Finding Authentic Power - How to Overcome Feelings of Powerlessness

 “The soul is the soul. It evolves, it is that part of us that existed before we were born, and after we die. It is immortal. It is your mothership’. If you sail in the way that your soul wants to go, your life fills with meaning and purpose. In this span between birth and death, we have this precious opportunity to walk the earth, what will you do with you? “ - Gary Zukav 

In therapy, so much of our suffering comes from feeling powerless. Or, perhaps feeling powerless causes our suffering. We can feel powerless in the realm of our jobs, our relationships, our finances, our circumstances, our health, ourselves, our addictions. We can have trauma or childhood wounds that keep us in this state. Powerlessness can lead to depression, sickness and apathy. It can lead to feeling stuck and feeling hopeless. Powerlessness is the absence of creative energy. In Transpersonal psychotherapy, we have an understanding that our essence is innate, intrinsic, and universal. We might call this ‘The Self’ or ‘Soul’ or ‘Spirit’. I invite you to choose the word that makes the most sense to you. (I tend to use them interchangeably). This is our blueprint. This is the stuff of mystery. All of our other parts are what we might call ‘sub-personalities’.

So, when we feel lost and stuck, how do we begin to harness our power? 

There are four main things that we need to do: we need to find our authenticity. We need to take responsibility. We need to focus on action. And we need to live with intention. 

If there is incongruence between our inner self and our outer self, we suffer. That gap is where the pain is. This gap represents a division between what we are doing/saying with what we are truly thinking/feeling/wanting. If we have a wide distance, we suffer, because this canyon keeps us from being authentic. We suffer when we feel we are ‘faking it’. We suffer because our soul feels the pain of not being in alignment. We suffer because we spend a lot of energy pretending or masking it. We suffer because our one precious life is not being lived in a way that feels authentic to us. If our’ doing’ self and our ‘being’ self are mismatched, we slowly, painfully start to deflate in spirit.

When you get in tune with that sixth sense, the sense that identifies the existence of your essential soul, lucky you, your spiritual work begins!

It is important to remember that this new discovery of having a soul and sensing it does not make us less angry, more patient, more giving or more kind. It just makes us more aware. There is still a lot of work to do.

You must find the parts of your personality that don’t want to change.

The jealousy, the rager, the addict, the drinker, the victim, the controller, the fixer, the people pleaser, the critic- all of your very protective and habitual parts, are committed to keeping you exactly where you are. You need to become very familiar with them. Learn to recognize them. Learn to feel them, listen to them, and distinguish them as mere parts of you. Learn how to feel them and validate them, love them, and also learn how to not act on them. These parts are usually very afraid, and want to be heard before they will transform (IFS therapy is great for this type of exploration)

Being able to distinguish between the love and fear within yourself is also very important. All of our emotions exist on that spectrum of love and fear. Think about different emotions that you tend to experience, and try and place them on this spectrum, with pure love being on one end and pure terror being on the other. Annoyance, resentment, frustration, arrogance, shame, insecurity., depression, anxiety, nostalgia, inertia, defensiveness, laziness - Where are you living most of your days? 

 If you begin to move the dial more towards love, you might notice a shift start to happen. This doesn’t have to be perfect. Sometimes it is a matter of choosing just to NOT judge or be unkind. Sometimes the loving response is saying nothing at all. If you begin to choose the compassionate, creative, powerful, curious, effective, playful and loving options, this can help you feel more neutral and open, When we feel this, we are less afraid and more empowered to live authentically.

Authentic people are flawed and imperfect. It is important that you remember this. This is not an exercise of being a perfect being. This is an exercise of being honest and real. People are not drawn to others that are perfect. They are drawn to others that are imperfect, but honest and safe or interesting. They are drawn to people that love and respect themselves. Think about it: perfection in others is actually quite uncomfortable. When you are authentic, you encourage others to show up with their authenticity too. This deepens our connection to others.

In order to love and respect ourselves, we probably have to learn how to be more accepting and compassionate to the authentic soul inside. The essence that just ‘is’ - it is innately worthy of love and respect and dignity. No one is better or worse than anyone else. It is not that confident people never screw up and get it wrong, it is that they forgive themselves, learn, and move on (without tearing themselves down).

Learn to look for the gaps between the feeling and the reacting. 

This is the space where you have choice. When we have choice, we have power. Here is where we talk about action. Learn to Respond vs. React. 

The time between birth and death is all a learning experience.  It is a real time, multimedia, surround sound, full colour cast of billions, that provides you with every situation and circumstance eventually, given the wisdom of the choices that you make. Nothing is out of order- but it is not as though it is predestined. You make choices. You need to make responsible choices. A responsible choice is the choice in which you are willing to accept the consequences. Every choice you make is going to have a consequences. You will encounter it whether you are willing to see it or not. So when you make that choice consciously, you create your future consciously. When we feel like we are in charge of creating our lives and creating our inner experiences, we feel powerful. I feel self pity - but I choose to ‘indulge’, I feel insecure, but I choose to ‘gossip’. I feel scared, and I choose to ‘‘avoid’ or ‘control’ or ‘manipulate’. These are the actions that follow the feelings, and we need to become aware of the impact of these choices.

Intention: An intention is a quality of consciousness you prescribe onto your deed or words. It is your very reason and motivation for speaking. This is the heart of creating authentic power. Have the courage to say “no”, and only give of yourself when you can and want to be fully present. Practice making your ‘yes-es’ real yes!-es, and your no’s real no’s. When you show up, actually show up. Commit to this, and see if you start to feel more powerful. 

Intention is one of cause and effect. The intention is the cause. The intention will ultimately determine the outcome of a situation. You cannot separate the cause from the effect.  Even if you don’t know what the intention is- a blind intention can still create the effect. But if you entertain the possibility that you are a powerful, compassionate, loving, capable, worthy and creative spirit, and try it on for size. If you find that it does not fit comfortably, if there is a distance between who you are, and think you are vs what you do and how you behave, consider that this distance is the one you have to travel. This becomes our new curriculum. This is what they call ‘the work’. It is our life’s work to close that gap. 

How to make that journey? How can we close that gap? If you were fully operating as what you ARE, versus what you DO/HAVE/THINK YOU HAVE TO BE, then the distance of the gap is shortened, and you are a bit closer to living within your authentic power. Evaluate: how different are my thoughts, actions and behaviours from the best, truest version of myself? 

The choice of intention is a fundamental creative act. Ask everyone to believe that they are creative spirits- and that you are all co-creating your life with the universe. You are also an aware creator, not more powerful, but more able to use your capacity in a loving way. When you are not aware of what your intention is- you are probably creating with fear. When you are aware- you have the power to choose- do I want to create with an intention of fear, or of love? You have choices. All choices have consequences. Use them wisely. 

An outward tension can be a motivating force- but your intention and thus result, is the bedrock bottom, real intention. It is the energy BEHIND the motivation is going to determine the effect. For example: “I want to get a Ph.D”.  What is the motivation behind the intention? Is it: “I want to get a PhD to prove to others that I am not a failure”? or is it “I want to get a PhD because I am passionate about this field, and seek to know it on the highest level”?  The happiness and satisfaction at the end of the road will come down to the motive and underlying belief.

A personality has a lot of parts- some are dark and some are light. They all hurt, when you really experience them. The compulsive, addictive, obsessive, painful action or word is an attempt in that moment to mask that pain. It can be over-eating, lashing out, drinking, drugs, anger, avoidance etc. The true healing work is allowing yourself to feel what you need to feel. 

The feelings that hurt: when you act on them, they create destructive consequences. Those parts of ourself that reach out and get something to sooth something else, are generally avoiding their true feelings. They are therefore living in-authentically. They are usually acting in fear, which will result in only temporary relief, not joy. For example, buying a bigger house that you cannot afford in order to prove to your parents that you are a ‘success’ will make you miserable in the long run.  If you act out of fear, you’ll continue to feel powerless over your life. You will continue to doubt your true worth. 

Powerlessness stems from feeling unworthy, feeling unlovable, feeling that you are intrinsically flawed, defective, broken, strange, and if people could see you the way you really are, they would want nothing to do with you. This is a human condition. A human experience. It is normal. But it is not usually true. 

These fear based parts of your personality you can mask  temporarily, to control and manipulate others around you by maintaining your image. But it will leech your energy. 

What other way could you learn to cause such permanent, deep and constructive changes in you, as through your own experience in countering the consequences of your own choices?  Choose the OTHER thing, and see. Growth happens in these spaces.

 Start to pay attention to the habitual actions that follow difficult feelings. I might feel sad, but do I wallow? I might feel angry, but do I blame and shame? I might feel guilty, but do I lie? Look at the action words: wallow, blame, lie - these actions are choices, while the feelings are not. Your power lies in choosing a more loving action. 

The point comes when you must open up and surrender to yourself. And when you do, change is finally possible. It is this transformative change that re-arranges you, and in the process we become less afraid, and therefore more powerful. 

To recap: 

Firstly, go inside. Develop emotional awareness. Second step: notice the gap between impulse and action. Into that space, inject and breathe consciousness. There you have CHOICE. There you have power. Reach for the most loving action in that moment.. Choice by choice by choice. This is the journey. It is not an event. This is slow, conscious action in the moment. It is creating better choices moment by moment. 

Second: become aware of all of the parts of your personality that don’t thrive on love. Choose the other. Denial is easy. It is painful to be aware of the impulses and the intentions behind our reactions. BUT, it is not as painful as the consequences you have created due to anger, and power struggles and fear. People in denial will continue to struggle. 

Third: understand that humans cannot outrun pain. It will find all of us. But we can have power over how much and how long we suffer, by the actions that we chose. 

Fourth: the choice of intention is the fundamental creative act- it brings energy into form- and creates matter. Love is alchemy, romance is transformation. A useful thing to think about is: what is romance? Romance is intention, it is transforming something ordinary into something special, something meaningful. It is injecting love into the moment. How can I romance myself, or romance my future?  Or romance this situation? This is true magic. 

Fifth: Take responsibility for your actions. Being authentic often takes making sometimes very difficult decisions.

The soul/spirit is the part of you that is the highest and most noble part of yourself, that you can reach for. It can never die. All souls have the capacity to be great souls. Our job is to align our personality with our souls, by becoming the personality that has the same intentions of the soul through harmony, cooperation, reverence, respect and love. 

“While we are here, the purpose is to do this (become multi-sensory). Then, the intentions of the soul should flow through you- you cannot tell where the personality ends, and the soul begins. This is the whole being. You are the energy of your soul. This is your Higher Self. “  - Gary Zukav

(Quantum Physics - are we recreating the reality that we’re experimenting with? Gary Zukav wrote a book to share these wonderful fascinating remarkable things: The Seat of the Soul- Gary Zukav- always follow the energy).

Stay curious!

Madeleine