Feeling Powerless? Here’s How to Deal With Powerlessness

Take these doses of inspiration regularly, as prescribed, to shift from powerless to powerful. On this list you’ll include your innate gifts, the expert skills that you’ve learned during your career path, and lastly, your talents that you’ve been honing and working on throughout your life,” notes Dr. Uche. “Write out this list, including at least seven attributes in each category. This is an exercise that is meant to challenge you to really dig deep into who you are and what it is that you’re offering the world. Everyone has these gifts, expert skills, and talents, but it’s easy to forget.

• However, paying attention to the things you can control can help you feel more capable.
• But in an effort to grow her organization and help more people, she eventually began courting private donors, public authorities, and the general public.
• Once you recognize those helpless thoughts and feelings, it is time to start actively challenging and replacing them with more accurate, empowering ones.
• Because some imbalance of power may be inevitable and is considered by some as beneficial to therapeutic change, counselors ought to practice caution and awareness when exploring the dynamics of their relationships with clients.

As worry and anxiety sets in, we lack the autonomy and drive to propel us forward; reverting to repetitive cycles of defensiveness such as avoiding situations, procrastination, emotional withdrawal, panic attacks or angry outbursts. This effect can explain why many protest movements have a hard time gaining traction, why members of disadvantaged groups might endorse politicians who do not advocate for their interests, and even why some people stay in abusive relationships. Not only do many people who feel helpless avoid changes that could help them, but they profess that things are actually pretty good already. Understanding powerless, that I had no choice, changed my life. It wasn’t until I had a full understanding of this word that my spiritual journey really was able to begin. It also made me realize that I’m not a bad person or a weak person.

If You Want to Change the World, You Need Power (

The key is to have discernment over what you can control and what you can’t and identify the small window of control within the big circle of uncontrollable things. When we focus powerless over alcohol examples and take responsibility for the areas that we have control, we stop feeling powerless. However, oftentimes, we mixed up the two and think that we have more control than we have.

In these studies, power included both the personal characteristics of self-respect and empowerment and the interpersonal component of influence over others. The disparity in power between men and women appears to shift over the life span. Studies have documented an increase in the perceived strength, confidence, and interpersonal power of women later in life.

About the Experience

She defined stressors or triggers as “personal experiences that worsen your well-being.” To discover your unique triggers, reflect on the issues and experiences that have been upsetting to you, she said. On a physical level, trauma paralyzes a person with fear and causes extreme fatigue, she said. An inpatient substance use treatment program can be an effective way to start living a sober life, but what you choose… I’ll just have one or maybe two; I can drink just one more day then stop, I’ll just smoke marijuana that’s not that bad, or I’ll only drink on the weekends, etc. How many times have we had these kinds of thoughts and believed them? Let’s face it when we control it, we’re not enjoying it, and when we’re enjoying it, we’re not controlling it.

• You can evaluate the decisions that led to your current feelings of powerlessness and create an action plan to prevent repeating those decisions in the future.
• Over time, these emotions can fill us with anxiety, depletion, or depression.
• Be aware of the slight burn in your tendons and ligaments, as they very slowly stretch out, giving a sense of elasticity, suppleness and fluidity.
• As business owners, navigating uncharted territory is usually the norm, but this has been an unprecedented amount of uncertainty – even for seasoned entrepreneurs.
• We feel judged and alone – longing for change, but convinced we are powerless to act.

Likewise, studies have also demonstrated a decrease in the perceived power of men in older age groups. In many African societies, women who reach middle age experience the elimination of restrictions in an often gender-typed society. As women reach middle and older age, their power is approximately the same as that of men. The subtle approval of certain arrangements of racial privilege and power is an especially important implication. The biases embedded within dominant discourse are hidden by their exceeding normalcy, and this sense of order allows this subtle approval to persist in society and communities without questioning.

Feeling Powerless Over Our Health

You may do this in a safe place, like a room of your own, your garden or in a natural space like a park surrounded by living plants and animals. Depression – when we experience long-term depression we can become detached and withdrawn, losing connection with ourselves and others, yet feeling unable to reach out for help. No matter what course of action we take, we become convinced that no one else cares or understands our difficulties. We feel judged and alone – longing for change, but convinced we are powerless to act.

These collective choices will protect and enhance our freedoms and rights or endanger them. But freezing in adulthood reduces our capacity to mobilise into action or cope with adversity, by adapting to change. It induces feelings of extreme detachment (dissociation) and patterns of avoidant behaviour in an effort to seek relief, but it also reduces our threshold of tolerance for stress and leaves us feeling even more helpless.

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