Do you dream about winning the lottery and giving people you love financial freedom to live the life they want? I used to dream that. I dreamed so hard I thought I could weight the lotto balls with my thoughts and have the numbers match the ticket in my hand to the balls dropping (you have no idea how much I am loving my own innuendo!).
But then I learnt something. I learnt that no amount of practical help will ever change a life unless the person is empowered enough to actualise.
It was an exhausting discovery, as I didn’t have the money to give but I had an abundance of energy to help people practically. The only help I have ever found that has worked is to validate someone’s own capacity to do it for themselves. I don’t mean to set them a task that is way beyond them, but to encourage their next step by seeing the truth about their potential and point it out to them.
I think this is what frustrates people about the unemployed – ‘why don’t they just get a job?’. We want to support people if they have hit bad times, that’s the right thing to do. My family has needed it and I’m grateful for it. But if you don’t believe in yourself you won’t believe that you can use the tools to fix your life, even if you have them gifted to you. No matter how many tools you hand out, the only tool worth having is personal dignity.
If I did win the lottery, I would use it to set up personal empowerment education. But really I don’t need money to do that, and nether do you. All we have to do is be fully present when people are talking, and validate them. It’s all any of us want – to be truly seen for who we are, and accepted.
When you believe in yourself you can no longer be controlled by fear, you actualise, not just for yourself but for others too.
