On a daily basis the words we speak, the decisions we make and the actions we take disempower at every level, and most of the time it is unconscious through the lens of projection.
Every time we project our beliefs and our way of thinking onto others, the more we state we are the authority and know what is best for them. We are in principle saying they do not know what is right for them, and in doing so we take away their sovereignty. We quite simply disempower them and in doing so we disempower ourselves, through our non-acceptance of our own limited belief systems.
In truth, we do not know what is right for anybody else, our role as an independent guardian and caretaker of those around us is to simply hold space for them to explore who they are, to learn what is right and wrong for them. Now, this brings up all sorts of questions, and in particular, a question of capacity.
Our children for example, as they grow do not have the mental and emotional tools to know what is necessarily right or wrong for them, and therefore it has been our ‘conditioned’ role to ‘educate’ them, according to a set of societal norms and disciplinary action.
Yet as we have experienced from our own upbringing, we are simply conditioning them into a false sense of self, rather than giving them the space to explore their own unique identity.
Are our words, decisions and actions empowering them to shape and develop their own sense of identity or disempowering them to make them conform to ours and others, expectations, beliefs and behaviours?
By exploring capacity, we then hit the system! That great big system of government, educational, and judiciary laws, rules and regulations who enforce power and control to keep some sort of order in the masses to keep them obeying, conforming and following.
Projection under the umbrella of ‘protection.
Protection under the umbrella of fear.
Yet the system, which disempowers at every turn, conditions us further to retreat into the perceived safety, security and stability of the system, so as to prevent persecution and prosecution.
Keep your head down, go to work, eat, sleep repeat. Do not think for yourselves, do not question authority, do not pass go.
Our exposure to the system comes from a very early age when we enter into education and are forced by law to remain there until we are deemed an acceptable age to make our own decisions, to inevitably become a number through the tax system and pay our way.
Yet this very system in a regional, national and global context contradicts this notion, through child slave labour and exploitation, neglect and abuse.
The system which is supposed to be there to serve and protect fails our young by disempowering them at every turn, stripping away their true sense of identity, dousing their creativity and slowly extinguishing the magic of their spirit.
Through this process of disempowerment, we become institutionalised – at school, college or at work – we learn how to conform to maintain the illusion of safety, security and stability and ‘doing the right thing’ and what is expected of us.
Yet, we now know, in today’s world, nothing is safe, secure or stable. That the responsibility for these three fundamental aspects of being human, lies with us, as individuals as part of the collective.
We try to change the system on the outside without trying to change the system from the inside first, and this leads to more frustration, more conflict, more projected anger and further disempowers us to make real and effective change.
Empowerment must be in everything we do, every word we speak, every decision we make and every action we take, however, empowerment comes with responsibility and responsibility comes with integrity, commitment, honesty and trust.
Empowerment comes with a deep understanding of the bigger picture and the deeper roots. and the continuous practice of paying attention and practising discernment.
Empowerment comes from looking inside first, before reacting to the triggers of our everyday life, and our external world.
Empowerment comes from taking full responsibility for every aspect of what it means to be human – mental, emotional, spiritual and physical.
The more we empower ourselves with this inner wisdom and actualisation, the more we empower each other to gently eradicate the art of disempowerment.
With Love,
Nicola Lucie x
