POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power
  • About
  • Introduction
  • Browse the book
    • All the pages alphabetically >
      • A >
        • Power: Against the Flow, with the Flow
        • Animal power
        • Addiction and power
        • Absolute power
        • Anxiety and power
      • B >
        • Bureaucracy and power
        • Buddhism
        • Binary thinking
      • C >
        • Cause and effect
        • Circumstances and Power
        • Power as a chess game
        • Choice
        • (Power to) change how you see things
        • Choosing meanings
        • Consumerism
        • Corrupted by power
      • D >
        • Discovering your power
      • E >
        • Empowerment
        • Empathy and power
        • (Power to) enjoy the moment
        • Entropy and power
      • F >
        • Foucault's "power is everywhere"
        • Free will
      • G
      • H >
        • Having power and using power
        • Human brain and power
      • I >
        • Intersectionality and power
        • Improving mental abilities
        • (Power to) improve your mood
        • In control
        • Inequality
        • Influencing each other
        • Intentionality and power
      • K >
        • Knowledge and power
      • L >
        • "Power" in language
        • Language has power over us
        • Limited resources
        • Louis XIV and Absolute Power
      • M >
        • Making an effort is a prerequisite of using power
        • Marxism and the meaning of power
        • "May" power
        • Micropower: Individual power
        • Mindfulness
        • Media and Digital Literacy as Forms of Individual Power
        • (Mis)understanding of power in media texts
        • Money and Power
        • My synesthetic perception of "power"
      • N >
        • (Nature) Power of nature
      • O >
        • Power on/off
      • P >
        • Power as ability
        • Power as influence
        • Power vs. powerlessness
        • Physical power
        • Power is not a thing
        • Power of speech
        • Privilege
        • Power of the powerless
      • R >
        • Responsibility, blame and power
      • S >
        • (Power of) seeing
        • Self-awareness and power
        • Snapshot power
        • (Ability and influence in) social and non-social power
        • Socialization and power
        • (Power of) stories
        • Studying power
        • Synonyms of power
      • T >
        • Theory of micro- and macropower
      • U >
        • Using power is rewarding
        • Understanding Power Imbalances Is Not Excusing
      • V >
        • Vector power
      • W >
        • What is power?
        • Willpower
    • Completed pages
  • Author
    • My creative process

Discovering Your Power

PAGE IN PROGRESS
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power. Initially empty, this page will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. Thank you for your interest and patience! 
Rebekah Bauines helping her niece Ava to become a teacher (in 1st book about Lyndon Johnson); that’s what mentors do: help discover power 
From "Path to Power":
"
One girl who received them was Lyndon’s cousin Ava….
When Mrs. Johnson did, and began assigning speech topics, Ava recalls, “I said I couldn’t do a speech. “ ‘You come over to the house this afternoon.’ “At the house, I said, ‘I just can’t do it, Aunt Rebekah.’ And she said, ‘Oh, yes, you can. There’s nothing impossible if you put the mind to it. I know you have the ability to deliver a speech.’ And I cried, and I said, ‘I just can’t do it!’ “Aunt Rebekah said, ‘Oh, yes, you can.’ And she said, ‘Pretty is just skin-deep, darling.’ Ooooh, I’ll never forget her saying that. And she repeated that Browning poem to me. And she never let up, never let up. Never. Boosting me along, telling me I could do it. She taught me speaking and elocution, and I went to the state championships with it, and I want to tell you, I was one scared chicken. And I won a medal, a gold medal, in competitions involving the whole state. And she
still kept boosting me along. I wanted to be a teacher, but I never thought I could: I just didn’t think that I could ever get it over to a child. I had always wanted to be a teacher, but I couldn’t sell myself. I had an inferiority complex that wouldn’t quit. She told me, ‘You have everything that it takes to make a good teacher. Just make up your mind to do it.’ She never let up, telling me I could do it. And I did. And I became a teacher, and taught for eighteen years. I owe a debt to Aunt Rebekah that I can never repay. She made me know that I could do what I never thought I could do.”"


this page is about your individual Power - macropower

​because micro power is impossible about intentionality- which is awareness plus choice - discovering your individual Power means means development awareness about choices you can make

​discovering your power often requires a significant effort
what comes first: Realizing that there is something to discover or discovering something?

Example of a book about discovering your power: unwinding anxiety

for some people it may be easier that for others to discover their power. Many factors are at play: one’s life circumstances, individual characteristics (more or less patience or ability to concentrate)


You can think about a superhero discovering their power. But this is actually a much more mundane scenario. We have many powers that we are not aware of. These include ability (usually as mental abilities) and also influences. In other words, we often do not know what we can do (we don't know that we can tame our anxiety) or we don't know what impact we have on others.

Other words we can use: understand one's power, realize one's power.

Can we use power without realizing it? It is probably more relevant in case of power as influence. We often are not aware of how our actions and non-actions impact people around us.

Recognizing your power often means recognizing your responsibility, which is not easy to do. So people often do not recognize their power (recognizing one's power is itself a kind of power that one might have but not use).

discover your power to agree yo try something new to help yourself overcome stress, e.g. through meditation.
it’s not uncommon for people to reject help and yo avoid trying something new, so they remain stuck in harmful patterns
trying something new even if you do not fully believe that it might help -
allowing yourself to doubt there you may be wrong that this something can help - is a power that most people have but do not know about and as a result do not use

discover power to use your voice, to ask for what you need, to admit to yourself what you need

discover power to understand others even if you disagree with them

Another power to discover: communication
https://www.tenpercent.com/meditationweeklyblog/listening?utm_source=TPW&utm_medium=share

"It might seem like skillful communication is something inherent in some of us and not in others. But just like any other skill, it can be learned. And what better inspiration than feeling greater harmony with the people in your life?"

Power: have -> discover/realize -> use
If you are interested in getting updates about this project (e.g., when new pages are published), please sign up for the newsletter on my main website.

I use AI tools as a kind of writing partner—to shape drafts, clarify arguments, and explore phrasing. But the ideas, perspectives, and direction are always my own. Every piece here is part of an evolving personal project. For more details about my use of AI, see here.
  • About
  • Introduction
  • Browse the book
    • All the pages alphabetically >
      • A >
        • Power: Against the Flow, with the Flow
        • Animal power
        • Addiction and power
        • Absolute power
        • Anxiety and power
      • B >
        • Bureaucracy and power
        • Buddhism
        • Binary thinking
      • C >
        • Cause and effect
        • Circumstances and Power
        • Power as a chess game
        • Choice
        • (Power to) change how you see things
        • Choosing meanings
        • Consumerism
        • Corrupted by power
      • D >
        • Discovering your power
      • E >
        • Empowerment
        • Empathy and power
        • (Power to) enjoy the moment
        • Entropy and power
      • F >
        • Foucault's "power is everywhere"
        • Free will
      • G
      • H >
        • Having power and using power
        • Human brain and power
      • I >
        • Intersectionality and power
        • Improving mental abilities
        • (Power to) improve your mood
        • In control
        • Inequality
        • Influencing each other
        • Intentionality and power
      • K >
        • Knowledge and power
      • L >
        • "Power" in language
        • Language has power over us
        • Limited resources
        • Louis XIV and Absolute Power
      • M >
        • Making an effort is a prerequisite of using power
        • Marxism and the meaning of power
        • "May" power
        • Micropower: Individual power
        • Mindfulness
        • Media and Digital Literacy as Forms of Individual Power
        • (Mis)understanding of power in media texts
        • Money and Power
        • My synesthetic perception of "power"
      • N >
        • (Nature) Power of nature
      • O >
        • Power on/off
      • P >
        • Power as ability
        • Power as influence
        • Power vs. powerlessness
        • Physical power
        • Power is not a thing
        • Power of speech
        • Privilege
        • Power of the powerless
      • R >
        • Responsibility, blame and power
      • S >
        • (Power of) seeing
        • Self-awareness and power
        • Snapshot power
        • (Ability and influence in) social and non-social power
        • Socialization and power
        • (Power of) stories
        • Studying power
        • Synonyms of power
      • T >
        • Theory of micro- and macropower
      • U >
        • Using power is rewarding
        • Understanding Power Imbalances Is Not Excusing
      • V >
        • Vector power
      • W >
        • What is power?
        • Willpower
    • Completed pages
  • Author
    • My creative process