This topic of our own personal power has come up so much in my life over the last few weeks that it was impossible NOT to write about. Yes, it has meant me facing some of my own personal demons but it is well worth it! WE — yes, EVERY single one of us are powerful beyond anything we have ever been told! Our limits — are only in our head whether it be on the conscious level or subconsciously. I would like to explore ways to acknowledge and then claim your own personal power.
I feel a post on personal power would not be complete without the wonderful quote from Marianne Williamson, from “A Return to Love, Reflections on the Principles of ‘A Course in Miracles’ “
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.“
It is funny to me that I can say I healed myself of dis-eases that doctors said were incurable and yet STILL doubt my own personal power sometimes. We all have our own “stories” we repeat in our heads that can limit us living up to our full potential and claiming our personal power.
If you read my interview with James Sinclair, Director of the movie, “What If?” you know that the messages we receive before age 6 are critical to the recordings played in our head. We have this subconscious tape recorder going ALL THE TIME directing us in our actions so we usually don’t even have to THINK during the day if we don’t want to. If you are not thinking consciously there is no way to know your own personal power.
1) Consciousness
There are many ways to begin to become more conscious and the first is to stop and ask yourself what you are thinking and feeling at that very moment. Sounds simple, right? It IS and what you find out might amaze you. Being on “auto-pilot” is common for most of us. We have so many distractions and noise in our lives. It is important to “check in” with our inner self and see if our thoughts and emotions are WHAT we really want in our life.
I know in healing I had some pretty lousy thoughts emotions and habits going on. You might find some pretty alarming stuff. Do NOT let that throw you. Recognizing WHAT it is you want to overcome is first and essential for forward growth, whether it be:
– feelings of helplessness
– negative self-talk
– anger spouted at your kids, spouse or co-worker
– jealousy
– blame
– self doubt
– and oh the many more things you can find when you “tune in”….
Congratulate yourself on recognizing these things because THIS is the first step in becoming conscious and awakening to your power. The more you do this, the more natural it becomes and you can take small steps to “work on the issues that arise”. Yes, there WILL be setbacks. You will get this down so well in some parts of your life and be able to stop yourself before you start into one of your old habits. Then another area in your life will pop up and WOW you might be amazed that you need “some work there too”. Do NOT sweat it. Once you start to awaken and tune into the inner you — you will WANT to apply this to other parts of your life and you will, even though it might take some time. Meditation helps aide in this process, walks, being with nature and time for yourself to just “be”.
When you first begin to witness these moments of awareness you will realize how asleep you have been and WOW is that ALONE an empowering feeling to know you will not be asleep any longer! After you acknowledge the inner you it is time to fall in love with them!
2) Self Love
Do you love yourself, I mean REALLY love yourself unconditionally? Do you treat yourself as kindly as you would a stranger or a friend? While I have written about this many times and KNOW it and do absolutely love a lot of myself — this is still an issue that I have to grow stronger on. I can still be my worst enemy. Get me “in a groove” and wanting to get stuff done and then throw several wrenches in (and even if they were not something I could have stopped) — I can definitely “beat myself up” about the fact that whatever I wanted to accomplish did not get done.
I have talked about me being a recovering perfectionist and this is part of it. I also LOVE helping others so will jump to help 20 other people before asking myself, “What DO YOU need, Jen?”. BUT I am learning. I am getting stronger. I DO HEAR those negative self talk messages now and take notice of them and what they do for my mood. In that hearing and noticing is my power — I take steps to change that behavior now as it arises rather than afterward. THAT is bringing me closer to consciousness in this area as well.
It is important to fall in love with yourself. To celebrate the good things about yourself. To believe you deserve to be powerful. To believe that you deserve all the best. Your awareness of your self talk is critical. Forgiveness of yourself for anything you feel you said or did wrong in the past is crucial. Treating yourself like you would want others to treat you is key. This is important because if you have problems with self love you may be unknowingly attracting people into your lives that also do not treat you well. You need to be an EXAMPLE of how you want others to treat you. My post 5 Writing Exercises to Heal Pain is a good one for some growth in this area. Once you love yourself ,you KNOW you deserve more, begin to acknowledge you are powerful and can overcome some of the fears you may still be holding onto.
3) Overcoming Fear
There are so many ways we learn fear. The “kicker” is some of our fears are not even our own but have been learned or inherited from someone else. It is important to become conscious and realize WHAT really frightens you. Is it something that even makes sense to you? Are you scared of failure…becoming conscious and falling in love with yourself helps tremendously with this one. Do you listen to the media so much you cannot HELP feeling afraid? Surrounding yourself with positive media and not becoming immersed in the “bad news” is so important. Have you gotten negative messages from a family member or co-worker that has you living in fear? Are you always living “in the future of negative possibilities?” Keeping the influences around yourself as positive as possible helps greatly in overcoming fear.
There are many ways to overcome fears but first you need to become conscious of where they are from. It also helps if you love yourself enough to believe you can overcome them. Becoming aware of and facing your fears is crucial in empowerment. If you are operating from a fear based mindset you will not take chances, follow your heart, trust your intuition and KNOW your true power.
How to Move Forward
Great, so now you know and want to do these three steps to reclaim your power, but WHERE do you start?
I feel it is important to think about how you want to take in new information. I used a variety of resources. For me, it was important to be immersed in it so I would NOT slip backward (at least not TOO far or permanently! — obviously there will be set backs 
). I went and found books, videos and teachers that resonated with me to learn from. I also took classes online to further my growth and for the support it offered.
To find someone you resonate with you can visit the Heroes of Healing Group Writing Project I ran last year. It features over 50 Heroes talked about by over 30 inspirational bloggers and authors. Each includes a summary of the person’s work, a video or audio of the person, resources on where to learn more and also what each person learned from their hero. Each teacher has different methods and a very different air about them and I feel it is crucial to find people you like and respect to learn from. For me, it was/is important to learn from different teachers and I was/am always reading a few books at a time. Some people work better learning from one person they deeply resonate with before moving onto the next teacher.. There is no wrong or right way…it is what way works and resonates with you. If you visit the Heroes Of Healing Project and find someone missing you want to see on there — please email me and we can discuss…. I want that resource to grow so that everyone that visits can find someone that they can connect with.
Here are some resources from the Rev. Lorraine Cohen whose blog/site is all about empowerment and PowerFULL living!:
Rev. Lorraine Cohen offers a variety of different courses/ebooks/audios that align with this:
9 Steps to Claiming Your Personal Power — this is an ebook that will enable you to become a Deliberate Creator in your life. It shows how to shift from powerless to powerful.
Take Charge of Your Life — Audio and Ebook Bundle that helps you transform overwhelm and fear and includes a tele-seminar with people asking and answering questions.
Rev. Lorraine Cohen offers many other products, seminars, etc. on empowerment.
Only YOU can discover where you need help with power. I feel through awakening into consciousness, falling in love with yourself and overcoming fears you are on your way to becoming more powerful then you EVER imagined. Take some time and look within, write notes, figure out WHAT you want to work on and then find the best way for you to learn more. There are so many healing modalities now and wonderful teachers. Claim your personal power – you are a magnificent being and owe it to yourself and the world to be all that you can be!
It is my great pleasure to bring you a new clip from the movie, “What If?” featuring Dr. Bruce Lipton which shows just how powerful the mind is and what is to be gained in that acknowledgment and consciousness.
What If? The Movie – James A Sinclair – video powered by Metacafe
Fantastic Jenny, what a powerful message! I especially enjoyed reading about self love and being an example to others about how they should treat you. Great thanks!
Coryelle Kramer~Animal Communicators last blog post..Bach Flowers For Animals: Spotlight On Honeysuckle
Hi Coryelle,
Thank you! I have found the area you especially liked is where many get “stuck”. I feel if you truly love yourself and treat yourself kindly this is an example you are setting for how others to treat you. If you are down and have a “why me?” attitude — THAT attracts people to you that will perpetuate the ‘Why me?” mantra. If somewhere in your subconscious you believe you are unworthy and “deserve” punishment — it attracts people to you that WILL punish you. Looking inside and celebrating the good and all the qualities that make you uniquely you is so powerful and encourages falling in love with yourself. I find this especially true when coaching people who repeat negative cycles in the relationships in their lives…. The trick is not in how to get a person to change to treat you the way you want to be treated… it is in treating yourself the way you want to be treated and by being an example of that. Thanks Coryelle! Greatly appreciate your comment.
Love,
Jenny
Hi Jenny,
I love the Marianne Williamson quote – it is one of my very favorite quotes! And it fits to your writing today so well.
We are powerful, aren’t we! And it’s way too easy to forget – or just to think “small”. You bring up a great point – that we get distracted by all the noise in our lives. I love some quiet time – and yet, it seems strange too. And I become tempted to turn on some music. Why? Because I’m “used” to noise all the time. I don’t know, is it frightening to hear the silence? And to listen to what our soul is saying? Are we afraid of what it might say? I’m asking philosophical questions – and ones I think we each have to answer for ourselves. I’m getting much better at this. At taking time to “be” in the moment of quietness – to embrace it – and to really listen to what I’m saying – from the inside. That’s not to say I’ve got it all together – I know I can do much better. And that’s all part of conscious thought…
Self love – there’s one that’s probably the toughest for me. To really believe in me. It’s coming along as well – and reading your words here, Jenny, it all helps tremendously. Know that. Know you writing this is making my belief in “me” easier.
And…I really must check out more closely your Heroes for Healing project…I keep putting that off (you can call me a slacker, Jenny…).
Thank you for all of this – it does resonate with me very deeply. And yet, I also know there is so much more I could be doing to move toward my fullest potential…
Lances last blog post..Smile!
Hi Slacker — umm I mean Lance!
Lance, “Slacker” is not a term I associate with you at all. Umm… work, kids, wife, church, blog, forum, guest posts, interviews, thoughtful comments, finding the “perfect quote and picture for each Sunday”… somehow that doesn’t equal that word! 
We all have those things on our list that we say “we’ll get to” and I believe when the time is right we will! And those we don’t get to – maybe weren’t that important to begin with.
If you do have the time to look at the Heroes Project I would love if you would consider writing about anyone that has influenced your life that is not on the list. I love your writing and would be honored to have you as part of the project — it doesn’t have to be this week, this month…. whenever it is good for you and it is the appropriate time. It’ll be up for the lifetime of this blog which I hope is infinite! 
There’s time.
Funny thing consciousness and yes, while it is beneficial to take those times of utter quiet to reflect — we can do so during the most “seemingly mundane tasks” as well. When I am packing the kid’s lunches for school I try and center myself. I don’t want to be packing their food with thoughts of “how much stuff I have to do” on my mind but rather think about what I am packing them and be grateful we have food to give them. Same thing with laundry, dishes, driving, etc. It is very valuable to “check in” during all sorts of activities and see just WHERE your mind is….
The more you listen to your soul the more you become comfortable with it. I am actually telling myself now, “Ok – come on bring up the bad stuff — I’m ready!”
When you confront the issues and move past them the pride that comes with each growth spurt and moment of consciousness is truly beautiful.
Yeah, self love seems like it SHOULD be so easy, right? Sigh, it keeps coming up in my life in all sorts of areas and I am trying my hardest to be grateful for the recognition and to work on action points on how to rectify and move past it. It is getting easier, bit by bit and all I can do is keep moving forward and not beat myself up too much when I have a lapse or a step back – that would kind of defeat the purpose of self-love, huh?
I DO love that quote – it says it all right there and is something I need to remind myself of. How “silly” to be afraid of our gifts and light but yet that seems to be more common than not. I feel if you get these three points down it is much easier to move into that light and let ourselves shine. What could be better than contributing our gifts to humanity and living authentically?
I am always so happy to receive your comments Lance. Thank you!
Love,
Jenny
Beautiful, Jenny. This is fantastic work. Thanks so much for sharing. Hugs & blessings~
Camille
Thank you, Jenny! wonderful information.
…and thanks for that new clip from What If!! That’s a very good bit of information that Bruce Lipton is presents—perpetual clutch prescription, indeed.
CG Walterss last blog post..CelebraZine 06Feb09
I really liked this post Jenny. It was almost a “get back to basics” thing for me…all those things that daily life tends to drown out over time. I’m also right there with Lance above. I have trouble with the “noise” thing too. And I know better! I know I need my quiet, but it is hard to do sometimes. The silence can be unsettling until we really let it, well, flow within us.
Thanks for the reminders and I am going to make a point of reviewing this regularly. I really do much better when I remember these principles.
You are awesome!!
Best blessings to you and your lovely family.
Mike
Hi Camille,
Thank you so much — I am so happy you enjoyed it! Your friendship has been so loving and supportive! Can’t wait to catch up SOON. Lots to share and want to hear what has been going on with you! xoxoxo.
Hi CG,
Thank you! Oh how I love that Dr. Lipton analogy! So RIGHT on — he is SUCH a smart man! So glad you enjoyed the post and clip. Thanks for commenting.
Hi Mike,
SO nice to have your support! You’ve seen many changes occur with me and this blog over the last …um….. 1 1/2 years!
The “noise” becomes so much a part of our daily life that we don’t even hear it but yet it interferes with our being present. Those quiet moments Lance describes can almost seem “deafening and too much” because we are not used to them. I have found by taking that time EVERY day — even if it is 5-10 minutes – my body and soul CRAVE it and then I cannot be without it. It helps my calmness and spirals out and effects the people around me. When I don’t take it – LOOK OUT…
Yes, you know all this stuff Mike. As a philosophy student I imagine this is common knowledge. The trick is to apply it and to get back to those basics. Last year I was great at learning and just collecting as much knowledge as possible. Now I am making an effort to ensure I “practice what I preach”. We are the only ones that can look after our own well being and inner self and make sure we are giving ourselves what we need. That quiet time allows us to assess the direction we are going in, what is and is not working and to take inspired action.
You’re awesome too Mike! Thanks for your support!
Love, Jenny
Jenny, the Marianne Williamson quote is also one of my favorites. It says so much about our fears and why they hold us back so often. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all weren’t afraid of our potential greatness.
Personal power is one of the topics that has been in the back of my mind for awhile as a possible article for my blog but the thoughts and the words haven’t come together in my mind yet. Your article is nudging me further along. Thanks.
Patricia – Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworkers last blog post..Kindness—Why Is It Easier To Be Kind To Strangers?
Thanks, Jenny, this post is just what the Doctor ordered. So many amazing, helpful tips that pinpoint such a varied spectrum of areas that we all need help with from time to time. I especially liked Marianne’s quote. Again, thanks. I am a very self-confident person, but also have self-doubt and inner struggles that constantly need to be tweaked and worked on…positive posts like this one are always welcome.
peace,
mike
livelife365
Mike Fosters last blog post..More Veg Out With Mike
Hi Patricia,
What a beautiful vision you gave me when you asked me to imagine the world unafraid of our potential greatness! Wow! I hope I do get to see that and with the world shifting as fast as it is — we just MIGHT!
With the theme of your blog I can see power being very important to write about. Many, after being abused feel powerless or that their power has been taken away from them. You are so good at making people see their strengths and I look forward to reading your post on power!
I am also going to check out your most recent – the title is something I think about often!
Pleasure to see you Patricia – I’ve been thinking of you lately!
Love, Jenny
Hi Mike,
Thanks so much for reading and I am so happy this helped you. I often think of how grateful I am that I am in this field because when I do slip back… I have so many wonderful places to go for info that can get me back to a better space.
I’ll be at your site quite a bit the next 2 weeks… I’m doing a veggie detox for 2 weeks… boy will I need some recipes!
Love,
Jenny
Your words encourage people to recognize human soundboards around them that echo wisdom back. The Marianne Williamson quote is a shock to some people precisely because it can be hard for them to acknowledge and come-to-terms with fear and inadequacy. And yet, it is by acknowledging some level of discomfort that one takes thefirst step to healing. The other points you mention inspire individuals to continue their personal journeys, wherever questions take them, on route back to the soul that has meaningful answers.
Liara Coverts last blog post..7 Reasons you distract yourself
This is a beautiful article, Jenny. The points you bring up are things I have to work on throughout many of my days.
All my best,
John Wolfe
Wind of the Souls last blog post..Podcast #11: Economic Recession = Rebirth
Hi Liara,
Wow, I love the way you say things Liara! I do feel there are soundboards all around us that echo wisdom and it is in those moments of awareness we actually hear the wisdom.
The quote is one of my favorites and is just so spot on when it comes to WHAT we really need to address. Yes, it may seem scary to realize our power but I cannot think of anything more beautiful than everyone living out of the fullness of their own power and blessing humanity with their own gifts.
Thank you Liara. As always your comments are beautiful and I look forward to checking out your latest post on 7 reasons we distract ourselves!
Love,
Jenny
Hi John,
Thank you! Yes, these are issues most of us deal with pretty regularly. They get easier to look at once work begins and you realize how much easier life is when these parts are aligned. I, too am working through them and the further along my journey I get — the more beautiful the world and everything in it becomes every day!
Love,
Jenny
Dear Jennie -
Wonderful interview. I am going to see the movie.
Funny how a person can say one small thing and it sheds light on how we are today.
You mentioned the imprint we receive before age six.
I never heard that before.
My family was very poor. My mother used to line up to get split peas to make soup.
We didn’t live together most of the time because we could not afford our own apartment so I and my brother and two sisters were farmed out to relatives.
I never connected that until today with my fear of being broke and dependent upon others.
I believe awareness of the problem is the first step to healing.
I’ll be working on it. Thanks, Jennie!
PS. I know your name is Jenny! Sorry. I have a friend named Jennie. Just a slip!
Hi Corinne,
Thank you — I am glad you enjoyed the interview. It is amazing how one sentence can bring so many things to light. I believe many of the words in What If? can trigger awareness and in turn healing. I am so happy this shed some light for you. I, also after seeing the movie thought about what messages I was still carrying with me, and whether or not they were aligned with what I believed and who I wanted to be. It is very powerful to think this way!
You can call me Jennie – if you like — no problem! When you have a long name like Jennifer you get used to MANY nicknames and spellings.
Thanks Corinne, for reading and commenting. It is greatly appreciated and I am sure your comments will ring true to many of my readers.
Love,
Jenny
Great post as always, that Marianne Williamson quote is one of my all-time favorites, so thanks for bringing it back to me…
Lisa Ericksons last blog post..Empowering Your Indigo Child – Book Review
Hi Lisa,
You are so sweet – thank you. Yes that quote is amazing and one I NEED to put up in front of me… thank YOU for the reminder of that intention… so easy to get side tracked sometimes…
I’m going to check out your book review… sounds GREAT!
Love,
Jenny
Hi Jenny,
I love this, it is an important area that often can be the most challenging for us to master-Steeping into our own power and learning to love me. When we do love me, accept out greatness, let go of the fear then I think that is when we soar through life and the abundance flows.
love
Suzie
Ps love Marianne Williamson verse
Suzie Cheels last blog post..Law of Attraction:Perfect Match
Hey Suzie,
I LOVE that quote and I feel it is important to get a clear picture of what personal power and success means to us in order to face any “subconscious fears” we might have about our own power. Thanks Suzie, always love to hear from you and your comments!
I agree — those are the steps to soaring…. seems so simple, doesn’t it?
Love,
Jenny