You Have The Power Within You

There is a power to get things done and to organise your life, but it’s always in someone else’s hands. Or it’s stuck in the past. Or it came and went, about as ephemeral as a puff of smoke, too slippery ever to be pinned down. We can’t even make it our clearly, never mind grasp it or make use of it.

At least that’s how it appears to be. But is it really like that? Is it possible that all the power we need is actually within us, all the time, just waiting to be tapped?

There have been times when you did something that made you feel on top of the world. You felt successful and powerful and energised. You felt amazing! Whenever you did something that made you feel that way, it wasn’t just because you did that thing, it was because YOU made yourself feel that way. You might have thought it was because of that outside thing, but it was because you released that feeling of being valued that was always inside of you.

Do you keep revisiting bad feelings?

If someone made you feel important, valued, respected, the power to make you feel that way wasn’t tied up with that situation or that person … it resided in you. Like it always did, and still does right now.

You were on the verge of a great opportunity once, or a promising new relationship, and you didn’t go for it. Now you blame yourself. You keep revisiting that place and it makes you feel bad, but it’s not the thing that’s making you feel bad, it’s you revisiting the bad feeling that makes it once again resurface. You always have this power within you. You just don’t realise it.

You can make yourself feel good or bad as easily as you can decide to pick up a pen. You don’t have to sit and ponder which muscles to engage and exactly how far to move your hand … you just reach down and pick the pen up. It’s the same with feeling; you can create them at will.

And anyway, there will be other opportunities and other relationships, probably better than the one that got away, so stop pining. Just let it go. The Universe has a way of presenting you with what you need, when you need it. Maybe you weren’t ready for that other one, or maybe it wasn’t right for you. There is a power that knows more than you do, and knows what’s best for you. Trust it.

The media lives on fear

The country’s in a terrible state. The economy is suffering and industry is showing signs of crumbling. The international scene is shaky, even frightening. But should that affect you? You personally?

You can’t change the economy, or the government. So there’s no point in agonising over it. The media needs eyeballs on its front pages and its web pages and its TV screens and computer screens, and it gets them there the best way it knows how, through fear and anxiety.

It uses every trick in the book to stir up fear in you so you’ll keep looking, keep reading, keep checking. Every newscast and bulletin is laced with words and images that press your fear button and make sure you’re going to keep coming back for more of the same. It’s an insidious thing, and you don’t have to play along with it.

You don’t need to keep checking the news for the latest bulletin. Will it make you feel any better knowing that you have the latest news? You want to know what’s going on, and I understand that, but the question is … will it actually make you feel any better?

You can decide how you feel

What you can do is take a deep breath and move on. You can change how you operate. Instead of operating from a position of fear, shift to one of power. You can make your position stronger by working steadily towards improvement and success. And your success (whatever that means to you personally) depends more on your attitude and your actions than any government or international situation.

Instead of following the herd and allowing the media to make you feel the way they want you to feel, just so they keep you hooked, you can decide to go another route. Focus more on your own goals, your own projects, the things that are actually important to you. You decide what’s important to you, not the media.

Why not make it a habit to take everything the media spews out as unreliable. I’m not saying it’s all ‘fake news’ or anything, far from it, but what I am saying is you don’t need to accept it all as gospel. Hell, you don’t need to accept it at all! Limit your TV news watching to a few minutes a day — you might be surprised that you don’t actually miss out on anything important.

If it’s really important, it’ll find you, somehow. And anyway, how vital is it that you know of the latest terrorist atrocity, or the latest natural disaster? Is any of that going to impact your life in a positive way?

If you make it a habit to focus more on yourself and your personal goals it doesn’t make you an egomaniac, or selfish in any negative way. It’s more true to say it just shows you’re more concerned with your own business than anyone else’s. And minding your own business isn’t a bad idea! In fact, the more you exercise this quality the more your own business (so to speak) is likely to thrive.

Take a news break

So why not do yourself a favour and take a break from the news. It can feel awkward at first, if you have a pretty strong news habit (and many of us do, I think it’s true to say). But stick with it for a week or two and you might find that it’s been worth going cold turkey on the news — you can survive without it! And you might even find you experience a healthier regard for your own affairs.