As I started moving my self away from that, and seeing that I needed to make some serious changes to keep not only me emotionally safe, but my children as well, I started seeing more and more of the chaos that we were living in.
I was trying to control things, and keep things afloat, in much the same way as bailing out a sinking boat with a dixie cup!
I was powerless to stop it! I was powerless to change anything inside that situation. I came to the point where I knew that things had to change drastically, for my sanity, for the good of my children, for a million reasons that I cannot even express.
This was my empowering moment. When I realized that it was not my responsibility to fix it. It was not my responsibility to change anything but what I was doing. It was not my responsibility to continue to accept the situation. It was the first time that I set a boundary and did not take it back down again.
I was empowered.
So many years later, I still struggle with expressing my boundaries healthily to others. I find myself withdrawing when I don't feel like I have the right voice and vocabulary to express my needs. So, I am back to being powerless, but never as powerless as before. And now I have healthy tools to help me refocus inside myself, and regroup, and rescript, and try again.
Sometimes it takes a long time to process, and sometimes it requires me bouncing words off of people that help me feel safe, until I feel empowered and comfortable with saying the newly discovered boundaries out loud.
Powerlessness to me feels like I am being controlled by my fears and anxieties.
Empowerment feels like I have found my healthy voice, and am using it to share my needs in a way that respectfully expects that they will be met. Empowerment feels to me like other people cannot hurt me because I am safe and secure in my own self, in my own feelings and understandings. Empowerment allows me to accept criticism with a positive energy, even when it is delivered negatively, and I can use that information to understand myself better, and mature myself, and nurture and grow the me that I am still becoming!
I still feel powerless more often than not, but in a much less debilitating manner than ever before in my life! And that is also empowering! Powerlessness and fear and anxiety are loosening their controlling grasp on me. They will always be part of me, part of my history. But there is no place for them in my future. I am empowered to not allow them to follow me there!
Seek out your empowerment, by being honest with yourself and facing one of your fears. Have a little conversation with it! Tell it that it no longer has place in your life! While it may linger around for a while, much the way neighbor kids do when you tell them it's time to go back to their own house, if you go on about your healthy business, and keep reminding it to leave every time you see it try to sneak closer to our healthy activities, it will eventually loose its power and go slinking off!
Be your wonderful, empowered self today in one activity! And then tell me about it, so I can cheer you on!
Live Well!
Love,
Suzi~Q
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