How to Call Your Power Back
We’ve all been there — that feeling in the pit of our stomach when we are worried about someone. Or we haven’t been called back by someone we care about. Or when we are jealous of someone else’s body or lifestyle or career. Or when someone we like doesn’t want to talk to us. Or when we don’t get that job. And then we start going into all kinds of bleak thoughts. This isn’t about the other person or situation — though it can seem that way. These feelings mean we have gone into mind chatter — and are searching outside ourselves for an unrecognised quality within us.
Thinking that a quality you have is in an object or person outside yourself is what I’m talking about. The fact that you feel this longing means that this quality is deep within you and unrealised — like buried treasure. And the pain you feel is actually this quality within yourself that you are ignoring, calling out to you. That’s what the pain is: The fact that you have the pain means this quality is within you, undiscovered, or you couldn’t feel this pain. That’s all that the feeling in the pit of your stomach means: you are denying a very real part of yourself that you are attempting to get from something outside of yourself. But it’s not outside of yourself, it’s an unrealised part of you.
Often, to soothe the pain we are led to seek outside ourselves even more, continuing to ignore the inner quality which is trying to get our attention. And the painful feeling gets stronger as we move away from our Real Self, falling into more and more powerlessness — and then we crave more outside of ourselves still — and this is what’s known as an addiction.
So this painful feeling is very good news, even though it may not feel that way in the moment. The longing means that the quality we are looking to get from outside of ourselves is actually within us — or we couldn’t long. The more we chase out there, the further we depart from ourselves, the worse we feel, the more we want to chase, and it’s a vicious circle. Most of us have spent a lot of our lives looking for fragments of ourselves in other people, places or things. When you own that quality in yourself, your pain will stop. Isn’t that great news? That’s why I invented a process called Magic Button.
In this process, firstly you want to identify the quality you are longing for, and therefore the quality you need to recognise in yourself:
What do you want that you think this person/situation will give you?
For example: You really like someone who isn’t responding to you the way you’d like. It could be a friend, a family member or partner.
Situation I want to happen: (Name of person) calls me and shows me they care about me.
How I would feel if this situation happened:
I want to feel reassurance
I want to feel safe
I want to feel that everything is going to be OK
I want to feel honoured
I want to feel respected
I want to feel special
I want to feel confident
I want to feel secure and feel a trust about life I want to feel loved
So you write down the situation you want to happen. In this case, you want someone to change their behaviour towards you — something you cannot control. And underneath you write the feelings you think that you will have if they were to do this. Write “I want to feel” in front of each feeling description.
Whatever the subject — be it body image, relationships, work situation — anything outside of yourself — you can write at the top of the page how it would ideally be if you could press a button and change the situation to anything you want. And then list the feelings you think you’d feel if this were to happen.
Doing this exercise will wake you up to your power and make you realise you are looking outside for a quality inside: In this example, you will realise that you do not actually want the reassuring call at all. What you want is the feeling that you think the call will give you. By doing this exercise, you will begin to realise this quality within yourself, and you will see how this situation or person’s lack of providing a need was showing you where you could acknowledge yourself more.
Once you fulfil yourself and soothe the neediness through the exercises in this book, the best outcome for you will mirror back from life and whether they call or not, you will be happy and all will be well.
Outside situations influence us, and this is where the confusion lies. We are chasing out there for what is within. The circumstance is mirroring back where you have a weak muscle. And, like with a weak muscle, our own sense of self requires training many times before it’s strong. It’s normal if the process gets you in your power for a while, and then you fall again. Just like you don’t get the perfect body on the first few times your workout, you will likely have to do this process again and again. Just writing down the outer situation you are attempting to change, and then listing the feelings you think you will get from that change, is enough to call your power back and shift you into your Real Self. After a while, you will be resilient and just not go into powerless. It’s an incredibly powerful process.
When you call your power back, life mirrors back this empowered state. You are at-one with your Real Self. You aren’t engulfed with mind chatter and you don’t experience needing anything outside yourself to change or be different. You are in the zone and your life reflects back this perfection. But you don’t care, because you are already “it”. Once you realise that all you are looking for is to realise that you are enough now (and you may think it’s all kinds of different things out there, but it’s not) then you are ready to really live your life.
To find out more about the Magic Button Process (and other practices to change your life) get the book Feel Better, No Matter What (Watkins Publishing). Michael James is on social media https://www.instagram.com/michaeljamesbe/.
