Embrace Your Power

I have felt powerless, and I held myself back on numerous occasions. I believe we all do at certain times in our lives. When an important decision has to be made, or life throws a big challenge at us, we can feel overwhelmed and afraid and decide, consciously or not, that we cannot face it, that we are not ready, or not capable, or that we won’t survive.

See yourself in front of a serious illness diagnosis, on the brink of divorce without financial means, or wanting to leave a job you hate but that gives you the security and salary you desire. What do we do in these situations? I don’t know about you, but I take a lot of time to make decisions, especially the big ones. I have stayed in relationships where I didn’t belong anymore for too long. I have taken so much time to change my life because I wasn’t feeling powerful enough. Has this happened to you, too?

Why do we do that? Why do we wait to create change, knowing intuitively that there is something better out there waiting for us? Once you have gone through the process and survived, you may look backward and ask yourself, why didn’t you change this before? But at the moment, to face that challenge felt like the end of your life and the world you knew. ​

There is an opportunity cost to remaining in the same situation and not embracing the power you have to change your life. But we freeze and get paralyzed due to fear, lack of resources, or the overwhelming feeling that we are not good enough to do it, whatever it means in the context of our life. The challenge can be something like standing in your power and leaving a relationship or getting divorced, finding a fulfilling job for you, or looking for a different solution to take care of yourself or a chronic illness. 

We freeze because it is what we have learned to do as a survival mechanism. Under stress, we tend to fight with the stressor or run away from it. Let’s say that stress is, for example, financial problems, the modern version of the lion chasing us in the savannah. What happens when you think and feel that you cannot fight because you don’t know how, you don’t have the necessary resources, and you cannot run away from it because it is evident the problem won’t go away just because you don’t want to face it?

Your nervous system is paralyzed and enters survival mode. You may stop breathing normally because you want to hide, thinking that if you make yourself small or disappear, the monster going after you, the lion, the financial problems, may not find you. But time passes, and the situation gets aggravated or remains constant. A person under constant stress that is not released suffers, which creates unhappiness, more lack of power, and maybe a chronic physical condition in the body. 

I invite you to embrace your power as a solution to the challenges you face in any area of your life. You can do it, and you will. You may not know how, but you must trust yourself and ask for help from mortals, gods, or the Universe. Your power resides in the connection with yourself, the divine, and all that exists. Because no matter how powerless you may feel, you are powerful beyond measure.

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”Everyone has inside them a piece of good news. The good news is you don't know how great you can be! How much you can Love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”
Anne Frank