EMPOWERMENT REVEALED
Wo! Here’s a mind-blowing discovery: all that “empowerment” stuff is basically about taking responsibility for your own actions and reactions to the World around you and the consequences that arise as a result of those actions and reactions.
This doesn’t mean you are responsible for all the crummy things that happen in the world. It just means that the way you walk and the way you dance and all of the things that happen because you do what you do are yours. You have to deal with them. If you mess up, you have to fix them.
HUH? WHAT?
Why? Because that’s the only way you can build up your own inner power and stamina so you can keep on doing your dance in the middle of the World which is intent on doing whatever it’s doing.
If you’re looking for some good reading (with lots of helpful exercises and mind-bending thoughts on personal transformation), you might like the classic EMPOWERMENT: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It by David Gershon and Gail Straub. It’s now in its eleventh printing. Folks do find it useful….
NOT FOR THE FEARFUL
This “empowerment” thing is a double-edged sword, however. If you’re scared of the Creative, the Unknown, the World, or anything else uncertain, you might be moved to try for control rather than just walking your walk and making sure you are not doing things that cause harm to others.
You might decide that you absolutely need to manipulate and reorganize everything and everyone around you and make the world a safe and secure place for you and everybody and everything you love.
The problem with that one, of course, is that the all-of-everything is way too big for anybody to control. It’s spread out all over the place and trying to organize it all is like trying to do a 20-family garage sale all by yourself.
The chief consequence of that move is that you’re likely to end up crazy on the side of the road. F’r sure, you will not have any time left over for doing your own dance.
NO BLAME GAMES HERE
On the other hand, you can abdicate and throw up your hands and decide that it’s “circumstances” (or other people or the stars or whatever) that are really what’s causing these actions and reactions of yours.
That one means you get to blame “circumstances” and “other people” and “retrograde Mercury” or whatever when the 2×4 comes and whaps you upside the head yet again.
What you do to make it work is you grab a big self-adhesive “VICTIM” label and slap it across your forehead and you spend a lot of time whimpering and whining and moaning between getting kicked in the butt yet again. If it gets really bad, you can go sit against a wall and go catatonic.
Neither of these things help you do your dance, but most people seem to alternate between the Control Freak mode and the Victim mode. They seem to prefer it to doing their own dance.
WHAT ARE YOU CHOOSING?
Hmmm.
I don’t think you get any other choices: either you choose to be Control Freak and/or Victim, or you get to do your dance. What you choose is made manifest in the actions you take and whether you accept the responsibility for those actions.
Here’s an inspirational YouTube video, “Make Good Art.” It was put together by independent cinematographer Tommy Plesky, who says about it, ” I produced, edited and (for parts) filmed this video in order to inspire the “artists”, the creative, the adventurers, the people who do what they really enjoy doing (and for those who don’t, to keep searching), the creators … the “crazy” ones.”
He tells his fans, “If you want to share this video with the idea of inspiring people. Go ahead….” (Thanks, Tommy!)
And here’s a poem:
FOLLOWING MY DAYS
Following my day leads me to
new ways of seeing, meeting, being.
When I can let go of the marching orders
handed down from Control Central
(that part of me that doesn’t want to
relinquish being General Manager of the Universe),
I can let go of the tugs of other people’s needs
in the welling up of my own little wishes that
pull and push me hither and yon
across familiar landscapes,
leading me to new treasures,
new thoughts, new doings.
It doesn’t often happen.
The imperatives of urgent deadlines,
impeccable paper trails and
aligning picayune details
make a maze I must navigate sharply.
Days spent snarled up in red tape,
hours of blather – talk, talk, talking,
minutes spent puzzling out conundrums
and secret codes. Oh!
When I do slip away from
the crepulous detritus of everyday dailynesses,
the day turns rainbow-shiny.
I am given to giggly fits
and watermelon-slice smiles.
The Kalidasa says it best:
“A day well-lived makes
every yesterday a dream of happiness,
every tomorrow a vision of hope.”
I know this. I tend to forget.
The muddy byways of the daily labyrinth,
dotted with the piles of cow-pies and horse-apples,
inhabited by runaway carriages and mad dogs
will mulch down into compost in my mind.
But I WILL remember the treasures I find
when I followed my days.
By Netta Kanoho
Picture credit: Sword Laying by Tor-Sven Berge via Flickr [CC BY-ND 2.0]
……
SOME OTHER POSTS TO EXPLORE
(Click on each of the post titles below and see where it takes you…)
- ALL OF US ARE FREEDOM’S SLAVE
- ABLE TO RESPOND: Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom)
- COOL HEAD, KIND HEART
……
Thanks for your visit. I’d appreciate it if you’d drop a comment or note below.
22 thoughts on “EMPOWERMENT REVEALED”
wow. I love the last post and i will like to commit it to memory as fast as possible. I love the way you present it . good job.
Hey Godlove…thank you for the visit and the comment. I do appreciate it. Please come again….
Netta,
Similar and putting it another way in what you said about empowerment concerning human beings I feel that a huge part of the problem with those who struggle with everyday life is that these individuals don’t realize, understand, or can grasp the concept that they have the power to control what happens in their lives.
Either through listening to the media too much, or poor parenting, education, and so on many people walking around today have been brain-washed into believing that they have little or else NO control over their own lives. They choose to wallow in self-pity and despair. They accept their poor circumstances too easily. They view the world as if it’s one-sixteenth empty, in otherwards full of pessimism.
This does not have to be that way! A person can control his/her own life, way of being, his/her future if that is what the individual chooses to do! Pull him/herself up, have a greater sense of positivity about his/her own being.
The one part of the poem which you quoted from:
The Kalidasa says it best:
A day well-lived makes
every yesterday a dream of happiness,
every tomorrow a vision of hope.â€
Is so powerful. Living each day so that it has meaning for an individual gives him/her a ray of hope for tomorrow.
Great article Netta!
Jeff
Hey JeffWA:
Thanks for your visit. I do agree with your comment and appreciate it. Please do come again….
I am so glad I came across your post. we do tend to get mixed up in everyday life and forget to sit down and take a look at the ‘big picture’. I saved your page so I can come back to watch the video you have included whenever I am feeling defeated. The poem is definitely a great pick me up too! Thank you for sharing this info
Hey Rina: Thank you for the visit and for your comments. I do appreciate them. Please come again!
Wow, is that poem yours? Very impressive and I hope others find inspiration from your words. It amazes me how so many people are unaware of the power they have within themselves but I often think back to a time when I didn’t either and just hope everybody keeps learning and growing.
Thanks again for your poem.
Hey Ryan: Thanks for your visit and your comment. Please come again….
Why do we have such trouble empowering ourselves to do what we were meant to do? I loved what you said about most people living between controlling behavior and being a victim. Most people are so busy trying to control everything and everyone around them and denying any responsibility of their own. They set themselves up to be a victims. Then they whine, complain, and blame their days away. It is sad because they never take the time to realize and create the person God meant them to be; or do what they were meant to do. Most people never unlock the creative side of themselves.
Great video. It was very inspiring. I want to go forth and create now. 🙂
Another thought provoking article and inspiring poem.
Thank you.
Jeannie
Welcome back, Jeannie! Thanks for your visit and your thoughts. I do appreciate it.
Now…go forth and create. (Come on back, ya hear?)
Hi Netta, I’m just new to your site and I’m so glad I found it. I’ve been reading some articles on physics lately that suggest the universe is similar to a hologram. Basically information is stored in just 2 dimensions. It is the prism of our perception, thought and mind, that brings that reality to a third dimension (actuality?). We literally create our own world before us as we pass through and interpret it. Definitely our frame of mind will colour the experience we have. Our dance (the sophistication of it) helps to create the music.
I really enjoyed your poem, especially the last verse. I thought it had power in it.
Hey Carlos:
Thank you for the visit and for sharing your thoughts. It’s an amazement to me, really, that our modern science is catching up to the wisdom of the ancients — the guys who said that the world as we know it is really an illusion — and that we actually do create our own worlds. Cool, huh?
Please do come again….
Nice wordology Netta, it is true that we can often read far too much into what makes us tick and getting through our days. The human mind can certainly over-think or over-analyse what ifs, and this can be amplified the moment you allow negative thoughts to make their way in.
We can also get caught up in the little things that permeate our daily lives, but it is critical that we allow ourselves the time to sit back or above the situation and assess how we are tracking, without over-analysing of course.
Back yourself and have a crack, sounds simple but will eliminate a lot of the doubts.
Shane, thanks for the visit and for sharing your thoughts. I do agree with you heartily!
Please do come again….
Hello Netta,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I really enjoyed your poem, It’s an amazement to me, really, that our modern science is catching up to the wisdom of the ancients. It is the prism of our perception, thought and mind, that brings that reality to a third dimension. I thought it had power in it.
Again thanks for such a helpful post.
Thanks for your visit and for sharing your thoughts, Khobayer. Isn’t it a trip that the more we learn about this world, the more of a mystery it remains? The wise guys sure knew what they were talking about!
Please do come again.
Hi Netta
I found myself drawn to your website again this evening 🙂 Empowerment is indeed a two-edged sword, it is also a mirror that you are forced to hold up to yourself and sometimes we won’t like what we see. It’s hard too when people around you see you as someone/somewhere to dump their issues, people who can’t or won’t for whatever reason take responsibility for their actions often need someone to project them on to. It’s hard when that person is you. As a mum, this is often the case. Sometimes there is so much junk to sort through that it is easy to lose sight of exactly whose junk it is.
I may not have found the answers to these questions yet, but I do like to stop by your site and take these few moments for me and maybe reflect on the day and offload the stuff that isn’t important, sort out what is mine and give consideration to what I am going to do with my thoughts, actions and responsibilities. It is easy to get bogged down with guilt and often mental health has a big impact on perception. For these reasons, I do take responsibility for my actions, but I give myself permission to make mistakes too.
Ally, thanks for your visits and for sharing your thoughts. I am glad the site is proving to be helpful for you.
As you say, guilt is one of the big ones. It can be hard to figure out which junk is yours and which is not.
It is always wise to make room for errors as well, I say. Figuring out what doesn’t work sure helps a lot when you’re looking for what does!
Please do come again.
Love stuff like this, and I’m very interested in the book! I feel I’ve done well in taking control of my own life, but it’s always nice to have some refreshers.
There’s definitely a lot of people out there who struggle to control everything or become victims… Yet many don’t realize that taking responsibility, done correctly, can actually be so much less stressful than the other route.
Thanks for your visit and for sharing your thoughts, Christina. I do agree that very often people are not aware that taking responsibility for the things you can actually control (like your own actions, for example) really does lower the stress levels considerably.
Please do come again….
The amazing encouraging article, and the poem in doing your dance, which carve me out clearly. I admire “Kalidasa saying” A day well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, every tomorrow a vision of hope, brought me to the reality of my time here in the affiliate online space.
The topic is very inspirational, especially the video on “Make good art” powerful!!!
Thank you for the encouraging words. I do appreciate it.
Please do come again….