One of the most important challenges in our journey toward recovering dignity and self-esteem has to do with finding personal empowerment.
Most of us, because of the traumas we experienced early in life, still live as if we have to ask permission to fully live our life. We may still believe in a lot of limitations and generally see ourselves as a victim of circumstances.
Because of this deeply ingrained victimized state, we start to behave in ways that leak our life energy and undermine our dignity and self-respect.
We may start to compromise, hold ourselves back, make excuses, compare ourselves to others and generally start to treat ourselves unkindly.
This perpetuates the circle of feeling less and less empowered.
We may cover this feeling of inner disempowerment by controlling, dominating, pushing, judging, criticizing or escaping into an addiction.
We may start to become very entitled, bitter and angry. All of this covers the inner sense of not feeling empowered, not having a grounded inner sense of self.
The road to true personal empowerment is based on a soft, loving awareness of ourselves, and on finding an inner commitment to discovering and living our truth in spite of the consequences.
Catherine, a very sensitive and energetic 29-year-old came to work with us some months ago. Since early childhood, she has had a difficult time with her father who regularly humiliated and shamed her with judgments, pressure, and criticism.
Whenever she was around her father, she found herself in a perpetual state of shock and developed deep insecurities and self-judgments about herself as a result of this abuse.
After several workshops and individual sessions, she finally began to feel ready to confront her father.
We coached her to start by writing a letter to him because she wasn’t ready to talk directly to him in person. In the letter, we suggested that she let him know that while she wished to have an ongoing connection with him, she also needed to address the abuse that she received and still receives from him in the form of critical comments and even at times shouting angrily at her.
It was important for her to acknowledge how this treatment affected her self-esteem and still affects her life today. This was a powerful first step to resolving her fears and shame and discovering her inner strength.
As she predicted, in responding to her letter, her father was not able to validate what she was saying or to take any responsibility for his behavior. Nonetheless, in the workshop some months later, she told the whole group how empowered she felt just by letting him know and by acknowledging it. She started to feel differently about herself in various areas of her life; more confident and joyful.
Catherine’s process is a good example of living in courage rather than living in fear. Of course, our fear is there, especially when we have to stand up for ourselves, but she chose to listen to her inner courage rather than follow her fear.
Life constantly challenges us to find that courage. It isn’t easy because the imprint of being distracted from our essential energy and dignity is strong. Quite often, we’re not ready to make an active movement toward truth. But it’s equally empowering to stay closely and intimately connected to our fear especially when faced with difficult and challenging situations.
Lillian was physically abused by her father and unprotected by her mother who was terrified of her husband and remains so to this day. With the men in her life and also in her current relationship, Lillian is quite often in a state of fear and shock.
She isn’t able to feel what she wants, feels, or thinks when around him, easily acquiesces to whatever he wants, and in most areas, including sexuality, she goes along with his way even though often it doesn’t feel right.
Her courage at this point is to pay close attention to the terrified part of her, feel the fear and shock in the body and observe whenever she’s aware that she’s going against herself even if she realizes it only much later.
There is a lot of power in recognizing and admitting the truth of any situation. Just that recognition helps to move our energy in the direction of eventually being able to make a conscious move.
Another crucial aspect of personal empowerment is noticing when we are thinking and behaving in what we call, “the child or immature state of consciousness.” This is one of the most powerful ways that we rob ourselves of dignity and sense of personal power.
This may include believing and justifying our judgements and expectations by acting out with anger, demands, withdrawal, or moodiness when we aren’t getting what we want. It also includes being dishonest, irresponsible, undisciplined, reactive, unable to tolerable frustration, needing to be right, unwilling to admit our limitations, continually defending ourselves even when we have made a mistake, or escaping our discomfort with various forms of addiction.
To regain personal empowerment, we also have to begin paying close attention to our familiar, habitual negative thoughts and attitudes.
Charles suffers from the chronic belief and inner sense that his life is meaningless, that he is unattractive, unlikable, and without an inner sense of power. He hates his job, is unhappy in his relationship, and complains incessantly about how others treat him.
He is solidly identified with his deficient sense of self even though in reality he is intelligent, capable, sensitive, and lovable. He isn’t in touch with these natural qualities because he believes his shame identity and from that space doesn’t see that it is in his hands to create the life he wants.
At the same time, he’s in agony and desperately wants to feel better and to be done with his negativity.
Personal empowerment comes when we can begin to identify these thoughts and behaviors and recognize them for what they are – old imprints. They resist our awareness because we may firmly believe our negative attitudes and justify our negative behavior. It’s a leap into vulnerability to challenge them. It’s safer to stay walled off in our mistrusting, protected world seeing others and life as enemies.
But once we realize that this attitude and way of thinking is robbing us of dignity and power, we may be motivated to explore and begin to think and act differently. Just bringing it to consciousness is already a huge act of courage.
Finally, another aspect of personal empowerment is taking risks to listen to our inner voice, feel our body, follow our truth, and live the life we are meant to live. This may involve our intimate relating, our work and creative contribution, nourishing our life energy, or finding meaning and spiritual direction.
Sometimes it means breaking free of the emotional attachment to our family of origin, finding new supportive friends, taking risks to do things that are new and unfamiliar even if we fear judgment, and speaking our truth even if we fear rejection or anger.
Let’s summarize what drains and what enhances our life energy.
What drains our energy :
• Compromising
• Holding back our energy – not taking risks
• Making excuses
• Complaining/ expecting
• Postponing
• Comparing ourselves to others
• Not listening to and honoring our needs
• Not asking for support but pushing ourselves over our limits instead
What brings back our natural dignity and self-respect :
• Taking responsibility for our life, energy and actions
• Speaking up instead of withdrawing or expecting
• Asking for support instead of expecting it
• Not believing; but investigating, questioning and discovering for ourselves
• Being vulnerable
• Having the courage to follow our wisdom
In short, the road to personal empowerment is finding the courage to live our life in a way that feels right and allowing our thoughts and actions to be guided by our heart, not our mind.
Each step in the direction of more courage; whether it means new actions or simply coming closer to and being more honest about our woundedness will bring an immense sense of power and dignity.