R.A.D.I.C.A.L. Thoughts

"Empowerment is not the things you do to or for people, it's the impediments you take away, leaving space for folks to empower themselves."
Terry Neill in the Pursuit of Wow by Tom Peters

There's an old French saying that goes something like this: "Change is a door that can only be opened from the inside." I know during my midlife divorce, I tried everything I could to make my then-husband end his affair, change his behavior and come back home. But he didn't want to. He said he did. He told me he would. But he never did. I spent countless hours trying to get him to change and wondering why he didn't change. I should have been changing myself! We can't make anyone else change. They have to want to change. We can tell them why we think they should change or why we think they are making wrong choices and bad decisions, but then the change is up to them. Our change is up to us. We can't empower anyone else. We can only empower ourselves. We can't make someone else take the reins of his life and get on track. We can tell them how we found power or things that helped us, but every person is responsible for his or her own life. That's a powerful lesson we are teaching our children through this divorce as well. Crappy stuff happens. Life is not fair. People can be selfish. But we, ourselves, are in charge of our life. That's sobering and exhilerating at the same time. How my life turns out is up to me. Period. So... let's take away the obstacles we have erected in our own life or in the life of someone else, and let's each turn the light on for ourselves!

"So tend to your knitting. You've got your hands full just taking care of you own life before God. Forget about deciding what's right for each other. Here's what you need to be concerned about: that you don't get in the way of someone else, making life more difficult than it already is."
Romans 14:12-13 (The Message)