Who Are You Giving Your Power To?
Why do we spend so much time obsessing about things beyond our control?
Why do we grant external circumstances, other people's opinions, or outcomes we can't influence so much damn power over our minds?
It can leave us feeling like we're starving, fending for scraps in our own heads, even when life offers abundance.
I ask this from a place of privilege, and I own that.
I have a job I enjoy that pays the bills, a safe place to live, loving family and friends, countless opportunities for joy. So why have I spent so much time fixating on the banal, repetitive motions of self-loathing, beating my mind to a pulp?
What happened to fight, flight, or freeze?
For too long, it felt like I was just fighting myself. The inner saboteur was winning battle after battle, and honestly, I started wondering if I even had a chance to win the war.
The Grip of Fear and Shame
It wasn't until I recently paired two seemingly different books – The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins – that things started clicking. It was a pairing made in heaven, forcing me to confront a hard truth: so many of my choices, or lack thereof, were rooted in fear or shame.
Fear of rejection. Fear of criticism. These fears fueled procrastination on the goals and dreams I envisioned for myself. Fear kept me from putting myself out there, online, from voicing my opinions – a stark contrast to my adolescence spent silencing myself, conforming to the rules and expectations thrust upon me by a parochial school system a result of the “times”.
Then there’s the shame.
The shame of being "othered" in a world not always as embracing as I’d like. Being gay, having interests in TV, movies, music, and books that weren’t always cookie-cutter or status quo.
It felt safer to hide, to try and fit molds that were never meant for me. I shadowed or cornered so many parts of myself, especially my sexual identity.
And for what?
To appease societal and heteronormative gender roles? To make my father proud by staying in the closet, not going against religion? To avoid disappointing my immigrant and extended family? It all just piled on.
This pattern even extended to my past coping mechanisms – suppressing feelings with substances, making choices like taking on massive student loans from private banks while feeling trapped under my father's regime, living in survival mode until I could leave for university at 18. That escape was my first real taste of making decisions solely for myself, decisions I could own, regret, and learn from because they were mine. But the underlying fear and shame were still pulling the strings.
The Turning Point: Discovering "Let Them"
Isn't it ironic? I'm the first person to tell friends and family, "Don't give power to things beyond your control! Focus on how far you've come! The life you are living is where you are meant to be, and if you feel low, you always have a choice to shift things."
Solid advice, right? So why couldn't I take it myself?
It felt toxic, this inability to practice what I preached. Before reading this book, I blamed lack of motivation, being too tired, too busy – dancing around the real reasons I procrastinated on building the life I truly wanted.
Now I see it clearly: It was all rooted in fear. And I was giving far too much power to everyone else's potential thoughts and reactions, even those of people I love dearly. I didn't realize the extent of my people-pleasing until recently.
Where's the line between genuine care for someone you admire and letting their potential judgment paralyze you?
When do you finally say, "F*ck it, I don't care what anyone else thinks, I am just going to march to the beat of my own f*cking drum"? Little drummer boy, ignite.
Mel Robbins' consistent message offered a simple, powerful tool: Let Them, Let Me.
Four words. Seems simple, right? And it can be. But like anything worthwhile, it requires putting in the work, truly holding a mirror up to yourself.
If you can't be honest with yourself, how can you be honest with others?
"Let Them" means letting others think what they want, do what they want, be who they are, without letting it derail you. Let them misunderstand you. Let them criticize you. Let them choose differently. Let them be wrong. Let them. It’s about reclaiming your energy from things you cannot control (other people) and redirecting it to what you can control (your thoughts, your actions, your responses).
When is it time to let them be, or even leave, so you can move on? The answer to "When is it acceptable to let them have power over you?" is simple: Never.
Reclaiming Your Power: Healing and Choosing
This is where the work intersects beautifully with Julia Cameron's wisdom in The Artist's Way. So much of this fear, this people-pleasing, this self-sabotage, comes from years, even decades, of stifling our inner child. That younger version of you who learned to hide, to appease, to fear judgment.
You need to heal yourself.
You need to nurture that inner child, love them, listen to them. Because they are you. He is me. She is her. We have to allow our true selves, the ones we buried under layers of expectation and fear, to emerge.
Because here's the thing: We are resilient.
To be human is to be flawed, yes, but it is also to possess an innate resilience. While my life now has abundance, I've navigated tough times. I stand here, resilient. And I believe, truly, that all of us have this capacity within us. We can overcome incredible odds. We are a unique species, maybe even an overactive and hyper-aware glitch in the matrix, whatever you believe.
Each day we're lucky enough to wake up, we face choices – choices that are fully within our grasp. We can choose where to focus our energy. We can choose to stop playing the victim to circumstances or others' opinions. We reach a point where there's nowhere left to hide from our own agency and free will.
Conclusion: Your Life is Waiting
At the end of the day, countless things can appear to be out of our control. But when we look closer, with intention, we often discover the cracks in our flawed ways of thinking.
We see that the power we gave away was ours all along.
We shift from victim to victor.
We become the champions of our own lives.
We are born alone, and we die alone – that’s perhaps the only certainty.
But I don't want to live life alone, or small, or dictated by fear.
I want to experience love, fulfillment, health, happiness. I want the "3 Fs" my Nonno always said were fundamental to a great life – friends, family, and food. He lived to be 97, relatively stress-free, so I'm inclined to listen to the old man's wisdom.
And speaking of parting words: if you're reading this and feel like you are not loved, please know that you are. I love you. There, I said it. At least one person in the world genuinely wants you to succeed, thrive, make the money, have the house, live the life of your dreams, see the world.
This life can be remarkable. It's precious. And time is fleeting. Tempus fugit, as my two years of high school Latin taught me.
Why spend so much of it focusing on things beyond your control?
I'd wager that the more you consciously shift your focus to what is within your control – your thoughts, your choices, your actions, your healing – the more options you'll find you have, and the less stressful and daunting life will become.
Less is more. More is less. But more or less, I hope something you read here felt true, and maybe resonated deep within.
Wishing you love and light on your own journey.
I love the "Let them" attitude. It's so hard to put into practice but it's definitely the right way to think. I got the advice from a lot of people including senior leaders and colleagues to focus on what I can control when my company was going through multiple waves of layoffs. I didn't think much of it at first but it kind of stuck with me and it definitely changed how I think about my job and career.