GETTING THINGS

Power Applied to Getting Tangible
and Intangible Things

These last two weeks, you have been examining your matrix—your beliefs about yourself and your world that influence your personal power. Your mistaken beliefs spawn stinking thinking that limits you and keeps you stuck in the drama triangle. Recognizing the power blockers of stinking thinking (including blaming, shaming, justification, tactics, and the drama triangle) is a key skill to begin reclaiming your personal power.

Taking responsibility to shift the systems that lead to undesirable results gets you out of the drama triangle and into powerful living.

This week, you not only expand your understanding of your limiting beliefs and stinking thinking, but also practice an active power skill. This can reveal even more of your mistaken beliefs if you pay attention to your breakdowns, as well as your successes, in doing your assignment.

Personal Power is manifesting the power of being you. Power is the ability, skill, or capacity to do work. And the definition of work is “to be effective or achieve a desired result.” To increase your power means that you increase your ability, skill, or capacity to be effective or achieve desired results.

We increase our capacity by expanding our reach, resources, and possibilities. A key personal power skill is to effectively ask for things—assert our desires

more directly and to enlist others to do things for us, to help us, to procure what we need, and to obtain the resources we need in order to accomplish our tasks, goals, or missions.

Mistaken Beliefs about Asking for Things

Yet, as important as it is to effectively ask for things, our mistaken beliefs may limit our ability to obtain the necessary resources or support. For example, many people are raised with the idea that in order to be strong, you have to do things yourself and not depend on other people. They are taught that it is weak to rely on others. Yet, the opposite is actually true. Far from being a sign of weakness, expanding your power means that you expand your ability to enlist others, increasing your ability to do things and achieve results.

There are many other mistaken beliefs that limit our power. Some people believe that they shouldn’t “use” other people or lean on them, or that they have to be independent, or be perfect and not need others. Others think it is rude or selfish to get things for themselves. Some people believe that if they let someone know they need them or let people know what is important to them, it will put them in a bad light, or it will be used against them. Some people believe it is better to give than to receive and miss out on what the world could provide for them. Others have adopted the belief that the world doesn’t want to support them or that resources are scarce and they can’t expect much. And others don’t believe they are worthy of receiving from the universe.

Asking for things with the intent of getting it— whether to procure necessary resources and support, solve problems, or meet your yearning—is a power skill.

As you engage in this week’s assignment (or even as you think about your assignment), be aware of your mistaken beliefs that are stirred up, and engage even more fully in the assignment to begin to Liberate from those limiting beliefs. Refer to your Purposeful Leadership Process and review some of the core mistaken beliefs you have been identifying and notice what might get in the way of you manifesting yourself by asking for what you need and want.

Ask and You Shall Receive—The Power of Intention

Often, we get stuck in the victim, persecutor, or rescuer roles of the drama triangle because we don’t take proper responsibility to ask directly for what we want and need. We complain, or blame, or rescue someone else, rather than intending and asking for different results. We use tactics to avoid responsibility, rather than accepting the responsibility to change or have an impact. We don’t intend for things to be different and we don’t ask directly for support or resources that would get us out of the drama of the drama triangle.

Asking for things with the intent of getting them—whether to procure necessary resources and support, solve problems, or meet your yearnings—is a power skill. When you ask for things from others, you let them know what you need, what you desire, and what matters to you. When you ask with the intent of receiving what you ask for, you increase your power to get what you need and want in order to achieve your desired results. Developing the ability to influence and be provided for are important power skills. Exercising this skill gives you new keys to unlock your power. Use your revelations— realizing that you can get what you want, that others actually want to support you, and that you have been sublimating your innate power to influence your world—to support further liberating moves.

Think about how much you could expand your personal power by asking directly for what you need and want in life rather than being a victim, or blaming someone else, or rescuing others, rather than tending to yourself. Or rather than shaming yourself, blaming others, justifying your behavior, or falling into your typical tactics, what could happen if you sought help to change situations and systems to get different results? Think about how much more work you could accomplish if you asked for what you needed and wanted. What results could you achieve if you asked and received from others? How much could your power increase if you expand your network, your requests, and your resources through asking and receiving?

This week, make requests of others, intending to get something from them. Remember, the assignment isn’t just to request something of someone, but to ask with the intention that you will receive it! As you go about this week’s assignment, notice what you are feeling. Are you afraid of rejection, are you angry at the assignment, do you forget the assignment? Underneath your feelings and judgments lie your unconscious beliefs about yourself and your world. Perhaps you think you are unworthy or that the world is scarce or that people are out to get you. You have the opportunity to challenge those beliefs with this week’s assignment.