Taking Back What's Yours

​Too often we give away different parts of ourselves to others and wonder why we don’t have anything left for us.  What do we give away?  Our time, energy, power, confidence, money, friendship, etc.  We get frustrated and even feel bad when we don’t feel we get the recognition or acknowledgement that we crave.  It’s time to take back what we have given away.

I’m not saying that giving is a “bad’ thing.  It is when you give so much and it creates tension or ill feelings within yourself.  It’s when you said yes to something that you wanted to say no to.  Or when you wanted to speak up and use your voice and you didn’t.  It happened when your children asked you for money (again) because they were not responsible and you gave them more when you knew better.  Whenever you did something in spite of knowing that it would not be congruent with who you are.

Think back to a time in your life when you gave something away that you want back.  It could be emotionally, mentally, spiritually or even figuratively.  Picture the incident clearly in your mind.  What did it feel like?  Look it? Sound like?  Was someone else there?  Once you can clearly see it and feel it, check in with your body and look for any areas of tension, discomfort or pain.  The usual areas tend to be in the chest or stomach.  After you locate this area, put your hands on it.

Start taking deep breaths in through your nose and out through your nose with your hands on top of the area of greatest discomfort or pain.

Continue to breathe faster and faster until you can’t anymore, then say loudly “Enough!”.  Enough of this.  Next say to this area, “I take my ______ back!”  Fill in the black with what you gave away.  If it was your power, then you say “I take my power back!” Or “I take my life back!”.  Finally, in that same area, say “I deserve so much more than this!”.

Parts of this exercise comes from the book “The 12 Stages of Healing” by Donald Epstein.  If you would like to do the full exercise on reclaiming your power, please come to one of our advanced workshops.  ​