Qualities: Acting the Part
- Pathways of Possibility
- Oct 23
- 5 min read
Love. Courage. Hope. Generosity. These are all qualities that we as humans can connect to and develop more of. But how does one do this? Where does one begin? Here Joanna Infeld gives us some insights and suggestions.
What are Qualities?
Qualities are manifestations of energy. Love exists, as does compassion, constancy, patience and forgiveness, independent of us humans, but added to and processed by human endeavors every single moment of every single day.
Acting the Part
Acting the part is adopting a behavior that connects to a quality. Just as reading about, say, an orange or even seeing a picture of it is very different to tasting it for yourself and holding it in your hand, so thinking or reading about a quality is very different to acting the part. Making an action that connects to a quality brings the frequency of that quality into one’s energy field. Everyone’s experience of a single quality might be unique, as we each bring to our exploration of any quality our individual experience, knowledge and education. One person’s version of charity, for example, might feel totally inadequate to someone else. Or one person’s expression of love might feel insincere to someone else who has a different idea of what love is.
Working with qualities is a free pursuit, yet most rewarding. As we connect to, for example, honesty or courage, we will become a little more honest or courageous ourselves and there will be a little more honesty or courage in the world for others to connect to. “How do we do that?”, you might ask. Simply act in an honest or courageous way, and the essence of honesty or courage will accompany you and move through you as you do.
Ask anyone who speaks in public or performs as an artist about whether they had to overcome stage fright to be able to carry out their performance and they will no doubt tell you how they had to simply “fake it” before they were able to combat successfully their nervousness.
We have been given free will to be able to decide who and what we want to be. Once we make that decision, it is then a question of creating a pathway from the desire to the reality and following its guidance. We can become whoever we want to be but it is up to us to act the part and to become fully the unique person we were meant to be. It is really down to us which qualities we embody in order to create for ourselves a life of quality!
Every time we perform an act expressing a specific quality, a little bit of the energy associated with that quality remains inside our energy field. For example, if you perform a courageous act, you will become a little more courageous and the quality of courage will begin to live with you and become part of your standard radiation and character formation. If you continue to act courageously (following our example of courage), eventually others will begin to see and recognize you as being courageous. They might even start seeking you out when they need courage themselves, because they feel it can “rub off” on them too. Qualities are contagious and once they become domiciled within a person’s energy field, they can jump from person to person, just like a germ, and begin to germinate within their new environment, inspiring their new host to actions that previously might have been outside their comfort zone. If you spend time with a happy person, for example, will you not yourself feel happier and become uplifted? But beware, because by the same token, if you spend time with someone who is angry or disgruntled, you might become angry or disgruntled too!
If you want to have or be known for having a certain quality, the advice is simple: begin to act in a way that displays this quality. The first act might feel unfamiliar and out of character, but the next one will be easier and will feel a little bit more natural. Keep going and before you know it, you will become your chosen quality.
A friend of mine wanted to become more generous, after having been told that he was cheap and stingy. For a whole month he deliberately set out to daily perform a generous act—he would give away one dollar to the first beggar he met. If he did not meet a beggar that day, he would tip the waiter at the restaurant beyond the 15% he previously had felt obliged to leave as a tip, or he would place his dollar in the jar on the counter of his favorite coffee shop. The entire exercise cost him a little over $30 but by the end of it he felt better about himself and his friends who witnessed his new behavior soon changed their view of him.
It might seem unimportant what other people think of us, especially people we know well, but they are custodians of an image of us as they see us, and we meet this image every time we see them. So, if we can change how others see us, it will help release us from our old habits and ways to enable us to reinvent ourselves more effectively and quicker. If you wish to embody a certain quality, it is important to take action with that quality in mind and, if possible, be witnessed while expressing it and radiating it into the world.
The real magic, however, happens when we have invited a quality into our life and it becomes part of our character. This is when we act with that quality without even thinking about it — it has become part of our makeup and the way we behave. This is when the new energy within our field radiates out on a permanent basis and other entities that are akin to it can respond and add to it. So, for example, if I become serene on a repetitive basis, eventually serenity will come and live within my energy field and people will begin to recognize me as a serene person. Then eventually, even in stressful and difficult situations, I will not get perturbed or rattled because serenity will be within my energy field, keeping me calm and centered.
Each quality we accumulate is a gift. Unlike material possessions, we can take these energy formations with us when we depart from this earthly realm. They can become our comfort while we are alive and our passport into a better tomorrow.
[Excerpted from Joanna's book A Garden of Qualities - Living a Quality Life (c) 2014, Kora Press.]
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