Self-empowerment, Effectiveness and Success
Our personal power is always in the present moment. Self-empowerment can begin at any time, no matter what we have experienced prior to that moment. Regardless of our choices, our losses, our childhood or our state of regret, hurt, doubt or fear. Personal Power is a moment when we choose to direct our intention through grace, truth, honor and integrity……and most of all, through our heart.
Feeling empowered anchors us, makes us feel stronger, more capable and open to possibilities, opportunities and change. It is never power over, which is not true power at all. It is always power with – a creative force that positively impacts life. True empowerment serves to uplift all involved.
The strongest component to being truly empowered is knowing clearly where we have power and where we do not. Many of us spend much of our time and energy on areas of our life we do not have power , such as attempting to have power over what someone else does or thinks or chooses. This can take a substantial amount of our attention, leaving us with little left for where we really do have power to change.
We lose our true power the moment we become attached to something or someone outside of ourselves we ‘need’ to make different. We are detached when we define ourselves, we are attached when we define someone else. Self-empowerment is ignited through surrender. Empowerment understands that surrender is not failure or giving up…..it is recognizing where we give all our energy in order to ‘not give up’. Empowerment is the ability to step back and let go enough to be able to see where we actually do have power. Most often our power is in ‘how’ we handle an experience rather than preventing or changing it.
We lose our power when we affix ourselves to past experiences and/or future possibilities. We attain powerful energy when we let go of the “should”s and “what if”s. If it “should” have happened, it would have. Do you find yourself investing a great deal of time sorting through what did happen, why it happened and what you think you should have done differently? Do you give a lot of time to the future – worrying about what might happen? This is where we do not have power. We have power in the present moment. This does not mean stop working through and healing our past and we stop planning and creating our future. We empower our imagination, our vision, our preparation and our anticipation when we remain grounded in the present. The present moment opens the channel to creativity, passion, joy, self-expression, self-empowerment and inspiration. Transformative counseling is an extraordinary avenue to learning how to live in the present moment with the power and passion that provides.
Releasing Inner Critical Voices
Inner “voices” refers to the many thoughts we have that represent any number of beliefs and perceptions. Those thoughts can seem like they “talk” to us, telling us who we are, on the negative and positive sides. Some of these ‘voices’ reinforce our strengths and abilities accurately, some continually highlight our worst doubts and fears. These voices can have a great deal of power when we believe them, when we create a world around us that forms to their perception of what ‘should’ be. They can be extremely destructive to our relationship with ourselves and others. It is not wrong or bad to have these thoughts, we all do to some extent……it is when we determine our reality and the truth of who we are filtered by them that create conflict and sometimes it is quite difficult to identify the ‘truth’ amongst the fear and doubt based ‘voices’ that flood in.
Our inner critical voices develop early on in our lives and often are a reproduction of voices of criticism and judgment heard at that time. Some of these thoughts have repeated themselves over and over for many years, continually reinforcing the belief they hold, causing that belief to strengthen in truth over time. It becomes more and more difficult for the actual truth to come forward. Our inner critical voices can self-sabotage, minimize our feelings, direct us to negative habits and behavior and talk us out of rational, intuitive self guidance attempting to come forth. Eventually, we seek out mechanisms that will quiet the voices, including self-medicating, incessant ‘busy’ behavior, addictions or continually focusing on other people’s issues to avoid attention on our own.
It is important to recognize the ‘critical inner voices’ and begin to understand how they developed, how they have been reinforced and how to change the negative thought patterns. When we explore this all carefully, we are able to release the power they have to direct us and eventually dissolve them, allowing our inner truth and guidance to emerge. The goal is to establish thoughts that are consistently aligned with the greatest support and expression of our being.