Are you giving away your power?

September 16, 2015
8:00 am

There are many different ways we can consciously and unconsciously give away our power.

You may be handing your power over to your significant other, your family, your boss…or to a limiting belief that’s held you hostage since childhood. You might discover that you’ve given power away for years without realizing it. That’s because through the lens of low self-worth, we often stay blind to the places in our lives where we hand over our power. When the blinders finally come off, it can be downright shocking to discover how much we’ve tolerated over the course of our lives.

The more worthy we feel, the more we become aware of the injustice of powerlessness. Then, we simply refuse to allow anyone or anything else to take the reins to our life. We want what’s rightfully ours because we know, without question, that we deserve it.

I’ve seen many high-performance women who have “head in the sand syndrome.” They’re intimidated by their own desires, they talk themselves out of self-care, they procrastinate and put their worthiness in the hands of others. They stay when they really want to go.

We’re afraid of what we don’t know, so we hide. We’re afraid of what we might find out, so we hope it will all just go away.

Often, when we fear our power, what we’re really afraid of is taking responsibility.

When we don’t take responsibility for our own lives we put ourselves in a disempowered position of letting others make decisions for us. It might even feel like an even exchange to give away our power for safety, security, love. But that safety, security, love comes at a high price. It means we don’t have a say in what happens to us. We’re at the mercy of someone else. Only when we’re responsible for our own situation do we have the opportunity to make the necessary choices to change it.

We don’t allow anyone else to take from us what we don’t freely give.

Ask yourself: