We are all born with a specific amount of personal power, depending on our mission on this Earth. But we also waste or lose this energy in actions that do not serve us or the rest of the world. The good news is that we can recuperate the personal power energy we have lost and feel again strong, optimistic, vibrant and unstoppable in attaining our dreams and goals.
But first, let’s identify the three main enemies of our personal power: fear, self-criticism and attachment to the mind.
Fear holds us back and hinders our self-expression. Being afraid to talk, express your opinion, show your true colours, or to take action and do something that may seem impossible diminishes your personal power to a great extent.
Constantly criticizing yourself, thinking you are incapable of accomplishing anything, trying to reach perfection and feeling that you are not good enough can seriously damage your self-esteem, an important part of your personal power.
Being too attached to your thoughts can also threaten your confidence and sense of accomplishment, since your thoughts are very often the expression of the collective unconscious and may be reflecting limiting core beliefs you have inherited from your family or assimilated from your social environment.
How can you gain your power back:
1. Choose acts of power
Take a look at your life. What is it that terrifies you the most? Instead of feeling defeated by it, you can decide to jump into it. If you are scared of expressing your emotions, you can take the decision to start being honest about how you feel. You can do this in small steps, every time gathering a small amount of power within and feeling good about yourself. Does talking back to someone who bullies you, changing a job that you hate or leaving your abusive partner give you the chills? Then, this is a sign for you to buckle up and voluntarily choose to take this ride.
2. Observe your inner critic
It can be that you are surrounded by overly critical people or have been brought up by judgmental parents. But criticism does not only come from external sources; it is there, in your mind. We all have an inner critic, ready to smash our self-confidence, always urging us to reach perfection. Sometimes, our inner critic makes us compare ourselves to others and evaluates our superiority or inferiority. Other times, it just makes us feel ashamed of who we are. However, observing this mechanism and realizing it is nothing but the mere workings of our mind can help you reclaim a great deal of your personal power energy.
3. Find your purpose and follow it
It is usually not so easy to find one’s life purpose, especially amidst the craziness of our modern world. But, in fact, all you need to do is listen to that little voice in you and amplify it. I am sure that there have been moments when you knew exactly what you wanted to do in life. You can go back to these moments and feel the beauty, power and energy they were charged with.
I once read in Carlos Castaneda’s Journey to Ixtlan that warriors are guided by their unbending purpose. Seeing yourself as a warrior of life, deciding to follow your inner calling and acting on it, while leaving your inner critic aside, will fuel your personal power energy and help revive it in your life.