Claim Your Personal Power

This topic of our own personal power has come up so much in my life over the last few weeks that it was impossible NOT to write about. Yes, it has meant me facing some of my own personal demons but it is well worth it! WE — yes, EVERY single one of us are powerful beyond anything we have ever been told! Our limits — are only in our head whether it be on the conscious level or subconsciously. I would like to explore ways to acknowledge and then claim your own personal power.

I feel a post on personal power would not be complete without the wonderful quote from Marianne Williamson, from “A Return to Love, Reflections on the Principles of ‘A Course in Miracles’ “

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.“

It is funny to me that I can say I healed myself of dis-eases that doctors said were incurable and yet STILL doubt my own personal power sometimes. We all have our own “stories” we repeat in our heads that can limit us living up to our full potential and claiming our personal power.

If you read my interview with James Sinclair, Director of the movie, “What If?” you know that the messages we receive before age 6 are critical to the recordings played in our head. We have this subconscious tape recorder going ALL THE TIME directing us in our actions so we usually don’t even have to THINK during the day if we don’t want to. If you are not thinking consciously there is no way to know your own personal power.

1) Consciousness

There are many ways to begin to become more conscious and the first is to stop and ask yourself what you are thinking and feeling at that very moment. Sounds simple, right? It IS and what you find out might amaze you. Being on “auto-pilot” is common for most of us. We have so many distractions and noise in our lives. It is important to “check in” with our inner self and see if our thoughts and emotions are WHAT we really want in our life.

I know in healing I had some pretty lousy thoughts emotions and habits going on. You might find some pretty alarming stuff. Do NOT let that throw you. Recognizing WHAT it is you want to overcome is first and essential for forward growth, whether it be:

– feelings of helplessness

– negative self-talk

– anger spouted at your kids, spouse or co-worker

– jealousy

– blame

– self doubt

– and oh the many more things you can find when you “tune in”….

Congratulate yourself on recognizing these things because THIS is the first step in becoming conscious and awakening to your power. The more you do this, the more natural it becomes and you can take small steps to “work on the issues that arise”. Yes, there WILL be setbacks. You will get this down so well in some parts of your life and be able to stop yourself before you start into one of your old habits. Then another area in your life will pop up and WOW you might be amazed that you need “some work there too”. Do NOT sweat it. Once you start to awaken and tune into the inner you — you will WANT to apply this to other parts of your life and you will, even though it might take some time. Meditation helps aide in this process, walks, being with nature and time for yourself to just “be”.

When you first begin to witness these moments of awareness you will realize how asleep you have been and WOW is that ALONE an empowering feeling to know you will not be asleep any longer! After you acknowledge the inner you it is time to fall in love with them!

2) Self Love

Do you love yourself, I mean REALLY love yourself unconditionally? Do you treat yourself as kindly as you would a stranger or a friend? While I have written about this many times and KNOW it and do absolutely love a lot of myself — this is still an issue that I have to grow stronger on. I can still be my worst enemy. Get me “in a groove” and wanting to get stuff done and then throw several wrenches in (and even if they were not something I could have stopped) — I can definitely “beat myself up” about the fact that whatever I wanted to accomplish did not get done.

I have talked about me being a recovering perfectionist and this is part of it. I also LOVE helping others so will jump to help 20 other people before asking myself, “What DO YOU need, Jen?”. BUT I am learning. I am getting stronger. I DO HEAR those negative self talk messages now and take notice of them and what they do for my mood. In that hearing and noticing is my power — I take steps to change that behavior now as it arises rather than afterward. THAT is bringing me closer to consciousness in this area as well.

It is important to fall in love with yourself. To celebrate the good things about yourself. To believe you deserve to be powerful. To believe that you deserve all the best. Your awareness of your self talk is critical. Forgiveness of yourself for anything you feel you said or did wrong in the past is crucial. Treating yourself like you would want others to treat you is key. This is important because if you have problems with self love you may be unknowingly attracting people into your lives that also do not treat you well. You need to be an EXAMPLE of how you want others to treat you. My post 5 Writing Exercises to Heal Pain is a good one for some growth in this area. Once you love yourself ,you KNOW you deserve more, begin to acknowledge you are powerful and can overcome some of the fears you may still be holding onto.

3) Overcoming Fear

There are so many ways we learn fear. The “kicker” is some of our fears are not even our own but have been learned or inherited from someone else. It is important to become conscious and realize WHAT really frightens you. Is it something that even makes sense to you? Are you scared of failure…becoming conscious and falling in love with yourself helps tremendously with this one. Do you listen to the media so much you cannot HELP feeling afraid? Surrounding yourself with positive media and not becoming immersed in the “bad news” is so important. Have you gotten negative messages from a family member or co-worker that has you living in fear? Are you always living “in the future of negative possibilities?” Keeping the influences around yourself as positive as possible helps greatly in overcoming fear.

There are many ways to overcome fears but first you need to become conscious of where they are from. It also helps if you love yourself enough to believe you can overcome them. Becoming aware of and facing your fears is crucial in empowerment. If you are operating from a fear based mindset you will not take chances, follow your heart, trust your intuition and KNOW your true power.
How to Move Forward

Great, so now you know and want to do these three steps to reclaim your power, but WHERE do you start?

I feel it is important to think about how you want to take in new information. I used a variety of resources. For me, it was important to be immersed in it so I would NOT slip backward (at least not TOO far or permanently! — obviously there will be set backs ;-) ). I went and found books, videos and teachers that resonated with me to learn from. I also took classes online to further my growth and for the support it offered.

To find someone you resonate with you can visit the Heroes of Healing Group Writing Project I ran last year. It features over 50 Heroes talked about by over 30 inspirational bloggers and authors. Each includes a summary of the person’s work, a video or audio of the person, resources on where to learn more and also what each person learned from their hero. Each teacher has different methods and a very different air about them and I feel it is crucial to find people you like and respect to learn from. For me, it was/is important to learn from different teachers and I was/am always reading a few books at a time. Some people work better learning from one person they deeply resonate with before moving onto the next teacher.. There is no wrong or right way…it is what way works and resonates with you. If you visit the Heroes Of Healing Project and find someone missing you want to see on there — please email me and we can discuss…. I want that resource to grow so that everyone that visits can find someone that they can connect with.

Here are some resources from the Rev. Lorraine Cohen whose blog/site is all about empowerment and PowerFULL living!:

Rev. Lorraine Cohen offers a variety of different courses/ebooks/audios that align with this:

9 Steps to Claiming Your Personal Power — this is an ebook that will enable you to become a Deliberate Creator in your life. It shows how to shift from powerless to powerful.

Take Charge of Your Life — Audio and Ebook Bundle that helps you transform overwhelm and fear and includes a tele-seminar with people asking and answering questions.

Rev. Lorraine Cohen offers many other products, seminars, etc. on empowerment.

Only YOU can discover where you need help with power. I feel through awakening into consciousness, falling in love with yourself and overcoming fears you are on your way to becoming more powerful then you EVER imagined. Take some time and look within, write notes, figure out WHAT you want to work on and then find the best way for you to learn more. There are so many healing modalities now and wonderful teachers. Claim your personal power - you are a magnificent being and owe it to yourself and the world to be all that you can be!