Today’s world can be overwhelming. Between balancing our budgets, keeping up with today’s highly competitive work environment, and engaging in all sorts ofrelationships ranging from intimate to casual, we can be tempted to believe everything happens to us – but that’s taking a back seat to our own destiny. The truth remains that people are active beings. We happen to the world. As much as we like to think that our partners, our friends, and our pets make us happy (or miserable), it’s not true: we make ourselves happy, and it all starts with empowerment.
Empowerment is more than some sentimental words posted visibly near your desk or on your bathroom mirror. It’s a mantra, something you say so many times that you feel it down to your core. You don’t just believe you are a beautiful divine being, you know it. Empowerment is being able to take responsibility for your own choices, actions and happiness. Other peoples’ actions may affect your life, but your reaction will always belong to you. Some callers ask me, “Is my luck going to change?”; “Will my soul mate ever find me?”; or, “Am I destined for failure?” I want to save you some time by answering these questions here and now: Your luck is already changing. You will find your true love when you make room in your life for that love. No one is destined for failure. Now you can rephrase those questions with an empowered attitude: “What can I do to make my own luck?” “How do I find true love?” and “How do I create happiness?” If you see the difference in that second set of questions, you are already making progress toward co-creating your future with the Universe.
Our choices affect other people in a continuous ripple on the giant web of existence. When your circumstances go awry because of your own or someone else’s misjudgment, or catastrophe strikes, you can either take the back seat and feel sorry for yourself, or you can take a firm hold on the steering wheel of your life to take action, create change, to heal, to mend, and begin again. The process can be as subtle as the cracking of an egg, or as magnificent as a phoenix rising from its own ashes. Each decision is a chance at rebirth.
I have a friend who once saw herself as a victim of her circumstances. Her parents divorced before she could walk, and she moved around a lot as a child. She endured a long and painful custody battle. As she grew up, her mother remained very protective and discouraged her from learning essential skills like balancing her own budget, managing her schedule, even cooking anything more complicated than macaroni and cheese. Once she moved out, she asserted her newfound independence by making compulsive decisions about everything. A string of casual lovers and false friends later, after her money had run out, she spent time being angry at her parents, her lovers, and her friends. Then she realized that she needed to take care of herself because no one else was capable of taking care of her all the time.
From that moment on, she began to teach herself how to survive in the world on her own. She took courses on positive goal setting and achieving. She worked her way through college and gradually earned true independence. She still works to let go of her resentment toward people who let her down, and to be grateful for the lessons life teaches her. Today she is happy and successful with her career and marriage, and always looks for ways to improve herself and her life. If you ask her she’ll tell you, “It all started when I realized that I create my own reality.”
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