They Don’t Give Away Their Power

‘When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness’.(Dale Carnegie)

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Empowering Other People To Have Power Over You

Giving other people the power to control how you think, feel, and behave makes it impossible to be mentally strong. Do any of these sounds familiar:

1. You feel deeply offended by any criticisms or negative feedback you receive, regardless of the source.
2. Other people have the ability to make you feel so angry that you say and do things you later regret.
3. You’ve changed your goals based on what other people have told you what you should be doing with your life.
4. Your day depends on how others behave.
5. When people try to guilt you into doing something, you reluctantly do it, even if you don’t want to.
6. You work hard so others see you in a positive light, as much of your self-worth depends on how others perceive you.
7. You complain about people and circumstances.
8. Complain about what ‘you have to do’ in life.
9. You go to great lengths to avoid uncomfortable emotions, such as embarrassment or sadness.
10. You have difficulty setting boundaries, but then feel resentful toward people who take up your time and energy.
11. You hold a grudge when someone offends you.

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Anytime you don’t set healthy emotional and physical boundaries for yourself, you risk giving away your power to other people. Perhaps you don’t dare say no when your neighbour asks for a favour. Or making you dread receiving a phone call from a friend who constantly complains, but you continue to pick up the phone. Anytime you say yes to something to don’t want to do, you give away your power. If you don’t make any attempts to get your needs met, you’ll give people permission to take things away from you.

Problems with giving away your power:

1. You depend on others to regulate your feelings: emotions depend on the circumstances of life.
2. Others define your self-worth: if you let others define your worth you will never feel worthy enough. You will only be as good as someone else’s opinion. Be as good as yours.
3. Leads to helplessness.
4. Become a victim. Be a passenger instead of the driver in your life.
5. Highly sensitive to criticism: other people’s words have more power than they deserve.
6. Lose sight of your goals: other people will be able to have influence over what you want thus not having full control in your life.
7. Ruins relationships: if you don’t speak up when people hurt your feeling and allow them to infringe on your life, you will grow resentful towards them.

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Without confidence in who you are, your entire self-worth may depend on how others feel about you. what if you offend people? What if they don’t like you anymore? If you chose to put up healthy boundaries, you may receive some backlash. But if you can have a strong enough sense of self-worth, you’ll learn that you can tolerate the repercussions.
Choosing to forgive someone who has hurt you, either emotionally, or physically, doesn’t mean that you have to excuse the other person’s behavior, but letting go of your anger frees you to focus your energy on a more worthwhile cause.
Each second you spend complaining about a boss or how bad your mother-in-law is, you give them more power over you. stop giving these people time and energy if you don’t want them to play a big role in your life.

Reframe Your Language

‘My boyfriend left me because I’m not good enough’. Are you really not good enough or is this just one person’s opinion. Just because one person thinks something doesn’t mean that it is true. Don’t let them have power over who you are.
‘My mum makes me feel bad about myself because she is always so critical of me’. As an adult, are you obligated to listen to your mother make critical statements about you over and over? Just because she makes comments you don’t like, does it really have to lower your self-esteem?

Keep Your Cool

Every time you lose you cool, you give that person your power. Here are some strategies you help keep calm when you are tempted to react negatively:

1. Take deep breaths: helps with relaxing, decreasing physiological response and thus emotional response.
2. Excuse yourself from the situation: being more emotional will make you less rational and emotions may take over.
3. Take your mind off it for a bit, exercise. And then approach the situation rationally instead of from an emotional frame.

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Evaluate Feedback Critically

Angry people may choose to offer harsh criticism quit regularly just because it relieves their stress. Or individuals with low self-esteem may feel better about themselves only when they put other people down. Some people really do just talk out of their arse as well.

Ask yourself:

1. What evidence is there that this is true?
2. What evidence is that that this is not true?
3. Why might this person be giving my this feedback? People may see you work on Monday mornings when you're not most productive for example. Not an accurate sample.
4. Do I want to change my behaviour? Remember you are in control of the change you want to make, not someone else.

Simply reminding yourself that you have a choice in everything you do, think and feel can be very freeing. If you’ve spent most of your life feeling like a victim of your circumstances, it takes hard work the recognise that you have the power to create the kind of life you want to live.

When no one has power over you, you will feel a sense of empowerment and thus mentally strong:

1. Make choices that are best for you.
2. Make yourself accountable for your progress.
3. Wont be affected by peer pressure and/or guilt trips.
4. More autonomy in what you do in your life, reducing helplessness and depression.

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