We may feel fear and despair in our everyday life.  We may feel depressed and do not know why we feel as such.  I suggest that one of the major sources of unhappiness and depression is due to giving our personal power away to others.  The unfortunate thing is that we may not even be aware of what we have done.

We are here on earth to express our inner beauty and truth.  When we give away our personal power, we become like an eagle with clipped wings, and we will feel the burden of the loss on our soul - which may translate into emotional blockages and dis-ease.

In the context of Tending to Your Garden Within, it is important to understand why our trees might have sick looking leaves in the middle of the growing season.  It is also important to understand why the flowers in our garden do not have their natural, vibrant colors.  It is also necessary to ponder if we are acting in a manner (perhaps even sabotaging) that is taking away the zest and livelihood from our garden within.

We may already believe that we have minimal personal power and that talking about this subject is not productive.  We may also think that the concept of personal power is a nice, but not a practical concept.  It is possible that we do not recall how much personal power we have had, or perhaps we have given up thinking about what we have lost. 

We give our personal power away initially to seek safety and comfort, which in the end may bring us more fear and insecurity.  We give away our personal power to fit into the society we live in.  We give away our personal power to abdicate being powerful to avoid upsetting others that have lost such power (guilt).  It is like giving away our body parts to others, and then wondering why we are in pain and discomfort, and then turning to yet others for relief of our pain and discomfort.  The poem below illustrates this concept further.

Personal Power

The majority of us have given our personal power away.

Why do we give away our personal power?

We give away our personal power

for the illusion of security,

to run from loneliness and

our craving for a sense of belonging.

We give away our personal power to past hurts

by not resolving them and our continual

conscious and subconscious focus on them.

We give away our personal power to the future

by worrying and trying to control

 unacceptable potential outcomes.

We give away our personal power

by refusing to face our shadows.

We give our power to our gurus

be it spiritual or political

 by shutting our minds and hearts off

acting as a droid.

We give away our personal power to the medical doctors

by not learning about our mind and body.

We give away our personal power to drugs (legal or not)
by not investigating the root causes of our dis-ease

We give away our personal power to ideas and laws based on

the politically correct labels of
 “security” “freedom” and “reform”

without investigating their contents.

We give away our personal power to time and space

 by limiting our ideas and dreams of what is possible.

We give away our personal power by

by not listening to the voice within.

We give away our personal power by

not speaking our truths.

Regaining our personal power requires

courage to face the fear of rejection and loneliness.

What personal power have you given away?

What personal power do you want to get back?

Copyright . 2010 by Shervin Hojat