Cathy's blog

Have you ever noticed that there seem to be two versions of you?

A couple of days ago, my husband and I went out for dinner, to quite a fancy place, that we had never been to before. We'd booked for 7 PM, so when we arrived, so the restaurant was less than half full. The waiter, though not unfriendly, had this air of superiority over him. Standing a bit too straight, looking not quite at me. With one movement, he pushed my red button. Arrogance makes me shrink. You might not notice it, but it brings out the too-good girl in me. We ended up being seated in the middle of the restaurant, rather than at that seaside table, that in my head I'd called dibs on. I was temporarily dis-inpowered™.

We all have two versions of ourselves.

The first one is your 'default setting.' Like your smartphone, when you first took it out of the box: optimal battery life, fast. We also have such a version of ourselves. The one where we feel ok with ourselves and the world, balanced. We have access to all the good stuff in ourselves: our intelligence, creativity, energy, empathy, and in my case - assertiveness.

And there is another one. The one where something or someone had pushed a red button. When you either clam up, get angry, or run away from the situation. We all have our very own style of being dis-inpowered™.

This may be very subtle. If you don’t pay attention, you may not even notice, because you've been reacting to things like this most of your life.

It seems to just happen to us. One moment you are in-powered™ - the next you're not. 

But it doesn't have to be like that.

There is a simple 4-step process that allows you to re-inpower™ yourself.

1. Recognize when you have been dis-inpowered™. What are your 'red buttons'? Notice your reaction patterns. Do you tend to get angry, withdraw, clam up?

2. Restore your own safety. You feel judged, not seen, misunderstood, powerless, overwhelmed. The first thing you can do for yourself is to ensure that you're not judging yourself, that you have empathy for yourself. When we feel judged - we tend to judge ourselves for feeling that way.

3. Create multi-perspective. You're stuck in tunnel vision. Allow yourself to explore other perspectives. How else could I look at this? What different perspective could be valid?

4. Take ownership. Put yourself in the driver's seat. Whatever is happening to you, no matter how wrong the other person may be, there is always something, however small that you can do to improve the situation. 

If you want to have a positive impact in your own life, your own career, being in-powered™ is the key. The more you can remain in-powered™, the easier and faster you can re-inpower™ yourself, the more you are in control.

You got this!