Day 1533: Empowerment

What does empowerment mean to you?

To me, empowerment means positively realizing and using personal power.

To the dictionary, empowerment means this:

em·pow·er·ment
əmˈpouərmənt/
noun
authority or power given to someone to do something.
“individuals are given empowerment to create their own dwellings”
the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights.
“political steps for the empowerment of women”

Empowerment can be a powerful matter of survival, especially when balances of power are powerfully misaligned.

Do you see empowerment in the pictures I was empowered to take yesterday?

Here are “Top 10 Girl Power Songs” from watchmojo.com on YouTube:

 

I now empower myself to express gratitude to all who helped me create this Empowerment post and to you — of course! — for being here, now.

 

 

Day 1018: More positions

Four day ago, I wrote a post called “Positions” in which I took a negative position about being positioned next to medical machines at night. As I positioned in that post, my negative position about medical machines is positioned by (1) past experiences  when I was a child positioned next to cardiac monitors in the hospital and (2) recent experiences positioned next to CPAP and BiPAP machines for sleep apnea.

If you position your cursor to read that previous “Positions” post, you’ll discover the position that my being positioned in a side position is a good-enough treatment for my positional sleep apnea. WordPress reader Maureen was kind and helpful enough to position a comment after that post,  suggesting that I position a side-positioning  pillow next to me.

Because I respect my readers’ positions, I ordered and received one of those pillows yesterday. I’m glad I’m in a position, through this blog, to thank Maureen for her help in positioning me for a better night’s sleep.

Thanks, Maureen!

Yesterday, Chris  — who has been positioned before in posts including this one and this one (and who is usually positioned in the Bay Area of California ) — got into this position very close to where I hold a position as a group therapist:

Now, you might position an assumption that I asked Chris to take that position, in order to position today’s post. Actually, Chris assumed that side-plank position (also known as the yoga Vasisthasana position) on his own.  He took that position spontaneously as I positioned him in front of some chrysanthemums to take that photo.   Chris takes the position that mums position themselves everywhere in New England during the fall, so we both wanted to position Chris with mums in the picture.

While I was in the position of teacher and Chris was in the position of student when we first met at Boston University in the 1980s, I am now in a position to learn from Chris. Yesterday, he taught me  that “asana” means “position” (or “how you sit”) in yoga.

Also, both Chris and I positioned a pun as a possible caption to that photo of him, positioned above. What caption might you position there?  I’ll position our pun, later, in a comment positioned below this post.

After I saw Chris, I positioned myself, several times, to take more photos. During the afternoon, the Pat Metheny tune “Afternoon” (which has already been positioned in this previous post) positioned itself in my earphones.

 

After I took that last photo (which shows a position I share with William James), I positioned myself in a room with my EMDR therapist, George, to discuss repositioning my present reactions to old and difficult experiences (especially those I had when positioned in the hospital as a little girl). EMDR  (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapy uses  lights to position your eyes, with a machine like this:

While we didn’t use that eye-positioning machine in yesterday’s EMDR session,  here’s an important position George and I discussed:

Sometimes it’s difficult for people  (especially women)  to be in a position to connect with their personal power. I am positioning myself — through therapy, this blog, and the work that I do — to discover, own, develop, and position what power I have.

What position might you take about any position taken in this post?  I hope you know where you can position a comment.

I can’t position enough thanks here for Maureen, Chris, George, Pat Metheny, and all the other people — including you! — who position themselves along my personal journey of discovery and growth.

Day 194: Personal Power

Dear Reader,

I would like to share some Random Thoughts on personal power, on a Saturday morning (after an exhausting week at work and during a morning where I have just re-read two of my blog posts from earlier this year — Post One and Post Two).

(Why did I re-read those particular blog posts? Because I noticed that somebody in Finland had just read the first one and there was a link — or ping-back — in the first one to the second one.) (Talk about random ….)

Without further ado … (Jerry Seinfeld — or perhaps Garry Shandling — once said, “What is ‘ado’, anyway, and why should there be no further of it?”):

Random Thoughts About Personal Power

(“Random,” in this context, means, “I have no friggin’ clue how I am going to organize or choose among all the thoughts I am having about this, right now.”)

1. There are times, in our lives, when our personal power is greatly restricted or non-existent, to our detriment and pain.

Obviously, this is true if we are subjugated to unjust laws that restrict freedom and cause suffering.

This is also true if our role or position intrinsically has less power. (Being a child is just one example.)

2. Sometimes, it is difficult to figure out how much personal power we have in a situation. When we perceive that we are powerless, it is difficult to act. We might focus our energy and thoughts on survival, rather than on the possibility of change.

3. Often, we need the help of others to leverage and support our personal power.

And on a more personal note …

4. The Tiger (which has shown up in my blog posts here and — what amazed me this morning — in both the blog posts I referred to, above) might stand for anger…. or it might stand for Personal Power.

_________

Before I end this post for the day (so I can go out into the world and, perhaps, exercise some personal power, in some small way), I would like to tell you about a Worksheet I use in my groups.

I hand out worksheets, about topics that often come up in groups. These worksheets have a few questions on them. The participants write their thoughts down and then the group members share these thoughts and discuss them.

One of these worksheets is on the topic of Personal Power. The questions are something like this (I can’t access the exact language, because I am not at work today):

Worksheet on Personal Power

1. What does “personal power” mean to you?

2. What are some examples of times when you were able to exercise personal power? What are some times when you were not?

3. What gets in the way of you having personal power?

4. What helps you recognize and use your personal power?

_______________

(I am now letting go of judgment about how well I was able to remember those questions as well as judgment about the questions themselves.)

Okay, I now need to end this post, to obey the rules of time and space (and get to an appointment on time).

Thanks to all,
Ann