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Empower Tools: Ideas You Can Use to Live Life to the fullest and Fight Fear
by Alexandria Stevens
Success & Failure are simply - Fantastic! Empower Tools is inspirational, motivating and funny.
It takes readers on a journey that will make them reconsider how they approach those difficult and challenging moments in life. With a little laughter and a heavy dose of thinking outside the box, you will be given tools that may help you to sail through life's difficulties with a whole new attitude. Empower Tools will also provide the spark to assist you in lighting a fire under your derriere so that you can pursue your heart's desire and cruise on down the rainbow brick road. The future may not always turn out to be what you thought it would...but life is nothing if it's not a grand adventure!
Sample chapters:
A 3 chapter sample for your viewing pleasure!
What Are The Consequences Of Failure?
What are the consequences of failure or of making a mistake, in your
mind’s eye? What ‘terrible thing’ is going to follow a failure? Do you foresee humiliation, the disappointed look on someone’s face or maybe even some vague punishment you can’t quite put your finger on? Is your momma gonna yell at you and take away your toys? Your mind may fashion all kinds of disaster scenarios just waiting to pounce on you at the end of a bad performance. Let’s take a journey that may change your perspective on ‘mistakes’ and ‘failures’. Perhaps the reality is far less painful than what your ‘careening off a cliff’ imagination factory makes it out to be!
The actual fallout from a ‘mistake’ or ‘failure’ is rarely as apocalyptic as we imagine it, and generally, one hundred percent bearable. However, many people don’t get that far because they simply don’t attempt anything that they foresee resulting in a disaster scenario. This is a tragedy because so much of what makes life worth living involves taking a risk and trying something new. Even if it means that we could ‘fail’ in the first few attempts.
Take a good look at the barrages going on in your head. You may be in a loop of non-thinking and knee jerk reacting. I was only half kidding when I mentioned the fear of mommy and childhood punishments. Can it be that part of you is still subconsciously functioning on this level? Yes! The good news is that this means you can have an epiphany, and realize that you are now an adult. And furthermore, no past authority figure can punish, torture, abuse or deprive you EVER again. The truth is that you are safe and free from all of that now. However, if you are stuck in a mode of childhood defense systems, there is an unwaveringly loyal part of you that holds a sword with great effort and stands on shaking knees. It is you, as a small child utilizing defenses that worked at the time and were needed. The problem is that this tiny child is near collapse, like an old knight, who is well past his prime, yet staunchly alert until the day he is relieved from duty. Release the brave little toddler that is still striving to protect you. Tell this exhausted soul that you do not need childhood strategies of fear and avoidance anymore because the person who abused you can never, ever, ever control or hurt you again. These ancient retributions and the people who wielded them are now impotent. They will never again be capable of touching you. They are no longer a viable reason to be in fear.
That being said, if you as an adult are permitting an authority figure from your childhood control over you today, if you are acquiescing to their abuse and giving your power away, THEN STOP THE BEAST NOW!
Get therapy, tell them off, prove them wrong, forgive them, or move three thousand miles away. Do whatever it takes to get free. You, yes, even YOU can escape from Alcatraz Island! Let me add in all seriousness, that if your innate liberty to choose a path for your life is being withheld from you, it is because this misguided person wants to keep you in slavery. They may fear losing you. Whatever the reason, if an authority figure from your past (or any authority figure in your life now) is still controlling and punishing you, then you must get whatever therapy you need to amputate their sovereignty. Learn how to crown yourself with the power to live your life as you see fit, free from the shadow of another’s domination. If you allow yourself to actually see the truth, you will realize that you don’t have to do anything - you are, by virtue of growing up, simply free. How super fantastic is it to know that you are in fact, free? Understand that your power has always been yours. It will patiently wait until you are ready. All you have to do is pick it up and wield it like a sacred, actualizing sword. Life’s possibilities are yours for the taking.
No one can stop you!
So, we’re adults and we can think for ourselves. Let’s take a new perspective.
Try this on for size: What are the consequences of ‘failure’ or
of ‘making a mistake’?
Answer: LEARNING. Try to see these experiences as an exciting opportunity to learn, grow, become more self confident, more interesting and more capable! How’s that for a new and improved way of looking at ‘mistakes’ and ‘failures’? Actually, these opportunities give us a chance to build a stronger foundation and become more than we are at this moment.
As babies, we learn very slowly how to walk. After much ‘failure’, we master that skill. How sad it would have been if we had given up! If we did not learn to walk, and eventually to run, to bicycle, and to dance! Learning does not have to stop with adulthood. There is always a place to grow to. And the possibility to become more and more accomplished.
So Dear Ones, let’s rename ‘failure’ and ‘mistakes’.
Let’s call them ‘LEARNING’.
Take a look at success. How many people achieve one hundred percent success? Even the world’s finest athletes, those who participate in the Olympics, rarely receive a perfect 10 score. In fact, it is big news when it actually happens. In applying this to our own lives, we can always hope for a percentage of success. That may be a one, twenty, fifty or ninety seven percent success – maybe even one hundred, every now and then. What do we do with this? We celebrate our success with joy and enthusiasm! Even a half of a percent is worthy of a pat on the back. Celebrating is great, loads of fun, and may entail getting paid handsomely.
The big question is, what do we do with the other part of the equation – the non-success? We celebrate! We get really excited, because this is a chance to learn, to get better, bigger and stronger. This is a chance to someday, waltz magnificently instead of never doing anything but crawling every minute of every day for the rest of our lives. How great is that? What a gift our non-success gives us!
Just for fun, let’s look at perfection from another angle. If you were unswervingly flawless, life would become an interminable palate of stagnancy and boredom. In effect, there would be nowhere to venture and no hidden worlds to explore within you. Hmmmmm…..
Take the pressure off yourself to be perfect and mistake free. Once you do that, you can use all of that once wasted, now surplus energy and focus it like a laser on what you want to achieve. There are so many worlds within you to explore! Give your venturesome being all kinds of rope to hang yourself, hit the ground running, and circumnavigate the planet a few times! With this attitude, it’s amazing how simple life becomes and how much fun you can have regardless of learning or success!
Is it ok to be mediocre? Of course it is! In fact, it’s ok if you are never anything but average or below average your whole life. You might even be the worst of the worst! How can that be? Well, let me ask you this: Is what you’re doing meaningful to you? Is it giving you joy? Then it is absolutely ok for you to perform at whatever level you are capable of. You are walking your unique path. Don’t let anyone, especially your own self take that birthright away from you. Besides, just because you perceive yourself as mediocre, doesn’t mean others will. We have a real tendency for seeing ourselves as less than we truly are.
There is nothing that can stop you from reframing your thinking into a growth friendly and spiritually nurturing viewpoint. In essence, there is only success, joy and inspiring others - OR learning. This learning gives you the gifts of becoming stronger, more talented and polished, more self confident and calmer, inspirational, entertaining, effective and last, but hardly least – happier.
You can decide that negativity, self-hatred & putdowns
do not have permission to live within you.
Anymore, ever again.
You Are Not a Nothing
You may feel that you have nothing to contribute. You may think that what you want to do is not big-time or spectacular. You may be convinced (by whom?) that you are small and meaningless. A nothing.
Excuse me for a second while I get some help.
“Hey,you! Yes, over here! We need the guy that shovels up the elephant poop!”
Let’s begin by noting that if you were born and exist, you were meant to be here. Additionally, by the simple fact of your existence, you have a right to be here, and to be loved and respected. You have something special to share and to bestow upon the rest of us. You may be wrong, but perhaps you believe it is tiny in comparison to curing a disease or orchestrating world peace. Regardless of how you may perceive it, it is YOUR gift. No one else is capable of giving your gift in your unique style, with your delightful touch. It is your genius. Mahatma Gandhi affirmed all sentient beings when he declared, “What you do may seem to be insignificant. Nevertheless, it is of the greatest importance that you do it.” In other words, there is something within you that only YOU can give that will make our world a better place!
If you have no idea what you are here for, think about what you can do, in whatever small way, to make your little corner of this terrestrial sphere a better place. When you come up with an idea (or two or three hundred), judge its merits. Ask a few pointed questions. Is it a life-affirming choice? Does it line up with my morals and ethics? Will it make someone smile? Will it make you smile? Will it ease someone’s burden today – even slightly? Will it ease your own? Will it bring one individual up from a dreary quagmire? When you think about it, does part of you squeal delightedly, “Gosh, that sure would be fun to do! That would be exciting!”? Will it satisfy a secret desire to paint, dance, sculpt, sing, cook, read, or…? These are clues, dear angel on earth. If a quiet voice is urging you to do something kind or joyful for yourself or someone else, do it!! Do a good deed and don’t tell anyone about it – ever! Have fun touching one little soul or one speck of the earth at a time (it may be a speck, but it’s your speck). Like the ripples on a pond after you have tossed in a rock, your deeds will touch the lives of those you may never meet and expand into realms you can not imagine.
You are not a nothing.
You are a huge, expansive & beautiful spirit.
You are a unique human being with many, many gifts & talents.
Don’t be selfish & stingy.
Stop wasting time indulging in self-pity.
Contribute to the world
in a way that suits you & resonates with your abilities & intuition.
Share your exquisite self with the rest of us!
Fear Of Being Judged
Let’s talk about a discouraging thought that can stop you in your tracks. It is the fear that someone (or lots of someones!) may judge or criticize you. And the kicker: that the judgment will not be delivered in a constructive, pleasant mode. Well, you’re absolutely right. There will always be someone who is muttering under their breath that you’re lousy or that you’re clothes look stupid or they don’t like the way you’re walking. And that’s my point. This is a sad part of life and is similar to the fact that we all have to use the toilet. It would be nice if we didn’t have to do that, but it is part of being human and we can deal with it!
There are those who strive for nothing and are left with nothing but their hatred and jealousy of achievers. These sad, depressed, bored human beings are going to scrutinize you intensely until they can find a weakness or a mistake so that they can gleefully jump on it. So what? Let ‘em have their fun, because this is the only fun they’re gonna have. You see, these people are more petrified than you are to go out into the world and stretch their wings. In consequence, they just sit around and look for ways to negate others.
Mean old meanies aside, just for fun let’s think outside the box. There may also be the possibility that what we observe as someone watching us in a critical manner may actually be a person consumed with thoughts of themselves and how well or poorly others are judging them! Is that person staring vaguely at you with an immovable frown branded on their face? You notice it and cringe at the thought of how inferior you must seem to them. Why else would they have such an expression on their face? Has it ever occurred to you that they may be looking right THROUGH you into space, visualizing how THEY are coming off to the rest of the world at that moment? Is it possible that the disgust registered on their face may be disappointment in what they perceive as their own inadequacies and assumed failures at that moment? Maybe their crotch itches or they want to pick their nose and polite society won’t allow it. Maybe they are remembering a bad experience from an hour ago or are petrified of some looming challenge that’s facing them in the near future. This is especially true if they’re next in line!
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Power Tools
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Customer review:
"Alex's book is a masterpiece in friendly persuasion. The fact that each of us is innately precious and has the ability to find delight in life hits home again and again in this brilliantly crafted book. Numerous times, simply opening up Power Tools and reading one line has snatched me from the precipice of depression and carried me on angel's wings into the realms of divine truth."
Kelly Athena Richards, author of Dancing Heart, kellyathena.com
Photographer . Author . Artist . Hunger Advocate
About the Author
I'm a Life Coach who specializes in assisting creative minds to overcome barriers to success. Especially the barriers created by fear. I believe in gentleness, kindness & healing humor. I'm a graduate of the Life Coaching program at the South Western Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) in Tempe, Arizona. I'm also an actor & an acting coach. In my spare time, I can be found putting my pen to work on various writing projects including inspirational themes, fiction, screenplays, plays for the theater & comedy sketches.