PERSONAL POWER By Margaret Paul October 2, 2012

All of us would love to have personal power,
the power to manifest our dreams, the power 
to remain calm and loving in the face of fear, 
the power to stay centered in ourselves in
the face of attack.

Our society often confuses personal power, 
"power within" - with "power over," which is 
about controlling others. 
There is a vast difference between personal power and control.

Personal power comes from an inner sense of security, from
knowing who you are in your soul, from having defined your
own intrinsic worth. It is the power that flows through you
when you are connected to and feel your oneness with a
spiritual source of guidance. It is the power that is the
eventual result of doing deep inner emotional and spiritual
work to heal the fears and false beliefs acquired in
childhood.

Without this inner work to heal the beliefs that create our
limitations, we are stuck in our egos, our wounded selves.
The very basis of the ego is the desire for control, for
power over others and outcomes.

Our ego is the self we created to attempt to have control
over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. We
created our ego self in our attempt to protect ourselves
from the losses we fear – loss of self, loss of other, loss
of security, loss of face. As children, when we didn't get
the love we needed, we decided that our true Self must be
unlovable. In our attempt to feel safe, we buried our true
Self and created the false self – the ego, our wounded self.
The ego self then went about learning how to feel safe
through trying to control others and outcomes. The ego
believes that having control over how people see us and feel
about us, as well as over the outcome of things, will give
us the safety we seek.

Even if you do manage to have some control through anger,
criticism, judgment, or money, this will never give you
personal power. This will never fill you with peace and joy
and an inner sense of safety. Control may give you a
momentary sense of safety, but it will never give you the
deep sense of safety that comes from knowing your intrinsic
worth, the worth of your soul. As long as your safety and
worth are being defined by externals which can be temporary
– your money, your looks, your performance, your power over
others – you will feel anxious. We feel anxious when we
attach our worth and happiness to temporal things rather
than to eternal qualities, such as caring, compassion, and
kindness.

For example, Walter is a man who has tremendous power over
others but no personal power. Walter has made millions as
the president of a large investment company. He has a lovely
wife, three grown children, and two beautiful homes. Yet
Walter is often anxious. He worries about losing his money.
He is easily triggered into anger when things don't go his
way and people don't behave in the way he wants. Because his
heart is not open, he is a lonely man.

Walter operates totally out of his ego self, believing that
having control through anger and money will bring him the
happiness and safety he seeks. Yet he has achieved
everything he believed would bring him happiness and safety
and what he feels most of the time is anxious and lonely.
Walter is empty inside. He has no sense of his true Self, no
sense of the beauty within him, no sense of his lovability
and intrinsic worth. His life is based on externals rather
then on the spiritual values of love, compassion, honesty
and kindness.

Personal power comes from embracing spiritual values rather
than just earthly values. It comes from making love,
kindness and compassion – toward oneself and others – more
important than power over others. It comes from doing the
inner work necessary to allow the soul to have dominion over
the body, rather than allowing the animal instincts of fight
or flight – the instincts of the body – to have dominion
over our choices. When the soul has dominion over the body,
you have the power to manifest your dreams, to stay centered
in the face of attack, to remain loving in the face of fear.
When the soul has dominion over the body, you have
tremendous personal power.

Copyright: © 2012 by Margaret Paul
____________________________________________________________

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-
author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To
Be Loved By You?". She is the co-creator of the powerful
Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now!
Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course:
http://www.innerbonding.com or
mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com Phone sessions available.

Share your thoughts