Read this When...: Empowering Messages for Powerless Moments

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK 1.Turn to the Contents page. 2.Select the situation that is closest to how you are feeling. 3.Turn to the page designated for that situation and read the empowering message(s) in that section. 4.Let the message speak to you. Repeat as needed.

Tragedies in the world, financial struggles, and personal crises can leave us feeling outraged, angry, grief-stricken, and most of all, powerless. The situations that produce these powerless moments are usually beyond our control.

For example:

-The news delivers stories of violence, hatred, and tragedy. Murder, rioting, looting, and destruction are presented in abundance in the news and social media sources daily.

-There are articles proclaiming that our food and water are unsafe, tainted, or making us sick. We hear that our elected officials have voted to support organizations that are withholding information from us about the ingredients in our food or its origins. Then, we read that the pharmaceutical companies are benefitting from creating drugs for treating symptoms instead of finding cures. Fear, frustration, and mistrust pervade our lives all the time.

-Work life can be another source of powerless feelings, as we juggle office politics, money struggles, and trying to please everyone while striving for work-life balance.

-Home life can also be overwhelming, overloaded with responsibilities, expectations, demands, children, teens, hormones, drama, arguments, enforcing rules, and trying to find time for ourselves.

-People can be mean. People can be thoughtless, condescending, rude, selfish, and insensitive. We can too. And then we feel crappy about it.

-People we love get sick, have accidents, and sometimes die. Or we get sick, have accidents, and might die sooner than we had expected. It seems unfair.

Powerless moments can feel overwhelming. These moments hurt. We often react to them by experiencing even more emotions: despair, frustration, anger, hopelessness...Sound familiar?

I noticed that when I'm experiencing one of those moments, writing a message to myself helps me feel more empowered. Sometimes the message is a prayer to my Higher Wisdom, or, a poem, or a series of affirmations. Sometimes I've liked what I've written enough to make it into a graphic and post it on my Facebook wall.

After a while of doing this, I had a little collection of them. So, I started putting them into categories organized by what powerless feeling I was trying to change by writing that particular message. I realized that the writings were becoming something cohesive; a little guide to choose an empowering message based on the situation I was facing in the moment.

That's how this book emerged.

It is my hope that this book will be useful for you, and become a source of empowerment when you are facing a powerless moment.

I hope that when you're feeling powerless, or any of the unpleasant emotions that often follow, that you'll pick up this book, identify how you feel, and read something that speaks to you in such a way that your powerless feeling is replaced by something better.

Let this full color book of empowering messages and beautiful graphics help restore your optimism when you need it.