This is fourth in a series on expanding the chief features of the Michael Teachings framework. In this channeling, the focus is on Arrogance.

Arrogance is built upon the fear of vulnerability. We have defined vulnerability in the past as a "coming forward" with the complete Self:

It has nothing to do with allowing another person unrestricted access to your energetic core. Vulnerability is about bringing yourself forward as you are.

In Arrogance, there is a constant sense of defense against vulnerability. Walls are erected around the Self, often in the form of an image given to others, and much attention and focus is given to the creation and maintenance of this wall. However, when such attention and focus is given to a space outside the Self — unless what is inside is just as full and complete as what is within — then there will always be a pervasive sense of emptiness.

In other words, the person with Arrogance is constantly feeling empty inside. Because of this constant feeling of inner emptiness, there is huge fear of being seen and of being found fraudulent. The emptiness will be perceived by others. There is an awareness of the apparent discrepancy between this wall (and image) that is being maintained and the sense of emptiness deep inside the wall.

Manifestations of Arrogance

There are, as you can imagine, different ways of manifesting Arrogance. One is more cardinal (outward facing or extroverted) and one is more ordinal (introverted). Cardinal arrogance, or exalted arrogance, will have a constant sense of pushing outward to maintain that wall. A personality construct is thrust outward and an image is maintained strongly. Yet there is still always the knowledge of the inner emptiness and the fear that someone meeting that wall will see the inner emptiness inside — and therefore the cardinally arrogant person will be found fraudulent. The king will be found to have no clothes.

Ordinal arrogance is a little different. There is still the creation and maintenance of a wall, but there is not the constant sense of pushing outward to maintain it. The wall is more like a cloaking shield, giving the illusion of invisibility. The wall is a defense against anyone coming inside — and so the wall is put up hastily, at the last minute, to prevent anyone from coming beyond that point. There is a knowledge of where the wall would exist when a threat is perceived, but it's not a constant outward pressure. Instead, it's hastily erected in order to defend against a perceived threat of someone seeing that empty core that's always perceived as inside the arrogant person.

This is the root of shyness.

This wall of defense that the ordinally arrogant person uses can take different forms. In shyness, it's a retreat into that sense of emptiness. In this case, the ordinally arrogant person can only see that emptiness and assumes that everyone else can also only see that emptiness. They immerse themselves in the sense of invisibility that they have in being in that emptiness: They feel empty. They sense emptiness. They assume everyone else sees them as empty — and invisible.

On the other hand, the cardinally arrogant person is more afraid of being found fraudulent.

Ordinal arrogance is for the most part chosen by those already exhibiting more ordinal energy. There is no rule of thumb here, but in general ordinal roles or an overall choice of overleaves are more comfortable with ordinal arrogance. This is not always the case and not always tied to a role; it's an overall energetic choice.

Ordinal arrogance is still based on this pervasive sense of emptiness, but rather than it being a "defense by offense", which is the function of cardinal arrogance, it is more "pure defense" When an energetic assault is felt on that outer shell of identity, then the person who uses ordinal arrogance attempts to become invisible. It is a function of stealth rather than a projected image.

In these cases with ordinal arrogance the conscious awareness of the emptiness of Self is typically apparent more often than it is with cardinal arrogance. In the latter, the focus is on that outer shell of identity. Thus the person's sense of identity becomes lost in that focus. But the movement outward is always to escape that sense of inner emptiness. With ordinal arrogance the inner emptiness is felt because the persona is in many ways identified with that smallness of invisibility.

The Emptiness Within

Often the word "emptiness" is used more to relate to people with Greed, where an emptiness is attempted to be filled with more and more. The inner sense of emptiness in Arrogance, on the other hand, has to do with the Self — a feeling of emptiness about one's own self, it's value, and the identity as such. The emptiness of Greed on the other hand is always seeking outward. Greed is always wanting more and more of some thing, even if that thing is intangible, in order to fill up an inner emptiness. The fear of that emptiness in Arrogance manifests in two specific ways — the cardinal and the ordinal. Rather than a gathering of more and more experiences, things, or relationships as with Greed, with Arrogance there is the creating that wall of a persona (cardinal arrogance) or a focus on creating that wall of invisibility for protection.

The feeling of emptiness exists for both: in Greed the perception of emptiness is attempted to be filled, whereas with Arrogance the emptiness is attempted to be denied by blocking access to it. When coupled with Self-Destruction this results in very overt addictive behaviors.

How the Wall is Erected: Childhood Beginnings

Arrogance is created when a child begins to develop unreasonably high expectations for himself. High expectations are often developed when a child feels a sense of competition with others in the family. In other words, there is a constant sense of comparison between the child developing arrogance and other people around them, such as parents or siblings.

The energy of arrogance is often associated with damage to the third chakra. When the third chakra is damaged by other people around the child developing arrogance and if there is difficulty expressing the extent of the pain that results from the damage to the chakra (if the sense of competition is too great or the child is being silenced for any reason such as by power struggles) then the damage to the third chakra will result in a change in the child's energy flow. This energy flow, rather than being self contained, will always feel like the power center is missing. The power center relates, in the child's mind, to the sense of Self. If there's something missing in the energetic power center of the child, then there will be a sense of inner emptiness.

High expectations of the Self tend to be formed when there are frequent assaults made from another trusted person's third chakra to the child's third chakra. Because there is a desire within the child to maintain a connection to the person who is damaging their third chakra, there is a desire to please. However, because of the nature of power interactions, there can never be any true pleasing of the other, and so the child takes on this dynamic of power and competition and transforms it into setting very high expectations within themselves. This results in people who get straight As, become child prodigies, or throw themselves into anything in particular in order to excel.

Interestingly enough, it is from a sense of inner emptiness that the majority of people who excel in one way or another act, and they can never satisfy that sense of inner emptiness because their expectations are always set higher and higher, no matter how good they get at something. Understand that not everyone who has the energy of arrogance is going to be excelling in anything in particular. The sense of competition can sometimes result in competing to be "worst". But even without excelling, the dynamic is still the same: expectations, power struggle, and a sense of inner emptiness. The wall, this image of an identity, is created in part to be as big as the person that they are competing with, in order to be as good as this parent or older sibling. But at the same time, there is a feeling of certainty that they can never be as good as the person that they are competing. It's a lose-lose situation.

Relationships Within the Wall of Arrogance

In general, relationships with people in Arrogance can be frustrating if you are of a person who wants to have a very close, intimate relationship that's not also codependent.  People with Arrogance want to be close, yet they have an intense fear of letting anyone see who they are. They become accustomed to setting up all kinds of defenses — or self-destructing relationships when they feel that people are becoming too close. In other words, they break up with people in a relationship as they advance on and become more intimate, or they completely shut down emotionally.

People in Arrogance tend to take on roles rather easily in a relationship: "The Protector," "The Nurturer" and "The Provider" are some examples. They take on roles and they find it difficult to move out of those roles. They tend to choose partners who help feed the identity roles that they take on within a relationship. They are particularly susceptible to performing the same relationship patterns over and over and over again. They tend to be the ones who have a pattern of serial monogamy, affairs, and have difficulty staying with one person for a long time — unless that person is very content with there being an element of distance or a power imbalance in the relationship. A person in Arrogance is likely not going to be comfortable in a long-term relationship with someone who wants a deep sense of intimacy. 

Note that these generalizations only apply to unquestioned and unexamined Arrogance. You truly have no limitations. Chief features can be let go of — as we shall address later.

People in Arrogance can have very satisfying long-term relationships with other people — as long as those other people are they themselves comfortable with relationships where there is an element of distance. We know of very highly functional, long-term relationships where one member is an arrogance and the other person is not and is happy interacting with that image that's created rather than the person inside.

Yet Arrogance also leads to a strong disconnection with the Self. People in Arrogance can be highly functional and highly helpful to others —  but they don't necessarily perceive that there is a problem or the nature of their sense of inner emptiness.

The Social Rewards

Just as with Martyrdom, there are social rewards to Arrogance in modern Western culture. Western culture admires a sense of being bigger than you already are. It admires the John Wayne swagger. It admires bravado. There is an element to the energy of Arrogance that has that — especially the cardinal arrogance that pushes outward. What is not seen on a social level is that fear of being found fraudulent. Because of this fear of being found out to be empty inside, the Arrogant person is pushing out even more, daring himself to do greater things and be ever bigger.

Ironically it's the most cardinally Arrogant person who is most in denial of the Self on an inner basis. It creates a lack of self awareness.

Within this irony, it's often the very cardinally Arrogant who lead self-help workshops. These people can be very much in denial of themselves, because they fully believe themselves to be the image that they have created. They can walk in that image, put a lot of energy into that image — or "I'm a guru and I'm helping you" — without ever attending to that sense of inner emptiness. The admiring energy from students reinforces the pattern of Arrogance and creates even more fear of others seeing the inner emptiness. Perceptions — and perceptions of students in that area — are therefore unconsciously repressed until there is little awareness of the nature of the Self.

It's not as if these people are hopeless and can do nothing because of this pervasive fear; in fact it often leads them to be very helpful to others. But there is always a constant, deep fear of being found out, even if it's on a subconscious level and they are unaware of it. There is damage to the power center.

Often those with Arrogance appear to have a very large energy and seem powerful. This is because of the model they had in terms of their own childhood and the relationships that they built based on their interactions with their family. They were trying to be bigger than them energetically because of that power struggle dynamic. This is the dynamic that they know in terms of interpersonal relationships, and this is what they will be focusing on and teaching others. In essence, even when the person with arrogance teaches very positive information, there will always be a power struggle.

We will give example of a well known personality.

You can see this dynamic in the interaction with Esther Hicks and the channeling of Abraham. Esther uses a commanding big presence, and if anyone tries to come up against that image and the energetic wall built around it, she will immediately expand her energy (together with that of Abraham) quickly and violently to cause the other person to back off. This happens during channeling sessions of Abraham — If anyone were to question Abraham in a way that triggers doubts or engages a sense of inner emptiness, then he violently pushes his energy outwards and causes the other person to back off. This is the classic description of a "power game".

Question: What's the difference between helping and leading others from within Arrogance and helping others as you are?

Because the idea of being bigger than you are is rewarded in modern Western culture, many people are attracted to "larger than life" personalities. Thus there is a magnetizing effect for the teachers who have exalted Arrogance. The things that they could be saying may have great Truths to them. It's not as if their Arrogance is negating the truth of what they are teaching. The energy of Arrogance does have a magnetizing effect and allows others to see them as "larger than life" which fits in with their ideas of how the world should work and that they should be "on high". This in turn feeds the energy of Arrogance by having an adoring crowd of people who are very willing to buy into that larger than life image. It's a self-perpetuating cycle.

How does this differ from a teaching that is not centered around someone with Arrogance? It will attract different people. When you need to look outside yourself to find Truths — when you don't trust your own inner guidance — then you will be looking to someone who has a larger than life energy, which includes teachers with arrogance. There thus tends to be a pairing of Arrogance with other chief features which disconnect you from that sense of inner guidance.

When people feel more comfortable about at least checking in with their own inner guidance, they they will tend to seek teachers without much arrogance, who are "walking the walk" more and are more like themselves in terms of energetic structure, and who are more in touch with both their inner Truths and their own inner fears. As you all know, when someone is very much "out there" with who they truly are — including their doubts, insecurities as well as their strengths — then it will feel more ultimately complete. Especially when you yourself are more comfortable validating things on your own instead of looking outside yourself for the answers.

This channeling was split into two parts.  Please now go on to Part 2: Healing Arrogance and Letting Go, which deals with various methods of letting go of the associated fears and learning to truly be one's Self.