Empowerment

Today I’m going to talk about empowerment.  I came to this topic via a couple routes.  I tend to pay attention when a topic like this is whispering in my ear repeatedly in multiple interactions.

The first time this topic of empowerment came up was in a Facebook post I read a couple weeks ago.  This was in one of the Boston Marathon groups that I casually follow.  A woman posted that she had signed up for a race and her good friend was essentially shaming her for spending so much money, time and energy on running.  The subtext being that this woman was neglecting her role as mom and wife, etc.

The second time was chatting with Liz here and realizing just how deep these cultural norms go, even in our relatively unencumbered Western world view.  That palpable feeling of guilt that we, especially the women among us, feel when we do this thing for ourselves that feels somehow selfish.

I don’t think empowerment is necessarily a women-owned challenge.  It’s not a gender specific thing per se but does tend to manifest stronger for women because of the cultural norms.  It is incredibly critical in cultures where women are strictly pigeonholed into artificially created societal roles.

I’m not going to go there because I’m not qualified to.

I am going to talk about the importance of empowerment and why it is not selfish.  Why empowering individuals is in fact a community enabler.

Think about the etymology of the word empowerment.  It is the state of being given power.  Of enabling power in an individual.  It is bestowing power to someone to some end.  It’s not us taking power.  It is us being given power.

I would argue that you can give power to yourself or do things that bring power to you.

Power is a loaded word.  Think of the negative reaction you get when you utter phrases like ‘people in power’ or ‘They exercised the power of the military’ or ‘Powerful men’.  Then say something like ‘the power of positive thinking’ or ‘the power of joy’ and you get a positive response.

Power alone is neither negative nor positive.  Power is simply capability. It is the ends to which that power is directed that make it good or bad.  Mother Teresa had power.  Gandhi had power.  They did not seize that power from someone else.  They accumulated that power from words, deeds and ideas.

What does sport and running have to do with this empowerment and the guilt we feel when we move into an endurance sports lifestyle?

First, as we have seen time and time again throughout the course of the conversations we have had here over the last decade – running, endurance sports and sports in general can be an enabling and even transforming force in people’s lives.

If you had asked me when I was a kid whether I ever thought I could run a qualifying marathon I would have scoffed at the idea.  But, then I did it and I wondered what else am I capable of?  That’s the empowering nature of our sport.  It throws off the shackles of what we can’t do and replaces them with the wings of possibility.

Through sports we are empowered.  We are filled with the epiphany of our capabilities.

Second, running and sport is a gateway drug that changes our frame of reference in all other aspects of our life.  It immediately draws our attention to the connection between focused effort, goal setting and results.

Sport connects the dots between all the aspects of physical health in a life.  It clearly highlights the connection between nutrition and performance and health.  Other, health aspects such as cross training, flexibility, sleep, rest and balance come into our scope of understanding.

All these things empower us as better humans in the physical.

Through our sport we begin to tap into the mental aspects of empowerment.  We begin to learn the necessary mindfulness of training and racing.  We learn the mind-body connection that enables performance but also empowers.

Third, as a result of this breaking out of our own limited frame of capabilities, we begin to break out of the frames of the roles that others have put us in.

This creates the friction.

For me it’s having my wife ask me why I waste so much time on training when I could be working on something useful! For the lady on facebook it was why are you spending your resources on this when your family needs you.

That’s just the friction of you growing beyond the frame that they had put you in.  That’s not your problem, that’s their problem. They are going to have to adjust their frame of reference.

And that is the point.  That is the externalization of empowering ourselves.  We empower those around us by breaking their frames of reference.

In this way, you see how we are now beginning to change our families, communities and the world.  By empowering ourselves we are empowering others.  By doing this thing that moves us outside the expected roles others have put on us we are clearing a space.  We are making it ok for someone else to do it too.

Let’s review the way our sport empowers.

• By empowering ourselves with our athletic pursuits we break our own assumptions of what our capabilities are. We break the disempowering assumptions and replace them with assumptions of capabilities.  We are empowered to think and act differently.
• As a result of entering into this world of athletics we are taught the impact of all aspects of our bodies on our physical health. We are empowered to live a healthy and directed lifestyle.
• As we continue this journey we begin to understand the power of mindfulness and the mind-body connection. We are empowering our mental health.
• As all of these powerful forces coalesce in us we become more capable of helping those around us. We create space for others to be empowered in similar fashion.  We change the assumptions of the herd, the community and eventually the world.

That’s empowerment.

Empowerment is not selfish.  You are taking the first step in changing the world, empowering the world.

Don’t feel guilty for empowering yourself.  Feel a great and purposeful gratitude for having the power to change the world.