More Power...but not the kind you think.

Last night, reading by headlamp, I could hardly put down a new-to-me book that a friend recently recommended. It's called Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss, PH.D... and it's amazing. In a nutshell, it is about recognizing emotional and spiritual patterns in ourselves and learning how to correct them to avoid/heal illness and disease.
First thing this morning, I did a quick exercise inspired by the first few chapters. She talked about how we each give up personal power over a lifetime of everyday experiences, and how each of us can learn to regain our personal power to boost health and wellness. Here's what I came up with:

Things that Self-Empower Me
Exercise
Creativity
Nature
Reading books
Helping others with love
Staying informed
Growing my food
Learning new things
Listening to my intuition
Doing what feels right
Healthy cooking & eating
Honesty and clear communication
Surrounding myself with loving people

Conversely, here are the things that I find DEPLETE my Personal Power:
Fearfulness (this is a broad topic, amazing the subtle things we all fear)
Believing and/or sharing false information
Exposing myself to negative energy (people and situations)
Not respecting my body (ie. consuming foods that are not supporting my wellness)
Not speaking up about injustices or fallacies in our world
Undervaluing myself

This exercise was similar to the "Things That I LOVE" exercise, but also made me reflect on the things that I allow myself and others to do or say that are depleting my Personal Power.  I am certainly intrigued by my lists and hope to dig a little deeper to discover more.  I hope that this will be useful to some of you also.

It's SO interesting what humans will say and do to each other to steal each others personal power. Children learn this at a very young age through observation of the adults in their lives.  In Gary Zukav's life-changing book, Spiritual Partnership, he likens all human relationships as being like two weights on an old-fashioned scale.  We should all be working to keep the scales balanced, which means we don't see ourselves as "above" anyone else, and at the same time we don't undervalue ourselves and see others as "above" us. I also recall a passage in another book that was referring to the auras, or energy fields, around any two people interacting, and that there is a visual vacuum-like effect when one person is stealing power from another.  In the ideal human interaction, each person will be expanding the personal power of the other so that no one walks away drained or inferior.  Think about that the next time you speak to a stranger on the phone, stand at the checkout counter or have a flare up of road rage. Turn your thoughts around and give a little. It won't hurt you, and it could mean a whole lot to someone else.

"We all share a type of physical body that becomes ill or heals for the same reasons. We also share emotional and psychological crises common to the human experience. Everyone fears abandonment, loss and betrayal; anger is as toxic within a Jewish body as it is within a Christian or Hindu body; and we are all drawn to LOVE. When it comes to the health of our spirits and our bodies, we have NO differences." - Caroline Myss, PH.D.