Love the word or hate it, “empowerment” holds a lot of… well, power.
It’s easy to understand why so many of us shy away from a word like this. Most importantly, the direct connection to “power” makes many of us rightfully uncomfortable. With so many examples in our fractured world of power being misused and abused, many of us want nothing to do with it.
And yet, we need it. Not abusive forms of power (like power-over), but helpful, healing, collaborative and change making forms of power (like power-with, power-to, and power-within).
We all have power, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. The question is, how are we choosing to use it?
We need to take our power back in healthy ways. We need to access forms of power that help to heal a fractured world. We need to access forms of power that help to heal ourselves.
How might you reclaim your power? Perhaps you might empower yourself to:
• Set healthy boundaries
• Think flexibly
• Speak your truth
• Be vulnerable
• Try something new
• Forgive yourself for past mistakes
• Believe change is possible
• Believe you are amazing just as you are
• Let go of a relationship that’s no longer healthy for you
• Connect on a deeper level with yourself and those around you
• Start therapy
• Take a healthy risk
• Keep adding to this list
As you read through the following reflections by trauma therapist Dr. Rebecca Bailey, extreme trauma survivor Jaycee Dugard, horse specialist Margie McDonald, and self-actualization coach Carmen Theobald, consider what “empowerment” means to you.
Although our mind plays an important role in empowerment, it’s only part of the puzzle. We need to embody it, and really feel it in our core. Horses are some of the best teachers to help us access our centre of inner strength.
Horse Sense North is the Canadian Partner to Polyvagal Equine Institute. Carmen regularly contributes to their “Word of the Week” blog posts. Her introductions to those blogs are now available here, through the Horse Sense North website. To read the full post, click here.
