We all have personal power – the power to manifest our dreams, the power to remain calm and loving in the face of fear, the power to stay centered in ourselves in the face of attack.

Our society often confuses personal power – “power within” – with “power over,” which is about controlling others. There is a vast difference between personal power and control.

Personal power comes from an inner sense of security, from knowing who you are in your soul, from having defined your own intrinsic worth. It is the power that flows through you when you are connected to and feel your oneness with The Spiritual Source of guidance. It is the power that is the eventual result of doing deep inner emotional and spiritual work to heal the fears and false beliefs acquired in childhood.

Without this inner work to heal the beliefs that create our limitations, we are stuck in our egos, our wounded selves. The very basis of the ego is the desire for control, for power over others and outcomes.

Our ego is the self we created to attempt to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. We created our ego self in our attempt to protect ourselves from the losses we fear – loss of self, loss of other, loss of security, loss of face. As children, when we didn’t get the love we needed, we decided that our true Self must be unlovable. In our attempt to feel safe, we buried our true Self and created the false self – the ego, our wounded self. The ego self then went about learning how to feel safe through trying to control others and outcomes. The ego believes that having control over how people see us and feel about us, as well as over the outcome of things, will give us the safety we seek.

Personal power comes from embracing spiritual values rather than just earthly values. It comes from making love, kindness and compassion – toward oneself and others – more important than power over others. It comes from doing the inner work necessary to allow your spirit to have dominion over the body, rather than allowing the animal instincts of fight or flight – the instincts of the body – to have dominion over our choices. When your spirit has dominion over the body, you have the power to manifest your dreams, to stay centered in the face of attack, to remain loving in the face of fear. When the spirit has dominion over the body, you have tremendous personal power.

power within