ARE YOU GIVING AWAY YOUR POWER?
/Where are you giving your power away in your life? Who do you believe has power over you and your choices, your experiences? Who do you feel afraid of?
I ask these questions because power is a theme that I have been playing with a lot over the last few months. I have been watching old childhood trauma patterns connected to power and control continuing to loop ever so subtly (and some not so subtly!) in my life. It has been fascinating to explore the changes I can make within myself and then see these reflected back in my day to day reality. As we change the stories that are running in our unconscious minds we change the way our external lives unfold.
As with all wounds, until they are healed within our psyches and bodies they will continue to be visible and active in our outer world experience. And so to truly make changes in our lives we must go the root of the problem, which is within our own consciousness.
The trauma that gets laid down early in our lives stays with us until we either release it or transform it through new experiences of reality. There are many ways to heal trauma. I personally love the approaches of Peter Levine and Gabor Mate. Tending to the subtle cues from the body, making changes at this level, rather than just talking about our issues, deeply resonates for me. This is how I recovered from a long journey with illness….by listening to the voice of the body rather than just that of the mind, and responding accordingly.
But we can also make change in our lives using the power of conscious intention and attention. Using the mind as the tool it is meant to be, rather than the tyrant it has often become. Partly this is about consciously choosing which thoughts we are focusing on, knowing that energy follows attention and creates more of whatever we are holding in our attention. Partly it is about remembering the power of words to create our reality, and using our words with great consciousness and precision to manifest that which we wish to bring in to this world. When we come together and do this as a group, we have immense power to change our external reality, and this is a really important thing to remember at this time!! We are literally weaving the story of our future with our words, so which future do we want to create?
When we look at what is happening in the world around us it can be easy to feel hopeless and despairing. Things seem out of control and frightening. Many are deeply suffering and without basic needs being met; whether for food, money, housing, or for touch, company and a sense of belonging. It can instill a sense of overwhelm as we wonder what we can do to change things. It can also activate rage and blame as we look to find the source of the problem.
It is in these moments that a multi pronged approach is so helpful. A fine balance between responding to what is happening in the external world and also dealing with the inner world is needed. Attempting to change the problem outside ourselves without tackling the root of our issues within will never bring resolution and is exhausting. Only doing the inner work on our consciousness and not engaging with the external reality can sometimes mean we become detached from our human/earthly experience and lose touch with the physical realm of our common humanity.
If we can see what is going on around us and work on the triggers it activates within us, whilst also helping to make changes in the world in a way that feels aligned for us, then in my thinking we have hit a good balance.
In my own life i like to use the mantra “no one and nothing has power over me” when I’m feeling overwhelmed or diminished in some way, and it definitely helps to move me out of victim consciousness and put me back into truth. The immediate shift in my body is palpable, and I feel the shift in my thinking and creativity also. I also move my body, and shake up the energy, as it wakes up the power in the body and puts me back in a frame of mind where i know i can do whatever i need to do.
Believing I am a victim of someone else’s choices is a story that is left over from my formative years and I am done with it now. I see how this belief has kept me small and actually limited my ability to take a stand in the world, or access creative solutions to problems. I have more healing to do around this, but the foundations of a new way of seeing life are most definitely in place.
The more we recognize ourselves as the source of our power and stop giving it away to others, the quicker we will shift our world into a more peaceful and empowering place for all. Feeling safe to speak up and stand up for what is important to us comes from knowing we cannot be controlled or dominated by anyone. It reminds me of the powerful story I once heard of a holocaust survivor who, despite the horrors he endured, never allowed what occurred to him on the outside affect his sense of freedom and autonomy within, even while it was happening. To be able to achieve such a thing in the most nightmarish of situations such as this is testament to what is possible.
We are far more powerful than we realise. We are using a tiny portion of our potential in our daily lives. It’s time to step it up. We ARE the ones we have been waiting for. We just need to open up to who we really are.
When we do, we become the change makers in the world we so urgently need right now.