Let’s talk about Power.
As we witness some overt and blatant displays of abuse of power this week, I’m finding that reflections of powerlessness are hitting a bit closer to home for many of my clients, friends, and even people I barely know. Of course, this hits so close for many different reasons. Still, each day this week I’ve had several conversations about powerlessness or the feeling of such. It is in their writing, their conversation, and their stressors.
The general themes seem to be that many of us are struggling with a loss of power. We are either working toward getting our power back or feel stuck in the hopelessness and powerlessness. So, I wanted to dig in and discuss how to stand in our power. How to regain our power in conversations with the people around you, with yourself, or on the grand stage of the absolute shit show that the larger society keeps serving us.
So, where do you find your power?
This is a unique question that I think all of us answer differently. I have found mine in my spirituality and connection. I do believe that many of you could also find yours there as well. I’m not speaking of a specific faith even, but just the ongoing spirituality that I think any individual needs in order to keep themselves out of a full-on existential crisis. We are all made of stardust.
The same things that make up the substance of your physical form also make up the sun, the moon, the planets and the rest of the universe. We are all made of atoms with electrons, protons, and neutrons which scientists have found all throughout the universe. You are LITERALLY made of stardust! What’s more, is that physics shows us that there are forces on the micro-micro level, and on the largest scales that we can observe, that prove our ability to affect the universe just by observing it.
If our gazes have that much power, then what is holding us back?
Why is our life and world in such chaos? Because we have tried so hard to control things, to put order to the entropy that is our natural state. Why is controlled chaos worse than surrendered chaos? Because surrendered chaos is about living, it’s about joy, and it’s about creative flow. While we don’t understand how it all works, the evidence shows us that we are powerful. It also says that we are NOT in control.
Evidence statement 1): We are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe.
Evidence statement 2): there are some things we don’t understand regarding the way the universe works.
Chalk it up to an unseen deity, to science, or to God. Whatever it is, the fact is that we were not created without an immense amount of power and energy. It took the right timing and just the right amount of coincidences to make it suspiciously improbable that we would even exist without some sort of divine intervention somewhere. What’s more, is our unique ability to create. As humans, we are the only species on earth that has evolved to innovate, create, and transform the world around us.
Our lack of connection is what is keeping us from our power.
No matter what you believe, the only thing holding you back from finding your power is YOU. Clarification here: I am not saying that you are doing anything to hold yourself back. This is not an active or conscious decision to say “I don’t want power.” When I first landed in the world of manifestation and read “The Secret,” I believed that I must be doing something wrong. My inability to manifest my desires was because I didn’t believe hard enough. I used to think that the conversation was about ownership. That I should “Step up and into my power” and be DOING something. The truth is, this is about Surrender.
Neuroscience shows us that our brains can pick something to focus on with out our concscious efforts. And we know that our brain changes our perception of external reality based on what it knows, and what we believe. I invite you to watch a great show on Netflix called “Brain Games” it’s fun for the whole family. If you want a deeper dive, you can visit the MindField YouTube channel. Michael goes above and beyond to show you some of the really fantastic things our brain does. (https://youtu.be/iqKdEhx-dD4?si=EMlwjwSYew6hQdSe) But just because it’s unconscious doesn’t mean that we can’t shift our awareness. Remember what I said earlier… that awareness, the observation, can make changes to atoms… science proves this. If there’s anything that I’ve learned about my brain its that the more that I TRY to control rather than observe, the harder it is for me to break my thought patterns.
So where is our power?
It hasn’t left. When in the world of mental health healing we talk about giving our power away it’s not the power that we are actually describing giving away. It’s giving away the responsibility of ourselves to someone else. I wrote in my book that we are the only ones responsible for our own happiness, and that we are not responsible for anyone else’s. This is the premise of our power. We aren’t responsible for anyone else’s power – remember, we can’t control anything else. What we are responsible for is standing in our power… being brave and being true to who we are.
This is what claims our power:
- using our voice
- standing our ground
- sharing our hearts and minds with others
- giving up control of someone elses response
Why does it feel like my power is gone?
I think people refer to giving our power away and calling our power back because it feels gone. When you don’t feel connected to something it can feel like it is not there. Think about past relationships – relationships you’ve known were ending or were in the midst of turmoil. Those people could sit in the room with you, right next to you even, and you could still feel their absence. They aren’t gone, but they don’t feel like they are with you either.
Our power is never gone, we simply cannot feel the connection anymore. This idea that we give our power away creates an idea of victimhood in us. This world and the way that humans engage is very much the definition of disconnection. We started by disconnecting from the earth.. then from each other, then from ourselves. And now we disconnect from life.. through devices, distractions, drugs, and more.
So how do we get the connection back?
This is more complicated than what I’m about to make it seem. Our ego and our understanding of the world is so closely tied to our power. It’s hard to explain all of the complexities of this in a blog post. First and foremost, we find our power again by surrendering. Accept that there are things you simply can’t control, things that you need help with, and things that won’t change no matter how much you try. Taking back your power requires you to REALLY sit with that surrendering. Sit with it until you truly understand the connection that you are looking for. It may be buried deep inside. As counterintuitive as it sounds to say, surrendering is where all of your power sits. I know it to be true, because I’ve found it for myself.
All of the major faith practices speak to this surrenderment of control. They invite you to let go of worries, of heightened emotions that we struggle to control. Easier said than done, I know. As I was discussing this with one of my clients, I was reminded of the moment in EAT PRAY LOVE where surrendering is the subject of conversation. If you haven’t seen EAT PRAY LOVE it is one of my favorite movies… This is the clip I’m speaking about: https://youtu.be/bxXkfPnAWYE?si=3c8Hy3BOOK7VYNP6
Wait what, so to find power I have to surrender power?
No… to find power, you have to surrender CONTROL.
They are two different things even though they seem to mean the same thing, let me explain…
Let’s use the analogy of swimming.
Before you learn to swim from an instructor they teach you to float. Why? Well, because our bodies are naturally buoyant. We are made of 75% water. Your body cannot sink unless we are tied to something or trapped in something that is much more dense. Despite that fact, people who don’t know how to swim, and are frightened of the water, immediately begin to panic when and if they’re thrown into the deep in.
They pump their legs and paddle their hands. They exhaust themselves trying to get to the surface, over and over again. In spite of the fact that their bodies will naturally float, people drown because of that urge to control the situation. The panic sets in when they aren’t able to surrender. And yet, that’s all they’d have to do to save themselves before help arrives, float. To surrender they must trust the science enough to know that some invisible power out there had already given them the keys to survival in their body’s natural buoyancy. To float, they have to surrender. They have to trust themselves. And they have to trust in the things that their brain may not fully understand. You have to break through your fears and let go of control before you drown.
So surrendering doesn’t mean you give up your power?
NO! Surrendering is not about saying “I give up.” It’s about acknowledging that the universe (or God if you’d like) is conspiring in all of its wisdom and that whatever will be, will be… que sera sera, right?
Surrendering is about simply knowing that the future you and past you are the same person, they ARE present you. You Take your power back by recognizing that things may change, and there will always be forces outside of your control or understanding. Decide that you, in your connection with the universe and your inherent power that still rests IN you, have already set in motion the plan for things to go just as they are supposed to go. Changing those things changes the way you view the path that you are on. And lastly, that you’ve been changing things since you were born…
When you look at your life until now, you have survived. If you’re reading this you have made it, congratulations! And despite the circumstances outside of your control (or even in your control) you have found your place in the world. You may still feel lost, and that’s okay. Find yourself again by accepting that you are right where you are supposed to be at this time.
So, how do we turn our powerlessness into powerful action?
Well, it is different for everyone. Some people say they want power, but actually feel much more comfortable being powerless than standing in their power. (I have a whole other blog post about why that is.) But if you really want to step into power, it requires a perspective shift in these three things. 1) Your Heart, 2) Your Head, 3) Your Gut.
Your Head and Your Power
See your head or rather, your brain is like the CPU of your computer. It takes in information and it spits out information. Your brain will take information in and direct your heart to speed up or slow down. It will kick out sensations in your gut that will guide you based on all of it’s knowledge both consciously and sub consciously. Our brains even pick up on things that we don’t consciously pick up on and remembers things that we can’t recall. So, it has a ton of information to help you make the right decisions for yourself.
The sensations you get before walking into a building full of strangers, psychologists might call that anxiety. The truth is that it’s a complicated process of your brain pulling information from both your past, present, and future. (Yes your brain can predict the future.) Your brain processes all of that information and then gives you output at lightning speed. The output? Butterflies in your stomach, racing thoughts to consider, and a quickened heart. The message from your brain is “Hey, this is exciting, but there’s something about this situation that tells me to be on alert.” So your head, your heart, and your gut all work together to give you an intuitive sense about things. THIS IS YOUR POWER!
Your perception is what makes you powerless.
The way we program our brains to process information is what actually makes us powerless. Remember that our brain is our central processing unit. Just like regular computers our brain gets commands that tell it how to operate. We are born with a very basic structure and framework for our CPU… our instincts. As we grow, we gather information from our surroundings, other people and our experiences.
All of that information is housed in our CPU which then, in turn, influences the programming further meanwhile dictating our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. From inputs to outputs, our brain is constantly changing the way it perceives things. It’s futile for us to make moral judgments on our perceptions and our actions at any given time because it’s not morality – it’s the brain. The same is true for other people. Their perceptions form their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We cannot control our perspective in the moment of action. It can only be observed and later re-programmed.
If it can’t be controlled then how can I reprogram it?
Surrendering to Observation is part of understanding the way our brain works. It is part of the surrendering process. If we, as individuals, can’t even control our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors without a significant re-programming of our brain (I’ve been working on my own reprogramming for 15 years and still haven’t mastered it) then how can we expect that we could control anything outside of ourselves?
In the same right, our perception and the way we frame things is based on our experience. It is part of what tells us whether or not we are powerful or powerless. The input from the lifetime of observing has given you the connection to our disconnection from your power. So, you can re-program your brain with new input.
Memories can actually be re-written. We can find additional support for reprogramming in the present world. Check out this article when you have time: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/02/04/271527934/our-brains-rewrite-our-memories-putting-present-in-the-past
The Power to Change the World
I went to elementary school in the 90s. You know, when skool was cool, people always wondered if you had milk, and our teachers and parents taught us that the sky was the limit. I learned that I could be whatever we wanted to be. Remember how history showed us all of the people who changed the world by standing in their power and using their voices? I wanted, and still want more than anything, to be one of the people who stand up and use my power for good.
Yet, those aren’t the only lessons I took away. Somehow, we were all also taught that we should be seen and not heard. We should behave how other people wanted us to behave, and that our entire life’s purpose was to graduate high school, go to college, get good grades, graduate, and get a great paying career working for someone else. As a woman, I also learned that I was going to have the perfect family, a spectacularly clean home, well-behaved children, and owning a house with the proverbial white picket fence. And by the way, you don’t need any help. Asking for help was a weakness. All we needed was hard work and determination, and to gain control over our life. Does “Get a hold of yourself.” or “Pull yourself up.” ring any bells?
Being powerless and powerful – are not mutually exclusive.
It’s been 20 years since I graduated High School and I still haven’t paid off the college loans I got that year, and it’s not for lack of putting in hard work and determination. For the first 9 years after high school, I truly believed that I had no control. I was powerless to the world at large. There was nothing I would be able to say or do to have a better life. I lived that 9 years in exactly that way. Until one day, I realized that the messages I had about myself especially, were contradictory. On one hand, I believed I was powerless, and yet, I would beat myself up for not doing more.
It took me 10 years to figure out that being BOTH powerless and powerful is exactly by design. We are powerless against the forces that are so much larger than us. Yet by just observing the light in the world, it changes. This dichotomy is the spirituality that I spoke about at the beginning of this conversation. Its the dichotomy that threads together my faith. My faith in myself, and the higher powers that I don’t understand is what gives me power.
I know now that every day that I wake up, and sit down to work on my business, I am both powerless to what the universe has in store AND empowered to take brave action to change the way things exist in my reality. While I’ve known this for a very long time, actually having it reach me in a way that I believed and understood took a much longer response time than I would have guessed.
Here’s what I believe about Power:
I believe that we show up every day. And when we do our mere presence and observation is making radical changes within the universe. It’s changing things in ways that we don’t even understand. I also believe that we don’t have much control over the outcomes of that change. Regardless, here we are. I believe that morals are perceived. I believe I can trust my self to check in with my head, heart, and gut. That the decisions informed by those things are informed by the larger plan at work. I know I will make mistakes and mess up my own plans, but that the larger forces inform my decisions and it doesn’t matter anyway. Because I and those I love will always be right where we are supposed to be.
We may not always be where I want us to be, or where I feel we should be. And somehow, I have never been in a place and in retrospect said, “I wasn’t supposed to be there, there was nothing of value to take away.” I do look back on the hard things, or the places where random things happened that didn’t seem to benefit me (or even seemed to hurt me.) When I do, there has always been something that has come out of it that has given me strength, perspective, and furthered my future success.
So how will you surrender? When will you find your power?
Many of you have been close to me and my business over the last couple of years. You have known about the ups and downs and troubles that you’ve seen me go through… yet, even today – as my business is growing and beginning to flourish, I can look back on the copious amount of knowledge I learned and the confidence I gained. I know that the struggles and frustration were not for naught, even if part of me (especially in those moments) wished it could be easy. And the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that between me, my people, and my universe (my spiritual being)… we got this.
No matter how crazy it gets or how desperate it feels, the more I seek the control and the power to change things, the harder it is to control the outcomes. The less my efforts seemed to make any change at all. The day I finally said, in defeat and in pain, “I give up, it’s up to you now,” was the day that everything seemed to change for me. I gave up trying to do what I had been told was “right.” I stopped listening to people who didn’t know enough about my personal life or my business to tell me what to do. And I said, “I’m going to do what I want to do and the hell with the rest because being “perfect” is not helping anyway.”
Within hours it was like the universe said, “Ahh, there you go… damn that took you long enough, but yes girl! Here’s what you want… and don’t worry… there’s a ton more where that came from.”
Becoming Powerful
I wanted to leave you with “Becoming Powerful” which is a poem I just wrote… Just for you. (No, really its just for you. It came to me as i finished this last paragraph and I felt inspired to write it. So, if you’ve made it this far, then it is genuinely and by design, just for you.
Every time that you wake up, you get to choose what to do with your day.
Regardless of what you choose to do, things may not go your way.
You get the choice of how loud to raise your voice.
You can feel confident in the actions you take, and the decisions you make.
You have the power to choose your own path regardless of its aftermath
Others may not like it and they may not agree… but I can tell you with certainty,
You are the most powerful when you are following that intuitive pull.
That Brave isn’t reserved for the heroes that are Hollywood-made.
That you, my dear, are not to stand in fear.
All you have to do is let go – and stop seeking control.
Let be what will be, and be free to say “I’m going to do me.”
Need help finding your power? Lets chat!
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