Cultivate Authentic Empowerment
Most of us have built our esteem system off things outside ourselves. This begins when we are children. We want mommy and daddy’s love and approval, so we do things to please them, to delight them, to get their attention and their accolades. This childlike pattern gets embedded into our psyche and we grow up and take it out into the big world.
I know I’ve spent a good portion of my life seeking everyone’s approval, attention, accolades as a child and an adult. This is how we build a false sense of empowerment. Through our constant seeking of recognition and approval from our parents, teachers, bosses, spouses and on and on the list goes. When we are stuck in this pattern it’s a slippery slope of self-betrayal because we often ignore our own voice or our own inner guidance to do something someone else wants. When this happens, not only do we enter self-deception we also falsely build our esteem from things outside ourselves.
To cultivate authentic empowerment is a process by which we build esteem from our own inner knowing, not from things outside us.
Authentic Empowerment is a state of inner authority. A feeling of being safe and secure in who you are and what you know to be true for you. It’s not something that can be found outside of you because it’s something that is cultivated through the process of expression and Being your true self.
We are brought up in a world of comparison. Our achievements are very much driven around being better, strong, faster….but, where does that end? Demonstrating the courage of standing apart from the crowd, willing to be YOU, in the truth of who you really are, can cultivate Authentic Empowerment. Perhaps the gifts are not in being better, but rather; different.
Dr. Robert Holden, Ph.D. has a quote. He says, “No amount of self-improvement can make up for lack of self-acceptance.” I find incredible wisdom in this. As I connect the dots of Authentic Empowerment in my own life, I know that it has been through self-acceptance that I’ve come into alignment with who I am. Flaws and all…..and, how my acceptance of myself – regardless of what anyone else has to say about it – provides me with an inner strength and foundation on which I can continue to grow and learn and expand my life.Authentic Empowerment recognizes that we are Divine Spiritual Beings having a human experience and not the other way around. We think we are a body and we have a soul, but really, we are first a foremost a Soul – an energy system actually – and our body and personality is a more narrowly focused projection of our Soul. You can tune into this idea that you are an individualized expression of universal energy, you realize that you are far greater than anything you can even comprehend in your humanness.You be youEmpowerment is defined as the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights.Gary Zukav writes in The Seat of the Soul, “When the personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul, that is authentic empowerment.” I translate this into You be You. When you begin to stand in your own truth and rely on your inner knowing, inner guidance and your own inner truth to guide your life – your personality/ego is then in service to the highest part of your Being. To me, this means letting your Soul lead your life.
