Innocence (Intellectual, Feminine)

Innocence is the affirmation of feminine sweetness to offset grimy/gritty masculine intentions. Whenever somebody is raw, powerful, and inconsiderate in their behavior, it is the opposite of being Innocent. Many believe that Innocence is trumped when you have the power to force yourself on others. Actually, Innocence is the defense and even the superior position to Strength when the Innocent one holds to their way of being. Mystery has its own power in Innocence, just like Mastery has its own power in Strength. This is why others with Strength fear Innocence, because it draws support where sheer force cannot. The metaphor is “Innocence is to Water as Strength is to rocks”. While rocks may have the upper hand initially, water will wear away and form the rocks over time. The power of Innocence is that it moves others to seek simpler, more humane ways of responding in certain situations. It is an internal response or alternative to a more direct, external solution. In relationship, when a partner cries, it invokes in their partner either a desire to help and be compassionate, or a frustration where they no longer feel they have control. This can occur even when the innocent person is not aware of their power.

Authentic Innocence is about not losing our selves or being compromised by others. Another way to describe Innocence is to avoid taking defensive positions or having opinions that emphasize how we are different from others. In other words, the power of Innocence comes from its ability to be inclusive. It invites others to participate in a rebirth of perceptions so they can become more balanced in themselves. Innocence is powerful because it doe not make assumptions that something cannot be done. Instead, it operates from a state of inquiry about what could be done to make things better. Individuals who have repressed their own innocence can either ignore or overdo this attraction, through false humility, by demanding that others idealize possibilities with them. On the other hand, we may feel we have to ignore our Innocence and accept compromise in order to accept the way things are. In this case, we focus on being strong and tough outwardly. True Innocence is experienced mostly by the young-at-heart who are able to maintain a spiritual connection and have confidence that the world can provide opportunities for them. They possess imagination and have the willingness to stand up for possibilities that no one else sees. Some individuals react to this sense of ever-inclusive imagination because they think it deludes people when the reality is that we need to take action based on what currently exists. They polarize and deny the value of Innocence.

We are attracted to those with Innocence when we deny our own Innocence. This is caused when we perceive our selves in a harsh, critical way. When we are around people with a high degree of Innocence, we do not put ourselves down as much. It is hard to judge ourselves when we are with others who are totally non-judgmental. This is usually the opposite of those who are trying to demonstrate their Strength. These individuals are driven to perform and to constantly increase their sense of capacity because it is the only way they can measure their progress. Individuals with a high degree of Innocence use their feminine embodiment to approach any problem in a circular manner. This means they are always finding themselves spiraling in their growth, hopefully empowered by greater insights that uplift them. Even individuals with a high degree of Innocence are attracted to those who want to be more feminine and self-possessed. Innocence is attractive because it is transcendent. It is their focus on their spiritual development that tends to make them seem ephemeral and energetically sensitive. The more transpersonal qualities we embody, the more others are attracted to us.

We are repulsed by Innocence when we have experienced individuals using it against us to make themselves feel better, or superior. When we have a history of people using Innocence against us, we want to get away from them as quickly as possible. Usually, we perceive their insidious ability to worm their way into any situation as a false sincerity and humility. This is particularly true when they use caretaking and role-playing to make themselves seem martyrs to some bigger possibility, when in fact, they are manipulating the situation. It particularly bothers us when these individuals think that they can get what they want without having to be upfront about it. One example of this is how they have trained others to give them preferential treatment in situations where others have to wait in line. They use a sense of desperate sincerity making their life a dramatic example what others would never be able to tolerate so they engender sympathy. This experience of repulsion is amplified whenever there is a sense of righteousness or a belief in their destiny that makes them able to justify all kinds of inappropriate behavior. This use of Innocence is particularly difficult for Priests and Servers who believe that things should be fair and above board. The biggest obstacles to this fairness are lower WorldView Priests and Servers.

Most individuals that seek to grow and change imagine themselves adopting a new set of standards for behaving with others. For each shift they make they imagine letting go of some inappropriate behavior or repulsion. Each shift they go through clarifies how they have been reborn to see the world anew. The key is to believe in their capacity to remake themselves rather than believing that they currently reflect the past. This is why they talk about being reborn when Innocence shows up. It should be noted that it does not have to be a religious rebirth but it could indicate instead, a social or spiritual rebirth.

In the diagram, we can see that there are four ways to develop Innocence as an attraction. The first is the ability to be repulsed when we are impractical about our Innocence. This usually means that we are disassociated from our current life experience and seem to be only minimally available to others. What makes this so distressing is that we are actually cultivating a sense of helplessness or victimization so that others feel guilt if they do not take care of us. While it may seem counterproductive for anyone to cultivate this degree of confusion, the secondary gains of being able to not apply our selves and still get what we want, is remarkably effective. Impractical Innocence is even more removed in terms of our self -awareness than an individual with a Distant Defense Style. The only way out of this process is to realize that without growth we are always going to be at the effect of others around us. This means that our ongoing dependence upon others keeps us stuck and impotent. The next three positions of Innocence are much more positive.

Protracted Innocence is the state of being when our Innocence is more real but we are limited by the fact that we possess no clarity about what we should do or whom we should engage. As a result, we are constantly seeking information but never making a decision. One of the best indicators of this is when individuals ask for support and guidance but never take it. What is needed is to have confidence that we can survive if we make a mistake. Instead, we get caught up in the information, continually cycling through it without being confident that it will work. How we resolve issues is to stay with certain patterns where we minimize the upside so we do not make irreversible mistakes. These patterns of expectation become the bottleneck that prevents any major changes from occurring. What occurs is a greater sense of anxiety whenever we make choices that could effectively come back to haunt us. The opposite of this position is Mysterious Innocence where we enjoy making unusual or unpredictable choices where the outcome is always different than we expect.

Mysterious Innocence is a commitment to live outside of the world of expectations. We do this by ignoring the effects of time so we experience no pressure to make quick decisions. We can identify this type of Innocence by our outrageous spontaneity where we are willing to try new things just because we become aware of them. Choices are made in order to invoke chaos both for our selves and others around us. Since nothing is expected, everything is welcomed. It has the benefit of providing opportunities for fast growth. The challenge of it is that it may take several different cycles of experience to understand the limitations of a certain situation or choice. This is because we try not to make fixed guidelines about the meaning of certain results until we are confident we have explored all the dimensions of the problem. While those with Mysterious Innocence are naturally attracted to Protracted Innocence, this produces co-dependent proclivities that can only be transcended when both are unified.

Innocence Reborn is a stand that encompasses Protracted Innocence and Mysterious Innocence and integrates them. It indicates that we have embodied being spontaneous with being more selective about how and where we best grow. Most of all, it indicates that we are stepping outside of the zone of being competitive with others or using our ego to make ourselves superior. Some would say it is the beginning of embracing the timeless creativity of our nature. Usually it does not manifest to a high degree on this level unless we have also embodied Inclusive Strength. As an attraction, it functions to empower communications with partners and friends, anchoring the use of our imaginations to explore new and creative suggestions that transform relationship experiences. It is the natural openness, sourced by the larger feminine that makes situations and circumstances more timeless and fluid.

Lessons of Innocence

The adoption of Innocence is a stage of feminine embodiment, regenerating the perspective that we do not need to be defined in terms of our conditioning. The more we regain or restore our sense of Innocence, the greater our self-forgiveness, making it easier to be real and accept ourselves as we are. Any repulsion to this indicates that we are still caught in defensive differences where we seek out Strength to distance us from Innocence. The challenge with Innocence is that we can become very removed and feel a sense of relief because we are not being as overtly critical of ourselves. Others experience this as not being taken seriously or not engaging problems as they imagine them to be.  Actually, the ability to reframe our experience in terms of Innocence allows us to be more flexible and fluid in finding out what is needed to resolve the problem. Part of the solution is not to take on others’ point of view or allow ourselves to be subjectified by those we think know more. While we do become more receptive at this stage, we also tend to doubt the old perspectives or beliefs as accurate.