Taking Back Your Power

“The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.”

~ Edgar Allan Poe

There is much talk right now of awakening, of becoming empowered, of changing the world. 

Depending on what you read and what floats your boat, you might have read about ascension, or planetary shifts, or public uprisings against governments, or a rise in peaceful protests, or dark nights of the soul, or facing your own shadows to become whole and healed.

I’ve read a lot about many of these things. We know it’s not okay to push back when pushed, because all that leads to is a fight. But it’s not all peace and love either. Nor is positive thinking on its own a magic wand that can right all wrongs.

Much of it is about balance, and much of it is about presence. Or rather, being present. When you are present, you can look more constructively at your scenario, without letting your emotions, your patterns, your ego, run away with you.

You come to realise that you just need to let go, and surrender.

Sometimes, it’s all about saying fuck you… and being okay with that.

Sometimes, it’s all about stepping back, and being at peace, and not having to be right or have your opinion heard… and being okay with that, too.

You can’t have your light without shadow. They co-exist. They are one and the same, because they combine to make all of what you are.

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

- Carl Jung

Being powerful isn’t about power. Being powerful is about being empowered. Desire to seek power over something or someone stems from fear and a need to control. But empowerment is freedom – it is about letting go and surrendering and tapping into your core self – delving into every part of you and returning to the surface, knowing yourself well enough to know what you want, and who you are, and then going out and doing what it is you want to do, and being who you truly are. Living and speaking your truth is the greatest empowerment of all, and by doing so, you empower others by inspiring them to do the same.

“When Nike says, just do it, that’s a message of empowerment. Why aren’t the rest of us speaking to young people in a voice of inspiration?”

- Naomi Klein

You can read a million books and take a million workshops, but eventually there comes a point where you have to trust YOU. Listen to YOU. Your soul knows. You just have to go inside and find it. You come to realise that those million books and workshops are, in essence, all saying variations of the same things. Just as all stories stem back to one of a handful of universal archetypes, so too do the wisdoms of life all stem back to a handful of fundamental truths.

Similarly, you can repeat the same life lessons over and over, remain stuck in the same patterns for the rest of your life. Or you can choose to learn what you are being taught, and have the freedom to let go, and move on.

“There is progress whether ye are going forward or backward! 
The thing is to move!”

~ Edgar Cayce

It’s easy, oh so easy, to stay stuck in those comfy habits, and patterns, and comfort zones. But we will never achieve our dreams if we stay there. We are energy. Everything around us is energy. To get in the flow, we need to get that energy moving to us, and from us. We don’t achieve that by sitting around thinking about things, although that can help us reach the realisation in the first place. We achieve what we want to achieve by taking action.

Just do it!

“Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.”

~ Carl Gustav Jung

We are all born with an innate gift that we can bring to the world, and that can change the world too. Whether that be the entire world, or the world of one single person, it doesn’t matter. Everything we do as an act of love is vital and important.

The reason so many people never seem to achieve their dreams or realise their talents is because they spend all their life planning and thinking and dreaming, but not doing. There is no reason to put it off until tomorrow, or keep on practising in secret until perfect. Don’t focus on the goal, because that just turns it into something far away and often seemingly impossible. The truth is that nothing is about the goal. It is all about the journey. That is how you fail and learn, and grow and come to create something even more wonderful, even more powerful, than you originally dreamed.

Every day, we are giving our power away to fears, doubts, lack, excuses, ego, other people, and those with false power.

No more.

Embrace the journey. Take action right now. All you need to do is to begin, and allow yourself to go with the flow of where life takes you.

Let’s start taking back our power, today.