How to stop giving our power away

You, my friend, are stronger than you believe - and you have greater powers than you know. So why do we feel the exact opposite of this statement sometimes? Well, hopefully today's episode will be the antidote to feeling powerless.

It centers around some basic tenants: 

• stop giving your power away
• make friends with your weaknesses
• expect obstacles & use them to your advantage
• and several other tidbits that will hopefully be the jet fuel to your engine

We get to decide who and what we want to be. No one else. Let's never forget that.❤️

Books referenced in this episode:

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Ryze Superfood Mushroom Coffee:

https://www.ryzesuperfoods.comand use Code: JACLYN at checkout for 15% off

CONNECT:

+ Website: jaclynsteele.com

+ Instagram: @jaclynsteele

+ Youtube: officialjaclynsteele

+ Facebook: jaclynsteeleinternational

+ Clubhouse: @jaclynsteele

+ Sign up for THE SCOOP & get the skinny on the latest wellness, beauty, & self development trends, as well as exclusive email-only content.

Light, Love, & Peace,

Jaclyn Steele

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi, I am Jaclyn Steele and a welcome to self discovery. Howard Thurman so beautifully wrote, don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive, coming alive. That, my friends, is what self discovery is all that matter. Here is my biggest takeaway after 60 years on the planet, there is great value in being fearless. For too much of my life, I was too afraid, too frightened by it all. That fear is one of my biggest regrets. Diane Keaton. Hello, hello, hello, welcome back. Happy Wednesday to you. Oh, I'm so grateful you're here. Today, I want to talk to you about taking your power back. So you can live a life that you really want to live. This is not power for powers sake, or power with the intention of domination. Not at all. The kind of power that I'm referring to is rooted in self worth, power that allows you to face your fears and move past them. I'm going to share a few principles that have helped me step into my own power, and hopefully, will empower you to do the same. The first principle, and I'm just I'm naming these so that we have tenants in this episode that we can review and return tale. But Principle number one is stop giving your power away. We quite often place our tender, beautiful hearts, our minds, and so many of the other things that comprise who we are into the hands of others. And we have to stop doing this, we have to stop looking for self worth, or power or influence outside of ourselves, we have to stop looking at others, hoping to see who we are in their eyes. This is a big concept, right? Because so much of our culture in Western society is dependent on us receiving feedback from outside influence. And if you didn't listen to the first episode of season two of self discovery, I encourage you to go back and listen to that it's about detoxing from outside influence. Anyway, I'm reading the daily stoic by Ryan Holiday. And it is a beautiful book with all of these short, daily wisdom bombs. That is how I would describe them. And this book is based on the tenants of stoic philosophy. And the basic principle inside stoic philosophy is that we should only focus on what we can actually control. And what is it that we can actually control our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, the energy we emanate. And anything beyond that is beyond our control. And spending energy on any areas beyond our control is a waste of time. So in regard to giving your power away, I want to give you a couple of examples of things that I have either observed or experienced myself, of people giving their power away, and how to take the power back. Because I love examples. I love the micro, I feel like I can talk about these overarching principles all day long. But if we can't adopt them into our everyday lives, and the moments in which they matter, which is on the micro level, then they don't really matter. Okay, so here's example number one. Someone I know is extremely upset by the state of our country after the chaos of these elections, and that's understandable. I am too, but she's obsessing over the news at the expense of her daily life. She's waking up every morning and immediately going to YouTube immediately answering text messages. And what I want to say about this, is this a good use of her time and energy when she has so many big dreams and ambitions. Can she control what's happening in this country? Absolutely not. And how much better would her energy be used, if she calmly got her head together in the morning, and did what she needed to do to nourish herself. So then she could go out and help others. It's best to recognize what we can control and go from there. That's taking back the power. Another example, someone I know and love, wants to be liked so badly. She accommodates, bends over backwards and tries her hardest to make everyone feel loved and seen and comfortable. Still, there are people who don't like her. That mistake her actions for being fake, or not genuine. And the question that I have for her is this is all this accommodating for the sake of being liked. The best use of her energy is being liked by other people something she can control? Or would it be better to be kind and loving and genuine, but let the chips fall as they're going to fall. That approach of letting the chips fall where they're going to fall. But being your truest self, anyway, is taking the power back. Okay, one more example to drill this in. I have a beloved pet. And I when I say Beloved, I mean, this dog is just, he's one of my best friends. And I used to freak out over his every cough, bump, cut, vomit session, etc. And I still do at times, I'm really working on this. But any kind of accident that would happen, I would immediately rush him to the vet. And in my mind, I would be having a tailspin going over how devastated I would be if I ever lost him. I love this dog, and I love all my dogs. But giving my animals this kind of power over me to completely undo me is unhealthy because it keeps me in a constant state of fear and powerlessness. Why? Because I can't control my dog's health. I can do what I can to nourish his beautiful little body. But beyond that, I don't have any say, wouldn't it be better for me to rejoice in the fact that he is still here with me and be so so so grateful for that and know that nothing can ever erase the amazing years we have had together for however long that may be. That kind of attitude is taking the power back. This episode is supported by rise superfood mushroom coffee, loaded with adaptogenic mushrooms rise coffee blend delivers calmer energy, sharper focus and immune support for a balanced body and clear mind. The taste is smooth, creamy and earthy. All with less than half the caffeine of normal coffee. So you don't get the jitters or that inevitable post caffeine high crash. It has cortisol apps for stamina and increased oxygenation Lion's Mane for focus, concentration and neuron growth Reishi for stress and restful sleep, Turkey tail for gut health, chronic fatigue and cancer fighting properties should talk to you for immunity and bone density, King trumpet for inflammation, antioxidants and heart attack and stroke fighting properties. Yes, yes, yes, I have been drinking this coffee personally. Now for months. I mix it into my regular coffee for a superfood boost. And then I add my collagen powder and a little creamer or I drink it on its own for a little bit of extra energy when I need it. This is what I call a conscious company. And one that genuinely cares about its customers head on over to rise superfoods.com that spelled RYZES up ERFD D s.com. To grab a bag now and enter code Jacqueline JC Li n at checkout for 15% off. Now back to the episode. Principle number two. I love this one because it's a really important part of being in your own power. And it's this make friends with your weaknesses. We have to make friends with our weaknesses so we can understand how to act in our power more often. Let me ask you this. When do you feel powerless? Is it with a certain person or a group of people in a role that you have at work? Somewhere on social media etc, we have to know where we feel weak or powerless in order to make better decisions in those situations. So this is an exercise that I'm trying to do that I'm going to share with you. And it's this, I feel blank, whatever that emotion may be when blank occurs. So next time this happens, I am going to blank and insert a more powerful approach to that situation. So for example, and this is a real life example, I feel weak. When I tell someone what I do for a living, and they look at me like I'm speaking another language. So next time this happens, I'm going to focus on the feeling of joy my work gives me and let their reactions go. Not everyone needs to understand what I do. That's taking the power back. Another example, I feel insecure when I see a beautiful woman with a gorgeous body and a bikini on Instagram. So next time this happens, I'm going to choose to appreciate her beautiful body. And also appreciate my own. And remember what this amazing body has done. For me, that's taking the power back. Before I give this next example, I want to give you a little bit of background, my husband does real estate investing, I also help him with real estate investing, and I do some interior design. And I start to feel frantic when my husband and I are looking at houses, and the houses we want are beyond our current price range. So the next time this happens, I'm going to focus on the beautiful tiny home that I have now, and how awesome it is that I'm making progress on my goals and dreams, and that I already have money in the bank that's taking the power back. It's stopping the tailspin from whatever is making us feel powerless, or weak or insecure. And focusing on what we can do in the present moment, what we have in the present moment. Alright, Principle number three. This is also a really, really important part of engaging with your own personal power. Expect obstacles and use them as teachers. There are periods of my life that I've experienced, where everything just feels effing unhinged. I know you can relate to this, and I get it, I feel your pain. And these times are tough. However, in retrospect, when I get really honest with myself, every obstacle I've ever faced, has taught me an in valuable lesson that I needed later on down the road. So what if you didn't make the team? So what if your post didn't get any engagement, maybe your business pitch was a flop, maybe that deal you were counting on didn't go through, maybe you were diagnosed with hashimotos, like I was, let's turn all of these scenarios around my friends, because we have the power to do that. Maybe you didn't make the team because you needed to learn the invaluable lesson of working 10% harder than everyone else. Maybe your post didn't get any engagement because it didn't bring value to your audience. And now you are one step closer to knowing what not to do on the way to knowing what to do. Maybe your business pitch was a flop. But that was a blessing in disguise. Because now you've refined that pitch into a freaking silver bullet. So your deal didn't go through. And now your cash flow has stopped. My friend, I relate to this. But what I realized in those situations when my deal didn't go through, and my cash flow stopped that I had the opportunity to learn money management, who big freaking lesson and not only that learning money management, which is a huge, vital, important part of life. But how cool is it to learn money management before you experience more success. So you don't have to continue learning this lesson over and over and over right? We can be grateful for the amazing blessings that we have right now. And there is nothing like the stop of cash flow to bring that into an acute reality right. So be grateful for those amazing blessings that you are experiencing on a daily basis whether or not you have the cash flow that you want, and not having the cash flow that you want is also an opportunity to put your nose to the grindstone to create your own financial freedom that isn't dependent on things outside of your control. We're going to turn around this next one, which is me being diagnosed with hashimotos. Maybe you're having a health scare of some sort, some sort. For me, being diagnosed with hashimotos was my opportunity to say, hey, I need to take better care of myself. And since my hashimotos diagnosis, I've learned so much about Mind Body connection. hashimotos is rooted in unexpressed emotion. So I'm learning to express my emotion so that this hashimotos doesn't turn into something else that's more serious within my body. If you are experiencing health scare, I want to be so tender with you right now. Because I know how scary that can be. I would highly encourage you to read the book, you can heal your life by Louise Hay. And it's so powerful because it correlates physical ailments with emotional ailments, and then gives you mantras on how to heal those. And I know that that may sound woowoo. But for me, it is made a giant difference. I think so often, our bodies are screaming at us to pay attention. So maybe your health scare doesn't have to be so scary. Maybe it's a total blessing in disguise, because it's going to help you dive deeper, and heal yourself on a whole new level. Before anything gets worse. Again, I want to be tender around that because I know it can be scary. And if you need extra support reached out to me. And if I don't know how to support you directly, I will help you find somebody that can support you just DM me on Instagram. For more on embracing obstacles and using them as teachers. I highly highly, highly recommend the obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday. I mentioned that earlier in this episode. And I will mention it again. I'll also put it in the show notes because it is so freaking fantastic. last principle about being in your own power. Be on offense. seize your day, my friends, don't let your day sees you. a morning routine, in my opinion, is the best way to get started with seizing your day. When you wake up early, and you take the time to meditate, and journal and read and eat a healthy breakfast and exercise. you're setting yourself up for success when you wake up late. And you immediately have to start checking your emails or taking care of the kids or running around the house. It's setting you up in a way that makes you feel behind before you've really even begun. morning routines. If you have questions about morning routines. Again, DM me, email me, you know where to find me. And if you don't, it's in the show notes. I can do a whole episode on morning routines if that's something you're interested in. Another part of being on offense is anticipate situations that you are about to step into that have in the past, made you feel powerless, and run through your new approach proactively just like a football player would before they run a new play. Use the exercise mentioned above with all the examples that I did earlier. So again, I'll just mention it one more time I feel blank when blank occurs. So next time this happens, I'm going to blank insert something more powerful or a an action that you can take that's going to make you feel in your own power. decide who you want to be my friend and be that. Decide what you want to do. And do that. decide how you want to feel and feel that that's being on offense, and that's taking your power back. The first Wonder Woman is one of my favorite movies of all time and the character and tie up and it says to a young Diana, you are stronger than you believe. You have greater powers than you know. This, my friends is the absolute truth.