We’re so in the habit of controlling each other/being controlled that we’ve forgotten how to think for ourselves. We’re so overwhelmed by the challenges we face that we assume there’s nothing we can do (and it’s all our fault). And we assume that controlling each other is necessary and failing was inevitable because humans are just basically bad.
Let’s re-examine these habits and assumptions.
I’ve been searching for a better name for the category of blog posts that I’ve been calling “Thinking Differently.” I’m leaning towards choosing “Empowered Thinking.”
Paying attention to the kinds of thinking we choose to engage in is critical to our quality of life as individuals, and to how we handle our collective challenges.
In his foreword to the book Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble, Charles Eisenstein writes that,
Cultures older than our own widely recognised that words carried a magical, regenerative power. They were not mere [symbols] connected through arbitrary social convention to the real world of things. Words were emanations of land and life, partaking intimately in the beingness of the things, processes, and qualities they signified. To name a thing was to invoke it.”
~ Charles Eisenstein (bold emphasis is mine)
These two words, “empowered thinking”—or any words we chose to use and especially if we use them repeatedly, with strong emotion or intention, or with ritual—are not just words. Words and thoughts name and shape our world, and choosing them carefully, deliberately, is one of our responsibilities as stewards of our world.
Are you authorized?
Here are some synonyms (alternative words with a similar meaning) for the word “empowered”:
- authorized
- allowed
- sanctioned
- permitted
In our culture (the dominant culture on earth today), words like these mean you have permission. You’re allowed to be somewhere and/or to do something.
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