“2,500 years ago Lao Tzu, a famous Chinese philosopher, said that the biggest problem in the world was that individuals experienced themselves as powerless. Today this is still our biggest problem.”
A friend of mine wrote an excellent article, “Enablement is Everything“, on the forces of power (the few, the mighty) that dictate our lives.
He explained that we handed over power to the government who collectively can’t even be trusted with basic budgeting. It’s true!
We’ve handed over our attention to negative new-pushers like the media. We actually pay 10X more attention to negative news than positive.
We’ve become unconscious, lazy-thinkers. We don’t even realize to whom we’ve given power to (in nearly all areas of our life) and then wonder why we can’t accomplish anything with our own thought and fortitude.
Decisions are made for us and we lose personal power. Most of us make practically all our decisions unconsciously and automatically – we’re not aware of the mental steps or thought processes we go through in making a decision.
Another example is how one man, Harvey Weinstein, got to be in so much power that he was able to conduct, and for years cover up, hundreds of sexual assaults within one industry.
The power that is no longer ours extends to our health and the medical industry where I have personal experience; having a chronic illness that I manage.
And I can only come to one conclusion:
We lost individual and personal power when we lost trust in ourselves.
Losing trust in ourselves and putting that in someone else’s hands is generally what perpetuates a system that selects the few, the powerful. Only THEY know what’s best for us.
We grow their power by giving them ours.
Doctors are powerful while the patient feels ignored, and is at the mercy of a system. The patient begins second-guessing their own bodies, their own symptoms, their own systems, and even their own logic. I have been there in that doctor office…many times.
Your own logic can’t substitute for years of medical training, but it can richly supplement it.
From that point on it just depends on who you follow. Who you get your information from. Who you vote for. What school you attend. Who you listen to. What books you read. Who you buy from. What shows you watch. And so on…
We need to have a say in our own lives!
We don’t listen to our bodies anymore so much so that we don’t even know when we’ve had enough food. Enter… the obesity epidemic! We don’t want to listen to our body’s cry for help after a while, and we mask it with addictions and bad patterns. We need more help…from someone else.
With great personal power, comes great personal responsibility! (pretty sure Spider-Man would agree 😉
Maybe we’ll fail. Maybe we can’t do it…
We actually believe the negative voice in our head is us talking! It’s not! It’s all the negative messages that unfortunately programmed you from an early age when you had no psychological defenses or personal power from the most powerful voices in your life; your parents!
To restore your internal tools, self-knowledge, and personal power you must take the steering wheel into your own hands and THINK FOR YOURSELF. Super important that you can recognize what is your decision and what is a decision made for you. What are your thoughts or the thoughts of the powerful influencers in your life.
Who do you give power to?
Reclaiming personal power begins with your most POWERFUL thoughts. Reoccurring thoughts. The thoughts you don’t believe you have any control over because they are so automatic.
Search one or two or three of these powerful thoughts then answer these questions:
1. When was the first time you heard this thought, and it became your own? You may not remember when it became your own, but it’s important to remember, it wasn’t always yours!
2. Where (or who) did this thought come from?
3. Does this person have power over you now?
4. is this thought still true?
5. Replace it with something far more realistic and true NOW- especially your own thought.
My personal example (and answers):
The thought I’m referring to was when I told myself ‘I’ll never make a living, writing’ (so I worked a bunch of jobs I hated).
1. Age 16.
2. I told my teacher I wanted to be a writer and he said, ‘writers don’t make any money’.
3. No, my teacher does not have power over me anymore.
4. No, this thought is not true. I make money writing.
5. I will make even more money writing and use my writing skills however I can.
Once you do this a few times, you can see that even our most powerful thoughts were placed there by someone we gave power to, either intentionally or unintentionally.
If you want additional messages (guided meditaitons) that reverse your negative programming, please visit my YouTube channel
Let me start by saying, you won’t find me dressed in monk-garb meditating on a mountaintop in Tibet, but you will find me practicing mindfulness and meditation effectively and successfully in my life!