Empowered Thinking for Deep Change

Words are not just words. Words and thoughts shape our world. Choosing our words and thoughts carefully and deliberately can be a form of activism.

With that in mind, let's begin our exploration with some synonyms (alternative words with a similar meaning) for the word "empowered."

Are you authorized?

Here are some synonyms for the word “empowered”

• authorized
• allowed
• sanctioned
• permitted

In our culture (the dominant culture on earth today), words like these mean you have permission. You're allowed to be somewhere and/or to do something.  

The implication is that without authorization or permission, you should not do anything or go anywhere.

From the first time we hear, “No. Don’t touch that. Be careful,” we’re surrounded by rules. And we’re surrounded by authorities (authorized people) who will use whatever sort of force¹ is necessary to make sure we obey the rules.

It's easy to reach the conclusion that we’re not authorized for anything. And maybe also that whatever has gone wrong or is about to go wrong is probably our fault.

Really?

No, I mean REALLY?

Yes, you ARE authorized

Put your hands on your heart, or one on your heart and one on your belly. Check in with the inner authority that resides there. The one in your your middle, not the one in your head.

See if you can access even the faintest flicker of awareness that you ARE authorized. That's empowerment. It's your birthright. 

Empowerment is like the sun -- it's always in there; it never goes away. But clouds do cover it over sometimes, and when it's been cloudy for a long time, its hard to remember what a sunny day looks like. 

Consider making a habit of checking in there more often. With practice, you'll be able to find that flicker of authority faster, and feel it stronger.

With practice, you'll come to recognize that the clouds are just clouds. Vapor. 

Vested with the power of creation

Here are some more synonyms for “empowered:”

• vested (vested can also mean “entrusted”)
• endowed (endowed can also mean “capable”)
• enabled
• inspired

Is it rare that you feel vested, entrusted, endowed, enabled, inspired?

Me too.

And I bet pretty much every adult you or I will meet today would agree that in at least some areas of their life, they rarely feel that way.

 But look at the child in the picture. She knows she's fully capable, and she hasn't been told that she's wrong often enough, yet, to believe it.

To be inspired is to be “aroused, animated, or imbued with the spirit to do something ... as if by supernatural or divine influence.²”

In our culture we tend to assume that “supernatural” exists mainly in fairy tales. And that if "divine influence” exists at all, it’s mostly about being judged for your sins and found to be unworthy.

But I'd like to point out that we're not limited to those assumptions. I'd like to invite you to consider that being imbued with divinity and vested with the power of creation is not something that’s reserved only for preachers and presidents. (Or pre-verbal toddlers.)

A culture of domination and hierarchy

Ours is a culture of domination and hierarchy, of people and groups who have authority and superiority over others who do not.

Dismantling the structures in our world that rely on  domination and hierarchy is first and foremost an internal process.

(Nonviolent Communication springs to mind as a useful tool here. Nonviolent Communication is the title of a book written by Marshal B Rosenberg and also the name of an approach to communication based on principles of nonviolence. It's an excellent resource for anyone wanting to become more aware of the ways our habits of thought and communication maintain domination and violence even when we don't mean to.)

Habits that limit our thinking

One trap in our domination culture is the habit of thinking within a box labeled "less than" ("I am less worthy than my elders/superiors") or a in a box labeled "more than" ("I am more worthy than someone whom I judge to be inferior to me").

While we live within such boxes, we're so busy either defending ourselves or defending our position that we're unable to develop the personal sovereignty we need to make our lives meaningful and satisfying, unable to truly serve something bigger than ourselves. (More on personal sovereignty below.)

Another trap in our culture is the habit of just consuming the content provided by the media of the day, rather than looking deeper  and asking questions (like, for example, "who will profit from me believing this story?")

And then there's the assumption that things are just the way they are, and there's not much you can do about it so you may as well just make the best of it.

Habits like those, combined, are perhaps the opposite of empowered thinking.  

Learning to recognize those habitual ways of thinking and replace them with more discerning, deliberate choices takes effort -- like anything else worthwhile.

(I wrote another post about 3 ways to make this discipline of empowered thinking a lot easier on yourself; read it here.)

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So that was some of what comes up for me around the word "empowered." Next, let’s talk about the word “thinking."

Deliberate and intentional 

Among others, my computer gives these synonyms for thinking:

• intelligent
• discerning

What went through your mind when you read that? Anything along the lines of "that's not me"?

To me, “intelligent and discerning” does not mean you went to a fancy college, you know lots of long words, you have letters after your name, or you wear a particular uniform (although any of those could also be true). It means that you trust your own mind, and your use of it hasn't been restricted or distorted by external influences.

To me, “intelligent and discerning” means you're not just endlessly replaying habitual, unexamined thoughts chosen for you by your family of origin, your peers, authorities, social media, and the dominant culture. Instead, you’re paying close attention to what is going on in your head.

You have a limited amount of mental energy and it’s up to you to choose what to use it on. 

Here’s a related quote I like: “You are a victim of your conditioning until you become a master of your thinking.³”

As well as choosing what thoughts to entertain, for me "discernment" is also partly about being able to choose when not to think, so that sometimes we can just be. In just being, we become much better conduits for the kinds of intelligence and power that we're cut off from when our minds are running like a rodent on a hamster wheel.

(I've written more about how to get our minds off the hamster wheel in a separate post, "3 Ways to Bring Ourselves Home.")

Thoughts-->feelings-->actions

As adults we have a potential capacity to self-determine.

I said "potential," because it's not a given. It's not handed to us when we turn 18, along with the right to drink alcohol and to vote. We have to actively develop it.

Doing so takes conscious effort, and the words and thoughts you use habitually are an important part of the process.

Your habitual words and thoughts are shaping your brain and your life. 

You think a thought. Your body responds with a feeling while simultaneously a certain network of connections lights up in your brain. All of that leads to an attitude and/or action (or inaction), which leads to a result, which is very likely to reinforce the initial thought. With repetition, the thought becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The whole process happens so rapidly that unless we're paying attention we miss most of it. And yes, learning how to pay attention isn't the easiest thing in the world if we weren't taught how when we were young -- which is most of us. 

But learning to pay attention to this stuff is so worth it. 

Self-Determination

Becoming aware of the thought-->feeling-->action process and choosing to make it deliberate rather than reactive is the work of self-determination. It literally makes the difference between living a self-directed life, or a life of reacting to outside forces⁴.

A self-directed life is one in which you choose to think and speak in empowered ways, knowing that by doing so you can make a meaningful contribution.

Conversely, a life of reacting to outside forces is one in which nothing you can do will make a difference.

Personal sovereignty

The practice of self-determination helps develop personal sovereignty – helps you become the sovereign power in your own life.

Children in non-domination cultures have no trouble taking up space, they know that they and their contributions are valued, and no-one is telling them to be careful, stand in line, and obey arbitrary rules. 

Their elders set examples for them, guide them, and provide them with a framework which helps them grow into effective human beings, but they do not use force to control them⁵. 

But individual sovereignty is a foreign concept in our own culture which for hundreds or thousands of years has been based on domination, suppression, extraction, and industry. (Schools, to pluck out just one example, were designed to produce compliant factory workers, not independent thinkers⁶.)