You’re Already Empowered!

When nurses talk about empowerment, the discussion often focuses on how we can find power over the circumstances in our work environment. And when we talk about feeling stressed or burned out, we’re usually talking about the circumstances at work that are causing us to experience stress (see article on stressors and stress to learn the difference between what stresses us and what we experience.)

Becoming empowered and less stressed within our workplace is necessary. But…are we missing something? Is there a way to become empowered and less stressed without trying to change everything that goes on outside of ourselves?

My belief is that what makes you powerful and what decreases stress in your life has less to do with having power over your present circumstances and more to do with your power within.

Your personal empowerment has nothing to do with whether you have an advanced degree or not or whether you’re on a steering committee. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether you’re a “super nurse” or not. It doesn’t even have to do with whether you’ve ever made a medication error before!

Your Power is Within, Not Over

Becoming empowered is important, but does that mean trying to exert power over your challenges? Even though you might decrease the number of stressors within your workplace, there are always more to come in the form of difficult patients, angry peers, and new policies.

(Hint: As long as you’re tossed about by the waves of emotions that you experience when confronted with external obstacles, you’ll never find true and lasting inner peace.)

What people respond to and respect, and what makes you powerful, is something that you already have; what makes you powerful is the fact that you have awareness and that you have compassion.

True power and true peace of mind come from within your mind; true power comes from being able to withstand the tumult of external forces, and not be swept from your center.

Real stress management comes from being able to deal with your mind and emotions in relation to your environment.

Hey nurse!! True power already exists within you, at this very moment, and has always been there; it comes from learning to work with and harness the power of your mind!

Harness the Power of Your Mind

Think about this; how would you be as a nurse (or spouse/partner, parent, driver, etc.) if you could remain present, in the moment, aware of all that was going on, internally and externally, without being thrown by it; do you think that would make you more powerful? You bet!

Would you feel more empowered to deal with whatever was going on, whether that was a patient crisis or a crisis in morale in your work environment? Yes you would!

And do you think that you’d be able to deal with stress better if you weren’t reacting to it every time that you experienced it? I think so.

Think of the following points:

  • Where does the experience of stress reside? Within your mind.
  • Where does a sense of personal power reside? Within your mind.
  • What can you work with to control the stress in your life? Your mind.

So, it seems that your mind is pretty important in empowering you and decreasing your experience of stress.

For those of you who read this blog on a regular basis, you’ve heard what I’m about to say. Still, it’s important to hear this repeatedly to make the deep and lasting changes that are necessary.

If you harness the power of your mind, your perceptions and experience of your daily life will change. And with that change, you’ll experience less stress and a greater sense of power in your life regardless of what’s going on in your work or home environment!

All stress, all power, all of your perceptions occur within your mind. Because of this, you can change the way that you deal with situations that are disempowering, change your perceptions, and become less stressed by learning to work with your mind. How?

Meditation = Harnessing the Power of Your Mind

In its essence, meditation is the state of non-distraction.

FACT: When you’re less distracted, you’re more powerful because you’re less thrown by circumstances and external stimuli. When you’re not distracted by thoughts of past experiences or fear of future outcomes, you’re more able to remain present and deal with what’s going on in the moment. This kind of presence makes you more powerful in how you respond to and deal with difficult experiences at work and in life.

Meditation helps you to become more aware of what’s going on inside of you, and – with practice – allows you to change how you respond (react less!) to your external circumstances.

FACT: When you’re more aware, you’re less likely to become caught up in your normal stress – response. Stress is how you respond to external stimuli, stressors, and how you deal with the physiology of that response. When you’re more aware, you’re less likely to take feelings of “fear” or “anxiety” as real, and able to respond from a genuine place of calm.

Meditation helps you to become more compassionate with yourself and others and so, when you’re dealing with difficult people, you’ll respond in a way that’s less defensive.

FACT: Meditation helps to promote a genuine presence of compassion. When we begin to meditate, or even if we’ve been doing it for a while, we’ll learn that our mind truly is the creator of our happiness and our suffering. Despite the outer circumstances, how our mind is at any one moment can determine how we experience our reality.

This leads us to realize how much we suffer due to the wildness of our mind. With this realization comes the truth that everyone suffers and that others’ suffering is also due to their untrained mind. When we realize this, and when we begin to gain some inner peace and contentment within our mind, then we begin to wish for others what we have gained for ourselves. That is true compassion, wishing others to have what you have, peace of mind.

Meditation is a state where we’re able to observe the cares and concerns that arise with our mind, yet where we don’t try to push or shove the cares and concerns out of our mind.

FACT: While attempting to rid your mind of thoughts and all that arises within it would (potentially) be power over our mind, if you’ve ever tried to force the thoughts out of your mind, you may have found that it’s impossible to forcibly still your mind. Instead, when we work with our mind and learn to remain in the present, aware of our moment-to-moment environment, without becoming distracted by the thoughts that arise, or the emotions that we experience, then we begin to tap into the wellspring of personal power.

Meditation = Power Within

Through working with your mind, meditation teaches you to bring your power from within out into your daily life and work. And when you have that kind of power, people notice.

How To Meditate

Maybe you’ve already got a meditation practice. If that’s the case, great! Keep it up. And feel free to use all of the content from this site to support you in your efforts. If you haven’t started to meditate, begin now.

Many people don’t meditate because they believe that they need to do “something special” in order to meditate, maybe you’re one of them. “Doing something” special isn’t the case. All you need is your breath, and a few minutes of time set aside to begin your practice. Here are some tools to get you started:

Do You Need Something More Than This?

I encourage you to look through the HUNDREDS of articles that I’ve written and especially check out my weekly meditation tips and other useful meditation materials provided for your health and well being. And please let me know if you’d like to discuss anything with me, have any questions or need clarification regarding anything that I’ve written about.

Thanks for visiting and have a mindful day.