90-Day A Better Me Series

Part II: A Journey of Perspective

What Launches Us Forward: The Stable Foundation

Day 54: Empowering the Person in the Mirror

“You have a belief about what is beautiful and what is ugly, and if you don’t like yourself, you can change your belief and your life will change.”

-Don Miguel Ruiz

If we want to feel true empowerment, we have to strip down all those layers of titles we’ve defined ourselves by. We have to let go of the titles we’ve been given to by others and look deep into the mirror and see the power of the soul within ourselves. We limit our power by naming ourselves through a series of titles. Titles are and were created by humans.  Our power is limitless. Our definition of who we are is only thing that can stand in our way of shining to our full capacity.

That being said, I don’t mean for you to go around and yell at people for putting you in a category. When we act out in anger and fear because of how someone else is defining us, we aren’t expanding our empowerment onto them. We are creating them to put up their dark defensive walls to protect themselves from the darkness we are spreading. What matters is that we aren’t defining ourselves through the categories people check off for us. If they are defining us by a title that is led by their fear, we don’t have to engage in ours. We do have choices on how not to let their darkness dampen our light. We have to know from the inside that we are bigger than any category. When we truly know that, someone else’s title doesn’t have the ability to hurt us. We are empowered when we are spreading our light!

When we don’t fight categories and titles we can see that they can help lead people to our lives. They can help lead people who aren’t healthy for us away from our lives too. They are just not the embodiment of who we are. If we define ourselves by them we can limit how bright we can shine our lights. We can let darkness come in and defend the title in an, US AGAINST THEMwar. See any patterns here? We can see people fighting for their titles of race, gender, religion, political affiliation, region, along with titles like mother, father, son, daughter, rich, poor, etc. We also see people fighting against other people’s titles, but as I talked about earlier in the series, seeing people as groups and categories keeps us from seeing the individual we lose our humanity and we don’t see theirs. You can look anywhere around you and see evidence of this perspective of truth.

We are only as empowered as the love we project from inside of us. That is why I’ve spent the last few days covering our worth and our value. We can only shine as bright as we allow ourselves to shine. This is not about being self-centered. This is about being able to give from a full bucket that is constantly self-filling. This is about putting the oxygen masks on ourselves first so we can thrive while helping others.

I’ve seen a lot of amazing causes fail and people burn out because they were driving themselves by fear. They felt like the anger was empowering them. When we fight darkness with more darkness, we only create more. It just moves. We may feel the fight or flight reaction and choose the fight. The energy from that burns out and can have lasting long-term effects on our bodies and our minds. We open ourselves up to so much pain that we can’t tell the difference between love and fear. We can and do make this choice on a regular basis. We can choose to be and do better! We have to find clarity in who we are and what we stand for so that when are standing up for the oppressed, victims, and ill, we are serving them with the energy we want to see more of—LOVE! When we are serving causes from a place of fear, rage, anger, and revenge we miss giving opportunities for the people who might have been ignorant of wrongdoing to grow. NOBODY is perfect and we are all learning, when we go in with our guns blazing, we enter into our darkness. We can’t fix others until we are willing to look at and empower ourselves. The more aware we are of how we CHOOSE to live moment to moment, the more empowered we are to represent ourselves and our causes in a loving way.

In order to empower the person in the mirror to spread more light into the world, we have to empower her/him with more light within. We have to turn our internal dimmer switches up. We have to start asking the right questions to ourselves when we are faced with our and other people’s darkness:

• How are my feelings, thoughts, beliefs, actions, and reactions contributing to the light (love) or the dark  (fear) in this situation?
• Am I speaking in away that will encourage communication (light) or put up defenses (dark) to those who don’t have the same perspectives of truth as I do?
• Am I coming at this situation from a loving place representing what I stand for (love) or a fearful place representing what I’m against (fear)?
• Am I trying to encourage people to see other perspectives of truth (light) or force my beliefs down a person’s throat because I believe my way is the ONLY right way (dark)?
• Am I trying to understand where other people are coming from through their perspectives of truth (love) or am I closing myself off to possibilities of looking at the situation from a different perspective (fear)?

When I don’t know how to not fight AGAINST something I don’t like, I wait. I work through the fear, anger, rage, and resentment. Then I look at how I can approach the situation from a loving place that will open up conversations so both sides can feel heard which opens the door to come up with solutions. Do I always get the solution I was hoping for? No, and I may need to work through my feelings about that, but when I acted from a place of love I don’t have all the residual fear-based thoughts about regretting things I said, or realizing I wasn’t considering someone else’s opportunity for growth. Even if my answer is to walk away from the person or situation, I can feel good about the choice I made. I can know that I passed a seed to a beautiful flower, plant, or tree. What they do with that seed is up to them? Feeling empowered from within the energy of light launches us forward in such miraculous ways.

“Self-worth comes from one thing—thinking that you are worthy.”

-Wayne Dyer

Just for Today

When you engage with others be aware of how bright you are choosing to shine your light. If someone disagrees with you, take a second. Question how much light you can choose to shine on the situation. Then try out some different ways to introduce more light to challenges of your day. This can be in traffic, stores, work, home, etc. Remember you are learning, this is not about doing it perfectly, it’s about be open to try something new.

In Part III (Days 61-90), I will talk a lot more about action steps. For now, we are working on understanding our perspectives of truth and creating shifts to open them up to empower us at a soul level. This is where we take control of our own dimmer switches and choose to turn the light up to see the magnificent souls we are.

With Love and Gratitude,

Rachael Wolff ©2019

Did you read today’s companion piece? 90-Day A Better Me Letters Series: Day 54 – I AM Empowered