Personal Power
by: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
All of
us would love to have personal power – the power to manifest our dreams, the
power to remain calm and loving in the face of fear, the power to stay centered
in ourselves in the face of attack.
Our
society often confuses personal power - “power within” - with “power over,”
which is about controlling others. There is a vast difference between personal
power and control.
Personal
power comes from an inner sense of security, from knowing who you are in your soul,
from having defined your own intrinsic worth. It is the power that flows
through you when you are connected to and feel your oneness with a spiritual
source of guidance. It is the power that is the eventual result of doing deep
inner emotional and spiritual work to heal the fears and false beliefs acquired
in childhood.
Without
this inner work to heal the beliefs that create our limitations, we are stuck
in our egos, our wounded selves. The very basis of the ego is the desire for
control, for power over others and outcomes.
Our ego
is the self we created to attempt to have control over getting love, avoiding
pain, and feeling safe. We created our ego self in our attempt to protect
ourselves from the losses we fear – loss of self, loss of other, loss of
security, loss of face. As children, when we didn’t get the love we needed, we
decided that our true Self must be unlovable. In our attempt to feel safe, we
buried our true Self and created the false self – the ego, our wounded self.
The ego self then went about learning how to feel safe through trying to
control others and outcomes. The ego believes that having control over how
people see us and feel about us, as well as over the outcome of things, will
give us the safety we seek.
Even if
you do manage to have some control through anger, criticism, judgment, or
money, this will never give you personal power. This will never fill you with
peace and joy and an inner sense of safety. Control may give you a momentary
sense of safety, but it will never give you the deep sense of safety that comes
from knowing your intrinsic worth, the worth of your soul. As long as your
safety and worth are being defined by externals which can be temporary – your
money, your looks, your performance, your power over
others – you will feel anxious. We feel anxious when we attach our worth and
happiness to temporal things rather than to eternal qualities, such as caring,
compassion, and kindness.
For
example, Walter is a man who has tremendous power over others but no personal
power. Walter has made millions as the president of a large investment company.
He has a lovely wife, three grown children, and two beautiful homes. Yet Walter
is often anxious. He worries about losing his money. He is easily triggered
into anger when things don’t go his way and people don’t behave in the way he
wants. Because his heart is not open, he is a lonely man.
Walter
operates totally out of his ego self, believing that having control through
anger and money will bring him the happiness and safety he seeks. Yet he has
achieved everything he believed would bring him happiness and safety and what
he feels most of the time is anxious and lonely. Walter is empty inside. He has
no sense of his true Self, no sense of the beauty within him, no sense of his
lovability and intrinsic worth. His life is based on externals rather then on
the spiritual values of love, compassion, honesty and kindness.
Personal
power comes from embracing spiritual values rather than just earthly values. It
comes from making love, kindness and compassion – toward oneself and others –
more important than power over others. It comes from doing the inner work
necessary to allow the soul to have dominion over the body, rather than
allowing the animal instincts of fight or flight – the instincts of the body –
to have dominion over our choices. When the soul has dominion over the body,
you have the power to manifest your dreams, to stay centered in the face of
attack, to remain loving in the face of fear. When the soul has dominion over
the body, you have tremendous personal power.
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About
The Author Margaret
Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books,
including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" She is the
co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding
now! Visit her web site for a |
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