Take Back Your Power

Lately, I keep thinking about how I give my power away. A couple of years ago, I had an astrological reading and the person told me I would likely move in March, April, or May of this year. Starting in January, I was so nervous I would have to move unexpectedly because I wasn’t making enough money to move into the sort of place I want to live. (Nor do I feel pulled to move out of the Bay Area where the cost of living is lower.) I worried I’d find mold or a meteor would hit my house, or some other catastrophe would befall me that necessitated a move.

You know what happened instead? I spent more time out of my house and in other people’s homes either locally or because I was traveling. In that way, I did have more space but not because I moved. Yet I spent nearly six months worrying about it because I gave too much weight to something a random astrologer said. (For the record, this is why I like archetypal astrology because it’s not predictive and instead presents ends of a spectrum.) It’s not only astrologers that I imbue with too much power, it’s almost anyone in a position of authority. My therapist can make the most off-handed comment like, “It will be a fun June,” and I’ll latch onto it like she said the Gospel truth.

That’s a real example and I mention it because parts of June were fun but parts of June were terrible. My inner kid was so confused because she really thought June would just be fun because of that one comment from my therapist. The issue is I keep making other people omniscient and omnipotent because I’m not remembering the answers are inside me. I don’t know everything, I can’t predict what will happen six months from now, but my body tells me things.

In July, I was super nervous to meet up with some new friends, which didn’t make sense because I don’t get social anxiety. I kept feeling like I’d meet someone or run into someone with a romantic component to it but I wasn’t excited about the meeting. Lo and behold, I ran into an ex that I hadn’t seen or spoken to in seven years. I share this not to demonstrate my psychic prowess but to emphasize that I don’t need to perpetually ask other people to tell me about my life. My body tells me about my life. Spirits tell me about my life. My higher power tells me about my life.

I am a powerful person in my own right and you are too, which I think is important to remember. In my spiritual tradition, we say that every person is a reflection of the Cosmic Consciousness. We are all mirrors, showing the same image but some mirrors are more warped, dirty, and pockmarked than others. Meditation is an act of polishing that mirror so the Cosmic Consciousness can be more clearly reflected. What I’m doing when I give my power away is wandering around, wondering if your mirror is cleaner than mine. It would be far more fruitful if I focused on my own mirror. In that way, I would take back my power.

I dream of a world where we understand other people are people, just like us. A world where we stop imbuing other humans with magical powers. A world where we remember we can trust ourselves and listen to the wisdom of our bodies. A world where instead of giving our power away, we take our power back.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.