How Do I Get My Power Back?

Recently, I was asked this question “how do I get my power back?   And it caused me to reflect on my journey to “restoring my power”. 

It is an interesting idea. First, because you have to consider that perhaps you do not have “all” of Your power and if YOU do not have all Your power, then who does and how did they get it?

When I was aware of not having my power, it was more feeling like I did not have the choices I wanted to have. Like I could not choose what I wanted, but had to choose or follow what others
expected of me.  Often in my dialogue with myself or with those around me, I would be heard to say “but I had not choice”.  Those are words, I am happy to say, I no longer use. 

Why? Because I know now that I always have a choice. Even when I do not make a choice, even when I sit on the fence about something that is a choice. 

What  I was feeling was an “influence” from my past, that haunted me like a very real voice in my head and it was that influence, that voice, that was making some of my choices for me; leaving me with the feeling that I could not choose for myself, that I was “powerless”.   In fact “I” was making the choice, but under the influence of another person, only present in my head, an echo from my past.

One of my teachers very wisely said, many years ago now, that healing Your Self and Your Life as all about getting all the people out of Your body; the boyfriend who broke up with You and broke Your heart is sitting, stored in the back of your right shoulder; the father who died young leaving You feeling abandoned, now sitting stored in Your left hip; and on and on.

The concept here was that the unexpressed feelings and reactions to those events in our life are squashed down, pushed away and end up stored in our physical body – it is called cellular memory – and wait there to be released, all the while creating disease or dysfunction. (For more information on this idea, see Louise Hay.)

Another perspective on this same idea is that there are beliefs and ideas about life and how YOU should be living it, stored in Your mind. You have memories of rules, regulations and expectations from important people in Your life.  These ideas get in the way when You are about to make a choice that “they” would not approve of – or that you “think they” would not approve of. It is then that, the voice pops up in Your mind, and You feel like You cannot use Your power and choose what You want.

Now You may not actually hear “their” voice.  That would make it too easy. More often You just have a feeling that this or that is impossible, too risky or just plain wrong; and yet, the desire you have will not go away.

As I worked to restore my power, the process I used – and still do use – it to listen very carefully to the reasons why not – to listen in such as way as to be able to hear the answers to these questions: the voice that I hear telling me I cannot, is it male or female? Young or old? How old? What is the feeling in the voice? Fear? Anger? Command? Demand?

I examine the voice that is saying “I cannot” to be sure it is my voice. If it not my voice, then who is and why are they still in my head, orchestrating my actions? And, if it is my voice, then I listen even more closely to Why? What would happen if I did make the choice I want to make?

Now I am making this sound like a conversation – well it is. Sometimes it is even a conversation that I have out loud with myself, letting my voice change to the answering voice.  I promise I am not crazy.

But this part is important because there is not just a voice. There can also be feelings there. And it is the attached feelings, that let me know if this is a past event replaying in my head; if it is a decision I made about myself earlier in my life that I have not yet changed; OR if it is my intuitive guidance urging me to go on and the “voice” that says no is the fear part of me, fighting the awareness of the next step in my journey.

Too many voices for You? There are days it is too many for me as well. But my point here is just this.  We are schooled about life from those that raise us and teach us and they leave imprints on us.  Those imprints are our guidelines that we follow. BUT, we are supposed to let “their” guidelines go, once we have had enough experiences for our selves to create our own guidelines. But if we have not replaced their guidelines with ours, then the feeling that “they” are still ruling us is the result, and that is the definition of not having all of Your Power.

Come to know the voice of Your Self and be able to recognize the voice of “their” guidelines; when you can tell the difference, YOU ARE IN YOUR POWER!

The view from here.