How Are You Giving Away Your Power?
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What does it mean to own your power?
To meet life head-on, without a shred of resistance, fiercely meeting the truth of each moment as it arises… is to own your power.
To recognize that all of life arises from within you, and everything that arises is to be embraced with loving compassion… is to own your power.
To embody the love, acceptance and wholeness that you are… is to own your power.
The end of seeking… is owning your power.
Because any form of seeking is a way of giving away your power.
We give away our power by externalizing the things we seek, not realizing that we are looking in all the wrong places. This leaves us trapped in a hopeless cycle of endless seeking and unfulfillment, which takes us further and further from realizing the true nature of what we seek.
How are you giving away your power?
Are you looking for a romantic relationship, your ideal partner, your soulmate, someone who will understand and accept you, love and adore you, make you happy, whole and complete?
What if there isn’t a single person on this planet who can complete you, except yourself? And in looking for love and acceptance in another person, you are rejecting the love and wholeness which you already are.
Do you follow and admire enlightened gurus? Do you desire to be in their awakened presence? Can you feel the power radiating off them? Do you hope and believe that they can enlighten you if you listen to their words hard enough, if you apply their practices well enough?
What if nobody has the power to enlighten you, except yourself? And the power you feel radiating from your guru is actually projected from deep inside you? You give away that power by assigning it to your guru.
Maybe you attend lots of spiritual retreats, where you feel blissful, connected, healed and bursting with love? You take those amazing feelings home with you, only to find that they fade after a few days or weeks, leaving you craving another retreat high.
What if seeking blissful spiritual openings in retreats only takes you further away from revealing those openings within yourself? And when you inevitably come down from those highs, you end up feeling even more powerless and inadequate than before.
Or perhaps you put all your faith in a particular religion, and worship its god and holy saints? You read the scriptures, discipline yourself according to their rules, and fervently pray for your life to get better?
What if you are actually projecting your own power onto that religion or god, giving them authority over your life? And you are making yourself like a powerless victim, trying so hard to be a good enough non-sinner, whilst praying for divine blessings and salvation. And in rejecting your sins and unholy parts, you are actually rejecting the wholeness and love that you already are.
Do you read lots of books about how to quickly become rich and successful? Do you attend exciting high-energy seminars, feel the frenzied pumped-up energy, and come home feeling invincible? But after a few months, you discover that you have achieved nothing, except paying off that loan you took to attend the pricey seminar.
What if it will be impossible for you to achieve the promises made in those books and seminars, until you take back the power you have assigned to them? And in trying to become like that charismatic millionaire coach, you are in fact rejecting the parts of yourself which do not align with him/her.
When you take full ownership of your conditioning, and everything that stops you from owning your power, only then will you make big transformations in your life.
Maybe you vote for your favorite politician, in the hope that they will make positive changes to the society around you? Do you believe they will make your country great again, be stronger together or create a future to believe in?
What if, in assigning such power to politicians, you are simply participating in the big distraction — getting hooked into picking and defending sides — inflating your sense of separation from others, inflaming your sense of righteous superiority and judgment over the opposition?
Any political argument is an egoic argument, and takes you further away from recognizing that all true change comes from within, and it only comes when you take back your power.
Do you try to make yourself look more attractive? Have you ever been on a strict diet, changed your hair, or purchased expensive cosmetics, in order to look like the perfect beauty models saturating the media? Does your mind whisper that you would be happier, more lovable and somehow better if only you were thinner, prettier, fitter, younger, more fashionable?
What if you will never be pretty enough, thin enough, fashionable enough or stay young enough to feel fully accepted, lovable and good enough? And in playing the game of judging yourself (and others) by appearance, you are assigning your power to an illusion.
You are judging yourself based on a physical body which changes radically from birth to death. Are you just that body? Or are you something more, something beyond the physical? Perhaps your worthiness is inherent, and has nothing to do with your ever-changing body?
Is your career, money and status important to you? Do you believe that you will finally have made it when you receive that big promotion, flashy sports car, designer wardrobe and huge mansion? Do you believe those exotic holidays, shopping sprees and fancy restaurants will fulfill you?
What if, in chasing these illusions of fulfillment, you will never make it? And the more you expect the external world to validate you, the more you will be disappointed. So you find yourself trapped on the treadmill of seeking even more extravagant ways to measure your worth, all the time feeling more and more desperate and inadequate, as you give all your power to those luxury lifestyle achievements.
Will you keep chasing more, until you are old enough to finally see that those things will never make you truly happy or whole?
Do you seek approval from your partner, parents, friends, colleagues or boss? Do you feel better about yourself when you receive approval, praise, compliments and affection? Do you feel unworthy and inadequate when you receive criticism instead of approval?
What if this is a very subtle form of giving away your power? And the approval you receive from others only has a short-lasting effect on your feelings of worthiness. It can never fill that aching void inside you, so you always crave more, and go out of your way to seek approval in a thousand self-sabotaging ways, all of which give away your power.
What if you can take back your power right now?
When you believe that anything in the external world can complete and fulfill you, you are projecting your own power onto it. Then it appears to radiate power, and you feel magnetically attracted to it. That source of power becomes a symbol of fulfillment to you, distracting you from the truth, and keeping you stuck in seeking mode.
What if you choose to abandon the illusion that you can find love, acceptance, wholeness and fulfillment anywhere in the external world?
What if the only way to end seeking is to fully embrace and accept your sense of lack and incompleteness, to fully embrace the seeker?
The end of seeking, and owning your power, comes through embracing and accepting the wholeness that you already are.
By meeting the truth of each present moment without resistance, you can realize that this moment is already complete and whole, already accepted to arise, and you are part of this complete moment. There is nothing to fix or seek. It’s all here, in the full embrace of this moment.
Your power lies in recognizing that you are already part of the unconditional acceptance and wholeness of life in each moment.
Your power lies in embracing and accepting even your seeking and self-unworthiness.
Your power lies here, inside you, right now. You are that power! So own it, as you realize that you already are everything you seek.
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Georgi Bond’s story is one of diversity, leading to simplicity. She has lived in many countries, blended with contrasting cultures, explored different lifestyles, and worn various identities. Whilst her external ‘self’ has fluxed and changed radically, the inner awareness of that ‘self’ always stayed the same. Together with mindfulness and deep self-inquiry, this experience gave her the opportunity to see the transient, fluid and ultimately illusory nature of ‘self’, identity and conditioning. She realized her true nature as that constant inner awareness, and discovered a deeper reality and freedom in the stillness behind each present moment. One constant thread is her passion for writing, first expressed in her earlier career as a copywriter, editor and published author. Now, she writes about our true nature beyond the ‘self’, and how a recognition of this truth enables healing, forgiveness and self-acceptance. Find out more on her website.
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