Writing to be Powerful Beyond Measure

Maya Angelou (via last.fm)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  It is that we are powerful beyond measure.
- Marianne Williamson

I have for a long time had an opinion that has stopped me from writing anything personal.  I remember reading one of my favorite books, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings“, followed by the entire rest of Maya Angelou’s autobiographical series when I was a young teen.  I loved the books and Maya Angelou became one of my all time favorite people in the world.  The books were so transparent about the highs and lows of her life.  She exposed both her joyous and her painful memories.  She exposed both the good and the bad – things that people would assume she “should” be ashamed of and therefore try to hide so people would not think ill of her.

I remember thinking that there was such a disconnect between my image of her as a classy, sophisticated, wise, and powerful woman that I would one day hope to emulate and the rump-shaking, drinking, cussing girl and woman of her youth.  It is precisely the fact that she exposed those things that she has become so respected and beloved by me and millions of others globally.

In reading those books though, I also created an opinion that any writing that shared your thoughts, opinions, or insight into your personal life took a tremendous amount of courage and I just did not have the same kind of courage that Maya Angelou demonstrated.  Therefore, I was resigned to never write like that.

However, somewhere in the back of my mind, I believed journaling to be a good idea.  I have a shelf full of journals, beautifully crafted books for which I purchased special pens, that continue to have mostly blank pages.  I start them with good intentions and then, just when the writing gets juicy, I retreat into my head, never to share the thoughts with anyone on paper – not even myself.  This required too much courage.

I resigned myself to limit my writing endeavors to things that could demonstrate my intellectual prowess.  I write studies, business plans, commission reports, white papers – anything that requires that a somewhat technical or complicated topic be structured and presented in a manner that was understandable to the broadest group of people.  This requires no courage – just good logic.

Then for years, as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group, I limited my writing to PowerPoint slides, almost entirely neglecting the art of prose.  This works in business.  It doesn’t take courage.

Most recently, I developed the InPower coaching system to help people realize the power they have inside of themselves and to equip them to use that power by consciously making the best choices about the actions they take to achieve the results they desire.  One of the choices that people can make to harness their inherent power is a choice about what to believe.

My limiting belief that it takes way too much courage to be able to write something non-technical, non-business related is not serving me well.  My limiting belief that I don’t have the kind of courage that Maya Angelou exemplifies in her writing is not allowing me to fully access my power.

I am powerful, so I am now choosing to write.  I am powerful, so I am choosing to write and to share some of my non-technical writing with other.  I am powerful, so I choose to write often.

I am powerful.  In fact, I am powerful beyond measure.

Cecilia