Take Back Your Power

When we hate our enemies - whether they be people, things or places - we are giving them power over us.  They take up an inordinate amount of our thinking space.  And because they preoccupy our thoughts we allow them to affect the way we behave and the way we feel.

Our enemies may be out of sight but not out of mind.

They continue to dominate our thoughts.  Despite our best efforts we can find ourselves incessantly talking and thinking about our dislike for whatever or whoever is bothering us.

Asking clients to identify how much time and energy they spend on this activity in relation to their overall lives can be very revealing.  Once we realise what or who is bothering us - and to what extent - we can help ourselves make some progress in finding greater mental strength.  In this way we retain our power by being confident in ourselves and the decisions we make - regardless of the people around us and the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

One way of giving our power away is to let others define our self-worth.  We rely on others to feel good about ourselves.  We avoid addressing our real problems.  We can attach far more importance to other people's words than they deserve.  

Yet if we learn to put up healthy boundaries, use language which takes responsibility for ourselves, think before we act and reflect on whether the criticism is valid we can do a lot to bolster our own personal power.

ONCE WE ACCEPT THAT NO ONE HAS THE POWER OVER THE WAY WE FEEL WE CAN THEN TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR BEHAVIOUR.  RESEARCH SHOWS THAT WHEN WE RETAIN OUR PERSONAL POWER WE CAN ALSO REDUCE OUR DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY LEVELS.

Letting go and forgiving our enemy - whoever or whatever it is - a can bring a lot of health benefits - both physically and mentally.  After all, our enemy isn't wasting precious time worrying about us, so why spend so much time and energy worrying about them?