Overcoming Powerlessness

I wanted to talk today about powerlessness and how to overcome it because that's it.

If we just talk about powerlessness, it will sit there, and nothing new will happen. 

We have to make something new happen. 

When you're feeling powerless, what do you do? How do you know you're feeling powerless? 

What are your key indicators that you're being sarcastic, quiet, passive-aggressive, or quiet? 

You're thinking of all the underhanded ways to control and manipulate the other person. 

Don't worry. We all do it at some point. 

Imagine sticking your foot out and tripping somebody or hiding a piece of paper, making them feel as frustrated as you do. 

Whatever happens, just think about when that happened in your life, in your childhood. 

Who made you feel powerless? Who was the one person that really made you feel powerless? 

The one instance. Maybe it was a million instances, but there was just one in particular that really stands out in your mind. 

If you ask yourself, when was the last time I felt so powerless before, let's say, the age of 14? One memory will come up. That memory holds all of the emotions. 

The first memory that comes to mind is the place where powerlessness became embedded. It was at the top of your mind's awareness. 

All of a sudden, you were like, wow, I don't like that. Not one bit. 

Maybe something felt out of balance, unjust, manipulated, or controlled, or they made you feel like you had to take the blame, or somebody else was not taking responsibility, which is one and the same. 

Something made you feel powerless, like you didn't have a right to speak up, think, or ask questions. 

I remember once, in fifth grade, we were having the sex talk in fifth grade. I'm sure they have it earlier now. I don't know, but I knew nothing. 

My parents were emotionally immature. 

They didn't teach me anything about the difference between boys and girls—the birth process and how babies come to be. 

My teacher, who is a male, said, there are no dumb questions. 

They discussed where babies come from, and I am trying to remember what they said.

I raised my hand because I was like, huh, I said, do you have to go to the hospital to get pregnant? Because I was thinking you have to go to the hospital to get a baby. 

It still wasn't even in my head that babies come out of a body. That's where you're birthing a baby. 

I just thought it was like a story: You go and get your baby at the hospital.

I was like well, do you have to go to the hospital to get pregnant and he busted a gut. He thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. 

When he said there were no stupid questions that put me in a place of powerlessness, I never asked another question again; even when teachers said there, I was like, oh yeah. 

I had lost trust in my ability to ask questions and be heard. It was the same way at my house. 

In fifth grade, I trusted Mr. Janeski to help a girl out. He did not, which made me feel really powerless.

From that point on, I was like, wow, I'm on my own. I am going to have to look it up, figure it out, and do my best not to embarrass myself along the way. 

What was it for you? 

Believe me, that wasn't the only powerless moment. 

I think I was powerless when I was three months old, honestly. I couldn't get my needs met. 

My mom left, and my dad was working. They didn't know what to do with me, and the daycare didn't take infants, so I was put in a playpen.

I couldn't even get those needs met. 

That is what powerlessness is; we can't get our needs met. 

We need to figure out how to get the answer, where to find the support we feel we need to improve, or how to receive love. 

Some of us are not even able to receive love. It might be offered, but we refuse it because we don't like it when people help us or because we're dependent on other people to help us. 

If something is going on and we feel powerless, we're not doing anything about it; we must keep our powerlessness. 

When we have courage, which is the opposite of powerlessness, and we can think about our thoughts, we can think about what makes us feel powerless. 

What need do I have that I feel cannot be met? 

Maybe we're hanging out with the wrong people. 

We may not be with healthy people who also have a high need to be met, so they can't help us. 

Check, look around, and see who you're with. Is it true that you can't get your needs met by voicing them? 

If that's the case, then you need to figure out how to get your needs met otherwise. 

You need to get into problem-solving or solution-finding mode. 

Ask yourself, what's missing? What do I need? Do you need silence while you're working? Do you need someone to turn the TV down? 

Do you need to eat something different from what others need to eat? Do you need to eat at a different time? Do you need to feed yourself in smaller portions all day long and not be tied to three large meals? 

What do you need? Do you need a hug? Do you need support? Do you need to know that you're loved?

See, you have the power to know that you are loved, that it will be okay, and that you are OK. 

A lot is going on that you can change. 

If you're leaning on others to care for some of those internal growth needs, take your power back and do the work. 

When I say do the work, get on your knees and ask for help. 

Nothing has been more potent than discovering that I am supported and loved. 

You can do it, too. You are light and love, or you wouldn't be breathing. 

That energizes your heart, causes the beating, and is the electrical circuit you're on. 

Think about what you need and write it down. 

Sometimes, you don't even know you have needs. 

If you've been severely neglected, you don't know you have needs. 

You're like, oh, I have shelter and food, I'm good. No, you're not because hopes and dreams are part of your needs. 

Understanding what you want out of life is a need. Understanding who you are is a need. 

I encourage you to reach out to me if you don't know what your needs are. I do. I'm here for you. This is my role in this world is to help you find you. 

You can reach me at teresafordcoaching@gmail.com.

I will help you understand who you are and what you need. 

But powerlessness is something that you can overcome. You can ask for what you need. 

You don't have to apologize. 

That's the other sign that you're not getting your needs met or that you feel you don't deserve to have your needs met. 

When you apologize, I'm sorry for having to ask, but no, don't be sad. 

You deserve to be here, to be heard, to be seen, and to offer your gifts. 

You deserve to be who you were meant to be and to grow in that pathway, not to conform to what somebody else thinks you ought to be. 

Let go of judgment; that's part of doing the work. Journal. 

You'll find out who's judging you by what comes out of your pen—who you're pointing the finger at, where you think it's coming from. 

Nobody else is going to change so you can feel better. 

As Mel Robbins says, nobody's coming to rescue you. 

You are here to help you. 

Sometimes, we need a friend to help us, and that's okay. 

Most of your needs and your sense of powerlessness come from your conditioning from when you were a child. 

To overcome it, ask yourself better questions. 

Why do I think that? Why do I believe that I can't ask for what I need? 

What makes me think I don't deserve to be heard or seen worldwide? 

What am I doing that's holding me back from accomplishing that awesome idea I had ten years ago? What is that? 

When you discover what it is, you'll start to make progress. 

You'll start asking for what you need and finding people with whom your needs can be met because you're not asking for them to change. 

You're asking for the right environment to be present. 

This is up to you. It's up to you to figure out why you feel powerless and then what you do to change it. 

The answers come when you ask a better question. 

Usually, it's connecting to why you think you're not able to get your needs met by talking to the right people. 

I always say, don't work with somebody who hasn't done what you're trying to do. 

You won't ever take counsel from somebody who is not doing what you want to do, so look for the right people to talk to. 

Sometimes, you just need a friend to talk it out, and then you hear yourself say the answers. 

If you don't have a friend, your journal is your friend. 

Yourself is your friend. Me, myself, and I—we're friends because we all have our best interests in mind. 

Yes? Your brain, body, spirit—that's you, yourself, and you. 

You all have your best interest in mind, and you must search within yourself for those things that make you feel powerful. 

There will be people around you who don't like that. And it's okay; they will fall away, excuse themselves from your life. 

It might feel like rejection abandonment. It's not, it's a gift. 

Thank you for not having that kind of energy in my life anymore. 

Now, I can move forward and meet my needs because I can surround myself with different people in a new environment. 

I can do the things I was put here to do and not waste any more time. 

This is a process. 

Sometimes when you hear this for the first, second, third, 10th time, it's like, oh, it's easy for you to say, I don't know how to do it. It's okay. 

That's just part of your conditioning, too. 

Take your time. If you want to do it quickly, you can.

If you want to take your time, take your time. 

There is no timeline for it—only the timeline of one idea that you've never had before. 

One question you're asking yourself you've never asked before. What is it that I need? 

If you've never asked yourself that question before and are still not ready to ask that question, that's okay. Just put it aside, just to the side. 

When you're ready, you can ask yourself that question. 

It'll just pop into your head one day: What do I need? Why do I think I can't have what I want? Why does it always frustrate me when they can have it and I can't? 

Ask for what you need. 

You don't have to be passive-aggressive, sneaky, or manipulative to get what you want. It's yours. 

If you want it, it's for you. 

Other people don't have the power over us that we think they have. They don't have the ability to say no or show their disapproval. 

If they're showing disapproval, they're the wrong people to hang out with. Or they're waiting for you to say different. 

If you use your strong voice—and I don't mean shouting or yelling, I mean decisive—I need this. 

You're not able to get that from those people. Or they're not willing to make room for you, too, to be in the room, so to speak, to be in their environment, wrong people. 

We're not built to be alone, right?

There is internal work that we have to do alone, but we're not built to experience an entire life alone. 

If we are isolated like that, It's time to do the work so we can un-isolate ourselves. 

Part of your needs is having good people around you—people who will listen to you and listen to you, and they will not hold onto your stuff for you.

They don't have to agree with you. They just have to be available, present, emotionally available, and present. That's all. 

We don't want other people to hold our stuff for us or their stuff for us. 

Their emotional stuff is theirs. Our emotional stuff is ours. 

But having someone to talk it through with that's nice. Not required, but nice. 

When you get yourself clear on what you're missing and what you want in your life, the journal is usually the place where you can put everything down; you hold nothing back. 

That's when things change—unless you're insistent on being powerless. 

If you're insistent on being powerless and disregarding anything and everything I've said. We can do that to ourselves. We can be the ones that are standing in our way. 

We can be the person we're asking to change, but then the other half of our brain is like, no, I won't. Not I can't, I won't. There's a difference. 

Say that to yourself: I can't have the things I want, and I won't get the things that I want. 

What's the difference? Who's standing in the way? I can't. It is just a conditioning. I won't. 

That's pretty decisive, and you get to keep your problems. 

You don't get healing or growth from I won't. I can't; it is just a temporary mindset because you could also switch it to, but I could, I might, and I will, and I must. 

Those all have different energies associated with them, and they all have a part in your success or not. 

You are not powerless. 

I am here to tell you this: You are 100% in charge of your life and its direction. 

It's only that you perceive that other people are saying that you can't, won't, and shouldn't. 

You're giving their mindset precedence over your personal power. 

It is your job to inform those people—say you're married to one—that things need to change. 

That you're not available to be judged anymore. 

You're not available to be put down, held back, stifled, shamed. 

You're not available for that anymore. 

When you say I am unavailable, you're available for something else. 

First of all, you're saying it for your own health, your own mental health, to hear yourself say, I am unavailable for that mindset anymore. 

Second, it's very informative because you're not blaming yourself. 

You're just making things perfectly clear that you're unavailable to be put down, shoved down, shamed, embarrassed, or do whatever's going on emotionally. 

You're not available for that anymore. Then go do your thing.

 Even if you think it will kill you to get what you want, do it. Then, see that you didn't die. 

It's important for you to show yourself the evidence that you had the power all along. 

If you lose people along the way, you didn't really lose them; you gained your freedom. Right? 

There are two ways to look at that: glass half full, glass half empty. 

You have all the power. You call the shots. You've been given a life full of free agency for wherever you are. 

Nobody can take your attitude away. 

I tell the story about Cory Tenboom all the time because she and her sister, Betsy, were housed in the worst facilities in Auschwitz during the war, and- Betsy kept telling Cory, I'm thankful for the lice. 

Cory's like, what are you talking about? That's over the top. I'm sorry, I can't be thankful for the lice. 

Betsy said, yeah, because they keep the guards out. 

They can't find our vitamins or see our scriptures, and they would take everything from us if they were coming in here to check the barracks. 

Now, that's personal power, not necessarily gratitude. Gratitude is a big component, but it is the mindset. 

Even in captivity, nobody could change her attitude. They say attitude is altitude. 

When you get an attitude that you have the power, like nobody can take this from me, nobody can take your sunshine, smile, light, or love. 

You are powerful beyond measure. 

It is your job to protect that power, to own that power, and to use that power for good in the world. 

We're not here to tell other people they're doing it wrong, that they're the reason we're unhappy, or that they're wrong because they're not letting us have the life we want. 

No, no, no. You just go and do your thing. We're not here to put it on them. 

Your light, love, personal power to choose and act in an uplifting and reasonable way, and service of everyone's higher good—when you change, everything else changes. 

The people around you change, and you leave a good legacy that people remember because of the good you offered when that's happening. 

That's your personal power. 

Take a minute today to write about what you think is holding you back, why you feel powerless, and what you think you need. 

What will improve your life? What will make your life better? What will help you achieve your goals or realize your dreams? What do you think is missing?

Whatever you think is missing is not missing. 

You will figure out that missing piece by doing slow and simple things, making your life better. 

You are fully supported. As I said before, get on your knees and ask for help; your angels are real.

God is real. Your spirit guides are real. You have friends all around you. 

They're like your shadows. You can't shake them. 

You're just like the blind friend that walks around going, I don't know. I can't see them.

They must not be here. That's not true. 

But asking is the requirement. Asking you shall receive. 

You need to ask. Please help me. 

Please help me feel loved and supported. Please show me a sign of how loved and supported I am, but you must look for the signs. 

I'm sorry, you can't just say, please show me a sign and then walk around going, see, there's no sign. You can't do that. 

You have to believe that you will receive a sign and start looking for it. 

Asking for a specific sign is even more helpful. 

But you are supported and loved, and you have all the power within you to live the life you were sent here to live. 

It's your job to let go of the crap, to let go of pointing the finger, take personal responsibility, ride it out, get clear, and move forward. 

Everything gets better when you get better. Everything does. 

We're just waiting for you. Because we need you. 

This world will be a better place because of those that you influence who are around you when you step up and say, my life, my way, I got this. This is your time. 

There's no better time than today because you're hearing this. 

You're listening because you're mulling it over in your mind. It's something that you are interested in doing, too. 

It's not an accident. There are no coincidences. 

This coincides with your hopes, dreams, and desires to take back your power and do what you were put here to do. 

Use your voice, and express yourself freely. I promise you will not die. 

You will grow and flourish, which will be the best thing you ever did for yourself. 

Okay, reach out if you need help. 

Now it's time to get busy. Let's go!

Note: You can access the full blog content in audio versions on Spotify and YouTube. Happy listening! 🎧 

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