Tag: personal power

The Power of Responsibility

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

Learning to take responsibility for yourself; for the life that you have created; for the decisions that you make is one of the most important things that you can do.  But where is this kind of responsibility learned?  For most people, responsibility is learned from their parents.

There is nothing, nothing like holding your child in your arms for the first time; looking down at her face; the perfect features; tiny fingers and toes.  The knowledge that you have created life is so awe inspiring that it takes your breath away and sends you into a world of awe and wonder from which you don’t emerge until you bring her home from the hospital and suddenly realize that not only have you created life, but now you’re responsible for it.  And you are not just responsible for today, or for this week, but for the next 18 years. It is then you realize that your life is never going to be the same again.

I still remember the day that my husband and I brought our brand new baby girl back from the hospital.  I took her out of the carrier and handed her to my husband while I unpacked my overnight bag.  When I came out he was still standing where I’d left him.  He looked at me and, in a stunned voice said “now what?”  It only took a moment before we were both laughing rather hysterically.

Now what indeed!

Now we become parents.

And becoming a parent is not a temporary role.  It’s not something that stops when your child turns 18 or goes to college, finally gets their own apartment, gets married or even has children of their own. Being a parent is something that will follow you for the rest of your life.

But it’s the concept of responsibility that comes with the title of “parent” that hits you right between the eyes, and it’s each parent’s interpretation of responsibility where things really get interesting.

For some the responsibility of being a parent becomes a power struggle; an attempt to control their child in order to ensure that they fit into a particular mold; that they become the kind of person that the parent believes that they should.  For others, the responsibility of becoming a parent means helping the child to become their own person; to take responsibility for themselves and to give them the tools to craft a life for themselves out of the raw materials of childhood. In short, it is your parents’ definition of responsibility that determines your own take on the subject.

Those whose parents were open with them; who allowed for the child’s own interests, skills and abilities to be valued; those whose parents encouraged them to take increasing amounts of responsibility for their own lives as they matured will find the idea of taking responsibility for creating their reality as a logical outgrowth of this process.

For those whose parents were controlling and domineering – even if it was with the best of intentions and the desire to protect the child from those things that might harm them – the idea of taking responsibility for your own life; of listening to your own heart when it comes to the decisions that you make can be a foreign one indeed.  They have become so conditioned to doing what they were instructed to do by their families; by their schools and governments and societies that the idea of taking responsibility for their own lives is about as familiar as the Arabic language, and inspires the same sort of fear-based avoidance.

Of course this does not mean that there is no hope for those whose parents brought them up to conform to the standards that they, their society or religion or government imposed on them.  It simply means that there are more layers to be peeled away before you can get down to the task of re-inventing yourself as the kind of person that you were meant to be.

Peeling away these layers can be a painful and time consuming process, and whether you choose to work through them yourself by reading self-help books, taking up meditation or chronologically journaling your life (and all of the bitterness and resentments that tend to surface during the process) or whether you choose to seek outside assistance in the form of a psychiatrist or spiritual counselor, it is well worth the effort and can lead to the kind of life that you have always wished for yourself.

It can also completely revolutionize the way that you view parenting and the importance of everything that you say and do to influence your child as well as the impact of every decision that you make that affects them.  It doesn’t matter if your child is two or twenty; your own ability to strip away those layers upon layers of conditioning in order to take responsibility for your own life can make a world of difference, not just for you, but for all the generations yet to come.

And that, my friends, is the true power of responsibility.

2012; The End of the World as You Know It

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

Welcome to 2012!

Did you stay up to welcome in the New Year?  Did you celebrate with champagne and kisses?  Did you throw confetti and drink toasts to everyone’s good health?  Did you stay up creating your New Year’s Resolutions?  My guess is that no matter who you are and no matter how you choose to celebrate the New Year, it probably crossed your mind to wonder if there is something to all the hoopla about 2012; you know, about 2012 being the end of the Mayan great count calendar and the rumors that the world could possibly come to an end on the winter solstice.

I’m not here to speculate as to the accuracy of the claims made by others or to address the metaphysical symbolism behind the calendar itself.  I’m here to ask a question.

While there is plenty of speculation as to whether or not this year will mark the end of the world (or at least the end of the world as we know it) I have a question for you; if it DOES mark the end of the world, what are you afraid of?

I don’t care if you believe in a Christian God or in reincarnation or in the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, there should be no fear involved in contemplating the end of physical existence.  In fact, the ONLY reasons that you should be afraid of the end of the world (if this IS the end of the world) would be either if you don’t believe in anything outside of the here and now, or if you are not living up to the expectations of your belief system and are afraid of being punished by your god or belief system.

If it is the first – then there is nothing I can do for you, I’m sorry.  By choosing to believe that there is nothing  bigger than yourself– nothing more than this life – you have chosen to live a life of quiet desperation; a life where you have to get all your living in now because there is nothing more than this life so you may as well enjoy yourself in the time that you have, and I understand your frustration, for what is the point of enjoying yourself; getting all of those experiences in if, when you die, they are all gone and there is nothing left?

If it is the second, then there is a question that you need to ask yourself, and it is this; what is keeping you from living up to the expectations of your belief system?  If you are afraid that the world will end and that you are not “ready” then there must be something that is keeping you from following through; something preventing you from giving yourself over fully to what is required of you, and if your belief system is important to you, this would definitely be a good time to work through your blocks in that particular area.

Then there are those who believe in a third way of being; one that does not involve the hopelessness and pointlessness of a chance existence or of living up to the expectations imposed on you by an outside deity or belief system.  Those who adhere to this particular perspective see their life not as a chance product of evolution, nor as something controlled by and under the influence of an outside deity, but who see themselves as manifestations the divine itself; life as the reflection of the creator; who see themselves, indeed who see every living thing as containing a soul, and the soul as being a direct spark of that eternal oneness that IS divinity; who see each and every living thing as having a direct connection to the divine Source.

For those that adhere to this way of being, the end of the world holds no fear, for they understand that this physical existence is NOT all that there is, that they are a part of something far bigger.  As aspects of the divine, they accept responsibility for their actions instead of trying to claim that they are victims of circumstance or cosmic design.  They also accept responsibility for creating the life that they are living and realize that if something about it is not living up to their expectations that they are perfectly free to re-create it by choosing to focus on those things that they want to bring into their life.

It may not be a comforting life, for there is no one and nothing who you can blame for any of the bad decisions that you have made and no miracle quick fix that will make everything perfect for you; you have to accept the responsibility for those but there is always the option of being able to change your life by changing the focus of your thoughts.

There is also the knowledge that as an aspect – a manifestation of the divine – that you are here for a specific purpose; to live in a specific way in order to accomplish that which you came here to do, and that by choosing to live an authentic life; a genuine life – one that is not false, not copied, not the life that someone else wants from you or expects from you, but a life where your physical life and your soul purpose are in alignment; a life in which you can reach a state of enlightened purposefulness; a state of being where you are LIVING your purpose 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

What does it mean to live an authentic life?  That, my friends, is something that we will work on discovering over the next few days so that as we begin the New Year by destroying the world that we have accepted or created for ourselves; the world that is based on others fears, beliefs or expectations.  That we can begin 2012 by living an authentic life; our original life; the life that we were meant to live.

Rediscovering Your Personal Power

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series1 Comment

We are all have personal power; we were born with it. It is our right, our heritage as spiritual beings; as individuals with a direct connection to our divine self. So why is it that so many of us suffer from a lack of personal power?

First, let’s get something clear, by personal power I am not talking about the amount of charisma you have; the amount of power you can exert over others in getting them to do what you want them to do or in any sort of position or social standing that you can hold up and use as a guideline or definition of power.

By personal power I am talking about the power within; the power that dominates and controls your will; the power that motivates you to continue to learn and grow and become; the power that fuels the knowledge of your right to exist; that reinforces the fact that you deserve to be heard and, most importantly of all, the understanding that you deserve to be happy.

Ha! Caught you out with that last one, didn’t I? No, I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want to hear your excuses about happiness being dependent on the happiness of others or what you can do for someone else or your current situation.

By happiness I’m talking about YOUR happiness; doing those things that make you grin from ear to ear, listening to the music that makes you want to dance, using the colors that make you warm inside, reading those things that fill your heart with joy and being with those people who make you feel expansive inside.
You can know that you have the right to exist, you can understand the fact that you have the right to be heard, but how many people truly believe that they have the right to be happy?

Think about it. I’m not talking about content people here; calm people; people who have come to grips with their lives. When I talk about happiness I’m talking about those people who glow; whose happiness is such an intrinsic part of their lives that you can hear it in their voices and see it in their eyes. Their vibrancy; their love of life comes through in every aspect of their being.

Chances are you can count the truly happy people you know on one hand. But why is that? Could it be that we live in a society where it is a standard part of our culture to use self-sacrifice and powerlessness as a means of fostering social cooperation?

In fact, a person who believes that they have the right to exist and that they have the right to be heard can fit in with others in a society with absolutely no problem whatsoever, but the moment that individuals attempt to follow their own definition of happiness, they become deviants; social outcasts who are looked on with a general distaste because they do not fit with societal norms of what is acceptable and pleasant.
Every time that we ‘give in’ to family expectations, societal demands or religious dogma simply to keep the peace and make things more pleasant for everyone, we are signing away a piece of our own happiness and, more importantly, a piece of our own personal power.

Think about it, every two year old understands their right to existence, their right to be heard, and their right to be happy. They not only understand it, they demand it. Unfortunately the acceptable response is to train the child into submission and docility in order for them to become “acceptable” to society in general. We are taught to “submit” to the demands of our families, our communities, our churches, our governments regardless of whether those things that we are expected to do fit in with our definition of happiness or not.

For over two decades we are taught to put aside our own hopes and dreams and instead to give in to the expectations of society and, while some of us may have our bouts of adolescent rebellion, chances are by the time we hit our mid-twenties we have learned our lessons all too well and one morning wake up to find ourselves in a dead-end relationship with a job we hate and are saddled with beliefs that we no longer can claim as our own.

Unfortunately, by the time we wake up to the pointlessness of our lives and to just how we’ve been manipulated by our system the chains are firmly in place. We have children, bills, obligations and responsibilities all of which are tapped deeply into our reserve of personal power and that serve as tethers or anchors keeping us firmly in place; that keep us doing the ‘right’ thing out of fearing of losing everything that we have built up.

So how do you break the cycle? How do you regain your personal power; admitting not only the right to exist and to have your voice heard, but the right to pursue your own happiness and, even more importantly, to live your own happiness? It starts with one word – acceptance.

When I speak of acceptance I am not talking about submission; about giving in to the demands on your personal power. By acceptance I am talking of acknowledgement.

In order to regain the full-strength of your personal power, the first thing that you need to do is accept or acknowledge the fact that you are NOT happy.

That’s a hard one, because we have been taught that our happiness is dependent on our status or social position or what other people think of us or how much we own or are able to produce or what job position we hold. We’ve forgotten all about those things that bring us joy; those experiences that leave us full to bursting with wonder and mystery and a feeling of rightness deep inside your soul.

Once you have accepted the fact that you are not happy the second step to reclaiming your personal power is in getting back in touch with what it is that makes you happy; the things that you do that you do with passion; those experiences that make you joyful and those people that touch the very core of your soul.

Of course it is not enough to simply admit that you are unhappy and to get back in touch with those things that stir up the happiness inside of you, you then have to reclaim your personal power by putting it to work in your life; by living authentically and bringing your life into alignment with your soul purpose. Then and only then will you have rediscovered your true personal power and will be able to take your first step into the life that you were always meant to live.