Empowerment is the power to act. Empowerment is the ability to give momentum to creating our dreams through specific concrete steps that deliberately lead us to the place we want to be.
But empowerment is more than that. In fact, empowerment is fundamental to being able to act. Empowerment is a process of internal reflection about our thoughts, feelings, and life experiences which allow us to connect with who we really are. We hit pay dirt inside ourselves when we connect with the buried fears, pain, and confusion from previous life experiences, that block our being able to act in ways that help us achive our goals.
When we connect with that mine inside ourselves, there is sometimes an automatic self-correcting tape that says, "It is not that way now." We have grown in our understanding of life and have now reconnected with that old place that limited us. When this happens, new energy becomes available for living every time this happens and we have new direction for what we want most in our life.
But life is not usually as simple as that. Our mind plays powerful tricks to seal off those painful experiences. We experience anxiety every time we come close to those old buried places. We must learn how to feel safe when we go there — through music, writing poetry, painting, movement and through trusting another human being to be a companion in our excavation.
Empowerment is that connection with an awareness of the deepest part of ourselves. It is also the process of becoming that person we most long to be. Empowerment is openness to new experiences, to seeing the world in new ways that will allow us greater freedom to be ourselves.
Empowerment implies power, but in this model it is power with others, not over others. An empowered approach to conflict resolution is based on empathy for the person involved, congruence or genuineness in ourselves and positive regard for all involved.
