Passage of Empowerment

It’s not about finding the right path but flowing towards the direction of most comfort. By going with the flow, things will naturally fall into place and circumstances will always be aligned to you and in turn produce the most satisfying outcomes. It is not about holding your breath and remaining as still as possible so that things come to you. You need to be the one inviting them in! But the invitation needs to be subtle and without any hesitation – all from within and with total conviction. Makes sense doesn’t it? So no, you really cannot sit and physically plan things for unfortunately, your head always interferes with the ‘what if’s’ and the doors start to close on you. That is why just by sitting back and knowing deep down that this is what you truly want and accepting that it’s meant for you, will it definitely find its own way towards you. Don’t try - just believe. And yes this is both the most difficult and the easiest thing to do.

The limitation is always the fear involved in not making the right decision and having negative repercussions. This is not necessary; it is always a matter of believing and therefore drawing the next incident towards you. Every, yes every, incident that comes its way to you, is through your invitation alone – that’s the reason for accepting all the blame or thanks that comes with each new circumstance or event. It is all done by us, to us. That is as big as it feels. This is the reason why we all need to take total responsibility for all that comes our way. Finding the power within comes from believing in it, in the first place.

The next big step in this puzzle of life, is knowing what it is we truly want. Now this is truly a big question, for we rarely do anything for ourselves, mostly it is to satisfy others or the expectation of others.

I know your next question now is ‘So how do I work out what I want, if I don’t even know myself’? The eternal question! Do you have to know yourself completely? No. It really is fine to just look at things that give us pleasure – start from there. But again the question remains “...am I liking this because I truly like it or have I been conditioned to believe that I ‘should’? Well that does make things tricky but you can still see through to the truth by eliminating all external influences from this picture.

Place yourself in a foreign environment and watch yourself doing this same thing. Do you still like it? Is it worthwhile? Do you still gain pleasure in doing it? The next question to ask yourself is, what aspect actually makes you feel good? …. what is it that gives you that spark of delight? The uncovering of these personal, deep and usually simple inner Truths, give a heightened pleasure, a pleasure that is truly your own - The fundamentals to higher living!

Try as many investigations as you possibly can and then you will slowly come away thinking about things from a totally different perspective. Things all around you will slowly begin to shift. It’s no longer about ideas, it’s totally about feeling. The whole basis of looking at things starts to shift. The basis of understanding, through questioning, now changes its frame of reference so that all the standards of the past no longer hold the same validity - Re-testing the tests, this time from 'your' point of view not ‘their’ point of view - The individual versus the masses. Take one step back without any expectations; let things slowly suggest themselves to you, through you. It’s not about clarity here; we are not looking for anything final, just a course to sail so that we can free ourselves enough to find our true selves. Nothing needs to be final; it’s just a slow investigation that lets us truly feel ourselves, commanding that we take control back for ourselves and no longer looking to fulfill others’ conquests! We are just searching for the means to slowly look deeper into ourselves and take back control of our own lives. If we are to be totally responsible for our own path, surely we should look to making it as fulfilling as possible.

The story is one that totally focuses on our individual needs, ensuring that we get closer and closer to that inner calm that will enable us to create the most nurturing environment for us to grow within. Conducive to conceiving our true personality that lays dormant due to the controls that we allow to surround and limit us. It all sounds too hard and complicated. It’s as if we need to be fighting against all the ‘norms’ that have been accepted to be true for all. Well it isn’t quite the uphill battle that it appears to be. Now, the next thing to keep in mind, is that time is totally irrelevant – it plays absolutely no role in this approval. Time is an external control that only limits and frustrates, so why should we allow it to interfere with our journey.

Time is the only factor that limits our freedom to see things as they truly are. We become so obsessed with looking to the future that the present becomes totally overlooked. It is about learning to just ‘be’ and the only way to ‘be’ is to live in the moment – give it your full attention. It is about being able to appreciate what we have and giving it importance. This allows us to put the focus back on to our achievements, our joy and our fulfillment. By taking the time to focus on our fulfillment we begin to understand what our true joys are so that we can honour ourselves by giving these, greater priority. Time’s purpose is to give us the opportunity to see what we feel is important in our lives, not to focus on climbing that social ladder.

Trust only the inner spirit. It is not a question of dishonouring or ignoring the mind, it’s about seeing that there is a deeper level within us that can give us such a richer interpretation of all that surrounds us. It can ensure that all that we see and do, is linked back to our true selves and again all instigated for the ‘known’ reason and not the anticipated and learned reasons we have been conditioned to honour. It is an easier task to focus on this approach for it is the natural approach but many years of reconditioning the spirit has made us totally numb to it. Each and every one of us knows that there is a voice inside that does whisper our true feelings and gives us the clarity when we choose to be open enough to believe in our own inner convictions. And even when we can hear them, most times, we choose to ignore them for fear that we will be rejected by the norms that we already have given priority. If only we could take a moment to review the times our instinct has whispered the right message which we actively ignored. And again to ask the question “Has this same instinct ever been wrong for us?” We all know the answer here but even after so many signs we still choose to let fear prevail and let our conditioning be our guide. There is a time when we do gain enough strength to rebel and the rewards are plentiful but seemingly not enough to convince us. So again we take what seems to be the easy way out and follow the norm, opting not to prioritise our own needs and knowledge. So we continue life in the same stifling way, still continuing to contradict the knowledge that we do know the way out, we choose to continue wearing our blinkers. We have been taught that paying attention to our own needs, is selfish and until we can see that this is totally untrue, we will continue to walk this blinded path.

Living our own lives is not only rewarding but necessary, if we are to achieve our dreams. And rest assured that those that focus on their dreams are focusing on their own true needs by putting themselves first. This is not selfishness but taking pride and respect for ourselves and believing in our own abilities. Selfishness only comes about when we actively walk into others’ dreams and consciously block them. And this comes from fear and envy born out of the frustration of the conditioned inhibitions necessary for conformity. We have literally created a society that breeds insecurity, a constant attempt of trying to fit into an unreal model of supposed perfection rather than looking to ourselves for the intuitive answers to those everyday questions that only we, know are true. It is not a case of hoping we have understood what we should do, but acting on instinct - the impulse of true knowing without letting that insecure ego-based mind of ours, interfere. Scary isn’t it? This way we take total responsibility for our lives, choosing not to follow any socially accepted pattern nor using it as a scapegoat or crutch. The amazing thing is, that instinctive decisions are rarely wrong, yet we still fear taking them.

Such a shift in perspective would change the way we see everything. We could honour each individual by allowing them to believe that they have all the solutions to satisfy all their own needs. Boy, can you see how many of today’s problems could be overcome if we could truly live this way. This is our major problem, we have been taught to believe that we do not have the answers and need to look to others for them. We have been taught to hand over our own power for someone else to control, for they know better. Do they know better? How can anyone know better for someone else when they do not even know, nor satisfy their own needs? It certainly is an exceptionally deep and pivotal flaw in this reality that we have chosen to create for ourselves.

We need to stop looking to a ‘higher authority’ for answers and start looking for the answers within ourselves. We need to nurture confidence in our own integrity. If we could start to rebuild ourselves in this way, surely we will see the seeds towards our self empowerment sprout and grow, maybe slowly but definitely steadily. We can then start standing upright, assured that we are confident in our foothold, for there would be no one else we would need to ask acceptance from if we were sure of ourselves. The shift of trust back to the self makes us stand strong and proud, there is no weakness here for we are solely relying on our own honesty. There is no reason to question this. We no longer have to rely on communication or interpretation for we truly know when we speak our Truth. It is for this reason that we no longer need to look to a higher authority for they could never convey any message with the same clarity or conviction as our own intuition and knowing.

It’s not a case of strictly sticking to the rules in the hope that all will be right and never be wrong, it’s a matter of testing the water for ourselves first and to do this we need to keep an open mind. An open mind entails limiting one’s own judgmental behaviour but also ensuring that others’ judgmental behaviour doesn’t have to affect us either. The focus here is to remain aware and probe into each situation so that we can assess and therefore make a personal decision on any matter. How much of our lives currently is on auto pilot? And how aware are we of this? This does not necessarily mean that any of our current decisions or attitudes are wrong. The question always remains are they congruous with our own inner self. Are we happy to follow consensus? We need to understand each step we take and feel comfortable with it – that way we know we are living our lives with our own self as the focus.

Now I can hear the cries, so are we not meant to also look after our neighbour or the ones closest to us? The honesty of our approach will ensure this automatically happens, we will help others most by being our True selves and honouring our essence. That will be a natural outcome. There is no intent to hurt and more importantly there is no need to fear – especially if everyone is actively creating their own lives rather than creating re-actively. Re-action is always about seeing everything from someone else’s perspective and adjusting one’s own life according to the probabilities that may be initiated by others. This is the life of no control, only fear and apprehension, no relaxation with no chance of finding one’s own centre and therefore direction and purpose.

Live life according to God – yes the God within you. Find the power that breeds the confidence to keep moving forward and see the many opportunities that are often overlooked. When we can honour the needs of our own selves we can then also honour those of others and it is in this way that balance is assured. For if we put others first and deny our own needs, the cycle shifts and turns in the opposite direction pulling back the frustration, anger and envy. Again it’s not about being selfish it is about honouring self. It’s not about suppressing our own needs it’s about honouring them. How often do we fall ill when we do what we enjoy? And isn’t the state of being unwell just an external manifestation of stress, anxiety and frustration – all mechanisms of our inner spirit rejecting the prevailing conditions. The inner self is saying – No – this is not my path! - Again the act of re-acting not acting (pro-actively).

So even in the cases where we suppress our will and don’t follow our true path our unconscious pops up and signals its sign for us to review our situation. We have a built-in system that continues to steer us on the path of inner contentment in spite of all the blocks that we put along our own path.

Claiming our own individuality and empowerment within a world of norms, is an attitude not encouraged, instead fear of being ostracized is instilled in us. We start our lives with an instinctive drive to discover and create; we slowly see this attitude curtailed to one of conformity and assimilation. The enticement of surprise and adventure gets converted to maintaining the status quo in fear of the unknown. The lesson here is to rediscover and reclaim our inner selves, to find that strength that lays dormant and re-activate our passion for life and living. This can only be done for ourselves, by ourselves.

..... Anne Antoniou