On the Empowerment Process

The 7 Thoughts Had While Making an Empowered Decision

PREFACE

I believe that there is a huge misconception about what it means to be empowered. 

Based on what we see on Instagram and the memes people reshare (prayer-hand emoji included), being empowered means “living the life you want” and “doing the things you want to do” but the truth is that it doesn’t just happen. It’s not like one day you wake up and you think to yourself “you know, today is the day that I’m going to forget everything that I have ever been taught and I’m going to start telling people to fuck off”. I mean if you did that and it worked for you, holler atcha boi and lets talk, but for the majority of us who have lived in a group-based society that’s not how it works. It takes so much effort, so much unlearning, and so much grit that you’re gonna want to just give up and go back to the life that you’ve always had; or never even try.

Here’s the thing: people are gonna walk around and say “why do you care what other people think? Just do what you want to do” - well because we do. We’re human and we’ve been taught to care our entire lives because in order to belong and be accepted we have to care - it’s a means for survival. This is why the empowerment process is so scary and so lonely; because the moment you decide to leave the group and/or go against the beliefs of the group you can no longer belong. [BTW the majority of the people that walk around saying “why do you care” are emotionally dead. Which is why it’s easy for them to say they don’t care. That’s not empowered, that’s emotionally unavailable. It’s actually the opposite of being empowered.]

Not a lot of people talk about the “dark days” of the empowerment process, you know the ones where you sit outside of your house in your car and sob for what seems like forever? The ones where you feel so isolated and alone that you question every decision that you’ve ever made up until this point? And the ones where you’re so tired that you can barely get yourself out of bed. Ya, those ones. They’re real.

In the beginning of your growth, being empowered will mean making the hard decisions. In each moment. The ones where you’re gonna have to leave everything you know behind: friends, careers, beliefs, and habits. It’s the only way to begin again. To feel so absolutely lost that you have no other choice but to be found. To rise from the ashes.

This is why most people stay disempowered - because it’s fucking hard and well… you have to lose a lot. But I promise you that being empowered feels better than anything imaginable. Better than drunk nachos, or the feeling of a rainy Sunday, and even better than that feeling when you wake up from a midday nap and you’re in the sun and feel so toasty and then you stretch and get stretchy-trembles. YA… THAT GOOD.

From my experience there are a lot of thoughts and feelings that occur while on this journey and I think they’re best described in the following stages. 

THE EMPOWERMENT PROCESS

1. Wait, what?

The “wake up/shake up” moment usually happens when something so drastic occurs that it shakes you to your core and you have no other option but to wake up and be like, “this ain’t it”. And unfortunately it’s usually something that hurts you… cheating, lying, betrayal, disregard. Note: this can be from self and/or others. 

2. Fuck this.

The stage of the process where you’re over the situation and you finally decide to do something about it. You have the conversation, you make the decision, whatever it is you’re ready for something to change. A lot of times this phase is associated with anger. This is also a great place to take a moment and reflect on maybe whether or not there is a need for a new boundary or a retake on expectations. Note: this is actually the place where you begin to step into your power. A lot of people have the “wait, what?” feelings, but most don’t act on it. Keep fucking going. You can do this. 

3. Can’t believe this is happening.

The phase of letting go. If the boundaries didn’t work, then you have to let go. You don’t necessarily have to be ok with losing the relationship but you have to be willing to grieve it, or it will haunt you later on. Notice how the phase is “can’t believe this is happening” not “can’t believe this is happening TO ME” - this happening “to me” assumes the victim role. You’re not a victim and the sooner you can get out of that mindset, the quicker you’ll take your power back #empowered. “I am choosing to do ___ because feeling like ___ doesn’t serve me or make me feel ___.”

4. Everything is gonna be ok.

This place is super exciting. You feel peace about the decisions you’ve made and are excited about the future and where you’re headed. You’ll have that sense of euphoria here, it may even feel somewhat like a high. Get really grounded in why you made the decision you did and stay the course.

5. What the fuck did I do?

Maybe you won’t feel this but this is the phase where you start to panic and worry that you may have made the wrong decision. If the decision will make you happy, you didn’t, keep going. This is where you’ll usually start to have some anxiety - close your eyes, feel your body and see what comes up. Most likely it’s uncertainty of the unknown. Most people fear what they don’t know, therefore if you face the unknown you’ll face fear. It’s like math, duh. If A=B and B=C, then by transitive relationship A=C. Face your fears. It’ll make you strong AF. You will never regret it. 

6. This is fine.

Faith over fear. Because you’ve felt your body the anxiety will lessen and you’ll realize that you’re gonna be ok. “Everything is going to work out because I trust myself.”

7. Ah Ha.

The feeling of “this was all worth it”. You’ll carry yourself with pride because you did this for yourself. It will be hard but remember this: “this is hard, but I can do this”.

The most important part of each step in the process is that you allow yourself to feel your emotions. There are no “bad” emotions. There are physical sensations that you feel in your body when something happens, and because of our fucked up social upbringing we’ve been taught that by feeling sad or mad, in exchange WE ARE BAD. #FAKENEWS. 

SIDE NOTE: If you’re telling other people ESPECIALLY CHILDREN “don’t get mad” or “don’t be sad” you’re causing them trauma, so stop.

Empowerment means making the decision that is best for you, no matter how hard it may be. And remember that sometimes everything has to burn in order to clear space for something new.

I hope that you start doing things in your life that make you feel empowered. 

DISCLAIMER

I acknowledge that there is a lot more that goes into each piece of this process and that this is often the experience I have when making an empowered decision. We are different people with different life experiences. I hope you share yours. It’s beautiful and it’s healing.

from love,