Re-Empowering Your Self ( not by me, found on another website, though makes 100% strength)
How powerful are you? Do you feel you are a powerful person, and if not, why not? Each of us is a powerful individual but we tend to forget how to use our power and seem to find it hard to see the implications of not ˜focusing™ our energies. And so we begin a series on how to empower your self. You may find a few of the insights/ideas/ concepts challenging, but do stay with it, and see if they may awaken or trigger new insight into your self and what you could do differently to empower your own life.
One simple definition of ˜power™ is the ˜ability to respond positively (proactively) to any event or situation™. We tend to learn that we are powerless and therefore at the mercy of events, circumstances and other people. We allow them to shape our thoughts and feelings and to trigger within us not such positive reactions. Hence the frequency of some of our negative response patterns which we then come to call ˜stress™. This is largely due to a lack of self-awareness. When we are not aware of our self it™s hard to see the process by which we create our responses and therefore our own life.
The ˜creative process™ is seen when you follow ˜the trail™ from your thoughts through to your destiny. The one thing we are all doing all the time is thinking. Thoughts trigger certain feelings (and emotions that we feel), which in turn shapes our attitude towards someone or something. Attitude then shapes our behaviour as we interact with others and, as we all know, many of those behaviours become habitual. Habits are formed at all levels i.e. thoughts, feelings, attitudes and behaviours, and woven together they constitute our unique personality. This is how we create our personality, our character, at any given moment. We are not given a personality when we ˜arrive™, we create it. And then as we take our personality out into the world of our relationships, into all our interactions through the course of our life, we shape our destiny.
This means that your destiny of today, where you are, what you are doing, who is around you in your life, your entire circumstances now, today, are due to your thoughts yesterday, last month, last year. Perhaps there is one word, one aspect missing, and that is ˜decisions™. Who makes them, you do! You can avoid almost everything and everyone in your life; you can avoid going to work, you can even avoid getting out of bed in the morning, but the one thing that you cannot avoid is this process by which you will be the creator of your destiny.
While this illustration of the ˜creative process™ is a little linear and perhaps slightly simplistic, it is quite logical and a good starting point to understand why we are self-responsible at all times. And self-responsibility is the foundation, the first step, in the re-empowerment of the self. Unfortunately we learn to sabotage the process with great frequency. We lose awareness that we are responsible for our thoughts and feelings many times each day when we do the Clint Eastwood walk through life! These are moments when we pull out our ˜emotional six guns™ and we project responsibility for our emotional state onto others, or onto situations, or even the weather! In those moments we fall under the spell of a commonly learned belief which says, œYou make me feel this way. In truth no one and no event is responsible for the creation of your thoughts and feelings. You are. Always. In the moment of pointing at someone/something and blaming them, you are giving them your power, you are disempowering your self. You are playing brilliant ˜victim™. You believe you are a victim. This belief also becomes a habit. And if you ˜believe™ you are a victim then you will think and act accordingly, and your destiny will be shaped accordingly.
This is why all your stress is self created. It™s not the person, event or circumstance that causes your stress, its how you respond. It™s your response, which in reality is usually a ˜reaction™, which creates and contains the stress. And stress at the mental level is simply negative thinking.
In seeking the root cause of how and why we disempower our self so frequently in this way, we arrive at our belief system/s. Everyone has assimilated a number of beliefs through childhood, education and cultural influences. One of the most pervasive and pernicious of these beliefs is around the issue of ˜control™. Almost every time we feel stressed or feel powerless or feel like a victim, it™s because we are not able to do what we subconsciously believe we can and should be doing, which is to control others. Most of us will have assimilated this particular belief that we can control what we cannot control as we watched our parents becoming upset and blaming others because those ˜others™ were not doing what our parents wanted. We also learned to believe that we were being controlled by our parents, so we expect to grow up and join the ˜controllers club™, whose primary expectation in life becomes ˜the world should and will dance to MY tune™. Hand in hand with this belief is the idea (another belief) at a slightly deeper level, that others are responsible for our happiness. This is obviously not true and it™s easy to prove it™s not true when we watch two people responding to the same event. One is celebrating and the other is upset and miserable.
Self awareness is essentially watching for and ceasing to allow our learned beliefs, including those beliefs about ˜control™ and ˜happiness™, to shape our thinking and therefore our re-actions and therefore our destiny.
Self awareness is the inner skill that allows you to take back control of your creative process from ˜reactive habits driven by belief™ and to consciously shape your ˜responses driven by your values™. The shift from reaction to response is the shift from beliefs to values which is the shift from what you ˜think™ is true (belief), to what you care about (value). But to make that shift you consciously have to clarify and affirm what you value. When asked, œWhat are your core values in life? most people reply, œMy family, my friends and my health. But under closer examination the reason why we give such great value to those things is because we are really seeking love and peace, both of which are the foundations for our happiness. We want a nice family and good friends because there will be lots of love; we seek good health so we can be at peace within our self, and intuitively we know these are prerequisites to our happiness, our contentment. ..
Love, peace and happiness are the three core values of every human being regardless of their situation. However, yet another learned belief sabotages our ability to find them. We believe that they lie outside our self, somewhere out there in the world. Hence the need for regular moments of self reflection and contemplation, which is when we may ˜notice™ that what we value most are already in permanent residence within our own heart, within our consciousness. Allowing them to shape your thoughts and feelings completely changes your ˜creative process™ and the way in which you respond to others.
However, in order to allow your ˜core values™ to empower your responses, some of those old ˜reactive habits™ need to be released. Mental habits such as judging and blaming, interactive habits such as arguing and criticising, emotional habits like fearing and resenting, all get in the way. They both block and distort our ability respond with acceptance of others, empathy with others and compassion for others. When you do respond with such value based intentions and behaviours, in this case the value of love, it™s an indication that we are free of attempting to control others and have realised the more enlightened way of ˜relating™ is to exercise our capacity to ˜influence™. It means we have realised that the more we attempt to control others the less influence we will have. Whereas the less we attempt to control others the more influence we will have. And intuitively we know that the most influential value or energy in life is the ˜power of love™. Ultimately the power of the self, the power of you, ˜is™ the power of love. Not Hollywood love, but the capacity to create your life from inside out and not outside in, the ability to give without wanting anything in return, the intention to be of service free of the desire for any form of reciprocation.
Ultimately the only way our core values can fully spring back to life and be the ˜power source™ of our life again is the realisation that we need nothing from others to be happy, we desire nothing from the world in order to be at peace in our heart. When we allow all that we think and do, which means all our responses, to be ˜powered by™ and shaped by what we already have in our heart, then we find that we cease to be ˜victims™ and become the ˜master™ of our life and therefore our destiny. We cease to be shocked or shaped by the ˜unexpected™ and now have the power to respond positively to whatever occurs around us and within us. We find ourselves being authentically sensitive to others needs as we are no longer worried about and busy with what we thought were our own needs. We realise that our relationships are more than just comfort zones or discomfort zones, but that they are opportunities to be creative. And as we make the switch from relying on the energies of life ˜out there™ to shape our future, to using the power of the self ˜in here™ to create our destiny, a completely different set of possibilities comes into play. And one of those possibilities is the ˜power of play™. And ˜play™ we do!
Question: On the spectrum of ˜victim™ to ˜master™ where would you currently position your self?
Reflection: In the context of your relationships what exactly is the difference between control and influence and how would you know the difference?
Action: Identify three of your habitually reactive behaviours and find the belief that is underlying those reactions. Then visualise what would a response that is values driven look like.
