How to Take Your Power Back
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You have more power than you think. Each of us has a choice, even when it doesn't feel that way. You have the power to take control of your life, even just starting a little at a time. One decision. One thought.
You may have heard the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that says
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
And if you're reading this, you probably know that living in that mindset all the time is much easier said than done. Believe me, I get it. But, whether you experienced a toxic situation or relationship where you feel like you lost yourself, or maybe you never felt like you had power at all, it’s possible to take your power back and start showing up as the calm and confident person you want to be. So, let's start by moving from a victim mentality to an empowered one.
Taking the time to read this and research how to take your power back is already a step towards feeling stronger and more empowered. It’s a step towards changing your story.
So, how do we move from feeling powerless to empowered? Let’s dive in.
Process your emotions.
If you experienced a toxic relationship, work environment, or situation in your life that negatively affected you, it's easy to want to brush over the emotions that may come up from it. But it's important to give yourself permission to feel. Give yourself permission to be messy, and to feel the anger or sadness or betrayal instead of brushing it under the rug, as so many of us are used to doing.
Processing our feelings in a healthy way, instead of repressing them, is a key component to actually beginning to heal. So, practice allowing yourself to feel whatever comes up - because your emotions are valid.
Healing isn’t always linear. Sometimes things come to the surface when we think we’re already past it, and that’s okay. A few ways you can process what you’re feeling are through writing it out and journaling, talk therapy, working with a coach, meditation, or Emotional Freedom Technique.
Become aware of your thoughts.
We have thousands of thoughts going through our mind every day, and science has shown that the majority of them are repeated, and the majority of them are negative. But the good news is that it’s possible to interrupt your thought patterns and create new ones.
So, to start with, pay attention to your triggers (what is happening in your life, or what did you hear, see, feel, or experience that made you think something). Then, acknowledge the thoughts coming up.
Yes, your emotions are valid, and yes, it's understandable to have things that trigger you - but you can learn to control and change your thoughts. By becoming aware and realizing that we do have a choice in what we allow to stay in our mind, you can start to change those patterns and choose thoughts that make you feel empowered, instead of staying in the place of a victim and self-pity.
And if you want to learn more about this and explore how to start changing your thoughts, download the free How to Take Your Power Back e-guide, which goes much deeper and gives you examples to work through!
Open up to forgiveness.
You’re absolutely not required to forgive someone in order to move on. But it does lighten the load. As Najwa Zebian says, “These mountains you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” Anger and resentment are heavy. It helps to learn to put it down.
So, turn your focus to forgiveness – of the person or people who you feel wronged you, and of yourself. Of course I realize this can be hard – and this is why it’s important to process and start to release any feelings of anger or sadness that come up, because your feelings are 100% valid.
No one expects you to turn around and forgive the person or people who hurt you immediately. But choosing to process your feelings, take control of your thoughts, and making the effort to practice forgiveness is a huge step in taking back your power.
If you’re continuing to remain in your victimhood, thinking about what he/she/they did or how you were treated, they still hold some power, don’t they? This is why taking steps to do something like a Radical Forgiveness session or working with a therapist or coach can be so powerful – because you’re able to spell out exactly how you feel, and then begin to release it and turn it around so you can move forward.
Rediscover yourself and set boundaries.
Sometimes, when we feel powerless, we also feel lost. Maybe we were in a toxic relationship and feel like we lost our sense of self. (I know that happened to me). So, set the intention to get to know yourself on a deeper level.
Who are you?
Who do you want to be?
What are your wants and needs? (It is 100% okay to have wants and needs, which is something many of us forget when we’re in a situation where we feel like we’ve lost or given away our power.)
This also ties into figuring out what your boundaries are and what you want them to be.
Really, you're asking yourself: how do I want to move forward from here?
Because, if you don't want the same thing to happen down the line (whether it was one event, one person, a toxic environment, or a long-term situation that slowly got worse), changes probably need to be made - starting from within.
So, what do you want your life to look like? And how can you make that happen?
Practice self-compassion and self-love.
Self-love is a buzzword these days, but I cannot express how much learning to love and accept myself has improved my life. Once you start down the road of self-compassion and cultivate those feelings of forgiveness and acceptance, the things life throws at you start to become just a little easier.
Because, when you’re able to build a strong foundation of self-love, it's easier to move on, bounce back, and not take everything so personally. You're able to love and support yourself through the hard times and understand that it won't be that way forever. You can begin to understand that your worth doesn't change, even when you make mistakes, or someone treats you badly, or you experience failure.
You are worthy already - and once you begin to believe that, feel it, create an unshakable belief in yourself and embody it - that's when you start to feel truly powerful from the inside out.
And I also realize that not everyone starts from the same place. Sometimes, the idea of loving and accepting yourself can feel extremely difficult and out of reach. That’s okay. Everyone’s background and experience is different. So if self-love feels difficult or even impossible right now, start with kindness. It can be something very simple: what’s something kind you can tell yourself right now?
Taking your power back after going through a tough situation or relationship (or learning to step into your power when you never felt like you had any before) can feel daunting at first.
Years ago, after my toxic relationship and the aftermath that ensued, I was completely consumed by anger, fear, and resentment. For a long time, I felt like a shell of a person - but I knew I didn't deserve to feel that way, and I knew I didn't want to stay that way. So little by little, I was able to start processing and healing, and I got to know myself better than I ever had before. I learned to set boundaries and stick to them, and I raised my standards, because I knew I deserved better.
And so do you.
You are in control of your thoughts, your actions, and your intentions. Your inner warrior is there, even if you don't feel as strong, calm, or confident as you want to be yet.
There are so many resources out there to help you if you need them. And if this helped you and you’d like to go deeper and explore how to take your power back in your own life – I invite you to download my free e-guide: How to Take Your Power Back, which expands on everything here and gives more examples to get you in a more empowered state of mind.
Remember that you are absolutely deserving of love, happiness, and success. And you're more capable and powerful than you know.
Now, let's get out there and conquer our lives.
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