How We Shine and How We Get Stuck
Nem Bajra 
Blue Wisdom Energy brings clarity and precision, but that same clarity can harden into rigidity. A reflection on shining and getting stuck.
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How We Shine and How We Get Stuck by Nem Bajra
Each of the Five Wisdom Energies carries two faces. When the energy moves freely, it becomes a source of wisdom and strength. When we grab hold of it, the same energy can turn against us. That is why finding our strength is only half of what this work offers. The other half is learning to see, clearly and without shame, where we get stuck.
In this reflection, longtime student Nem Bajra shares what he has learned about his own primary energy, Blue, and the way its clarity can tip into rigidity.
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Discovering our strength is not the main purpose of learning about the Five Wisdom Energies. We also discover our weaknesses.
Each of the Five Wisdom Energies can be experienced in both positive and negative ways. When an energy flows freely, it can become a source of wisdom and strength. But when we become attached to it, we can get stuck.
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In my own case, my natural tendency is to see the world in terms of structure and how things work.
With Blue as my primary energy, I shine when I am clear minded and insightful. This has been one of my strengths, and it has been very helpful throughout my career in technology.
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Yet this very same energy can also cause problems.
When I become too attached to my own understanding, I may insist that my opinion or viewpoint is correct. Then clarity can become rigidity, and I can get stuck in the negative energy of anger.
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This helped me understand something important:
Our strength and our weakness can come from the same energy.
Learning how to recognize when I am getting stuck, and how to free myself from that pattern, was one of the reasons I became interested in the Five Wisdom Energies.
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What Nem describes is not a personal flaw. It is how the Blue energy works. Blue is the energy of the mirror: it reflects things exactly as they are, without distortion, and it wants precision. At its best, this gives us the clarity to see a problem clearly and the insight to solve it well. At its worst, that same mirror stops reflecting and starts insisting. Clarity, once fixed in place, becomes the conviction that there is only one correct way to see things. Insight becomes judgment. And when someone else's view threatens that certainty, the response is often irritation, or the sharper edge of anger.
This is worth sitting with, because it runs counter to how most of us are taught to think about strengths and weaknesses. We tend to assume they are separate: a list of things we are good at, and a list of things we need to work on. The Five Wisdom Energies point to something different. The strength and the weakness are not on two separate lists. They are the same energy, met two different ways. One way, held loosely, moves and serves. The other way, gripped tightly, freezes and defends.
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This is true for each of the five energies, not only Blue. Someone whose primary energy is Yellow may shine through generosity and equanimity, and get stuck in complacency or pride. Someone whose primary energy is Red may shine through warmth and passion, and get stuck in grasping or possessiveness. The pattern repeats across all five. Recognizing your own primary energy is useful precisely because it tells you where to look first, both for your gift and for the place you are most likely to get stuck.
The practical value in this is not self-criticism. It is recognition. The moment you can name what is happening (this is Blue turning rigid, this is my clarity insisting rather than seeing) is the moment you have some room to work with it. Before that moment, the energy simply runs you. After it, you have a choice.
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Reflection Question
Where in your own life does your greatest strength also become the place you get stuck? What would it take to notice that shift as it's happening, rather than after?
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The Five Wisdom Energies are not fixed categories. They are patterns we can learn to recognize, moment to moment, in ourselves and in each other. If this reflection speaks to you, join us at the Five Wisdoms Cafe, held every other Wednesday, or explore the Five Wisdoms Institute's training.
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Continue Reading
- Basic Premises of the Five Wisdoms
- Responding versus Reacting
Categories: : Five Wisdoms, Five Wisdoms Applied, Personal Reflections, Trainings