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By Suzanne E. Harrill
What are some words that come to mind when you think of power? Some with a positive connotation that come to my mind are strength and the ability to affect change. On the other end of the continuum I think of control and domination. Maybe you think of a Higher Power when you think of the word power.
Have you ever felt powerful? What did it feel like? Was it in relation to another person or a situation or did it come within yourself? Was it ever at someone else’s expense? Maybe it was characterized by collaboration, sharing and mutuality. I know I feel empowered when I am communing with a beautiful setting in nature, see a bright colored flower or a striking sunset, or look up at the stars on a clear night. Nature brings me closer to feeling the ah and inspiration of a Higher Power and connects me deeper to my true Self.
Self-empowerment is about gaining control over your own life. It is about having the power to make changes, meet your goals, and to discover and actualize your purpose. It is a continuous process of change.
How do you empower yourself? It begins with awareness – understanding the difference between your conditioned self and the patterns and habits learned as a child and your true self. This requires knowing yourself, building a solid foundation of self-esteem, and building skills to have healthy, mature relationships with others.
When you live as an empowered, self-aware individual, you live with authenticity, intention, integrity, and connection with your spirituality. When in your place of power (knowing and accepting yourself), you weather life’s challenges in a more peaceful, loving, problem-solving, and balanced way. Awareness allows you to view people and situations more objectively and with choice.
With inner power, based on self-awareness and sound self-esteem, you more clearly understand how you arrived at today, the choices you made, and the consequences you are now experiencing, both good and bad. Expanding awareness increases wise choice-making to create what you want for a more rewarding future. When you are empowered, you can also positively influence those around you.
Using words of power, affirmations, can change us and expand our thinking. They heal, uplift, and transform. Affirmations are said in present tense as if already true. Power is added if we visualize and feel the words as true. You might have heard the statement, fake it until you make it. Words of power set us in a direction even if we do not fully accept them as true today. Following are some empowering affirmations. Chose three or four to say to yourself each morning and evening – out loud preferably. Writing them ten times a day is good too.
1. I am a worthy and precious being, an expression of Life.
2. I am re-awakening to the inner knowing that I am whole and complete.
3. I stop hiding and start being my true Self.
4. I unconditionally love who I am.
5. The next step in the greater plan for my life is unfolding much like a rosebud beginning to bloom.
6. I accept with excitement the challenge and responsibility of going to greater degrees of awareness.
7. I spend quiet time alone daily to listen to my quiet, inner, wise voice.
8. I trust the greater wisdom within me is unfolding, guiding me to make wise choices that support my growth.
9. I accept myself right now, this moment, the way I am, even if there are things about me I do not like and want to change.
10. As I grow in awareness, I discover ways to heal and release habits, traits, and patterns of thinking and behaving that do not support me or reflect my true nature.
11. Inner peace grows daily as I forgive all people and events that have wounded me, including myself.
12. I nourish myself with a loving support system that encourages me to take the risks I choose in order to grow and change.
13. I accept others’ support when I stumble and fall, make mistakes, get confused, meet unbearable challenges, or stop my growth because of fear. I allow them to celebrate with me when I reach a mountaintop of striving and achievement.
14. I embrace each day as I live my life with ease, joy, awareness, and creativity.
15. Resistance to what must be accepted melts away, as I gladly move forward to change the things I can.
16. I willingly and mindfully play the hand I was dealt.
17. I love being who I am – My Self.
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