Empowerment, what does it mean?

Human power has at least two components:

The ability to speak up and address the situation, and to demand fairness and justice, and, the ability to think clearly about every situation, to generate a rational response and to take action accordingly.

An infant, a very young child emits a piercing scream or an explosive burst of tears. It stops the entire works of the house, all come running (all, that is, who are sufficiently caring) to see what is the matter, and to take care of it.

This outburst is a demonstration of inherent, natural human power. This spontaneous, expression of true feelings and needs is power. The expression has achieved two things: attention to the problem and solution of the problem.

The person who has acquired language and understanding of its meaning and who has retained her/his power no longer has to scream like the infant to get attention to “the problem.” S/he spontaneously speaks up, or takes action, when there is a problem and states clearly, or takes action about, what needs to be done to solve the problem.

If there is resistance to the solution from others who are presenting the problem, the powerful person persists, or organizes others and resources to the cause in order to bring pressure to the resisters until they relent, and do the right thing.

The right thing can be reliably judged to be that which makes things better for everyone, including the problem makers.

For example, If there is a person, from a parent to the president, or a group who is impinging on the democratic and human rights of others, the right thing is to redress the actions of the oppressor, eliminate the offending actions and policies, and restore equal and human rights for all.

This benefits the targets of the biased actions as well as the oppressor(s) because it introduces, or restores, justice, balance and safety for all concerned.

It lifts the victims of the oppressive control back up to dignity, safety, and equal opportunity and access. It saves the formerly oppressive agency from being eventually attacked and put down, which always happens in oppressive circumstances. History, so far, is written through the rebellions of the suppressed.

To think clearly about a situation requires clarity of mind, that is, sufficiently free of rigid and distressful conditioning. Such conditioning blocks flexible and open thinking, and inhibits the ability to evaluate situations in a rational manner.

A hallmark of distressful conditioning is the automatic biases and judgments that loom up when confronting a situation. Another hallmark is the experience of “fogginess” that shrouds one’s brain when trying to think about situations in a rational manner. Stubbornness, inflexibility, intractability, defensiveness and avoidance are some of the symptoms of the biased and conditioned mind.

What can humans do to solve bias and fogginess, to restore one’s power? One of the answers to this is to recognize that each of us is born with at least a hundred billion smart neurons in our brain, all ready to respond to the world, makes sense of it and to master its challenges.

We need to decide that this so for it is empirically seen in almost every new born. (including you).

Next we need to decide to heal and eliminate the psycho/emotional effects of typical distress conditioning which is imposed on every new young one raised and living in the oppressive society. Oppressive conditioning is no one’s fault for it has been woven into the fabric of human affairs for ages, and is perpetuated by habit from one generation to the next. It is, however, everyone’s responsibility to admit and confront her/his patterns of distress and take steps to heal the distress.

It is the habit and patterns of distress that hurts human beings and is at the core of all our human and societal problems, from family distress, to crime, group against group, poverty, war and the rest.

To recover clarity of mind, courage and spontaneous power, the reader is encouraged to read “Life, Love, Health and Happiness” in the healing forum of this site. One can empower oneself, and even more powerfully accomplish this by forming Listening Partnerships (see the chapter on Relationships in the above sited document) with friends and loved ones.

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Re:Empowerment, what does it mean?
Mar 11 2010 18:48:23

To take back one's power is to take back one's control of and responsibility for, one's own feelings and actions in life. To make a conscious decision to take back our own birthright, regardless how long or what it may take. To know, improve and express to the best of our ability, our own individual birthright. To allow and feel deserving of doing so, to feel capable to do so, is taking back our power. To realize that there is an important reason that we are all here and therefor must be the best of what we are capable of, to get it done, is taking back our power. To realize and consciously utilize all of our actions, time, energy and resources, to manifest upon this level only that which makes it better, is to take back and use our power. To help, allow, encourage and expect everyone else to do the same, is the correct use of that power!

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