You've Got The Power

by Marie T. Russell

Many times we seem to experience life as if we have no power to make changes—no power to make a difference. If you don't feel powerful, or feel that power is unavailable to you, take a look at where, in your daily life (and in your past), you have relinquished your power.

How are we short-changing ourselves —why are we not expressing our power? Let's say you make a decision, a resolution, set a goal, or decide to initiate some changes in your life. Oftentimes, it goes something like this... You tell yourself, "Yes, I'm going to make some changes. I'm going to lose weight." Then another part of chimes in and says "You know you always let go of your diets. You get hungry, or depressed, and always cheat. You never stick to it. " In that moment, you've given away your power to the doubts and insecurities of your mind.

If you've made decisions and a part of you believes that you can't stick to them—and you give in to that belief—you're sabotaging yourself. It's not that you don't have the power to attain your goal. It's not even that you have given up after a while. The truth of it is that we often do not even believe that we have a chance at success. So we have given up even before starting.

Look closely at those instances where you have strayed from your chosen path or set goals. How and why did you stray? Was it due to something that blocked your way, or something we chose to believe about ourselves? A lot of times it boils down to the belief that we couldn't do it - believing that our habits are stronger than we are. We think that we can't really stick to our resolutions. Or we believe that someone else will have to come and save us make the change for us, help us, encourage us, or motivate us.

We become powerful when we realize that we are in charge of our life. We get to decide what we want to do, when, how, and with whom or what. We need to empower ourselves by respecting our own desires and dreams. Often we have given up because we didn't think we were deserving or success.

Each one of us is a divine, spiritual being living in a physical body. That truth alone reminds us that we are powerful and can create the life we want - once we realize that we choose every moment of every day what the future will bring. We choose by our thoughts, our words, and our actions. We are powerful enough to attain any goal we set.

Let's delve a little deeper into how we give away our power. Begin by taking notice of where and how we give our power away. One way is through blame —when we blame others (or ourselves) for things that are happening in our lives. As an example, I was speaking to someone one day who was upset because a friend had not called him on a particular day as promised. He was angry about it and blamed his friend for not keeping their commitment— for being at fault. He felt that it was his friend's 'fault' that he was upset and angry. Again, when we remember that we are in charge of our life, we realize that no one can 'make us' happy, or sad, or angry. This is a decision that we make. We choose how we will react to anything that comes up in our lives – with anger, or with understanding and acceptance.

Take a look within yourself and recall some times when you have blamed someone else for how you felt. I'd be willing to bet that we've all done that at some time or other—blamed someone else for what we're feeling. We're feeling upset, or angry... 'Well, it's their fault. It's because they did this, or they didn't do that."

When we choose to believe that someone else is responsible for our feelings we are giving away our power, because we are saying that we don't have control over our emotions. It's their 'fault', they are responsible. It's up to them to make us feel better.

That is where we need to change our attitude. If you're angry, it is your decision. You choose to be angry. Now you may say, "Well it's because they did such and such a thing that I got angry". Well, yes and no. Their action provoked you to decide to be angry. You could choose to let the anger go and let it pass you by, or you can chose to hang on to it and get upset.

I recall an instance when I was upset. One of the girls who works with me had forgotten to do something, and I was angry. After reflection I realized, 'Wait a minute here - you're choosing to be upset about something you can't change - it has already been done. So let's look at how we can fix the situation. Let's see how to make it better." And that's where your choice lies. We can choose to be angry or we can choose to solve the problem. We can choose to be impatient, or not. That's where we gain our power back—by knowing and being aware that we always have a choice in how we react to things.

Let's say someone is late for an appointment—what do you do? Do you get impatient, upset, and work yourself up into a rage or do you say, "O.K. here's some time that I can use to just sit back and relax or maybe I can catch up on some work that needs to be done." Whatever is happening 'to us', we have a choice as to how to deal with it, how to handle it. That's how we get empowered. We choose the action, or reaction, that will give us inner peace—that will keep us centered in peace and in love—rather than choosing the action that will detour us into anger, resentment, and blame.

 Another way that we give up our power is through expectations—when we expect other people to behave in certain ways. We have certain beliefs as to how a friend, lover, co-worker, or mate, should behave—those are our expectations. We think a close friend should always be there for us. If they don't live up to what we expect of them, we get upset, disappointed or angry, or whatever it is that we may feel. And there again, our reaction stems from our expectation. We expect the people close to us to be there for us—to be there when we need them, to be there when we call. When they have an off day, or an off moment, and they're not feeling loving or helpful, we feel hurt and disappointed. Because of someone else's action, or inaction, we choose to feel hurt, angry, rejected, unloved, unsupported, whatever it is - we allow someone else to be in charge of our emotions.

When we reclaim our power we say, "It doesn't matter what someone else does. They can do whatever they choose to do. They can be in a good mood, they can be in a bad mood, they can be impatient, they can be stressed out, they can be at peace— whatever they choose is their choice. It has no power over me. I choose to be at peace. I choose to accept the things I cannot change. I choose to be calm and relaxed in all that I do" —in this way, we gain our power back.

I remember a situation where I was working under a 'deadline', yet I felt calm and everything was going smoothly. Working with 'deadlines', it has been (in the past) easy to lose that balance. This person walked in, in a frenzy, in a hurry, panicked, and all of this 'stuff'... Rather than my looking at that and saying "That 's their stuff. That's how they are feeling," I "adopted' that same energy, and started feeling frenzied and panicked. In that moment I gave my power away to that person. I let them affect how I felt and how I acted. It was a choice. It may not have been a conscious choice, but nevertheless, it was a choice. I could just as easily have chosen to hold on to my original feelings of peace and calm, instead of 'falling into' their emotional space.

Become aware of your choices. In a situation like the one I just described, you can say, "O.K. this person is stressed out and nervous — but I choose to remain calm and relaxed throughout this encounter." You may be thinking that this is easier said than done. I agree, it is easier said than done, but the more we say it to ourselves, the more we remind ourselves of how we want to behave, the easier it becomes. It is like anything else—practice makes perfect, or forms a habit.

We are familiar with the concept of practicing to gain expertise at something. We can apply this same concept to the inner workings of our beings. We can apply it to our emotions and our state of mind. Practicing and getting better doesn't just apply to learning to ride a bike, or whatever physical tasks that you do. It also applies to changing how you look at things, and how you react to things... the more you do it, the easier it gets. We didn't give up the first time we tried to walk, or even the second time, or third time. We need to realize that learning to take charge of our thoughts, emotions, habits, etc., is the same process. We need to practice—try and try again.

 Another instance, of  'power loss' is when we feel we can change someone else. I know this is easy to assume—especially if you have children, a loving partner or a friend. Yet, the only person we can take action for is ourselves... and that is where we become empowered. When we make the decision and make the choice to change ourselves — that's real empowerment.

Marie's favorite book on this topic: 

"Soul Empowerment"
A Guidebook for healing yourself and others...
by 
Rosalie Deer Heart &
Michael Bradford.
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