As part of a new series, I am going to introduce you to several emotion words you may know, but would benefit from using more often. When you know more emotion words, you can experience more emotions. This helps you enjoy your positive moments more, as you lock them into your brain with a clear label. It also helps you suffer from your negative moments less, giving you more control over how you remember them.
This series will follow a fairly specific structure as I help you find emotion words for a wide variety of experiences. Today’s word, “Empowered,” comes into play when “The World Was Safe.” By safe, I mean you had the freedom to explore and the assurance you could get help when needed. This feeling of empowerment, then, comes up when you remember times you had that safety in the past. Let’s delve further into this word.
What is it?
Parents constantly need to balance protecting their kids and letting them be free to make mistakes. Young kids need more protection than freedom, while older kids need more freedom than protection. Parents get some wiggle room in making mistakes, but we can think of those mistakes as one of two things – too much protection or too much freedom.
When parents get this balance right, their kids grow up feeling empowered. They can explore the world, take risks, and come home when they push too far. This leads to well adjusted adults who likewise can take risks without taking rejection and failure too personally.
To be empowered means to feel confident in taking these risks and dealing with the consequences. This allows a person to try new activities, grow in old passions, and discard unwanted pieces. Empowered people deal with new information better, adapting faster to a world that doesn’t have to be threatening to them.
It’s not about how scary the world is, it’s about how confident you are in your ability to face it.
What does it feel like?
Picture a mountain. It starts at a slow incline, progresses into a slight uphill covered in trees, and ends in a sheer upward peak. At the bottom, you can rest easily and enjoy the pleasant weather. Looking up, however, you can see winds increasing and, at the very top, snow swirling in the air. Climbing this mountain will not be easy.
It doesn’t need to be easy, though. You have the right equipment and experience in climbing to feel confident facing this mountain. You got this.
Starting at the bottom, you let your mind wander, feeling unchallenged by the gentle slope. Here, you carry your backpack and plant one foot gently in front of the other, knowing that virtually anyone could make this part of the journey. While this feels easy, it doesn’t feel particularly fulfilling.
Toward the middle of the mountain, you start to feel a bit winded. Your backpack still rests firmly between your shoulders, unopened, but you start using the trees as handles and pick your footing carefully. Every once in a while, you feel your foot slip and need to regain your grip on the world under you. A wind occasionally bursts around you, forcing you to take deeper breaths in order to keep climbing in this way. This part is harder than the mountain’s bottom, but still not exactly challenging.
Near the top, you open your backpack. Here, you need climbing gear in order to keep moving. You strap everything on, pull up a scarf to block the swirling snow, and thrust your hands into thick gloves. As you look straight up and see the top of the mountain, you know two things. First, this won’t be easy; given the jagged rocks and sheer climb, you’ll be exhausted and hurting by the time you make it to the top.
Second, you’re going to make it to the top.
This feeling, to see a challenging situation and feel confident in your ability to handle it, is empowerment.
How to use this word?
Try using “empowered” in your everyday life. Use it to describe situations that might be a little scary, but feel manageable anyway. In couples therapy, I encourage clients to use this word when they are given something new; a new pain, a new desire, a new feeling. This gift carries its own set of challenges and hopes for the future – a mountain, you could say. When taking in this gift, I hope you feel empowered to climb the mountain.