You Still Have Your Power

When you are so continually bullied or worse in this life and there have been so many moments where there wasn’t any option to make things better other than to just survive, it can feel like you are powerless. People are bigger, angrier, stronger, more sophisticated, more manipulative than you and it feels like they can get whatever they want in life especially when it is at your expense. Parents, siblings, extended family, family friends, authority figures, complete strangers – especially when you are a small child – appear to have a blank check to wield a lot of power over you at your expense and cover it up quite well. If you tried to tell someone, who would believe some new little human with so little history of having a good word? And then you grow from that new little human to an older human and life gets more complex and your inner world gets more complex and what was a large wrong to a small child appears even larger and more difficult to manage despite growing into the adult that your child-self thought would have all the answers one day.

“But we’re born in shadows that you can’t outrun

Yeah, they’ll catch you when you’re older

Turn around and then it’s over

Don’t let your dreams die young

Don’t let your heart go numb.”

– Goo Goo Dolls

So much time passes but the damage of powerlessness continues to deteriorate your inner peace to the point where you don’t believe inner peace is a realistic goal anymore.

But that’s not true. People can be evil and terrorizing in a lot of ways but your inner personhood is only yours. You exist because there is something that only you can give to the world. This is yours to give to the world and nobody else can touch it. You would not exist if there was not a very special purpose for you. You would not exist if your existence offered you no opportunity to contribute what is yours to give. You have a power that belongs to no one else but you. No circumstance will ever change that.

“Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.” -Theodore Parker

What is yours is not to be stolen or destroyed. People who have bullied you or worse were poor in spirit and could not find their way to peace at the time they were cruel. They could not destroy your ability to choose your belief system. They could not destroy your choice to be peace.

People feel deprived and jealous and choose to believe the way to make themselves feel less powerless is to try to destroy others’ power. But that is ultimately a pursuit that will only increase their pain and powerlessness. The real power is inside you. If you want to stop feeling powerless, look at your own life, your own belief systems, what beliefs have been inflicted on you by others that you treat as your own, and reclaim the parts of yourself that nobody will ever possess except for you.

Your power is not in comparing yourself to others. Your power is in being a person no one else has the gift to be except yourself. There is no comparison. You are the only You that will ever exist. In all of time and creation, the person you are today is a wholly unique expression of love.

“Every child is an artist until he’s told he’s not an artist.” – John Lennon

You are not defined by your past. You are not defined by the moments you felt weakest. You are not defined by someone else’s mean spirited assessment of you. You are not defined by very terrible patterns that have repeated throughout your family and relationships. You are an individual soul crafted to be someone only you can be. You still have your power. You still have the authority to be the most beautiful expression of love and character no matter what you have done or what has been done to you. You are here because you have something beautiful to do. You’ve got this!

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This Post is republished on Medium.

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