**This a longer post friends and I couldn’t do it in fewer words…**
It is a concept that we hear about lately, this staying in your personal power. Great in theory but how do you put it into practice.
It is so easy to give one’s power away. You may not realize it but anytime you allow someone else to affect your state of being, you are giving them your power. You are effectively saying to them, “I give you permission to have power over me.”
The other part of this is to put up and maintain your boundaries and to do so with love, from your heart, with Aloha.
There is a concept we teach in our NLP training called the 4 Themes of NLP. OOneof those themes is Cause and Effect. The theme states that to be truly in your power, or empowered, you must be at cause for EVERYTHING in your life. This doesn’t mean blame and fault, but rather a willingness to acknowledge and accept that you get to choose how you respond to the people and circumstances around you. The other thing we teach is the Presuppositions of NLP is that you are in charge of your mind and therefore your results. So if things are not going the way you want in your life, if people are not treating you as you would like to be treated, it is up to YOU to shift that.
The question to ask is what is going on inside of me that life is showing up this way? And if there is nothing, then ask yourself how you wish to respond. You can respond with charge, and negative emotions, pointing fingers and blaming or you can choose to take on a perspective that allows you to feel in your strength and come from a place of love.
People are doing the best they can with the resources they have available to them (another Presupposition of NLP) and people are not their behaviors.
With all of this in mind, you can choose love EVERY time. You really can.
I don’t claim to be perfect or that I practice this at all times. I have my human moments too and the more I practice what I teach, the easier it becomes to just be in this mindset and state of being.
When it comes to boundaries, you gotta determine what your boundaries are first and foremost. What is ok and what is not ok with you? Most people don’t know what their boundaries are until someone has run over them. Let me tell you that is not the time to tell someone what your boundaries are.
Especially if you are in a relationship, ANY relationship, whether it is with your boss, your family, your spouse, or your friends, the people in your life deserve to know your boundaries. It is literally telling them, here is how you win with me.
This was something I learned from my teacher/mentor and boss, Dr. Matt James. It was funny how I would get grumpy with the people in my life for doing certain things, when I was the one who hadn’t told them it was a “no-go” for me. So, how could they know?
Once you know and express your boundaries, then it is about maintaining them, and all of this with Aloha from your heart. There is no need to go in with anger or intensity because when you do, your requests are met with the same intensity and usually with resistance.
I will share an example from life recently where I chose to set a boundary with love and was so glad that I did.
For the last 2 years, I have been sharing custody of my dog with my ex-boyfriend. It was working out for both of us for a while because I travel a lot and he also loves my dog so it seemed like a win/win.
But every now and again I would notice that our interactions, our conversations, and even our interactions during pick up and drop off would leave me feeling shitty. Sometimes my ex would be coming from a work situation and bring a bunch residual negative energy from that with him. Other times, he would just have strong emotions about our arrangement and would express them to me with some intensity. Bottom line, I didn’t like it.
I let it go on for a while and then finally about three weeks ago decided enough was enough. Now, I made sure that I was in a nice calm, centered and balanced place before we talked, and I finally just expressed my boundary to him. I shared with him that our arrangement was no longer going to work for me and that moving forward he was welcome to visit with Jack but that we wouldn’t be sharing him anymore. When he asked me why, I told him. I simply stated that I am pretty protective of my energy and that our exchanges were not leaving me feeling great. I took responsibility for the fact that I chose to allow them to affect me and that I was now going to take action to make sure that they wouldn’t anymore.
It wasn’t an easy conversation but it had to be done. I am in charge of my mind, my life, and my energy so it is up to me to make sure I allow in what I want and lovingly keep out what doesn’t serve me.
So, how can you step into and be in your power dear one? Where can you take more responsibility and where can you set, express, and maintain your boundaries more with love?
Feel free to share and I look forward to connecting with you!
From my loving powerful heart to yours…
With Aloha,
PK
