There’s a lot of talk these days about energy in terms of sustainability: energy needs, energy sources, green energy, renewable energy, alternative energy. Our world is in an energy crisis. Since the onset of the industrial revolution we’ve been expanding our need for energy continuously with little consideration of the down side. The ability to produce more goods in greater and greater quantities outweighed every other consideration. Mining and burning coal clearly caused illness and death, but until these latest climate extremes, the benefits have seemed to outweigh the costs in the minds of many.

Consider an energy spectrum of bad to good:

Toxic > Polluting > Neutral > Renewable > Pure

This spectrum easily correlates with the Modes of Emotion:

• Toxic energy = Victim Mode emotions
• Polluting energy = Interpreter Mode emotions
• Neutral energy = Observer Mode motions
• Renewable energy = Partner Mode emotions
• Pure energy = Creator Mode emotions

The neutral energy produced by and resulting from Observer Mode emotions causes no damage to the environment – or to you. You stop struggling. You no longer feel a need to hold on, manipulate, fight, resist, withhold, prevent, monitor, dominate, or exert control in any other way. You relax, surrender, drift, let go, let be, acknowledge, float, etc. You just be. What is is. You recognize how is not up to you. Not only is no energy required, you arrive in this mode by turning off the energy switch, by conserving.

In Partner Mode, you switch from off to on – but you have moved to an entirely different source of energy than the polluting forms of Interpreter Mode. Consider the emotions of Partner Mode in the context of renewable energy sources. For instance, imagine appreciation as having the same delightful energy as a quick mountain stream. Imagine confidence as having the same rising heat as a geothermal steam vent as. Imagine friendliness as having the healing warmth of sunlight. Imagine willingness as having the same tenacious rhythm as the tides. Imagine gratitude as having the same soothing energy as a summer breeze. (Your imagination will likely come up with different correlations than mine, but you get the drift.)

When you experience emotions from Partner Mode, the energy of your confidence, appreciation, friendliness, willingness, gratitude, etc. empowers your efforts. The energy you generate also empowers others. The renewable resource of your Partner emotions can help other people switch from the polluting energies of their Interpreter emotions and become more sustainable.

As you’ll recall from the Modes of Power Diamond, personal power increases by orders of magnitude from one mode to the next. (For visualization purposes, and without any way to actually measure it, I suggested a rate of expansion of 100 times.) However, you consume energy on an inverse scale. The energy balance of operating in Victim Mode is all cost and no gain. Interpreter Mode is still high cost with little gain. Observer Mode is neutral, it costs almost nothing and you get to keep all the energy you generate. Partner Mode emotions require some effort on your part (you have to erect the wind turbine) and then the energy is free; you get to use all you want with excess to share.

And now we come to Creator Mode. The energy of these emotions is all gain at no cost. Love is free. Happiness is free. Delight is free. Kindness is free. Peace is free. Imagine if you had a direct power connection to the sun. You could absorb energy from the sun without putting up a solar panel, without even going out and standing in the sun. You wouldn’t need a battery to hold the energy because your direct connection would flow continuously regardless of weather or time of day. The emotions of Creator Mode are like that.

Now imagine your connection is not with the sun, but with the universe, with the ultimate, infinite partner of all creation. Imagine this connection is immediate and intimate, with no separation of time or space. It’s the air you breathe, your sensory awareness, the beat of your heart. Creator emotions are that strong, that constant, that powerful.

When you operate in Creator Mode, your love will heal yourself and others. Your happiness will create more happiness, enjoyment and pleasure. Your peace will infuse peace into every situation and even reach across time and space. Your enthusiasm will strengthen you and empower others. You become the source of positive energy in any group, in any situation.

So what would your life be like if you always operated from Creator Mode? Would it be all peace and light? A heaven on earth? Unrelenting, boring bliss?

I don’t know. Not only is such a perpetual state of well-being beyond my experience, I believe we need challenges in order to grow. But the emotion/energy perspective gives us a way to look at it.

Infinite means no-limit, and in some ways no-limit energy looks more dangerous than inviting. At their extremes, most natural and abundant sources of energy become “catastrophic.” They are too big, too much. Consider tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes, heat waves, etc. From our finite human perspective, the effects seem destructive and disruptive.

And yet, such excesses of energy are the creative mechanisms of the universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe itself began was an explosion. Without the Iron Catastrophe, the earth would not be habitable. Mountains are the result of tectonic shifts. The richest soil on earth comes as a result of volcanoes or floods.

I assume that as such energy extremes are rare in nature, so would the upper extremes of Creator Mode emotions be rare. Generally, mountain streams burble along, breezes clear the air, the tides ebb and flow, geothermal vents emit steam. The energy’s there, and its potential is amazingly powerful.

The emotions in Creator Mode are likewise amazingly powerful. Powerful beyond our ability to imagine. Creatively powerful.

This power can be engaged either actively or passively, and most of us do so passively, reactively. We love because others are love-able. We’re happy when there’s something to be happy about. We rejoice when there’s something to celebrate. Etc.

Such experiences are blessings. They teach us to recognize these emotions. They teach us what these emotions feel like, how our bodies respond to these emotions, and to acknowledge the power when we feel it. They provide us with an experience base from which we can learn to actively engage the power.

Knowing what love feels like, you can generate it from your heart; you can use it to heal. You can heal your own illnesses and the illnesses of others. You can heal ill-will, scarcity, loneliness, past error, or any other wound inflicted or expanded in Victim or Interpreter Mode. Knowing what happiness feels like, you can generate it from within and use it to create any outcome you desire. Knowing what delight feels like, you can let it expand within you to reframe any erroneous belief.

If the difference between passively experiencing Creator Mode emotions and actively generating them seems a long way off, take a good look at what comes easily to you. Identify what you have in abundance. Consider such things as your talents, your skills, your intelligence, your family, your friends, your well-being, your home, your job. Make an inventory of your blessings.

Perhaps you’re more in the habit of focusing on what’s not going well, on the things you want to fix, or improve, or heal, or transcend. For this exercise, set those things aside and concentrate on what’s good.

Now review the emotions you feel when you think about what’s good. What do you feel when you interact with people you love? What do you feel when you participate in something you enjoy? These are the emotions of Creator Mode, and you can transfer the energy of these emotions to any other area of your life.

When you operate from Creator mode, you are the high level emotions you experience. You are the creator. You know you are connected to the infinite, you know the infinite works through you for your best good and the best good of others.

While this may feel like foreign territory to you, you’ve probably wandered in and out of it many times in your life. The length of past visits may have been so short you hardly noticed the scenery, but you’ve definitely been there before.

The energy of these emotions is constantly and freely available to you. You can practice accessing it in the following ways:

• By becoming more aware of Creator emotions when you experience any variation of peace, joy, or love.
• By holding onto them for longer periods of time when you experience them.
• By expanding their range into other areas of your life.
• By choosing them.
• By using them.

I believe that for us as human beings, it’s a part of our life’s purpose to master our emotions, and through such mastery to become the creators of our lives and of best good.

Until we meet again, look at the world with wonder and at yourself with warmth.