on charisma

Many of us can't neglect the fact that they have thoughts about strangers, maybe even judge them, before having heard them speaking a word. We like or dislike the way someone walks, one's facial expressions or things we think to observe in someone's gaze. If we get asked why we like a person or find her charmless without even knowing her, we rarely argue with obvious, comprehensible facts. Rather, we find ourselves bearing on much more subtle reasons, i.e. energies, which one can neither see nor physically grasp but are still there. 

But who has these special energies and where do they come from? Are they an innate quality or rather a series of learned behavior? Is it that you either have them or you don't? 

And this is what made me think. There is something powerful, something so obvious and yet so dwindling about people's charisma. Feeling the other's (and oneself's) charisma is such a profound and part of moment-to-moment-experiences everyone faces in daily life. It influences the way we encounter another, the chances we give and take and the walls we built. People attract and reject others because of charisma, they feel understood and carried away by someone, or overwhelmed with their incapacity to deal with the person they're facing. 

I guess there are many possible ways to talk about charisma as such. Its potentials, its nature, the capacity of reading and receiving it, its sensation and occurrence. Being interested in New Age energy approaches and how energy frequencies influence both our physical and emotional world, the explanation of the phenomenon by referring to a human beings's energy field does make sense to me as it combines what I think charisma is "made up of": one's thoughts, emotions, the cohering physical observable utterances like body language and expressions and one's state of mind, overall and particularly at given situations.

If all of these components are well balanced on the same kind of level, we get the feeling of authenticity and this is usually what makes us really notice someone's charisma. If we get the feeling of the other being authentic, it does not even matter if she or he spreads joy and unicorns or is just being honestly feeling shitty and acting grumpy - we still receive the quality of the aura as something worthy to be appreciated, something authentic. We kind of feel others authenticity. 

Obviously, not every person is able to really feel or read others auras. Some just really don't get it. Too often, I found myself desperately trying to reject men without being rude to them by just engaging in indifferent and disinterested behavior and reactions. To me, persons who don't get this subtle kind of communication, seem to lack the capacity of feeling empathy. Without empathy, one probably isn't able to differentiate real smiles from fake ones, or tears of sadness from tears of strategy. 

So let me conclude my rough thought sketch on this squishy and at the same time so explicit concept of charisma: Every person has some charisma. Depending on how well one's components i.e. mental and emotional life, phsyical health and spiritual growth and interest are balanced, a person's charisma varies from being authentically and specifically striking, to ordinary and fake. And only if one is capable of genuinely feeling empathy for others and really tries to, one can read others and gets a sense of their charisma. 

The beauty about this chain of thought is: If charisma depends on one's emotional and mental internal life, we can see that it has to change the same way as thoughts and feelings change. So, the next meet you find someone whose charisma you find disgusting, just think about the possibility of it turning into a beautiful and real source of energy, as the person takes the step to develop internally.