world become a more peaceful place" or "Allow me to help people become more intelligent" or whatever it is they want to GIVE to the world. And then because they are love oriented they know that they will get "paid" for it. They might get "paid" $1 MIllion for doing it, or $5Million, or $30,000 or whatever.

An example would be if Steve started his blog to help the world without any expectation to make any specific amount, and now makes $10-$30k/month, but he didn't start with that as an intention.

Hope that clarifies it?

[Dan.Linehan]

I like these terms a lot too Paul. Selfworker and Worldworker. Good stuff.

[Kingston]

In my humble opinion the labels are fine as they are.

One can understand the definition, what light and dark really means, by slowly reading every article about it. Then it is impossible to miss it. If you don't do that, no change of terms is going to help anyone.

The terms "Light" and "Dark" inspire a sense of identity, it defines your place in the universe. I don't think there would me many lightworkers who would call themselves worldworkers. Same for darkworkers.

Again, this is just my opinion!

[Dan.Linehan]

I'd rather be called a "worldworker" than a lightworker. The term "lightworker" seems to place some ego in there.

[Holistic Star]

I like the new terms they seem less value loaded. I think it would be easier to choose to polarise as a SELFworker than a DARKworker as to me the darkworker term seems very unattractive (yes due to starwars imagery for me).

Lightworker vs Darkworker seems like a obvious choice - but Selfworker vs Worldworker means I have to think about what that really means.

[Dan.Linehan]

I think that you are really onto something here Paul. It makes a lot of sense to me that both SELFworkers and WORLDworkers would both motivated by love, just love directed differently, in different ways. Either one is a good path.

The question is, what happens when someone (or a group even) doesn't have good intentions at all? What is the end result when you are truly motivated by fear?

SELFdestruction and WORLDdestruction?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

I think that you are really onto something here Paul. It makes a lot of sense to me that both SELFworkers and WORLDworkers would both motivated by love, just love directed differently, in different ways. Either one is a good path.

The selfworker term also has the self as part of the term and the self or feeling of self is expandable. When a selfworker feels or is identified with a larger self and while giving love to this sense of self - this love reaches a larger sphere of influence than, say, a normal skin level boundary of the self. Which is to say, it starts looking more like a worldworker.

So then it seems to jive with other posts of mine. I'm still not sure how there is a direction of this love. It's all self love but for the worldworker the self love includes the world, and for the selfworker it is for the individual - I don't see there's a direction. It's an expansion of how far out the love goes. I don't see a polarization, once again.

[BobbiDrake]

Excellent idea to start a new thread.

I completely agree that we're too hung up on the definitions. See my post in the previous thread.

Biases will come up no matter what labels we use. But I believe that as we really embrace higher levels of consciousness, those differences will start to melt away.

[starlet]

impaul99, thank you so much for clearing this all up for me. I finally get it

Although when I think of DarkWorker, I think of Mara Jade - we both have red hair and devil-may-care attitudes. And we both want to kill Luke Skywalker. Is my obsessive Star Wars fangirl side showing through?

[Mark Lapierre]

Originally Posted by Kingston

In my humble opinion the labels are fine as they are.

One can understand the definition, what light and dark really means, by slowly reading every article about it. Then it is impossible to miss it. If you don't do that, no change of terms is going to help anyone.

The terms "Light" and "Dark" inspire a sense of identity, it defines your place in the universe. I don't think there would me many lightworkers who would call themselves worldworkers. Same for darkworkers.

Again, this is just my opinion!

This is what I thought initially. That a proper understanding of what the terms refer to doesn't come from the terms themselves. The words are just signposts. The real meaning is where the signposts point.

Still, I believe some signposts are better than others. In my opinion, because of the way society weighs words like light and dark, the direction in which the terms "lightworker" and "darkworker" point many of us is not the direction we should be heading.

Just as choosing one polarization or the other will still lead to the same destination, so will the choice of terms to describe the polarization, at least to anyone who wants to understand them. But I think the journey will be longer and slower for some people walking where the terms "lightworker" and "darkworker" point them.

So yes, I think Paul's suggestions and definitions provide greater clarity.

[Lallymac]

I like the concept of Selfworker, Worldworker too. I read a book by Stuart Wilde a few yrs back that outlined the natural stages of man/woman in cronological terms. From memory Wilde believed that in our twenties we are ego, physical, sexually driven and 'it's all about me.' In our thirties we expand into family, home, security, then from our fourties onwards, depending on how successfully we've managed the early stages, we overflow into community, country, world.
To extend beyond ourselves, we first have to first know ourselves well and have fullfilled our own needs. Some people will get there sooner and some never make it past first base. Some people's needs are more easily met, while some need more.
Lallymac

[Holden McNeil]

Originally Posted by Holistic Star

I like the new terms they seem less value loaded. I think it would be easier to choose to polarise as a SELFworker than a DARKworker as to me the darkworker term seems very unattractive (yes due to starwars imagery for me).

Lightworker vs Darkworker seems like a obvious choice - but Selfworker vs Worldworker means I have to think about what that really means.

^^ Agree completely. The connotations to light/darkworker are too strongly tied to being good and evil, when that clearly isn't what it's about (they're simply different means to the same end). Nice work Paul.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Lallymac

I like the concept of Selfworker, Worldworker too. I read a book by Stuart Wilde a few yrs back that outlined the natural stages of man/woman in cronological terms. From memory Wilde believed that in our twenties we are ego, physical, sexually driven and 'it's all about me.' In our thirties we expand into family, home, security, then from our fourties onwards, depending on how successfully we've managed the early stages, we overflow into community, country, world.
To extend beyond ourselves, we first have to first know ourselves well and have fullfilled our own needs. Some people will get there sooner and some never make it past first base. Some people's needs are more easily met, while some need more.
Lallymac

Wow a Stuart Wilde fan! That's a blast from the past for me, was very into his stuff. He would crack me up! "If your God force is outside of you - then go and grab it right back inside of you - you are God" - he'd say things like that I remember. I even went to a retreat of his back in early 90s. Off topic - but what's he doing now, do you know?

But on topic, my thoughts end up like you describe - with some sort of evolution from me, me, me and then expanding our love/compassion as much as we are able to. And also that we can not expand until first we have fullfilled our own needs. Can a begger give what he/she is begging for?

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Wow a Stuart Wilde fan! That's a blast from the past for me, was very into his stuff. He would crack me up! "If your God force is outside of you - then go and grab it right back inside of you - you are God" - he'd say things like that I remember. I even went to a retreat of his back in early 90s. Off topic - but what's he doing now, do you know?

"For about 7 years Stuart has been working with what he calls the Morph. He says this is a gateway to other worlds that he claims exists at 280 degrees around the compass if you are facing north and at a 45 degree tangent downward, below you. Stuart is currently holding seminars on the Morph in an old castle in France. He holds that anyone can see the Morph and contends that the ancient shamanistic Amazonian "psychedelic" infusion, known as ayahuasca, which contains Dimethyltryptamine, can aid people in this process."


//Doesn't know, just uses Wikipedia

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

But on topic, my thoughts end up like you describe - with some sort of evolution from me, me, me and then expanding our love/compassion as much as we are able to. And also that we can not expand until first we have fullfilled our own needs. Can a begger give what he/she is begging for?

Yeah, I'm wondering the same thing. For example, I used to be broke and in debt and basically my life sucked. I went into self-development about 13 years ago and completely turned my life around. I now make good money working for a company, and in my spare time I work on my blog.

The thing is that because my needs are already met with my "job", I'm not so concerned about making money from my blog. Of course I allow it if it comes, but I would say that if my path so far in life was 95% SELFWorker, my blog project is probably 95% WORLDWorker.

Obviously, Steve also makes more than enough money now for him and his family to be comfortable. I'm wondering if that's the progression of it? Almost like the pyramid of human needs. It's like first we have to take care of our basic needs like food, shelter, clothing etc. then it moves up the pyramid and at the top levels we start getting into the "help the world" stuff. The reason we CAN do it though is because we've already helped ourselves through the base levels towards the higher level.

So maybe it works like this: You start at the lower levels of consciousness and you use SELFWorker mode to move up the ladder...then, as you move up the ladder you become 90% SELFWorker and 10% WORLDWorker etc. and eventually by the time you're at the level of Reason you're at like 50%/50% SELF/WORLDWorker and it's time to decide the path.

The reason I'm saying this is that now that I've defined things as SELF/WORLD worker, I can see that I've been kind of moving AWAY from SELFWorker over the last few years and into WORLDWorker more and more, so maybe it's a natural progression.

Maybe Steve's hit that point as well. I think it happens at the point in your life where you make enough money to we really comfortable, so that you're no longer concerned about money, and you now become more concerned about more then just yourself and your family.

What do you guys think?

[Mr_A]

I have issues with steves polarity system

I consider my self a growing darkworker and what steve has described in past articles concerning darkworkers real got me thinking.

My first problem is that steve labels a polarity to love and fear. Steve labels the emotion fear to darkworkers. He has described scenarios where darkworkers work through fear and describes darkwokers as fear-based.
But a high level darkworker or lightworker has mastered the law of attraction and know that they have nothing to fear because they know they are the creators of their reality. Fear is a result of not picking a polarity not a property of Darkworker’s polarity.
Darkworkers love to dominate and love to be dominated. Yes that’s right they love to be dominated. Let me explain.
Darkworker are all about improving themselves and the one of the best ways to improve yourself is to compete with quality competitors. Darkworkers love the challenge and live to be challenged but when they are dominated themselves they know deep down, that you learn more from losing than you do winning or you ultimately gain more power from losing than you do winning . I always have heated debates with my friends and always get a high when I’m put in my place. Its almost like being proven wrong is good because you gain that realisation and grow from that mistake.
Darkworkers don’t help people with compassion; they help people by making them more power and dominant, darkworkers know if their competitor becomes more powerful it forces them to work harder to become even more powerful, they are creating a better quality competitor. Darkworkers have an unquenchable desire to become more powerful and have a desirer to verse a quality competitor. Hence the saying
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”

I have the utmost respect for the person who can pick me up and drill me into the ground to bring me to my senses. How do you think I found out about the Law of Attraction

So in my opinion “love-based polarity” should be renamed “compassion-based polarity” and “Fear-based polarity” should be renamed “Dominant-based polarity”

I think I can say with confidence that all high level darkworkers are all masochist. But that’s another subject altogether.

[Seth]

Impaul99, why would you work your whole life to be able to improve your ability to serve others, reach 50/50 at Reason, and then turn around and choose Darkworker? You'd have to backtrack your whole life! You were a better Darkworker when you were a baby. That's interesting. Are babies perfect Darkworkers? I think we're muddling the whole thing. Please see my post on polarization in "Nice Guys Finish Last, Chicks Dig Darkworkers!" The original post was very tongue-in-cheek, but I just wrote a reply that deals with your clarification on polarization, conciousness, love and fear. Thanks for leading the charge to question polarization until we understand it.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Mr_A

I always have heated debates with my friends and always get a high when I’m put in my place. Its almost like being proven wrong is good because you gain that realisation and grow from that mistake.

Ok, in that case let me put you in your place. You're wrong. Hehehehe...just kiddin.

The only thing I would point out in your point is that there are different levels of SELFWorking (darkworking) and as you move up the consciousness scale the need for debate diminishes. Essentially one day you realize that trying to "prove people wrong" or having "people prove me wrong" is just your ego talking and you eventually move past that. You still have an opinion, but the best way to describe it is that you no longer argue/debate just for the sake of argueing/debating to make yourself feel better. You become humble because, as a SELFWorker, you realize that proving people wrong is not in your best interest. So, having said that, your points are very valid and you could be totally right. Thanks for sharing your point of view.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Seth

Impaul99, why would you work your whole life to be able to improve your ability to serve others, reach 50/50 at Reason, and then turn around and choose Darkworker? You'd have to backtrack your whole life! You were a better Darkworker when you were a baby. That's interesting. Are babies perfect Darkworkers? I think we're muddling the whole thing. Please see my post on polarization in "Nice Guys Finish Last, Chicks Dig Darkworkers!" The original post was very tongue-in-cheek, but I just wrote a reply that deals with your clarification on polarization, conciousness, love and fear. Thanks for leading the charge to question polarization until we understand it.

No, actually in my case I've been working my whole life as a SELFWorker. I've been very successful in it after I figured out how to get past my ego. THe thing is that NOW I'm starting to see the benefits of the WORLDWorker side and am wondering if it might be wise for me to switch to that side.

The way I kind of see is that as a SELFWorker you get to tell the universe what you WANT, and the universe then dictates HOW you get it. Which is what I've done in the past. I would set goals/intentions for myself and then allow the universe to show me projects and bring people into my life to help me accomplish those goals. This worked well for me and I've accomplished my goals/intentions and I keep setting new/higher goals.

The thing is that as a WORLDWorker you get to tell the universe WHAT you will do to help the world (ie. running a blog, or setting up a company, or a project), like for example you might set a goal to write 500 articles over the next 2 years on your blog (like Steve did), and then the universe dictatates how much money you will make.

So as a SELFWorker you get to pick what you WANT TO GET, as a WORLDWorker you get to pick what you WANT TO GIVE. Know what I mean?

In this model, I'm starting to think that it would be really cool for me to be able to choose what I want to GIVE and just allow the universe to pay me whatever it thinks it's worth (if anything), and just TRUST that I'll be taken care of, instead of my current path where I pick/set GET goals and the universe dictates what I give.

Steve, is this what happened to you between your software business and StevePavlina.com? Did you switch from SELF to WORLWorker unknowingly at that point in time and just started to focus on HELPING THE WORLD and eventually money rolled in, or did you sit down and say "I want to make $30k/month from my blog"???

My next point of questionning for myself is whether it's possible to do BOTH. To say "This is what I want to GIVE" and "This is what I want to GET for it."???

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

"For about 7 years Stuart has been working with what he calls the Morph. He says this is a gateway to other worlds that he claims exists at 280 degrees around the compass if you are facing north and at a 45 degree tangent downward, below you. Stuart is currently holding seminars on the Morph in an old castle in France. He holds that anyone can see the Morph and contends that the ancient shamanistic Amazonian "psychedelic" infusion, known as ayahuasca, which contains Dimethyltryptamine, can aid people in this process."

Hmmmm... Guess who is going to be at the "I Can Do It Conference?"

Featuring Stuart Wilde on Saturday May 19th, 2007

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by impaul99

Steve, is this what happened to you between your software business and StevePavlina.com? Did you switch from SELF to WORLWorker unknowingly at that point in time and just started to focus on HELPING THE WORLD and eventually money rolled in, or did you sit down and say "I want to make $30k/month from my blog"???

I'm pretty sure that Steve has said he started his blog with the intention to help people, not make money. I don't think he thought that it would take off like it has.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

I'm pretty sure that Steve has said he started his blog with the intention to help people, not make money. I don't think he thought that it would take off like it has.

I'm too lazy to go find the article right now, but I could have sworn that I heard somewhere that he did make a goal (set an intention) to make $3,000/month from the blog at some point and then he hit that number and beyond.

So if that's the case, then it would further demonstrate the fact that he used both WORLDWorker energy and SELFWorker energy to make things tick.

Perhaps he first started with WORLDWorker energy, wrote 100 articles, got some confidence and good feedback and felt good about it, and then realized that by balancing it out with SELFWorker energy he could make a career out of this instead of his software business so he did what any SELFWorker would do and installed Adsense, ads etc. and monetized his site.

*Shrug*, I am not sure, but I think StevePavlina.com is a result of a balanced effort of WORLD/SELFWorking. I could be wrong. If not balanced, there's at least both energies in it from what I can see.

You might say that these forums were more a WORLDWorker energy....well, up until James Arthur Ray's face appeared in the top left hand corner and this "Want a Fun Business" Google ad on the left

[Emerald]

"SELFWorker: An individual who's primary focus and intention is to work on improving HIMSELF first, and who's reasoning is that by helping HIMSELF he will be able to make a positive change in the world."

"Both SELFWorkers and WORLDWorkers can act out of FEAR and LOVE. If they act out of FEAR they go down the consciousness scale, if they act out of LOVE they go up the consciousness scale."

Thank you so much for posting this. I've been struggling and struggling with the original terms. Now I feel quite comfortable with identifying myself as a Selfworker, because I definately put my energy into the world by working through myself and my desires first. I am however using Love energy to do this, not Fear. I have found it easier to think of the Love and Fear aspects as Idealism instead of Love, and Pragmatism rather than Fear.

[ethereal]

Hey guys, please read "Darkworkers, Lightworkers, and Levels of Consciousness (Blog)" thread, starting from the lower half of page 4:

Darkworkers, Lightworkers, and Levels of Consciousness (Blog)

I believe it is critical to understand this polarity concept and all its ramifications, and I would like to see grazia's and my points addressed, whether they are right or wrong. Please discuss your issues on that thread as well, I really hope to get to the bottom of it all.

[wolfgang]

starting at what post#

[YouseffTheSheep]

Get over good vs evil, hero's vs villains, and then you don't need new definitions. You guys are focusing way too much on the semantics and wordings being used, and are falling into one of the biggest intellectual time-wasting traps ever.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by YouseffTheSheep

Get over good vs evil, hero's vs villains, and then you don't need new definitions. You guys are focusing way too much on the semantics and wordings being used, and are falling into one of the biggest intellectual time-wasting traps ever.

Sometimes I need a little time wasting to get more clear in my brain. If it all makes sense to you already, just ignore us feeble minds who need the concept and terminology refined to a more accurate symbol in our minds.

Since I've equated Darkworking = SELFWorker and Lightworker = WORLDWorker, a whole new level of clarity about Polarization has entered my mind. Of course there are lots of questions still, but old questions were answered and new questions were created. In that sense, like I said above, it's a well wasted snipped of time.