Feeling Disempowered, the fancy words I use for negative feelings. And I use disempowered because I don’t believe any of our feelings are negative. If they are God given they have a purpose, and that is to send us a message, just like the red lights on a dashboard of a care tell you the care needs maintenance.
But here’s what I am seeing a lot of people do with their disempowering feelings: burying or stuffing or suppressing them, choosing to ignore them, acting out or indulging in sitting on a pity pot, and in some cases I see people trying to top one another with “you think you got it bad?!?”.
I have, however, also seen many examples of people getting the message of the disempowering feeling and using it as a springboard to motivate and transform their reality through empowering actions.
I will give you an example that happens to me at times: the feeling of overwhelm. The metaphors I feel when that little messenger comes to visit is like I am being buried alive, or hit by a flash flood and carried away in the current. It takes me into a future where the whole house of cards comes crashing down and I fail. And then I see the Phantom Fear and look it in the eye. It says you are not going to get what you want, that you will lose what you have. And I laugh. I wiggle my toes. I am alive. I have been through impossible situations. God is with me right now. I ask the question what is the worst thing that could happen?
I will tell you this, I don’t enjoy that feeling so I do my best to not procrastinate, delegate and manage my time. I continue to improve with it.
Now the message overwhelm delivers – you are doing too much, too fast and need to slow down and reprioritize, get a few little things done and get forward momentum. Get out of the way of the dump truck full of dirt and grab a shovel. Avoid the wall of water and grab a kayak and enjoy riding some rapids. Dodge the avalanche and skate- you thought I was going to say ski. Me, I prefer skating.
I know that I am never given more than I can handle, but that I will have to use everything I have and more than I think I have to do it. I know that I will stretch and not break. I know that I can use the rubber band to slingshot instead. Or go SKATING and do the amazing one leg backward skating selfie!
