Your complete guide how to live an empowered life
How do we live an empowered life? How do we contribute, have meaning, and connection, while expressing our unique passion and wisdom from inner divine essence? How do we manifest potential in all areas of life?
These questions represent a core longing for all individual and organizational clients I coach.
Dawna Marova states the intention of living an empowered life beautifully in her poem:
I Will Not Die an Unlived Life
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
What I have seen in my life and the lives of my clients is a progression toward empowerment.
Steps Towards Empowerment
First, we discover our wisdom and voice, then we own and embrace this authority, then we embody empowerment; which always already exists as our core essence, but at times remains covered and hidden.
The way I see it play out is first we recognize our identification as a victim, with all power being “out there” and “done to us.” This external reference must by definition include a perpetrator from which all experience of suffering and happiness comes. This can be at work with our boss or a co-worker making our life miserable, or someone in our family or even our own inner critic.
Through transformational growth and development, we shift our identification to that of a survivor. Wounded healer, internally referenced, yet it is still in relationship to our previous condition of being a victim. If we stop here, we can feel a need to fight for justice on behalf those abused and identify ourselves being for or against something or someone. We rise above, but there is still a reference to that which needs to be transcended.
As we become empowered, we no longer identify ourselves relative to the other. We just are; living from our genuine nature. This expression of essence through each of us is varied and unique; a poet, a mom, a cellist, a healer, a leader, or no particular expression in any given moment; just radiant presence. Yes, the road to this freedom generally contains discomfort as we relinquish the drama and trauma we once thought defined us, but the reward is worth the effort!
A Transformation Model Towards Empowerment
Another model of this continuous development and transformation is up the ladder towards empowerment and mastery:
Addiction<Habit<Influence<Choice>Mastery
Transformational Coaching Tools
There are so many great tools in transformational coaching to assist us in fully uncovering our power and embracing our mastery:
• Mindfulness practice: learning the quiet, still, peace filled condition of our Body-Mind
• Utilizing our witness consciousness
• Recognizing limiting beliefs and self-talk
• Creating a “new story” of power, responsibility, and choice in our moment to moment decisions; allowing the old story of “being unlovable, unworthy and self-loathing” to dissipate
• Recognizing milestones as they occur and celebrate our capacity to Live From Our Center Within for longer periods of time.
You may like my other post about transformation What is Transformation?
Another Model of Transformational Journey to Live Empowered Life
Here is another version of our transformational journey (which is universal to every human being) put eloquently by Portis Nelson.
Autobiography in 5 Short Chapters
Chapter one
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I am lost…I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
(We are calling this addiction)
Chapter Two
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place,
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
(We are calling this habit)
Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall………..it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
(We are calling this influence)
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
(We are calling this choice)
Chapter Five
I walk down another street.
(We are calling this mastery)
For me during my empowered moments, I feel free and live in a world that is no-where and now-here. There is a real choice; I have the ability to respond instead of reacting. I live and heal and teach and love as my own crazy unique Divine expression. I continue to practice, learn and trust my empowerment and mastery in the world. I invite you to do the same.
Are you interested in reading more about your personal transformation? Have a look at my book Living From a Center Within.
