Originally Posted by Smilingeyes
'Limiting' is perceiving when 'cold'. Therefore we are talking about a relation a person with a lonely task has to the environment or 'what is'. This is the feeling of a small person faced with a very big world. 'Limiting' is also judging when 'hot'. This is the relation of a person who easily relates to his surroundings when faced with 'certain knowledge' it is as if some collective agreement was putting the person to a tiny box.
'Empowering' is judging when 'cold'. This is how the person with the big task feels like when s/he is able to create certainty through which the person can sort of limit the task or gain help with it... its as if the person didn't have to do everything by hirself anymore. 'Empowering' is also perceiving when 'hot'. This is how the situation is to the person who easily makes contact when s/he is faced with the numberless options that the world or the 'situation as it is' has to offer, its like the person was given the option of making all the choices by hirself.
Ok. As often, when theoretical examples fail, we do concrete ones.
Let's pick two children, one adventurous, spirited and energetic, one cautious, withdrawn, kind of scared.
Now let's say that these two kids are taken to a new place, an orchard somewhere. They are told nothing, they are left to their own devices. One of them will start climbing trees, tasting fruit, running after butterflies and such. S/he is empowered by this new environment. The other one becomes confused about what s/he's supposed to be doing, s/he will search the environment for anything familiar to latch on to, watching and looking for something important to show up and meanwhile doing little or nothing. The first one is empowered by hir own perception, the second one is limited by it.
Now after these two spend a while in the orchard the first child has eaten plenty of fruit and has a full belly but is also full of scratches and got an itch from the leaves of certain plants. The second one is hungry but otherwise quite fine. Now the kids share their information, the first one is annoyed by the fact that there are trees that are unclimbable, whole areas of the orchard surrounded by itchy plants and a number of trees with just bad-tasting fruit. S/he's tried it all and now s/he knows what the environment is like and knows what is good and what is bad and it starts to bore hir. The second child becomes happy as now s/he knows which trees are the good one's and which to avoid. S/he'll climb after the easy fruit and try to help the first kid overcome hir annoyance at the known limits of the situation. The first child is 'hot', enabled by what s/he perceives to be possibilities in hir environment and limited by what s/he knows for certain. The second child is 'cold', limited by hir perception and enabled by what is known for certain.