Happiness Tool #3: Personal Power

Happiness Tool #3: Personal Power
by Jackie Foskett, CH

Looking for a way to stop feeling like a victim to circumstances in your life? It’s all about becoming a proactive force for YOU! In other words, claiming your personal power. Dan Baker, PhD and Cameron Strauth, authors of What Happy People Know , explain that there are two components to personal power: taking responsibility and taking action.

Sometimes life feels hard and commitments such as work leave us too little time for the ease that accompanies play and relaxation. In this situation, we often feel drained and powerles–victims to circumstances “out there” that we believe are beyond our control. Happiness always seems out of reach. It will happen later when such and such occurs, when he/she does this or that. In short, the happiness we seek is always off in the future. Such a belief results in the loss of our personal power and, inevitably, suffering.

In my work as a hypnotherapist, one of my jobs is to assist people in taking back their own personal power. I do this by de-hypnotizing them from beliefs that no longer serve their needs. As clients begin to acknowledge and accept their own personal power, they naturally feel stronger and more in control. This allows them to let life flow, instead of doing battle with it.

One way that my clients become proactive is by taking responsibility for their health and well-being, which are enhanced by relaxation. When we allow ourselves enough free time, time away from our jobs, time away from our computers, etc., our sense of well-being grows. This creates a feeling of personal power, which leads to the feeling that happiness is here and now.

I love this quote by Barry Neil Kaufman, from M.J. Ryan’s book The Happiness Makeover : The decision to be happy, Kaufman says, “is actually the decision to stop being unhappy.” It’s another way of saying be proactive for your happiness and take back your personal power. Making the decision to be happy is taking responsibility and initiating an action for YOU.