Power is energy.  It is the inherent capacity to create, direct, influence or do something so as to bring about what we want.  Power in and of itself is wonderful. And it is something that all beings have. How that power is used is what matters most, because like anything, it can be used for harm and it can be used for good.  We will all find ourselves in certain situations where we feel incapable of creating, directing, influencing or doing anything so as to bring about what we want.  We feel out of control, disempowered at the mercy of others. At times like this, it is super infuriating to hear people say, “you’ve given away too much of your power”.  It is an invalidation of the reality of the powerlessness inherent in situations where many of the elements involved are beyond your control.  It also doesn’t make immediate sense.  You weren’t aware of giving (and therefore didn’t consciously choose to give) anything away.  Which is why “taking your power back” is much more about becoming aware that you have power to begin with than it is about taking back something you gave away.  So here is how to realize you have power and how to own it.

1. You have to get that free will is an absolute of your existence.  No one can take that away. They cannot take away choice itself, only choices.  All other people can do is to put intense amounts of pressure on you in the hopes that you will use your free will to choose to comply to what they are wanting.  They can’t take your free will away, only put pressure on it.  You can’t actually give your free will away even if you wanted to.  Even if you comply, that is because you’ve decided to use your free will to choose in favor of what appears to be the lesser of consequences for you.  This means, in every situation, you must challenge your assumptions about where you think the power lies.
   Some of you know and some of you don’t know that I was tortured in my younger years.  I mean deliberate torture, not metaphorical torture. And so what I’m about to tell you is coming from the mouth of someone who absolutely knows what it is for someone else to put you in a position where they are able to cause so much pain that you will use your free will to choose to comply.  This is coming from someone who knows how they may use your point of greatest weakness and therefore greatest need as leverage. We have the tendency of telling the story: They made me do it. But they didn’t. I’m going to get super extreme with you so you can see what I mean. Throughout history, when people have been unwilling to bend to the will of someone else, they tell them the penalty for non-compliance is death.  This is still just narrowing the choices. Many people have chosen throughout history to choose death rather than to comply. Many people have been put in dungeons or concentration camps to find out that their captors had no control over their mind, so they still have the choice of what to do with their thoughts. The point is, they still had choice. Because of this, they cannot actually control you. Compared to these extreme situations, you should be able to see your free will inherent in any less extreme a situation that involves someone putting pressure on you to choose what they want you to choose.
   Something most people don’t know is that even death itself is a choice.  No matter how destroyed your physical body might be, your temporal self must align with your non temporal self in order to die.  If the body is destroyed enough, your two points of perspective will often agree upon death. But comas are so often really about this lack of alignment of will between the physical and nonphysical.
   There may very well be situations where the pressure they use their power to put you under will cause you to use your free will to choose to comply with what they want you to choose.  There are situations where no one can even fault you for making that choice because anyone would. You have every right to feel however you feel about how unfair and immoral it is for them to put that pressure on your free will.    The point is you must never, ever confuse the pressure and force they use with taking away your free will.
    
2. Get into reality and accept what needs to be accepted as quickly as possible.  When we are using our free will to resist what is, we have no power. It is wasted energy.  We are always at the effect of others and are fighting the situation we are in, instead of making immediate adjustments in response to it.  For example, if someone refuses to accept the reality that the economy is collapsing, the decisions and actions they will take will absolutely not serve them.  It is as pointless as playing a chess game and spending your energy denying that someone has just made a move instead of seeing it, accepting it and based off of that, making a counter move .  Reality is your only axis for power. But often we will not see, feel, hear or accept reality. You have got to surrender to the truth of the situation at hand. That is very different than surrendering to the situation itself.  If you surrender to truth, you are able to start making decisions and start taking actions relative to the actuality of what is occurring. To understand more about this, you can watch my video titled: How to Call BullS#!t on Denial.  And my video titled: Reality.
    
3. When we feel powerless, all we are focused on is what we can’t do.  It is as if the situation itself is closing doors and windows in our face.  We tend to bang against those doors and windows, hoping that if we do that, someone will somehow take mercy on us and decide to open them.  That’s not going to happen unless somehow the people who currently have power over those doors and windows decide that it is in their best interests to do so.  You might be able to own your power by trying to convince them it is in their best interests to do so. This is the power of influence and persuasion at work. But it may just benefit you much more to put your energy towards looking for other doors and windows that might be open.  Long story short, to own your power in any situation, you have to shift focus towards what you CAN do. In whatever situation you find yourself in, ask yourself: How and in what ways can I create, direct, influence or do something so as to bring about what I want?
    
4. Be true no matter what.  To do this, you have to be honest with yourself.  No one can control where you put your energy. Again, they can only put pressure on you to try to get you to decide with your free will to put your energy towards what they want you to put in towards.  You have the control over what to put your energy and focus towards and into. You have control over your commitment because all commitment is, is to put your energy into something. Put your energy into what is true for you.  Put it into what matters to you, what is meaningful and important to you. Commit your energy to your specific and individual values. Another way of saying this is that your power is really about staying as true as you possibly can to your values and what is important and meaningful to you specifically.  This requires powerful authenticity. To understand more about authenticity, watch my video titled: How to be Authentic.
    
5. Realize that this is a fractal-based universe.  And every single thing is imbued with consciousness.  If you really, really get this, you have the ultimate answer to personal power.  Everything that is outside you in this universe, is also inside you.  Every conflict that exists externally is also a conflict that exists inside you.  And everything has a consciousness that you can access. If you turn your attention towards feeling, seeing, hearing and knowing these parts inside you, and towards resolving those internal conflicts, you will no longer feel powerless.  If you feel powerless relative to serial killers, find and integrate the serial killer in you and to the opposite, the part of you that is a match to being killed by one. If you feel powerless to viruses, find and integrate the part of you that is a virus and to the opposite, the part of you that is a match to being destroyed by a virus.  If you feel powerless to narcissists, find and integrate the narcissist within you and find and integrate the part of you that is in resistance to the narcissist within you. This time space reality is a mirror dimension. Watch how this integration shifts the reflection, which is the external world. Watch how it changes your external approach to things you felt powerless to before. If you want more information on this, watch my videos titled: Fragmentation, the Worldwide Disease and Parts Work (What is Parts Work and How to Do It).  If you perceive yourself to have no power relative to that which is on the outside, find that same thing within you and integrate it. 
    
6. Put yourself in your own hands.  To understand this concept, I want you to imagine yourself in the middle of a deep pool with a bunch of larger people. Because you don’t want to be responsible for swimming yourself and you see them as having more power in the situation than you do, you swim from person to person and with each one, you climb on top of them so that they can keep you afloat.  The reason this diminishes your power is because you are now in their hands.  It is up to them whether you sink or swim.  You have made yourself their responsibility.  If you sink, you can now make it their fault.  This absolves you of pressure, but at the cost of your own power.  See where you are doing this in your life. See where you are expecting them to be responsible for you and therefore putting yourself in their hands and simply hoping they do the right thing with you.  For example, you might be doing this if you expect your abundance to come through a pay check from your boss instead of seeing your own skills as your venue for achieving abundance. You might be doing this if you expect your doctor to heal you instead of taking responsibility for your own health.  You might be doing this if you expect other people to make decisions that affect your life. You might be doing this if you make your partner responsible for changing to be whatever way makes you feel good and powerlessly sinking into unhappiness in the relationship you are in, instead of actively taking steps to change the dynamic or choosing another partner.  How can things related to your wellbeing be in your hands instead? Where do you think the power lies in this situation? How can you switch the situation so that it lies with you? People who intensely embrace responsibility have the most individual power.
    
7. Words have incredible power.  Start using ones that honor you power instead of take it away.  For example, change “I can’t” to “I choose not to” or “I wont”. So often when we say “I can’t”, we are recognizing a limit that doesn’t actually exist or not owning and taking responsibility for an actual limit we have.  Change “he made me” to “he put pressure on me” or “I chose to”. Your words shape the way you think about yourself and the world around you on a deeply subconscious level. This includes language where you are blaming or making excuses.  When we are not owning our power, we always have an excuse for why something we want did not come about or is not coming about. Pay attention to the language you are using to convey your reasons for doing or not doing something, your choices and decisions.  You might be surprised how many excuses you make. Whenever your language absolves you of responsibility or ability, it absolves you of power as well.
    
8. Recognize, feel and build your confidence.  If you don’t feel your personal power, it is because you are focused on what you have no confidence in, relative to the situation you are in.  What do you have no confidence in relative to the situation that is causing you to feel you have no power? How could you increase your confidence in that situation?  In what ways could you learn and grow in that area so as to build your confidence in the areas causing that lack of confidence? What do you have confidence in? Make a list.  If you recognize where you have confidence in your life, the areas where you don’t won’t feel like they diminish you. For example, you may feel totally confident with cooking or being able to work with someone’s emotions or fix a car or paint or understand complex concepts or clean and organize.  Really resource the confidence that you currently take for granted relative to those things. And remember, at one point in time, none of us felt confident walking. Now we are so confident about it that we take it so much for granted that we would not even think of putting it on the list of things we are confident about.
    
9. Get out of the position of the victim.  The reality is that people are raped and murdered and taken advantage of and lied to and all of those things that fit into the category of being a victim.  Those who hurt others were hurt themselves, so we are all victims of victims. You were the one who was hurt in the situation, but the rub of it is that doesn’t change anything.  It still happened and it can’t un-happen. The only question you are left with is what are you going to do about it now? There is great value in expressing the emotions around being victimized and caretaking the part of you who has been victimized and continues to see itself as unable to get out of the position of being the one who is powerless and wronged.  But once that has happened, complaining won’t actually change anything at all. In fact, it keeps you powerless because it is a cry for mercy from others. It is an attempt to put yourself in their hands. It is an attempt to cause them to see you as innocent and good so that you can gain their sympathy. You want to gain their sympathy to the degree that they will put their energy towards creating, directing, influencing or doing something so as to bring about what you need and want.  Face the very hard question of what positive thing do I get or am I trying to get out of complaining to people or telling them how badly I was hurt by someone else? There has been so much badness attached to considering yourself a victim or victim mentality now that it is very hard for people to resolve the very real parts of themselves that have been victimized and it is very hard for people to look at and admit to their emotional attachment to staying in this role. I completely disagree with this shaming.  There is no shame in whatever answer you get when you ask this question. There is only a decision to make about whether you want to maintain that position or whether a different approach serves you better. How might you have power in the matter instead?
   We assume that fault implies responsibility.  Perhaps one of the most important things to accept about life is that it doesn’t.  Fault and responsibility don’t necessarily go together in a world where every being has power.  And taking responsibility is not an admission of guilt. It is not letting someone who hurt you off the hook.  It is a recognition of your personal power. It is an act of emotional self-preservation and empowerment. It isn’t a man’s fault that he had an abusive, alcoholic father.  But even if it is his father’s fault, this doesn’t mean his father will ever take responsibility for picking up the pieces and righting his wrongs and fixing the son he abused.  This means that if he wants a life that feels good, the ball is only in his court to pick up the pieces of himself and find new, fulfilling relationships and heal. It doesn’t matter if something in your life is someone else’s fault, you can’t guarantee that they will take responsibility for fixing it.  This means the power and therefore the responsibility is in your hands even if it isn’t your fault to change the situation into what you want it to be instead. If you look at the word responsibility as if it is response-ability. You can ask yourself the question, how is it within my ability to respond?  How do I have the ability and opportunity and capacity to respond to this situation so as to bring about what I want?
    
10. Wherever possible, commit to being in the position of cause instead of effect.  This requires a mindset shift. We live in a universe based on the law of cause and effect.  This means we will do things that affect others and others will do things that affect us. One of the best ways to own your power is to choose out of the position of being at the effect of others.  This is something that entrepreneurs have figured out. If you are in the position to be fired, you are at the effect of your company and boss. Therefore, entrepreneurs have chosen to remove themselves from that position and be at the effect of themselves.  A person who simply blames their partner in a relationship for the negative relationship pattern that is occurring, is at the effect of their partner. If however they recognize their own role in that pattern and change it, they have switched into the cause position in the universe, instead of staying in the effect position. Any time you are in a situation that feels like you are at the effect of someone or something else, ask how could I adapt to the reality of this situation so as to switch back into the position of cause instead of effect?
     
11. Follow the north star of your desires.  Commit your energy to your desires, values, what is meaningful and what is important to you.  Follow those things like a compass pointing you due north. As I’ve said earlier, to fully commit to something is to put all of your energy into something.  This means mental, emotional and physical focus and actions. Your personal power is about being able to bring about what you want. This means commitment to following the north star of what you want, what is meaningful, important and what you value, is central to personal power.  Doing this makes you a driver of your life instead of a passenger.  This means being willing to be different, go in a different direction and stand out from the crowd.  This means staying pointed towards your north star when people put pressure on you to stray from your course or try to make you wrong for what you want.

There are plenty of situations in life where it is in alignment to take a back seat with your power and to give others people’s power the drivers seat in a situation.  Obsessing over having all the power implies relationship dysfunction in and of itself. There are plenty of situations where power isn’t about having the front seat or the back seat.  But for the sake of your understanding about personal power, the final thing I ask you to see is that you can choose where and where not to give other people the power in any given situation.  And this, in and of itself is power, because it is a choice!