My approach to any desire or goal you wish to manifest into your physical reality (including your physical body) is always through SELF EMPOWERMENT….
In my humble opinion, that’s the best and, dare I say, the only way to achieve AND sustain your results.
To be self-empowered means that you are making a conscious effort to create whatever it is you wish to create in your experience. It means you take full responsibility for what you create regardless of others or your circumstances – past, present or future.
Self-empowerment doesn’t mean you’re in total control of all aspects along the way, but it DOES mean that you’re in control over how you choose to respond to those things in life you can’t control.
On this self-empowered path there are some tricky corners we may find ourselves “stuck” in or seeking. I illustrate this concept as a triad:
The most common corner I see people stuck in is the VICTIM. As soon as you find yourself blaming, complaining or making excuses, you’ve defaulted to victim consciousness.
The victim corner is DIS – empowering because you’re basically giving your power over to person(s) or situation(s) OUTSIDE of you – with the belief that it/they somehow are preventing you from your desired state of being.
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
Often times, when we’re defaulting or choosing to be disempowered, we seek 2 things:
- A VILLAIN: Someone or something to blame.
- A SAVIOR: Someone or something outside of ourselves to save us.
VILLAINS
Our villains can be our own bodies, life or health circumstances or they may be external to us as well.
When it comes to weight loss or health, some common villains include:
- Getting older… “The weight just doesn’t come off anymore, no matter what I try!”
- A thyroid issue, menopause or hormonal imbalance or some other condition, intervention or medication to treat a condition
- Physical or mental limitations
- Past or present trauma, beliefs, patterns, emotional intolerances and coping mechanisms
- Past associations with food or alcohol
- Your family (the way you were raised) or your genetics
- Diet and lifestyle influences from your current family or the people you associate
- A busy schedule
- Family/Relationship Stress or Dynamics
- Finances/Work
- Illness/Loss of loved ones
- World Events (pandemics, wars, injustices)
- Social Influences (including social media, entertainment)
- Accessibility
Many of these villains are (or were) NOT in your control. This isn’t about who’s at fault and it’s NEVER about beating yourself up for having challenges in life..(some challenges are overwhelming and extreme for many – self compassion is key as well).
What IS always in your control though is your level of awareness (your consciousness) around how you’ve allowed yourself to be victimized by the villains by not taking responsibility for your role in handing over your power to them.
Through courageous self-awareness, you can start to pull yourself out of the victim corner by understanding and working through those villains that you’ve consciously or unconsciously used to keep you stuck.
SAVIORS
Our saviors are those individuals or “things” that we hope will get us out of our victim corner. This is where the proverbial “MAGIC PILL” or “KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR” comes into play.
I admit it:🙋🏻♀️I’m a recovering savior.
I used to get a sense of fulfillment when I could swoop-in and save the day with all of my know-how, insights, education and wisdom, but once I realized how disempowering that was for my clients, colleagues and especially for my kids, family and friends, I started to consciously back-off and allow those that were struggling to figure things out in their own way. (I’m still a work in progress TBH. 😬)
More examples of what can serve as saviors include:
- People – Family/Spouse/Kids/Friends/Neighbors/Officials/Community Members/Public Figures/Doctors, etc..
- Books/Information/Research/Programs/Courses
- Medication/Surgeries/Supplements
- Protocols/Diets/Food Rules
- Biohacks/Systems/Gadgets/
- Work
- Vacation
- Entertainment
- Food/Alcohol
- Spending
- Achievements/Goals/Perfectionism (work/performance)
- Causes
- Control/Rigidity
- Any sort of escape or external solution
To be clear, most of the savior examples can be used in an empowered way too. In fact many are life-changing, life-enhancing – and a few may even be life saving.
It’s more about the intention underneath your use and reliance on the saviors that matters most.
A health example in my life: I’ve taken a medication for my thyroid since I was diagnosed 20 years ago. I don’t rely on the medication alone to manage Hashimoto’s Disease. It’s not my “savior”. In fact, it’s the least important factor in my ability to basically put myself into remission for the past 15 years.
More important factors in my healing (by miles) are my beliefs about my body’s ability to heal, expressing myself in a truthful way, healing old traumas, learning about and prioritizing a nourishing diet and practicing moderation, getting good sleep, balanced movement, mindfulness, self-care, connection, etc..
Yet how many people do you see that solely use medical interventions (or even supplements, diet or exercise) as hopeful saviors – and ignore all the controllable aspects of understanding themselves more deeply, disregard healing at the root cause level and poo-poo the enormous power of belief and living a whole, nourished, balanced life?
AVOIDING THE CORNERS
If you want to truly be self empowered and thrive in this life – even as the world is on fire and even as you move through or help others through difficulties – you must ground yourself in the middle of the Self Empowered Triad and avoid the corners as much as possible.
It’s ok if you wander into the corners every once in a while (I sure have)…just use your awareness and the intention of self empowerment as your cue to do the inner work to get back into center.
Like I shared above, I played the savior for a very long time under the ego-guise of being skilled, helpful, caring and kind. Don’t get me wrong, I am a heart centered, caring and kind person and I’m highly intuitive and really good at problem solving and seeing root causes and how things connect…
…HOWEVER, as I played this coach/savior role, I realized that I inadvertently put myself in the victim corner when I started to get frustrated with my kids or other people I was helping (aka “saving”) – wondering why they kept struggling or doing the same things over and over again when I was clearly showing them the way out?
In other words, in the savior dynamic that I created, as soon as I started to complain and roll my eyes at their repeat behavior, they started to became my victim-y villains!
That’s when the lightbulb went on. 💡
It wasn’t their fault at all, since I created this dynamic!
So it was and always will be MY responsibility to create what I truly desire in my life, work and my relationships…
What do I want? I want to experience, guide, learn from and interact with empowered people – especially when it comes to myself!
By taking personal responsibility for your experience, regardless of the circumstances, you are fully in the driver’s seat – navigating life’s twists and turns in whatever way or direction your heart leads.
So even if life gets really hard at times, you can consciously choose to stay in the center of that empowerment space and freely create whatever it is you desire as you also help others discover THEIR own power as well. 🥰
