‘And so it happens — that I took charge and things started to go my way’.

It always comes back to valuing ourselves and that is how we go from feeling powerless to being powerful.

It’s a simple message and not always a simple path to walk.

When things aren’t going the way we’d hoped, when there’s a certain unease, and even on the other side of the spectrum when there’s nothing necessarily ‘wrong’ and something greater is pulling us, we often believe the answer is more complicated than it really is.

We think the answer is in changing structures, or trying on new models, or resolving stuff going on in a relationship.

Our focus is ‘out there’.

And it can be.

But not in the first instance.

The primary answer before any focus on the outside is you.

Valuing you.

Like really valuing you. All of you.

The bits that you don’t really love and the bits that you do.

The most under-rated strategy that underlies the change you are seeking or is seeking you is SELF-LOVE.

Until you love yourself, you cannot value yourself. And if you don’t value yourself that change will be illusory, or arrive but temporarily.

I received a message from a former client this morning which inspired me to write.

She said ‘And so it happens - that I took charge and things started to go my way’.

Prior to us coaching her definition of ‘taking charge’ would have meant ‘taking control’.

But not here.

What she was really saying was ‘I love and trust myself that much that I took responsibility, despite the circumstances, to value myself and what matters the most to me and that’s why things started to go my way’.

She went from feeling powerless to being powerful and that’s why her external reality changed in her favour.

So, if you are attempting to experience a different reality by working on those external nobs and dials in the first instance, stop.

Let go.

Go for a walk.

Meditate.

Go swim in the ocean.

Listen to music that opens your heart.

Do breath work if you’re fortunate enough to have experienced this.

Allow yourself to journey within.

More than likely you’ll hit into shame, doubt, frustration.

You’ll tell yourself stories about who you are. That you are not good enough. Don’t have the capacity. Can’t trust. Powerless. Undeserving.

Feel what’s there until those feelings dissolve.

And then remember your innocence, your purity.

And that you don’t want to leave this life half baked.

And you may start to feel love in your body again — but this time this love will be for you.

Just for you.

Stay here.

Now you are in a position where you can begin that walk to valuing who you are. You’ll remember things that you’d forgotten like the many expressions of you, your creative side, your courage and bravery, your boldness and gentleness, your desires……

The more you value yourself the more you’ll move from feeling powerless to being powerful.

And things will start to go your way.