Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It

by David Gershon and Gail Straub

High Point Press
$17.95

Excerpt from the introduction

Buckle up! You are about to go on an extraordinary life adventure. This adventure will call forth from you inner resources you may never have known you had. It will free you from boundaries that have limited you in the past and show you your power to shape your own destiny. On this journey you will learn the art of creating your life as you want it.

Most of us settle for far less in our lives than we are capable of achieving. We fall victim to impoverished dreams, dreams that don't begin to do justice to the potential we hold. We need to learn how to dream, how to boldly and courageously reach for our highest visions. This book will help you dare to dream and, equally important, give you the necessary skills and tools to realize these dreams. You will learn how to harness the passion of your heart and the power of your mind and create your fullest expression of being human. We call this empowerment.

On this journey of empowerment you will discover what it is you really want for and in your life. Discovering what you want is often a revelation in itself. Knowing your deepest heart can mean avoiding years spent pursuing other people's dreams. You will learn how to see and create a compelling vision of the life you truly desire.

Once you have a life vision worthy of your fullest effort, you will learn how to overcome those parts of yourself that can sabotage your intentions. You will learn techniques to remove disabling attitudes and bring your life vision into full manifestation. You will come away from this journey alive and capable in a way you never thought possible. Get ready for an adventure of a lifetime!

Watering the Seeds, Not the Weeds

Why is it that so few people are willing to dream boldly, to reach for their highest visions?

Part of the reason is that our culture is primarily pathologically based. It focuses on what is wrong with a person. Many therapies consider success to be helping people get "better," with "better" being defined as the absence of neurosis. There is rarely direct focus on full potential or optimum well-being.

This is not a condemnation of these therapies; rather it is a sober look at our dominant cultural belief. This belief assumes a view of life in which each of us learns merely how to cope and fit in rather than to excel and move out. Much of the personal growth work that has evolved over the last twenty years reflects this dominant pathological attitude of our culture. This approach is rather like a gardener who spends so much time finding and pulling weeds that the planting, care, and cultivation of fruitful plants is ignored.

If you have gone through some of these therapies or growth experiences you will probably know why your life doesn't work -- in great detail. You will have developed a theory as to what caused you to be the way you presently are and learned some tools for coping. This work is valuable and important in that it does help you cope more effectively with problems in your life.

However, it does not go far enough. Knowing that the reason you feel insecure is that your father withheld love from you when you were a child and learning how to accept this are just the first steps. Developing the self-love and inner resources to feel secure and confident throughout your life is another matter entirely, and you must learn the ways of this new world if you are to express your full potential.

We call this other world creating vision for your life. It is vital to direct our gaze away from our problems and inabilities. To create an inspired life vision we must develop an acute awareness of the possibilities that lie within us. Till we do this our potential remains dormant.The empowerment growth process is so effective because it helps you to:

• Overcome the places in your life where you are having problems.

• Discover and manifest your fullest possibility as a human being.

The empowerment process teaches you how to release your creative energies and direct them toward achieving what you really want -- from a healthier body to better relationships and sex; from material success to greater connection with your inner life.

You learn how to transform limiting beliefs and behavior patterns, how to overcome difficult life situations and problems, not as ends in themselves but as part of the process of self-creation. We refer to this shift as moving from pathology to vision. It is shifting our basic attitude toward life from problem-solving to vision-creating. For many of us this is a subtle and dramatic shift. It requires us to let go of the deep problem-oriented programming of our culture and accept the belief that we can and will create the life we want.

One person who went through this shift described it in the following way: "With the empowerment process I challenged myself to move away from the safe and familiar world of my problems. I developed the specific skills for exploring the risky, exciting, and positive frontier of creating what I want in my life."

Attaining this powerful a change in perspective is more than a simple overnight process. It takes time and requires us to be patient and compassionate with ourselves as we learn how to think and act in this compelling and dynamic new way.

Reasons for Your Journey

There are many reasons people choose to embark on this journey. The following list of reasons comes from people who have taken our Empowerment Workshop. See if you can identify with some of the goals described by others. Do any of these motivations ring true for you?

• I'm in a time of transition and I need to focus on what's next.

• I need to learn to deal with money.

• I need to take better care of myself.

• I want to attract a lasting relationship.

• I want to learn how to visualize; I've been hearing about it for years.

• I want to learn about me.

• I'm interested in the power of attitude and the changes it brings.

• I've got a lot of inner shoveling to do, and I need courage to do it.

• I wish to apply my personal growth interests in my workplace.

• I'm stuck in many areas of my life.

• I want to stop pulling the rug out from under myself whenever I get close to success.

• I want to learn how to focus on my goals and clarify what I want.

• I want to move away from concentrating on my problems.

• I have been asleep and it is time to wake up.

• I want to discover my spirituality.

• I have been too preoccupied with my work and want to find a way to be more balanced so I can discover the rest of my life.

Once a person has gone through the empowerment process, creative breakthroughs and dynamic self-growth begin to occur. The following stories come from people who took our Empowerment Workshop. They are examples of the kinds of challenges people confronted and the positive changes they brought about in their lives.

Janice had just ended yet another relationship. She felt devastated, sad, and alone. She had seen this pattern to her breakups before, and this time she felt as though she didn't have the energy to pick herself up and try again.

Through the empowerment process Janice began to examine her deep beliefs about loving herself and others. She slowly recognized how harshly she judged herself and how many beliefs she held about not being a worthy or good enough person. She realized how her own beliefs, conscious and unconscious, sabotaged both her ability to love and be loved. She learned more about her true self, not the self she thought she was supposed to be. She began the process of forgiving herself and others and building new life-affirming beliefs about herself.

When the workshop ended, Janice was clearer on both what she wanted from a relationship as well as what she had to offer. She was much more realistic about the hard work, commitment, and ongoing self-love required to make a relationship successful. Janice continued to use the empowerment process daily and attracted into her life a healthy, loving, and enduring relationship.

Lou came to the Empowerment Workshop with a prestigious job he had worked hard to achieve. He also had a good marriage and family life, yet he felt empty, something wasn't right. He felt as though his life was on automatic pilot and all the passion was gone. This confused him because it seemed like he had everything society said he needed to be happy. He said to himself, "I don't have the right to be unhappy." Yet he knew in his heart there was something essential missing.

With the same dedication he used to create success in his professional life, Lou dove into the empowerment process. With the help of the exercises, he reexamined his basic attitudes and premises about life. He looked closely at the life he had created for himself. He found that while he had devoted tremendous energy to taking care of his external life of family, home, and job, his internal life -- feelings, reverence, wonder, spirit, and connection with the mystery of life -- had been ignored. Lou was out of balance in a way that is highly typical of people in our culture. All the emphasis is put on the active state of "doing" while the receptive state of "being" is ignored.

With the assistance of the empowerment tools, he began to nourish his interior life. He created time with this family each week in which they could share their feelings and deeper thoughts with one another. He slowed down and spent more time with nature. Lou began learning the fine art of being: a soft, receptive state of mind in which he felt content in the moment without having to do or reach for more. After several months of genuine commitment to this new orientation, a profound shift took place. Lou felt more joy than he had ever remembered. He had a new verve for his job, more love to offer his family, and peace of mind. He had created balance between his outer and inner life.

Michael was an engineer with twenty years of experience in his field. Similar to Lou, Michael had a feeling of inertia, low energy, and a lack of joy in his life. Though their problems were similar, the empowerment process led Lou and Michael to very different destinations. It became clear to Michael that his career as an engineer no longer served him. Though engineering had originally been something he liked, it did not reflect who he was now. He recognized that by staying in his field of work he was numbing himself to experiencing life. He came to understand that if he wanted to feel energetic and enlivened again he needed to change his work.

Michael learned to clarify his current priorities and passions. He became aware that his real love was the outdoors. He discovered that he wanted to find work outdoors that was meaningful to him and assisted others in their growth. With patience, dedication to his new vision, and an ongoing use of the empowerment tools, Michael did two things within the next year. He left his engineering job, and he began working as an Outward Bound instructor, leading men and women on wilderness vision quests. He feels full of energy and impassioned by his new life work.

Fran grew up with a mother who regularly let her know that she wished she had never been born. Fran felt hurt, angry toward her mother, and sorry for herself. She had also acquired a bad allergy at a young age, which she felt was somehow connected to this situation. As she embarked upon the empowerment journey Fran faced a double-edged challenge. She needed to heal her relationship with her mother and overcome her own cycle of feeling victimized.

She began examining her beliefs and attitudes and saw how they had trapped her in the role of feeling helpless. Her web of beliefs looked like this: To feel like she was a lovable person, her mother had to love her. Since her mother's love for her was shaky at best, she had proof that she was not a lovable person. If she wasn't lovable, she couldn't love herself.

Fran became aware that the only way she could be free of her old self-negating beliefs was to cut herself away from her past and start loving herself. She succeeded. Fran even discovered that she could love her mother while not condoning the way her mother had treated her. By the end of these few months her acute allergy was gone.

Miracles DO Happen!

These stories represent people who felt a certain lack of well-being or had a desire for more satisfaction in their lives. Can we call these stories miracles? Yes -- the kind of miracles that are available to any of us who are willing to dream boldly, look honestly at ourselves, and commit to a process of self-growth.

If someone told you that what you longed for in your life could be yours, would you believe it? Before we used the methods we teach in this book we might not have believed a claim like this. However, after years of seeing the powerful results in our own lives and witnessing the remarkable achievements of others we've worked with, our answer to this question is an unqualified "Yes!"

The first questions that need to be answered on this adventure of self-discovery and self-creation are: "Where am I going?" and "How will I get there?" It's time to chart our course.

Planning Our Route

A Chinese proverb reads, "if you don't know where you are going, you won't know when you get there." An addendum to this is: Even if you do know where you are going, you can get there sooner and with less wear and tear if you know how to travel. The journey of self-discovery and self-creation is the most exciting, challenging, exhilarating, confounding journey you will ever take. It can be fraught with wrong turns and dead ends and has been known to be quite uncomfortable at times. It also has the potential to bring you happiness, peace of mind, joy, fulfillment, freedom, meaning, and enlightenment.

We invent all kinds of reasons to explain why we don't have what we want, but by and large they boil down to two:

either

We are not yet clear about what we want, or

We have not yet learned the proper methods for creating it.

Throughout this book you will continually ask yourself the two questions at the heart of the experience we call empowerment: "What do I want?" "How do I create it?" The answers are what this book is dedicated to helping you achieve.

To answer these questions you will undertake a very special journey. Fortunately, you are not the first person to traverse this path. It has been navigated by many fellow travelers. And to assist you in reaping the most benefit from your travel, you will be accompanied by two seasoned and personal guides: us. We will offer you insights gained from guiding many to their destinations.

John Steinbeck said, "We don't take a trip. A trip takes us." The person who returns from a true journey is never the same person as the one who departs. The returning traveler has new insight, new perspective, new richness of being. Life and self are seen with deeper wisdom and compassion.

We'll begin by giving you an overview of the inner adventures that lie in store. The journey of empowerment, like all trips, has three distinct stages: getting ready, traveling, and returning home. A successful trip requires proper preparation, a good itinerary, and a way to meaningfully integrate the experience into subsequent everyday life.

Getting Ready

Being in Shape.

If you get yourself in shape prior to a journey, you can benefit from and enjoy it more. The first part of getting ready is to make sure you're well conditioned for the trip. On the empowerment journey, being in shape means both learning how to use your mind to create what you want for your life and developing the personal power to sustain your growth over time. With this preparation you will be in an excellent position to profit from your inner adventure.

Taking Stock.
Before you leave on a long trip, it's important to take stock of important things and put them in order. The second part of your preparation involves taking stock of the way you view yourself and the world around you.These views form your core belief structure. If these beliefs are healthy, you have the optimum environment for growth. If they are unhealthy, they can sabotage your ability to grow. As you take stock before your journey of empowerment, you will acquire the fundamental self-knowledge to build a healthy core belief structure. With this done you are ready to begin your travels.

Traveling.
Your travel itinerary has seven legs, and this is where the action really starts. Each leg takes you deep into a vital aspect of your life, where you will work to discover and create what it is that you most desire. The seven legs you will travel are:

• Emotions
• Relationships
• Sexuality
• The body
• Money
• Work
• Spirituality

In each of these areas you will discover what it is you most deeply desire and learn how to bring it about. There are four steps to doing this:

1. Gather information to help you assess where you are and clarify what you want.

2. Construct a vision of what you want.

3. Clear any limiting beliefs in the way of your manifesting this vision.

4. Rework the vision: affirm, visualize, and energize it.

Returning Home

Each leg of your journey will be rich with learning, insight, and concrete knowledge you can use in your life right now. If you do the exercises wholeheartedly, by the end of this inner adventure you will feel remarkably enlivened and empowered. This heightened well-being will testify to the commitment you have made to living your life fully. In this last stage, your return home, you will learn the most effective ways to sustain this heightened well-being over time.

How to Use This Book

This book is divided into three sections, which correspond to the above three stages of the journey. The chapters in each section contain concepts, principles, and ideas to help you discover your next level of growth in each area, as well as exercises and activities designed to bring that understanding into your everyday life. Each chapter builds sequentially on the knowledge and skills developed in the previous chapters, so it's important to follow the road map that's been developed for you. By following this map you will comprehensively cover all aspects of your life.

The exercises and techniques you will be working with are highly effective. They've been used with great success by the many people who have participated in our Empowerment Workshop. They will be successful for you, too, if you take the time to do them wholeheartedly. We get out of life what we put into it. What better investment can you make than taking the time to make your life all that you want it to be?

Many of the exercises ask you to respond by writing and, occasionally, drawing something. Expressing your responses on paper will help you immeasurably in gaining insight. You can either do this right in the book or use a personal journal to record your thoughts and observations. This journal will serve as a log of your inner travels and, as you will soon discover, become a very close companion to you on your journey. Many people like to get a special journal for this use.

We hope you will find this book useful at every stage of your growth. It was written to be used a second, third, or fourth time, as an integral part of your path to growth. Turn to it regularly and it will serve you well.

The Growing Edge: Your Spiritual Compass

Your experience of this journey is deeply connected with the way you view the growing process. Your attitude can either nourish and encourage your growth, allowing it to be a lively adventure, or undermine and sabotage it, making it an ordeal through which you nobly suffer. As you prepare for this journey of self-growth it's very important that you orient yourself properly. The notion of the growing edge will help you here. It will serve as a spiritual compass, aiding you in navigating the bends and turns that are part of the growing process.

The idea of the growing edge came to us as we observed the way things grow in the earth. A seed, planted in the ground, pushing up through the earth, overcoming whatever obstacles are in the way, first becoming a bud and then bursting into full bloom, is nothing short of a miracle. The new growth that has just pushed into the light of day for the first time is the plant's growing edge. It is that soft new edge of life that is just becoming.

This natural process contains a universal truth that applies equally well to human beings. Like nature, human beings who are vital and alive are always pushing out in new directions -- they are growing. Those who are full of vitality are always thrusting out in new directions. The part of our being where this new growth is occurring is our growing edge. It's that place in who we are that is just coming into existence. The growing edge is the point that our ever-evolving self is moving toward next. Inherent in this growing edge are the steps we must take to create our life the way we want it, and on this journey, in each of the different parts of your life you will be discovering and cultivating your new edges.

While your growing edges may be different from those of someone else, there are a number of general growing edges that many of us have in common. The following are examples of one major growing edge from each area of life. Whether or not you are working with this particular edge, it will give you a sense of what we mean by this term.

While these examples give you a sense of several of the more common growing edges, they are just a small sampling of the wide variety of growing edges we human beings experience. Each growing edge will be experienced with any number of emotional textures, from joy to pain, from confusion to insight.

Sometimes there is fear of the unknown as you move to a new place within yourself. Just as often there is a deep sense of well-being as you learn to be more alive. Sometimes there is pain and discomfort as you move through a stuck or difficult place. At other times there is exhilaration as you break through a barrier. Whatever the feeling, you can be sure that if you are on your growing edge you will feel energetically engaged in life.

As the growing edge enlivens us it simultaneously frees us of the yoke of "shoulds" that weighs us down. We "should" be further along. We "should" be better than we are. Each of us is unique and has different growing edges. A tree doesn't judge and condemn itself if one of its branches is not as long as those of the tree next to it. One growing edge is not better or worse than another. It is just different. Understanding that growth is a totally individual process liberates us from that all-too-pervasive human foible of judging ourselves in relation to someone else or some preconceived notion of how we should be.

To grow is to be alive, and to be on the growing edge is to experience life in its most dynamic state, that of becoming. With an understanding of the growing edge you have a spiritual compass that will aid you well and with which you will become more skilled as your journey unfolds.

And now it is time for your first exploration of your growing edges!

Imagining Your Journey

Before you begin getting ready for the journey let's have some fun dreaming about it a little. Prior to a trip we love to pull out travel brochures, look at maps, and freely imagine what the journey might be like. Let's do some of that now. This exercise will stimulate your imagination and help you think creatively about areas of possible growth. You may come up with a preliminary itinerary of some places you will want to visit during the journey.

You will need a journal to do this exercise. As you answer each of the following questions see what comes to mind at the surface level and write that down. Then consider the question again and see if there is an answer that draws you deeper. Both the initial and subsequent responses are valid and will prove useful to you in your growth work. You may want to copy the questions into your journal so that you have them to refer to later.

Find a place to do the exercise where you will not be interrupted. Before you begin sit quietly and peacefully for a few moments to allow your mind to become calm and reflective.

Exercise: Exploring Your Growing Edges

1. What are the qualities within another that are most important to me in a relationship?
What qualities do I have to offer in a relationship?

2. What is one thing I can do to create more love in my life?
More sensuality?
More passion?

3. If my body could speak to me, what would it tell me about how it's being treated?

4. If I had as much money as I wanted, what are the first five things I would do with it?
Why?

5. If I did not have to work for money what kind of work would I do?
Why?

6. Which emotion do I find most easy to express?
Why?
Which emotion do I find most difficult to express?
Why?

7. What are three things I can do to be more in touch with the wonder and mystery of life?

Bon Voyage!

Journey to Your Higher Purpose

Excerpt from the "Spirituality" chapter of Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It

Each of us comes to this planet to learn certain things and to accomplish certain things. Our higher purpose is the deeper reason for our being here. Understanding our higher purpose allows us to have available to our conscious minds those lessons that our evolving soul chose to learn in this life. When we create our lives in alignment with our higher purpose we have an extraordinary asset available to motivate us. Gandhi called it satyagraha, or soul force. It is the force of our deeper nature urging us to do whatever is necessary to learn our lessons and grow as a spiritual being. Some examples of a higher purpose might include:

• To raise a family and learn how to love.

• To learn that you are not a victim of circumstances but rather the creator of your own fate.

• To learn the lessons of manifesting a particular gift or talent.

• To trust that there is a benevolent and supporting higher intelligence -- call it God or whatever word works for you -- that cares about your well-being and with whom you can have a personal relationship.

• To learn the lessons of caring for people in need of help.

• To learn how to unconditionally love yourself.

• To learn to create financial abundance.

•T o help the Earth and our human family through this challenging time in our evolution.

• To learn how to cooperate with others.

• To learn how to play and be joyful.

No one higher purpose is better than any other. To grow spiritually we each need to move toward fulfilling our unique higher purpose. The purpose of this next exercise is to help you understand your higher purpose or, if you understand it already, to take it to the next level.

As you ask about your higher purpose your inner self will communicate to you in an appropriate way. If you don't understand the communication, ask for clarity. One man who did this exercise was sure that he wasn't spiritual and that the following exercise had confirmed his belief. Frank felt he had "failed" spirituality because he had no meaningful higher purpose.

What had come to Frank during the exercise made no sense to him at all. His answer was "a shoe attached to a helicopter!" We suggested to him that he ponder those symbols.

On reflection he broke into a fit of laughter. His inner self was telling him that his higher purpose was for his soul (sole) to lift off (helicopter). Given Frank's offbeat, somewhat irreverent sense of humor, it was the perfect way for him to get the message. Frank has subsequently developed an active relationship with a new friend he calls the "Ultimate Big One." He writes poetry to his new friend all the time.

Keep yourself open on your inner journey to symbols, subtle feelings, any activity that unfolds in the visualization, and of course any obvious message you receive. Allow the process to flow easily and naturally in whatever way it does. Our inner guidance is totally available to us -- all we need to do is ask.

Exercise: Your Higher Purpose

Allow approximately fifteen minutes to do this exercise. You will not need your journal during the exercise, but you will want to have it handy immediately afterward. Find a quiet place where you will be undisturbed. Sit in a comfortable chair and put on some soft, relaxing music. The exercise is divided into several parts. Read a paragraph, then close your eyes and visualize. When you've completed that part, with soft eyes go on to the next paragraph. Get ready for a journey to your higher purpose.

1. Take several deep breaths and allow yourself to relax. Take a few moment to get still and find a quiet center within. In that quiet center begin to get in touch with the yearning that we all have to understand why we are here, the yearning to understand our higher purpose for being on the Earth. Prepare yourself for a journey in which you will seek spiritual counsel on a very important question: "What is my higher purpose and how may I manifest it more fully in my life?"

2. Imagine yourself on the outskirts of a very ancient forest. See yourself beginning to walk through this ancient forest. You walk farther and farther through this forest. As you walk you ponder the question you carry: "What is my higher purpose, and how may I manifest it more fully in my life?"

3. Soon you reach an opening in the forest and before you is a crystalline, clear pond. As you look into the pond you see an image. You ask this image the question you have been carrying with you: "What is my higher purpose and how may I manifest it more fully in my life?" Spend as much time as you need contemplating whatever you receive. If the answer is not clear, ask for more clarity.

4. It's now time to leave the pond and enter back into the ancient forest. As you walk back through the forest you continue to reflect on what you have learned. You walk farther and farther out of the forest. You walk back over the same trail and finally you're out of the forest. When you are ready gently open your eyes and bring yourself back to the here and now.

5. Maintaining soft eyes, write down or draw what you have received as an answer to your question. Describe or draw the particular image you saw in the pond and anything else of note about the journey. If the answer didn't come in words but in some other way, write down or draw what you experienced. 

One man, an artist by profession, had the following experience: "the night before this exercise I had dreamed of a blond woman with whom I felt a deep intimacy. She had many other woman friends. Later, I also dreamed of touching my mother gently on the cheek.

"I begin the journey into the woods very skeptically. On my way I noticed a peculiar smell in the room, that of a woman's clean-washed, soapy hair, a wonderful freshness. Momentarily ignoring the visualization of being in the woods, I open my eyes and look around to see whose odor I had caught. I am sitting beside a sweaty man and other unlikely candidates; I conclude that I am imagining things, though the odor was so strong.

"Back on the trail I approach the pool expecting absolutely nothing to happen. Suddenly, out of the pool somebody hands me a birthday cake. I am stunned. This is the craziest thing that I ever expected. What the hell am I supposed to do with the cake? I dutifully begin to carry it out of the woods and finally come to rest on a hill. I think, 'This must be my birthday!' But why? I am perplexed, but feel light, happy, and grin-foolish.

"After the visualization was over I told my partner about my unusual experience. Her vision had been of a woman with long blond hair who had told her to love herself. Suddenly the smell of clean, close hair rushed back to me. Suddenly the blonde in my last night's dream came to life. Suddenly I felt my hand on my mother's cheek.

"I suddenly understood! My higher purpose is to celebrate my anima's birthday, the birth of my divine goddess! As a result of this higher purpose exercise I created the following affirmation, 'I celebrate the birth of my female divinity.'"

Another person reported: "As I looked in the pond I felt a puff of air against my cheek. I looked over and saw this big eagle sitting on my right shoulder. It was looking straight ahead. I realized that I was protected. The next thing I knew, I was flying. I'm soaring over the hills and I feel like a three-year-old. The eagle gave me the experience of trust in the universe. I realized my higher purpose was to develop trust in the universe and that this eagle would help me to do this."

We hope you now have a deeper understanding of your higher purpose and how you may manifest it more fully. If anything is still unclear to you, go back to your pond and ask for more clarity. If you had a particularly positive rapport with the entity or symbol you saw reflected in the pond, it can serve as a representation of your inner self. You can go to the pond and ask this being or symbol for guidance on other matters that are important to you. The more you cultivate and draw upon your inner self, the more adept you will become at receiving inner guidance and connecting with the deeper rhythm of your life.